The first thing I notice, strangely enough, is all the mushrooms. Before now the caves had been barren, empty of any sign of life—save Mirzayael, I suppose. But the humidity is immediately apparent in this new space, and I’m met with a sudden urge to wipe off glasses I no longer have.

The mushrooms blanket the walls and floor, and I can see this because they’re the source of the cavern’s light. Thousands, millions of them litter every surface, filling the chamber with a turquoise bioluminescent glow. Some are as small as a grain of rice, while others are nearly the size of a watermelon. They spot the ceiling like distant stars. Beautiful.

We’re standing at the rise of a shallow basin, within which is nestled a small town. The houses look carved from stone, mostly, like rough cut gems, and the flora grow all over them. At the near end of the village is a waterfall—if you can call it that—trickling down the wall and casting a wavering reflection over the nearby houses. There’s maybe a hundred buildings all told, with a couple dark paths cutting through the fluorescent ground. A handful of figures mill about, though they’re too distant for me to make out any details.

“Mir!” A voice cuts through the quiet murmur of the cave.

I glance around for the source of the voice and find a figure hurrying over from a field of different glowing plants. Ferns maybe? Although I’ve never seen ferns turn yellow and light up before.

The appearance of the individual rushing our way takes me a moment to comprehend. At first glance he appears to be wearing the furs of a spotted snow leopard over his large, muscular frame. When he reaches us, however, it’s clear the white and black fur is very much a part of him. I skim his stats with an abbreviated Check.

[Nek: Level 28 felis. Arctic Warrior.]

The man’s ears—cat ears—flatten as he catches sight of me. “Who is this?” he asks, his fur puffing up. I’m beginning to wonder if my initial impression of muscle was just due to an obscene amount of long cat hair. His eyes shift to Mirzayael’s leg. “You’re hurt!”

“Astutely observed,” Mirzayael grunts. “And she’s an outsider. She helped me escape a rockslide and get back here. Now are you going to stand there posturing all day, or will you go fetch Beryl?”

She. It’s such a foreign experience to be referred to as a woman. I instinctively open my mouth to correct her, but the protest dies on my tongue. Strangely, it doesn’t feel wrong to be called she. Instead, it sends an unfamiliar, warm flutter through my stomach. I frown, unsure what to make of that.

Nek looks me over once more, then his ears perk up in surprise. “A phoenix harpy?” he asks, looking between me and Mirzayael. “She’s not—”

“My leg, Nek!” Mirzayael snaps.

Nek’s ears flip back and he bobs his head in apology. “I’ll be quick.” He lopes down the trail toward the town, a fluffy white tail snapping in his wake.

With a hissed sigh, Mirzayael sinks to the ground. If she can’t even make it the rest of the way to the village, she must have been about ready to drop our whole way here. I carefully help lay her injured leg down in a position that I hope puts the least amount of strain on it. Then I awkwardly stand by her side, wings wrapped around my torso, wondering what will come next.

“It’s Mirzayael,” she says abruptly. “Not Mir. Don’t call me that.”

“Oh,” I say, realizing she’d never actually introduced herself. I’d forgotten I’d sniped that info from Echo. “Sure. Of course.”

A moment passes in silence.

“Well?” she speaks up again. “What am I supposed to call you? Besides Outsider.”

“It’s…” I hesitate.

Faber, of course, is my name. But I’ve never liked it. My parents, who read too much sci-fi, named me after the Fahrenheit 451 character, and when I was old enough to read it, I didn’t entirely find the parallels flattering.

I suppose if I were to choose a new name for myself, now would be the time to do so, and none would be the wiser. But which name? I spent years as a young boy daydreaming about changing it to something else, but nothing ever felt quite right. So Faber it remained.

“It’s… in work,” I eventually say.

Mirzayael snorts. “Who says their name is in work?”

“I suppose I do,” I say. “You may call me what you like.”

“Alright, Outsider.” Mirzayael shakes her head. “If you say so.”

Nek comes hurrying back a few minutes later, trailed by a much slower moving figure. Much stouter, too.

[Beryl: Level 39 dwarf. Alchemic healer.]

If I had to estimate, the woman appears roughly three hundred years old. Her skin is so dark and wrinkled it might have been tree bark, and her hair and beard—braided and wrapped around her waist like a belt—is as white as ice. Her eyes are sunken into her face so deeply, I’m not even sure if they’re open.

I step out of the way as she approaches Mirzayael. The dwarf passes a hand over the wound and tuts to herself.

“This injury will not heal itself,” she says, her voice surprisingly strong in spite of her prehistoric appearance. She tsks again. “I will stop the bleeding here. The rest must be addressed in my hut.”

“Do it,” Mirzayael said. “Whatever needs to be done.”

The dwarf crouches down—though, really, she doesn’t need to crouch far to reach Mirzayael’s leg—and a green light blooms from her hand. I watch with interest as a few points of Mirzayael’s HP are restored. Only a few.

“Nek,” Beryl says, beckoning him over. “Help her to my house.” She looks at me next as Nek begins to pull Mirzayael to her feet. The woman shoos him off, using the butt of her spear to stand. Nek then wraps an arm around her torso and lifts, pulling pressure off her legs on her bad side, and together they begin to limp slowly down the slope.

“So you’re the outsider,” Beryl says.

I bow my head respectfully, suspecting the old dwarf is likely to be in some position of power within this community. “I apologize for intruding on your town uninvited. I wish to seek shelter here.”

Beryl snorts. “Mirzayael brought you here. Seem plenty invited to me. What are you seeking shelter from, fledgeling?”

“From, ah, the cave,” I say, feeling a little embarrassed with that answer. Not exactly the most threatening antagonist to be fleeing.

Beryl hmphs. “Got lost in the caverns did you?”

“Yes.”

“And before that?”

I grimace, knowing Beryl’s as likely to be as skeptical as Mirzayael had been. “There is no before that.”

The dwarf grunts, stroking her beard. Then she turns away, gesturing for me to follow. “Come, phoenix. We will sort through your appearance later. I have a patient to prepare for. You will stay out of the way until then. Understood?”

“Understood,” I say, relieved to have passed some initial barrier to being let into this society. I follow after.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Shelter, water, food, I think, looking around at the fields of mushrooms and glacial waterfall that decorates the chamber. I did it. I’m no longer in immediate mortal peril. Finally, I can allow myself to think about what comes next.

And also, what came before.

I inhale a slow breath of air that smells like earth and ice. I let it out again, warm and level.

I’m in another world. Earth is really a relic of the past. The mechanism of which I still don’t understand, but it’s clear enough that getting back isn’t an immediate option. And perhaps it’s an option I’d be uninterested in regardless, if not for one specific factor.

My daughter. Little Caroline. God, I wish I’d been there for her more. I wish I’d spent more time with her. One weekend a month was not nearly enough. Even though I felt her growing more distant from me, thinking about her now makes my heart ache with an acute pain and summons a prickling to my eyes. I blink rapidly, bottling the tears away, but the heartache remains. The idea of never seeing her again is eviscerating. I wish I’d had one last moment with her. I wish I’d been able to tell her how proud I am of her. How sorry I am that I wasn’t a more present father. I wish I’d been able to say goodbye.

I take a shuddering breath in as I wipe my eyes. I let it out, clearing my throat and swallowing down the pit that’s become lodged there. She is likely better off without me. If I could do it all over again, I’d spend more time being married to her mother and less time being married to my job. But time only moves in one direction. Caroline can just focus on her studies now. No more barely tolerated weekends spent at her estranged father’s place. God, I hope she moves on. I hope she doesn’t mourn me for long. I hope she lives a full, happy life.

And now, I have this life to think about. This new, very different life. Will I be able to find the happiness here that seemed to elude me in the last? The self doubt in me says no. Despite the new body, I am still the same mind, and that was ultimately the source of all my problems before.

But the hope in me says yes. You are not the person you were yesterday. You are the culmination of all your experiences. You can grow. You can become someone new.

“Outsider.”

My head jerks up, pulled from my thoughts, and I come to an abrupt stop before running into Beryl. The dwarf woman, who’s stopped in the middle of the path, is looking up at me with a frown. I think I can make out the reflection of two critical eyes buried within the folds of skin, but they vanish as quickly as they’re revealed.

“Sorry,” I say. “Is there something you need?”

“This is my house,” Beryl says. We’re standing before an opening in the stone, built into the wall of the cave itself. It appears chiseled out of the rock, but the mushrooms growing over its surface indicate it’s been here long before Beryl. As I’m examining the structure, Nek steps out the open doorframe, pushing a tattered curtain aside.

“I will go help Mirzayael now,” she says to both of us. “Outsider, go with Nek. He will give you clothes.”

“Oh,” I say faintly, my wings curling around me at the reminder. I can feel another blush burning its way into my cheeks.

Nek seems equally flustered. He glances away with a frown. “I’m not sure she can be trusted. We don’t know anything about her.”

Beryl waves him off, hobbling into her house. “She won’t be any less trustful with clothes on.”

“But…” Nek starts. But the curtain swings back down into place, and Beryl has left us both outside, clearly putting an end to the conversation.

Nek shoots me a frown, then glances away just as quick. “Alright then,” he says. “Hurry up. And don’t try anything funny, now.”

I can only bob my head in acknowledgement as I try to keep up, the felis beating a rapid pace through town.

Down here in the valley, the air is chilly. I restart my Spark as we hurry through the streets, keeping the comforting light just before my chest to help warm my arms and face as we walk. Other figures stop as we pass and begin to poke their heads out of doorways. It seems there’s not nearly enough people for the houses we pass, but word of an outsider must be spreading fast, because more and more faces appear in windows, and whispers chase us through the street.

Echo identifies a few other dwarves like Beryl and felis like Nek, but there are other species here, too. More arachnoids, which I am still making my best effort not to be creeped out by, and briefly, I catch a glimpse of one lizard-like face peering out a window, belonging to something called a dracid, but they don’t seem as common as the others. Such a strange, diverse mix of creatures! And not a one of them human.

Nek stops outside a building, larger than most, and pulls the curtain in the door frame aside. He tosses a frown back toward me, then does a double-take when he notices my fire.

“What is that?” he demands. I’m not sure if his tone is angry, awed, or somehow both. “Fire magic?”

“Ah, yes, I suppose so,” I say. “Sorry. I’ll put it out. I don’t intend to catch the drapes on fire.” I snuff out my Spark.

“Not wind magic?” he asks, eyebrows still raised.

“Sorry?” I say, unsure what he’s getting at.

He just shakes his head. “Follow me. Quickly now.” He beckons me inside.

The building is dark, humid and very faintly warmer than the air outside. A spread of glowing mushrooms on the ceiling provides the majority of the light, though there’s also a smoldering fireplace toward the back. In the middle of the room is a giant pile of cloth and blankets, at least twenty feet across, which is where Nek takes me. He prods around for a moment, then pulls a cloak free to hand off to me. I take the clothes, awkwardly shrugging it around my back; this attire was clearly not designed for someone with wings. As I’m struggling to make the thing comfortable, the pile of blankets moves.

I take a startled step back as I hear a snuffling and catch a glimpse of scales. I call on Echo for a Check.

[Yana, level 16 dracid,] she reports. But she doesn’t stop there. [Linimus, level 14 dracid. Jotal, level 19 dracid.] And the list keeps going. Dozens of dracid, all piled into one giant heap, buried beneath scraps of fabric.

“Are they okay?” I ask, tugging on my cloak as it snags on my wing.

“They’re in brumation,” Nek says. Grabbing my cloak from me, he pokes a claw through the fabric, then rips two long slits through the back of my attire. I stand still as he helps pull it around my wings. “The cold is hard on them, so they are only active about half the year. They take turns on who rests when. The best us non-dracid can do is try to keep them warm with the heat from those stones.” He nods to the back of the room where’d I’d noticed the smoldering fire burning. Upon closer inspection, rocks are clustered around the edge of the pit, likely warming up, while more lay scattered across the ground around the pile of dracid.

“That doesn’t sound very efficient,” I note.

Nek only grunts noncommittally, finishing with the makeshift bathrobe he’s made for me. I pull the front of the cloak around my waist, fixing it in place with a frayed strip of the cloth.

“Would a better fire help?” I ask. “I could build it up with my magic.”

“No,” Nek says. “We could build it higher, but it would burn through all our fuel. This is as much as we can spare at any time.”

“I don’t require fuel,” I say. “What about heating the rocks directly with my flame? That shouldn’t cut into your supply.”

Even in the dim lighting, I can tell Nek is looking at me strangely. He’s silent for a long moment before he answers.

“You are an outsider. Why would you do that for us?”

“They need help,” I say. “It’s just the right thing to do. May I?”

Slowly, he nods.

I crouch down near the edge of the pile of dracid, picking up one of the flat stones that lay scattered about. It’s long since grown cold, and my heart pangs in sympathy. I can’t imagine this pile of people, sleeping on rocks, huddled together to save every calorie of warmth, is content to live like this. What horrid circumstances must have driven them to live this way—if you can call it living at all?

I coax my Spark back to life. The little fire lights up the room, casting flickering shadows along the wall. Some of the slumbering dracid stir at the glow. I hold the stone to my flame, starting the long slow process of warming the rock.

After a few minutes of waiting, I realize I’m going about this all wrong. I pull more rocks over and stack them close together, then plunge my Spark into the midst of them. This way I’ll be able to do several at once. Blaze might be faster, but it’s also not sustainable. I wait, my flame flickering inside the stone pyramid, as the rocks begin to heat.

More dracid stir as time passes, my fire’s heat radiating outside its circle of rocks, even if only barely. One wiggling pile of cloth squirms away from the rest, and when a blue, scaled snout pokes itself from the blanket’s folds, I’m met with the small, curious gaze of a child. I offer them a smile, but they just watch me with round, blinking eyes, reflecting my flickering flame back at me. After a few minutes longer, I take one of the smallest stones from the pile and roll it around my hand. It’s warm, but not hot: or maybe that’s just my fire resistance talking. Still, it seems safe to the touch. I hold it out to the child.

“Here. Try this,” I say.

The dracid wriggles forward, snatching the stone from my grasp. They clutch it tightly between their claws, then vanish back into the dogpile. I replace the rock I’d given them with another, and keep the fire going.

Eventually, another dracid takes note of what I’m doing. I pass them a warm stone as well. Gradually, more curious heads poke out from beneath the cloths. The pile is shifting as more come awake. A faint murmuring of hushed conversations slowly begins to hum through the room.

“Praise Fyreneth,” one dracid says when I give them a stone.

Fyreneth. I think I saw that name before. I check my map to be certain: sure enough, the town is labeled Fyreneth’s Keep, City of the Forsaken. I wonder who Fyreneth was that they got a city named after them, are still considered with positive regard, and yet also managed to become Forsaken.

“Praise Fyreneth,” the next dracid repeats when I give them a stone. And the next dracid as well. Whispers of the name begin to permeate the cavern. By now, most of the lizard-like people have woken up and are murmuring to one another. Of all the words spoken, Fyreneth is the most common, like bubbles rising to the top of a stew. But there’s other words that are occasionally repeated, too. Returned. Awakened.

Reborn.

A shiver runs down my back, and I try to rid myself of it with a shoulder roll, already stiff from sitting in one place for so long.

“Nek?” I ask. “Who’s Fyreneth?”

The felis is quiet. When I look at him, the uncertainty and hostility I’d felt from him before is gone. Instead, he’s watching me with an awed look.

“I think,” he says slowly, “you might be.”