Zalia and Boreal re-entered the war camp after another inspection by the person on duty, not the nervous man this time. They made their way, as stealthily as possible to avoid any attention, to the large building that Zalia knew to find both Faian and Indis at. Assuming they stayed there at night, that was.
It was dusk, most people thankfully now in their various homes if they had any. This meant that they had an easy time of getting in the building, the doorways not near as packed as they usually were. As they moved past into the second room, Zalia was surprised to find that Indis was seated at one of the tables there amongst the other administrators. Indis looked up at the same time as Zalia entered, her eyes holding something akin to rage.
“Where have you been?” Indis asked in an angry whisper.
“Passed out from overdrawing my mana pool. Why do you seem so upset?” Zalia asked back.
“Well for one, we’ve been waiting for word that we can send more people up to your little Grove for housing and two, I’ve had to spend the majority of my last two days answering questions as to your whereabouts, where you have been before this, what you have been doing, so on and so forth. Endless questions to which I have only the bare bones answers to,” Indis hissed.
“A problem that you started and that you will be dealing with. I will absolutely not be spending my time dealing with idiotic masses asking my every movement because you decided to literally put my image on a pedestal,” Zalia retorted.
That seemed to give Indis pause, Zalia feeling slightly victorious at having made a solid point in an argument with Indis that wasn’t immediately dismantled.
“You know, for someone who is usually so good at controlling what emotions they display, you really suck at not being angry at me,” Zalia pointed out.
“You’re an incredibly frustrating person, at times,” Indis muttered.
“As are you sweetheart,” Zalia said sarcastically.
Indis looked at her with an expression of offence plastered on her face.
“Now, if you’re done quietly yelling at me, I have come back to tell you some of the things I’ve learnt in my time away, if you’re interested. I learnt some things that wins an argument you had with Ember a long time ago,” Zalia explained.
That immediately got Indis’ full attention. She thought it would.
“Let us go somewhere a little bit more private,” Indis suggested.
“Fine by me,” Zalia agreed.
They moved out of that room, to one of the doors they had walked past on their way to Faian’s personal office last time. It was a small sitting room, though still set in a utilitarian way. It was somewhat more of a space for private conversations of importance rather than idle chatter to pass away the time.
There, Zalia told Indis all she knew about Hetheir, the Bathar and the fall of their world. What she knew disproved Ember’s idea that the Bathar had once been the owners of the land that the kingdom of Endaria now resided in. They had been something of an ally to the kingdom of Endaria in its very earliest days and had evacuated many of their number there before Cormaine fell. She even drew out a map of Hetheir as best she could from the memory of it stored within the vault.
Through all of this, Indis was mostly silent, only asking questions when she needed further clarity on something. She even pulled out a little notebook and started taking notes.
When Zalia mentioned that there were a lot more documents back there in the keep that she hadn’t read, Indis managed to get angry again.
“How could you not bring them back with you!” she said, voice raised in agitation.
“I didn’t really have much time,” Zalia explained.
“That is priceless history, history that could help us now with the invasion of our own world. It could explain what is happening here and help us stop it,” Indis said.
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“Please, I know you have a lot of pressure on your shoulders right now but calm down,” Zalia pleaded.
Poor choice of words.
“I will not calm down. We have tens of thousands of homeless people relying on us to take back our kingdom from these invaders. Countless are dead, more every day. Refugees stream to us on a daily basis, bringing news of more and more towns devoid of life. The land dies around us and you could have found something there that could help our efforts greatly if you had read it all!” Indis yelled.
“You don’t understand what it was like there. The very air tried to kill us, the landscape was filled with death and the dead. We were alone, finding only a few others there who were even alive, let alone willing to help us. I had to kill and struggle my way through every day, every moment spent breathing poison. I didn’t know each day if that would be my last, if I would finally be killed by some demon or a twisted being, flying across the sky with a thousand eyes. I saw a kingdom, shattered and turned to dust, the citizens nothing more than tortured souls trapped in undead bodies. I had no way out, no respite from the life and death struggle. Then, I saw one of the two friends I made in that hell crushed into paste before my eyes. The other might be in as bad a state for all I know. I was violently torn from that world and thrown back to this one as a last-ditch effort by my only remaining friend there. Don’t yell at me for not thinking about a few stupid pieces of parchment. You have no idea what it was like,” Zalia said, starting out coldly but her voice turning ragged towards the end.
The memory surfaced, unbidden, as she tried to explain what exactly life had been like there and Zalia found herself holding back tears.
“I'm sorry Zalia, I didn’t think-”
“No, you didn’t. You’re not the only one that has been through some shit so stop acting like I’m trying to wrong you at every turn. I’m doing my damn best.”
Indis fell silent, looking both a bit guilty and thoughtful.
“Who did you mee-” Indis started.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’m… I’m not ready,” Zalia interrupted, desperately trying to push that damned memory back into the vault.
Taking in a shuddering breath, Zalia tried to compose herself. Boreal was sitting silently on the floor near her feet, wise enough not to say anything.
“You can start sending people to the Grove. The farmers will also be ready to start harvesting as well, the nature of the Grove means things grow there very quickly,” Zalia said, changing the subject. Anything to get away from that memory.
“Alright, I’ll get it organised,” Indis promised quietly.
Zalia stood to leave.
“Zalia,” Indis called.
She turned around.
Indis stepped up and gave her a quick, light hug, stepping away once more.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I chose my own path and have come to terms with what that has meant for me. You should too,” Zalia said, before leaving.
She didn’t blame the young woman, Indis did have a lot of pressure on her shoulders for someone so young, from the collapse of her house, the loss of her closest childhood friend and the events of the past few months, anyone would be stressed and quick to strong emotion. She didn’t blame her, but she also needed to understand that she wasn’t the only one in a similar situation.
As she left, Zalia decided against finding Faian. She had wanted to talk to the Hidden while she was here but the stress and emotional exhaustion from her conversation with Indis… well, she wasn’t feeling up to it. The conversation with the Hidden, Hidey, would probably be similarly exhausting.
Instead, she asked one of the administrators where she could find the building holding the mentally scarred. She didn’t ask if there was one, she knew there would be.
She was directed to a nearby building and made her way there. There was a theory she had come up with in Cormaine that she wanted to test. A combination of Frozen Heart major and Living Trapvine minor that would create a healing ritual focused on the mind. It hadn’t had a super strong effect on Nateysta, though it hadn’t really been him at the time, just a piece of his power given semi-sentience. Regardless, the scale of power she was able to produce relative to someone like Ro-ak compared to an Iron or Bronze ranked human, well, it wasn’t even comparable.
She entered the dimly lit building and found pretty much exactly what she expected to find. Rows of white linen beds, separated by hanging curtains, in which soldiers in various states of mental shock or trauma lay. Some muttered to themselves, others stared sightlessly into nothing and others yet scratched the walls or tapped patterns on their knees. Regardless of whatever mindless behaviour they were doing, they all had one thing in common. Their minds weren’t quite all there.
With the small amount of Living Trapvine she had, Zalia wouldn’t be able to heal them all. Hell, it might not even work in the first place but she needed to try. So, she walked up to one of the doctors that saw to the needs of the traumatised soldiers and asked if she would be allowed to try the experimental healing ritual she had devised.
With a little explanation, she was granted permission and she soon got to work.