The sun was still shining brightly over the ancient oaks of Mitato-Kwoburuë. It had been more than a whole day since they had returned from Kavanderra, and Liana had been regaining her strength while getting adjusted to the nature of the new world. Several birds chirped and whistled, and a butterfly resembling a peacock butterfly flew in a slow circle around the clearing where she sat. In the undergrowth,a tawny miniature mouse that had collected grass seeds in the low grass carried them to a tennis ball-sized nest made of soft grass leaves. A bird of prey screeched above her head, and made a family of squirrels disappear into the leaves. Nature was so alive here that Liana completely forgot about herself. After a while she just stared motionless at nothing in particular while she became absorbed in the environment, without any conscious thoughts. She had finally calmed down after the events in Kavanderra, but now she was starting to get restless again for very different reasons, reasons that she didn't want to think about right now. Getting lost in nature was much more interesting, and she could certainly use some distraction from thinking of going back to school and what would await her there.

But after a while she got a bit hungry. She looked around and saw Lun eating near her under one of the giant oak trees. Other than that, she was all alone now: all of the councillors had left, and Akhina had work to do somewhere in the deep woods, and Inaya was technically not far away, but she was sleeping on her moss bed again. She’d been awake earlier that morning, and she looked much better than she had done yesterday but she was still quite weak. Liana joined Lun and looked at the food: small pancake-like flatbread from the land of Til, said to be made of linden flour, from the seeds of the giant lime trees of Tilliande. They had a very different taste from the acorn cakes of the Nummerfa, but certainly not unpleasant, especially not with the fruit preserve and fresh salad. She hadn't come across many bad tastes here actually. She’s gotten used already to the always fresh salads of largely unknown leaves too, and to the wild fruits. But in the end, neither the pancakes nor nature could stop her from reaching the conclusion she didn’t want to reach.

“I have to go back home, Lun. I’ll be having so many problems at school now already." Lun looked up, a little concerned. More than the councilor he understood the implications of what had happened for her own world. “Are you sure it's safe for you to go back? There are enemies in your world now.” Liana felt a little claustrophobic at those words. Of course she wasn't sure about that, or about anything, but there was nothing else she could do! It was the world she belonged to, and they wouldn't stop her from going home, would they? “Oh, they won't be able to find me anyway. My planet is quite big. And I'm just a nondescript girl. I'm quite sure Superior Tech Corp is operating somewhere far away from Doodzout on a completely different part of Oranderra, in America or so. And it’s not that I can do much about them either, even if I found them. I have no powers against them.” She was pretending to be both tougher and more humble than she was now, and Lun didn't seem to agree with either. “You've done incredible things, old world girl. Not just for a human. You are a hero.” She nodded wearily. “And I'm tired of it. I hate war. The little bit of it that I ended up in was enough war for the rest of my life for me. I want to live in peace and quietness. I just want to go to school in peace. That's what girls my age should do! I'm only seventeen after all! I should just be staring at the calculus equations and wonder why they’re so boring."

Lun looked serious. “That is precisely the problem with wars. Akhina has told me a lot about wars in your world. I always thought that all sides were just evil in a war, and that all humans in your world all just destructive monsters who did nothing but kill each other for the sake of destruction itself. Like devils who do evil just for the sake of it. But that was wrong, most humans want to live in peace, but in wartime that’s just impossible. That's why people have to fight and sometimes give up their lives, to stop the war by stopping the bad guys that are destroying everything. They have to defend the good things around them which sometimes requires using more violence against the violence.” Liana sighed again. “That’s quite to the point, but I'm really not interested in any of that. Can't someone else do that?” Lun sighed too. “But that’s exactly how war is. When someone attacks you, you have to react, and sometimes do things you really don’t want to do to defend yourself and those you love? Most people in a war don't really have the chance to escape..."

“Pffff. Let’s finish our meal” Liana ate one of her linden pancakes with a kind of orange jam. The rest which she hadn't touched yet consisted of more mixed salad, with some sort of cooked black quinoa or something similar. She could get used to all of it, but being a complete vegetarian was a bit of a switch for her. Not much was said during the rest of the meal. Liana didn't want to think about war, or even about school. There was a tacit agreement that she wouldn't go home until she talked to Inaya about it, who was still asleep, and Liana really enjoyed this forest so every moment here was one to experience fully.

After dinner she went for a walk, to be alone. She had to think, and the oak wood was a very good place for that. Untamed nature as far as the eye could see was all she would encounter here, with only the residences of the Nummerfa hidden here and there in between the trees. So much undiluted life here that seemed to accept her as she was, that wasn't bothered by her lonely life in Doodzout, or the strange war with the Onnobolda and their American 'friends'. She could just be herself here, and disappear in the life of the forest. Little tit birds who were slightly different from the ones Liana knew from home were swirling among the trees, and once she saw a huge grayheaded crow looking at her very insistently. She had already seen several larger animals too, who also were in no way afraid of her, and who were friendly with the people here as if they understood each other's language. They probably actually understood it, Liana thought, remembering the jackdaws and ring-necked parakeets that had surrounded Inaya on the grounds of the abandoned Doodzout factory when they first met. A deer with a fawn, almost a common roe deer, was grazing a little further, and didn't even look up as Liana strolled by, deep in thought. Had her own kind ever coexisted with nature like this in her world? Despite all the nature in the vicinity of Doodzout, she had never seen a deer up close even though they certainly were there. Animals in her world were probably right to stay away from her kind anyway…

Although the trees she now walked under were clearly a sort of oak, they were very different from the oaks she knew from home. Not only were the round-lobed leaves much larger and shaped quite differently from those of the summer-oaks at home as they were called in her language, the acorns were much larger, growing into clusters that apparently took three years to fully mature. The Nummerfa used them as a source of flour to make all kinds of pastries, and had a complicated traditional process of soaking in the river to leach out the bitter substances. The only kind of flour they used seemed to be this acorn flour, they had no wheat or grains. The native humans here in the mysterious land of Tilliande -or was it Til?- where Lun came from apparently had a diet based on linden seeds as a source of carbohydrates. The inhabitants of this world had domesticated very different plants and others that were commonly domesticated in her world had remained wild like the grape, and the world itself was always that little bit different from home: Orange raspberries on vine-like shrubs, grey-headed crows and brown-headed tits, and these giant oaks looked familiar in a way, but they still were separate species from the plants and animals at home.

But she didn't care much about those differences now, especially after the completely dead and alien world they’d been in this forest was still a home to her like she'd never known one, a better and less battered version of her own world, perhaps even an example of what Oranderra could and should have been without "the shadow" that her kind had brought in so infamously. The forest here seemed to embrace her in a way that no country had ever done in its own world. There was no pollution here, not even any hunting as far as she understood, certainly not by the all-vegetarian Nummerfa. Nor did they normally engage in industrialization or the kind of development that would require destroying any nature. All nawa here lived in harmony with the nature around them! And yet, they were still very human in many ways.

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She walked on, but from here the woods were much less passable, for the undergrowth grew denser. A sort of trailing honeysuckle had wrapped itself around a broad-leafed hazel, beneath which the twisting raspberry bushes bore the popular orange-yellow fruit. She liked the taste of the orange raspberries, so she bent down to pick a few when she suddenly found herself face to face with a huge brown spotted feline. It had to be some kind of lynx, because she had the typical tassels on her ears. Liana was very startled, but the beast barely reacted and strolled away relaxedly to lie down under another bush. Liana looked stunned. She had never seen anything like this. Which animals were still here that were extinct in her own country? Or maybe in her own world? Was there an island somewhere in the world where the dodo still roamed? Were there any mammoths?

Her thoughts came to an end when she spotted a Nummerfil she'd barely noticed, quite close from where she was actually. Liana had noticed before that the natural camouflage of the forest women could be very effective, and this time she was completely surprised by the Nummerfil leaning against a young birch tree. She looked quite different in her traditional attire than she had in the Onnobolda's black combat attire in the light of the orange sun, but unmistakably it was Marah. Both her pale complexion and the simple whitish tunic with subtle black lines that she now wore blended into the grey-young birch trunk if you didn't know what to look for. Her dark hair was braided in intricate patterns, and she wore various wooden jewels with strange symbols. Had the yellow-haired councillor that she had found out later was named Ulza been more like an elf queen rather than a wood nymph, Marah was a dryad in her element.

Liana stopped but she didn’t know what to say. When Marah realised that Liana had finally seen her, she reacted strangely: She moved away from her tree trunk and bowed for her. In Nummersil combined with thought communication, she addressed her: “Liana-dinn é of Oranderra. I owe you my life. And my soul.” Liana still didn't know the language well, and she had to focus more on the kah-yito she had done with Councillor Ulza but it was true that you picked up a language very quickly by using it telepathically like the Nummerfa did, and communication problems seemed to be rare in this way. But even though she understood the words, she still did not know the manners and the complicated courtesies of this world. She felt herself becoming very small and shy, and she threw all formalities overboard.

“Yes, yes, let’s stop with the ceremonial crap. I'm just a schoolgirl, not some powerful leader.” Marah stared at her, but didn't give up on what she was trying to say. “Liana-dinn é. You saved Councilman Inaya-dinn and me and Frest. I wouldn't be here without you. I must show my gratitude. The laws of all worlds dictate that. Wouldn't it be the same in your world?” Liana swallowed and didn't answer the rhetorical question. From Marah's point of view it could only make a lot of sense. But it just didn’t fit that anyone would address her like that. “Don't use those lowly words about yourself, Liana-dinn é. You don't know who you are if you can speak so lowly of yourself. I've seen a strong hero in Kavanderra, a woman on Inaya-dinn's level, who took over from her as a crisis leader when there was no hope left for us and when the world was going to explode, especially when time ran out and Inaya-dinn herself was knocked out. None of us had any hope left, but you did. Without your knowledge of that explosive weapon, no one would have known what was about to happen and we’d have died without a warning, and without your dimensional bending skills we would still have been there during the explosion. We all owe our lives to you!”

Liana shuffled her foot uncomfortably. “I only did what I had to do. I only did what I could do. Everyone would have done the same if they could.” A silence fell before she spoke again. “Listen Marah, I certainly accept your gratitude, but I don't know this world and I still don't understand your culture. I don't know how Nummerfa express gratitude and how I have to accept it. So please don't be offended if I respond incorrectly. I'm already not good with people, not even in my own world and culture. Sometimes I barely understand anything about my own species. So it's not personal. I'm not judging you. I really just want to go back in peace to the world where I belong. To the world you wanted to attack and the people you wanted to kill.”

Marah looked at her, with her dark brown eyes, and finally nodded. “The world under the shadows where the hell demons live, according to Andira. And that's what I've heard all my life. Time to rid all worlds from that evil, she had said. But we ourselves became the demons infesting all the worlds. And then working with the Tech Corp. Andira always explained it so beautifully, saying that it was only temporary. We knew she wanted to eventually wipe out all hmana-orr, including the Tech Corp itself, but she used them for as long as they were useful. To produce the weapons of the ancients of the dead world, and also for the technology of your world that they wanted to use herself. Little did she realise that the Tech Corp itself was going to betray her as well. She thought she had everything under control. And she drilled it in us that we were on the right side. And that she was so much higher than the hmana-orr and that as a half-nawa they could never do anything against her. So many things she was wrong about.”

Liana still stood there, leaning against another birch now. She felt quite emotional now and finished the story for Marah. “And meanwhile she wanted to wipe out all nawa of an entire world and then she was betrayed and abused by those whom she cheated on and was abusing herself. The whole story sounds like how bad people of my kind act to me, not like the morally superior beings you think you are…” Marah nodded. "You're right. Inaya-dinn has already made me realise that. But Andira was so convincing. We believed that it would be better for all worlds. And that we could use the Tech Corp for our superior purposes…” Marah didn't finish her sentence but Liana continued. “You were really not better than very bad people in my own world. And much worse than most ordinary people in my world.” Marah was silent. “And I was the only one who survived, saved by a woman from Oranderra. Life can be ironic. I don't know if I can ever make up for my mistakes to you and your world. But I owe you my life, and I want to repay you for it if I can.”

Liana looked at her wearily. “It just was luck. No more." She knew Marah didn't feel that way, no matter what she might say. They were silent again for a moment and then Liana asked one of the many questions that she still had. “What happened to the other Nummerfa? You and Frest weren't the only ones there at all but I only saw those Drotnira in the base when we got out of our cell.” Marah shook her head. "I don’t know either. There was a telepathic call for a meeting, but me and Frest had another job so we couldn't go. I suppose they were distracted and kept busy until the explosion. I don't know where they were, I didn't feel their presence anymore when we were at the gate. But I had other things to do." In her eyes, Liana saw pure hatred for the STC agents who had killed all her colleagues, and she was glad that Marah was now on her side. She would have been a very dangerous enemy in an actual fight, and much more dangerous now than when they still had been on opposite sides with everything that had happened.

Liana looked at her fiercely; the memory of John's gate triggered her anger too. She wanted to say all kinds of mean things about them, and about the Onnobolda too. She still wanted to point out all the evils she had participated in to Marah, and what effects they could have had. But what would be the point in the end? Marah knew everything already, and would have to live a whole lifetime with her own conscience after what she’d done. So Liana kept silent…

Who ever said that holding onto hate was like holding a burning coal and hoping your enemy would get burned? She couldn't remember, but they had certainly been right.