I continued to watch myself slowly die to the seemingly unending horde of long gangly bodies and sharp teeth. I felt like I wasn't even in my own body anymore but a disconnected spirit watching from above. I lost myself in watching the savagery below me, looking at it but not truly seeing it. I only focused on the beautiful way sound reverberated through the caves around me and lit everything in wonderful detail. I would miss that, I think. The sounds. I hoped that death would not be silent.

I gave myself away to the sounds not truly using them to see anymore. I merely enjoyed the cacophony around me. The neirik did not scream normally and all I could hear from them was the click of their claws against the stone floor and the meaty slaps as they ran into each other. I could hear the girl’s faint gasping breaths with the occasional whimper as life began to leave her. I could hear the faint stomping of hard leather boots that rang out with an intensity like the owner sought to punish the ground beneath them. I could hear the faint shifting of cloth that sought to dampen the harsh sounds of metal on metal but never truly succeeded. I could even hear the beautiful sound of words being barked with authority that could be felt in your bones.

I heard dwarves.

“Lihto” one woman declared with venom. Strangely the light that overcame me in that moment did not fill me with rage like usual but instead brought a small smile to my face. Even while stakes of light fell upon the neirik around me and they began to let out rare screams of rage and pain I only felt my smile grow. I had to smile because I knew at that moment I didn't waste my life. I could still hear the faint gasping breaths of the girl below me. She still lived and now she was safe.

The neirik stopped dog piling on the girl and instead turned to what they viewed as the greater threat; light. I was not worried for the arriving group of dwarves though as I began to get a clear image of them. This group was twice the size of a regular hunting group and each dwarf walked with the clear confidence of professionals. I could even tell that three of the dwarves were users of the words of power as they let out stakes of light and reformed the cave around them to give themselves a tactical advantage.

When all the living neirik had finally left us I tried to use my one good arm and leg to push myself off the girl. Tried because I couldn't find the strength within me to move myself from the pile of bodies around me. I felt the girl stir and lifted my head to look into her eyes again. I saw gratitude in her eyes. There was a swirling storm of fear, pain, regret, and a worrying amount of apathy but they were all covered in a thin veil of gratitude. She slowly reached into the bag on her chest and pulled out another of the vials within. With a shaking hand she lifted it up to my mouth and I bit the cork between my sharp teeth. She struggled to pull the bottle back down to her and after a painful minute the bottle popped open.

I watched as some of the liquid spilled onto her skin and absorbed through. Strangely while the wounds on her body I could see did get noticeably better with just the little bit of the bottle that had spilled a painful looking rash formed where it touched her skin and I saw her wince in pain.

However, that was not the most confusing thing she did. Instead of trying to drink the bottle she held it up to my lips and tried to force it into my mouth. I was shocked and let my jaw hang down with my confusion allowing her to pour the contents down my throat. The relief was immediate as I felt wounds all over my body begin to close. The bleeding from my severed stump of a left leg stopped but I knew I would never have that leg back. The wound on my back closed but I could feel my skin feel tighter than it was before and knew that a scar still remained. Despite all of that I felt better in that moment than I have ever felt before. It was like a warm embrace had wrapped all around, a feeling I had never felt before. Even the concept of warmth I only knew tangentially having never felt it like this before.

I guess the girl must have been able to see my amazement because she let out a series of short breaths I could only understand as laughter. Thankfully that brought me back to the moment at hand and I used my newfound strength to finally roll off the girl. I gave her another look over, or well listen over?, to assess her condition and while she was clearly still injured she didn't seem at risk of dying. The girl slowly sat up and at that moment I finally remembered why I entered that dogpile in the first place. The book.

It was also at that moment that I realized it was getting quieter. There were still a few living neirik remaining but they wouldn't last long. I knew that even if I helped one dwarf the others would eliminate me purely by habit if not hatred. I reached out behind the girl and snatched the book in my one good hand, leaving the girl with a shocked look on her face. I quickly put the book into my mouth and gently held it between my teeth so as not to hurt it while I began to limp away on my two functioning limbs.

“ Wait!” the girl yelled. A word I had come to understand after group 4570 which had one particularly large member who kept falling behind and spent the entire walk through the cave loudly panting. I knew the girl wanted me to stop but I continued on anyway. She continued to call out after me as I left but I could tell the other group had finished exterminating the remaining neirik and were approaching the girl. I threw myself through the caves as fast as I could in hopes they wouldn't pursue. Dwarves had never struck me as the fastest creatures but I knew I couldn't out run them in my state. Thankfully they didn't pursue and all that followed me were the echoes of the girl’s calls begging me to return.

…

My life changed beyond this point. With my new disability I was no longer able to keep up with the groups of dwarves that would leave the silent stone door. This doesn't mean I would give up completely on my quest to learn new words but I had to change my tactics. Instead of following whatever group came out I would stage at areas I knew they would go to. I made my home near the door and would spend most of my time there but I would also stage near the spots the dwarves would stop to sit or rooms commonly used to hunt neirik when the time came.

Still the amount of time I spent listening to the dwarves got shorter and shorter. Instead I spent my time with the book I got from that girl. I could not see the words written in the book but they were raised slightly from the pages and I would trace them with my finger trying to understand their forms. Strangely when I finally understood what was written on a page the words would become clear to me. It reminded me of when I was able to look into that girls eyes and tell her emotions despite my lack of sight. Slowly I traced the entire book and had its symbols burned into my head. It took me what I can only assume was a great amount of time because I had to trace and retrace each page multiple times until it became clear to me. By group 10000 I had only memorized half the book and I still had no clue what it was trying to say to me.

By the time I was three quarters through the book I could have sworn it began to whisper to me. It got harder to trace the pages from that point but each page made the whispers louder and louder. By this point I had even stopped counting the groups of dwarves that would come and go and only dedicated my time to the book. I would often find myself only torn away from the book when hunger gnawed at my bones so deeply I felt too weak to even support myself and had to drag myself to a source of food. I was obsessed and I loved it.

As I was nearing the end of the book the whispers had grown louder and louder into cacophonous screams that demanded I listen. I couldn't understand them but I felt so close, just one more push. Even when I managed to push further and realized it was not one push away I still felt tantalizingly close. I was near it now I could feel it. I was on the last page in the book and as I began to feel it I was filled with a desperate excitement. I felt like I was on the cups of something great… only to fall at the end.

Because the last page was blank.

When I realized that the cacophony of noise that had surrounded me just stopped. I was alone again. I didn't even realize I had stopped feeling alone at one point but now that just made the loneliness cut even deeper. I began to desperately trace the words again and again in a vain hope to bring the noise back but nothing happened. The book seemed to glow in my sight now and I could recall each and every pen stroke in the entire book, but I didn't understand them.

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Something within me broke at that moment. Somehow I recalled how I felt as I accepted my death all those years ago. Apathy. I felt like at that moment nothing mattered anymore. I didn't care anymore.

…

Hunger tormented me now. The void in my stomach had grown claws that it was using to rip away at my body while demanding to be filled. I didn't care. I didn't get up to hunt down the food I knew would only be a short walk away. I simply lay against the wall weakly tracing every page in that book without truly thinking about what I was doing.

…

Death was a curious thing. I had already accepted long ago that I would die but when the opportunity to live presented itself to me I took it anyway. Nothing was stopping me in this moment from trying to live yet I couldn't bring myself to care for my own life. What was the point in living anymore? I would simply spend the next eternity wandering the darkness without purpose or hope. I never hated the darkness but in this moment it felt so suffocating to me.

I could feel myself dying. It didn't hurt anymore but somehow I just knew my moments were numbered. Strangely that knowledge didn't fill me with dread or even apathy but a small light of hope and anticipation. I embraced that feeling and drifted off into a trance simply waiting.

…

I don't know when I moved. I had been slipring in and out of consciousness as I felt my body begin to shut down. Somehow I had moved and dragged myself a short distance from the small outcove in the wall I spent my time in. I had not dragged myself to any source of food but instead to that large silent door.

I used to love that door. It and the groups of dwarves it would send out represented hope to me. The dwarves had something for me to be envious of in this moment and that door expressed it with a silent declaration. They had purpose. In the paths they took and the destination they chose there was purpose. In the sounds they made and in what order there was purpose. In every breath and every beat of their heart there was purpose. I was envious of that purpose. I was envious about how they shared it with each other. I realized now that I had lived my life envious of them.

They had purpose. They had each other. They had words. They had power. I had nothing.

I leaned against a wall facing the door and once more gave up on remaining aware and waiting to die.

…

I didn't notice when the door opened. I didn't even notice the sounds of feet hitting against stone as a group began to exit. I didn't notice how they came to an abrupt stop as they saw the lone disabled neirik collapsed against the wall. I did notice when one drew a sword and declared to his companions “I got this.”

I simply didn't care.

“Wait!” I heard a familiar voice demand. The way the line was delivered was completely alien to my memory of the girl but I recognized her voice clearly. I finally forced myself to raise my head and observe her.

She was different now. Old. I could hear it in her voice but it was also in how she carried herself. She now filled the role of the one experienced member leading a group of less experienced members. She spoke with authority that left no room to question. Her foot falls were shockingly silent for the full metal armor she was wearing. She carried with her a dagger I recognized as well as the largest sword I had ever seen on her back.

There was also a loud clanking metal contraption in the shape of a hand where hers once was. That was not what helped me identify her though. I knew it was her because I knew instantly where to find her eyes. When we locked eyes again I saw more clearly than ever the emotions contained within them. She was confused and cautious of what she saw before her but there was recollection in her eyes and a no small amount of joy.

There was something more than that though but it was hard for me to see in detail. It was like a ghost in the corner of my eye. I would see it but when I tried to focus it would disappear. What I could see of it reminded me of the light that had filled the tunnel that fateful day when a young girl made a mistake.

“What? Why should I wait? That a neirik isn't it” the young dwarf that had drawn his sword asked while swinging it around for emphasis.

Almost faster than my echolocation could follow the girl had crossed the distance between her and the boy and twisted his wrist with her mechanical hand forcing him to drop the sword which she caught with the other hand before it could reach the ground,

“Because I told you too.” she growled into the boy's face leaving barely an inch of distance between their noses. She then slammed the boy's sword back into his sheath with enough power to make him stumble before turning on her heel to face me.

For a moment I was lost in her eyes because the illusive light that I was seeing in her eyes now blazed with glory. It was a beautiful red orange light with the occasional hint of yellow and white that swam and swirled in her eyes. It was fire but it was more. It was Falsha.

I could feel the book in my hands blaze with that same fire and suddenly I just knew. I turned to the last page and there it was written not in ink but in pure magic that I could now see with burning detail was a symbol I had never seen in my life, but I knew. Falsha. Fire.

I smiled at the girl as we locked eyes again. She was confused but even more than that I saw a burning desire for answers in her eyes. In her magic I realize. I could not see her eyes, how could I read the emotion in them? I never did. The final piece of the puzzle was right there and I missed it. Magic, a word I had never heard before but one I knew at this moment to exist. The final step between me and the power the dwarves used so casually.

I could feel it now that I acknowledged it. It was all around us filling every inch of space while also not being there at the same time. It was beautiful. It was ironic to me however. A true shame.

“You, Neirik” the girl spoke to me after staring at me for so long. “Are you the one who helped me?” she asked, staring at me with intensity I had never seen before.

I smiled again at her still riding the euphoric high of discovering magic. “Yes” I croaked out in a rough raspy voice that seemed to grate the ears. I saw the remaining members of the girls group, four dwarves, one female and three males who were looking very confused, wince hearing my voice.

The girl seemed stumped for a moment, clearly expecting more. I could see her mana rolling with her confusion and a hint of anger. “Why?!” she almost screamed. “Why did you protect me! Even if you wanted my grimoire you didn't need to save me! WHY?!” she was truly screaming now as the emotions she kept bottled in exploded out from her. She sucked in a breath to continue but I cut her off.

“I was lonely” she stopped short of whatever she was about to say and simply stared at me wide eyed. “I followed dwarves all my life trying to understand them and the words they spoke but the more time I spent with them The more I came to understand the distance between us.” That was the most I ever spoke, even after I had come to understand the dwarves language I never had a chance to use it until now. My voice cleared out as I continued and it got easier to speak. I didn't want to stop now.

“I don't know when I stopped enjoying life but at that moment death didn't sound so bad. I did originally step in to only steal your book but when we locked eyes I felt… connected. I no longer felt alone for the first time in my life. To die in that moment… felt like a blessing to me.” I couldn't stop now. I didn't realize how good it felt to put your feelings into words and I couldn't stop them if I wanted to. The girl tried to say something but I just kept going.

“I was shocked when you gave me one of the potions you used. I truly didn't expect to live in that moment and was prepared to die. When I realized I would live, I could only focus on the task I had originally set out to do because I didn't know what else to do.'' The girl now just stood there staring at me with a shocked wide eyed expression that was mirrored, and even doubled, on the face of the other dwarves. For some reason I could taste salt but my breath remained even and strong so I continued.

“When I finally stopped running away I was obsessed with the book I had stolen because it felt like all I had left. I threw myself into memorizing the rise of the words on the page because if I stopped all that I would be left with is that feeling of loneliness. It had never felt so painful before but now I knew what it was like to not be lonely. It hurt. It hurt to be alone and the experience of learning something new was the only distraction I had.” I slowed down at this point as I started off into the distance not truly seeing the dwarves in front of me anymore. They didn't interrupt though and seemed only interested in hearing my story.

“But there was only so much I could learn. It took me a long time to memorize the book, and I only just now understood it, but the loneliness I felt never went away. I was just hidden under the joys of discovery growing and festering until it was rotting away at my insides.

…

When I no longer had anything to hide it with… I gave up. I no longer sought food. I no longer sought dwarves. I would slip in and out of consciousness as I waited to die.

And then I found myself here, I don't know when I dragged myself over here but here I am. I don't know when but I know why. I am dying. That is okay. I just didn't want to die alone. I'm so tired of being alone.”