FFXI: Phyna's Story
by J.M. Frith

**

Twenty Years Ago...

**

It would be a long time before the memories of that day ever returned to her, and even then, years later, Phyna would only be able to scrape together disjointed fragments and call them a recollection. It had been a battle, she knew that much. Such a great and terrible struggle that she was sure that either it was remembered to this day in history texts and songs, or no one had survived to tell the tale but her, and the specifics had been long forgotten. She never sought to find out, the cold memory of that day in the frozen wastelands being more than enough for her.

She had been a fighter, a warrior. Unrefined, some would say, in the art of fighting. But she was good, knew she had been one of the best, good stand beside one of those specialist fighters, and as many would fall to her sword as the next one.

It had been a last stand, a final struggle. Against what, Phyna wished she could recall, but no matter how hard she tried to remember, the knowledge slipped away from her. She remembered the cold metal of her armour reaching her even through the leather and woollen padding underneath it. Her sword had been held in slowly numbing fingers, the exposed skin on her face painful from the wind chill, and ever so slowly, her motions had become more and more sluggish as the cold penetrated to her bones, and fatigue as the unrelenting hordes swept over the army in wave after wave.

She had stood as close as she could to a man, someone close to her, she thought. A friend, a lover, a husband... yes... her husband, she would later remember, vaguely, thinking of a man who smiled down at her and who would dance with her in the same graceful fashion as he swung his Samurai katana. She often wished she could remember his name.

They fought back to back, she and her husband, protecting one another and cut off from the majority of their forces. The enemy, the Beastmen, the Demons, had tried to break up the ranks as much as possible, and unfortunately Phyna's comrades had succumbed to the enemy, and each was surrounded, fighting for their lives.

Phyna ducked below the deceptively slow strike of one monster, only to raise her shield and deflect the fists of another that would have crushed her before she could regain her footing in the ice and snow. What had been nothing more than a little flurry of snow had turned into a blizzard, making it almost impossible to see any distance. Most of her memory consisted of that blank whiteness, with the dark spiky forms of Demons moving through it, and it filled her dreams on those rare occasions when her sleep was uninterrupted.

She didn't remember when it happened, or even what happened, exactly. She felt more than heard the great crashing blow that sent her husband to the ground, and the way he lay there unnaturally still, the snow already beginning to cover his battered and dented armour, and the manner in which the monsters instantly dismissed him from their attention spoke to her. It told her he was dead, and she stood alone against these creatures.

But she would not idly wait for death to take her, not rely on someone to save her like some sort of weak mage. She was a warrior. She was trained to fight to the very last. And so she did. Though her limbs were heavy, and her grip on her weapon was more a force of will than physical strength, she fought the Demons. No matter where she struck, her sword was no match for the armour of the enemy. And so she simply focused on trying to stay alive, dodging, deflecting, and praying to anything that might have been listening that she would survive to bury her husband.

Any Gods that might have heard her plea were unmerciful. Her foot caught on a rock hidden in the snow, large enough that it caused her to lose her balance, and the next blow from a Demon weapon sent her crashing to the ground. How many times it hit her, she didn't know. It seemed unhurried, content to torment her by beating her bluntly before striking a killing blow. By now she couldn't move, the cold, her injuries, and her fatigue meant she could do no more than lie there, powerless to fight any longer. Had she had the strength, she might have wept.

Then something happened, and she never could remember what. One minute she was feeling bones break and blood seep into the snow, and the next nothing but an eerie silence reigned, punctuated by the howling of the wind. She might have seen the Demons turning towards their fortress of black spikes, but all she knew was that one minute she remembered them there, and the next minute, they were gone, almost as if they had never been.

It was the last, and sadly, firmest memory that Phyna had of her life before. What happened later, was nothing more than scattered words and sensations. She felt herself dragged across the ice, felt the rocking of the ocean, as if on a ship. She remembered a hand swiping across her face, and a voice saying her name.

“Phyna,” she remembered hearing, “Oh, Phyna.”

She remembered the rocking worsening. She remembered screaming.

And then she woke up.

**

Phyna had once, in her youth, thought that the idea that when returning from unconsciousness, hearing is the first to come back, was silly. It was true, though. She could hear the sound of someone moving about the room, and in the distance she could hear the sound of ocean waves roaring in the distance, the sound of the tide. She vaguely tried to move, but it felt like her hands were pinned beneath the blanket tucked about her, and she couldn't even make a finger twitch.

“How is she?” she heard. It was a man's voice, strangely accented. Strange in what way? Phyna found she couldn't quite recall.

“Lady badly hurt, yesh?” There was the clacking of what sounded like something ceramic being moved and set down. “Very wet, lots of bone broken and smooshed. Lady ship crash on reef?”

“Who knows?” A soft grunt, perhaps of displeasure.

“Ooh. Poor Lady. Her ship crashed and no one left. Very sad.”

Phyna vaguely felt she might have enough energy to try and and move, but in the end, she only managed to prise open one eye, and couldn't focus. She saw a hazy shape of blue, and a smaller one of brown before she was forced to close her eyes once more. She tried to move, and this apparently drew the attention of the others in the room.

“She awakens. Tend to her.”

There were footsteps and a low voiced grumbling. “Tend to Lady. Valaroon been tending to sickies longer time than silly Immortal.” A small hand, gentle, touched her forehead, and Phyna felt a cool cloth being gently laid there. She prised open her eyes and found her strength returning enough to focus on what could only be described as an impressively long nose.

The creature was small, with ears as long as its nose and had hands ending in three long claws. All in all, it looked rather like a rather oversized mouse. It was clad in loose leather garments, and was peering at her with an unerringly curious expression in its blue eyes. “How Lady feeling?” it said, and Phyna connected the voice with this 'Valaroon' that had been speaking.

She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice cracked and nothing emerged but a dry whisper. She tried to lick her lips, but her tongue felt like rough paper. The creature waddled out of sight for a moment before returning with a slightly chipping mug. “Lady drink this,” it said and Phyna, after a moment of listening to the voice and mannerisms of the creature gained the sense that it was female, “and slowly.”

Phyna did as she was told, cautiously sipping a little at a time at blissfully cool clean water, and only Valaroon's prompting stopped her from guzzling it all down. The mug was empty soon enough, and Phyna found swallowing wasn't so much of a chore. Valaroon took the mug from her, her claws clinking against the porcelain and turned the cloth on her forehead over with her other hand.

“Now, you tell Valaroon Lady's name.”

What was her name? She licked her lips, trying to impart moisture to them.

Phyna... oh Phyna...

“Phyna...” she said uncertainly, and was faintly dismayed at how rough her voice was. There was an odd catch in her throat and she reached up with a hand that she managed to worm out from under the blankets to touch an ugly-feeling scar that ran in a slash diagonally down to her collarbone.

Valaroon watched her trace the scar and set aside the mug, saying, “Looks like Phyna's ship got into a fight with the jaggedy-jaggedy rocks and lost, yesh?”

“No, I...” Phyna hesitated, and found suddenly that she couldn't remember. “I was in a fight but... a battle I... where was I? Where am I?” She struggled to a half-sitting position, but her body betrayed her, leaving her sagging back against the padding of the bed she was lying in, her strength having deserted her. She glanced around. Brick walls, pots and jars of various types, and an ornate door blocking the chamber off from the rest of the world. None of it familiar. “What's going on?

What are you? Why...” She raised a shaking hand to her face and pressed the bridge of her nose tightly. Pain spiked behind her eyes and she almost felt like crying from the sheer confusion of it all. “Oh dear Goddess what...?”

Valaroon was looking at her with clear concern. The little creature pulled over a wooden stool and hopped onto it, putting her at eye level with her patient. “What /do/ you remember?” she asked.

“I... nothing...” She did cry then, feeling the dampness welling up, helpless to stop it. “Help me, I don't even... who am I?

I don't know... I don't remember...”

Valaroon took the cloth from her forehead, dipping it in a bowl of water next to her, wringing it out carefully. “This is what Valaroon knows, yesh?” She carefully, gently, wiped Phyna's face, wordlessly cleaning her tears, and Phyna couldn't help but feel somewhat soothed by the wordless gesture of comfort. “Fishing boat goes out and finds you in little dingy drifting along waves like poor little leaf, yesh... poor Phyna battered and bruised and broken, and the Immortals sees you and brings you to Valaroon. Heal Lady, they says, so I does the healing.” She rinsed and wrung the cloth out once more, before replacing the cloth on her forehead. “They thinks you some fisher person. Imperial doctors too good for Lady, so little Valaroon sees to things.”

“Fishing? I...” Phyna struggled to remember. To remember a life, a place anything... but every time she tried to reach into that past that she knew /had/ to be there somewhere, all she could see was... “Ice. I remember... ice. And a battle. Dark spikes and shadows. A big battle.”

Valaroon's nose twitched. “Perhaps you is from the Middle Lands, yesh?” The little creature seems quite excited at the prospect. “Whispers in Al Zahbi say great battle fought in the icy cold of the Middle Lands. Great great battle. Many warriors die, maybe...” Valaroon faltered, and the small clawed hand carefully patted her arm. “Maybe this is where Phyna came from, yesh?”

“I...” Phyna just closed her eyes and tried to will her thoughts into order.

“This is also what Valaroon knows,” the small healer said, “This is Al Zahbi, the Imperial capital, yesh? Valaroon is a healer, only little skill. Little magics, potions and poultices. Little things. Valaroon is Qiqirn, since Phyna asked.” She make a little snorting squeaking sound that Phyna guessed was supposed to be laughter. “And you don't remember maybe because of being so battered and broken, yesh? Lady hurt her head and things go all scrambled funny. Like eggs.” She hesitated and added, “Phyna has been here nearly two weeks already. Immortals not tell Valaroon anything else. Except that strange one here just now. Maybe thought you were spy, yesh?” The Qiqirn seemed amused. “As if you could spy in your state.”

“If I'm a spy,” Phyna said, her voice hollow and sounding odd to her own ears, rougher and catching on occasional words.

“Then I don't remember it.”

Valaroon eyed her carefully. “If you are,” she said, slowly, “Then you are to be disappointed. No way back to the Middle Lands, oh no. The Empire doesn't let just anyone travel abroad, and the Immortals will be watching you.” She tapped her claws together in a thoughtful gesture.

“Think they'll arrest me?”

Valaroon snorted, but it sounded more like a sneeze. “Doubtful. You can barely walk. If you're a spy, Valaroon is a Mithra.”

Phyna didn't manage to stop herself from reflexively glancing down, looking for a tail. Valaroon caught the glance and laughed, a high pitched sound that wasn't as piercing as it should have been. “Well, Miss Probably-Not-A-Spy Lady, you're getting better. You'll be out of Valaroon's claws quick-quick if you're good.” She pulled a large mug off the sideboard and held it out to Phyna.

“Now,” she said, “Drink your soup.”

And that, it seemed, was that.

**

In total, she spent a little over a week in Valaroon's care after she awoke. Mostly it was an attempt on the part of the Qiqirn healer to try and see if Phyna's memories would return. When her mind stubbornly remained blank, Valaroon had little alternative but to release her from her tiny healer's quarters. There were, after all, other people who needed her services, and Phyna wasn't in a state that necessitated monopolising the healer's attentions.

So Valaroon kicked her out, and Phyna found herself in the uncomfortable position of needing to find work. Coinage didn't grow on trees, though she did manage to finda few spare bronze pieces that had fallen out of people's pockets and rolled behind doorways. It was enough to pay for a room and something to eat for a day or two while she tried to find something to do.

There wasn't much work for someone of her lack of rank, background, and the fact that even she didn't even really know much about her own abilities. All she knew, from those vague memories of snow and ice and dark, spiky forms, was that she was a fighter. And so, in the end, that was what she chose to do. The Empire might have a large standing army, but they never turned down new fighters to guard the Capital. Ultimately, after demonstrating her abilities (which surprised even Phyna – apparently though her mind had forgotten the specifics of battle, her body had lost none of its remembrance), the Captain of the Guard had assigned her to the Commoner's Ward. As an outsider, she couldn't have hoped for a better posting than that. It seemed the Empire was not inclined to trust easily. But it was work, it put coins in her purse, and it was better than starving to death on the streets.

So she did her job uncomplainingly, even if it did mostly require the breaking up of fights at night went workers had one too many drinks, and were belligerant and often violently ill all over her uniform.

It was unpleasant, yes, but it was life. And after a few months, she could almost allow herself to believe she had always been here, and that there had been no life beforehand, that time now shrouded in the cold whiteness that pervaded her dreams.

Her days passed in guard duty, and sleeping in her small pokey accomodation grudgingly paid for by the Empire in return for her services. Little more than a pallet bed, with a few rickety drawers and a rug that looked like it had been ravaged by a plague of insects a long time ago. Her only change in her routine was when she took her wages at the end of the week and indulged herself by heading for the teahouse, buying coffee, and nursing it for as long as it would stay warm. She enjoyed sitting cross-legged on the cushions, watching the world go by.

She remembered the first time he had approached her, out of the blue, as she sat on the cushions, sipping at the dregs of her cup.

“Try this.”

Phyna looked up as a shadow crossed over the coffee set before her, marring her contemplation of the colour of the liquid as the sun shone down upon it. She frowned slightly, glancing from the teacup the stranger proferred to the stranger himself.

“No, thank you,” she said stiffly, feeling her mood sour. Ever since word had gotten around that she was a strange person with a strange accent who could barely remember her own name and nothing more besides, she'd had all manner of people come up to her and try and engage her in conversation, which usually was a way for them to theorise on who she was and where she came from. Perhaps they flattered themselves into thinking they might jog her memory.

Phyna had long since grown irritated with such attentions, and had gained something of a reputation for surliness as she had taken to releasing her frustrations on those stupid enough to approach her. Eventually word had gotten around of the bad-tempered-stranger and people had stopped coming. Phyna found she didn't really mind such a thing.

“You really don't know what you're missing,” the man said, mildly, dropping onto the cushion opposite her, folding his legs neatly and setting two tea cups down before him. “It's a new blend that just became available this morning.”

Phyna narrowed her eyes and studied him a little more carefully. He was the very epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. Tanned skin, deep brown unreadable eyes, and silky black hair tied back at the nape of his neck that came down to his shoulders.

Phyna blinked as she realised the direction her thoughts were starting to wonder and flushed slightly, feeling embarrassed at her scars and disfigurements as she had not in a long time. She quickly took a sip of her coffee to cover any drooling that she might have unwittingly performed, and forced her mouth into a disapproving line as she set the cup down.

“I don't recall inviting you to be seated,” she said, attempting to inject some acid into her tone.

The man either didn't hear it, or didn't care, and she suspected the latter. “Ah, but tea ought to be shared. It is a game for connoisseurs of great beverages to dissect and contemplate the subtle brews.”

She licked her lips and sighed. Maybe if she played his game, he would go away faster. She had no intention of being gawked at. “I prefer coffee.” She waved the cup in her hand to demonstrate.

He pulled a face. “An unrefined drink. You need to broaden your palette.” He pushed the second of his cups towards her and gave her a placid look. “If you can tell me all that you can taste in this tea, I will go away and never bother you again.”

Too good an offer to resist. Setting down her coffee, she picked up the delicate china of the teacup and took a tiny sip.

Flavour burst over her tongue and, unable to help herself, her eyes widened. She blinked up at the man, who smiled back at her.

“Good, is it not? Ah, but forgive my rudeness. While all in Al Zahbi seem to know your name, you do not know mine. I am Jovan...”

And that had been the beginning of a very odd friendship. For the next hour or so after that, they had talked about nothing more consequential than tea and the components thereof. When Jovan had finally excused himself, Phyna found that she was feeling more peaceful and relaxed than she had in a long while. Talking about inanities, allowing herself to ignore the fact that she couldn't remember her own life, it had soothed something she hadn't realised was irritating her.

She had resigned it to being a one-off event, and had been surprised when the next day, at the same time, he turned up, another cup of tea in hand to share with. He knew she was from somewhere else, and had no recollection of her past, and so didn't seem to feel the need to comment. For that alone, Phyna would have been grateful to him.

As time went on, however, he occasionally missed days, begging off with the statement that he had other duties to attend to.

Phyna couldn't, in good conscience, object, since often she had to stand guard in the Commoner's Ward herself. But she found herself disappointed on the days when she sat in the Teahouse, and Jovan never came.

Often, however, Valaroon kept her company when she would otherwise have sat alone, and Phyna wouldn't have begrudged her dear little friend's company for anything. The Qiqirn made a faintly comical sight as she held the cup delicately between her claws, and under her twitching nose as she sniffs the delicate aroma as it wafted up from the surface of the tea.

“Ah,” Valaroon said, as she breathed deeply, before taking a sip of the tea. “Outdone themselves this time. Delectable.

Tasty. Yum-yum.” Normally, for a Qiqirn, Valaroon was extremely well spoken, but it seemed the tea was enough to render her inarticulate. “Yuuum...” she repeatedly, apparently extremely pleased.

“You're so easy to please, Vala.”

Valaroon slurped noisily on her tea. “Simple things please simple minds.”

Phyna laughed lightly, waving her teacup chidingly, “Ah, but this is not simple. It's a subtle blend of green tea with faint overtones of apple spice and cinnamon.”

“You make it sound like a cake.”

Phyna raised her eyes, squinting against the sun to see Jovan standing behind her, his own cup in hand. He dropped fluidly into a cross-legged position on the cushions next to her, and she tried to ignore the warmth where his leg touched hers.

Valaroon's nose twitched. “Afternoon, sir,” she said, politely, draining the last of her tea. “Ah, but I should really get back to Missy Fielda. She's getting all anxious with the teeny-tiny one on its way.”

Phyna blinked as her friend lumbered to her feet. “Really, I thought that she-”

“Really, don't let Valaroon disturb you. Sickies can be so demanding.” Valaroon smiled at her, and Phyna saw the Qiqirn wink at her in amusement. She glowered and promised herself to get back at Valaroon at some point if she thought she was going to keep trying to let them having some 'time alone'.

“Good day to you, Valaroon,” Jovan said, with a smile, as the healer bobbed her head and took herself off out of the teahouse. As she disappeared, he turned his head towards her as he raised his teacup to his lips. “One almost gets the impression that she's trying to make a subtle point.”

Phyna cleared her throat, ignoring the familiar catching she felt with the gesture. It was almost habitual now. “Perhaps she simply does not enjoy those abysmal puns that you seem to be think are worthy of the name 'joke'.”

Jovan smiled slightly. “Well, perhaps not to everyone's taste,” he said, “Like tea?”

Her lips twitched. “Touché,” she said, and her voice cracked on the word. She pressed her lips together in annoyance at her voice's failings, and took a sip of her drink to soothe her throat.

"I haven't seen you around much, lately," she said conversationally, "I was starting to think you were avoiding me."

Jovan smiled slightly, accepting a cup from a server, having obviously ordered the drink before he had joined Phyna on the low cushions that adorned the teahouse and served as seating. "Now why would I be doing that?"

"Perhaps you'd grown tired of my scintillating personality," Phyna said with a thin smile that she hoped masked the fact that she'd been rather nervous that he'd grown tired of her company. With so few friends, she treasured the ones she did have, like Valaroon, and Jovan.

"Never," he said, with a more genuine smile, and, mollified, Phyna was content to sip her tea with him in companionable silence.

"You look tired," she said, finally, when her cup was empty and she'd broken the monotony by leaning forward to refill it from the small teapot on the table nearby.

Jovan tilted his head at her. "I work many long hours," he said, "And it can be quite... physically taxing."

She pursed her lips. "You never have told me what it is you do for a living. I mean," she used her cup to gesture, "You have sword calluses on your hands, but I've never seen you in the guard ranks, so I know you're not one of the soldiers there."

She scrunched up her nose in thought. "Mercenary."

"No," He shook his head, and seemed almost amused.

"Circus sword-dancer type?"

This time his mouth definitely twitched. "No."

"Well," Phyna sighed, resigned to not being able to extract the secret of his vocation from her friend, "Whoever your mysterious employers are, they ought to give you a little more time off. You could use a break, some free time."

Jovan looked around him pointedly. "This is my free time. I find this quite companionable and relaxing. I enjoy spending time with you, Phyna."

Phyna eyed him a moment, then bit her lip, screwed up her courage and said, "Of course, if you wanted, we could spend a little time together away from this place, and all these people."

Jovan was looking at her with his inscrutable eyes, but saying nothing. She plunged ahead, ignoring the small voice in the back of her mind that was devoutly telling her this was a bad idea.

"Perhaps," She continued, looking up at him slyly over the lip of her cup, "You could come with me back to my home. We could always share some of that 'grape juice'," she made the quotation marks with a wiggle of her little finger of the hand holding the cup, "That I have in stock."

The silence was all that Phyna had hoped not to hear. Jovan was staring at the smooth amber surface of his tea, apparently trying to decide how to respond to her. Phyna could almost taste the solid ball of lead that had appeared in her stomach.

“Phyna,” he said, quietly. “While I appreciate the sentiment... it is somewhat unasked for.”

Phyna felt cold, icy embarrassment creeping over her. “I'm sorry,” she grated out, and hurriedly took a sip of her tea to try and banish the sudden chill. “Inappropriate of me. Stupid, even. Forget I did anything, in fact-” She dropped her cup onto a nearby low table and got to her feet. “I should probably be going.”

Jovan, it seemed, was having none of it. Before she could move away, his hand was around her wrist, tight enough to cause a twinge of pain. She hadn't even seen him move. “Sit down,” he said, quietly.

Phyna opened her mouth to argue, but one look at his stony expression convinced her to do otherwise, and with only a sullen look as argument, she dropped back onto the floor cushions. The other patrons were devoutly pretending not to be watching, but Jovan's expression convinced many of them to turn that pretense to reality. Suddenly there was a lot of clear space around the two of them.

Phyna glanced at her wrist, which he still held, and then at Jovan, who seemed, unusually, to be searching for what to say.

“Phyna, it's not you...”

“Are you going to tell me you don't like women?”

Jovan, for a moment, looked totally shocked, and then he laughed. It was so rare to pull a genuine laugh out of the man, rather than the small half-smiles he favoured that Phyna was willing to suffer the indignity of being manhandled to hear it.

Apparently it broke the tension for him, as he released her wrist and leaned back. She fought the instinctual urge to rub it, ignoring the pain.

“Nothing like that, my dear,” he said, and this time his smile was a little sad. Two genuine expressions of emotion in a row were a little too much for Phyna to comprehend, and so she just waited for him to explain himself. “It's complicated.”

Phyna shrugged slightly, shifting uncomfortably on the cushions. “I have time.”

“Ah, but not the wherewithall to comprehend it, I think.” He reached out again, slowly this time, and took her hand gingerly.

She realised that he knew he had managed to cause her pain with his previous actions. “I am not... well, let us say that I've changed, that there is more to me than lies within most Hume souls. Or maybe less.”

She looked down at where he held her. His hands had sword callouses, not unlike her own, the fingers solid, nails short but unbitten, neatly trimmed instead. Hume hands. What could he be talking about? “I don't understand,” she said, honestly.

“More's the pity, really,” He ran a thumb over the back of her hand slowly, rhythmically, and Phyna swallowed against the dryness in her mouth. “You have such potential. I hope the others see that.”

This time an expression of her lack of understanding seemed somehow insufficient. She just stared at him, and he sighed, releasing her once more, and taking up his cup, re-establishing that distance between them.

“I know you don't understand,” he said, “And that's why all we'll have is tea.”

Phyna licked her lips, staring down at her hands, lying limply in her lap, before she screwed up her courage and asked, “And nothing more?”

Jovan offered her a half-smile. “Well, perhaps, in time, we shall see, shan't we?”

**

How long ago had that day been? Months? It must have been, since the event was dulled around the edges, and for some reason, had been stirred to the forefront of her mind. Phyna supposed it was because she had been sitting in the teahouse, drinking her favourite blend, when the call to arms had rang out, and she had been forced to run all the way through the city with barely any time to prepare to the Commoner's Ward. Word had come from the scouts. The Beastmen were on the march, preparing to attack the city.

Beastmen attacks on the city weren't uncommon. In fact, they were downright routine. Usually their ranks were somewhat thinned outside the city by eager mercenaries keen to earn whatever shiny bauble the Empire had promise them. As she took her place with the others of the guard, hearing the thudding of bolts as the ward was sealed off from the rest of the city, she was surprised to see a familiar small Qiqirn darting about.

“Vala!” she called out, attracting the healer's attentions. “What are you doing here?”

Valaroon paused, clacking her claws together in a faint expression of anxiety. “Valaroon was visiting sickie when alarms sounded.”

There was a crunching sound, and the gates trembled. Valaroon squeaked. The common nature of attacked meant that as wood splintered and iron warped as the gargantuan trolls stormed the entryways, Phyna was not surprised, not frightened, simply ready.

“You should get out of here,” she told Valaroon, sternly.

Valaroon ignored her, apparently having made up her mind. “There will be sickies,” she said stubbornly. “Valaroon will do her job.”

And before Phyna could stop her, Valaroon was scampering to the far side of the courtyard, where the mages were arranged, out of immediate range of the Beastmen. Phyna saw her friend's face set in an expression of determination as the mages closed ranks, several hands already raised as they called forth protective magics, and then Phyna had no time to watch the Qiqirn, as, with a cry of alarm from several of those closest to the gates, the Beastmen broke through.

It was almost meditative, the way she slipped easily into fighting off the assembled hordes. She forced herself to ignore the cries of those too slow to block attacks, to ignore those who fell under the attacks of the enemy, and only to see the battle, the fight she had to endure.

Time had no meaning when she entered such a state, and Phyna had long since given up on worrying about the fact that went battles ended, she rarely had much recollection of how much time had passed. She saw their ranks thin, and had a brief moment of triumph as the thought crossed her mind that they might have won.

A vain hope. There was the thundering of heavy footsteps outside of the city walls, and the few who could spare an eye to look outside were crying warnings.

Sweat slicked her palm, and she tightened her grip on her sword as a new wave of Beastmen swept through the gates.

Immediately, several broke away from the main force, barrelling through the courtyard in an apparently suicidal plunge. Their strategy was all too clear, however, as hoarse yells went up from the mage ranks, and Phyna's peripheral vision caught sight of robed individuals suddenly breaking their ranks and spreading into the melee, trying to lose their attackers in the chaos.

She had no time to curse the timidity of the mages, though, as the situation grew more desperate and grave.

There was an intense familiarity of it all. There was no snow, just the harsh mid-afternoon sun beating down upon her shoulders, and her tunic quickly became soaked through with sweat. But that sick feeling of desperation that lay in the pit of her stomach was the same, and the way the world narrowed down to her immediate surroundings was the same. She still heard the bellows of the Beastmen, and the screams of the city defenders, but it all seemed somehow removed from immediacy. Blood pounded in her hears, masking the sounds around her, and shrinking her focus.

It may have been a long time ago that she was a warrior rather than a simple city guard, and though it was true she barely retained enough recollection to know she could hold a sword with skill, but it seemed that her body had forgotten nothing.

Though it pulled unpleasantly at scars, and unused muscles protested the movement, she dodged and weaved, her sword swinging in a wide arc to drive back her attackers, giving her enough space to precisely batter one in particular with a series of blows that left it with its armor cracked and a faint manner of befuddlement about it. Her sword flashed left and right, and other defenders pressed in around her to help.

She thought that in a previous life she must have enjoyed dancing. In spite of how her blood pounded, she breathed slowly and deeply, and as her muscles fell into the smooth pattern of strike and deflect, thrust and parry, she found it easier.

'As the willow bends in the breeze...' A voice from the past whispered through her head, but the rest of the instruction was lost to time and memories, and Phyna had long since given up attempting to remember such things.

The immediate area around her had been slowly cleared out, and the troll that had been menacing her suddenly grunted, roaring in pain, before stumbling backwards and falling over the crumbling balustrade of the defensive walls. Phyna barely spared a glance to ascertain that it was a brace of arrows that had taken it down, the two archers responsible, who stood at the other end of the bastion from her, already turning their sight to new targets. She looked left, right, and then down.

Giving herself a slight run, she leapt off the defending wall, landing on the courtyard ground, rolling to try to minimise the bone-jarring impact, and was lucky, as she missed the backswing of a massive axe by mere inches.

A hand was thrust towards her, fingers outstretched, and Phyna's mind, already mapping out the area and trying to work out what to do next, saw immediately what the intent was. She didn't notice the richly textured blue fabric of the sleeve as she seized the proferred limb and used the assistance to dance out of the way of another Troll's weapon and gather speed to approach another one, slicing at the exposed points of flesh, to cut through the tendons and muscle, to cripple.

Even as her sword flashed in the sunlight, she felt a warmth by her side, and caught a glimpse of that azure fabric out of the corner of her eye. A second attacker joined her, fighting the monster back, his own sabre dancing in accompaniment to her own. There was a quick sting of relief that an Immortal was standing by her, helping her, but it was quickly subsumed by the narrow tunnel vision of battle. All that mattered was the monsters around her, staying alive.

It was, therefore, something of a surprise when she heard the Beastmen sounding their retreat, and the air filled with the choking tang of a dozen warp spells being simultaneously triggered. There was a pause, and then a slightly disconcerted murmur that arose as the soldiers realised that their enemies had vanished right in front of them.

Phyna felt the nervous energy that had sustained her throughout the fight desert her, and her legs turned to lead. She stumbled to her knees, and stayed there for a moment, breathing deeply, and trying to banish the grey spots from her vision.

She dimly heard some of the fighters left standing pursuing some of the remnants of the attack force, slaughtering them unhindered. Her hair was damp with sweat, and clung to her brow, and stuck to her fingers when she tried to push it back. She gave up, leaning back on her heels as her equilibrium returned, the breeze starting to cool her down, and looked around at the carnage.

The Beastmen had been unusually savage. Bodies, injured or dead, she couldn't tell, littered the ground. Exhausted looking mages stumbled from one to another, the healers bathing themselves and their patients in light as the fought to save those they could. In the slow-moving post-battle chaos, Phyna almost missed her.

Phyna scrambled to her feet, suddenly finding it hard to breathe, and ran as fast as she could to the far side of the courtyard, to the very edge of the moat. “Vala,” she gasped, suddenly terrified.

The small Qiqirn's body was still, slumped over the body of a volunteer soldier she had apparently been tending. When Phyna collapsed to her knees, shaking Valaroon as she would a child she was trying to wake, there was no response. Her eyes were still open slightly, but there was no life behind them.

Phyna couldn't hear anything, couldn't see anything, tears welling up in her eyes that she didn't blink away. She couldn't take her eyes off the small brown blur that had been her friend. “Vala?” She shook the healer again, “Vala, please...”

A warm hand slid across hers, prising her fingers away. She snapped her eyes up to look into the kindly sympathetic face of a Elvaan woman in mage robes.

“Let us take care of her,” the woman said, gently, her voice soothing. But Phyna couldn't be soothed. She relinquished her hold on her friend, but one thought seized her. The invaders. The monsters. She would hurt them. She would kill them. She would make them pay for taking her friend, the dear sweet healer who only wanted to help others.

She leapt to her feet, sword clutching tightly in her grasp, a sudden surge of anger overwhelming her fatigue. Her foot slipped briefly on  something, blood or water she couldn't tell, but it hardly stopped her as she made a bolt for the gateways, determined to follow the remnants of the Beastmen, determined to hunt them down and-

From behind, arms wrapped around her, yanking her to a stop. She struggled, twisted, but she was entrapped by a grip as implacable as granite. She tried using her whole body weight to throw whoever was trying to stop her off balance, but she only succeeded in bruising muscles as she strained.

“Let go of me!” she finally yelled, or tried to. All that came out was a sort of desperate hoarse whisper.

“No. You're not strong enough.”

She twisted enough to see who it was that had dared stop her from taking up her sword in revenge, and when she turned to find her face only inches away from the veil of an Immortal, it was enough to stun her into quiescence, and she stopped fighting.

The Immortal's arms loosened, and when she didn't immediately bolt, they dropped away entirely. “You're not strong enough,” he repeated, solemnly. “Not yet.”

Something inside Phyna's chest seemed to crack, and she found herself falling to her knees, brought low by an almost physical pain. Her sword clattered to the ground as she dropped it, and she leant forward, pressing her forehead against the ground, feeling heartsick and wanting to cry. Dear Valaroon. Her friend, her carer, the one she should be able to avenge, and yet... the Immortal was right. If she tried to follow the Beastmen, they would cut her down before she came within spitting distance of any of their strongholds.

The Immortal stood by, impassively, watching her sobbing on the ground, and Phyna might have cared that she looked like a child had this been any other time. It didn't matter, though. None of it mattered. It took what felt like forever for her tears to calm down to ragged breaths, and when they did, the Immortal tilted his head and asked,

“Do you want to be strong enough?”

Her head came up so quickly she would later be faintly surprised she didn't break anything. His eyes, the only part of the Immortal she could see were almost unreadable, but she thought she might have glimpsed a dark intensity within them. Her lips moved, but no sound came out, and her thoughts wouldn't organise enough to frame a sentence.

“Do you want power? The power enough to destroy the enemies of the Empire?” The Immortal held out his hand to her. Phyna stared at his glove as if it was something she had never seen before, light slowly dawning on what he was offering. “Even if it costs you your very soul?”

Phyna licked her lips. All around her, sounds seemed to become distant. She couldn't hear the wounded or dying, nor those who flitted from casualty to casualty, trying to save those who might have a chance at life. She almost didn't notice the two who covered up Valaroon's little body and started to bear it away, but it was that sight that ultimately decided her.

“Yes,” she said, her voice barely audible, even to herself.

The Immortal nodded slowly. She might have been imagining it, but she thought he seemed pleased. “Then come with me.”

Realising what she was giving up, and gaining, and realising that really, truly, she didn't care, that now she'd lost Valaroon, she didn't have anything else to lose. Not her past, not any family, not even memories of those things. And so she only shook a little as she reached out and took the Immortal's hand. He wrapped his fingers around hers and squeezed gently.

She found she was surprised that his hand was warm.

**

“Hmm. It is as we thought. You have potential. But the changes wrought upon you have made you weak. Grow stronger. Prove yourself. Then we will see what is to become of you.”

**

**

The walk from the Imperial Ward to her home by the wall at the far end of the Commoner's Ward seemed interminable. With every step she took, Phyna became more convinced that either her legs would give out from the strain of having to support her weight, or the burning in her lungs would get the better of her, and she would collapse to the floor, unable to breathe. No one moved to help her, though Phyna could see people staring at her. She determinedly ignored them all, and their whispers, as she made her slow, torturous way across the Ward, sweat soaking into already stained clothing.

They all knew what had happened to her, it seemed. Unfortunately, she doubted they were willing to share that information with her.

She did her best to ignore the whispers as she slowly inched her way through the Ward. It didn't matter, she told herself. She had experienced as much when she had first found herself in the city. People had heard rumours about her, and happily pointed out the strange foreign woman who had washed up in a wrecked boat. And now it would simply be rumours about the strange woman who had been touched by the Immortals.

It didn't matter. None of it mattered. She had lost her memory, her past, her only true friend here... nothing mattered anymore except to taking out her pain on the Beastmen. If they could feel a moment of her suffering, she would consider herself content.

It wasn't much, but it was all she had.

The cool shade of the residential areas, with the spires of the buildings blocking out the sun, was a welcome relief. She made her way back to her building through memory alone, eyes no longer up to the task of focusing on the road ahead. She fumbled with the locks and catches of her door, and it took her longer than it ought to have before she could enter her room.

She used what little strength and willpower was left to her to stagger inside, and close the door behind her. Then, with the need to continue gone, she fell to the floor, landing on a rug that provided no cushioning from the impact. She couldn't have cared less.

Sensation was draining from her body as she succumbed to her devout need to rest, and she only managed to retain enough presence of mind to roll on her side, dimly aware that if she was sick, like she felt she was going to be, she had no intention of drowning in her sleep from it.

**

When she woke up, Phyna had recovered enough from whatever the Immortals had done to her that she didn't feel like all her bodily systems were about to give out all at once, but neither did she feel completely steady. Her hands shook slightly, and her head swam as she pushed herself into a sitting position. She felt like she'd gone twelve rounds with a Mamool, unarmed, only to be left without even the bruises to show she'd survived.

Her clothing stank of sweat, and a quick running of fingers through her hair revealed that it was lank and greasy. Phyna had no idea how long she'd been lying there, but it was long enough that her clothing was itchy and uncomfortable, and her skin felt sticky. She wasted no time in fumbling the buttons and ties of her armor and padding, still left over from that battle...

... that battle ...

... and she could feel solid patches where blood and ichor had dried. Disgusted, she shed her clothing as quickly as she was able, leaving it lying on the floor while she escaped into the bathing chamber, to douse herself with water that seemed to be altogether too cold, no matter how much of it she tried to heat over the fire. It took her a while to work out that it wasn't so much the water that was cold, it was more her. She pressed a hand against her forehead, to find it felt icy.

Strange. She was sure, apart from this strange shakiness, that she wasn't sick.

Perhaps drawing a bath would help, she thought, as she heated kettles by her stove and carried them to the tin container she laughingly called a bath. She had always preferred the privacy of her own quarters to the discomforture of the public baths. At least this way, she didn't have to deal with people ogling her scars.

She had just been putting a toe into the bath, when the shock of realisation at that thought struck her, and she nearly fell over in her haste to scramble to the mirror in the corner of the room. She was so used to them... it had never even occurred to her...

She stared at her reflection in the mirror. She ran her fingers across her throat, her perfectly smooth throat. She coughed a little, cleared her throat, but her voice didn't catch or roughen as she did so. The scars that made it look like someone had tried to cleave her in two were just gone. That wasn't normal. That didn't just happen overnight. Valaroon had tried to cure her scars; a formidable healer-mage of her small friend's acquaintance had tried to do the same. Both had sadly assured her that the scars were there to stay.

It was if she had been forged anew. Inside and out.

And then Phyna was sick.

**

She eventually decided that maybe her shakiness was due to a lack of food. There was no telling how long it had been while she had been... in there. She cast a glance quickly towards the Imperial Ward, and just as quickly turned her gaze away, trying to push it from her mind for a short while.

It was amazing how easily she could try to convince herself than nothing was wrong.

But what was wrong? Phyna had tried to remember, and slowly, bits and pieces were coming back. It wasn't like whatever had happened to her before she washed up on the shores of Aht Urhgan. She remembered going to the Imperial Ward, transported... somewhere. She remembered the alchemists of the Empire, and the promise of power... and the Immortals.

They had opened the path, they said. She could join the ranks of the Immortals, wield their power, be as great and as feared.

But she didn't know how she was supposed to do that, nor how they had accomplished their goals. She remembered a searing pain, words from someone else regarding cobalt, and high levels... and then she had been given her admonishment to grow stronger, and had been kicked out on the street.

The Immortals certainly had a unique method of recuitment.

Phyna couldn't help but feel irked at the fact that they hadn't exactly left her with a handbook describing how it was she was supposed to assume that power. She was no mage. Magic was for dreamers, for fools. It was a strange process, and Phyna had never purported to understand it. If it required belief in Gods or Goddesses, then Phyna would never get even close to casting spells. If she'd ever had such belief, she'd lost it a long time ago.

It took a long sleep in bed, and a day of shuffling about her home feeling dazed, but eventually Phyna regained enough of her strength that she felt competant enough to brave the outside world, and decided that she was in desperate need of some tea with which to soothe herself. Anticipating the calmness of sitting, watching the world, with a cup in hand and some food in her stomach, she made her way to the teahouse in Whitegate quickly, already deciding which blend she'd prefer that day.

Perhaps it was that she was used to being stare at that she didn't notice the wide-eyed looks passers by sent her way, but she arrived at the teashop ignorant of the stir her passage was causing.

The owner of the teashop stared at her, wide-eyed, as if he'd never met her before, when she gave her order for a hot drink and something to eat. When she pulled a few coins out of her purse to pay, he waved her off, saying,

“No, no, not for you anymore, you understand?”

She didn't, but she wouldn't turn down the offer of a free meal and drink. It was only after she  had taken her fill, suffering through the intense stares of the other patrons, that she realised why they were acting so strangely towards her.

They were afraid of her.

She kept hoping that maybe Jovan would show up, that he would sit beside her, make his deadpan jokes, and she would have some indication that her life hadn't just been totally turned upside down. But Jovan never came, and no one dared approach her.

She suddenly felt a good deal less hungry. She forced herself to eat, but left quicker than she had ever done before, feeling cold, and very much confused.

**

It was autumn now, the burning heat of the sun diminished, but it now sat lower in the sky. Phyna squinted against the blinding light, one hand raised to shade her eyes as she stood sentry at the outer walls of the Commoners Ward. Ahead of her was the thick woodlands, hardly anything visible through the obscuring branches, and behind her the bastion, which was empty save for a few scattered merc groups going out to do Imperial bidding.

To either side of her, sentry's engaged in idle, easy chitchat with one another. But they didn't talk to her anymore. They hadn't done that in a long time. Phyna found it easier to ignore them and concentrate on her job than find herself bothered.

But that was the strangest thing: she really didn't care, no matter how hard she tried. Some subtle act of shunning would occur, and she would scrabble in her chest for some sort of reaction, but was unable to manage anything more than slightly irritated disinterest.

As if something had been taken away.

Her scars were long gone, but it seemed that her voice had become used to speaking in a rough, gravelly tone, and she was unable to shed it. It had its advantages. People seemed to become unnerved by such a grating tone. She 'hmm'ed to herself, listening to the rough tone, and wondered why, when it sounded so similar to what she had sounded like before, that it felt so different.

She still didn't understand.

There was a sudden silence that spread along the guards on the wall, and as Phyna turned her head, she was able to see exactly what had caused that silence. An Immortal, clad in their traditional blue and moving with a quick forceful stride, was heading in her direction. Guards fell silent and watched nervously, and after a moment, Phyna realised that she was his destination.

She didn't know quite what to do or say, so she said nothing as he drew up beside her, standing next to her on the wall, overlooking the Woodlands. The nearby soldiers drew as far away as they could without abandoning their posts, shooting her what she would later recognise to be rather fearful looks.

Phyna wasn't expecting chitchat, but she expected him to say something. Instead, he remained silent next to her, and after a while, she grew to accept his presence there, and turned her attention back to the woodlands. When he did speak, she jumped, having almost forgotten he was there.

"The Empire has many enemies," he said, ignoring her as she reflexively grabbed at the battlements to prevent herself from falling off. "To defeat them requires a strength few normal people possess."

He fell silent again, but Phyna stared at him, unwilling to be lulled into the false sense of security that she had been before.

“You don't belong here anymore," he said, finally.

Phyna ran the back of her hand over her mouth, disturbed that what the Immortal was saying was unsurprising to her. “I know.”

The Immortal stood by her side, peering through the arrow loop that looked down on the bastion below. To anyone who might be observing, they certainly didn't appear to be having a conversation. “You must be stronger,” he said, tapping his fingers against the pommel of his sword. “You're not going to do that standing around here.”

With that, he walked away, approaching General Najelith, presumably to give a report or some other such thing. Phyna didn't care. It was as if the Immortal's words had suddenly crystallised the thoughts that had been forming in her brain. She knew exactly what she was supposed to be doing.

Without a second thought, Phyna abandoned her post and went to pack her bags.

**

Time had ceased to hold any meaning for Phyna. Days were marked only in that each time the sun rose it was time to begin her attempts to learn whatever it was the Immortals were trying to teach her.  In the beginning, she had spent her time muttering deprecations against the blue-clad warriors and pondering aloud about how they could have at least given her a small pamphlet guide to 'how to adjust when your life has changed utterly', but eventually, her situation killed any humour she could wring out of it, and she fell to the day-to-day task of merely surviving.

It had been so long now since she had left the city. Her clothes were a far cry from what they had been, now dirty, stained with mud, sweat, and blood. Most of the last was of her own, as she escaped from frighteningly dangerous situations by the skin of her teeth. There was a perpetual draft from the back of her outfit where she had escaped being clawed at the cost of three rents in the fabric. She had only brought a single change of clothes with her, and a little food and water, enough to last her until she could hunt, she thought.

But at first, weakened as she was by whatever it was that had been done to her, she hadn't been able to kill any animals for food, and so she'd had to subsist on what berries and barely edible fungi she'd been able to harvest when the more dangerous animals had their backs turned. She had despaired, wondering where her hard won warrior's strength had gone, wondering why she hadn't even realised, and then had resigned herself to her situation, and begun to do something about it.

Slowly, she began to regain her strength, began to hunt some of the weaker animals, augmenting her meals with meat for the first time in what felt like an age. But still, it was nothing she couldn't have done before the Immortals had taken her. Night after night she tried to wrap her head around what it was they expected of her, what they wanted her to do. She kept feeling that she was missing something blindingly obvious.

She thought about what she knew about Immortals. It wasn't much; little more than rumour and gossip whispered hurriedly when everyone was sure that none of the blue-clad elite were about. Some called them monsters, said they were fiends masquerading as normal people, but Phyna knew, somewhere deep down, in a way she couldn't have explained if anyone had asked to her, that there was more to it than that.

She remembered hearing a story about how an Immortal running down a pirate in the back alleys of the Merchants Ward had caught him and brought him down by breathing poison upon him, something that should have only been possible by vermin that infested some of the darker holes in the areas around the Capital. Somehow, she realised, the Immortals knew how to learn abilities from monsters, and Phyna would have been willing to bet what meager possessions she owned that whatever the blue mages had done, they'd given her the same ability. Now, if only she could work out what she was supposed to do with this gift.

She had tried. Truly, she had. She'd found the beasts, tried to see how they did what they did, but no matter how much she studied the moves and the actions, she was incapable of replicating it. Every attempt to get close enough in combat to working it out, she found herself fighting a losing battle, and was forced to retreat to the rocky niche she had made her temporary home, hidden by the thick and twisted roots of some ancient tree.

The breakthrough came when was on the verge of starvation, when she was sure that her meagre diet of fungus and rodentia would be insufficient to see her through more than the next week. Perhaps it was sheer desperate necessity that drove her to understanding. But she didn't hear the soft padding of paws, nor the huffing of fetid breath. She was so intent on digging out the mushrooms from under the leaves that it wasn't until a twig cracked under the tiger's weight that she became aware of its existence. She froze out of sheer instinct.

She was easy prey, she realised. Weak from hunger, tired from the constant wakefulness needed to safeguard herself, she was hardly in any fit state to fight the animals that preyed upon anything warm blooded and tasty. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, and the thought briefly crossed her mind to stop fighting and to just let the inevitable take her.

Stubbornness made her draw her sword, though its edge had dulled through use and a lack of a whetstone. She slowly stood, equally slowly turning to set her eyes upon the two yellow pinpricks that stared at her out of the bushes. The tiger, apparently realising that it had been spotted, didn't pounce upon her immediate as she thought it might, instead it padded out of the cover of the bushes, and faced her, fangs bared.

It didn't fear her, she realised. It knew she was weak, half-starved. She would be a scant meal, but a meal nonetheless. She could barely hold her metal stick, and her body shook. She was no match for the tiger. As if sensing her thoughts, the tiger lunges forward, swiping at her with a paw. Phyna stumbled out of the way, tripping over a stray root, and barely escaped a whirlwind flurry of claws, earning gouges in her arms for her trouble.

It was toying with her. It was amusing to see prey try so desperately to escape when clearly it was destined to be nothing more than food. It was-

And then... it hit her. Suddenly, with the force of a physical blow, she realised exactly how it was she was supposed to learn the skills of monsters. It wasn't simple mimicry, as she had thought, not a case of simply trying to go through the motions and hope for the best. No, it wasn't enough to act like a beast. She had to actually think like one, to force her body, her very spirit, to think it was a beast. When she realised that, it was surprisingly easy.

Easy to become the beast.

She stared down the tiger, dodging out of the way of a swipe of its claws, and crouching low, teeth slightly bared, delighted laugh barely restrained. She understood now. It was so easy. She became the beast, and leapt forward, claws she didn't possess tearing into soft fur and harder flesh beneath. The tiger yowled in outrage, unprepared for its prey to fight back so effectively. It scrabbled backwards, fleeing from her reach, and disappearing into the undergrowth. The crashing of branches betrayed the path it took, but Phyna made no attempt to follow it.

She slowly pulled herself into standing upright, reasserting her Hume knowledge that she should be standing on two legs rather than crawling around on all fours with a little effort. She was out of breath, sore, and her body was covered in what would soon turn out to be very colourful bruises.

She didn't care. She felt wonderful.

And there was work to be done. Mentally she sketched out a list of all the creatures she would find within a half hour or so's travel, and of the abilities she knew they possessed. She ran a hand through sweat-dampened hair, pushing it back off her face, and grinned. Finally, she knew what she was supposed to be doing.

**

It was a small Troll outpost that Phyna chose as her target. She'd become aware of its existence a few weeks earlier, but had been too afraid to attack it on her own. There were half a dozen Trolls there, with their assorted creatures that they kept in case of combat. It was nothing more than a small watchpost, designed to keep an eye on the city of Al Zahbi, and to keep the paths of the woodlands clear for their own troops on the march to the city. She had looked upon it with a soldier's careful eye, and decided that the risk was too great as a test of her abilities. Surely she would fail.

But now, the beast within her growled for blood, the plants fought to sap strength from their bones, the arcane to obliviate the distasteful magic it could sense, and the Hume thirsted for revenge. All these different impulses that she had absorbed from her enemies knotted up inside her and created... something new, something different. Something inhuman.

She liked it.

The Trolls were clearly not expecting some sort of attack. Only one kept watch outside, the other supposedly guarding the back of the outpost was clearly half asleep, his eyes lidded and the occasionally snorting snore escaping from his mouth. She had spied a Flan squelching around inside, and that and its three other Troll inhabitants were all that remained. She could do this. She knew she could.

Her first target was the Troll on guard who was awake. He would surely hear something if she made a move elsewhere first, but the other guard was engrossed enough in his dozing that when Phyna snapped twigs in the undergrowth, only one one Troll came looking. Clearly unwilling to draw attention to himself by telling the other Trolls he was investigating a random sound that might turn out to be nothing, he merely clutched his axe a little harder and moved off in Phyna's direction. As he clumsily stumbled through the plants, Phyna let the sound of their leaves overwhelm her, let the sound of branches crunching guide her, and raised her arms. Spores arose from... where? Her? Some part of her spirit that was now bound with the plants? Phyna didn't know, but the Troll snuffled, batting at the spores, before succumbing to a deep induced sleep, starting to tumble over.

She suddenly understood how mages felt, wielding that ethereal power that was not quite her own, and yet was so deeply a part of her she could no longer separate it from her own spirit. She fought the urge to giggle, and kicked the Troll in the side, so that he tumbled into a bed of thick mosses that she had already prepared, so that the crash wouldn't alert the others.

Before he had even hit the ground, she had snatched the axe from his thick hand and smashed it into his neck. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Satisfied, she wrenched the axe free and moved around to the other side of the outpost, setting her sights on the second guard. This one wouldn't notice any distraction she caused. She would have to be more direct in her mode of attack. A faint purring in her soul echoed in her head as she tensed her legs, lining herself up and waiting for the right moment. She watched as the Troll's head just started to dip...

And she pounced. There was no other word for it. She bounded across the intervening space between the treeline and where the outpost guard stood, half leaning against a post. At the last moment, he seemed to turn, to catch sight of her, and started to make a startled noise, but by then it was too late. She turned upon him, claws rending flesh, stinger searing, and arcane spells boiling his flesh. It took longer to kill him, but the result was more enjoyably bloody.

It was not without its downside however. The noise she caused, however briefly it lasted, was enough to rouse the inhabitants of the cabin, and alert them that something was going on. As she left the axe embedded in her victim's body and drew her own sword, the rear door of the outpost came crashing open to reveal several large and nasty looking Trolls. They seemed to pause, perhaps surprised to find this small bedraggled Hume standing over the mauled body of their comrade, but the Flan, mindless as it was, was the first to act, filling the air with the acrid tang of black magic casts. It seemed to spur the Trolls to action, and they bellowed in outrage, raising their weapons.

Phyna laughed delightedly, and threw herself into the fray.

She fell into that oh-so-familiar battle trance, the only difference this time that the power of the beasts augmented her abilities, lending her strength, speed, stamina, and abilities she would never have dreamed she could have possessed, once upon a time.

And then it was done.

Blood pounded through her veins, roaring her ears muffling the noises around her. She didn't even realise how her lungs were screaming for air, or how the muscles in her hands were trembling, causing her sword point to shake. Around her were bodies, most dead, and those that weren't would be following their compatriots into the afterlife sooner rather than later.

She felt like laughing, and did, a laugh that had a hysterical edge to it. She had done it. She had single handedly taken on and destroyed the enemy. She had power that had been little more than a dream to her months ago. She was strong, powerful...

So? What now?

She raised her eyes to the East, looking down from the mountain side, to where she could see the spires of Al Zahbi sprawled from the north coastal port to the south. An apparent isle of civility in the middle of a forest. She looked upon it with contempt, thinking of the small tiny people who live there, who were ignorant of this power...

But not all of them were. The Immortals. They had given her this power. They would help her develop it. To turn it from a blunt object to the sharpest of instruments. She knew it. She understood now, those words that had been spoken to another woman, an admonishment to grow stronger.

If only she had realised the truth before. Pausing only to wipe her blade on a scrap of cloth ripped from a Troll's tunic, she set off towards the city, heedless of any dangers that the woods may have presented. After all, she knew, at that moment, /she/ was the most dangerous thing in it.

**

Phyna knew she was a horrendous state, walking in the manner that she did straight through the gates of the city and into the outermost Commoner's Ward. The guards looked like they wanted to stop her, but a shocking appearance wasn't enough of a reason to detain someone. Even if it was shocking enough to cause everyone who laid eyes on her to gasp and turn away.

She walked, ignoring them all, straight through the Commoners Ward, then the Merchants, and the those who saw her seemed too stunned to do anything. No doubt, any of the guards who thought about it were probably trying to remember if looking like someone had bathed in fiend blood was enough to turn them away at the gates. Phyna didn't given them enough time to do anything. She reached the gates of the Imperial Ward and stared implacably at the two soldiers there.

“Take me to the Immortals,” she said. One of the guards took the opportunity to slip away, disappearing out of Phyna's sight, so she instead focussed intently on the one remaining.

“Uh... Ma'am...” The guard scratched his chin nervously. “I'm not sure if we should let you-”

“Take me,” she repeated, putting a little more steel behind her words. “To the Immortals.”

The guard was still staring at her, his eyes flicking between the annoyed expression on her face, to the dark blue monstrous blood on her clothes and sword. Sighing impatiently, she dropped the sword, allowing it to drop to the bricks with a high pitched clatter of metal. She held up her hands to show she was unarmed.

“I'm perfectly safe,” she said with exasperation, though from the guard's expression he seemed to doubt that. “Now. For the last time, take me to the Immortals.”

The guard shook his head and seemed about to refuse when a small boy, simply clad and with sound shoes that were very practical for running so clearly marking him as a messenger, hurried up beside the guard, tugging on his arm until the man leaned down to listen to his whispered message. When the boy had finished, the guard cleared his throat, tugging on his sleeves and said, “I have orders to take you before the Immortals.”

Phyna sighed with irritation. “That's what I've been trying to get you to do,” she muttered, but allowed herself to be escorted past the first gates of the Imperial Ward, and deeper into the part of the city that she had never truly seen while conscious and in full possession of her faculties.

She was taken to a building not far from the palace, and abandoned in an antechamber, told to wait until the Immortals came to her, and she stood with her arms folded, impatiently waiting. After a few minutes, she closed her eyes, running mental fingers over the beast within her, settling its urge to start ripping the room apart in impatience. A silly mental exercise, perhaps, but one that felt somehow satisfying.

Footsteps stirred the room behind her, and she heard the curtains be pushed aside. She turned, arms still folded, and opened her eyes to mere slits, watching carefully for the intruder. It was an Immortal, only he did not wear the face-concealing veils that Immortals donned while in public, and Phyna immediately recognised him. She felt like she should be surprised, startled, even, but realised that she had suspected this long ago.

“Hello, Jovan,” she said.

“My dear Phyna,” he said, stepping closer to her as she turned to face him fully. He reached out, raising a hand to her cheek and gently lifting her face so he looked directly into his eyes. Whatever he saw there seemed to please him, as he smiled and ran a thumb over her lips, barely touching them, but enough to cause a delicious tingling sensation. “Beautiful,” he murmured.

Her lips twitched into a smile. “So, am I strong enough now?”

He returned her smile with one of his own, an expression of pride, and faint ferity. Dimly, she now recognised it as an aspect of beasts, an essence she had incorporated into herself in preference to other sorts of monsters. “You are,” he said, stepping back, and offering her his hand. “It's time to see the others.”

Unlike that day from what seemed to be a lifetime ago, she didn't hesitate to take his hand and follow him.

**

Many Years Later

**

The Merchant's Ward bazaar was heaving with people, all pressing against each other, clustered mostly around shops and around the puppeteers that provided entertainment with their animated dolls. It was far busier than it had been here for years. The Tenshodo had recently provided access for adventurers from the Middle Lands to come to the shores of the Empire, many coming to seek work as mercenaries, and there had been a tremendous rush of newcomers that made the Guard very nervous. A few Immortals had been dispatched throughout the city to keep a watchful eye on things, and it seemed that the denizens of the city had wasted no time in warning the adventurers of the dangers of the blue-clad elite.

Phyna prowled near the edges of the courtyard, and the natives and adventurers alike gave her a wide berth. Unseen behind the veil of her uniform, the beast smiled, teeth slightly bared at pleasure in the nervousness she evoked in the fools who scurried about their everyday lives, fearful of the monsters in deceptively normal form that were the Immortals.

One adventurer in particular, however, kept drawing her attention. A young girl, in her early twenties and no older, had such a familiar countenance that Phyna had withdrawn to the few shadows to be found in the sun-drenched courtyard so that she could observe more closely and be unnoticed. Chestnut hair, shoulder length. Unremarkable in that it was a popularly simplistic style amongst Hume females. She wore white tunic and trousers, decorated with crimson triangles and gold panels that stood out starkly from the white of her outfit. White mittens hung off a string threaded through the sleeves of her tunic, removed in deference to the heat.

The sight plucked at remembrances long left buried in Phyna's mind. It caused her head to ache, like a dissonant note on a harp played repeatedly. It was a sign of something... a sign... of her... vocation?

Healer. The girl is a Healer.

Now the thought had come to her, it all snapped into place. Yes, that was the outfit of Healers from a certain part of the Middle Lands. A mage. Certainly, she had seen other adventurers that had arrived recently wearing the same thing, so it was a uniform of some sort. She wore the same sort of practiced calm expression that Phyna remembered from Valaroon, the one that she had seen on all Healers, the one that said 'I could come across a patient covered in blood and in desperate need of my help and not be overly perturbed, only exasperated at having gotten themselves nearly killed'.

The girl seemed to be taken with a bag of coffee beans that the merchant was selling, enchanted by the rich scent and unusual use for the beans, and was making an attempt to haggle him down from his admittedly high prices. A lot of the sellers had taken advantage of the newcomers to hike their prices, so the girl would probably get the bag for something akin to its normal price.

She seemed to be winding up her bargaining, in the process of handing over a few coins of gil and starting to move away, and Phyna was almost prepared to dismiss the girl from her thoughts altogether, but found herself drifting towards the stall, and the girl, that grating familiarity calling to her with the intensity of a Lamia's unworldly charm.

“You.”

The girl froze, midstep, and turned slowly, eyes wide and posture hunched over. She looked ready to bolt if need be. An Immortal's reputation preceded her apparently. Phyna sincerely hoped she wouldn't employ any sort of foolish mage trickery to transport herself away in fright. “Um... yes? Sir? Ma'am? Um... yes?” Her voice was a mere squeak compared to the childish boistrousness that she had been displaying in her haggling.

“Your name.” Phyna was well aware her voice sounded like rough gravel, and glared at the girl with all the intensity that kohl-lined eyes could grant her.

The girl blinked, owlishly, as if she didn't quite understand, and looked thoroughly intimidated. “My... name?”

“I see you're not deaf. Tell me your name, girl.”

Her lips twitched slightly. “I haven't done anything wrong.”

Phyna's mouth twisted with frustration. “Delighted to hear it. Name.”

The healer girl seemed prepared to argue but she swallowed anything she might have been able to say in ire, and simply said,

“Cehra.” She coughed, nervously. “Cehra Torchwood.”

“Is that-” Phyna cleared her throat as her words caught there, choked off by some invisible hand. “Is that a common name?”

“I... I don't know.” The girl – Cehra – shrugged, apparently disarmed by this peculiar line of questioning. “I'm told I was named for my mother. Ceraphyna Torchwood.”

Cehra...

Ceraphyna...

“Cehra!”

Phyna didn't know what she might have said before the call rang out across the bazaar, and the girl's head turned in response. She waved her hand to attract the attention of the young man who had called her, and smiled cheerfully in greeting.

Cehra...

The man who had been calling the girl approached her, and Phyna took the opportunity to hurry away before he could spot her.

Behind her, she didn't see the girl turn and look after her with a baffled expression, but she did hear her comment, distantly, as she turned to her companion.

“You know, I just had the strangest experience...”

She didn't seem too concerned, and, at the young man's confusion, she immediately turned to chattering about her new purchase. The confusion turned to amusement as his companion started chattering about the delightful smell and, unseen in the corner, Phyna sagged against the wall as the bottom dropped out of her stomach.

“Cehra,” she muttered, feeling sick.

The girl didn't hear her, fortunately, as she didn't turn away from her rather one-sided conversation, and so didn't see Phyna stumble off in a manner quite unbecoming of one of the Empress' Immortals. She suddenly realised why the girl had seemed so familiar.

She looked in the mirror every day and saw her face.

She almost fled to the Imperial Ward, somehow managing to not break into a run, and found her quarters through nothing but the function of long habit. She blindly fumbled the door, locking it behind her, and was thankful that Jovan was not around to see her in her state of breakdown. She stumbled to her knees amid a pile of cushions that that been arranged on the floor for lounging purposes, though if she had fallen upon jagged rocks she probably wouldn't have felt it. She was  powerless as memories she had long thought gone surged upwards in a rush that left her choking and clawing at her veils in an attempt to free her mouth of obstructions. Her head ached appallingly, and choked sobs came from her throat.

For the first time since she had lost part of herself in becoming an Immortal, Phyna wept, and for the first time in twenty years, she remembered the daughter she had forgotten and who stood in the Merchant's Ward, blissfully unaware, chatting over a bag of coffee beans.

The End