The rain had stopped during the night, but the morning was wet and foggy. Mist drifted through the forest and over the ruins. It made everything look mysterious and spooky, which suited my mood. It also made everything cold and clammy, so I was happy when Serah showed me a woolen scarf and gloves in my backpack.

The fog seemed to weigh on everyone else too, or maybe it was just the way it dampened all sound. The only one who was cheerful was Tiriel, who danced around in her normal way, chirping good morning to everyone and singing to herself. She also raced around the ruins, and even climbed a tree.

I hadn’t seen it before - she just zoomed up the trunk. I gaped as I watched, and decided to try to talk to her during the day.

We seemed to be heading deeper into some hills - the road became more varied, going up and down and around. It was still large and well-maintained, and we met a steady stream of other travelers. After our coffee stop, and a short, intense swordsmanship session that left me winded, I left my habitual position at the rear and walked up to Tiriel.

“Hi,” I said to her.

“Hello!” she replied, with a blazing smile. I almost forgot what I was going to say. She was really incredibly beautiful.

“Uh,” I said, intelligently. I’d never been very good with girls. Women - Serah had said Tiriel was older than she looked.

“I was curious about the, the moon goddess,” I said.

“Oh yes,” she laughed, “the Great Goddess!” She did a quick spin, 360 degrees right in the middle of a step.

“You said you had... danced with her? To make me come here?”

“I did! I danced with her on the lake, and prayed she would send us our hero.”

“Oh.” Wait. “On the lake?”

“Yes! When the full moon shines on the water, we elves walk on it. It’s the gift of the Goddess! And when we do, she almost always grants our prayers. Like she did with mine!” She reached out and touched my cheek, lightning quick and light as a feather. I suppressed a gasp. Her fingers were warm and it was the softest caress I’d ever felt.

“Fascinating.” I forced myself back to my questions. “Is there, um, like a ritual, or something, that you do?”

“No no,” she said, laughing and jumping to make a somersault in the air.

“Elves don’t do rituals! That’s for humans! There is a special dance for the Goddess, the Dance of the Pale Gateway, that we dance on the water, on the moonlight. We only dance it there.”

“I understand,” I said, but didn’t. It certainly didn’t sound like anything I could do.

“The moon goddess...” I said, trying to figure out what to ask. “What... what does she do?”

“She grants our prayers, by loading us with burdens and suffering.” Her voice was suddenly serious, with no trace of the laughter and joy. Her face was set, her mouth flat, and her big, green eyes were focused on me so intently I stopped, unintentionally. One corner of her mouth twitched. “The Moon Goddess is the Mistress of Life and Death, and Hers are the Gifts of Sorrow and Joy,” she intoned. It sounded like something she’d learned. “Do you want to know her elven name?” Joy sparkled in her eyes, along with something else. Mischief?

“It’s secret!” she warned.

“Uh, okay?” I said.

“She is the Cord-of-Birth, the Cord-which-Binds. Melelalala-niminalala-melelalala-malinanana.” She sang the last in soft lilting tones, which somehow reminded me of a moonlit night.

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“Try it!” she laughed.

“Meleli... melela...” My cheeks burned and she laughed again.

“No! Melelalala-niminalala-melelalala-malinanana.” She sang again, and again, and nodded at me. I tried singing along.

“Melelalala, nimimilima...” I wasn’t much of a singer, but she kept repeating it over and over, and as I followed it began to sink in.

“Good!” she laughed when it started to sound at least similar to what she’d been singing. “Good!” She became serious again.

“It’s the elvish name, but it’s not her magical name. Using it will reveal that you are the confidant of an elven servant of the Goddess. Perhaps that may be useful, at some point. Do not reveal it unnecessarily.”

“I won’t,” I promised. I couldn’t imagine any reason to do that.

“Good,” she said. “And if you want to pray to the Moon Goddess...”

“Yes?”

“Do it only when it is important. She does not condone vanity.”

“Oh.”

“She is strict and harsh, but she is also joyous and playful!”

“Like her servants?” I tried. Tiriel certainly was joyous and playful, but maybe not strict and harsh. I couldn’t imagine that.

She laughed and made another pirouette.

“Thank you,” I said, and fell back to my rear guard position, to try to think about what she’d said.

Rear guard sounds pretty competent, but despite Arndrir’s training I’d still have been useless in a fight. Lucky for me, we didn’t get into any fight that day. We kept walking, and the road began climbing slowly up the hillsides. I asked Arndrir during our evening session, and he told me we were skirting the foothills of the Desolate Mountains, but wouldn’t go very far up.

That evening I actually managed to wield the sword in a way that made it feel as if I wasn’t about to cut off my own foot, or head. It was still very heavy, but I was getting some feeling for it at least.

The next day I discovered how far I still had to go. We’d camped outside again, and during the morning I’d tried to make small talk with Caveria. She acted as if I wasn’t there. Really - she just looked as if I hadn’t spoken at all. I backed off. I was thinking about that, and planning to try talking to Thord, when something came crashing through the underbrush to the right of the road.

I later learned they were a common predator, like large, pack-hunting bears with long tusks, but when they appeared out of nowhere and ran up beside us I thought they were horrible monsters. They growled and roared as they leapt at us, claws slashing.

I cried out and drew my sword, and managed to hit the nearest one. The force of the impact threw me off balance, and if I hadn’t stumbled the animal would have struck my head. Now it missed, and Tiriel took it down. She cartwheeled back from where she’d been, wielding a long, thin knife, and stabbed the bear-thing in the throat and chest. It collapsed just next to me with a loud grunt.

Tiriel held out her hand and helped me up, smiling. “Are you hurt?” she asked. I shook my head.

Arndrir had gotten one of them, but the two others seemed to have fled. We got the carcasses off the road, leaving them in the brush, and continued.

“Do we get attacked often like this?” I asked Serah who came up to check on me.

“Now and then,” she answered. “The grimbears aren’t very discriminate with their prey, and they don’t seem to be able to tell the difference between armed and unarmed people.”

I’d noticed she’d knelt by the dead animals and said something. “What did you say, when we left the bodies in the forest?”

“A prayer to the Moon Goddess. She is the Goddess of Life and Death, and She watches over grimbears as well as humans.”

She saw my frown, and continued. “I am a healer and a priestess of the Moon Goddess. I am sworn to heal all living creatures.”

“Even when the rest of us kill them?”

“Yes. We don’t take it lightly, of course, and if you start killing or hurting others for fun I will intervene. But we do accept the reality and necessity of killing and suffering, and the rulership of the Moon Goddess over it.”

“I... see,” I said, and tried to look sympathetic.

We continued along the road, climbing slowly. We were in a hilly country, and it seemed like they rose higher off towards the - south, perhaps? I didn’t have a compass. If there were any mountains beyond the hills they were hidden by clouds.

In the evening, Arndrir changed his training setup. He told me he’d seen some flaws in my basic fighting techniques that needed to be remedied before we continued with the sword. It stung, but I couldn’t argue. I’d never been a fighter.

He went looking in the forest for a couple of suitably long and thick branches, and quickly whittled them into smooth sticks with his knife. Then he started hitting me with one of them, while I flailed about with the other.

That’s how it felt, although in fairness he was teaching me. That first session was painful, physically and mentally. I was so bad.