Trim followed him away, and when they cleared the crowd, he caught up to El and said, “They do not know what they are doing. They are just scared and stupid. Let me take you to my old cabin. It’s a bit further south. About half an hour of walking. You can stay there while she recovers. And then, make your mind up what you want to do next.”

That made El pause for a second which Trim used to support his argument, “If she walks for very long, you know she will bleed again, and if you give me a moment, I’ll get a donkey from Blacksmith Bob so she won’t have to walk at all.”

“That sounds fine,” El admitted, looking at Alice who was slowly limping toward him with a painful grimace on her face. “Thank you.”

A few minutes later, Alice was on top of the donkey while Trim held the rains and was leading them out of the village.

“Where were you?” Alice asked Ed in a harsh voice. “Playing in the woods with sticks??”

“Hush!!” Ed uttered harshly, not allowing her to speak to him as she did this morning. “Somehow you got an idea inside your head that you could ask things of me. You will not speak to me like that! Or else…”

“Or else what? You will what…?”

Ed turned around and looked at her. “I will consider you to be even a bigger spoiled little brat than you’re now. And I’ll treat you appropriately. Now, be happy that Trim found you a donkey, and show him respect by not whining the whole way. Can you do that?”

“Oh, come on! You can be such an idiot! I’m not-”

“Should I have left you in the teeth of that beast?” he asked her and let the words hang in the air for a while. “Alice, I do not know who you think you are, but, if you need to learn the lesson of respect, I have no plans on teaching them to you. So, if that’s what you need, I may just leave you. That lesson you can learn on your own, you spoiled little brat.”

“But I-”

“Work on your tongue. You’re not some kind of princess and I’m not your subject, you fool! Do you understand???”

Alice’s pretty face frowned in an even bigger grimace of pain than when she had to walk. Then she sighed and said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to -”

“I don’t want your 'sorry'. You do not even things out by saying how you’re feeling!! Besides, I doubt you are telling the truth. You do not know what sorry is. But if you think you are sorry, then give me your silence. Can you do that? Can’t even think - your gibberish speaking and your nagging, it’s as if you were a woodpecker drilling into my mind. Be silent. And think. That’s by far the best you can do right now.”

“It’s just that all of this is so difficult…”

“Stop! Talking! Ungrateful! Or you rather go and lay in bed for days on end, or lay under six feet of dirt, or lay in the stomach of some beast?? Count your blessings and give your mouth a break, will you???”

Trim did not say anything, hearing them bicker, just gasped for air a few times before he muttered, “When my daughter was nine, my wife had the same kind of talk with her.”

“I’m not nine.”

“Well, then don’t behave like you are,” Ed said harshly, making Trim smile. “You want respect? Earn it! And start by controlling yourself and what comes out of your mouth.”

The strange thing was that El felt a world better after saying those things to Alice. No more sense of the loss, no more visions of burning homes and people screaming. There was just snow, crispy winter air, and the mountain again.

The cabin was a small place circled with trees with enough room for two beds made of straw, two twig-weaved chairs, and a fire pit in the middle. The windowless shack still had thick enough walls that as soon as they lit up the fire, there was warmth and light inside.

“I use this place for smoking meat after a good hunting trip. But, so you do not suffocate in smoke, we can open the top few tiles above the pit, so the smoke can run out,” he said and used a long wooden pole to touch the long wooden tile in the ceiling and after tapping it a bit and fighting to loosen up the snow that was pressing it down, moved it aside, opening a hole to the outside. ”And, use the wood that is stacked in the far right corner. That one will not smoke so much. You can use those woolen blankets hanged on the walls. Had a nice bear’s skin here, but had to sell it last year, you know.”

Then Trim lifted one of the bales of straw up and got two good axes from being hidden underneath, wrapped in old rags. “They will help. In case you need more wood or the beasts come this way.”

Ed nodded his head and added with a stern determination. “If they come this way, rest assured, they will not make it to the village.

When Trim left them, Ed crashed on the straw bed, welcoming the sleep that came to him.

But it was not a good sleep, with pictures of the past invading his rest. He woke up in the hot room with Alice putting another log on the high-burning fire.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Through the cracks under the door and the ventilation hole in the roof, he could see only darkness outside.

“How long was I asleep?” he asked.

“A few hours. I tried to sleep as well, but just could not. I… need to tell you,” Alice started to talk, her voice full of remorse, “You were right, and I was wrong. And I do not know why I behaved so badly with you. It’s… I really do not know. You saved my life. And even if you didn’t, you did not deserve how I behaved with you. I…” she stopped herself, noticing how fast she started to talk. “I’ll try to do better.”

She cast him a quick glance to see what he thought about her speech, but all she found was his face twisted in an expression of sadness and regret.

“Had bad dreams?”

“Yes,” he growled.

“Yeah, you were talking in your sleep. It might help if you talk about it, you know.”

“No, actually I do not,” he answered slowly, sadness in his voice.

Alice sighed. “You seem to be alone for a very long time. Maybe if you were to share. That’s what we do with friends. We share how we feel. That’s why I’m constantly telling you how I feel. It… is what we do where I come from. Never thought that I should probably not do it here.”

Ed thought about what she said, calling him a friend.

We do not even know each other more than a few days, and she considers me her friend? Must be a nice place she comes from, where you meet someone, and right away, he can be your friend.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said, interrupting his thinking again.

“You keep saying it all the time, and I keep telling you…”

“I keep saying it because that’s how I feel. I wish… I could do things right. I wish I did not speak to you the way I did in the morning. It was not right. I wish I would… know what to do.”

El looked at her, surprised. “But you were right. The things you said this morning, you were right.”

“I do not know. Not after what happened there. They cast us out.”

“That does not change the fact that you were right. I know. And so do you.”

“I am not so sure now,” Alice said, shaking her head. “It's easy to be righteous when you don't need to pay the price for it."

"That's true."

"Besides, this morning, it did not make it right. The problem is not what we say as much as how we say it. That’s what my dad always used to tell me. He said,

‘Alice, learn to communicate.’ And, if we are to survive all of this, I mean, we may be stuck with each other for a long time, so, I think we better, I mean, I better learn to communicate with you properly. It’s just that… I do stupid things sometimes. Especially when I’m nervous. No excuse, no matter how scared and how lousy I was feeling, I should not have made you feel like shit. And I know I did.”

“It does not matter. That is in the past. Now, we have to figure out what to do next.”

“Okay…”

“I… should not have let that happen.”

“What?”

“The thing that happened today, with the village and the council.”

“You could not have coerced them, fought them all. You saw how they were,” Alice said, shaking her head. "I'm glad they did not burn us at the stake."

“I would not let that happen. Still, all they said was a lie. And nobody, including myself, pointed that strongly enough.”

“Nothing would have changed their mind. I think the council was going to cast you out no matter what you were to say. Maybe you are right. Maybe we need to leave. Maybe they can’t be saved.”

“I do not know. We could go right now, or we could stay. Just… my mind is cloudy again. And, I know, whatever decision I make, it won’t be a good one if it’s done in haste, under the influence of fear and desire for vengeance. You were right about that. So…”

“So…?”

“I need to relax first. Compose myself. Calm down my mind. Today when I was making the staff, I experienced that. I need to get in that same state of mind. And then, come to a decision, the most rational decision I can make based on the information I have so far.”

“That sounds like the smartest thing to do. I agree. Just… don’t cut me out, okay? Please? I really would like if you would talk to me. Please?”

El looked at her, her big brown eyes, her baby face with pale skin that belonged more to a young girl than a woman of 18. She looked more like a girl who needed to be protected than a wise woman who was ready to give advice and counsel. But somehow, looking at her, he thought about his younger sister, and wanted to make her happy, and prevent those big eyes from ever shedding another tear. “Fine. I’ll talk to you. Now, let me calm down, meditate, and then we’ll talk. If you’re still around.”

He looked at her, her softness making him protect her from all harm, something he did not feel even with his younger sisters. Then a thought occurred to him.

“Can I ask you one question,” he said.

“Sure.”

“Did you always look like that?”

“What?”

“When I was being transported here, they asked me if I wanted to keep my body or if I wanted to be given a new one. I chose my own body. But… you, what did you choose?”

Alice sighed and then, looking at her hands, she said. “I was never a pretty one. I was too chubby, always on some kind of diet. My face had a lot of pimples. I was never in good health. For a while, it was. She looked like an angel. I wanted to look like her.”

"Did you two become friends?”

“Yes. From the start. We talked. Sometimes for hours on end. She was so nice. But then, her family moved to another state, and she left. And, we dropped each other a line or two, but eventually, we kind of stopped. I miss her.”

“What was her name?”

“Anna.”

“So, you took a body that resembled hers?”

“Well, yes… except she had blond hair, and I changed that. And she had blue eyes, and I wanted to keep my own.”

“I see.”

“But I did not do it just because I liked her.”

“No?”

“Of course not. I thought, you know, she was by far the prettiest girl in the class. Everyone was bending forward and backward to help her, to do her a favor. I thought if I looked like her, maybe that would give me an edge. You see, where I come from, cute girls get away with a lot of stuff. Not that Anna ever abused it. Actually, she did not. But I thought, if I could have that, maybe I would have an edge here. It seems it did not work. They cast us out anyway.”

“Well…” El said. “An edge is only as good as you use it. My younger sister, she always knew how to use her looks, played the crowd, and got away with a lot of things, just like you said. I think even my mom taught her… a few things. But then,” El said, his face suddenly darkening, “In the end, it did not matter. Against the evil that attacked us. I fought it, came short, and… they all burned.”