Her vision was blurry in the morning. She rubbed her eyes and blinked. Her friend was still asleep, snoring from time to time. Noel lay flat on her back for a little bit, looking up at the sky. The moon and red star still stood proudly in the heavens. The vast expanse stretched from one corner to another and Noel wondered, like she often did as a child, what was up there.

That is, what was up there besides insane, evil, and insanely evil gods.

It didn’t look like Cas was going to wake up any time soon so Noel stood up and stretched. Her back ached from having slept on the craggy ground, but there was no decent campsite for miles. At least she’d slept on a full stomach. She didn’t want to admit it, but Cas’ motion detection magic had been incredibly useful. They finally caught non-insect monsters with those traps! The meat didn’t taste amazing, but it was much better than crunchy insect shells and creepy legs that got stuck between her teeth.

Noel walked behind a walk a little distance from the camp. She hid behind it and began washing up with water magic. She remarked to herself how useful this magic would have been if she’d learned it when she was younger. Going to the river or watering hole every day had been tiring and dangerous. They usually left with an escort of hunters to frighten any monsters that tried to claim the water source as their own. Sometimes the elves had to back away, like when they were confronted by a Carica Serpent.

Thinking about Carica Serpents made Noel pause. She leaned against the rock behind her and allowed herself to slink to the ground. She played around with the water in her hand; cupping it, pouring it into her other hand, or letting it flow slowly along the outline of her hand like a snake. No thoughts came to her mind, only an echo of sorrow, the shadow of melancholy. She cast motion magic and sent out an invisible hand. The invisible hand dragged a roughly made, splintering stick to her lap. The Dragon’s Tooth.

I wonder what Holly was doing right now, thought Noel to herself. She continued to play with the Dragon’s Tooth and the snakelike water, but her thoughts never solidified into anything to do with her father. Instead, she wondered what her old friend Holly was up to.

Holly was Noel’s oldest friend. She was the oldest child in the Jora tribe when Noel was growing up, so she was like an older sister to all the other children. Holly loved waking up at the crack of dawn. She often washed her hair while letting the first rays of sunlight bounce off the water. Since it was too dangerous to go to the water sources on her own that early in the morning, Holly always kept a little water in a hollowed out gourd from the day before. All so she could wash up before anyone else.

Right, thought Noel, Holly married that guy from the Kisi tribe. Noel hated that guy. She always avoided him whenever he came to visit his wife’s tribe. Noel chuckled. Why had she done that anyway? He was a nice guy and Holly loved him. Noel realized she only disliked him because he’d taken away her ‘older sister’ Holly.

Thinking about her friends made Noel pause again. She let the Dragon’s Tooth fall gently to the ground and let her watery serpent bleed into the ground. She tapped her fingers on her thigh and hugged the knees she’d brought up to her chin. Beth loved to sit in weird poses like this with Noel when they were growing up. Beth was the only kid in her tribe that had been around the same age as Noel. They did everything together. They laughed, they played, they ate and they fought.

Noel fidgeted with the Dragon’s Tooth. Beth was uncle Sharun’s only child. And when her own father had died, uncle Sharun told her it was Beth that had comforted Noel the most. Honestly, it was so long ago, Noel didn’t even remember it. And she figured Beth had been trying to get her to stop crying without really knowing what had happened.

But still.

But still.

Noel faced the horizon. Sunlight began peeking out of the distance. Although Noel was glad The Terrible was dead, there was one thing that still weighed on her mind. Were her tribe’s ideas of death flawed? Did the ancestors not ascend above the sky, out past the domains of the gods of evil and madness? Where was her mother, if not somewhere among the stars? Was her father not hunting somewhere far, far away? And was Beth not free of the pain caused by the disease that had taken her life all those years ago?

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No, she’d had this conversation before. With Carol; yes, little Carol. One of the youngest children in the Jora tribe. Wise beyond her years. Even the adults thought she was smarter than some of them. Noel wondered what Carol was doing right now. She remembered how Carol had reacted to learning about magic. She’d been one of the fastest learners. Noel was sure Carol could come up with her own magic, given enough time. She was very talented.

Carol’s opinions on death came to Noel’s mind. Carol thought it didn’t make sense for the ancestors to go beyond the realms of the gods of madness and evil, since the moon and red star were also in the sky which meant the sky was part of their realm. Instead, she thought the ancestors were still with us, only invisible. She based her opinion on another story the elders liked to tell. In this story, the ancestors helped a great elder of the Jora clan fight against a herd of monsters to protect the whole tribe. The great elder was old and not very powerful, yet he fought against the monsters as if he was possessed. Later, the great elder would not remember a thing. He only felt like he had been dreaming. All of the hunters who had passed in his life came to him in that vision, which filled him with great emotion. Apparently, they had helped him save the tribe.

Noel stood up. Dawn was threatening to break any moment now. Noel washed up a little more. Her thoughts always meandered when she was washing up. It was like her mind didn’t want her to ever feel relaxed. Always thinking, always reflecting. Her mind made her worry about the elders of her tribe, elders Starry and Vell. Cas said the Oracle had been trying to brainwash them. The thought of her elders being brainwashed the way her uncle had been, made Noel angry.

Then she thought of her uncle’s blank, expressionless face, and the anger seeped out of her. Cas said he was alive. He’d somehow managed to take him out without killing him, but they had no idea if the mind control magic had been properly dispelled. After all, wasn’t the God of Evil behind the whole thing?

No point worrying about them right now, Noel thought to herself. She would see them soon on the highlands. For now, she should focus on the thing Cas had been trying to teach her on their journey across the wastelands.

Learning to write was hard. It didn’t help that Cas didn’t know her language. The translation magic didn’t work on written words, either, so Cas couldn’t just teach her his own language. Well, he could, but then he’d be teaching her a different language rather than simply how to write her own.

This was when the Immortal of Madness’ blessing actually came in handy. By deactivating his translation magic, Cas was able to figure out the sounds of her language. He then tried to connect the sounds to the only words he had seen written in her language: The Terrible and the rune he said he’d seen on the grave of the Mad King. This wasn’t enough information to recreate the written language that accompanied her oral language, but Cas and Noel spent some time combining the runes in various ways to see if they sounded like any other words in her language. Amazingly, that was enough to recreate the way a bunch of words could be written, and Noel was able to start learning how to write.

Noel hoped they’d find more runes one day. Or perhaps there were some elders in the other tribes that knew how to write. For now, she helped Cas come up with a few runes and symbols that seemed appropriate for everyday words. Honestly, working with Cas like this made Noel feel strangely bitter.

Cas was an incredibly smart guy and he knew it. He was obnoxiously proud of his own intelligence, but the worst part was that Noel almost felt like he deserved to be. Sometimes, talking to him made her feel small and dumb. She had only been joking about being older than him when they first met, but after hearing that he really was much younger than her, she’d felt almost resentful. She could handle a smug genius that was only a few days younger than her, but how could she endure hearing his know-it-all voice now that she knew how old he really was?

No. Noel forced herself to stop thinking that way. This had nothing to do with Cas. She chastised herself for being insecure. There were things that Cas was good at and other things that she was good at. She didn’t need to beat herself up over whatever Cas had learned from his world.

Or maybe now she was being too harsh on herself. Maybe both Cas and Noel were to blame. Cas was too overconfident. In fact, his overconfidence had nearly gotten them killed multiple times now. But Noel was definitely looking for things to be mad about. Wasn’t it a good thing if her friend was smart?

Noel chuckled. Right, friend. Cas was her friend. A friend like Holly, Beth, and Carol. She’d had friends before, fought with them before, felt jealous of Holly’s maturity, Beth’s energy, and Carol’s precociousness. Friendship wasn’t about liking every part of each others’ personality. Noel was sure there were things about her that Cas didn’t like either. But those dislikes wouldn’t define their friendship.

Noel let the early morning sunlight pass through a thin film of water stretched between her hands. A rainbow shimmered on the rock behind her. She smiled as Cas finally woke up in the middle of the camp.

She walked over and said good morning.