Listinia

I freeze. But even with the threat, I can't not look. And as I look, I stare.

It's her. The girl who, only a little while ago, was behind my house in the snow. Dead.

Maybe it's the trick of a monster, who reanimates dead bodies to cause fear in the living. Far worse has been done.

"Who are you?" she asks. The way she speaks is a bit strange to me. When I don't answer, she pulls her bowstring tighter. "Who are you?"

"Arden," I say, because it's the first thing that comes to my mind, and it's the truth. I pause before daring to speak again. "And who are you?"

"No one you'd want to know." She lets her arms fall to her sides and her voice gets softer. "No one you'd want to know."

And then she promptly collapses into the snow.

--------

"Elder Javok!" They are the first words out of my mouth when I step into the House.

"Arden, you should be at training," the elder says before coming down the stairs.

"Please, Elder, it's important," I say, gritting my teeth. My anger towards him hasn't yet faded.

"If it's about the body - oh." He walks down the stairs, his eyes locked on the girl in my arms.

"She's alive," I say.

"Impossible."

This is exactly the reason I was tempted to take the girl back to my house and not have to deal with the elders. However, years of training and instruction made me force myself to come here.

"She is. She talked to me."

"And she said?"

"Nothing important," I tell him, though it may not be completely true.

Elder Javok hesitates for a second, and I'm almost certain that he will say something about how delusional I am. Instead, he turns around and calls for Elder Mistlelynn.

"What is it?" she asks, rushing down the stairs.

"Check the girl for a pulse. Arden, bring her to the bed."

I do so and Elder Mistlelynn searches for any chance of a heartbeat. There has to be one.

"Well?" Elder Javok asks after a minute.

"She's alive."

"How can that be? It was clear that she had died."

Elder Mistlelynn shakes her head. "I don't know. But the pulse is definitely there."

I stand there, astounded. The shock of the situation has worn off, and the paranoia sets in.

However, I can't let it bother me. I am not a weak child anymore. So I muster up the courage to ask, "What are you going to do with her?"

"We'll have to wait and see if she even wakes up and then run a blood test on her, probably. Then we'll see where she's from and if we can get her back home."

"You better head off to training," Elder Javok says. He's standing close to me, and when he speaks, he's looking down on me in more than one way. "You may come back tomorrow when your training is done."

I start to say something, but then think better of it and shut my mouth. Clenching my jaw, I nod my head and turn to leave.

--------

When I get home, I throw the bird on the wooden kitchen table. It better be worth it. I had to walk all the way back there to get it. In doing so, I missed evening training. I wonder what the elders will do about that. At the moment, I don't really care. I probably will later.

The house is quiet so Aquovia must be sleeping. It's all she does nowadays. Of course, she wakes up when she's needed, but I don't really need her now so I let her sleep.

I'm just putting my weapons away when the door opens, sending a flurry of snow and cold air in. A short girl with long black hair walks in.

"Arden, where were you?" she asks as soon as she sees me.

"Somewhere," I say vaguely. I then motion to the bird on the table. "There's our dinner."

She sighs, and walks over to the table. She puts down her weapons, which happen to be two sharp blades - one for each hand. "When did you get this? During training?"

"Yeah."

She shakes her head at me. "The elders aren't going to be happy."

As if I already didn't know that. "Well, shit happens. I can't go back now."

"I guess." She then starts to prepare the bird. I take a seat and silently watch her. I notice that her hair is up in a ponytail. With any other girl, that wouldn't be particularly significant - hair does tend to get in the way of battle. But for her, it means I can see the strange markings on the side of her neck, which happen to be part of the reason why she came to live with me. They always reminded me of mountains, but not quite.

"Naiya," I say, calling her name.

"Hmm?"

"I have to go to the House tomorrow morning."

"Before training?"

"As soon as I can," I tell her. "Will you wake me up tomorrow morning?"

"If I can," she answers. "I might end up staying up tonight, so if I'm still awake in the morning, then yes. Why do you need to go?"

"I..." I want to tell her, as she's my cousin and I know I can trust her, but I don't exactly know the answer. "I'm not sure yet. I'll tell you when I can. Right now, I just don't know."

"I see." She's not the type to ask many questions, yet I know that she has a million of them running through her head right now.

The room is silent after that, with the occasional sound of one of her blades slicing through the bird. As I watch, I realize that I don't really have an appetite.

"Naiya. I'm going to go to bed," I say, though I'm not really tired. "Wake up Aquovia when you're ready, okay? I suppose I'll just eat in the morning. Good night."

--------

"Arden. You're back so soon," Elder Nalixas says. She's a tall woman who I think is in charge of anything that has to do with a blade. I wonder how she knows that I was here before, but then I figure that this news would have spread rather quickly.

"Yes, Elder."

"Come quickly inside," she says.

I head right into the room with the cot and I find that only Elder Mistlelynn is in there. Elder Nalixas is following right behind me.

"Hello, Arden," Elder Mistlelynn says.

"Good morning. Has anything happened yet?"

"Yes. The girl woke up late last night, but she wouldn't speak to us. We did, however, run a test on her."

"Where is she from?" I ask curiously.

"This is the disturbing part. Would you like to see?" she asks. "Usually, we'd keep these confidential, but... I think it's something you'd like to see, and I will give you permission."

My eyes scan the report that Elder Mistlelynn hands to me. At the top is some weird data written in a code I don't understand, because I never took the class on how to read it. Dal would know what it meant, though. I turn the page, hoping for something that I actually know the meaning of.

On the next page, there's actually words. The first thing I look at is age. This girl is eighteen, just a year younger than me. I find that puzzling because she was already so far away from her own town, and she's not even of age to go into battle yet.

The next thing I look at is race. I know how to interpret this one, because I had this done myself when I first started training. The report will tell you the percentage of each race you have in your blood. When I look at hers, I see only two - fairy and elf.

"Where are the rest?" I ask. "Is this report incomplete?"

"No, not at all," Elder Mistlelynn says. "I ran the test a few times in case I was doing it incorrectly, but I got the same results every time. She does not have any other type of ancestor."

"But everyone does," I say, staring at the girl.

"She doesn't."

"Then... what does it mean?"

"It means she shouldn't exist."