Ava hadn’t really stopped moving since Harlan was taken, but she just didn’t know where she was going.

She just wanted to be strong in the same childish way as Harlan did.

And so she trained as hard as she could.

The trainer for the Redwall family, Breken was an older man, he had spent his youth on a battlefield and retired to train others to return from them.

Ava had grown on him when she refused to sleep in a bed and just trained all day. He never had kids, always too busy on a battlefield or moving to the next one.

So a student he could mold was a nice use of his time, he thought. He wasn’t going to be learning more and his days were boring more often than not. He didn’t really like to read and the guards were almost all other veterans who needed only a bit of training to steer them away from bad habits they had picked up.

Once he decided to take her she was excited, she was far less excited when he said she needed a lot of muscle training and didn’t let her pick a sword up again for a month.

She had what he called minimum viable strength to start training, then she really started to learn.

Unfortunately he was allowed to be rougher with her than he could with Jaramis or Autumn, she ended most days by going to the count’s doctor to be healed.

But she kept coming back, her wounds lessened over time. After 1 year of his training she was allowed to spar with others.

He started taking her to other minor noble families who wanted sparring partners for their own children, it took her another year before he started teaching her the real techniques, started taking her to hunt monsters in life or death scenarios. Well, as life or death as clearing small groups of goblins was.

“Good, 10 dead, no injuries, didn’t break any gear this time.”

“What? There are 11 bodies.”

Breken picked up a stone and threw it at one of the goblins, it let out a yelp. He threw a second stone that finished it off.

“Always confirm your kills, I’ve seen things go bad when someone wakes up under a pile of bodies and starts slashing with abandon. Even if no one dies it breaks formations which DOES get people killed. If you were out here by yourself, and went to sleep after thinking they were dead it could’ve gotten up and you would’ve been the one with a rock being thrown at your head.”

“Thank you, Master Breken.”

“Don’t do that. Have you been reading etiquette books again?” Ava blushed in embarrassment.

“Yes… Autumn said I should address you properly.”

She finally was back at the house, as the farm grew Harlow eventually built a bunkhouse for workers, he had the money to hire and pay slaves and workers alike, leaving the girls more time to pursue their obsessions.

Harlow and Aida were still broken up about his leaving, the letter they received from Rosewell all the time ago didn’t help, they thought it was just some ploy to make sure they didn’t do anything foolish.

And then a boy came, his name was Ky, he had stories of Harlan, what he was doing, how he had made new friends. And they finally felt like at least he wasn’t in some dark hole being tortured for magical knowledge.

And Amber had taken a liking to the boy.

He stayed at the bunkhouse until Redmond had returned, that was who he was here for other than just leaving a message for Harlan, Ky decided he wanted to be a ranger. He had faced some of his insults and harsh words from the others at boot camp, not just for being younger than the other but also for needing a special diet of monsters. Ky had left alongside Redmond, they were both going to the frontier anyway.

Reet never showed up, his family was in the north, he couldn’t really make a journey across the country to pop in and say hi to his friends family. But he did send a letter.

And now someone else was here for Harlan, and Redmond wasn’t here to threaten them, so Ava felt it was her job.

The way she talked about Harlan made her upset in some way she didn’t understand.

She was older than her, had long beautiful hair without a single tangle, and got to spend years with him. And already had a scholarship for the academy waiting as soon as the school year started. Ava would never admit it, or even realize it, but she was jealous.

“Soo… Zella, how do you know my brother? Were you guys…?”

Zella spat her tea out and turned red, after some coughing and using magic to clean up what was spilled she finally spoke.

“We were just friends… Yes, just friends, he is too young to be anything else, and too absorbed in his research anyway.”

“So what do they have them doing there?” Aida found a perfect chance to ask the same question she asked Ky and any other messengers who came by with letters.

“Ah, well, I didn’t really SEE him doing research, so I mean. How was he as a kid? I mean he is still a kid, but when he was smaller? Was he still the silent thinking overly protective type?”

And this time it was Ava who saw an opportunity.

“Don’t dodge the question, were you even friends? What are they making him do?”

Ava was still small, but she had a glare trained by Breken himself.

Zella was caught off guard, but she couldn’t help herself.

She laughed so hard she doubled over.

“You aren’t really like he talked about, the lost puppy grew into a bear hound.”

Ava was red with anger, she swung at her only to have her punch caught by hair.

Zella had learned to control her hair completely, only giving it back control when she slept.

“Ah, um… I’m really sorry for laughing. He just talked about you being so sweet and innocent. I guess you’re more like he is now.” Zella moved her hair like arms and legs, she had knocked over a chair and a plate in their little scuffle.

“I… I guess I can tell you, he doesn’t exactly hide his work. Have you seen those new items soul enchanted?”

“My uncle Redmond is a ranger, he was talking a lot about getting new gear coming in, special stuff as soon as he gets back. What part of that is Harlan’s stuff?”

“Well… most of it I guess? He tried to explain it but I couldn’t understand all of it. He talked about taking souls and stripping them and growing them and sticking them in things. Miss Rosewell… I mean Princess Rosewell said that they couldn’t have done it without him.”

Everyone at the table took the news that he was messing with souls poorly, there was a stigma among many people about souls being what makes people people and that changing them was like killing someone and putting a new person inside. Of course this was mostly superstition, soul warping attacks were rare and poorly understood. Soul warping attacks that didn’t just kill people outright were even rarer.

“Well, if they can do that already then when is he coming home?”

“Oh, well, he has other things he is working on too, but he never wanted to talk about it with me. Oh, but he was always talking about his soul speak stuff, he can talk without speaking, he taught me enough to do it too, but he was way better at it. Wanna try? He actually showed me what you guys looked like, but I just figured out how to do it before I left, it’s a little fuzzy looking.”

Aida decided she wanted to go first, Zella seemed nice, and if Harlan taught her then it must be fine.

“Alright, give me your hand.” Aida did as asked, after a minute she felt a tingle in her chest.

“Can you hear me?”

“Yes, thats… uncomfortable to say the least.”

“Ah, it feels a lot better when Harlan does it to me, I mean, when he talks.” The chaos of Aida’s mind when she heard and misunderstood her caused some backlash and broke the connection.

“Ah, please, just give me a moment.”

“I’m sorry about that, what happened anyway?”

“When you talk it’s soul to soul, mind is connected in there somewhere too, you got all confused and upset about what I said. You pushed that on me and it hurts.”

“I want to try next.”

“Ava I know that look, you will not be allowed to train for 3 days if you hurt her on purpose.”

Ava gave a big harrumph about it.

“I still want to show you what he looks like now, or what he looked like last I saw him. If you give me your hand I can try again.”

And so they connected once more.

It took a few minutes for the image to completely form, but Aida saw Harlan’s face for the first time in 2 and a half years.

She cried, and it bled over until Zella was also crying.

Aida let go of her hand, and hugged her, begging Harlow and Ava to see him.

Eventually the crying out with joy was so loud that Kass burst in wondering what was wrong.

He calmed once he saw everyone was hugging instead of hurt, but he was very cautious of Zella once he heard about her being able to connect souls.

“I will take my leave if there are no other problems, you, do not touch my soul. I will only warn once.”

Zella didn’t really understand what had happened, but Kass really didn’t want her around him.

Kass wouldn’t stay in the same room as her for longer than 5 minutes.

When Zella mentioned that she was looking for somewhere to stay for a few months until school started, and that money wasn’t an issue, Aida practically begged her to stay and talk more about Harlan.

Eventually she was convinced that she could stay with them if she wanted.

It was Ava finally warming up to her that tipped the scale.

Zella would meet Autumn soon enough.

But that is another story.