Warm, soft, and fluffy.

What strange world am I waking to?

Morning is always cold, there are always insects crawling over me, and I’m always alone. So how is it that I’m warm? What gods have blessed me with this wonderful morning?

I open my eyes, but it’s still dark, the sun has not yet risen to the horizon. Adeleya is beside me, holding me close under the cover of a small tent. The enchants scrawled into the fabric draw æther from the air, and somehow keep away all the bugs and pests.

Nadia is opposite us, snoring loudly, but I don’t mind it. It’s the sound of people. It means that I’m not alone.

Adeleya hugs me close under the soft blankets.

Is this what I was missing while living in the wilds? I should have come back so much sooner.

I’ve had so much to think about that I couldn’t find much time to sleep last night. It’s just so strange to be around people again. Just the sounds of Nadia snoring, and the warmth of Adeleya by my side is enough.

Can’t the sun stay where it is for another day, and another night?

Snuggling into the blanket, I take back every hint of warmth I’ve missed these years.

“Syr,” Adeleya mumbles, her eyes drifting open lazily. Slowly she focuses down at me and squeezes me in a tight hug. My lips move on their own to copy the shape of her smile.

“We have to get up,” Nadia grumbles, and I jolt in surprise. I didn’t even hear her waking up.

“Adeleya? Syr?” She nudges us.

“Just a little longer…” Adeleya whines and I quietly cling to the covers while hiding my face.

“No.” The elvish woman pulls the blankets from us. Freezing air steals away the warmth that I’d been clinging to. It’s all I can do to hold back a whimper.

Adeleya doesn’t even try, sobbing pathetically as she sits up, letting me go. I don’t complain or cause trouble, I can’t be greedy or selfish. I can’t get in the way.

She says something about a ‘bathroom’ while leaving the tent.

“Did you handle the night okay?” Nadia asks, stretching her arms out. Her arms are bigger than my thighs, and her muscles are bulging out from under her skin.

“Syr… I’m good.” I reply, rubbing at my skin and channelling a tiny flow of fire through my æther veins. It’s enough to warm me up.

“So, ah… sorry, I’m not very good at talking,” Nadia says with a sad chuckle. “I didn’t do much talking until I joined this merc outfit.”

“Okay?” I reply, shifting around under her careful gaze. She still doesn’t trust me. None of them do.

Adeleya is better at pretending, but she’s stiff, and she doesn’t often turn her back to me. I was the same around White for a really long time.

I wonder if he felt the same pain in his chest when I did it to him.

“I just… You can talk to me if you want to, about the things that the humans just won’t get,” she says, shifting around awkwardly.

I nod, and she sighs in relief.

Adeleya returns looking fresh and vibrant, she pulls me out of the tent and gets us to work pulling it all down and packing it up.

A nice smell drifts towards us, distracting me from my disappointment. It’s another divine blessing.

Food.

Real food.

Beautiful flavours waft through the air, and I know that I don’t have to scrounge for bugs to add to my breakfast. I nearly cry, but I stifle it.

“Do you want to eat?” Adeleya asks as she finishes putting away the tent and packing it into her bag. I nod quickly, I don’t want to be troublesome but I end up pulling her along by the hand anyway.

The other members of the party are warming something in a pan over the fire.

“Awake now, are we?” Theo grumbles playfully, standing guard with his back by the fire as he stares at the forest and the road. Even without any bandits or monsters around, he’s alert and ready.

“We took care of our shifts on watch,” Nadia replies, walking up from behind me. “There’s nothing to complain about.”

I nod my head in agreement. They woke up a few times in the night, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask what they were doing. If I’m bothersome, they won’t want to keep me around. I have to be useful, and I can’t be annoying.

“I can still find a few complaints,” Lothar says, glancing toward me. I hide behind Adeleya’s legs, I can’t let this turn into a fight.

Adeleya glares at him, and he shakes his head and turns away, whispering something as he pulls bread out of the pan.

The long buns are browned on the outside and are overflowing with meats, fried egg, and some other things I don’t recognise. The sight and smell of it tempts me to forget my manners, but no.

I’m a good girl, I can wait. My grip on Adeleya’s hand may be a little tight, but that’s fine. I’m not being rude.

“Eat,” Adeleya tells me with a little laugh, picking up one of the buns and handing it to me.

“Thank you,” I reply properly, as mother taught me.

I reverentially hold the divine gift before me, enjoying it with all my senses as I take my first bite. It doesn’t smell like vegetables, or cooking meat, I can’t put it into words, but the taste tickles the back of my throat. I swallow in excitement.

I won’t scoff it down like the stew from yesterday, but it takes all my restraint to keep my first bite small. The taste is… complicated, a little sweet, and a little tangy, and the texture of the bread is hard and crunchy while the gooey insides roll out.

It’s nothing like crushed bugs.

I take small bites; I have to make it last.

The two men don’t want to talk as they eat their own meals around the fire. Gazing at the shifting flames with thoughtful expressions, Lothar will sometimes turn and look at me, but he doesn’t do anything.

“Adeleya,” I tug at the fluffy bits on her armour. “What’s this?” I ask, pulling out a little of the sharp-tasting, sticky, yellow goo from my bun.

“Cheese,” she tells me. “It’s made from milk.”

“Milk?”

“…nothing you’d find in an elven village,” Nadia remarks, finishing her food and licking her fingers clean.

“Ah, well it’s something that animals make to feed their young. Like, have you ever seen a mother feeding her baby?” Adeleya asks and pretends to cradle a babe, blushing slightly a moment after.

I can remember in the fuzz of my earliest memories seeing a tiny baby elf suckling. It seemed so strange at the time that I can recall it even now.

I questioningly reach out towards Adeleya’s chest. “Milk…?”

Lothar spits out his food, the old man chuckles as a blush sets in on his wrinkled face, while Nadia erupts into laughter patting Adeleya’s shoulder. Adeleya herself rushes to correct me.

“Not people milk!” She yells, “It’s milk from like goats, and cows and... well not people!”

“I do wonder… what kind of cheese could you make with ‘people milk’?” Nadia says, still chuckling.

“Well, don’t!” Adeleya cries.

“From how I see it, it’s no less strange than the milk of a cow,” Nadia continues as she licks some of the cheese from her fingers. “I guess you humans have your own strange ideas about these things.”

“I said. Leave. It!” Adeleya says, holding her hands over her chest as if to guard herself from us.

During the commotion, everyone else has finished eating, so I scoff down the last of my own meal, quieting my regret when it’s all gone.

They all continue laughing about my question. I don’t really get what made it so funny or so strange, but I don’t want to interrupt, and I don’t know how I’d even begin to ask.

As they settle down, the air around us gets a little heavier. They exchange glances while looking down at me now and again.

“Let’s discuss where we go from here,” Theo says. He’s sort of like their pack alpha. Apparently, he’s been a ‘merc’ longer than any of the others and they respect him for it. He’s a team leader, or something like it.

“First of all, I believe we can safely say that the bandits are dead,” he states. “So, there is no reason to stay out here, we should head back to the nearest village and begin searching for the survivors that little Syr rescued.”

Everyone nods along so far without interrupting, but there’s something they’re not saying.

“The next thing we have to discuss is a little more sensitive.” He carefully phrases his words as he looks at me. “Whether or not we will let Syr come with us.”

“I say no,” Lothar immediately jumps in, earning hateful glances from the girls who are ready to shut him up. “Look, I know I’m going to look like the villain here, but I have to say it anyway.

“She’s a necromancer. I shouldn’t even have to say anything more than that. She shouldn’t even exist. I don’t trust her.

“I do feel sorry for her, for what she’s most certainly gone through, but I don’t trust her with my life, or with any of yours.”

I don’t know what to say to that. Honestly, if mother were still around, I feel like she’d agree with him. She hated necromancy too…

“Well, too bad.” Adeleya sticks out her tongue at him while pulling me into her arms. “Syr is a good girl,” she says, washing away my earlier anxieties.

“I agree. I don’t think she’s a danger to us,” Nadia joins in. “Lothar, don’t go thinking me a fool. I had the same worries as you, but… well just look at her.” She gestures at me, “The girl is still just a kid.”

“Barely,” Lothar growls. “She’d have been kicked from the average orphanage years ago. That’s not to mention she can raise a small army of the undead and throw around a sword twice her height.”

“Syr, will you behave yourself?” Adeleya asks me, and I nod quickly.

“It’s settled then. Three to one, Syr stays,” Theo interrupts. “Syr, would you like to come with us?”

I nod enthusiastically, holding tightly to Adeleya’s hands.

“Then, let’s begin the trek back,” He declares.

As per his orders, we gather together everything valuable from the bandit’s equipment and split it between us. According to Theo, it is for two good reasons, anything we leave behind will just be used by other bandits, and we can sell it off for ‘money’.

Adeleya tells me that it is the latter that's most important.

My steel sword is strapped to the side of a bandit’s worn bag, with a hammer on the other side for balance. I hold it tight and haul the bag full of ‘loot’, as Adeleya calls it.

I glance back at my old home just the once as we walk away, but there’s nothing here that reminds me of what was. Only the ash.

The sun is rising on the horizon ahead of us, the light warming a world that I’ve never known. There’s life here, there are people, and maybe, just maybe I can find a home.

“You can handle all that?” Nadia asks, waving at my filled backpack.

“Syr is strong,” I tell her lifting my backpack up by the straps.

“That you are,” she laughs. “I’ve been wanting to ask, how long have you been out in the wilds?”

“Ten winters,” I reply, the years and months come, and they go, but I will never forget struggling through the dark and the cold of winter, scrounging for scarce food. The snow building up so thick it becomes hard to walk. Struggling to keep the fire burning against the cold as my æther is always close to burning me out.

“Ten years?” she asks. “Ever since the village… All on your own?”

“Syr had Midnight. Midnight, and Gnome, and Rock.”

“Who…?” She seems confused.

“Rock was a boar, he taught Syr how to find mushrooms and the sweet purple roots. He rotted away though.

“Gnome was a bear, he was my newest friend. He died after we killed the bandits together. If he was still here, we could have carried waaaay more ‘loot’.

“Midnight was my best friend. I met her a little after my friends stopped rotting, we’ve been together four winters!” I reply. I am still a little sad, but I know how it is. My friends are always doomed to become ash, sooner or later.

“Ah… So that’s what it was.” She smiles but for some reason it’s not so wide as before.

“An undead bear… I don’t even want to imagine it,” Lothar mumbles quietly.

“A- anyway, that sword seems a little big for you, have you tried something more your size,” she continues hurriedly.

“No, Syr had a big rusty sword, then a big club. Little sticks don’t help against the bears or when hunting deer. Syr got used to using big weapons.”

“If you want, I can show you a few things when we make camp. Show you how to properly wield a sword.”

“Really?” I turn towards her bouncing on my heels, “Syr would like that!”

“Though, you might want to cut your nails,” she gestures to my hands, “They get in the way a lot when you fight; sword, bow, or hammer.”

I shake my head.

“Weapons,” I tell her, hardening them before slicing them down. I cut right through a tree branch that was hanging a little low at the side of the road.

“Fancy,” She replies, “Strengthening magic? I don’t know many that are that skilled at it. No wonder you can carry so much.”

“You don’t use strengthening magic?” I ask curiously.

“I do, most of us do, at least those of us who don’t use our æther for other things. We just don’t quite have that much of a talent for it,” She says, tensing her large hands before releasing them. “We use it across our bodies rather than focusing it into our nails like that.”

“Syr uses this all the time,” I reply. It isn’t often that I’m not strengthening my body in some way, but it is always dependent on how much æther flow I can spare.

“Is that so…” She replies looking forwards, a silent moment passing before she suddenly asks. “Why do you talk like that?”

“Like what?”

“How you say your own name all the time.”

“Ah,” I keep forgetting to talk properly. I need to fix that.

“Syr was afraid,” I say, and it feels surprisingly good to be able to say this. “Afraid because there was no one to call Syr by name anymore. Afraid that Syr would stop being Syr. Afraid to forget.” I tell her as well as I can, but it’s difficult to find the right words and I know it sounds silly but I have to say it.

It’s as if all the pain is being locked away in the past by saying these words to someone else, it’s like the future ahead will be free from all of this.

“So, you will show me the sword, what about the bow?”

Someone ruffles my hair from behind and I turn to find Adeleya looking down at me with a small smile of her own, her eyes glistening in the morning light.

“Syr,” She says my name cheerfully, “Syr, Syr, Syr.” She keeps ruffling my hair as she says it.

“Syr,” Nadia joins in, “You don’t need to worry about things like that anymore.” For some reason she seems sad, “I’ll show you the sword, the bow, the club, whatever you want.”

Thinking over my words for a little bit, I think up my reply.

“Thank you. … I would like that very much.” I tell her, happy to see their expressions brighten.