Once again, I awoke in an empty white space. I sat patiently and waited for him to speak first.

“Hello again, Braith.”

“Hello to you too, Thousand Bolts? What can I help you with today?!”

“I can see you are not feeling too well.” Oh, really?

“I have no idea what you are talking about. I’m just peachy!”

“Our time is not unlimited.” I sighed.

“Alright, carry on. Man, are we going to have a talk every time I kill someone?” It was a terrible thing to say, but I didn’t feel that bad saying it.

“No. We are just having another discussion to re-affirm your thoughts and beliefs.”

“Well, nothing’s changed. I said I’d be willing to kill someone if they went after me or Tasha, and I did.”

“Is that all there is to it?”

“What more would there be?” I asked, frustration creeping into my tone of voice.

“I just want you to be clear about how you feel about yourself as this may be the last time we speak.”

“Is that supposed to be some kind of ultimatum? An implicit threat telling me to change or else?” I refrained from shouting, but my anger was evident.

“No, not at all. I will not control your actions as I wish my vessels to live as naturally as they wish. To do that, they must be free from any kind of control.”

“Good, leave me alone and I will do what I want. Thank you, everything’s all cleared up now. I’ll just be on my way now!” I stood up and started walking, but as expected, I felt no progress at all.

“When I mention control, I don’t only mean myself. Do not feel like you must be forever tethered to some kind of role or ideal. People change, and this is never inherently bad.”

“Oh, cut the philosophical crap! From what I got from that, you think that I am being controlled by something I believe in. Well, you’re wrong! I am making rational decisions, completely in control of myself! And even if you were right, that would still be me living how I want, right?!” The space began to rapidly darken. “Finally, I’m done with this.”

“Remember what you have said today, Braith.”

“That again? You keep saying you won’t interfere but all you do is badger me!” The space turned pitch-black and I fell into the void once more.

**********

I blinked my eyes awake and I groaned as I slowly got up and stretched out my muscles. I didn’t pass out this time, but I feel like I did a full-body work-out. Well, I guess I sort of did. Tasha was standing by the door and when I finally turned to greet her, she spoke first.

“Good morning, dad!” she said with a chipper voice.

“Oh…good morning, Tasha.” She walked over to the window and drew open the curtains, letting the sun in.

“It sure is beautiful today!” She turned to me and beamed radiantly. “So, what shall we do today?” Wow, she sure cheered up quickly. Well, children do tend to do that, right?

“Well, it’s been a while since the last time we've been in a town. Perhaps we could just take a stroll for the day? Ask around for some information while we’re at it, too. Um, what do you think?”

“Sounds great, dad. An easy day like that sounds nice.” She went back over to me and held out her hand. I took it and she helped me up. I grimaced a bit as my muscles ached. “Are you okay?” Her sunny disposition was momentarily broken by the concern in her voice.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Just a bit sore.” I fully stood up and after stretching one more time, we gathered our bags and left the inn after eating breakfast. The first place we went to was the town square. Along the way, we passed by several guards and saw even more of them in the town square. Well, it seems like a pretty well-protected town I guess. In the centre of the town, where one normally expects some kind of monument or fountain, there was instead a fenced-off garden of young trees that took up most of the space. Surrounding the garden were several merchants that had set up shop. I went around the various merchants and tried inspecting them closely. Unsurprisingly, a few of them got very uncomfortable with that and eventually a guard came over to tell me to not get so close to them.

At the end, I learned that a group of merchants did set up at the town square a couple days ago but left the same day. They weren’t sure where they went after that. Inside my head, I figured the only place that made sense was the Nature Clan. After browsing around and buying some supplies, we went to go have lunch. The only open spot when we got there was a corner next to the bar counter. A brief look showed a couple of men in dirty work clothes who were already drinking. The two of them were rather loud and I expected that they were not on their first round.

“Going to be another long night today,” the taller one said.

“Going to be? Shouldn’t you have already be back at work?”

“Nah, got another…ten minutes or something?” He then let out a weird laugh.

“Well, you better be right about that, the foreman won’t like it if you’re late.”

“Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you just hurry up and go to sleep or something? You still got energy left in you after the graveyard shift?” I hope the graveyard shift means the same thing here that it does where I came from. Well, not that it’d be good either way.

“Yeah, but I gotta get back in four hours.”

“Ah, right, you pissed him off last time when you showed up five minutes late.”

“It was two minutes!” He banged his fist on the table and the bartender shot him a look. “Sorry,” he said quietly. The two of them downed their glasses and ordered another. “You sure you have time for one more.”

“Look, if I’m not working with at least a little bit of a buzz when I get started, I’ll feel like throwing myself off a cliff.” The two of them received their glasses.

“You shouldn’t be saying stuff like that…” he said, somewhat melancholic.

“Yeah…I guess I shouldn’t.” He took a swig. “So…did you get a letter this month?”

“No, and I haven't heard back for three months now. I’ve even gone and asked them about it but they won’t tell me anything.”

“You asked the guards?” the taller man asked, with an incredulous tone.

“Who else can I ask?” The taller man thought for a moment before taking another drink.

“I guess there’s no one else. But, uh, hey, I’m sure he’s fine. I mean, when Rufus…you know. He found out, right?”

“But then why am I not getting any letters from him? Is he just too sick to write? Did he get in trouble over there? Are the guards or messengers just messing with me?!” He slammed both hands on the table and his glass fell over, shattering on the ground.

“Woah, woah, woah! Calm down, man!”

“How can I be calm if I don’t even know if my brother is alive or dead?!” He buried his face in his hands and started sucking in quick breaths.

“Relax, don’t worry, calm down.” The taller man said, putting one hand on his shoulder. Slowly, the other man started to recover. “Ah, darn, I think I might actually be late.” He got up from his stool. “Put it all on my tab.” The bartender nodded. Then, he turned to the other man one more time. “Listen, as long as we don’t know for sure, there’s still a chance.” Before waiting for a response, he ran out the door. A minute later, the other man also left. I didn’t want to get involved in whatever drama that was, but Tasha got up and went right up to the bartender.

“What happened?” she asked him. The bartender cocked an eyebrow at her. “What was he so upset about? What was that about his brother?” The bartender looked away from her and just shook his head, ignoring her. “Hey! Why won’t you talk to me?” I sighed and got up from my seat.

“Sorry about that, she’s too curious for her own good,” I said, grabbing Tasha’s hand.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Children can get like that.”

“But, we are travelers and we just arrived here. Is there something that we need to know about this place?”

“Nope, nothing you need to know. You’re in Bronze Colony. That’s it.” I took a look around the bar and did not spot any guards.

“Bronze Colony, eh? That’s very interesting. I thought we came to the Bronze Territory.” The bartender narrowed his eyes on me.

“How old are you?” he asked me.

“Clearly too young. But not young enough to not know what a colony is.” Thinking back, I think I do remember Lars mentioning the Bronze Territory fighting with the Nature Clan. It was very interesting since the Bronze Territory was formed by the union of many different tribes, mostly Battle-Hardened, and the Nature Clan was one of the most powerful Farseer clans, and founders of the largest Farseer nation on Midgard. He did not mention much else and didn’t bring up the exact results, though. It was something I wanted to know more about at the time, but he quickly changed the topic and it had slipped from my mind since then. My mind was already piecing together the clues so I just started formulating questions based on my assumptions. “So, letters every month?”

“What about the letters?”

“Well, do you get them, too?”

“That is not a very polite question, sir.” What a strangely timed shift to formality.

“My apologies. It appears that in my ignorance, I can only ask inappropriate questions.”

“Well, it would be better to not ask any questions at all, then, sir.” It would probably be easier to get the information I was looking for from somebody else, but I wasn’t about to give up just yet.

“Well, you might be right about that. At the very least though, do you think you could provide some helpful advice to someone on their way to the Nature Clan?” The bartender froze up for a second. “Yeah, we are planning to head out towards the Nature Clan tomorrow. Might come back here as well once we're done there. Just wondering if there’s somewhere in particular we should go first.” The bartender coughed and turned his eyes downwards.

“Surely you jest, sir. Traveling to the Nature Clan isn’t that simple.”

“Oh, why is that?”

“Well, I suppose you could go into the forests, but you’d be escorted out once any of the patrols find you. Also, even if you did reach their capital, there is no way a common traveler could enter.”

“Well, I don’t view myself as the common traveler. I also do not think I travel with the most common methods.” I tried to choose my words in such a way to make the bartender think in a certain way.

“Even so, it would be difficult.” Despite his words, I could sense his resistance being whittled down.

“I can be very motivated and determined when I want to be.” The bartender took a glass and put it down in front of me.

“What kind of drink can I get you, sir?” he suddenly asked.

“What?”

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.” The bartender then leaned in close and whispered into my ear. “Behind the bar, in one hour.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, new to this place. Just get me something nice and simple, eh?”

“Right away, sir.” He poured me a drink and I took a sip. Yeah, that’s alcohol all right. I swished it around a bit in my glass before taking another sip, trying to mask my discomfort from the burning in my throat. Tasha stared at me, and then looked at the bartender. I’m not completely sure if she was trying to signal something, but I ignored it. I nursed the drink for another few minutes and then I paid the bartender. Then I realized that we still hadn't eaten yet. We got some food and I told Tasha to eat quickly, which was mildly embarrassing when she finished much quicker than I did. We left the bar and after walking around until the awaited time, made our way to behind the bar. The bartender showed up a few minutes later.

“So, any reason we had to have this talk here?”

“They hate it when we talk about them.”

“I didn’t see any of them inside the bar.”

“That doesn’t mean it won’t get back to them. Some of us here are so used to them that they would actually go against the rest of us.”

“Well then, I thank you for taking the risk to talk to me.”

“I’ve never seen you around before and you don’t look to be the type who’d work for the Nature Clan.” He focused briefly on Tasha. “But, please tell me anyway that you were serious back there.”

“Well, I definitely do have plans to go to the Nature Clan, but it seems like the ones I’m looking for won’t be heading there.” The bartender's expression turned somewhat gloomy.

“Probably not. Last I heard, only merchants are allowed to enter the capital these days.”

“Heh, well, I guess I still need to go there after all.” The bartender’s expression lit back up.

“So, you will go?”

“You can bet on it. Teach me a couple things and I’ll do you a favour while I’m there.”

“Alright, first of all, do you know what happened to us after we lost to the Nature Clan?” Well, I could guess a few of them.

“Not really.”

“Well, after destroying all of our forts, they took a bunch of us back with them to their capital.”

“As slaves?” The bartender shook his head.

“As hostages. Well, they say they are being imprisoned for their acts during the war, but, they are basically hostages. As for the rest of us, we’re basically all slaves. From the first day, they told us that if we acted out against them, we would never see any of the prisoners again. So, for the past thirteen years they’ve been watching us and most of us have rotations working at the farms, forges, looms, and mines. They even had us plant those trees in the middle of our town.”

“I see. Hmmm, as for those prisoners, can I assume you receive letters from them every month so that you know they are safe?”

“Yes, but they started to change starting two months ago.”

“So it wasn’t just that one guy in the bar?” The bartender shook his head.

“I hear from a lot of different people while I work and there were several others who didn’t get any letters. That number went up the month after that. As for the people who still got letters though…”

“Yeah?”

“Well, they were different. The letters used to always just be about how much they missed them and how they wanted to come back home. The most recent letters, though, only talk about how nice it is being with the Nature Clan. They mention how beautiful their capital is, how good the food is there and things like that. It’s just…so strange.” It wasn’t strange at all. I already knew exactly what all that meant.

“Censorship.”

“What?”

“The Nature Clan is telling them to write those things.”

“What? Why? We have been under them for so long, what difference would it make at this point? Why would our people even go along with it? Why wouldn’t they tell us?”

“I guess something drastic might have happened. Also, what makes you think the same threats you guys are getting are any different from their threats as well? As for why they wouldn’t tell you, some of them probably did, or at least tried to. But my guess is that the Nature Clan just looks through all the messages before they are sent. They don’t fake them since you can probably recognize the handwriting, but only those who go along with the Nature Clan have their letters sent.” The bartender looked at me with horror. He swallowed and then continued, a desperate tone in his voice.

“We have to do something about that! We need to save them!” Tasha suddenly grabbed onto my hand and looked at me pleadingly as well. I looked at them one by one and then put on a stern expression.

“No.” They both gasped. “I understand that this is a terrible situation, but I am not some hero. I said I would do you a favour, but don’t you think that’s way too much to ask of me? If you want me to confirm that they’re still alive, sure I can do that. I can even ask some of them if they still miss you. But asking me to actually save them? Have you no shame? I did not fight in your war. I am not going to cover you for that loss.” The bartender looked down at the ground and rubbed his eyes.

“Y- You’re right. Sorry, I got far too carried away. He looked me in the eyes again and gave a weak smile. Just knowing that they are still alright is good enough. You can still do us that favour, please?” I nodded.

“Dad, we have to help them!” Tasha protested.

“We are not going to risk our lives for a group of strangers. If it’s doable to get into the capital, then we will, and we will check out the situation. Any more than that is simply reckless.”

“But, dad-”

“No buts!” Tasha stopped arguing and I continued my discussion with the bartender. He told us the usual patrol paths of the Nature Clan soldiers and marked some of their forts on my map so we could stay clear of them. He thanked us and then left. After he left, Tasha spoke up once more.

“Dad, after everything he told us, how can we still not help him?”

“We are helping him, Tasha. We are going to go to the capital to put his mind at ease, and that alone is already very risky. Attempting a prison break with just the two of us is suicidal.” Tasha’s expression changed to that of confusion. It looked like she was about to ask something, but it appeared that she quickly changed her mind as she put on a fierce expression once more.

“We have to at least try! There’s just two of us, we can move very quickly and we’re both so strong! To not even bother trying when-” I interrupted her with a slap to her face. To make sure it made contact despite her reflexes, I made sure to charge two bolts through my arm. She reached for her cheek as she looked up at me with shock and a hint of fear.

“Tasha,” I began, trying to make my voice as even as possible. “You need to stop with your reckless and dangerous suggestions. What you are saying can get both of us killed. Do you understand? We can end up dead like Bradley or Dennis.” I then tried to soften my voice as much as possible. “I care about you more than anyone else, and I cannot bear to lose you like that. Do you understand?” Tasha took in a couple awkward breaths and looked down at the ground. I took my hand and pulled her chin up so that she would face me. She shifted her eyes away from me. If anyone else did this to Tasha…heck if even I did this a week ago, I would kick my own ass, and beat me to within an inch of my life. I had never hit Tasha to discipline her before in her life, but if a shock like this is necessary to change her reckless attitude, then so be it. My constant concessions have been a problem.

“Yes…I understand,” she finally said with a slight crack in her voice. I immediately felt some guilt, but I stayed quiet. We passed by the rest of the day without incident. I took her by the shops, asking if she wanted anything but she said she was fine. As expected, I don’t think she was feeling fine at all, but she’ll get over it eventually. Perhaps she’ll just cheer up again by tomorrow morning? Yeah, I’m sure of that. Kids bounce back quickly.