She awakens a little while later, after a confusing dream of running through a city full of gleaming towers. 

Slowly, she stirs, her tail twitching. 

... Her bed seems kind of hard. And something's poking her in the face. It's... a bunch of... blades of grass?

Wait what the fuck - 

She sits up hastily. 

She's sitting in the middle of a clearing amid trees, surrounded by forest on all sides. 

She's still wearing the clothes she went to bed in, but they're too loose. Too big on her. 

She has a tail.

Oh. Clearly she's dreaming. 

It feels amazingly realistic though. 

Slowly, she gets up, trying not to let her skirt slide off. Fortunately it has an elastic waist so it's more her shirt that's overly baggy, though it still sits at a bit of a jaunty angle.

...she does appreciate that she apparently has significantly larger breasts in this dream.

She pauses for a moment to feel herself up. 

... Honestly, that's a really bright sensation for a dream... 

... She's starting to feel kind of cold. It's a nice spring day but she's not dressed for the weather at all. 

Okay she needs to find civilization. 

She looks up over the trees, trying to find a landmark.

She's surrounded by tall pines. Crows sit in the upper boughs, looking at her curiously. 

Over the forest, she can see a distant column of smoke rising. 

People!!! 

She's lucky. 

She tries to get her bearings through the wood...

And suddenly she has an instinctive knowledge of exactly the path she needs to take to get there. 

Well, that's dreams for you. 

She takes off at a run.

It doesn't feel particularly straining. Her body feels light and responsive in a way that her real one just wouldn't be able to match. Every step feels natural and effortless. 

There's a town a few kilometers away. She'll meet there. 

Instinctually, she does a roll and a flip over a small bush, and doesn't even slow down. 

She's built for this. 

Her tail streams out behind her like a banner, a flag. 

She's going to be okay. She can just tell.

There is something following her. 

It steps through the forest, thump-thump-thump. 

Distantly, she can see its head passing through the trees as it pushes branches away. 

It's a fucking troll. 

OKAY SHE IS SPRINTING NOW

Eventually she manages to lose it, but she can feel her body flirting with the edge of exhaustion. 

It seems to be an all-or-nothing thing now.

She slows to a walk, and starts picking her way through the forest in the vague direction of the town. 

Hopefully there won't be any more monsters.

Monsters like this plodding zombie that's milling around in the forest?

NO THANK YOU

She can't escape it, and she can't fight it...

She can't fight it? 

... Her body feels like she can. 

She snaps a limb off a tree, and wheels to face it.

It shambles towards her, slow and plodding.

SHE HITS IT IN THE FACE WITH THE TREE BRANCH

It groans and falls back a step.

Tree branch club go???

She keeps whacking it. 

Eventually it falls over and goes still. 

She just won a fight with a zombie? With no weapons except a tree branch? 

Kind of a lame zombie to be honest.

... But where there's one zombie there's often more. 

She should get inside by nightfall.

On she goes through the woods.

Eventually she breaks free of the trees, and into a larger clear area. 

In the forest stands a fortified town, surrounded by palisades, with a bonfire burning low in its center.

She hopes they speak her language. 

She approaches the gate. 

"Hello?"

A man in leather armor bearing a spear calls down from the gate. He seems to be speaking some kind of language she hasn't heard before. It sounds sort of like swedish?

He's probably asking where she's from and what she's doing here.

"I'm lost and I have no idea how I got here!" She gestures at her back where there is a noticeable absence of any supplies. "Please let me in?" She walks up to the gate and lays her hands on it, then takes a step back and gives the gate guard her best pleading look. 

The gate guard talks with another gate guard for a few minutes - was that a yes? a no? She thinks it was a "let her in" - and then he opens the gate and beckons her inside.

She advances slowly, cautious. 

The gate guard closes the gate once she's through, and beckons to her.

That much she understands. She follows.

She's led to the center of the town, where a woman in fine clothes is standing by the ashes of the fire, poking them with an iron poker. 

She looks over at her. 

"Skaldir genlos va?"

"I have no idea what you're saying." 

She points to herself. "Hyacinth." 

She touches her own chest. 

"Aria."

Okay, so now drawings?

Now drawings.

Aria draws a forest on a slate with chalk, and a path coming out of it. She draws the path coming out of the forest on the other side and makes a mark there.

Well, she's no sketch artist, but she can try. 

She draws her best impression of a bunch of skyscrapers and breaks the line between them and here.

... It's clear that Aria has no clue what she's trying to convey. 

She draws the mark again, whatever it is. 

Maybe it's a question mark? 

She really wishes she could just show her - 

Something in her makes her take Aria's hand.

And images flash through her mind. The skyscrapers of Vancouver, tall and shining. Where she grew up. The shape of her life so far, mostly characterized by hiding from everything and everyone. Waking up in the forest, all alone. Running from the troll. Clubbing the zombie to death. 

Aria looks at her like she's just grown a second head. A flush has leapt to her cheeks, for some reason. 

She can do that???

She can do that!

Here, have everything she can tell you about Earth.

Aria's expression gets even more shocked. 

Then she takes a breath, and says something to the guards. 

The guard gestures, pointing in a particular direction.

Is that some kind of inn over there?

She'll follow.

The guard leads her into what looks like a bunkhouse. 

He points at a particular bed, and mimes going to sleep.

Oh, okay! Accomodations! 

She will happily sit on the bed.

He nods. Apparently that much translates. 

And then he leaves.

She guesses she'll wait? 

This is kind of anxietymaking.

Eventually, Aria comes into the room as well. 

"Show me," she says, in clear but slightly accented english.

Oh, right, she just sort of shoved everything at her. 

She should be more selective. 

She touches Aria's hand. 

This is what English grammar is like, as best as she understands it... Here are what these words mean...

"You... come from... another... other... world," Aria eventually stumbles her way through.

"Yes."

"I... do not... know... verdok..." 

She fumbles for a moment, then hits on the word she needs. 

"I do no know how return you to world."

Hyacinth's heart falls. 

She had been hoping this was a dream. 

But it doesn't seem so. 

She takes a deep breath.

"That is okay. I stay."

"You stay." 

She nods. 

"You... help?"

She'll try her best. 

"I stay and help."

"Okay."

"I try say... problem." 

She takes a breath. 

"Knight... die. Old knight. Die in woods. Fire not close enough. No new knight. No wood for fire. No wood for fire, monsters take town. I can... get... wood with guards, but slow. Slow run out of wood."

"Think you can get wood. Think you have..." She doesn't have the word. "Thing that make wood good."

She's blushing for some reason.

"I have to go wood? Fight monster?" 

She won, but she doesn't like her chances with that troll she saw earlier.

"We have... weapon. Axe, bow. You shoot monster and then get wood. You kill monster with axe and then get wood. If big monster, run away. Okay?"

She knows a little about how to shoot. And the zombies at least aren't so tough. 

"Okay."

Aria gets a huge grin. 

"Good girl." 

And she reaches out and scratches Hyacinth between the ears. 

"We go get wood together." 

Hyacinth can't help it, she breaks out in a laugh. 

"That's an innuendo on my world. Getting wood."

"In-you-end-o is?"

She grabs her hand, and shows her.

She flushes, then grins again. 

"Innuendo very good. Good teach me this word." 

"What word for thing do after innuendo get wood?"

Hyacinth grins. "Sex."

"Sex. Sex joke good. I had many sex joke with old knight. I..." She pauses. "I sexed old knight. And more than. You understand?"

She squeezes Aria's hand. "You loved the old knight?"

And she shoves her own knowledge of love through the link, all the old relationships she had -

"Yes. I loved old knight. I think can... learn love you. Not know if wood work, but maybe. Wood say truth."

This strange woman thinks she loves her? 

What did she even do?

Well, if love is needed to make the wood work, then... She guesses she'll just have to try. 

"I will try to love you if you need that to make the wood work." 

"Try enough." 

She squeezes Hyacinth's hand. 

"Go together?"

"Yes," Hyacinth says. "We go together." 

"I ask guards get armor, weapons." 

And she steps out of the room, and starts talking quickly.

The guards bring several sets of armor, and some linen clothes that look to be in roughly her size. They're dyed a natural-looking blue, rather than the bright synthetic dyes of her own rose-pattern skirt.

And they leave her her privacy to change.

She intends to change —

And suddenly she's fully wearing the set of armor that fits her. 

That's new. 

Is she some kind of... video game character now?

Experimentally, she picks up her old clothing and attempts to put it into her inventory.

It goes!

Well isn't that convenient.

She could get used to this, she thinks.

She makes sure she can retrieve them again, then puts them back into her inventory.

Fully dressed in linens and leathers, she opens the door to the bunkhouse again.

The guard is clearly surprised to see her dressed again so quickly, but bows and leads her onward.

Aria returns, this time wearing leather armor similar to Hyacinth's. 

"We go together," she says. 

"We go together."

Aria hands her an axe and a bow.

Cool, her first tools! 

She accepts them, and a quiver one of the guards hands her full of flint-headed arrows. 

And out they go through the gates.

As they approach the edge of the woods, Hyacinth can make out more zombies in the words, slowly lurching towards the group. It seems the commotion earlier has drawn them.

"Stand back and shoot," Aria says.

Hyacinth unslings her bow and steps out in front of the group.

The bow she's shot before was a modern compound bow, not a proper longbow like this. It's harder to draw, and a lot harder to keep drawn. 

But her new body can give her full muscle power pretty damn easily. It's like she has some kind of stamina bar.

She pulls back, aims, sights...

And fletches the first zombie right in the chest.

It groans, and keeps staggering towards her.

Right then. One arrow won't be enough. 

She nocks a new arrow, and keeps firing.

It takes three shots to bring it down. by which point the rest of the zombies have closed a good distance. It looks like there's at least a half-dozen of them.

She keeps shooting. She can feel her arms starting to burn now - her stamina bar must be getting low. 

After a couple more shots, the guards nudge her bow down and point at her axe.

Right, this is going to be a melee fight.

She pulls her axe and readies herself.

The zombies are slow and easy to hit. It's just that there are a lot of them.

Hyacinth's never fought with an axe before, but it seems to come surprisingly naturally to her. She hits the first zombie in the neck and it crumples. The guards are doing well as well. 

Aria stays back and lets the others fight for her. 

She's probably too important to risk in melee. 

Soon all the zombies are dead. Well. Less animate. 

"Cut wood," Aria says. "Hurry!" 

With her bloodied axe, Hyacinth starts hacking at the base of a young sapling. 

Aria is right there beside her, her own axe in hand.

Neither of the guards are helping. Probably keeping an eye out for more zombies.

In about half an hour of light harassment by zombies, they harvest several small trees. Hyacinth can work surprisingly fast - it's as if her hands have done all this a thousand times.

Eventually -

"Good! We get many more than we use this day. Get back to town." 

Hyacinth puts all of the wood into her inventory, and moves.

Aria seems surprised, but when Hyacinth brings the wood back she nods, seeming to understand it's a form of transport.

And back they all retreat to the walled town.

Aria approaches the fire at the center.

"Now we see," she says. "If wood good or not." 

She extends her hand to Hyacinth.

Hyacinth re-produces the wood from her inventory, and hands a stick of it to Aria that she harvested.

Aria puts it to the flame.

It sputters for a moment...

Then lights.

Aria grins and pumps her fist. 

"Wood good!!" 

She laughs, and sweeps Hyacinth up into a hug.

She stiffens instinctually, on edge at the touch.

Then she takes a breath, and hugs back.

"Wood good!"

Aria carefully pulls away. 

"You okay?"

She nods, a little sadly. 

"I okay."

"I think maybe you not okay. But okay not be okay. Is... lot to happen. In one day." 

"Yeah."

Hyacinth gently squeezes Aria again.

"You... have girlfriends. At home. You worry for them."

"Yeah."

"I am sorry."

"It will be okay. I will return. Someday."

"Someday."

"You want time? Space?"

Hyacinth forces a grin. 

"I want distraction."

"I think maybe not in way you mean. You mean sex, yes?"

"Not sure. Was joke more than real."

... This woman barely knows her, and yet she's falling all over herself to be with her. 

It feels strange. Uncalled for. Unearned. 

Her girlfriends would be okay with it, of course they would, but...

"Why you love me?"

"Complex. You show a lot in little time." 

She considers for a moment, then settles on: "Think you good person. Think you have bad life but try anyway. Think you brave. Think you smart. Think you show more than you mean to."

"... Alright."

She did kind of pour out her whole life into this woman, didn't she. That must have left a mark.

"No sex today," she says. "But hugs very good."

"Is okay," Aria says. "Not mean force you."

"I go... rest?"

"Yes, rest. Tomorrow... is... tomorrow is a new day!" She grins, clearly pleased as punch at remembering the whole idiom.

Gosh, she's kind of cute...

Something to think about tomorrow, she thinks. 

"I go rest." 

And she steps away from the fire, and heads for the bunkhouse.

Aria lets her go.

She retreats to the bunkhouse, and lays in bed. 

It feels oddly familiar, despite the completely changed surroundings. 

Here she is falling back instead of forging ahead. Just like she always does. 

Her girlfriends wouldn't mind, but she would. She hardly knows Aria. 

It's hard to trust. Hard to take that leap. 

She sits on her bed for a long while, hands in her lap, fidgeting as her tail flicks back and forth. 

Does she really have a good reason to turn Aria down? 

She could be lying. She doesn't believe she is, though. 

She's had casual partners before. All online, but...

She doesn't even have a penis anymore, and she doubts Aria would have one either. The sexual health argument is very doubtful, especially when her body functions like a video game character. 

It's just that she's not comfortable leaping from her girlfriends' arms right into another woman's, at the first hint of separation...

What is she not looking at.

... Oh. 

If she falls in love with Aria, she might have to choose. 

To choose between her and the people she's left behind. All the people she loves already. 

It would only be the case if she was stranded here for a long time - years, not days or months - but it could happen. And that's terrifying. 

... now that she sees that, she can talk to Aria about it. 

It'd be a really difficult conversation, especially through the language barrier, but... 

She takes a breath. 

She can do this. She thinks she can do this. 

She stands up from the bed, and goes to the door. 

When she opens the door, Aria's waiting for her outside with a knowing look in her eyes. She's already changed out of her leather armor into a dark green dress.

She blushes and ducks her head to try and hide it. 

"Um."

"Talk to me," Aria says.

This isn't complicated. 

She takes Aria's hand, and shoves all her confusion, all her fear, all her worry for the people she's left behind, the worry that she'll be stuck here forever, her lack of knowledge of what even happened to her, and her fear of never seeing the people she loves again into the link. 

Aria leans in, and very gently kisses her on the forehead. 

She just nods.

She guesses it's up to her. 

It feels wrong to be - shacking up with a random medieval villager when her girlfriends are probably panicking. 

She's probably being too harsh with herself. They'd want her to be happy. It's not going to stop her from still searching for them. 

Maybe a complicated conversation to have, next time she meets them, but... 

The truth is, it would be an enormous comfort to have someone here to rely on.

She doesn't have to do anything she's not comfortable with.

"Can you maybe... come cuddle me?"

"Fire will burn alright today. Will cuddle." 

And she takes Hyacinth's hand, and leads her away from the bunkhouse. 

Wait, hold on a second, she thought that she was staying there - 

The bed would have been a little narrow, but...

Aria points at a large house near the centre of the village.

Oh. 

Aria is taking her home. 

Well what is she going to do about that if she wants her to come cuddle her. In her house. Alone. 

She did promise, and all.

The house is comfortable and wide. There's a simple rug on the floor, and a small kitchen with a flue to let the smoke out. It's not centrally heated, but at this time of day it's cozy enough. 

Aria starts a small fire in the kitchen hearth, then leads Hyacinth upstairs and into her bedroom. 

It's a cozy medium-size room, lit by wall sconces with glowing crystals in them. There's a double bed in the centre, with an intricately woven set of sheets and a linen duvet stuffed with down. There's a small tablet-weaving setup on a desk to the side of the room, and a small collection of a half-dozen parchment books. A table with a map of the area sits by a wide double window inset with stained glass patterns. 

For a medieval dwelling, it's pretty impressive. And somewhat anachronistic. 

She sits down on the bed cautiously, still holding Aria's hand.

Aria gets a faraway look, and squeezes Hibiscus' hand. 

"Thinking of something?" 

She sends the question wordlessly as well, through their hands.

"Old knight," she says with a half-smile. 

Then she pats the bed. 

"Was ours."

Well that definitely complicates things.

She sends her wordless reaction through the link, confusion and sorrow and a feeling of stepping in to replace something she shouldn't.

"It is normal," Aria says softly. "To lose knights. Not common. But normal."

She says it so simply. Like it's that easy to get over it all. 

Suddenly Hibiscus has a lot more respect for this woman. Not because she doesn't care about her old knight - it's clear she does care - but because she had the courage to love even knowing she'd probably lose them. 

"... Do you want a hug?" 

"Yes. Very yes."

Gently she leans in, and hugs Aria. 

On her bed. That used to be - her marriage bed? 

She doesn't know. 

What a lovely tangle she's gotten herself into.

She parts from her a little unwillingly, and exhales. 

"I have... people waiting for me."

"I know this."

"Are you sure you want to love me anyway?"

Aria's lips quirk up, and she laughs. 

"Not a choice."

Hibiscus laughs too. Ask a stupid question. 

... "Okay. Feels very complicated, but... we can cuddle." 

She pauses. 

"Just cuddle. For now." 

"Okay." 

And Aria gestures to the bed, inviting Hibiscus to lay down. 

She sheds her leather armor, putting it back into her inventory, and lays down in the simple linen dress. 

Aria slips into bed, already having shucked her own armour, and embraces Hibiscus gently from behind.

... She's taller than her. 

Huh. 

She presses in, and closes her eyes for a little while.

It's simple. Cozy.

It helps.

Aria just holds her amid the soft sheets, and they rest together. 

It feels intimate. 

There's so much between them, and yet...

She's not going to think about the implications right now. She's just going to rest.

Aria hums gently into her ear, a wordless tune she doesn't know.

Slowly, like unclenching a muscle, she lets herself feel. 

God is she ever lucky to have met this woman inside an hour of being in this world.

Does she love her?

... maybe not yet. But she can see herself coming to.

She will just have to try.

Time passes, slowly.

"... Aria?"

"Yes?"

"What does the fire do?"

"Protect village."

"Yes, but... how?"

"Make monster... tame. Tamer. Near fire. Keep away bad monster. Tire monster who stay. And... heal people who die. If close enough."

"You have ressurection?"

"Only kind of. Old knight not healed."

"Right." So it doesn't work on people who have been dead for too long. 

She nudges her understanding at Aria, checking if it's right.

She kisses Hyacinth's shoulder.

"Yes."

"How far is the range?"

"Not sure. No way test without maybe kill someone. Probably cover town. Outside..." She shrugs.

"I see." That explains how the old knight died, if it doesn't reach as far as the closer woods.

"Rest now. More time for question later." 

Hibiscus nods, and closes her eyes.

More time passes.

Hyacinth falls asleep, eventually, exhausted by the running and shooting now that she's somewhere safe.

She wakes to Aria placing a tray of food on a little folding table by the side of the bed for her. 

"Morning," she says softly. "You sleep long time."

She runs a hand through her own hair.

"Mmm. Morning."

Looking out through the stained glass window, it looks like it's barely dawn. 

Did she really sleep that long...?

"It seems like I really slept in." 

"Not so," Aria says. "Your world day and night very long." 

Oh, so days are shorter here.

... oh. She's literally in a survival game. That's what this is. It has respawns, it has zombies, it has bosses probably like that troll from earlier, and it might also have raids on structures...

It's blatantly obvious once she thinks about it the right way. 

She laughs. 

"This world is kind of not blocky enough."

Aria tilts her head, confused.

"What you mean?"

She takes her hand, and sends her her memories of Minecraft.

Aria laughs. 

"Funny similar! Good joke. Eat food?"

Hibiscus sits up in bed, and accepts her morning porridge.

It seems to have honey and... some spice she doesn't know. It's not cinnamon or nutmeg but it's warm and rich.

She could maybe learn to like this world.

"We need go cut more wood?"

Aria nods. "Every day."

"Alright then. After breakfast."

She eats, and slowly the sun comes up. It does seem to be moving a little faster than usual. 

Soon enough, she's done. 

"Alright," she says. "Let's go gather more wood."

Aria nods, and starts putting on her leather armour.

Hibiscus changes instantly, and then heads outside, pulling her axe and bow from her inventory. 

Aria catches up with her within a few minutes, and leads the way to the gate. 

A different guard calls down to her, and points over the walls. 

She beckons to Hibiscus, and climbs the stairs up to the wall.

Hyacinth follows, ready for bad news.

When she reaches the top of the wall, the problem is immediately obvious.

The troll from earlier is sitting out in the forest and eating the rotting bodies of the zombies they killed yesterday. 

Its massive tombstone teeth crush the head of one of the zombies casually and it chews away placidly like a cow. 

It's looking at the town, but seems calm for the moment.

"Fire keep troll tame," Aria says. "So long as no-one go out. Someone go out..." She mimes a bite. 

"If shoot troll from wall, troll come smash wall. Wall strong, will survive, but will need repairs after. So faster can kill troll, best." 

Hyacinth unslings her bow. "Are the guards already gathered to fletch it?"

Aria nods. "They wait for my signal. Fight draw attention of more monster. Could get messy. Want make sure fire stoked."

"I'm ready when you are."

"I bring guards to wall and prepare for shoot together. Wait. When I give signal, start shooting." 

"Alright. Sounds good to me." 

In the next few minutes, Aria brings up a squad of guards and they arrange themselves on the walltop. She pats Hyacinth's shoulder. 

"Listen to guard captain. Anjar, Catar, Va is signal for fire. Fire on Va. I go stoke fire, make sure no-one die."

"Got it." 

She adds herself to the end of the line of guards and draws her bow.

The guard captain raises his hand. "Anjar..." 

The rest of the guards draw their bows and nock arrows, aiming at the troll.

Hibiscus nocks and aims, but doesn't draw. 

"Catar..." 

The guards draw their bowstrings, readying their shots.

Hibiscus aims, trying to hit the troll right in the eye. 

"Va!" 

And as one, the guards loose their arrows. 

Hibiscus is only a moment behind. 

The troll is peppered with arrows. Hibiscus' arrow hits it low, in the ribcage; the other arrows pepper it as well, turning it into a pincushion. Blue blood drools down its limbs. 

It stands up, tosses its half-eaten zombie aside, and lets out a low bellow. 

"Anjar!" 

The guards nock arrows again.

Hibiscus readies her bow with unsteady hands. This thing is tough. She doesn't want to see it up close. 

"Catar!" 

The guards draw their bows. 

The troll raises one meaty arm to shield its face, and stomps towards them at a fast lope. It's big, and that means it's damn fast. Having a stride length three times that of a human will do that.

Hyacinth takes a breath and draws.

"Va!" 

The guards loose.

This time Hibiscus is on cue. 

The troll's arm and body are peppered with shots, but it keeps coming, bellowing rage. 

In a moment it's at the walls. It's not tall enough to just step over but it's tall enough that its meaty fists can reach the top of the wall. 

It swipes with its fist, trying to sweep the guards off the wall. 

The guards, well-trained, duck behind the pointy spikes of the log-tips at the top of the wall, and stay untouched. 

Hibiscus is a little too slow. 

The troll's meaty palm slaps into her, and her bell is rung - 

And a moment later she's swept from the wall and pulled into the air over the troll. 

Its mouth opens wide, wide, wide, tombstone teeth bared. 

Hibiscus draws her axe and flails, trying to hit it in the head with the cutting edge - 

She hits the troll dead center in the middle of the forehead... 

And her axe glances off. It must have one thick skull. 

The troll drops her into its mouth, and its teeth bite down. 

Oh. 

She's going to die. 

There's no time to come to grips with it, no time to be anything but afraid - 

Pain tears through her, intense and breaking -

And a moment later, Hibiscus stumbles awkwardly out of the fire in the center of the village, embers clinging to her leathers. 

Aira douses her with a handy bucket of water, and hugs her close. 

"You close enough." 

And only then does the fear catch up to her. 

"Holy shit I just died." 

"Yes. Troll not dead yet though. Go! Fight! Win! Try not die again!"

In the distance there's another guttural roar. 

"Right." She's going to kill that thing for killing her, that seems the most productive use of her time right now. 

She draws her axe, and makes for the wall. 

When she makes it there, the troll is bleeding in dozens of places, blue blood staining the earth. Half of her old body is on the ground, pressed into the dirt, purple fur tossed around. The guards are taking potshots from behind the wall and slowly whittling it down.  

As she watches, the guard captain draws his bow and fires it directly into the troll's right eye. 

It reaches, up, presses its meaty palm to its eye, and seems confused for a long moment...

Then slumps forward, its body slamming into the wall with a reverberation that shakes the whole palisade, and falls. 

It tries to push itself up, but more shots slam into it from the wall above. 

It tries to drag itself away - but there's no more strength in its limbs. 

Its face falls into the dirt, and it dies. 

Serves the damn thing right. 

... God, that's really half of her body there on the ground. 

She needs to puke. 

She manages to stumble off the wall and find an out of the way corner to retch into. 

All her porridge from this morning comes up, and then some.

That spice tastes a lot worse on the way up than on the way down. 

The guard captain descends the wall, and claps Hibiscus on the shoulder wordlessly. 

He nods. Then he takes a step away and makes a formal bow. 

She guesses everyone here already has a first time they died in combat. 

She manages a shaky smile, and presses her hand to her heart. 

The guard captain points towards the center of the town.

Right, she should go tell Aria the good news.

The fire is still roaring in the center of town when she returns.

Aria looks to the guard captain with a smile, and speaks.

They exchange words for a few minutes, then the guard captain excuses himself. 

"Captain Skadri say you very brave. He say will burn old body. No need you look."

"Good, that's... good." 

She exhales. 

"I died."

"But you still here."

Hibiscus laughs. "Guess I am."

"We go get wood now. Need more, replace wood spent to keep you alive." 

Hibiscus takes a shaky breath. 

"Okay." 

And out to the woods they go, accompanied once more by a pair of guards. 

The rest of the guard force seems to be focused on hauling the troll corpse away from the walls so they can burn it safely. 

They've covered what remains of Hyacinth's old body with a sheet. 

Hyacinth does her best to focus on cutting wood. 

It helps. It's good to remember that she's helping. That her death meant something. That her life still means something. 

A few zombies have been attracted by the noise, but the guards are well-trained and cut them down with not too much trouble. 

Hibiscus takes her time gathering wood this time. She very, very much doesn't want that fire to go out.

The guards slowly tire as the continual trickle of zombies wears them out, but Hibiscus gets a good few hours of woodcutting in before they give the signal to turn back. 

And, wood in inventory, they return to the town.

"Complicated day," Aria says. "Good in the end, but..." She runs a hand softly through Hyacinth's hair. "You look scared."

"I died," Hibiscus says. "Of course I'm scared."

Aria nods. "That just smart." 

She returns to the fire in the center of town, and stokes it.

"Need make sure this keeps burning while any guards outside walls. Not safe for them. But after we cuddle. Okay?" 

"Okay." 

Hibiscus sits down on the same bench Aria is sitting on, and lays her head on her shoulder.

Aria seems surprised - 

But after a moment she wraps her free arm around Hibiscus' shoulders. 

"Rest."

Hibiscus closes her eyes, and does.

By the time all the guards return, the sun is already starting to descend towards the horizon. 

It's been maybe what, four hours? Five? She supposes it'll be night soon, then, if days here are half as long. 

What a day. What a short day. Usually she runs out of things to do and ends up just waiting, but here - 

She smiles slightly, and lets Aria lead her off to her house once again.

The snuggles manifest, as promised. 

And she can close her eyes and rest.

Aria brings her a small snack for supper - wedges of a plum-like fruit, except it has no pit - and then they turn in for the night.

The night passes uneventfully. 

Hibiscus wakes early, as is her habit, and finds that the sun is already up. 

Right. Shorter nights too. 

She goes downstairs and fixes herself some oatmeal in the pot, finds Aria's spices, and prepares some for her as well. 

Then she brings Aria breakfast in bed. It just seems right to do so when she did it for her yesterday. 

Aria rubs the sleep from her eyes and smiles at her, her gaze lingering in a way that speaks of being besotted. 

As Aria eats, Hibiscus lays her hand on her shoulder, and asks. 

Teach me your language, please? I don't want to be relying on you as my interpreter forever.

"Yes! Very yes." 

And Aria starts instructing her, still in her half-taught English. 

Hibiscus gives her more words in exchange through her telepathy, and they practice each other's tongues for a while. 

An hour or so later, there's another venture out to the woods to log, but nothing more troubling than the usual zombies. 

And slowly, they start to fall into a routine. Language lessons and breakfast in the morning, logging over noon, then returning to the town to eat a small supper and turn in. 

The days blur past, each one shorter than Hibiscus is used to. Her body's not very happy about going from a 24-hour sleep cycle to a 12-hour one, but she's managing to adapt, if slowly. 

Eventually...

"I can feel something," Hibiscus says. "Out in the forest. I don't know what it is. It feels a little like... fresh-growing vines. And then beyond it... A long, long way beyond it... I feel city. Maybe a way home." 

"Travel beyond a day out is no joke," Aria says. "If you are out at night you will be killed, almost certainly. And the fire will not bring you back. Are you certain you wish to look?" 

"I think the closer one is easy," she says with a smile. "It isn't far into the woods. The other... is a long journey. I don't know exactly how long. Months, I think."

"Are you determined to try?"

"There are people I love who are waiting for me, and who don't know where I've gone." 

She nods. "Of course I'll try."

"Then you will need guards with you. A caravan. And to follow the roads as best you can. It will be slow, but it's better than dying." 

Hibiscus lets out a heavy breath. 

"Alright."

"If you go, we must stockpile as much wood as we can first. I do not want to leave this town defenceless." 

"You wouldn't come with me?"

"My first duty is to keep everyone in this town alive." 

She says it flatly, little emotion in her voice. It's clear she's trying not to say more.

"Are there no other firekeepers?"

"There are some. In other towns. But I am this town's hearthkeeper. I will not go without a clear and present replacement. I owe that much to Tharida." 

The knight who died for her. So that's her name. 

"Alright." 

She exhales hard. 

"Then I will stay. For now. But once we stockpile enough wood, I'm going to see if there's someone in the next town over who can take care of your hearthtending duties for you."

"Alone?"

"Well, how far is it? Could I stay safe through the night?"

"There are lodges along the roads. Fortified places. Not enough to stop a troll, but enough to deal with... incidental pests." 

She shakes her head. 

"It is still foolhardy to go alone."

"Would you have done it, to see Tharida again?"

"A thousand times."

Aria runs a hand through her hair and sighs. 

"It will be a month or two before we have enough stocks for me to be willing to risk it. You must stay at least until then."

She's been here for all of a week and already she's essential. 

... Funny feeling, that. Warm and scary at the same time. 

"Alright." 

She has responsibilities now, even if she doesn't like it.

"You showed me so much of your world, but I understood so little of it. Could you teach me more?"

Hibiscus knows a straight line when she sees it. 

"Of course, dear Aria. Of course."

And so the days flow by.