After tending the morning chores, the squad split up, going off in different directions. Ferene followed Rilya as she left the circular platform, taking the wooden path as it lead along the edge of the chasm, eventually curving upwards and turning out, connecting to a rope bridge. Rilya started across, but Ferene hesitated, glancing down at the seemingly endless depths. Yesterday, she stood on the ground at the bottom. Now, the darkness swallowed that same ground. Shivering slightly, she trotted across the wooden planks to catch up to Rilya.

On the other side of the chasm, the two climbed a ladder before coming into the cave. Ferene noticed this cave stretched further away from their starting point. Not only was the stronghold on both sides of the chasm, it also consisted of multiple separated chambers, stretching along the walls. The separation would make it easy to defend if an invading force somehow took one of the caves.

Next to their entry point stood a long building with an open front, facing a large circle filled with dirt. Ferene followed Rilya towards it, noticing a rack against the back wall holding weapons. As the two got closer, Ferene realized these were wooden weapons, and she even saw several analogs for her greatsword on one section of the weapons rack. Rilya picked one of these out and handed it to Ferene, then picked up two to match her weapons. Following her out into the circle, Ferene realized the purpose of it – a training arena. The dirt made for better padding than rock or wood. Smiling at Ferene, Rilya started moving, going into a series of poses and swings. Some of the stances and swings Ferene recognized from their earlier sparring sessions, while others surprised her. Taking the hint, Ferene started her own practice routine, swinging the wooden sword in a familiar pattern of movements, one flowing into the next, twirling, ducking, dodging and parrying and counter attacking. On the riverbank, when she was still recovering, she could not fully devote herself to this kind of practice. Now, she increased her speed, moving faster, swinging harder. When was the last time she practiced like this? Back on the farm, after her dream, before-

Ferene finished her motion and came to a stop, panting. Everything that happened over the last week, the Direag, meeting the Hatharen, all her interactions with Rilya, all the information she gained from Telhrian, all of it distracted her from the memory. As she caught her breath, Rilya stepped to her side, her mouth set in a slight frown. Hesitation? Ferene tried her best to smile reassuringly. Smiling felt wrong. Spending time with Rilya left her happy, but did she deserve that? Her hands shook as she lowered her weapon.

Looking around, she noticed at some point in her practice, an audience gathered. Ten or so Hatharen stood just outside the circle, watching. Watching her, looking down at her with their height. Why did they look at her? Because she killed some wounded beast, nearly dying in the process? She heard the wooden weapon hit the dirt, but did not remember dropping it. She backed away from the crowd, pausing at the edge of the arena. Several more paces and the rock wall of the cave would cut off her retreat. Rilya grabbed her arm, looking at her, her hesitation replaced with worry. Ferene wanted to reassure her, to make her go away. To make them all go away. To make it all have never happened. The promise she made to only kill those that hurt others, to never again take the life of someone innocent, she wanted to go back to that time. She wanted to believe that she was making up for her past, making the world better.

Ferene specialized in running. She ran past Rilya, past the small round arena. She jumped down onto the wooden bridge, running across it, not looking down, not even thinking of what was below. She ran along the path, past the squad's houses, past surprised Hatharen going about their daily routines, past the horse-operated lift, all the way to the other end of the cavern, across another bridge, to an unfamiliar opening in the wall of the mountain. She ran past houses and larger buildings, jumping down another ladder, crossing yet another bridge, entering yet another cavern, until the path stopped. Ferene came to a halt, finding only rock in front of her.

She was alone. No more wooden buildings, no more Hatharen, all of that was behind her. Here, there was only her and the mountain. She put her hand against the wall, pushing. The mountain did not move.

In her dream, she did not cry. But now, here, at the border of a world she knew and a world she didn't, Ferene let the sobs take her. Pressing herself against the cold wall of stone, she curled into a ball and gave in to the emotions she spent years holding back.

Someone put their hand on her head, gently rubbing their fingers through her hair. Stifling her sobs, Ferene looked up. The Hatharen looking down at her, arm outstretched, did not resemble any of the others. Ferene pushed herself to her feet, coming eye to chin with them. The Hatharen smiled at her as she looked them over. Thin, lacking the muscle mass that all the others possessed. They wore their long red hair pulled back, leaving their forehead bare.

“Why are you sad?”

Ferene stared at them for a moment, processing the words. Yes, she understood them. They could speak her language. “I remembered something.”

With a tilt of their head, they smiled at her again. “If remembering it makes you sad, you should forget about it. Make new memories until it goes away.”

“I have to remember it.” Ferene shook her head. “I'm sad because I broke a promise. I have to remember the promise.”

Sitting down next to her, they patted her on the back. “If you broke a promise, you have forever to make up for it.”

“I don't have that long.” She shook her head again. “Telhrian told me that after a few hundred years I'll stop.”

After a moment of silence, Ferene looked at the strange Hatharen. They stared back, blinking slowly. “You're the part human one they brought back.”

Ferene nodded. “I was just practicing, and there were ten, maybe fifteen of them, all looking at me, like I'm some great person. Rilya...Rilya treats me well. And Telhrian, and the others, but they don't know I'm just a murderer. I'm a monster just like that thing I killed.”

“Do you know that for sure?” Her companion's voice stayed level, but took a harder edge to it. Ferene could only shake her head, suddenly unsure. “An entire squad is gone, because of the monster you killed. Six lives that should have gone on forever, instead snuffed out. None of them are coming back.”

Another silence followed, the two of them sitting side by side, no longer making any contact or saying any words, until the sound of footsteps broke it. Ferene looked up to see Rilya walked towards her, a concerned look on her face. She crouched down in front of Ferene, pulling her into an embrace. Ferene didn't resist, didn't react. She wanted to push Rilya away, but it was Rilya. She couldn't bring herself to do it.

“Rilya loves you. Rilya loves Ferene.” For a moment, Ferene thought she imagined it, but Rilya repeated the words. Each word was pronounced slowly, deliberately. “Rilya loves you.” Ferene reached up and wrapped her arms around Rilya, pressing her face against the larger woman's chest. “Rilya loves Ferene.”

“Ferene loves Rilya.” At her words, Rilya slowly stood up, pulling Ferene with her. They stood, holding each, whispering back and forth, until Ferene's arms dropped back to her sides. Rilya let her go, stepping away and looking at their observer.

“Tahrean.”

“Rilya.” They replied, standing up, smiling, before rattling off a string of words in Hatharen. As Ferene watched, Rilya's face shifted from a kind smile to a frown which got deeper as she listened. When they finished, Rilya grabbed Ferene again, squeezing her tightly, whispering several words to her that she didn't understand.

“Rilya wants you to know that whatever you have done in the human lands doesn't matter here, and won't change how she feels about you.”

“Is Tahrean your name?”

“Yes.”

“I'm Ferene.” She said, still wrapped in Rilya's arms. Tapping her on the back, she managed to pull herself free, smiling up at her friend.

“You two should be going. Remember, Ferene; you have time to fix whatever you think you've done wrong. Not as much as anyone else here, but more than any human. More than anyone you made that promise to.”

Ferene did not return to the practice arena that day. Rilya walked her all the way back to the first cave, with the squad's houses, and the two started work on chores. Ferene mostly followed what Rilya did, first carrying laundry, then going to a different part of the cave to pick up food for dinner and the next day's breakfast. A trip up a much smaller moving platform took them to a higher cave, where Ferene saw gardens built into the cliff face. After listening to a short conversation in Hatharen, Ferene found herself carrying an armful of potatoes and turnips.

Filraehen cooked dinner that evening, dicing the vegetables into a soup and pairing it with bread. Ferene watched the preparation, not knowing what else to do. At first she felt guilty – the meal was being made because of her – but thinking back to earlier in the day, she decided this was a favor she would pay them back for. If they wanted to train with her, she would show them what she could do. The entire stronghold could watch her tomorrow.

Six of them sat down to eat. Alri sat alone on her side of the circle, but she ate and smiled and talked with the others. Telhrian's absence left Ferene without a translator, so she ate in silence, occasionally smiling at Rilya next to her.

Halfway through the meal, he arrived, jogging into the circle, covered in dirt. Alri set her bowl down and stood up, looking at him in concern. After giving her a smile and a brief touch on the arm, he turned to Ferene and held something out to her.

Some kind of plant, with a thick stem that ended in an angular pod sticking out at a sharp angle. The top of the pod split open, and thin, sharp-looking, white flower petals stuck out of the pod at varying angles.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“I had to search for it, but I found one.” He said as she took it from him. “In the mountains, they are white, but I'm told that they can be a bright orange color lower down.”

Holding it, Ferene turned the flower around, looking at it from various angles. It was a very strange flower, unlike any she had seen before. “What is it?”

“I do not know the human name for it.” Telhrian said. “However, in our language, this flower is called 'ferene'. I thought I'd get one for you.”

Blinking, she looked at the flower again. Large, sharp, and strange. Ferene found her thoughts racing. Her mother named her. Did she know the flower had the same name? She must have. How did she know? Did Ferene's father tell her? Did the flower mean something to her, or to him? Did it mean something to Ferene? She never saw her mother doing anything with plants, didn't remember her saying anything about flowers.

Feeling Rilya's hand on her back, the rush of thoughts stopped. She looked up at Telhrian. “Thank you.” With a nod, he poured himself a bowl of soup, grabbed a bread roll, and sat down next to Alri.

The sounds of the Hatharen conversation started up again, but Ferene didn't busy herself with watching their expressions as they talked. Her eyes were focused entirely on the flower she held. She spun it around and around, slowly. Rilya tapped her on the shoulder, and presented her with a jar. Ferene looked at her in confusion for a moment, then peaked inside. Water. A vase. Placing the stem in the jar, she smiled as Rilya walked over and set it next to the entryway of their dwelling.

Long after the light shining into the chasm faded, Ferene sat in front of the fire. With dinner finished, the chairs were stowed to the side, leaving the open flame in the center of their small courtyard to be enjoyed like a campfire. To her left, Sathar sat cross-legged on the ground, Ilraghen laying down beside him, head in his lap. Sathar idly stroked the other's hair as he watched the fire.

Hatharen didn't make much sense, Ferene decided. Before, Ilraghen wanted her dead. Argued for it, fought for it. He lost the argument and the fight, but that didn't change anything. Yet, both then and now, he sat and ate with her, as if none of it happened. She stared at him, sleeping as Sathar ran his fingers through his shoulder-length brown hair. He looked completely harmless like this.

“Something bothering you?”

“He wanted to keep me out, even if it meant killing me, but-” She trailed off, suddenly looking directly at Sathar. He smiled back at her. “All along?” She asked.

“Every group has at least two that speak your language.” Ferene thought back to all her interactions with them. Filraehen had plenty of opportunities to speak with her. She met Alri once in the woods. Ilraghen surely would have said something to her if he could. She never once interacted directly with Sathar.

He chuckled softly. “He saw you as a risk, and couldn't trust you. Not enough to let you in, and not enough to let you go. He didn't want us to turn our backs to someone who might be dangerous, just because they looked friendly.” Ferene frowned at the choice of words. “I agreed with him, but we also trust each other. The group is more important than what any one of us wants. When he failed to convince them, he decided he would trust you. He even put himself in a position where you could have killed him. The group wants to have you, and he is part of the group.”

“Should I forgive him?”

Sathar shrugged. “Dwelling on disagreements is a human thing. You can do so, if you want, but the rest of us won't. We want to be happy together.”

Considering this, Ferene fell silent. Something about being with these people made her think less about her past, but when she did think about it, it felt much worse. She felt guilty for ignoring it. Could she forget what she had done, just like that, and simply move on? Stay with them and be happy? Stay with Rilya and this group? At a glance, they all looked happy, but something bothered her.

“What do you know about Tahrean?”

Upon hearing the question, Sathar froze, his hand resting on Ilraghen's head. Looking directly at Ferene now, he frowned at her. “I would start by asking you the same thing.”

“I found them in an empty cavern at the edge of the stronghold. They were the only one there. Seemed odd.”

“It is.” He took a deep breath, slowly letting it out. “Tahrean is very old. They disagree with how things are, so they stay alone, to avoid causing any trouble. It is a choice they made. I do not know much beyond that. You'll have to ask them.” He patted Ilraghen on the shoulder, and the smaller Hatharen opened his eyes, looking up. The two of them go to their feet and went to their dwelling, leaving Ferene alone. Disagreements, it seemed, were not something to bring up.

Ferene easily fell into the morning schedule of the group. The seven of them ate breakfast together, did chores, and headed their separate ways. Ferene followed Rilya to the training arena again, and they started out just like they did the previous day.

This time, Ferene did not pay attention to the audience. She completed her warm up and turned to Rilya. With a nod, the two started sparring, wooden weapons clacking against each other. It felt different from how they fought by the river. Rilya was no longer testing her limits, but instead demonstrating them, forcing Ferene to show off for the audience, like a rehearsed show. Parrying strings of fast attacks, dodging otherwise unexpected strikes, Ferene found herself simply reacting to Rilya, easily matching her pace while maintaining her defense.

Stepping back, Rilya smiled at Ferene, nodding again. Not sure what this meant, Ferene nodded back, preparing herself for anything.

Rilya came at her, faster than Ferene had seen her move before. Where she managed to keep pace before, she was just barely in time to block each attack. Ferene suffered light taps to her arms and shoulders as she failed to block Rilya's second sword a few times. While Ferene was clearly losing, it felt amazing. Seeing Rilya fight this close to her reminded her of watching Linara take on the soldiers. This was what she wanted to be, the way she wanted to move. Not with brute force drawn from anger, but with a seamless, flowing strength, the speed to connect one movement to the next formlessly.

Despite the admiration, Ferene did not want to lose.

The crossguard of her wooden sword did not properly match her real weapon, simply being a straight piece of wood sticking out of the edges. It was not curved upwards to allow her to catch weapons, so the trick she used against Ilraghen would not work here. However, there were other things she could do with it. On Rilya's next attack, she held her sword in front of her, point towards the ground, and swept it to the side, catching the swing and moving it away from her. As Rilya tried to bring her weapon up, over the top, Ferene slammed the crossguard against her wrist while stepping forward. Holding her sword with one hand, she punched Rilya's other arm, stopping her off-hand attack. Then Ferene ducked her head and rammed her shoulder into her opponent's chest, sending them both toppling to the ground.

There was a moment where the two stared at each other, panting, on the ground, their faces just barely apart, before the cheering from the onlookers drew their attention away from each other. Both of them stood up before the group.

What followed Ferene could only describe as the longest, most intense fight of her life. The Hatharen present took turns fighting her, with a variety of combat styles and weapons. Ferene experienced techniques she had never seen before, weapons she didn't understand the benefits of, and a combination of stinging defeats and close victories. Some of them, she was sure, were simply testing her, while others put their all into it to test themselves. After what felt like hours, she was tired, sore, soaked in sweat, covered in dirt, and had gained a collection of bruises on her arms and torso, but she had fought everyone there at least once, and they all stood around the arena with smiles on their faces.

Rilya said something to them, and then pulled Ferene aside, leading her deeper into the cavern, through tunnels carved into the stone, lit by lanterns hanging on the walls. Curious, Ferene followed, and quickly heard the sound of running water. Turning a corner, she found the source of it: a waterfall inside the cave, forming a small stream that vanished into a cave wall.

Silently stripping, the two of them waded into the cold, waist-deep water, Rilya first with Ferene following. Taking the Hatharen's hand, Ferene let herself be pulled under the waterfall. Carrying momentum from far above, the water pounded against Ferene's skin as she shivered. Rilya moved underneath with her, rubbing her shoulders. As they washed each other, Rilya smiled at Ferene, but did not get one in return. Watching her expression falter, Ferene pulled her into an embrace. Surrounded by the sounds of the waterfall, Ferene barely heard Rilya repeating her words from the previous day. As much as the words meant to Ferene, something bothered her. Deep inside, something felt wrong, she just didn't know what it was.

Washed and dressed in clean clothes, Ferene found herself with nothing to do. After a quick kiss, Rilya trotted off, motioning for Ferene not to follow. So she instead retracted her path from the previous day, moving back and forth between the two sides of the stronghold as she slowly navigated from one end to the other, until she once again found herself in the mostly-empty cave. Taking a better look around, she saw a single hut tucked into the back, looking odd as it stood alone, not like the clusters of three in the other caverns. Not long after she arrived, the person she was looking for stepped out, a slight frown on their face as they approached.

“It's not often that I get daily visitors.” Tahrean noted, looking Ferene over. They wore the same simple clothes as every other Hatharen, white shirt and brown pants, and would not look out of place at any gathering, but instead they lived here, alone.

“I want to know more about you.”

Tahrean raised a hand to their head, pulling absently at their hair. “What about me? I live in this cave, I don't go out to fight, I only visit the others occasionally for food or some other supplies when I run low.”

“And before that?”

For a moment, just a moment, Tahrean's eyes seemed to look through Ferene, focusing on a far-off point deep in the mountain wall behind her, then it passed. The Hatharen's frown vanished, replaced with a completely neutral expression. “That was a long time ago.”

Ferene ignored the oddness. “How long ago?”

Letting out a sigh, Tahrean shrugged. “I don't know. It's difficult to keep count, when there is no one to count with me. Not other soul in these caves remembers those times, as they did not live then. Things were different then. I was different then.”

“How were things different?”

“We were a people of laughter and art. A soft, weak people. We accepted there would not be many of us. We did not spend so much effort pursuing breeding.” Their face twists with the last word, spitting it out. Ferene finds herself tensing up at the shift in Tahrean's tone, the gentle voice turning hostile suddenly. “I see you, Ferene, the way you coil, the way you ready yourself. I will not attack you. I am not a warrior. In that way, you are more like them than I am.” Their voice turned sad. “Every one of them is a warrior. They take turns fighting, hunting their eternal foes, fighting their war. They defend a people they do not know, fight for a purpose they barely understand, throw away an infinite amount of potential preparing for their own deaths. Yet unlike you they did not even make a promise. They do not strive to fix the world, they simply blindly fight, uselessly fight. They live endless years yet never grow beyond being children, loving like children, making petty rules and systems to live by as they wait for their chance to die. They choose to forget rather than forgive. They are all so old yet still so young. In this way even you are older than them, though they would think you a child.”

Ferene found herself unable to move as Tahrean spoke, their eyes meeting hers, holding her in place with just their gaze. In those eyes she saw anger and sadness, but it faded quickly after the rant ended. “I'm sorry.” Tahrean said, looking away. “I have lived too long without anyone to talk to. Go, leave me be for today. I will gather my thoughts and prepare a proper explanation for you.” They looked at her and smiled. Ferene only saw pain. “I find it embarrassing that I do not have one already prepared and practiced, with all the time there was, but I never expected someone like yourself to be the one to ask.”

Without even waiting for a response, Tahrean turned and walked away, back towards the lone hut. Ferene watched them as they go, feeling a new kind of fear.