“Who are you?”

“My name is Damon Wight… ma’am.”

The situation was tense, the fight had come to an abrupt end when Damon’s translation system had kicked in. An opportunity Sybil had been ready to use to gut him. Damon could only thank his luck that the companion had shown up and stopped her.

Which had led to a no less awkward situation.

“You could talk.” The hooded Sybil shifted slightly. She was currently straddling his gut, a rather odd choice considering he was naked and covered in blue monster blood. But she appeared unwilling to remove herself from his person, as doing so would move her sword away from Damon’s throat. To him, her presence was more threatening than uncomfortable, as she practically weighed nothing. The hooded woman turned to look over at her companion and then back down at Damon. “I am Sybil.”

“Handrondi.” The companion added. “Why didn’t you stop when we asked you?”

Damon blinked, had that been when they’d been talking gibberish? Could he explain that he couldn't yet understand the language at all? He’d thought they’d been talking amongst themselves. Would that be believable? He defaulted to a more reasonable response. “After the drone hit me with the cannon thing, my ears were left ringing. I could barely hear my own voice.”

That caused a shift, he could practically see the grimace under the hood. “Why is your blood red?” Sybil said.

Questions he could answer, that was good.

“It’s always been red. Is… that odd?”

“Yes.”

The hooded figure leaned back, the gesture moving the cape and revealing a lithe body wearing dark leather armor of some sort. Still straddling his stomach, still holding the blade close to his throat with one hand, she took her left hand and ran it over the sharp end of the sword. Her skin was not like Idina’s, rather than a pale green, Sybil’s was something Damon would’ve expected out of a caucasian.

From the injury, a single drop of green blood made its way onto the surface of her calloused hands. The golden brown eyes had kept looking intently at Damon as his expression turned into a slight frown.

“What are you?” she asked.

“Human,” he said, not looking away from the droplet of green before focusing on her eyes again. “I’m guessing you’re not?”

“I am a vulpes. I have never heard of your species before. Are all humans this tall?”

“I think this is a conversation that is going to need a lot more time. I need pants, a shower, and food. Preferably not in that order.” Damon did his best to relax, to present himself as harmless, as no longer interested in fighting. “Unless I am a prisoner now.”

“If you stop suppressing your hymn, we’ll take you to the village and clear up the misunderstanding.” Handrondi spoke up. “Even this close, it is not apparent. Is it a rare graft?”

“I honestly do not have a clue what-.” Sybil cut his words short, pressing the blade against his throat. Damon froze, raising his chin and swallowing.

“Release your hymn.”

“I’m not from here. I woke up in a cave not too far from here.” Hissing between gritted teeth, he held himself as still as he could. “And I don’t know what this ‘hymn’ thing is. Only hymn I know is a half-assed anthem. I doubt you want me to sing, never been much for choir, which is probably a plus now that I think about it.”

“Do you talk this much nonsense?”

“If I’m nervous? Yeah, lots,” he said, forcing a small chuckle.

She kept looking into his eyes for a long quiet second before pulling back the blade enough it no longer pressed against his neck. She glanced at her partner and then back at Damon. “Nothing. This is going to be harder than expected.”

Damon snorted, laying with his arms wide on the ground. “Understandable. You just chased down a guy who openly surrendered and got the shit kicked in when he defended himself. I mean, not sure what else you want from me, here.”

“You were surrounded.”

Sybil glared at her companion and glanced at Damon. “You yielded?”

“I was on my knees and your damn robot brought out the glowing knives.” He hissed angrily. “Was I also supposed to let it stab me a couple times so it could check if I meant it?”

“It’s a familiar, not a robot, and it does not belong to us.” The companion spoke up. “But there might have been a misunderstanding. You sort of are drenched in monster blood.”

Damon grit his teeth. “Not by choice, I assure you.”

“Sybil, do you think we can trust him?”

She paused, taking another slow look at him. “He could have finished me after his strip attack.” A firm nod. “And his eyes are clear.” Her proclamation was followed by her removing herself from his stomach, sheathing the blade. “The knight might put up a fuss, though.”

“Of course he will. There’s no hymn at all.”

“I don’t care what you do so long as I get to clean up, clothes, and food.” Damon said without hesitation. “After that, I’d appreciate information.”

“What kind of information?” Sybil asked, eyes confused as she frowned from under her hood.

“Everything.” Damon responded. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m new around here.”

“If where you come from is so far off we’ve never heard of humans, how did you get here?”

Damon nodded slightly. “That’s something I’d like to know too.”

Walking to the village had been, understandably, tense and quiet. The limping cube-bot walked in front, a limping Damon in the middle, Handrondi behind him, and a limping Sybil bringing up the rear. They moved slowly, and Damon was starting to suspect it wasn’t because they were trying to be considerate to his limp. Both of the… soldiers? Fighters? Had been panting something fierce, needing a short break half-way down to the village.

Out of the three injured parties, the robot was the one worse for wear. It moved forward with a rain of sparks from its legs that looked like a serious fire-hazard. The cube dragged the half-dead fourth leg, moving at a pace that snails could have overcome. Not that Damon would complain, his everything hurt, especially the place with the bite-mark from the mutated rat.

“How are you holding up?” Handrondi broke the silent streak.

While Sybil had kept her appearance hidden under her cloak, Handrondi appeared to have taken the opposite approach and had dressed up to draw attention to himself. He wore a set of bright yellow and red leather armor with a scarce few small metal plates placed through his body. The young man with a blond ponytail was another of the silver-eared green-skinned elves, slightly taller than Sybil at five feet, and clearly the same race as the Idina Damon had been chasing.

Though they didn’t call themselves elves, and while Sybil was a ‘Vulpes’, Handrondi was a ‘Sasin’.

Now, with the chance to get a better look out of the man, Damon had realized the metallic-looking ears weren’t just some weird cosmetic. The skin on their ears was actually metallic in appearance. They melded into the skull through silver and copper roots that ran down his neck and met under the jawline. Or he guessed they did. The impressive blond beard Handrondi had was a thick bushy thing, with a slight sheen to it as if made out of actual gold. The same was the case for his hair.

Damon shrugged. “I’m just about ready to collapse.”

“Just how did you get so much blood on you? Did you roll over their corpses or something?”

“I killed one big ugly one with very big teeth that jumped around, and a bunch of the small ugly ones that moved in groups.”

“With your bare hands.”

“I had a sharp rock.”

“And you don’t have grafts.”

“I don’t know what a graft is.”

“Right arm.” Sybil tapped her companion’s shoulder.

Handrondi hesitated. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Might as well.”

Upon her insistence, he stepped forward and raised his right arm. Copper and silver lines ran all the way down from his shoulder to his wrist, enclosing his pale green skin in a zigzag of bright jagged patterns. He clenched his fist and his arm opened with a hiss. Damon jumped slightly back as a black mass emerged from the forearm, covering it in a black goop. After a moment, the goo stretched outwards in the shape of a three foot wide disk attached to his arm.

“This is one of my grafts.” The declaration came with a hint of pride, straightening himself a bit further at the look of surprise on Damon’s face. “My personal ferrous shield.”

“That seems… useful.”

Damon kept from shuddering as Handrondi retracted the black thing back into his arm. His gaze lingered on the limb that had opened like some sort of robotic hydraulic freak-show. Once it was close, it returned to its previous appearance, the metallic edges upon it looking like no more than tattoos.

“Are your ears grafts as well?”

“Technically, they are. But it is a species graft, one all sasins have,” Handrondi glanced at Damon from head to toe. “Perhaps your graft is in your freakishly tall skeleton?”

“I was born with my skeleton.”

“All species grafts are ones you are born with.”

“Han is sensitive about his ears because they are uneven.” Sybil’s voice carried a lilt of humor.

“They are not!”

“So you can get new grafts?” Damon tried to urge the conversation forward, learn more about the crazy place he’d ended up in.

Handrondi huffed. “Sure, at the thalaring ports. So long as you have some graft cores and the right materials to offer to the Goddesses.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have grafts, since you’re already a user.” Sybil claimed.

“A what now?”

“User.” She tapped the back of her head. “You have an axon.”

Frowning, Damon imitated the gesture and tapped the back of his head. His steps came to a sudden halt when he felt a lump of metal right at the base of his skull. “What the fuck!?”

“He’s fresh alright.” Handrondi grunted with a chuckle.

“What the fuck!?” Damon’s fingers pressed against the spot, a circular piece of warm metal, the size of his thumb and definitely not something he remembered ever putting on himself. His breathing came in harder, eyes wide. “When… why? HOW!?”

Sybil shared a look with her companion.

“Damon, you need to breathe, or you might startle our escort.”

She raised her empty hands in appeasing gestures. Her palms were covered in a thousand tiny hairlines of golden filaments, their structure an intricate crisscrossing that resembled tree roots.

“Who put this on me!?” Damon’s nails dug into the skin around the lump, a painful jolt followed.

“Damon, this is normal.”

“Maybe here, but not where I come from!” His voice came fast, almost shrill. “People don’t just wake up with a piece of metal shoved into their skulls!”

Sybil and Handrondi shared a glance, then turned forward, past him, their steps slowing down. The cube-robot had stopped, the blades were out, and glowing. The duo had kept their hands up, but their focus had locked on the droid.

“This might feel out of place, but you need to breathe and calm down.” Handrondi spoke with a gentle tone. “The axon is yours. It is under your control. It is nothing more than an extension of yourself. No different from your arms or legs.”

There was a sharp retort Damon wanted to throw at him, but with the hum of the glowing blades, he felt the icy chill that stopped him. They were right, the situation… he grimaced, yanking his hands away from his head, clenching them together and nodding, mostly to himself, mostly for show. Focus. “I… I need food, water, a shower, and clothes.”

Set a goal, orient himself. Move. These were problems he could solve.

The duo waited until the droid’s blades had retracted again. “And you’ll get a chance to rest and eat in the village.”

The group began moving, albeit quietly. The only exception being when Damon had to dismiss the swarm of messages informing him of each individual villager that had entered detection range. Now that he was sure of where the messages were coming from, he was liking his situation less and less.

Reception to the village had been chilly. The instant they’d reached the wooden walls, Damon found himself face to face with a man whose expression reminded him of every commanding officer he’d encountered combined. There was just something about the mix of disdain, irritation, and dismissal of the body language and tone that made it impossible to believe it was anything other than training.

“You have no hymn.”

A one-silver-eared sasin, just barely over five feet, with broad shoulders and broader jawline. Grayed thick caterpillar eyebrows imposing themselves over a great deal of his facial features.

“We confirmed this. We suspect his lack of a hymn is because of his species.” Sybil spoke without waiting for the question. “He’s a human.”

“I do not trust this… human.”

Meanwhile, Damon inwardly pretended he was a potted plant. No need to talk or do anything if no one was talking to him directly. It wasn’t like he could really say anything that wouldn’t potentially worsen the situation. His eyes were looking straight ahead, standing at attention, but his brain was running on several frayed lines of thought at the same time. The current primary focus being a continual self-reminder that the murder-cube was resting precisely two meters behind him, blades hot.

“Can you not speak for yourself?”

“You did not ask me a question, sir.”

The only surprise the man showed was in a marginal rise of his eyebrows. “What do you plan to do with my village?”

“Nothing, sir. I only seek food and rest.”

There was a moment of pause, his attention returning to the other two. “If he does anything, it will be your heads on the pikes.” A sharp inhale and a growl, moving his attention back to Damon. “You smell like you crawled out of a gaper’s maw.”

“Can’t say I know what a gaper is, sir.”

“You should, you’re wearing its fur.” Sybil's voice spoke with a covered smile.

“Oh.” Damon glanced down at the dark, blood-stained fur. “Then I did exactly that, sir.”

The sasin’s whole body twitched, fuzzy brows rising ever so lightly, almost enough to allow Damon to see the eyes hidden underneath. The light green skin took a greener shade.

“I’d lock you up in a heartbeat if these two weren’t vouching for you.”

“I am fortunate, sir.”

“I believe, sir knight, that we should take our new friend and give him a good scrub before his smell draws any monsters.” The mocking edge Handrondi used did not go unnoticed.

The knight scoffed. “He is to remain indoors until repairs to my familiar have finished. Isthatit, come.”

The machine gave a steamy hoot and Damon’s whole body tensed into stone. The machine withdrew its knives, the evil cube dragged itself towards the strongly jawed man and scurried off. Damon didn’t move, waiting for either of his guides to lead the way.

“That went a lot better than expected.” Sybil said, chuckling amusedly. “This way, Damon.”

A soft pat on his shoulder prompted him to follow them to a tiny house near the entrance of the village. The shack had two floors compared to the three the rest of the village had. The building appeared to be in a greater state of disuse than any of the others as well; the paint was chipped off, and the glass panes were muddier than the other houses.

“Did you really crawl out of a gaper’s maw?”

“I’ve had a very long day.” Was his response, then paused. “Does the name ‘Idina’ or ‘Arlen’ ring any bells?”

“Idina’s the daughter of sir knight.”

“Wasn’t Arlen the hagsier merchant that showed up a week ago?” Sybil asked, shaking her head under the hood. “How do you know those names?”

“They were in the cavern I woke up in. The gaper got to Arlen, though.”

Handrondi frowned. “So you wake up in a cave and the first thing you do is chase the first sasin you come across all the way here? No wonder the girl was terrified, having a thing like you, soaked in monster blood, and chasing her for three whole days.”

“I left the cave today.”

“There’s no gaper den within just a day’s travel from here.” The golden-bearded man laughed. “Maybe we missed one? We’ll have to check and update the map.”

“I suspect we are going to want to ask Damon just as many questions as he will want to ask us.” Sybil opened the door, leading them inside. “Though we all need a rest. Han, bath?”

“Right, this way.”

Ducking under the door-frame, Damon moved deeper into the house.

“Do you prefer hot water or cold?” Handrondi asked.

Damon’s shoulders slumped. “At this point, I’ll take whatever gets rid of this blue gunk fastest.”

“Cold it is.”