Lament of the Slave

“Deckard is bringing them here,” Sah informed Sanysia Rayden and the others dryly. Or at least he tried to act as professional as ever. However, even a trained Imperial agent was unable to keep his emotions in check. He, too, was thrilled and a little impatient. The reason he, like Mrs. Palemoon, rushed to the city when one of Sanysia’s master guards barged into the City Hall meeting room with the news that Grey and the young Palemoon had exited Fallen’s Cry. Not quite what she’d expected from Sah; nevertheless, nothing overly strange. Grey was the reason why he was here, his job, his ward to keep an eye on.

“Good, thanks,” Sanysia Rayden replied, looking over at the others standing on the front steps of the City Hall. Most of them also wanted to go and meet those two as well. To stand here like a bunch of idiots waiting for the Emperor to arrive was as far as she could talk them out of running through the streets of Castiana.

In all seriousness, whoever saw them standing there like that would have to think that the Imperial Chief Healer was about to visit the city again. Which, given the circumstances, might happen in a few days. Grey piqued the old man’s interest, requesting regular status reports on her Soul Dice.

“How much longer?” holding her tail, the little kitsune Ria asked the receptionist Enola standing beside her. Friends Grey made in the city. When her two junior guards got lost in the Labyrinth, those two were more than eager to help - however, without a way to get them out, there wasn’t much they could do except wait for Grey to pull another surprise.

Sanysia Rayden knew it was a long shot. The young woman might have had drive and a mind open to new possibilities like few others, but if anything, luck and misfortune went hand in hand in her shadow.

“Just a minute. You know how far it is from Labyrinth Square,” the receptionist said to the little antsy kitsune.

“Not that far. I would be here by now.”

“Because you’re fast, but . . .” the receptionist’s voice trailed off as five people emerged from the main street at the entrance to Imperial Square. Deckard, Idleaf, both Palemoons and Grey arrived. 

They really made it.

Up to this point, there had still been doubt in Sanysia Rayden’s heart. She wanted to believe it, but no one had escaped the depths of the labyrinths, ever - well, that was as far as the records went. History was full of events that had passed unnoticed.

Not this time.

They did make it out.

And to her pleasant surprise, apart from their strange clothes, they were just as she remembered them. Sure, filthy as if they had been rolling in the grass, sweaty, vomit in the corners of their mouths, and not even the dried blood escaped her notice. Yet otherwise, they seemed healthy and not a day older.

The tension, the excitement, the eagerness of the people around her as the two of them walked across the small Imperial Square towards them was almost suffocating. Those two, however, were no different, barely able to contain their joy.

When they stopped in front of them, both grinning from ear to ear, Grey wagging her massive tail behind her. Even Sanysia Rayden found herself holding her breath. Not quite sure of the right thing to say.

“H-hey guys,” Grey stammered, exhilaration dripping from her voice. Then she and the young Palemoon, Stella, both grinned from ear to ear. “”We’re back.""

 

***

 

There was silence, the kind where no one knew what to say, even though they had so much to tell you. But all it would take was a tiny spark and the floodgates would open. And that spark turned out to be the little kitsune.

“Korra, Sage,” she shouted excitedly, heedless of our agreement to keep the truth about my tail a secret, and threw herself at me. However, at this point, I couldn’t care less what others thought of me. ‘I had named my tail, so what?’ There were tons of other even stranger things about me.

“Ria, I missed you.” I hugged her, and she giggled.

Then I winced, my ears aching as everyone started talking at once, excited to see us. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for more. My fears that everyone had forgotten about us, about me, in the eight and a half Eleaden months we had been away and moved on, had completely melted away at this point. I was back and overwhelmed.

It was as if everyone wanted to be the first, talking over each other, trying to shake my hand or at least touch me to make sure I was not just a figment of their imagination. And it was something that went both ways.

“Great to have you back, both of you,” Captain Rayden said after putting her hands on my shoulder and Stella’s. It was the first time I’d seen her so happy - and, frankly, quite strange. The way I remembered her, she tried to keep her emotions in check, to be calm in all circumstances, to be that stoic leader whom nothing life threw at her could shake. You know, the kind of leader that soldiers and guards could count on in any mess.

Well, she was human like everyone else, and I was happy to see her, too.

“You too, ma’am,” I said back, and Stella nodded.

“Permission to hug you, ma’am.”

“Granted,” Rayden allowed Stella, who then hugged her without the slightest hesitation - not me. The Captain and I weren’t that close. I meant, Rayden and the others accepted me into their family, but we never really spoke as one. On the other hand, she was a family friend of the Palemoons. Stella had known her since she was a little girl, I, on the other hand, just a few months.

“I was afraid we’d never see you again, lass.” It was Marcus, the Chief Healer of the barracks and Captain Rayden’s lieutenant, who spoke to me joyfully. 

“And he wasn’t the only one,” added Janina, a healer like him and his wife. “. . . but let me ask you - we don’t have to worry about a dragon landing on our heads, do we?” What she was hinting at, half joking, half serious, was not lost on me. Her hometown of Hasa was razed to the ground by a dragon after a local lord couldn’t resist the temptation to tinker with dragon blood. The fact that I had a drake’s heart, the Heart of Mana, must have weighed on her mind all the time - and then all those incidents trailing in the shadow of my tail. 

Not my fault, though.

Nevertheless, her question gave me pause. There were no dragons in the part of the past Stella and I found ourselves in, but the system was largely their creation, and so was the Oath I feared. There was a chance that if we started talking about what we had seen and learned in the past . . . “No, I don’t think so.” 

“Wait, why doesn’t that sound very convincing?” 

As I understood it - well, not just me - the Oath was meant to keep Eleaden from interfering with the system and the labyrinths, so that if the planet eventually got into the minds of their creators, it wouldn’t uncover the secrets of their construction. And so, talking about what happened to us in the core of Fallen’s Cry was something we should be able to speak of without worry of incurring the wrath of someone like the dragons - or the World Trees.

The World Trees, the elders of Idleaf. ‘Why didn’t I think of them before?!’ They should be able to tell us what we can and cannot say.

“Korra! Tell me you haven’t pissed off the dragons.”

“What? No,” I said quickly to Janina, tearing my eyes away from Idleaf, who was already engaged in a strange game with Ria. “We didn’t meet any dragons.”

“But have you done anything to anger them?” 

“Not yet.”

“What does that mean?” Captain Rayden asked while talking to the Palemoons, one ear apparently focused on me, just in case.

“Well, that I better ask the elder World Trees what we can and cannot say before Stella and I open our mouths about what happened to us,” I said, glancing at Idleaf, who was utterly oblivious to me and what I was saying. Stella, on the other hand, nodded back.

Rayden laughed when she heard that. “I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to be around you, ridiculous as always.”

Well, I’d have to be stupid not to know what she meant - and since I did, I let it slide and laughed awkwardly with her. 

“I never thought I’d say this to anyone but my family,” Blaine said with a smile, scratching behind his ear. By family, he meant Rayden, Deckard, and the rest of the lieutenants, orphans of the war like himself. “But I missed your weirdness.”

“Not me?”

“Didn’t I say that?”

“You said you missed the weirdness, not me.” 

“One and the same - it keeps you on your toes, and it’s fun to be around. Your weirdness reminds one not to fall into the lul of the established order of things. But seriously - good to have you back, Korra.”

“Same here,” growled Rhys, the [Guardian]. He didn’t say much - honestly, my kind of human - but what he said he meant, his words carried weight. After nodding to him, my eyes finally fell on the trio I often thought of in Echo of the Past, the rest of Squad Four.

[Scribeblade: lvl 142] [Studious Swordsman] [Reader of Blades] Tomeblade Scribeblade Sharp-Sighted Sharp-Eyed Astute Observant 

[Emberkin: lvl 137] [Kindleflame Emberkin] [Ashfire Embermancer]

[Blastmaster: lvl 149] Ramshackle, Reckless Grenadier Offbeat Blastmaster 

Seeing those three - well, seeing that they managed to get out of Fallen’s Cry - simply took my breath away. And it wasn’t just that and their levels, - seriously, how was that possible? Level-wise, I was now the weakest of the squad - they’d changed. Not in appearance. Harper still braided her long blonde, almost white hair, and her brown eyes were as piercing as I remembered them. 

Meneur was still a Taurus, towering two heads above me, not counting the bull-like horns on his head. His dark skin seemed almost furless, hoofs on his beast legs, his tail was no match for Sage, shorter, without any fluffy hair, just a tuft at the end. 

And Freyde? Well, he was different, not the average guy anymore; his arms were all muscle, and more of it showed under his shirt. The gnome ears were still a prominent part of him, and while he may not have been as dignified as the elves, he carried himself with far more confidence than I remembered.

IIn fact, all three of them carried themselves with a different flair. The longer I looked, the harder it was to miss the difference. While Freyde grew more confident, Harper seemed to have lost her sharp edges. Not her sharpness, just - hard to describe - the feeling that anything you did might piss her off. And as for Meneur, he no longer radiated the timidity he once did. Sure, for the big guy he was, he didn’t give the impression of ‘don’t try to piss me off or you’ll see’, but he no longer made you feel like you could do anything to him without too much fear of getting a fist in your face back.

But what did I expect? That they would sit around with their thumbs up their asses and do nothing? It had been eight and a half months, for fuck’s sake. Even I had changed and was no longer the same old Korra.

“You haven’t changed one bit,” Freyde smiled, his eyes glittering with a mixture of amusement, relief and joy. However, like me, like Harper and Meneur, he stood at a distance, not quite sure what to do. While we used to be Squad Four, drinking, dancing and partying together in pubs, we were not the kind of friends you would confide your most intimate problems to. 

So, should I hug them; just to say hello or to shake hands? The last thing that came to mind struck me as a bit odd.

Then Harper snickered. “Yeah, still the same, Korra.”

“Indeed,” Meneur added with such relief in his voice that it took my breath away. 

“Are you guys serious?” I’ve been through so much in Echo of the Past, grown in skill and experience, that I found it all but impossible. I had changed. Couldn’t they see it?

All three nodded in unison.

“You still tend to get lost in thought.”

“The depth in your eyes when you do.”

“And then your body language,” Freyde added another point to the ones Meneur and Harper had made. “I don’t need to be a terran to be able to tell how happy you are.”

“. . . and confused, not knowing what to do, like me, like us,” Meneur said with a shy smile.

“Yeah,” I hummed, looking from one to the other, waiting to see if anyone would do anything - if they would take the first step. “Um . . . a group hug?”

“That’s what I had in mind,” Freyde said, and with his new-found confidence pulled me into his embrace - Meneur and Harper joined in.

“Really great to have you back, Korra.”

“It’s great to be back.”

“Um, do you mind if I join you?” Stella cleared her throat, now free of her mother’s grip. I didn’t mind, but the trio looked at her, their eyes locked with hers. Just as unease threatened to gnaw at her mind, Freyde smiled. “Sure, come here. Harper here has really missed you.”

Stella chuckled at that, and [Blastmaster] hissed. “Fuck you, pointy ears. But the idiot trying to pose as our acting leader isn’t entirely wrong . . .” She didn’t say it out loud, but it was clear to everyone present that she missed both me and Stella. “Finally, Squad Four is back together again,” Meneur breathed, his deep voice dripping with - well, I would say fulfillment. 

“Aren’t you forgetting anyone?”

The taurus, as well as Harper and Freyde, raised their eyebrows, wondering what I was talking about, before understanding dawned in their eyes.

“Idleaf?”

At my call, the spirit broke from whatever she was doing with Ria - which made me feel bad - and hopped over to us, her eyes widening with each leap. Excited as only she could get, she crashed into us, taking us in her arms and wings, giggling like a little girl, oblivious to what others might think. “All together at last,” she sang, her hind legs doing a strange dance. “Are we going on another adventure?” 

Not what I expected her to say. If anything, I would think she would want to keep me as far away from Fallen’s Cry as possible. And the others, too. I guess she enjoyed our ventures into the depths of the Labyrinth together more than I knew.

And Squad Four? Although the thought of our last expedition brought back sour memories, no one really seemed to mind. 

“Didn’t you want me to come with you to Esulmor as soon as possible?” I asked Idleaf, who started dancing around us, trying to involve the whole of Squad Four in her merry antics.

“Yeah,” she paused, thinking, her eyes brightening with an idea. “Then, right after that.”

To be honest, the prospect of fighting the labyrinth beasts didn’t really appeal to me at the moment. But then again, this was me, who just a few hours ago had fought the battle of my wildest nightmares. Nevertheless, as Traiana said, it was up to me whether that experience would become a strength or a hindrance in my life. The horrors of war were impossible to forget, and it would surely have been a mistake to try when there were so many great lessons to be learned from it.

And so, after giving it some thought, sure that I would see it differently in a few days of rest, I nodded. “That doesn’t sound bad, does it guys?”

“That is, if Captain Rayden and the rest of your squad let you.”

“What do you mean: the rest of your squad?” Freyde wondered at Stella’s remark.

“You know,” Stella hinted for them not to be afraid to tell the truth. “You must have been assigned someone new, right? A squad of three is not a functioning squad.”

“Traiana’s tits, what are you babbling about?” said Harper, looking hurt while grinning from ear to ear. “We made it work with just the three of us in it the whole time.”

My heart skipped a beat. There was no one else in Squad Four, no replacement for me and Stella. “Not quite true,” Meneur chimed in. “Captain Rayden tried to find someone else to assign to us. After - well, after you disappeared in that maze. But . . .”

“. . . there was no one who could keep up with them,” Rayden herself finished. “Now, though, you two are back and - surprisingly, no stronger than before - I hope you haven’t lost your drive?”

Whether we have lost our will to push on? If she knew what we had been through, she wouldn’t ask. If anything, Traian’s nightmare only strengthened our resolve.

“There’s a reason our levels haven’t gone up, ma’am,” Stella tried to explain in our defense without saying too much. 

And maybe she was too forceful, for Captain Rayden smiled and put a hand on her shoulder, a sign that Stella shouldn’t be offended by what she said. “I didn’t mean to belittle you. After all, what matters is that you’re back. Not everyone is lucky enough to return from their travels, adventures, and battles. That being said, I’d love to hear about the reason and what took you so long.”

The joking edge to her voice was unlike her, but little did she know how close she was to the truth with the mention of battles.