Sometimes, the villages they visited had little plantations. Quaint plots of land sectioned away from the rest of the village and the forest to make space for all sorts of trees. From lemons to apples to even the occasional pepper. It was a promising display of productivity and self-reliance, as often a village that had the means to maintain and cultivate their own crops also had a system of organisation and a sense of community and combined grit strong enough to tide them through the worst of times.

But maintaining the plantations was no easy work. Aside from having to regularly supply fertilisers for nutrition and water to keep the plants alive, the villages were often hard-pressed for good harvests given the already low yields expected of their small plots. And, every once in a while, a blight would come along. Emerging from the forest to infect and infest the trees, threatening to fester each one down to its very roots and to wipe out the plantation’s limited produce.

In cases like this, the villagers hardly ever held back from pruning and purging, cleaning and clearing away the dirt and the disease to maintain an environment suitable for the plantation to operate in. Sometimes they’d have to demolish entire sections of the crop, razing the trees back down to the ground. And when those times came, they had not much choice outside of simply weathering the low yields and repopulating the plots for the next season.

The four fellows, over the course of their journey eastwards, had begun to make it a point to stay ever so slightly longer in each village with its own plantation. Mainly because those villages always gave them at least a bucketful of fruits as a send-off gift, a much appreciated pick-me-up given they mostly relied on dried meat and rock hard bread for sustenance so as to not overly tax the already struggling villagers.

Rumi and Soleiman even made concerted efforts whenever a village had lemon trees to try and get Pallas and Qingxi to stay just a little while longer. Certainly for no particular reason.

And so, when they ended up spending three whole days travelling through the thick of the woods, you can imagine their unabashed anticipation for the next batch of rural generosity when they finally arrived at the doorsteps of another village.

Karnouia, if the signs set up beside the dirt road that led to its clearing were to be believed.

Pallas and Qingxi lead Strapi in first, passing into the brilliance of the noon sky as Soleiman and Rumi followed closely behind.

Just from first impressions, between the fact that they had roads extending from the village bounds, a consistent architectural style and several detached buildings surrounded by crops, Karnouia seemed like it’d be the most promising of the villages so far. It certainly beat the dilapidated run-down structures of Mesimeos and Naphthalia.

“Looks pretty good,” Soleiman said, remarking just that.

“Mm. Let’s gather together the leaders and we’ll address them like always,” Pallas replied. “Then maybe we can ask them for any spare fruit.”

The four of them then led their horses into a swift trot, pulling quickly into the view of the villagers as they sat tall atop their steeds.

“Hello!” Pallas said, waving one of her hands high into the air as a few of the children huddled nearby about a well noticed their approach.

They sort of froze in motion, all seven of them staring blankly at them. Some chose to run and some others chose to hide behind the well. One, though, bravely overcoming his hesitation, walked forward with his fingers twiddled nervously about each other.

“Hello, little one,” Pallas said gently, making a conscious effort to ease up the muscles in her forehead as she did so. “Could you bring me whoever’s in charge here, please?”

The boy, not possibly any older than twelve, nodded sheepishly. Wasting not another moment before running off into the village.

For a while, the four of them waited around, continuing to passively observe their surroundings.

Given the time of day, it wasn’t entirely surprising that the streets before them were deserted. This was around about the time that people working out on farms and the like went back indoors for their noon siesta- a must-do for avoiding the otherwise sweltering humidity of the midday.

What was surprising, though, was the orderliness of the streets. It was a minor thing to nitpick, but upon closer inspection, the layout of the village’s dirt roads and houses followed a sort of checkerboard pattern. Each house and its accompanying mini vineyard, flower garden or chicken pen alternating so as to give the whole place a tangible sense of openness. And the rows of houses themselves were evenly spaced by the thin roads that ran through and between them at regular intervals.

Not quite a state a village would naturally just end up in.

Soon enough, the young boy returned with two other adults, pulling one of them- a young looking man, along by his hands.

The young boy directed the two of them before the party, quickly withdrawing behind the younger of the two in hiding.

And when Pallas looked both of the men in their eyes, they seemed to be at a slight loss for words.

“Hello.”

“H-Hello, Miss,” the older of the two managed, bowing deeply.

Hastily, the other followed suit, grabbing the boy by the head and making him bow too.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to bow,” Pallas said. Watching as they hesitantly looked up in fear, their backs still committed to bowing. “I’m the Soteira.”

They slowly rose from their bow, though Pallas still sensed that she hadn’t quite won their trust yet.

“My name is Pallas,” she continued, pulling the glove off of her right hand. From behind her, the three Karnouians could see as the Qingxi’s bandaged face peered out from behind her. “And I control the Domain of Blood. See?”

She went through her whole shtick, shooting out a stream of blood onto the grass and watching as the villagers jumped back in shock. Same old, same old. It didn’t seem to quite get boring for Qingxi, though, seeing as she always made a conscious effort to catch their reactions.

“I’m here to make sure you’re safe.”

“Us?”

“Yes! Who else?”

The two men looked at each other for a brief moment.

“Who did you say you were again?”

“Pallas, Soteira of Blood.”

They didn’t seem to really catch what she’d said. No matter, it was probably just a side effect of the shock of the reveal.

“Soteira. Of Blood.”

They looked at each other again.

Huh.

“The Soteira? Defender of Minerva?”

The older of the two men shook his head.

Pallas looked back at Soleiman, seeing as he shrugged and raised his hands in confusion.

“Do you… not know what a Soteira is, good Sirs?”

“N-no, Miss,” the younger one said, his voice surprisingly timid. Surprisingly soft. “It sounds wonderful though, so thank you for your protection!”

He bowed again, this time prompting the older man to hurriedly follow along.

“They don’t know what a Soteira is?” Qingxi said softly, her voice more or less inside of Pallas’ ear given how close she was to her.

“...Apparently not.”

Pallas stared at the men, still stuck in their bow, the cogs in her head whirring momentarily.

“Uhm-”

A third man suddenly came rushing out of a nearby house, the door swinging open as he scrambled out onto the dirt road- clutching haphazardly at his pants as he ran towards them.

“Sorry Miss! Sorry!” he said, hurriedly joining the ranks of the two other men, similarly diving into a deep bow. “I apologise for my tardiness!”

“Calm down! It’s okay,” Pallas replied.

She was at a loss for words. How could it be that a Minervan village knew not what a Soteira was? The very phenomena that defined Minervan history for the past four decades?

“You…” she struggled slightly. “You really don’t know what a Soteira is?”

“Soteira?” The third man looked up. His eyes though, unlike those of his fellows, were filled with hope.

“Yes. You know what that is?”

“Of course, Miss,” he replied, slowly rising from his bow. “Why do you ask?”

“That’s me,” she said.

The man’s jaw dropped, his head jutting out forward slightly.

“I mean,” she continued, repeating the exercise she’d done earlier to demonstrate her powers to the other two.

And that was all the man had to see. At once, he leapt into the air with such vigour that he scared away both their horses and his fellows, audibly wahoo-ing loud enough for even the kids by the well to hear.

“She has arrived! The Soteira has arrived!”

Pallas could feel as Qingxi’s head bounced in synchrony with the man’s jumps.

“Miss, please,” he soon said, quickly breaking from his celebration to approach them. “Come this way, and we will see to your care as soon as possible.”

The man then led the two horses down the thin dirt road into the village along with the younger of the two that had initially greeted them. The other man and the boy had been sent off ahead, presumably to inform the rest of the village of Pallas’ arrival. Of the Soteira’s arrival.

“Hey,” Pallas whispered to the man once a fair bit of distance had been put between them and the younger man leading Soleiman and Rumi’s horse.

“Yes, Miss?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Is… is everything okay here?”

“No, not by a long shot,” he replied, unnervingly casually. “But you’re here now, right? So it’ll all be alright!”

Pallas straightened her back out again. She looked over her shoulder to check if the other man was still a good way behind them, though even after having done that she struggled to get the words out of her throat.

“Why did your fellow not know what a Soteira is?” Qingxi said on her behalf.

“Huh?” The man said, confused.

“Earlier on, your fellow villager here didn’t know what a Soteira was,” Qingxi said. “Even though Pallas demonstrated herself to him.”

“Oh, is that so?” he replied. “Well, that’s because she’s not from around here.”

Pallas seemed a little taken aback by the response.

“I’m sorry, she?”

“It might be a bit hard to tell, but Chloe’s a lady. She just chooses to wear her hair short,” he said. “Much like all the other women here.”

Pallas was taken even further aback again, not even having processed the initial revelation. Revelations, actually.

“You said she wasn’t from here,” Qingxi said, seemingly unfazed by the twist. “Where is she from, then?”

“The Silent Valley.”

The third whammy.

“Sorry?” Qingxi said.

“She’s from the Silent Valley. Same with the other one who greeted you, and a whole bunch of other people here.”

Immigrants? And from the Silent Valley, a good thousand kilometres from where they were? Pallas understood that their land had been engulfed in a three way war, sure, but to come to partitioned Minerva of all places?

“Do you happen to know why?” Qingxi asked.

“Erm, well,” he struggled. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? Chloe!”

“Yes?”

Pallas and Qingxi turned back to look at her. Evidently, Soleiman and Rumi were now interested in the conversation too.

“How…” Pallas started, “How did you get here, Chloe?”

“Oh. We were brought here, by the Ahdi.”

“As in… they relocated you?”

“...Yeah,” she replied. “A year or two after they first arrived in our villages. My village, at least. They put us on board these ships and sailed us all the way down the Silent River to get here.”

“And how long have you been here?”

“A handful of years. Some of the other Silenters have been here longer, some not.”

“Ohh,” Rumi hummed absentmindedly, her interjection so lively that it immediately drew the attention of everyone else around her.

“I- I mean,” she stuttered, a little caught off guard. “She just… she… looks like Soleiman, doesn’t she?”

They continued onwards, deeper into the village. And as they walked, it became more and more apparent that Soleiman definitely- in some capacity or another, resembled the Silenters. And those from the distant valley seemed to recognise that too, having a natural inclination to subtly approach him as they walked by to ask him what was going on in the soft versions of Menzoic and Plataic. Some of them even tried talking to him in hard Menzoic, though the uncertainty in his voice whenever they tried quickly convinced them to switch to the language’s softer version- something even Pallas could understand to some extent.

After a while, they’d managed to organise a general meeting with most of the villagers, gathering them together about a small raised platform supposedly built for the purpose of holding festivals. And though initially hesitant on the use of hard Minervic, as he had done with all the other villagers, Chloe and the other Silenters quickly reassured him on their proficiency in the language.

He and Pallas then went on and on about who they were and their mission to one day liberate all of Minerva and what the villagers needed to do to help them achieve that. Same old, same old. Qingxi and Rumi had heard the song and dance more than enough times the past few weeks.

“Hey, Chloe,” Rumi said, deciding to take the opportunity to try and make conversation with the Silenter- the first of her kind she’d had the opportunity to interact with.

“Yeah? What’s up, uhm…”

“Rumi.”

“Rumi, okay,” she said. “As in… the Roman? You’re a Solean?”

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

“I learnt it from a book a relative gave me.”

“Oh, ok.”

“Mm. Yeah, sorry, you were asking?”

“You said you were from the Silent Valley, right?”

Qingxi’s ears perked up the moment she caught word of her conversation.

“Yeah, why?”

“What… what was it like, back where you were from?”

Chloe looked off into the distance, mind rummaging through the annals of her memories. In the corner of her eye, Rumi could see as Qingxi subtly shifted her ears to face them.

“What was it like, hmm? Well, to say it was nice would be a bit of stretch,” she admitted. “Given that we almost always had to resort to surviving on watery gruel most days of the year to get by. But… that being said, it was peaceful, you know?”

“I see,” Rumi hummed in response.

“Did you see any Chitite soldiers?” Qingxi suddenly chimed in.

“Huh? Oh, Chitite soldiers?” she said. “Not personally, but I’ve definitely heard stories about them.”

Qingxi nodded.

“Does this have something to do with that war you guys were talking about some time ago?”

“Yeah,” Qingxi replied. “The Akram War, between Ahd, Xiafa and the Silenters,”

Chloe hummed in confirmation. “Mm. Though I’m sure you can guess by the fact that I’m here that the Ahdi were the ones who won.”

“It was inevitable,” Qingxi said. “There wasn’t a chance Xiafa would’ve been able to rival Burkannar’s strength and discipline.”

“But you’re pretty strong, Qingxi.”

The Chitite seemed a little shocked by the statement, her ears going rigid for a moment.

“T-thank you, Rumi,” she said. “But most of the Chitites sent into the Valley weren’t nearly as strong as me.”

“Really?” Chloe said.

“More or less. But there were still some master warriors amongst them, of course.”

“I was about to say,” Chloe continued. “I would’ve fallen to my knees if you were stronger than those who accomplished those feats we were told of.”

“Why did they send them, then? The… less strong, I mean,” Rumi asked.

“It… it was supposed to be a test,” Qingxi responded.

“A test?”

“Ingrained into Chitite culture is the need to prove your strength,” she explained. “To show to your clan and to your community that you’re worthy of their respect.”

Rumi and Chloe nodded along.

“Usually, they root out the weak from the strong through tournaments or duels, where Chities of all ages and ranks spar with each other to see who is more deserving of the title being contested,” she said, her head tilting up slightly and her eyes drifting off into the sky. “The winners got what they wanted- respect, adoration, status. But those who lost,” she continued, “would be disgraced. And a lot of the time, after enough failures and embarrassments to yourself and your family… you’d be sent outfield.”

Qingxi looked at Rumi and Chloe. Her brows furrowing ever so subtly.

“Like to the Silent Valley. Where you’d be given a chance to redeem yourself on the battlefield.”

“So,” Rumi said. “Most of those sent to the Silent Valley… were just trainees?”

Qingxi nodded.

“Only the young and low-ranking are foolish enough to fail twice.”

Soleiman went on about the process of making saltpetre, the sequence of instructions so familiar to them that they knew entirely what he was going to say even before he even said it.

“Then,” Chloe said. “Was the whole reason the Xiafans invaded… because they wanted somewhere to test their young?”

“Nn… no,” Qingxi shook her head. “That was only a bonus. If I recall, the main reason was because the Council was concerned with Ahd growing unopposed after the collapse of Otia’s Demesne. So they sent some masters up to take control of the rest of the Shafraturriyahn range and the Silent Valley, which then escalated into the full-blown war we know today.”

“I see.”

“Mm.”

Qingxi added no further elaboration.

…

“Do you… prefer it here, Chloe?” Rumi asked timidly, unsure of how to phrase the question.

“Well…. There’s at least one reason to be glad I’m here, I think.”

“And what would that be?”

Chloe gave Qingxi a subtle look, to which she received the Chitite’s acknowledgement.

“Have you heard of those that bleed blue, Rumi?”

The look on Chloe’s face sent a coldness crawling across her skin.

“No…?”

“Well,” Chloe said, exhaling deeply as though to try and calm her nerves. “Legend has it that during the Akram War, some of the Silenters that died fighting left no bodies.”

Chloe painted an image in their minds.

All around them the cold winds whipped, swirling and howling and tearing at their faces with cold nails and frozen claws. The snow in the air and below their feet had been tossed up and thrown about by the forces of the blizzard, leaving them standing in an empty white desert.

Though the coldness made it hard for them to see, icicles threatening to form upon their eyelashes if they neglected wiping any hint of condensation off, they were still just barely able to make out the aftermath of the battle.

Stained upon the white sands were blotches of marred crimson red, the cut and charred bodies of the Silenters left lying lifeless with what remained of their armour still donned and their weapons lying beside them. Some of the blood-frosted snowflakes upon their corpses even took to the air, throwing forth their grotesque, twisted form for all the world to see.

Chloe walked Rumi and Qingxi forwards, guiding them through the forest of fallen men and weaving through the patchwork tapestry of blood upon snow.

“These Silenters,” she said, bringing them to a lone pile of frozen leather lying uselessly atop the earth. “Left no sign of their existence.”

From somewhere behind them, they heard as several Ahdi footsoldiers hurriedly shuffled their way forward. Their boots squelching against the red snow and the plates in their armour shuffling about each other as they drove a stake into the ground beside each corpse.

“So when the Ahdi went about tallying the fallen,” she said, stepping back to watch as a soldier fell to his knees by the frozen suit. “All they would find was the gear they’d worn.”

The soldier shouted out to his comrades off in the distance, though given the blizzard’s blinding thickness and the voracity of wind’s howls, they found it hard to believe his words would ever grace the ears of another.

“There was no blood, no bones. Just the frozen remains of what they’d brought into battle, and not a single sign that these fighting men were at all real,” she said, turning to face the both of them. “That they were ever even there.”

The battlefield around them collapsed as they soon returned to Karnouia, Soleiman’s shouts as he tried explaining the process to a distant audience member once again ringing through their skulls.

“When word got back to the villagers that some of their men may not have even been human,” she said, “I’m sure you can imagine the upheaval that followed not long after.”

“Must’ve been hard,” Qingxi said.

Chloe nodded. “It was pandemonium. You heard about it too, right?”

Qingxi nodded back.

…

It was hard to follow up that revelation.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Chloe,” Rumi said.

“It’s alright,” she responded. “That was almost a decade ago. Ever since I was moved to Minerva, I’ve never even felt a fraction of the fear those… things, invoked in me, back in the Valley.”

“...But, yeah,” Chloe said, her eyes drifting over the crowd of her kinsmen- both Minervan and Silenter. All sporting the same, short-cut hairstyle. Regardless of age, regardless of gender. “That’s about the only good thing here.”