For a time, all was still and dark.

Then, movement.

Fleeting images, shooting past me like a train racing down the tracks. Too fast to truly infer their meaning. Too far away to reach out and interact with them.

A brown shape, perhaps the Redaga, standing over me. I try to cry out, but no sound is produced. Then, a gray and red shape, appearing somewhere in front of me and taking up my field of vision. Is that what I saw beyond the Redaga? Has another come to help finish me off? I strain to stand up and flee, but my muscles are locked stiff.

Rapid movements. Shrieks and roars. A chorus of lonesome howls.

Once more, all was still and dark.

Feeling and consciousness return to me on a hacking cough.

Thick and acrid smoke filled my lungs, making breathing almost impossible. Sensing a source of heat close by I attempt to open my eyes and escape, but the burning smoke is simply too much. Throbbing with pain I flail my head about, franticly searching for fresh air, but find none.

“You overdid it, featherbrain.”

What?!

“Shut-up. The smoke roused her, she’ll live.”

Whatwhatwhat?!

I understand someone else's speech for the first time in two days. Two distinct voices; a gruff male and a haughty female, speaking the Goddess language to each other as perfectly as I’ve ever heard it spoken before. They aren’t speaking that strange dialect!! Have I returned to normal?!

Still disoriented from blacking out, I attempt to flex my right palm to test its function. But instead of feeling my fingers move, I nearly lose balance and topple over myself. I have to slap my talons to the ground to keep myself standing upright.

…Nope. Im still a Lithan.

But if I can understand language again, and the boy called the girl a, ‘featherbrain’, then surely that must mean…

Sensing that the source of the heat is no longer there, I rub my eyes clear of the soot that’s built up around them. They open slowly and the scene before me comes into focus. Reflexively my head jerks back in shock at what I see.

They’re Lithans!

Lean and muscular with a soot gray appearance, somehow I can tell just by glancing that the larger Lithan directly in front of me is the female of the two. Her feathers are predominantly dark gray with patches of lighter plumage on her face and neck, the same color as the flight feathers of her sprawling, tattered wings. The dorsal feathers of her ears extend back far to a point, and her horns are a different shape and a longer length than my own.

She dips her wings and her expression turns soft. “Take it easy, fress,” she chuckles at my surprised reaction, calling me a name I’ve never heard before. Despite her amusement, there’s a certain gentleness reflecting in her merlot eyes. “We were in the sky when we saw you hit that tree. Knocked you out cold, it’s a good thing we happened to be nearby and heard the fight.”

So, that’s what happened to me. The shapes I saw beyond the Redaga as I was losing consciousness were these Lithans coming to my aid. They were able to stop just as it was about to make the killing blow. I blink, realizing that this sweet-sounding Lithan just saved my life.

Her voice is cool like a spring rain shower, and gentle as a butterfly landing on a rose petal. A distant memory from kit hood is evoked — the nights mom spent sitting near my bed, crooning lullabies by candlelight to help me fall asleep. How could she be the same Lithan that told the boy so flatly a moment ago to shut up?

Sense returns to my nose and I get a whiff of her scent, almost as sweet as her voice. She smells of apples and cinnamon, parties, and good times. The rosy scents of autumn itself.

Beyond her attractive scent are traces of the smoke that invaded my lungs moments ago. I trace its source to the ground next to the dark Lithan where a dry and woody tree branch is smoldering smoke into the air. She must have used her fire to ignite it, waving the smoke around to wake me up.

This is… so much more than I would have expected from feral animals.

Not only do Lithans possess the gift of speech from Azurrel, but they’re intelligent enough to recognize that smoke can be used as an irritant to wake someone from sleep. Or in my case, loss of consciousness.

I cast a furtive glance past the gentle woman and down to the victim of her scorn. A male colored deep copper with strips of black running down his back and over his wings, and a piece of ligament dangling haphazardly from his jaws. He’s presiding over the Redaga that attacked me, now dead and torn open.

Lithans treat Redaga as prey? What a delicious feast that must be. Please, eat as much of the bastard as you like.

The boy looks up from his meal and his dark eyes narrow. “What were you doing fighting False-Kin, anyways? It’s reckless to take on one yourself.”

Again they mention a word I’m unfamiliar with, but I take it to assume he’s referring to the Redaga lying at his talons. Why is it ‘False-Kin’? Who’s kin, exactly? And why are they illegitimate?

Also, what’s a ‘fress’?

It’s clear I’m waking up into a world utterly different from my own, one I have no knowledge of or experience dealing with. But if there’s one thing that seems to bind us it’s the bonds of decency and kindness. Despite the tone of the copper male, these Lithans went out of their way to find me in my time of need, risking their lives to save mine. Once again I’m humbled by those stronger than me.

I need to give them my gratitude for saving my life. But, um, how should I do this? Talking to these creatures, I shouldn’t be as forthright as possible. Not yet, anyway. They need to know who I am and where I’m from, but I don’t want to overwhelm them off the bat with information that won’t make sense. They’ve already done so much for me, and soon I’ll be asking them for even more help.

Let’s take things slowly. This is only the first time someone has ever spoken to a Lithan, after all. No pressure.

“T-thank you. For rescuing me,” I breathe, having trouble locating my voice under my nervousness. So much is riding on me getting this conversation right. I look up to gauge their reaction and feel the weight of those evocative Lithan eyes staring back at me for an explanation. “Um, I was at…”

Wait a second. I can’t call it an elderus tree. They have no idea what a ‘scientific name’ even is. Um…

“…The big tree back there,” I improvise, pointing my tail in the direction I came from. “I tried calling inside the root of the tree because it smelled safe, and the False-Kin was there. It attacked me.”

The copper male raises an eyebrow, then shoots a glance in the direction I pointed with a grunt. “Shifty vermin. Hiding in dens and ambushing Loners…”

Another new word, ‘Loner’. And the hole in the roots I found was actually a den? Well, I suppose that makes sense. But why did I smell the scent of a Lithan outside of it? Shouldn’t my senses have known a Redaga was in there and warned me?

The male turns back to address me. “You need to be more careful on these lands, Loner. You’re not safe from them here like you are in your territory.

A sternness grew in his voice, mentioning territory that evidently belongs to me. I suppose he takes it to mean that I’m a Loner, whatever that entails. But how could he know that just by looking at me?

I turn to the female, hoping for some kind of reprieve. But instead of the compassion she showed earlier, her expression had turned cold. Is she disappointed in me for some reason? If there’s land elsewhere in the Northern Continent that’s supposed to be mine, does that mean I’m trespassing on her territory?

No… as I stare deeper into those dark eyes, her true feelings reveal themselves. She’s not disappointed in me at all.

She pities me.

Who could blame her? To her, I’m just some lost, confused little Lithan that’s far from her territory and roughed up by a Redaga. So helpless, she needs to rely on some strangers to go out of their way to save her life.

Well... she’s not wrong. She’s more right than she’ll ever know.

“…I see.”

I stare into the grass below me. Painful memories of home and the reasons I’m so far away from it stew in my head. I know I haven’t disappointed her in the slightest, yet it still feels like I did.

Why does it bother me so much?

There’s a movement among the Lithans, but I’m too downtrodden to raise my head. I hear the sound of something being ripped apart, and then the spiced scent of the female grows close.

Whump!

A slab of juicy-fresh Redaga meat drops in front of me. Confused, I turn up to see the female Lithan standing in front of me. Her expression had become gentle once more.

“Here,” she says. “You haven’t been eating well for harvestwing. This will help.”

For the first time, I watch her mouth curl into a sweet little smile.

I stare at her, even more confused than I was earlier. She’s just… giving me some of their prey? Why? What did I do to deserve compassion?

I spot the copper Lithan behind her, his lip raised like the most offensive thing he’d ever witnessed just occurred. “She’s not a fledgling, Kuro. She can fend for herself.”

Kuro grunts, pivoting to face the male and airing her wings wide in an aggressive stance. “Enyll, you’re no better than that Redaga if you can’t have some common decency for Loners.”

WOW.

Enyll snaps his jaws and lets out a furious snarl that shakes the moon. Kuro simply rolls her eyes, keeping her talons planted in front of the angry male. The two stare at each other for a tense moment, tails lashing against the grass behind them. It seems that a fight is about to break out when Enyll yields, flattening his feathers with a loud grunt. He buries his head into the body of the Redaga and Kuro neatly folds her wings, satisfied by the outcome.

Okay, first of all…

Kuro and Enyll? Those are lovely names. I’ve never heard anyone with names quite like those before, and they’re really interesting. Lithans know how to pick them.

Secondly…

GREAT burn, Kuro!! I wish everyone who thought I was a tremendous jerk to Orlando could’ve seen that one! The aggressive stance, the delivery of her line, the genuine scorn she harbored, well done!!

Really though, I’m kinda shocked at how fast a small squabble between those two almost escalated into a full-on fight. Enyll seems to have a short fuse with Kuro, and Kuro seemed all too happy to provoke him. I wonder what the relationship between them is like and why they were flying with each other?

Kuro turns back and notices the still untouched prey left on the ground. She seems surprised I paid attention to their argument instead of immediately taking a bite. Without acknowledging I quickly reach my head down and get to work. Kuro may have noticed it anyway, but I don’t want to admit to them just how hungry I am.

“Besides,” Kuro says with a tinge of arrogance. “There’s plenty of meat to go around. Your sister expects a brood in the spring, does she not?”

Enyll tries to respond, but the words come out garbled. He swallows the prey he’s chewing on and replies, “She does.”

Understandable reaction. This Redaga is the freshest prey I’ve had yet, and it’s scrumptious.

“Then we’ll fly to Flat Rock from here and let her know. Better a Sister finish this off than a pack of Litsha.”

Enyll nods. “May as well. It’s unusual nobody has replied to our knell.”

It sounds like they’re going to leave and find Enyll’s sister instead of allowing me to finish off the Redaga. It seems that being a ‘Loner’ in the Northern Continent means you don’t have rights to the prey caught by certain other Lithans. Clearly, Loners are treated like lower-class citizens here.

Kuro mentioned something called ‘Flat Rock’… is that some kind of Lithan camp, or settlement? Could it be only other Lithans from ‘Flat Rock’ are allowed to eat the prey Kuro and Enyll hunt? Am I a Loner because I don’t belong to a settlement?

Either way, I need to keep talking to them. If being a Loner means I’m somehow different from the Lithans that live in this territory, then this might be my only chance to interact with them. The next group of Lithans I encounter could be downright hostile towards Loners. If I can’t win against a Redaga, then there’s no way I’d survive a fight against an angry Lithan.

What if I asked to join them in Flat Rock? Would they allow me to fly with them?

If Flat Rock is some kind of Lithan settlement, then maybe there’s a way I can learn how to hunt there without giving away the fact that I’m a Lemur from Ellyntide. I don’t know how Lithan society works, but it’s clear the bonds of kindness and compassion exist here. If I played dumb and acted like some poor, unfortunate Loner who lost her memories after hitting a tree too hard, would they be sympathetic to my cause?

I don’t know what I could offer them in return, but… I’m a Lemur from Ellyntide. I possess the knowledge and wisdom of a royal Princess with the best schooling in the Kingdom. My comprehension of science and technology is perhaps centuries ahead of theirs. There’s gotta be something, some skill I can offer that’s hugely beneficial to them.

Enyll is distant and doesn’t seem to care about me a whole lot. But Kuro has already demonstrated her sympathy towards me. I’ll start by talking to her.

“Um,” I project my voice forward so I can get their attention. The two natives swivel their gaze. “You’re very kind for sharing your prey with me. Thank you... Kuro.”

Kuro’s expression quirks. Worried I might have said something inappropriate I dip my head to reiterate my thanks.

“I’m curious," she says, examining me with an inquisitive eye. “What were you doing in the Farlands, Loner?”

“The Farlands?” What’s that?

Amusement swells in her face. “You can’t hide it from me, your feathers reek of them. You’d never flown there before, isn’t that right?”

Wait, the Far Lands? Does she mean…

“It stays with you a few days, the scents from those islands.”

Oh!

…Oh, man.

She knows.