The time had come for the caravan to return to its place of construction, emptier than when it had first picked up passengers and cargo. Not much needed moving to Ralagast. The cars were quieter. The horses maintained a better pace due to the lightened load. June was glad of the space to think. She could form a thought without being bombarded with a wall of sound and other sensoria. So she took the time to study her Rites. The large man, Jorge, read a classical Falerian epic across from her, occasionally looking up to ask her what a word meant or the meaning of an idiom, phrase, aphorism, et cetera. Truth be told the man frightened her. It had naught to do with his strength. He saw things most were content to never be aware of. The tiny twitches in the face, the exposed nerves everybody carried around with them. Even the chillingly dutiful Yavi had stopped trying to get more information out of him. Jorge had shrugged, repeating that he knew nothing of the geopolitics of this land, and wasn’t invested either way.

And then there was the obvious suspicion. His alleged learning of their language in but a few days. There was still much he could not pronounce, but the gap between them was closing. Was there such people hidden in the Heldrazi forest? Perhaps there was a reason why Aldren had so heavily razed the place before Falerian occupation.

June set aside her Ritebook.

“Tell me about where you’re from,” she said.

Reluctantly, Jorge pulled his attention away from his pages.

“Very green,” he said. “Lots of disgusting insects. Tree monsters. And bears. Very dirty.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Jorge sighed. “I told this to your Yavi. He doesn’t believe me. Can’t say I blame him.”

“I’m not Yavi.”

“…I came from a planet called Earth. There isn’t a hint of magic there. It’s a place barren to what you call the Mind, or the Soul. There is only Form, and we manifest it in terms of science and technology. Philosophy there is a point of view, rather than a reflection of reality like it is here.”

“What was it like there?” June asked. “You don’t seem to like your home.”

“It is a civilized place for animals. But in many ways it’s no different than this world. We’ve specialized, given everyone different jobs to allow our cities to function. Technology has made where I’m from very comfortable for many people, but we’re never satisfied.”

“How can that be? If you’ve the means to make everyone live well—”

“It isn’t used that way. Not all the time. And it’s only where I’m from do people truly live well. The upkeep in labor necessary for the lives we lead are pushed to lands who don’t know better, where they work hard for little compensation, and are taught no other way to live. They make luxuries we take for granted. Slaves. For the lack of a better word.”

“That sounds horrific…”

“Out of sight, out of mind. Do you know why this world is only marginally better?” Jorge patted the book in his lap. “Because if the world map in this story is accurate, Faleria shares the same continent with eight other superpowers. You all haven’t globalized yet. You people haven’t gotten a chance to do what my world has done.”

“Maybe you’re wrong.”

Jorge frowned. “What makes you so sure?”

“The Order—the church I am sworn to—was once a godless institution. We participated in hedonism and the pretense of faith. Until we proved the Soul was real, and that good and evil is felt by the world around us.” June opened the palm of her hand. A wisp of Light materialized there. Jorge looked away, but he could not deny how soothing it felt. “This is real. There is reward for faith. There is power in good. This isn’t merely a point of view.”

“Isn’t your Light only so bright because of a point of view?”

“I- I don’t know what you mean.” June withdrew her Light. The man’s insight made leaps she was both impressed with and afraid of. “Nevertheless. We may yet avert moral stagnation once this cold war is over.”

Jorge chuckled, returning to his book.

“When I left my world, the three great powers there were still engaged in chill conflict after decades with no signs of stopping. There’s nine here on the same land. I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“You know, this pretend apathy of yours is an ill shield.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You pretend to be cynical because you care about people in general, and nothing wounds you more than to see others continue to be cruel.”

Jorge slammed his book shut hard enough to echo around the car. June was unfazed.

“I can be cruel,” he said. “I’m not a good person.”

“If you say so.”

“We’re not alike.” Jorge returned to his reading.

There was much to learn about Etrylis he needed to catch up on if he wanted to participate here. If only he was thrown into this world with his head filled with the planet’s general ethos. Matters would have been much simpler. Language was but a single facet of culture and identity. Brilliant, words were, and nuanced as to be the very bridge that transforms strangers to friends to lovers, but culture wasn’t so simple a gem. He didn’t read for fun. Someone from his world once said, “Stories are truer than the truth.” Pretentious, and conceived from behind the gates of affluence, but there was some truth in the aphorism.

In the epic he held in his hands—called The Five Thousand Feathers of the Hawk—a party of heroes from all corners of Falerian culture bridge their differences to defeat great evils. Someone born here would see it as no more than a story, but Jorge read closer, and saw the pages soaked in philosophy and bias. No one in the party came from outside the Falerian border. As extremely as they were foils to the other, their differences were reconcilable under the Falerian Hawk. The evils they fought were but a singular point of view, the threat they posed was to the Falerian ideal, of which Jorge was slowly beginning to understand.

Faleria had little room in its vigorous heart for those without merit. It saw no purpose for honor or honesty if it did not yield results. Kindness was an indulgence, not a founding tenet. Coexistence with the erstwhile citizens of its conquered nations had practical contribution to the emperor, or else. Cold, ironclad values. But any less and its enemies would have likely swallowed it whole long ago.

Jorge’s dreams have been troubled. The entity kept returning. He couldn’t tell if it was just his recollection of it, or the entity itself speaking to him. Death was coming. A tangled knot in the so-called world lines had guaranteed it.

“Tell me, Ms. June,” he said.

“Just June is fine.”

“If you see someone in danger and knew—one way or another—that they were going to die in days even if you help them, would you?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“Everyone dies, Jorge. Whether they’ve a week to live or their whole life, can you say there is a minimum number of days before which someone’s life isn’t worth saving?”

“Hmm.”

It was terribly naïve. But Jorge somehow felt better.

--

What Lisŗa never counted on when she first learned how to ride was how much it hurt to sit bowlegged on a saddle for an entire day. The blazing friction in her hip joints, the general raw discomfort she felt south of her pelvic region. She wondered if one just got used to it, or if experienced riders simply didn’t discuss it. There was room on the caravan for more people. But then where would the horses go? She was glad it wasn’t her that asked Captain Yavi if they could ride on the caravan for a few hours, but some other runner who still fancied themselves a nobleman. The chewing out that boy received echoed among the other runners as giggles and jokes.

It was a matter of image, of course, as many things were in Faleria. You were a Scoutrunner. Your job is to escort, not to get tired and beg for a break. Sometimes you were supposed to lie.

The passenger paper notebook in her breast pocket buzzed. Lisŗa retrieved it and opened to the page designated for runner communications. It was from Yavi. Dread settled in the pit of her stomach beside the ache she had been nursing since the morning.

“How goes your progress with Ms. Jerylieu?”

Lisŗa wrote back, “Good. She trusts me.”

“Are you sure? Her senses are prodigious.”

“I wasn’t lying when I tried to befriend her. She is someone anyone would be glad to call friend.”

“Just don’t forget your observations. Remember what you saw during the attack. Vulka sent us something volatile.”

“Understood, sir.”

Yavi replied with a straight dash, the sign for ‘finish’. Lisŗa put away the book. She’d be lying if it didn’t hurt her to hold ulterior motives in her interactions with June. That was twice now this job has had her do something unsavory. Murder and lying. One killed men, the other killed relationships. And she was prepared to commit on the lie too. If June were to ask what choked her heart so, she’d talk of the immense guilt she felt leaving her only family behind so she could join the military that killed her ancestors’ memory. June would hear truth. The priestess might even pity her. Sympathy was an addictive salve.

Lisŗa then did the unthinkable. She opened her notebook again and wrote addressing Yavi, “Why did you join the Karavane?”

As soon as her quill left the paper, she regretted it. She watched in stone-faced horror as the ink dissolved into the page. The message had been sent. After agonizing minutes, fresh ink materialized, forming words. Lisŗa felt her heart trying to pry open its cage.

“My father drank. My mother drowned her sorrows in a plethora of men. My older brother lost his life when the war was young. So was I when I joined the main forces, the Emperor’s Rocs. Thought I’d make a difference. Realized one year in I was just chasing my brother’s ghost. Transferred to the Karavane Hawks to avoid seeing any more death.”

Shaking, Lisŗa wrote, “I see.”

“Don’t think about why you joined. Think about where you want to end up.”

“Thank you for telling me, sir.”

“Don’t speak to me about this again. –––––––––”

Lisŗa put away her book and sighed. The pain of horseback riding didn’t feel as prominent as it did before.