Fire rages through me, consuming me, but I can’t find the will to scream. It doesn’t take the pain away, nothing does.

Is there any point to this suffering?

Any reason to go on?

More bandits, more violence, more pain.

All my friends are gone.

My home is gone.

What am I even fighting for?

I can’t think of an answer, even as the burning turns to tingling, and the world comes back from the void.

“Oi.” Someone slaps my cheek as I startle awake, rolling away from the person.

My hands are tightly bound, and my sword is nowhere in sight. I mustn’t have been asleep for long, my burnt-out æther streams still cry out in pain. I dare not channel any more magic at the moment or it might just kill me. My muscles hurt from all the fighting, aching with every twitch.

None of it matters. I don’t have a reason to live, but I don’t want to die either.

“You know. You’re not what I expected,” Adeleya says, looking over at me as she pulls at the ropes tying my hands and feet.

“Bandits,” I mumble, pressing myself further away. My arms and legs tingle painfully, half numb to the pins and needles covering me.

“We’re not bandits,” Adeleya says, “I’m sorry.”

She lowers her head in a low bow that lasts only a moment before she sits back up and looks down into my eyes, “I should have told you that much sooner. We’re Guild mercs here on a quest to eliminate the bandits.”

“Guild… mercs…?” I ask cautiously.

“Yep, we’re with the Falchion company and we’re guild certified.” She smiles and gives a thumbs up before showing off a badge of a falcon sitting on a wide sword. It looks well made and polished brighter than the weapon I stole from the bandits.

I don’t know anything about guild mercs or Falchion company, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that any bandit could steal a badge like that.

“Hey,” She begins before thinking over her words for a moment longer, “You know when I got tackled by all of those bandit corpses. Naked, bandit corpses, I might add. You really scared me.”

I look away from her, unable to meet her gaze as she puts on a sad expression. Her voice tightens up as she pushes on.

“I… I thought I was going to die.” Hearing the frailty of her voice, and knowing that I’m responsible, it’s painful.

“S-sorry. Syr thought… thought you were going to kill...” I mumble. She’s the first person I’ve come across in years who will treat me like a proper person, who’ll talk to me and use my name. Bandits don’t count, but… is she a bandit?

“When you apologise to someone, you should look them in the eyes,” she tells me. “Like I did.”

I can feel my eyes tearing up as I look toward her, it feels strange to look her in the eye and I have to force myself to do it.

“S… Syr is s-, s-, sorry.”

“You know I should be the one crying.” She sighs, “I didn’t even know what was going on until they all suddenly puffed into ash,” she coughs a little. “I never imagined that I’d have bandits stuck in my lungs when I woke up this morning.”

She sighs again, looking me over as I cower in the corner of the room. I can’t break free from the ropes, but I have to escape.

“Never seen an elf with a tan before,” she says.

“A… tan…?”

“Yeah, I mean look at your skin.” She lifts my arm and puts it beside her own. Her skin is really pale making my arm look brown beside it, and it’s not just the dirt coating me. “Elves have these strange ideas they all stick to. Well, most of them do. They wear large robes, they’re always so pale, and they never eat meat only fruits and vegetables and even then, they’re really picky, and they hate touching people.” She pauses, probably realizing that she’s touching me.

“No offence meant, of course,” She quickly adds, waving her hands around. “You look pretty, or at least you would if we gave you a bath, a proper haircut and some real clothes,” she says, tugging at what remains of my old robes.

She sits right beside me, so close that I can feel the warmth of her body against my own. Is this what it’s like to be around people? Should I be saying something? Do I seem silly?

Oh, I’ve been talking like a kid! The adults never talked like this, how should I be talking again?

I turn away as I feel the heat rushing to my face.

“My god, you’re adorable,” Adeleya says, leaning in close and wrapping her arms around me.

I freeze.

She’s… warm. So very warm. It’s not at all like the fires that burn me in the dark abyss, but something far gentler. Is she casting healing magic, or is this just what it’s like to be hugged?

She lets me go, just as I start relaxing. I want to hold on for a little longer but I’m scared that she’ll just think I’m weird.

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“I forgive you.” She suddenly tells me, wearing a smile bright enough that I can’t look away. She’s so pretty. I don’t know how to respond, I don’t know what I can say, so I just lean forwards and hesitantly hug her. She did it to me a moment ago, it has to be normal, right?

“Oh, you’re the cuddling type?” She laughs and pulls me close, untying my rope bindings. I settle into her arms, feeling the beating of her heart.

She’s not a bad person, even though she’s a bandit.

“What… What will happen to Syr?”

“The others are talking about that,” she tells me, running her fingers through my hair and tugging at the knots, “Would you attack us again?”

I shake my head firmly, “Syr, doesn’t want to fight.”

She pauses a moment at my words, before continuing to brush at my hair, “Do you have a home to go back to?”

“This was Syr’s home.”

“…Not much of a place to live.”

I shake my head. “Syr is fine, Syr lived alone for a long time in the forest.”

“You lived alone? in the forest?” She sighs, “I suppose we could take you to an elvish family, or… If… if you want, would you come with us? An apprentice or something… I guess.”

“Apprentice?”

“I know you said you didn’t want to fight but I don’t know what else-”

“Syr can fight!” I interrupt her, “Syr just doesn’t want to fight you.” I clarify, holding onto her hand.

“Oh…” She smiles but she’s still tense. “Yeah, well, you’d be a part of our little merc party. We go around helping people out, hunting monsters, investigating things, guarding things, all sorts of stuff,” she goes on. “It’s a better life than you’ll have out here, at least.”

There isn’t anything left for me here, this isn’t my home. I don’t even have a home anymore, but maybe that’s what I should be looking for. A new place that I could make into a home.

Not some barely liveable cave, but a real home, with a warm fireplace in the winter, walls to protect from the bugs and the animals, a roof to keep the rains away, and a family that will tell me they love me.

Maybe these ‘mercs’, can show me how I can live, maybe they can help me find a home. I’ll have to join their pack, and show them that I’m worth having around, and that I can behave. I might have attacked them, but at least now they know I’m strong, and I can be useful.

“Just think about it over dinner,” Adeleya tells me before standing, and poking her head out the door, “Nadia, is the stew ready?”

“Just about!” Comes a delayed reply from another woman.

“Well, let’s get to it then. You promise that you’re definitely not going to attack anyone?” She asks with a firm voice, as she stands in the doorway.

I give her a firm nod in reply.

She grabs my hand tightly and leads me out of the old shack. Warm flavourful scents fill the air, it smells better than anything I’ve eaten in… I can’t remember smelling food this good. I swallow back a mouthful of saliva, trying to keep my feet steady under me. I’m still feeling weak, and this smell, the company, it all feels like a wild fever dream.

But it can’t be a dream. Mom and Dad aren’t here with us.

My stomach growls as I look at the clumpy brown liquid stirring in the pot. It looks like there’s just a whole bunch of stuff floating in muddy water, but it smells amazing.

The woman called Nadia looks like an elf but not like any from my old village. She’s shorter than Adeleya and only a little taller than me, but her arms and legs are thick as a bear’s, and she wears big, metal-plated armour that shines with a reflection of the fire. A big green hood hangs over her head, and it looks like it’s the same as mine, but hers is clean and not torn to shreds.

Even though she looks a bit like a bear, her hands move carefully and delicately, stirring the pot of delicious-smelling muddy water in perfect circles. Her shoulder-length, blonde hair falls in front of her eyes, but she brushes it back as she focuses on her work.

“We have company?” She smiles only slightly as she looks over at us. “Is she gonna behave this time?”

“Probably,” Adeleya replies.

“Well, eat up.” Nadia serves up a bowl of stew and passes it to me. Chunks float in the muddy water, and it doesn’t look good at all, but the smell is enough to get me past any hesitation. I doubt it’s worse than mashed bugs.

“Are you okay with it? It has meat in it,” Adeleya asks me, but I’m not yet able to reply.

Is this what food is meant to be? My tongue feels alive even though the soup is hot enough to burn. What is this even made out of?

Usually, I force my meals down and wash the flavours away as quick as I can, but I don’t ever want this taste to go away. There are no words to describe this wonderful flavour, refreshed with every mouthful.

“You think the little necromancer is going to be bothered by a little rabbit in her stew?”

“You know best how elves can be.”

…Why is my bowl empty?

“Well, she doesn’t seem to mind. What’s up, you want some more?” Nadia asks me, a smile touching the edges of her lips.

I nod holding out my empty bowl towards her. She’s a very nice person. I don’t know how I ever thought she was a bandit.

“Thank you. It’s very good.”

“I’m sure we can spare another bowl, then,” Nadia replies, offering me more while Adeleya runs her hand over my head. She has a sad look on her face for some reason.

“She hasn’t been raised as an elf, has she?” Adeleya asks.

“I’d normally say that’s a good thing…” Nadia replies, looking down at me with a difficult expression.

“Oi!” a man calls out from across the road. He’s the one who charged at me when I first woke up. The dangerous one.

I want to get my sword so that I’m ready for a fight, but I promised Adeleya I wouldn’t. As he gets closer I hide behind her while clutching the bowl in one hand and her skirt in the other.

“What is she doing out?!” He demands.

“What are you doing yelling?” Adeleya replies, “She promised she’d be on her best behaviour, I’m not keeping her hogtied forever so get over it quickly, would you.”

“At least keep an eye on her, damnit!” He spits, standing across the fire with his hand on his sword.

“Calm down,” the more elderly man says, sighing as he holds the younger man back by the shoulder. “There is no sign of anyone else here, there’s a pile of corpses at the forest’s edge, but most are nothing but bone now.”

His words remind me of something that I nearly forgot. When I picked a fight with the second group of bandits, it’d been for the sake of the prisoners that had been with them. The fight had been so furious that I lost track of them and, of course, they were nowhere to be seen when I woke up.

They must’ve run.

While the others are talking, I pull at Adeleya’s clothes and lean in and whisper to her. “The bandits had prisoners, but they ran away. Did you find them?”

“Prisoners?”

“Their hands were tied, and they didn’t have weapons,” I tell her.

“What else can you tell me?”

“There were two women and a man. They were human and they ran while Syr was fighting.” Adeleya nods and pets me on the head as she reports to the rest of the group.

“Did you guys find anything else? Syr says that there were three prisoners with the bandits. She lost sight of them during her battle. If they’re out here on their own, they could be in danger.”

The younger man, Lothar, looks at me with suspicion but says nothing. The older one meets Adeleya’s eyes while stroking his chin.

“That could be trouble, but we don’t have the number to do a proper search and tracking them would be difficult. We should head back to the village and tell them that the bandits are gone, hopefully, they can rally together a few people to help in the search.

“With hope, we will find them on the road back. No doubt they’ll be heading the same direction as us.” He lowers his hand and looks over everyone, “We’ll finish searching the village today and keep watch for any bandits that might return. We’ll leave on the ‘morrow.”

None of the others question his orders, gathering around the fire to eat.

He’s the leader of this pack. Adeleya said that I might be able to join, but he’s the one that I must impress. I just wish there were some deer around that I could hunt to give him as a gift.