“I’m off to repel Dargot! I’ll also be stopping by my hut to collect some of the meat I’ve been drying for us! I should be back tonight!” yells my mother, the front door slamming behind her. The whole house rattles briefly from the impact.

“I’ll have dinner ready by the time you return,” yells my father after her, knowing fully well she is already long gone.

I stretch as I wake up from a peaceful slumber. I get up and place my deer stuffy back on my bed. I must have knocked him off on accident while sleeping. Cracking my neck, I sit at my desk and notice the flower I picked up what felt like ages ago.

I quickly prepare it to be dried and get to work on some previous projects. I collect plants from the walls that have been previously treated and begin to sort them in kind. I walk over to a cabinet filled with different jars where I select the ones I need and bring them back to my desk. I finish the preparations of the plants I had selected, some requiring the mortar and pestle, others I pluck what I need and get rid of the rest. I then sort my materials into the different jars on my desk and return them to my cabinet and then select another jar from my collection.

I walk out into the main room of the cabin and collect some boiling water in a mug from the stew pot being prepped for tonight.

“Mum finish all the boar stew from yesterday?” I ask with a yawn looking at my father.

“The woman has an incredibly healthy appetite,” my father says as he works on his boar carving, “but there is some bread, cheese, and I saved you a cake from the other day.”

I nod my thanks hunting down the last of the cakes and then find myself a near threadbare cloth. I open the jar I carried from my room and inside it is an herbal tea mix that I had prepared. I put some of my personal mix of herbs and dried fruit rinds into the cloth and tie it off, and then place the rag into my mug to steep.

“Leave your tea bag once you are done, I want to make some tea as well,” says my father, to which I nod groggily in his direction.

“I had the weirdest dream that Gehenna was my uncle, and my grandpa nearly destroyed the world,” I say sitting down next to the hearth, taking a tentative sip of my tea. Needs to be a little stronger I note and set it to my side. I sat in dumb contentment, only for my memories to catch up to me.

“Wait, I uh, wow,” I mutter, and my father shakes his head and throws to me my grandfather’s gloves.

“I had to think on it, but these are a part of a debt that you now owe,” says my father taking a bite of some honey bread, “also, I believe in you more than, I think that those will corrupt you and… go learn how to save your love you jumpy git. Also, I better not hear of you making anymore bargains. If you go selling your soul behind my back it won’t be the devil that will tan your hide.”

I look at the gloves and the scars they have etched into them. I notice that the scars on one glove make a sun symbol, and the scars on the other the moon. The better lighting of day makes the celandilic script easier to read, but it shifts so quickly that I do not have time to read a single word.

“Be careful Skath,” says my father putting down his bread and boar, “you are nearly a man, and I feel, soon, I will not be able to follow where you wander. I’ve tried to teach you what I know, but it’s clear to me now that I’m not the one to bring you to your greatest potential. I love you boy, know that.”

“Thanks dad,” I say tucking the gloves into my pocket, “and know that where I stand now is due to you. Every step forward I take now is because you guided me to get there in the first place.”

My father smiles and gets back to work on his boar, and I return to my tea. I feel myself slowly become more invigorated as my tea and cake enter my stomach. When I finish my breakfast, I refill my mug and pass it to my father and prepare to leave. I grab a satchel and exit the cabin.

I close my eyes and enjoy the warmth of a new day as it penetrates my skin. I look to my right and see garden tools floating and tending to the newly sprouting vegetables, some of which seem to grow at an incredibly fast pace. My father must need those specific ingredients for what he is making for tonight.

Where to, I think to myself as I wander forward into the woods. I try to focus, but I somehow can’t get a string of thoughts to even work together. When I stop thinking on my possible destinations and plans, I realize that I’m already walking toward the village. my mind had made itself up before I could really even give cognitive thought to make a plan. I chuckle to myself, as it was obvious what I needed to do first. I need to check on Uzuri.

I walk to the village, and quickly enter the alleys, where I stroll peacefully. I know if I don’t make any loud noises, I’ll be safe, so I wander at a comfortable pace thinking about what had occurred only a few days previous. I had failed her, but not entirely. If it wasn’t for factors that I couldn’t have even guessed would occur, she could be free right now.

For some great reason the village needs her but keeps her hidden like a dirty secret. My father thinks Uzuri somehow maintains peace in the village, but if that is the case why isn’t she venerated? She is also the daughter of the chief, which should mean that she has some prestige, but again Gehenna hides her. What is Gehenna hiding, why does the village participate in his apparent sacrilege, and how do they think whatever Uzuri gives them is worth her suffering?

My thoughts are interrupted by the screams of a baby that are just loud enough to pierce through the walls of a home. I can hear many of the goings on in the village in these alleys. A woman yells at her child to do his chores behind one wall. Down a little further I hear two women gossip about a girl who had apparently snuck out for a night of romance. Behind another wall I hear the screams of a woman in labor, to which I quickly progress forward to give that family some privacy. I jog until the screaming is out of earshot, and I hear something that causes me to pause.

“Gehenna should have killed that outsider,” says a burly voice, “he was damned close to returning her where she belongs.”

“Shut up, about that, that is something the high matriarch herself had us swear on the goddess to not talk about,” says another masculine voice behind a wall that I’m assuming belongs to some sort of rest area for village guards.

“I’m already damned by the goddess, I punched the lights out of that girl,” continues the burly guard, his confession immediately identifying him to my mind. I want to curse him out and have a chance to punch his lights out, but I’m behind a wall in a place I really shouldn’t be.

“The high matriarch forgave you, and purged you of your sins, if anything you are a hero for foiling that rat that went a sniffing where he shouldn’t,” says the other voice, “Martog’s maw, we could be at war right now. remember what war was like?”

“I guess you are right, I just still don’t feel quite right about what I had to do. Then again, Gehenna had to do something so much worse than me, and by the goddess the village is blessed for it,” says the burly voice, “goddess bless him I know I wouldn’t have had the strength to do what he did. Makes me gag a little thinking about it.”

“What are you two slackers doing!” yells a new voice, “Get back to work!”

I sit and listen a little longer, hoping that they would continue to feed me more information, but they unfortunately respond immediately to their commander. Also, doesn’t war take at least two different peoples to occur. I’ve been across most of the valley and besides the village the only people that live outside it are my family. What outside force wants to do the village harm? Martog and his demons? But those are just myths, right? Why can’t people just be straight with me… what am I missing?

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I finally arrive at my destination, as I quickly identify a thick log that has a strange, gnarled knot in it that just so happens to have a hole in it. Gehenna had worked quickly, as my hole I had dug appears to have already been filled and what I assume are large boulders were shoved under the foundation of the house to make digging a new hole an even larger undertaking.

I put my ear to the hole in the wall, and I hear something that tears my heart out of my chest. I hear her whimpering, each breath she took eliciting a pained wince. My punishment hadn’t ended when I was strung up. I did that to her. Even if my goal was for her to never endure this ever again, I still did this to her. Every time an escape attempt was discovered, this was the result, yet she still puts up with me. I take a few moments to cry on the other side of the wall, I can’t add to her burdens. I must do something to brighten her day.

“Uzuri,” I whisper having gained some control of my emotions again, “Uzuri it’s me.”

I hear a slight jostling on the other side of the wall, and I hear pained gasps and curses as it seems like she is limply crawling to the hole in the wall.

“Please don’t force yourself,” I say putting my hand up against the wall, “please, you can just stay where you are.”

“Skath, you’re alive,” says a weak voice on the other side of the wall, “how are you here? My father told me he killed you. He told me he strung you up, broke your arms, beat you to an inch of your life and then watched as you slowly died.”

Gehenna must have thought I wouldn’t be brave or stupid enough to return after what I had gone through. Lucky for Uzuri, I’m both stupid and brave enough to come back after a beating. Then a thought pervades my mind. Would I have been brave enough to return to Uzuri if my body couldn’t heal back from a near death experience in less than a day? I remember Gareth and the fear he expressed when it came to facing his father. I can bounce back quickly, but if I couldn’t, would I be here? I can’t dwell on these thoughts now.

“It takes a lot more than that to take me down,” I say trying to feign confidence, “I’m a celandil, so I can wake up in my grave and be on my feet after a good meal.”

I hear her give a struggled laugh and she says, “thank you for everything, but I have to ask you to not return. I can’t have you hurt again for my sake. I don’t think I could live with myself.”

Her words clawed into me. I for years was a source of additional pain for her. I have caused her to suffer at the hands of Gehenna repeatedly, and yet she asks me to stop visiting for my sake and not hers.

“I can’t do that,” I say resting my head on the wall, “I couldn’t bring myself to abandon you.”

“Why, I’m hopeless. My father and the village want me locked up in here to rot away and die! Please just leave me to die. Don’t give me any more hope! You are powerless against that beast and his people who just want me to rot here and die,” she says, her defeated voice being something new to me. Never had I heard her so downtrodden.

“Please don’t return,” I hear her weeping now, “there won’t be anyone here when you comeback anyway. I don’t want to cause you pain even after I go to more peaceful spheres.”

“Uzuri, I have one more plan,” I say desperately wanting to push what she just told me out of my mind. That isn’t my Uzuri.

“Skath, that hole took you a pass and a half to dig,” she says her voice growing quiet, “the trials call for you. My only hope is that I’ll be able to see you in eternity, and I think that should be your hope as well. We were both cursed by our birthright to die at the hands of these people, let’s just accept it already.”

“Never!” I say my nails digging into my knees, “I won’t stop fighting. I showed you a world without these walls once, and god help me I will show you a world without walls again!”

“Why?” whimpers Uzuri behind the wall, “why are you so desperate to do that?”

I want to tell her my feelings. I want to tell her I love her. I want to be with her. However, just to have the chance to try and save her again, I have lost so much. My life isn’t my own anymore. When I swore my life debt I didn’t really think about that consequence, all I wanted was to save her and I was desperate to do anything to achieve that.

I begin to tremble as fate appears to be determined to make us suffer as death greets us down nearly every path we take to be together, or we could choose to live and be endure the torture of separation. I remember my father’s words, about how if I free Uzuri her destiny is one that I cannot walk beside her. Her fate is something extraordinary and will grant her freedom, even if it is still a mystery to me. Whereas my fate despite receiving a portion of my dream, I will have to be a slave to my master’s call. In addition, my master may call upon me in a way where I’ll forfeit my life in the way he requires. My life and my death aren’t truly mine anymore, and I chose that, all for her.

How can I respond to her? I need to tell her that people care about her and want nothing but her happiness. I need to tell her that I care, even if we can’t be together. I need to tell her that she will live and go on to influence the world for the better.

“You saved me,” I say, and I bow my head in frustration as this wasn’t really what I wanted to say, “I came close to taking my own life so many times… and it was you and your kindness that saved me. I love that about you. You accepted me despite being an outsider and some half blood. You’ve even filled my life with purpose, as it was thanks to you that I’ve been learning to become a healer, as after I free you, I want to help other people. You’ve filled my life with motivation as I’ve tried to help you, and rescue you from this prison.”

“Skath, I didn’t know…” she says her voice changing tone, “you always seemed so cheerful talking to me.”

“My life has been set to the falling sands of an hourglass and I’ve been well aware of when it’ll expire,” I continue tears falling from my eyes, “and within the time that has already past I’ve been scorned and ostracized. Moments of peace only really existed when I was hiding in my parents’ haven in the woods, but the words that were constantly cast at me crept into my mind. Whore’s shit, Lich’s spawn, Martog’s cud, were things I was called on a near daily basis, and I started to believe that I was those things. I used to think that the trials were something I somehow deserved just because I existed. I have been dead for so many years, but when I’m here I get to live.”

“Skath, why haven’t you told me any of this?” says Uzuri her voice quaking with each word, “why are you telling me these things now?”

“Because, all the spite, all the hatred cast my way, was worth it,” I say clutching my chest with both my hands, “because I had you to talk to. Because at the end of the day, there was someone out there besides those that are obligated to care for me because we share blood, there was someone out there that cared enough to listen to me. I know I spun a lot of what I was going through in a positive light to spare you, and even downplayed my inevitable death during the trials as I had you convinced that saving you would somehow make me liked by the village. I know I lied in a way, but it was in our discussions where I forced myself to look at the sun from the mud I was constantly dragged through. I was forced to see life as something precious, and I learned that it is worth living, from you.”

We sat in silence for a few seconds, and I felt like I should continue, “There are people who care for you deeply. If I fail, Gareth will take my place to fight for you, and it seems like Gareth’s mother cares for you as well. I care for you so much that I have sacrificed my life and death for you. So, please, don’t talk like that. Please, hold on for me, and if not for me for Gareth, for your stepmother, or whatever you personally care deeply for. Please, fight to live, fight for your happiness, fight for hope! I don’t think I could live in a world where the woman that gave me so much… decided to kill herself.”

At this point I’m bawling, and I know I’m making a significant amount of noise, but I don’t care if I’m found and punished. I’m with her now, and that is all that matters, as soon we will have to part ways.

“Skath, will you always be with me?” asks Uzuri her voice quiet and barely audible.

I can’t lie to her, but I choose to say what she needs of me to say, “I’ll be with you as long as you need me.”

“What does that mean?” asks Uzuri clearly not satisfied with my answer.

She saw through me, and I decide to be as straight with her as I can, “my life and death aren’t my own anymore. I belong to someone else; I did this so that I’d have the power to help you claim a destiny free from here, a fate of your choosing. When I free you, I won’t be able to stand beside you as I’ll have to go and serve my master’s call. Don’t think of this as sad, because I’m pretty sure what you’ll find will be opportunities without end to change the lives of so many, maybe the entire world like you’ve changed my life. I don’t know the exact details, but I feel like this is true just talking with you.”

“What if I can’t do those things without you,” says Uzuri, and I hear her nails on the other side of the wall.

“You’ve already changed my life, and that was under your own power not mine,” I say now smiling, “promise me when I come to save you, and your fate comes calling, you will be strong, and live for both of us.”

“I promise,” says Uzuri her voice growing quiet and I hear her inhale sharply a few times and I know that she is crying now, “but could you stay with me, at least until the matriarchs make their rounds.”

“I will,” I say as I get comfortable on my side of the wall, “and I will cherish every moment.”