Movement of the ground jostled Dana awake.

"Gray lady!" Small arms wrapped suddenly around her and shook the last bit of sleep from her eyes. "You're finally awake!"

She untucked her arms out of the bundle of furs around her to return the hug hesitantly. It took Dana a moment to recognize Nin's voice. In this light, she was a frail little thing of barely ten years old. Easily the youngest of this band. The faces around her were a small band young and old, men and women. Sun-worn features now curved into relief and smiles. They were in a roofed cart with crates stacked high in the far back. There was scarcely enough space for all of them.

Dana rasped "... We made it?"

"We did," a brown-haired man said, his squat body seemed to vibrate as he spoke. His voice had a jagged quality of a throat recently crushed. "Got lucky too. Seems like a band of blue-cloaks had been scouting the Balric camp for days."

A rare enthusiasm swept through the this cluster of servs - no, not servs. Never again.

Freedom tasted airy and sweet. Something Dana felt she could get used to.

The old one, Dargi, offered her drink from his water skin and a hardtack. After admonishing the man for not resting his voice, he spoke up instead. He pointed out the window, to the span of wild covered by a blanket of snow, and told her they were traveling west, away from Balric lands. His aged frame seemed to bounce as he spoke, a youthful gleam in his eyes.

All Dana wanted was to feel that enthusiasm too.

--

The blue-cloaks, Frivens, had a saying about stars.

Well, the Frivens had a lot of sayings about stars. Latest that Dana learned was about starlight guilding the path. Path to where, she wasn't sure. It seemed 'home' was the common one.

Ostrin, Kavnid, Polsg. Their group of freed folk were a diverse band of tribes, plucked from the only home they knew. When they asked Dana which tribe she was from, she had to admit that she didn't know. Unlike them, she had no face markings, no ritual scars. No sentimental colors or patterned cloths reclaimed from her captors. Nothing that tied her to a place or a group. The feeling of being unclaimed left her with a bitter feeling. More than that, the only bare-faced people she recalled ever encountered were Balrics.

To have more in common with her captors than the people she currently was with. The thought made Dana ill.

This, Dana buried deep in her. Let her own feelings not ruin the hope for this strange company of freed folk. Especially Nin. An Ostrin, her home lie east in a land of expansive sands and lurking predators. A home too far away to reach, but young hopeful longed to be back amongst her rust-cloth people.

For this, Old man Dargi had fashioned the little one a bandana made from strips of cloth and dyed in a mix of water weeds to replace what had been taken from her. Her green eyes shone when she had tied it around her neck.

Dana wondered what it felt like to know with absolute certainty where home lie. A fool's errand, sure. If no one knew, how could she?

"Brooding again?"

Dana had been picking up firewood for evening camp when the ax blue-cloak found her. The ax woman had a knack for the wilds, seemingly never empty-handed when she chose to venture in. Today was such a day. At her broad back was a pair of rabbits, limp and tied together with a rope.

"What?" Without Dargi, a man of many tongues, Dana found it hard to understand the hard throaty sounds of the Frivens.

"You. Always with the sad face." The ax woman gestured with her free hand and frowned deeply, mockingly. The baby talk that the Frivens would lapse to with her was grating. Of the three Frivens, this ax woman was the worst of them.

"I'm not."

The ax woman harrumphed, disbelieving. She flicked at the tip of her light-colored hair that was gathered up in a haphazard braid. Her mouth closed, then opened again. "Rabbit tonight? Help feel better."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Maybe."

Dana busied herself with the bundle of twigs she had gathered and hefted them together into a good carrying pile. The further along they were up the Tanning Range, the more reliant the party were on game meat. Not that Dana was complaining. This combination of travel ration and meat was some of the best meals she may have had in her limited recent memory.

But the woman? She could do without. She got along with Harkart, one of the other Frivens, well enough. Mainly because he rarely talked. No one was sure if he could and no one dared ask. But not this woman and her persistence in feeding her. Always with the extra portions that Dana had to pawn off to Dargi. And the talking. Too much of it and always with that baby talk that made her feel small and feebleminded.

Their trek back to camp was blissfully wordless. Dana rushed to keep pace with the ax woman and her long legs. Damned if she was going to embarrass herself by falling behind or dropping her twigs. Back at camp, Dana gladly dropped off her share near the fire and busied herself with Nin and her pots while the ax woman worked on draining her catch.

"Here." Dana produced a head plump white root vegetable from her tunic. "Put this in with the broth. It'll taste better."

"A kohnar root!" Little Nin made quick work of washing and peeling the root and it joined the rest of the bubbling pot. "The wilds bless."

Soon, twin moons shone high above the tree line. Warmed by fire, bellies full, eyes heavy, a groan swept through them as Harkart whipped out the bundle of smooth sticks. One who drew the blue colored sticks got first watch, green second. It was one of the Friven custom, one dependent on fairness and chance. The freed folk accepted it heartily. They still complained, of course, but out of being able to whinge without having to fear the whip than actual dislike.

"If the gods are not blind, it'll be your turn!" said Koyba. The brown haired man and the lanky one were up to their usual banter. Dargi watched them with a mix of amusement and vexation.

"If the gods are not blind," mused Dargi under his breath. "Those two would just get on with it already."

Dana leaned over to him, ears flared.

"Never you mind, child. Or you." He tapped Nin's head in mock admonishment and was about to knock Dana's mind into place too when Harkart came over with his sticks.

Dana drew one from the fisted bundle and frowned. "First watch."

"You're with Ralle." Harkart jerked his thumb at the ax woman face deep in a bowl of rabbit and kohnar broth. Nearly two weeks of travel and this was the first time Dana recalled hearing the woman's name.

It was going to be a very long night.

-

Fire crackled between them and Dana was thankful for the silence. She busied herself with pressing a mixture of herbs to dry against her cloak while Ralle laid out a bundle of oils and tinctures for her ax.

"Kohnar root. You found it?"

"Yes. While gathering wood."

She should have known the silence would not last long.

"Delicious." Ralle mimed rubbing her stomach and licking her lips. The woman was positively grating with baby talk. Now miming?

Dana saw red.

"Speak normally!" It was too loud, too harsh. But Dana was far too angry to change course now. "I don't understand you, but it's not as if you have to treat me like... like I'm simple!"

The ax woman's brow furrowed, uncomprehending. Then something seemed to click behind her eyes. When she opened her mouth, her speech was less choppy, less stunted. Rough sound flowed out of her melodically. "I'll speak plainly." She gestured towards the back of the neck where the gemstone sat on Dana's neck. "I don't know how much you can understand me with the stone on you."

It was too late to back down after her outburst, confused by the sudden burst of smooth speech as she was. Her mind churned as she tried to glean a semblance of understanding. "Why would you think I can't understand you with the stone?" asked Dana. "It's because we don't have a common tongue more than anything."

"People we have rescued before... The ones with the stone are never quite the same. It takes something away from them, you see. Sight, speech, memory, higher thought." Ralle offered her an apologetic glance from across the fire. "I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to make you feel simple."

Dana huffed. "Well, so long as you understand."

"Barely." The ax woman seemed to chuckle to herself. "But we're trying."

They spent the rest of their watch talking about the expansive Friven wildlands and the cities woven into mountains. Dana had no exciting memories of her own to offer up to the fire and thus was keen to listen. She asked Ralle to pause on occasion, to explain what she meant when there was a word or ten that she couldn't understand. Her watch companion was a good sport, patiently searching with her for a common word that they could use to link their different tongues. It was a stumbling, confusing sort of conversation, but one she considered a vast improvement.

Dana had to sate her burning curiosity. "What will happen to us? After we reach the wildlands?"

"Freedom," said Ralle. The glimmer in her eyes shone bright amidst the firelight. "Anything you all want. We keep our tradition of chain-breaking, as did generations before us. You can have a fresh start."

"Even when you remember nothing?"

Ralle nodded. "Even so. Your past doesn't define you, even if you remember none of it."

Dana leaned into crate at her back, eyes heavy with sleep. Deep inside her was a part that wants to believe that it was possible. To build something out of nothing. A fanciful thought. But a nicer one than the nothingness and death of the cage.

"I don't understand why Frivens are so... focused on freeing people," said Dana. "Not that I don't appreciate it, clearly. But why?"

"My father was freed. My grandmother was freed. A lot of Frivens are like me, children of freed folk." The ax woman was working her long strands of brown hair into loose braid. "We are no more a tribe than a collection of people who hate the Balrics."