I stayed in the old man’s embrace for another few minutes before finally moving back enough to look up at him.

“So who are you? I can tell you’re family but that’s about it.”

“I’m your grandfather,” He paused to hold me at arm’s length and look me over. “Ah how I’ve missed you. And look at you, you’ve grown so much since the last time I saw you.”

This bit of information surprised me, as far as I knew I shouldn’t really be growing because I was malnourished. He seemed happy about it though so I stood there in silence since I hadn’t fully dropped my guard. My demeanor was noticed and his face drooped with sadness.

“What have they done to you to take away the bubbly little girl that I knew? These men are monsters through and through to do this a child. If only you were better at magic then maybe it could have been avoided.”

“I don’t see how being better at magic would have helped. Even though my horns are small, nothing I’ve been told made it seem like you should be able to determine that from their size.”

I thought a little about everything that had happened since I woke up for the first time and a small shudder ran through me.

“Besides, I don’t think it would have changed much from what I’ve been through in the past few days.”

“That may be true, but I’ve known you since you were born. I’ve got a fairly good idea about how skilled you should currently be. Here, let me take a look at your horns.”

Grandpa gestured for me to lower my head a little and waited for me to do so before he reached up to move my hair out of the way.

“Flawless in every way. You’re lucky they left them alone, they damage so easily while growing."

"What would have happened if they were damaged?"

"Nothing bad, they would just leak mana. It's fixable; I would just carve them like my horns were carved when I was younger. It puts the mana to use instead of waisting it.

"Now, regarding my earlier comment, having more skill with magic would have meant you were here with the masons, which would have changed things a little. My daughter, your mother, was a prodigy at magic as far as our tribe was concerned, maybe a bit above average by the Demon's standards.”

He started to trace a seemingly random pattern on my horns. Surprisingly, the action didn’t irritate them and instead felt like they were being massaged.

“If you had inherited her talent then you would be here with me, not out there doing manual labor like a pack animal. There would have been a trade off though. You probably wouldn’t have gotten the powerful regeneration you have now. While it means that Selmet would have overlooked you, you probably would’ve died before making it this far.”

He sighed again and I could tell that I had managed to accidentally snuff out most of the joy he had felt from initially seeing me. I felt bad about it since I hadn’t meant for my question do that.

“There’s really is no good way for it to have turned out, just slightly less worse ones, but I’m glad you’re alive. You’re the only family I have left.”

That raised a few questions and I asked the first one that came to mind.

“What about my parents?”

Grandpa gave a derisive laugh before replying.

“If they were here do you really think they would have left you in Vilmar’s care?”

I opened my mouth to speak before closing it again. I wanted to refute what he had said but I couldn’t and it hurt. It wasn’t hard to guess that they were dead, I had already known it on some level, but the confirmation just made the feeling of loss worse. Despite this, it was an empty loss because it was difficult to really connect with the emotions overrunning my thoughts. I didn’t know my parents at all aside from the brief memory that had served as a dream. Hell, I barely knew myself.

“Were they,” I swallowed a lump in my throat, “Were they good parents? I don’t…I don’t remember them. I don’t remember anything.”

The last few words came out in a choked whisper. It was hard to correctly articulate that amost everything I knew was gone; that I was literally learning most things for the first time.

I was pulled back into an embrace and felt myself shake from a few sobs before I managed to stem the flow of emotions threatening to overwhelm me.

“They made mistakes just like everyone else. There were good days with a few that were bad. The three of you were happy though. I think that’s the most important thing to remember. When you were together, you were happy. Oh how I wish the same could be said now. Here,”

Grandpa pulled back and I whimpered slightly from the loss of contact but stayed where I was. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a small pouch hanging from a string around his neck. Once he took it off, he held it out to me and I tentatively took it from him. When it was in my hand he closed my fingers around it, making sure that I had it and understood that it was important.

“This is the only thing I have left of them, of your parents. Hold onto it, protect it, and it’ll do the same for you.”

My hand was released and I was able to open it and inspect the bag. It was made of smooth animal skin, worn down from the elements and being rubbed. I could feel smoothed over cracks on its surface and the few colors that had decorated it in intricate swirling patterns were now just faded lines telling of better times.

“What’s inside it?”

“Their cores.”

“Oh.”

My voice broke and my vision blurred. I started to sniffle uncontrollably before dissolving into broken sobs. I buried my head into his chest again and let him move me as he rocked gently side to side. The entire time he was repeatedly telling me that it was okay in a low and calming voice.

“It’s not, hic, it’s not okay. Nothing is!”

I was still crying and spoke into his chest before my voice broke again from my sobs.

“How is any of this okay? Why did Isra and Asra allow this to happen!? Why did anyone allow this to happen! Why did it have to happen? Why? Why?”

Sobs shook me again and I tried to bury myself further into his chest. Instead of answering any of my questions, Grandpa continued to rock me and hum softly while tightening his embrace. I continued to cry until there was nothing left, until I felt empty of all the tears that I needed to cry for now. After a few sniffs to calm myself I tried to separate the two of us by pulling back slightly and was allowed to leave his hug.

“Feeling better?”

I sniffed again and wiped my eyes, trying to remove any traces of my tears.

“A little. But why?” I held up the pouch. “Why give this to me when I’m constantly forgetting everything?”

“Because right now, you need it more than I do. You’ll always need it more than I do. I only ask one thing of you for it.”

He paused for a moment to make sure I was listening.

“Give them a good death. Proper burials like they were suppose to have or use them to enchant something to protect yourself, they were strong enough for that. They died protecting you. Please, please don’t let that go to waste by trying to kill yourself if you remember what has happened to you. I’m begging you to just try and make it through this. Things will get better because this can’t last forever, I promise.”

I shook again, the memories I had remembered after seeing Ieva for the first time and what Adamo had forced me to do being brought to the forefront of my mind.

“How can you promise that? Have you seen Ieva? She’s not even there! Her eyes are empty, it’s like looking into a hollow corroko shell.”

He sighed as if I had misunderstood something important while soothingly running his hands over my head to calm me.

“She’s there. If you’ve seen her then you know that. She may seem gone but she’s waiting, just like you’ll need to. We live for a very long time Rea. Those of us with regeneration live even longer. But Demons. Demons are like a badly made fire. They burn brightly for a very short time before dying.”

He started to walk over to the totem and I followed him.

“What is forty or fifty years to someone who can live forever? To someone who can live for centuries? Some very, very lonely centuries.”

He paused to touch the totem with one of his hands and look up at its face before turning back to me.

“It’s nothing if you endure the now and wait for the future. Vilmar or Lindi probably already told you this though.”

“Lindi did. About my longevity at least.”

He nodded in reply before shakily making his way up to the top of the scaffolding.

“She was always the more reliable one. Much better to trust her than Vilmar.”

This was the second time he had bad-mouthed Vilmar and it was starting to get to me.

“Vilmar’s been nice. He’s helped me. Protected me.”

“Maybe, but he has too much pride. That’s always been his problem. He doesn’t wait. Doesn’t let the Demons lower their guard before striking. That’s what you need to do.”

The sound of a chisel tapping against rock started and I had to strain myself to hear his quiet voice over it.

“Just wait. It’s not hard to slip away when you’re ignored for being boring. The Demons hate boring things. You’ll become a part of the background to them after a few years. Let them become secure in the fact that you’ve bent to their will then escape. It will be hard and painful, but it’s doable.”

He stopped chiseling to pick up a small stone and put it over the area he had just carved, returning it to an unformed shape.

“Every woman from our tribe with regeneration will be able to get free but we men don’t have that luxury. We’ll be worked until our regeneration gives out before joining our family among the stars.”

“Does this mean that you regenerate as well?”

“I do, not as strongly as you, but I do. Now then, we need to get a little bit of work done so just bring the stone at your own pace. I don’t go through it that fast since I need to add so many details.”

With those words he returned to chipping away at the stone behemoth in front of me, leaving me slightly unsettled. Knowing that I was going to need to bring more stone eventually and that the work would help me clear my head, I made my way over to the bin that the other woman had deposited her stone in.

The bin was about a quarter full and, regardless of what Grandpa said, having it full would most likely be the best course of action. A quick look around the room was all I needed to see that it was set up in a similar fashion to the other mason building. It took about half a minute for me to make a trip with half full arms and not having the pressure of needing to move above a sustainable pace made the job easier by a hundredfold.

Though I hadn’t seen it, it looked like there was a small stockpile up on the scaffolding that Grandpa was using when he needed it. I couldn’t see anything to help take the stone up to this pile, which meant I needed to figure out a way to get the stone to him myself. The only real options I had were to pass it to him or climb up with some; neither of which seemed like they would be easy tasks for me.

I looked around for a basket or something that I could use to help me ferry the stone up to the top of the scaffolding without any results before deciding to try and take a single fist-sized rock up while climbing to see how difficult it would be. The scaffolding itself was several times larger than I was and the few places I could use to climb didn’t look very sturdy. My first attempt, while successful, also showed me that this wasn’t going to be the best way to bring rocks up and I suddenly realized why the bin was left mostly empty.

Just now realizing this made me feel a little stupid but now that I was up here, I had an excuse to stay for a little while. Grandpa noticed me and waved me over after glancing at the bin down below.

“Good job. You won’t need to get more rock with how much you brought over. Bit too heavy to lift up here though, so you’ll need to either pass them up to me or climb up with some like you just did. I’m sure you’re up here for another reason though aren’t you? Always were full of questions; sometimes it’s better to just listen and let the answers come to you.”

“I do have a few questions.”

“That’s fine, but first, just listen for a little while.”

He turned back to the totem and resumed chipping away at the bit of stone to add intricate detail to it.

“You mentioned Isra and Asra which means that you remember them, or at least about them. Many of those that visit our people and saw our way of life disregarded them as frauds, as fakes that needed to be replaced with the correct deities. They didn’t understand them though.”

He placed the chisel down and picked up a stone to undo the work he just did.

“Asra is strong and sturdy like the mountain we dig this stone from or those with reptilian heritage. She is unwavering and will not bend even under the greatest duress, but she will bend for Isra.

Isra is fast and flexible. You’ll lose track of her if you try to follow her with your eyes because of her speed, but she is fragile, weak even, and will break under even the softest of blows, just like those with avian heritage. Isra normally waits for no one, but she’ll wait for Asra.

When apart the two are strong but have weaknesses. Isra is always on the run since she cannot be sure of her safety while Asra holds grudges to the point where she seeks out compensation for even the smallest of infractions. Together however, they work in perfect harmony, each complimenting the other and covering these weaknesses.”

The chiseling resumed and I watched the rough shape take form almost immediately only to be slowly moulded into a much more delicate structure.

“They were people, the elders of our tribe would have been able to tell you this but they are no more. They left, as all people of great power do, and took up residence in the sky taking turns to watch over us while dancing an eternal dance of their affection for each other.

We took what they stood for and honored them by naming our most important tool as hunters after them. The stave and string; the Isra and the Asra, and together they are the bow, the Israsra. You used to be very good with a bow back when you could use one. Given a little practice you would’ve made a fine hunter.”

“There’s one thing that’s been bothering me for a while. Our tribe was the Nooix right?”

“Hmm, that’s right. We are those of the new moon, that’s what Nooix means. We heal as if untouched even by time and so too do the moons with each new cycle.”

“Sure, but one of the Demons, Heirmess if you know her, she said that we were a pain to catch. So if that’s true, then how did they catch us and why are we still here? Why are any of us still here? If we were so hard to catch once, then wouldn’t it be equally as difficult if we escape?”

He looked a little sad that I had so easily dismissed what our tribe’s name meant but it wasn’t information that I really felt would better my chances of survival.

“You probably don’t know this but poetan is poisonous. It weakens the will and body of anyone who eats it. But you haven’t realized this because you’ve never felt its effects, or recalled them, to be more precise. It’s because we are very difficult to poison, that’s part of the reason we were so hard to catch and keep here. The other tribes, they fell quickly when all it took was a single poisoned goire shared among them to keep them in place long enough to be caught.

Once they were here, they didn’t have any other choice but to eat poetan if they didn’t want to starve. It doesn’t help that they were told it was only temporary. By the time anyone figure out what was really going on, the poison had already robbed them of any strength be it mental or physical. They had no desire to resist left.”

The section he was working on seemed to have been finished to his standards and he moved on to working on an area about a finger’s length below it.

“We’re lucky. The prey we hunted, the fruits and roots we gathered, almost all of them were poisonous to some degree or another. Those poisons collect in us for a little while and you can use them against others if you never develop the ability to make your own poisons. Because of this, you have a very good resistance to poison and it means that we needed to be trapped, corralled, and subjugated through force and numbers. We as a people are like Asra, stubborn and unwilling to bend on certain matters, but we fight like Isra, fast yet fleeting.”

He stopped chiseling to place another rock on the totem after a brief pause.

“We picked them off and they returned the favor. Eventually, we were slowly captured until we could fight and run no more. The few stragglers such as you, the other children, and elderly were led into a trap with the few people we had left to protect you. They fought as hard as they could, we all did, but it didn’t matter in the end.”

“So why are we still here then if we’re not affected but the poetan’s poison?”

“Patience. I was getting to that. Tell me, do you remember what they’ve done to you at all?”

I opened my mouth before closing it again. I remembered small bits of a single time in the past and it was more feelings than it was an actual memory.

“No, but does what Adamo made me do count?”

Grandpa turned his head and spat on the ground next to him.

“If it’s anything that man’s done then it counts. I would kill him if I thought I could get away with it. Putting that aside, what do you think is the one thing that would keep us here? I’ll give you a hint, think of Vilmar and Lindi.”

The next few moments were spent trying to come up with a reason that we would still be here that included Vilmar and Lindi in it but I was unable to come up with a solution and told him so.

“Family, Rea. The answer is family. They found the people that could heal, that would be able to recover from the worst of what they could do, like you. Then they broke them, turned them into their personal slaves that would do anything they wanted without even being told or asked.”

“Like Ieva?”

“Just like Ieva. But Rea, do you really think that we could leave them behind? To stay here and suffer while we escaped and lived freely? No, we knew it was a death sentence the moment we chose to stay; a fair number of us didn’t.”

He sighed and composed himself before continuing.

“It didn’t matter though, by the time they had chosen to escape the Demons had woken Urik and he found them all again within the week. They even brought in more people like Selmet or Adamo to make sure there was one of them for each of us that healed.”

His shoulders sagged and I could hear the defeat in his voice. Making him relive these events had hurt him and I realized that this was the second time I had done this to someone. I felt awful.

“I…I’m sorry, for bringing this up. For making you talk about it.”

He stopped chiseling to turn and look at me before running a hand down the side of my face making me lean slightly into it.

“Don’t be. You were always inquisitive and if you didn’t ask now, you would have found out eventually. Are there other things I would rather tell you about? Of course. But you had questions and answering them is what I’m here for, aside from carving this totem of course.”

A small chuckle left him and I could tell it was forced, but played along. Grandpa checked how much stone he had before returning to work.

“It’ll take a little while before you need to bring more stone up here so just rest and listen. I know you’ll have more questions and they’ll be answered but for now, just enjoy your break.”

He took in a deep breath and I could hear a rattle in his lungs from breathing in too much dust.

“Rea.”

“Hmm?”

“None of the masons in this building are normally allowed to leave it so I have very little idea about how things are outside. I know you remember little about our people so you won’t know who’s left. Just… just tell me something, anything, so I have a reason to listen to your voice. It’s been so long since I’ve heard it.”

“Okay.”

So I told him about everything that had happened since I woke up. I talked about the dream that had signaled my entry into the waking world. About the large horned man Vilmar spoke to that I’d never seen since. I told him about Lindi, how good she smelled, and that I was going to ask her about how to better control my sense the next time I saw her.

Once I started, I didn’t stop. The words just kept coming and I continued to tell him everything. I stalled slightly when I reached the mines and spent a little bit of time explaining to him what I had done there while Vilmar worked. At that moment I realized I hadn’t heard any of the masons actually saying anything while melding the stone to the statues and I knew it had to be magic. Setting that aside for a later question, I told him about how Selmet had then whipped me and the three rules he had made me repeat.

By this point I wasn’t holding anything back and told him everything I had felt and seen while at the party. How the next day I could barely stand and how my healing had finally given out. I told him about Gerin and my thoughts on him and how he had the orb that set me at ease with its warmth. About everything that had happened since then including the recent incident with Adamo.

I had started to cry again towards the end of telling him all of this, but it was more out of relief of being able to just say it all instead of keep it inside. The tear trails on my face were cleaned off again while I contended with the few erratic sniffles that still occurred.

“And that’s it. That’s everything that’s happened since I started to recall anything.”

“It sounds like the Demons are preparing to finally finish up here and move on. It also sounds like you can and have remembered some things that happened before this which means there’s a chance you’ll get your missing memories back. Either way, you most likely have a question or two for me. At some point before you leave here I want to reteach you a few dances since I think they’ll help.”

“What would a few dances help me with?”

“Physically, they’ll keep you in shape and one of them will be a struggle for you right now. Mentally, you can use them to relax or meditate on things. I’ve always found that if I let myself zone out while going through the motions it helps me greatly. For you specifically, I think I will help with your memory the most.

Our dances were our tribe’s lifeblood for stories, history, tradition, for everything really. You may not ever remember all that you’ve lost and what you’ve remembered may be it, but our dances are what made us, us. It’ll always be the one thing that you can remember. Now, what questions do you have?”

“First off, when you make the stone part of the statue, that’s magic right?”

“It is.”

He picked up another small piece of stone and pressed it against a rough portion of the statue fusing the two together.

“But don’t you have to say a word to make the magic work?”

“Let me ask you something and we’ll see if you can figure out the answer on your own. When you were practicing the ember spell did you feel it change?”

I thought for a moment and decided that I hadn’t.

“I never got to a point where I could feel the spell itself. That’s still outside the range I can comfortably detect mana without it overwhelming me. The connection to the spell changed. It started to take less mana to maintain it and cast it.”

“Then what do you think would happen once you can feel the spell?”

“That I would be able to see it changing? I’m really not sure what else would happen.”

“The fact that you haven’t detected the spell yet does make this a little more difficult to explain. Essentially, you shape the mana for the spell with your intentions and your words, but when you know what the spell looks like after detecting it do you think that it’s necessary to use words. Eventually you reach a point were your intentions for the spell has that shape in mind and when that happens you no longer need to use words to shape the spell.“

I looked up at him only partially understanding what he had said.

“So, you don’t say the words for the spell because you don’t need to?”

“In very simplistic terms; yes. You’ll understand what I said when you actually detect a spell instead of the mana going into it.”

“Right. So, um, spells. Is there a way to get around the brand on us?”

Grandpa stopped carving for a second to think before turning to me.

“Yes. The brands aren’t complex magic and limiting spell use wasn’t their initial purpose. That part of the brand restricts how much mana you can put into a spell which in turn limits how complex or strong you can make it. But that’s only for mana leaving your body.”

“Sounds like that’s a huge weakness.”

“It’s not, the number of people in the Demon Empire that can cast magic without needing to push the mana through their core first can be counted on one hand.”

“But there’s another way right? That can’t be the only solution.”

“Short of overpowering the brand or having someone else make it go inert there’s not really another reliable way to get around it.”

“So what’s the unreliable way?”

He hesitated for a second.

“The brand’s magic works for your current core. If you managed to make your core mutate then it wouldn’t work anymore. The problem is getting your core to mutate without it killing you in the process. There’s, there’s a way to easily make your core mutate though.”

“Which is?”

“When you evolve. You learned about that right?”

“No. I just know that it happens at three different levels and how do you get levels anyway?”

Grandpa chuckled at my comment before returning to tapping on the stone.

“Experience, as silly as it sounds. When you get better at a spell, skill, learn something, or anything else that you can get better at you get some, keep in mind your aptitude needs to be at least average. As you grow up you level because you’ve learned things and gained experience. Most reach around level one hundred by the time they enter adulthood and we’re no different. Evolutions are something unique to our people. Do you remember what they do?”

“Yeah, it was another racial trait right?”

“That’s right. You’ll instinctively know the changes that can happen and you can chose to let one of them occur. It’s similar to dungeons in a way.”

“How so? I’ve never heard anything about dungeons.”

“People have many ideas on why dungeons exist but no one knows for certain. The one thing people agree on is that when you enter a dungeon you know it and you are given information about the dungeon as you get further into it. There can be rewards at the end but in most cases, the contents of a dungeon are knowledge. Very few people actually explore them because of this since it’s not a good reward for how dangerous they are.”

He stopped chiseling and when to reach for another rock but I handed it to him before he could get one.

“Thank you. We’ve gotten a bit sidetracked though. If you evolve, the more radical the evolution is, the more likely it is your core will change with it. If your core isn’t the same as when the brand was put on you then you won’t be affected by it.”

“Vilmar said it bound itself to our soul. How would that help?”

“Pft. He’s horrid at magic so it doesn’t surprise me he thinks that. The brands are enchantments targeting our cores, plain and simple. Now then, do you have any other questions?”

“Yes, but I can wait if you have something you want to tell me.”

“How about I show you a few things before that?”

Grandpa gestured for me to come next to him and once I was there started to chisel out a few rough shapes onto the statue.

“We never relied on written language to do anything even though we had it for about forty years. There was no point since it was only used for interacting with others outside our tribes. I’m not good with reading or writing even though I learned. What we did have was three runes.

You’ve probably noticed by now that everything we do had some correlation to circles because of the moons and Isra and Asra. These are no different.”

The first symbol he etched into the stone was a small circle inside another one.

“This rune allows you to protect yourself by putting mana into it. The rune is used for things regarding fertility, protection, and children. The name of this rune is the Olow.”

Below the Olow he carved two circles touching each other before making a horizontal line through them.

“This rune is the Manat. It’s our marital rune and when both people in the relationship put their mana into the other’s rune it gives you a general sense of proximity and state of being. The longer the rune has been in place and the more the two in the marriage interact the better and further the rune works. It helps with something else but you’ll figure that out when you need it.”

The last rune he made was three interlocking circles in a triangular shape.

“Finally we have the Faru rune. This rune lets you communicate with up to two other people with the rune. You need to have them put their mana into it just like the Manat, but if you have both runes you can freely communicate with whoever has the other Manat and have two others beside them.”

“Okay, but just placing them on someone can’t be the only thing that makes them work. There has to be something else right?”

“There is a requirement, you’re right. It’s part of the reason no one else can use these runes. For one, they don’t work on stone, only flesh. To make them work is also a little bit difficult because it requires a Deamon to tattoo them onto you using Deamon’s blood. We can make them work with threads as long as the thread is from an animal and has soaked in our blood.”

“So really it’s our blood that makes them work.”

“Yes. And we’re being used here because of that since carving the runes onto a totem counts as tattooing them when they become flesh. Once they have enough totems they need our blood to make the runes work.”

It took me a moment but I understood what he was getting at.

“They don’t need us though. They’re going to kill people and drain them of their blood aren’t they.”

“It’s happened before so it wouldn’t surprise me if they did it again.”

“But why? I don’t see how these runes would help. Surely there are others.”

“There are, but it comes down to permanence. Our runes are the only ones that persist through a totem returning to stone.”

Grandpa picked up another piece of stone and held it over the runes and they disappeared as the stone melded to the totem. I looked at his pile of stone and saw that it was about half the size it had been when I climbed up onto the scaffolding.

“I need to work for a little bit longer before I take a break so bear with me and I’ll teach you a few dances after that.”

I nodded and made my way over to the side of the scaffolding and climbed down. Once I had reached the ground, I started to ferry pieces of stone up as best I could until the pile was close to its original size. When I finished, I stayed on the scaffolding just to make sure I was close to him since I felt more comfortable there.

“The beginning of our people was fraught with peril and strife.”

I looked up and saw that Grandpa was still looking at the statues and figured he knew I was up on the scaffolding from the noise I had made.

“We didn’t know any magic and were prey to many of the creatures that roam these lands. We could hunt small game, but our ancestors frequently lost their kills to larger beasts that they couldn’t fight off. According to our stories, Isra and Asra changed that.

Our people knew of magic, but we weren’t good with it nor did we think it was anything important. They took our dances and adapted them to learn to control the winds with magic. They made the wind flow with them and slowly learned to use the wind without needing to dance. This allowed them to fight off some of the smaller predators they needed to contend with.

From there they looked to fire. Fire was dangerous and more difficult to learn about even using the knowledge they had from mastering wind. Around this time they developed the first rune I showed you, the Olow, to protect themselves from their mistakes. It took them much longer to learn to control fire and make it move with them. They couldn’t control it, but they could guide it and that was enough to scare more predators away.

Next they looked to bring water under their control. Like all living things, water is our lifeblood, and with the droughts that ravage this land, being able to easily find water was a blessing. The two of them quickly brought water under their control and with it understood the importance of being connected with others. The third rune, Faru, was created because of this.

They returned to fire after that, using what they had learned with water to finally master it. This allowed them to fight off the more persistent predators and even kill larger game. The size of our tribes grew greatly as others learned to do what they did.

Lastly, they watched the shadows that dance with the fire. They thought that even they could be controlled if they found the right dance for it. So they retreated into darkness to learn and when they emerged they did so with an understanding of shadows and both marked with a Manat rune tying them together. They never told anyone what they did to control shadows and anyone who wished to learn the skill was made to enter into total darkness like they did. The results varied, some learned the skill and others didn’t. Those that did, were different, changed even, but not in a bad way.

Even now, over a thousand seasons later, we still do as they found and taught. That is where some of the dances I’ll show you came from. There are a few other things I’ll teach you for when you need to create your own dances.”

Grandpa stopped carving and speaking at the same time. The area he finished on looked real even while still stone. The carved clothing had folds and ridges in addition to looking as if it held the texture of cloth. It was amazing to look at and it made sense why he would be allowed to work at his own pace.

“So does this mean you’re going to teach me them now?”

“I am, but not up here.”

The two of us climbed down the scaffolding and when we reached the bottom he started showing me how to stand.

“The important thing to remember is that all of your motions need to be circular and eventually return to the same place they started. You can have variations on this and even choose not to do it, but that’s depends on how you feel while doing the dance. If it feels natural to break from that pattern then do so. Now, on to the dances.”

From there he walked me through the motions of six dances. All of their motions were like he had stated and for two of them I actually started to continue the motions without him telling me what came next. He had been correct in saying these would be a bit of a struggle for me physically to the point that there was one dance I needed to take so slowly it was tiring. My head felt clearer though and, despite feeling grimy from the dust on me mixing with my sweat, I had enjoyed the experience.

After he showed me all of the dances and confirmed that I could repeat them without his help, we left the building and headed in the direction of Gerin’s shack.

I asked him a few smaller less important questions I had about the camp and Demons in general and learned that most of the Demons here were actually the outliers in terms of brutality. I understood what that meant but I still didn’t think I was ever going to be able to truly trust a Demon after everything I had been through so far.

“I brought her back, just like promised.”

Grandpa opened the door to Gerin’s shack and entered while I followed. He talked to Gerin for a brief moment before turning back to me.

“You have the pouch, yes?”

I held it up for him to see. He made sure it was securely around my neck again before kneeling down and hugging me. I returned the embrace and purred freely while nuzzling into him. We stayed like that for a minute before breaking apart again.

“I don’t know the next time I’ll see you or if you’ll remember me when you do, so just do your best okay?“

“Yeah.”

I could feel myself tearing up again and blinked rapidly while wiping my eyes to prevent myself from crying.

“I’m going to miss you. Stay strong and you’ll make it through this.”

Gerin had stayed at his desk while we talked and only stood once Grandpa finally left the shack shutting the door behind him. I turned to look at Gerin and whimpered slightly before looking back to the door. I continued to shuffle in place while whimpering until I heard Gerin move his chair.

“I know you miss him already, but you can’t go back with him. I still need to check you over again and more importantly you need to eat.”

My ears perked up and jingled at the mention of food. I hadn’t realized it, but I was starving and my stomach growled at me to emphasize the point. I quickly walked over to Gerin and waited for him to take the plate of food off of his desk and hand it to me. When he did I went to reach for it but it was pulled back.

“Please?”

“There you go.”

The plate was handed to me and I greedily ate everything on it before licking it and myself clean. I ignored Gerin’s mutter of ‘like a small animal’ and I focused on enjoying the taste of meat that was left in my mouth since I knew it probably wasn’t going to be there very long.

Gerin took the plate from me and gestured for me to stand up.

“I need to check three things: your regeneration, your lungs, and then your ribs. For two of those you’re going to need to take off your dress, but we’ll do those last since I know you don’t like that.”

I offered my hand out while Gerin got the knife off of his desk and made a small cut on the back of my hand. We waited for about two seconds before it healed, the skin knitting together much faster than previously, and Gerin looked mostly satisfied with the result.

“Your regeneration is about back to normal. I’ll still have you drink another potion but it’s more to make doublely sure you’re back to normal then anything else. Right dress off then hop up.”

I complied and did my best to get onto his lap but ended up being lifted onto it again. When I was there, he pushed against my ribs to check them. There was nothing out of the ordinary as far as I could tell since his prodding hurt more than anything else.

After that, he took the metal disk off of his desk and held it against my chest. It was just as cold as the first time and I ended up pressing myself against him as hard as I could in my attempt to move backwards.

“Deep breath for me. Good now release it. Okay and again. Right, well as far as I can tell your lungs are clear. Your bones are still a little weak though so we need to change that.”

I was gently nudged and slid off of his lap and put my dress back on. Gerin had walked over to another part of the room and came back with a covered box. The box was placed on his desk and a very small object was taken from it.

“I need to you eat this. Try not to chew it since the shell will make that difficult to do and I’d rather you didn’t cut your mouth and throat on it.”

I took the egg from him and held it for a moment to look it over before putting it in my mouth and immediately cracking it against the roof of my mouth. The taste of the yolk made me purr and I happily swallowed it before spitting the shell out and looking up expectantly at Gerin. My ears drooped and I shrank in on myself when I saw that he looked rather annoyed with me. He leaned over to pick the shell up, placing it into a small mortar on his desk before gaving it to me along with a pestle.

“The shell was the important part for you to eat so if you’re not going to do it then I’m just going to add it to the potion. You have to grind it up though since you didn’t listen to me.”

Taking the mortar from him with a grumble, I sat down and did my best to mash the shell up while Gerin walked off to get the potion. He returned with the potion in hand and I looked up at him before looking down to the ground shell in the mortar.

“You’re going to want to make it a little finer than that.”

I did my best to grind it more but the shell simply turned to a paste that I couldn’t get to mash any further. Seeing this, Gerin too the mortar and pestle back and scooped the shell paste into the potion before corking the vial and shaking it.

The uncorked vial was handed to me and I did my best to drink all of it in one swig. The bitter taste still managed to cover my tongue and I ran my tongue over my teeth to try and scrape the taste off after emptying the vial. I handed the vial back and stood up before making my way over to the bed.

“Ah ah ah. You’re not here tonight; you’re back in the huts. Just head there since roll call and the evening meal already happened. I’ll talk with Selmet about giving you one more day of light work but you shouldn’t need to come back here unless something drastic happens.“

With as small whimper and forlorn glance back at the bed, I made my way to the door and did my best to reach the handle. Gerin came over and opened it for me and I walked out with the door on my heels. With one last look at the door, I started to make my way back to the huts while hugging myself to stave off the cold. It looked like my small reprieve was over.