Everything was blurry, I felt no pain, only a burning itch on my neck and chest. I reached a hand down and felt the cold metal of Jon's giant cleaver embedded into me, its blade was slick and slimy. I raised my hand to my eye level and could barely see my fuzzy hand dripping with blood. My brain was rattled by the impact and fall and I was bleeding out, things didn't look good. I needed to get to someone who could heal me or I wouldn't last much longer.

I tried to move but I was weak, I couldn't summon the strength to lift myself from the ground. Was this how I would die? I endured so much hellish training just to be killed by my friend's murderer. The gods had a cruel sense of humour, I would make sure to give the forge mother a piece of my mind. I didn't want to die but I didn't fear death either. Between having my body destroyed so many times and being so close to becoming a slave for the rest of my life, I didn't think I was capable of fearing death. If anything it was preferable, I could be reunited with Alessia and see my father in the afterlife. Even still I wanted to survive, I wanted to know more about tending, I wanted to know if the kids were alright, I wanted to stop the Mistres– No, I wanted to kill the Collector and Jon. I wanted to live.

Everything started turning black and the fuzziness of the world increased. Until there was nothing.

…

If I'm dead, why do I feel so warm? Why do I feel anything? I opened my eyes expecting to see the great forge in all its glory but instead, I saw darkness. It wasn't the darkness of the void that took me when I passed out but every day normal darkness. It was quite some time before I could see clearly, I was in a shack much like my home. The bedsheets were familiarly rough and the ceiling boards above looked almost the same.

I tried to roll over but I felt pressure on my legs. I looked down and saw auntie Hann laying across my bottom half fast asleep. I was saddened that my mother was nowhere in sight but seeing Hann again brought a tearful smile to my face. I carefully reached under my loose-fitting shirt and cringed when I felt the jagged stitching and scar that ran diagonally down my body. The scar ran from halfway up my neck, between my breasts and down to the top of my stomach. When I went to touch the scarring on my neck I instinctively recoiled as my hand got close but I didn't know why.

My first scar. A painful reminder of the dangers of overconfidence and my weakness. Not just physical weakness but mental too. I didn't have the common sense of a dweller and I didn't have the wisdom of the head priest. Maybe if I was smarter I could have found a way out that didn't involve giving up my freedom. Maybe if I was stronger I could have killed the collector instead of trying to break the collar. Instead, like usual whether I lived or died was taken out of my hands. I looked down at my empty palms and remembered the feeling of overwhelming dread as the collar approached my neck. It felt gross, wrong and unnatural. The closer it drew to my skin the more my entire being rejected it, I could feel every instinct in my body and brain screaming for me to stop.

"Hann? Auntie Hann?"

I tried whispering and nudging her slightly but she didn't stir, no amount of poking or prodding caused her to do anything but sleep peacefully. This would have been a great time to sneak out but I didn't want to wake her up, she must have been exhausted looking after me. Maybe I should just enjoy the moment. I desperately wanted to know if the kids escaped and where they were but maybe it was okay for me to take this time for myself. Was it wrong to want this feeling of safety to last? To want things to go back to how they were? It was. Being in denial wouldn't change reality but at least for the rest of the night, I would allow myself the fantasy that everything would be fine. I would bask in this moment of closeness. I lay back down and concentrated on Hann's warmth and despite just waking up it wasn't long before sleep overcame me.

"–ow's she doing?"

Mother?

"Better, the fever has finally broken but Jo might need a little longer to rest."

Hann?

I was awake but I kept pretending to be asleep. I didn't know if I was ready to face my mother.

"How much longer do you think she needs?"

"For her body? Not much more, she should be up anytime now but her mind… She's been through a lot. The girl cries in her sleep Mona. Jo's a strong one but she might be near her limits. She's stacking trauma on trauma and bottling it up. I've seen what happens when it all comes crashing out of the cage and it isn't pretty."

I felt the moistness of my pillow but I just assumed it was sweat. Was everything affecting me more than I thought? I experienced a lot of things that forced me beyond my limits but I thought I had overcome them. I didn't feel any different than normal.

"She can't be here much longer, if she doesn't wake up in a couple of days take her away as is."

Mother's quiet voice said.

"Don't you want to speak to her before we go?"

"No…"

"You can't keep beating yourself up like this, just talk to Jo. She'd forgive you in a heartbeat."

"It's not about her. It's me. I let this happen to her, I should have stormed that forge-burned guild and taken her back by force. I can't face her right now."

My mother's voice was soft and nasally like she was about to break out into tears. I wanted to talk to her but I couldn't find the words.

"If not now, then when? What if the next time you see her is in a coffin?! If you keep this up for too long, you'll drive each other to an early grave. I don't want that. You both need to get over yourselves!"

"I need more time."

"I've been patient with you for a long while but you're getting on my nerves. Do you know what I think? I think you've waited too long as it is. Baldy said she didn't stop wanting to see you but gave up when it looked like she was abandoned. I don't care what she said, it's sick that you made her feel unwanted. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, grow up!"

The door slammed so hard that I could feel it shake the flimsy house.

"I'm sorry you had to hear all that Jo. You two can be so pig-headed it's hard to not lose my temper. You know your dad used to be so easygoing, he really mellowed your mother out. Find a guy like that, not a guy that doesn't take life seriously but one that doesn't get bogged down by all of the hard stuff."

I opened one eye just a hair and saw Hann looking straight at me, arms folded. I knew there wasn't much point In hiding it,

"How did you know?"

"Many ways but here are the big two. You breathe slower when you're awake, you're trying too hard, just relax. As for the other reason, I knew you woke up yesterday. Pretty convincing aren't I?"

So she was awake last night, I thought that I looked closely but I really couldn't tell that she was awake. Hann cleared her throat and drew my thoughts back to the present.

"Well, what do you want to do Jo? If you want to talk I can drag her back here by force."

I didn't know. Of course, I wanted to talk to my mother but I didn't want to force her if she wasn't ready. I felt like all that would do is cause more problems.

"I'll let her be but could you give her a note from me?"

"A note? Oh. I see, that's a good use of your brain. You write something up, I'll seal it. This is between you two, I promise I won't read it, so make it good."

Hann fetched a quill and papers and I got to writing. It took a long while and sometimes I would reach up to the lamp on the wall and burn the failures. After twelve attempts I finally had something I was ready to present. True to her word, Hann folded the paper in half without even looking down. Then she folded both corners into the middle so that there was a small flat edge on top and sealed the corners down with a large glob of yellow wax, pressed flat by her thumb. When she removed her hand I saw that the wax had taken in all of the lines and whorls on her finger. It was sealed tight, if you tried hard you might be able to read a letter or two on the edges but that was it. I finished it off by writing on the other side. 'With love, J.'