On the morning after the fires, Tykas stood some distance from where the camp had been. He dabbed his still-bloody lip with a wet handkerchief, mourning the damage done to his once-scarless face. “You messed me up good, Alana...”

  She lifted her head up from the river running between them, where a few patches of grass had sprouted up through the dessicated landscape. “Good. You deserved that, you little shit.”

  “I used to think you were more like a mother, but that was serious big sister energy…”

  “Mm.” She vigorously scrubbed her wet hair with a towel. The river was turning red where she washed.

  “How many did you…?”

  “Nine, all in all.”

  “God above…”

  “The punishment for desertion many years ago had been death. Just because Alaron’s grown soft doesn’t mean we should, too.”

  “But we’re all just… We were meant to be scouts! Thirty-five scouts... We were recruited as exactly that.”

  “Soldiers should have honor. Dignity. More pride than it takes to run away with your tail between your legs. Or to burn down a camp, to harass the camp’s leader.”

  “What did Soren say?”

  “Soren didn’t know what to make of it.” She wrung her hair between her hands and more puddles of blood dribbled out into the river. “Think he knows I’ve got the old way in me, but he’s scared to see it.”

  “Well, yeah! I mean, we don’t even train combat! We train physical capabilities, we train helping people!”

  “I’m not sure the world has always been so soft.”

  Tykas’ face hardened. “More of your grandmother’s stories?”

  Alana nodded. “Our peace was hard-fought, earned by hellish years of vitriol and torment. I’m not saying I want to go back, I’m just saying… I don’t know. It felt easy.”

  Tykas’ expression took on more of a shocked motif, and softened almost consolingly.

  “Gramma Tir told me that if I had my father’s heritage in me, I’d have to kill one day. She said my father had been a soldier, one of the greats.”

  “…What was his name?”

  Alana shook her head. “That much, she never said. And my mother was gone, too. Just me and Tir, out in the middle of the Tal’eesian woods…”

  “Maybe it’s that kind of isolation drives a woman mad enough to kill…” whispered Tykas, but evidently not quiet enough by the glare on her face.

  “What could have been done, Tykas? Three men surrounded Soren with blades—what if they weren’t just making empty threats?”

  “You couldn’t have known unless you talked to them.”

  “Talking means missing the upper hand.”

  A strange voice growled within her mind: …And I much preferred spilling their blood.

  Alana’s brow tensed. She threw down her towel and launched to her feet. “Ya got shit to say, come ‘n say it to me face!”

  Tykas recoiled and winced in fear. “I didn’t say anything! I’m sorry!”

  Seeing his reaction gave her pause. But then, something told her it was better to be feared than loved, at least in that context.

  “…I just don’t know what to think, Alana. They were deserters, maybe worse... But nobody in this encampment is a veteran, none of us know how to swing weapons, really, unless we trained ourselves. I mean, nobody here even has a killer instinct—”

  “Then what makes us soldiers?” She pulled at her garb. “Fancy clothes and decorative blades? You’d have had us all stand in surrender, wait for the pillage of our camp to be done, so we could be left with nothing but to walk all the way to the nearest city, while you and all your buds would snack on our rations.”

  Tykas took a careful step toward her. “Alana… I think maybe you were left scarred by your grandmother’s killing. Killing begets more killing, as evil begets more—”

  “Leave your damn scripture at home. If God was about, none of that last night would have happened to begin with. God doesn’t go as far as Acrypa. That’s why we have to.” She turned away. From there, she spotted Grandmaster Soren, approaching from beyond the river. “Hells, here comes more of it.”

  The man approached anxiously. Tykas turned his back and made a few steps away, hoping to leave them to their conversation, but to hear just enough to get the gist.

  “Alana, you did a soldier’s job last night. I thank you for that.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Those soldiers seemed taken by the devil. I don’t know if they planned violence or just to twist my arm into having us all turn back together. But you prevented that.”

  “Sir—can I ask?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “What was Glenroy doing during the riot?”

  “…The drill sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. My understanding is that he’s supposed to protect you at all times.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “He, er… Well…”

  Alana raised her eyebrows. Her face was fierce and commanding.

  “Glenroy passed away from heatstroke that night. The soldiers saw his body and they believed… Some of them, believed, that it was an act of God, telling us to turn around. Or they believed he’d been killed by Acrypa’s spirits. They were scared. They were looking for a way out.”

  “And for nine of them, I gave it to them.”

  Soren’s concern was obvious through the wrinkles on his old face. “The three around me; I think, not that I begrudge your choice, but I believe I could have talked some sense into them.”

  “We all would have ended up turning back if there was any talking done.”

  “But nine people still would live…”

  “Some things can’t be achieved without violence.”

  Soren sighed, not a sigh of impatience or frustration, but a sigh of consideration. “Alana… All of man’s problems for centuries have been solved by communication, by working together, by finding compromise. Violence by most sorts is forbidden in most countries—and the vast, vast majority of people oblige. The sort of ‘sibling’ violence between you and Tykas could have been forgiven by the church, but this sort of thing, last night’s actions…!”

  “I don’t need your church to forgive me.”

  “Alana!” he hissed disapprovingly.

  “My father knew what being a soldier was really about… Our false peace won’t last forever—and when it crumbles, you’ll wish you’d had more fighters like me.”

  Soren didn’t understand; he couldn’t understand, as she walked away, what it was that made her so. No human alive on their earth had ever held even a passing regard for violence. Even hunters, killing their food to give to their families, had nothing but remorse, and committed rituals to mourn their dinner every night in which they’d feast upon such flesh. Their world, Evra, was not a violent world. Alaron was a place of immense, infallible peace. So what was it? Why was Alana so... so different?

  And as she clutched her chest, storming away toward the western woods... She could only wonder the very same thing: Why? Why do I feel this way!?

  Tears ran down her cheeks.

  I’ve never felt like this before... But last night, everything changed! I’ve never wanted so badly to hurt people... I never wanted to hurt anyone!

  She squatted down suddenly and hugged herself, letting her sobs fall free. God, damn it all! Who am I? What am I becoming…?

  And as her sobs grew greater and greater, she felt Tykas, and eventually Grandmaster Soren, put their hands consolingly on her back…

  “Gramma Tir…?”

  “Yes, Alana?”

  That same cabin in the woods. Home. Familiar. Safe.

  “Do people kill each other?”

  “Not here, Alana. They once did, in the world this one grew from.”

  “The world this one…? You mean this world’s mom?”

  Tir chuckled. “Something like that. There was a world which existed before our own, one where violence reigned and people fought wars over little more than land and power. That’s where your father came from.”

  “And my mom?”

  “She came from much the same place.”

  Alana sat thoughtfully for a moment. “Why don’t people kill each other anymore? Did something change?”

  “Your father fought a very hard and long war. The demon that made people kill, that brought violence to the minds of people… He eradicated it.”

  Alana had been baffled at the time, impressed at her father’s capabilities, left in wonderment at how the very world itself functioned…

  But that meteor…

  In the back of her mind, always…

  That meteor had brought something cruel back to mankind.

  That meteor brought the shadows of a dozen off-worlders… And it brought the pulsing vibrations of a distant god, looking to speckle his scales with the threat of world-ending bloodshed once again…

  A hulking figure bounded through a thick of trees like a hunter 'neath the full moon. He hummed a growl of dissatisfaction as he came to his resting place; the growl of an animal landing just atop his prey. The growl of a bestial hunter.

  And the hunter, too, knew that he was being trailed. The hunter is ever prone to becoming the hunted, given enough time...

  "Stay back from here, weapon." he commanded into the blackness of the woods behind him. Though his focus was locked steadfast to the blazing fallen star in the trees ahead, he could not neglect to watch his back.

  "...What is it?" asked the girl's voice from behind him. "It's violence. Isn't it?"

  The metaphor made for a bitter taste in his mouth. Violence itself could not land from the sky, no matter how peaceful a world. But her observation seemed most astute; he could not deny that this thing seemed to be violence made manifest.

  "Alaron changes, for the first time in many years. The dream is affected by the outsiders..."

  The figure growled, "Spare me your riddles. I've heard enough of those to last five more lifetimes."

  "...Did God put you back here?"

  "Which one?" He turned his attention back to the blazing blue comet, smattering his hair and huge, naked body in its glow.

  She hesitated. “This isn’t your world.”

  "Are you suggesting it's time that I leave?" His claws grew sharp between his fingers. Not the fingers of a man; he was more beast than that. They watched together as the lights danced and flickered. They watched as it burned and radiated and pulsed. He considered that it may be the last thing he would see, until he would be reborn again.

  “People will be here by dawn,” said the girl. “They’ll want to know what they saw in the night sky.”

  "Ever the curious lot, man was. Too bad, they never know what they're in for."

  "Are you here to protect them?"

  He answered with another growl: "We'll know as soon as your god or mine have anything to say. But the gods have stayed quiet for all of my lives."

  "...It's beautiful, in an ugly way."

  "If you're here to kill me, blade, let it be done with. I don't desire to spend time in a realm on its brink."

  The figure finally approached from the shade of the trees—she was just a young, pale girl, with slick black hair down to her waist. "Why do you call me these names? Weapon, blade...?"

  "Because I already know your name, and your god. But demons' names can be spells upon themselves."

  "The magic is low here, in Alaron. You're under no threat. I would be indulged, if you would say my name...?"

  The figure grumbled in annoyance. "I have no intention to appease a demon of a race long since forgotten. More importantly, I need a map—you said this place is Alaron? It's...?" When he looked back, she was already gone. Perhaps he'd upset her. He stood with one final sigh, broad and strong against the glowing backdrop... And then he, too, rushed off into the darkness...