I sat, waiting to see another Follower of Perrinu the Goddess be born when she came running out of one of the now many rock houses surrounding the Inner Sanctum she had taken the man to and came to me. She was crying but had a huge smile.

“I did it,” She looked almost unable to believe what she was saying, “He left! He made peace with himself!”

“You did it? You found someone sane enough not to stay here?”

She was used to my remarks, so she didn't react to it, “I feel so much joy! To be able to see… that happen!” She paused and the excitement rapidly changed to fatigue, “Salis, I tire. Will you tell the others the good news?”

“It won't kill them to wait until tomorrow to find out.”

She chuckled, “I just wanted to ask,” She then went into the rock house.

So she had done it and with someone I had thought was not possible to help. It could only be attributed to the dream she had had. I hadn't heard of the others having any dreams about anything other than themselves, but Perrinu had so little for herself recently…

Speaking of which, I still had not slept. I don't know why, but it had started affecting Helnion too. Only Perrinu slept as one should now. Even the men that had lived here for so long wondered about it. Even they slept. I don't know if I would ever know. To be honest, I missed sleep.

The next I saw Perrinu I got a surprise.

“Salis?” she called to me.

I was practicing with Martu just outside the rock wall surrounding the Inner Sanctum. Martu had learned the hard way from the others that he should not get between Perrinu and whatever she was doing. So when he heard her call me, he shrugged and pointed his head towards the direction she had called from.

I had gotten good at climbing rocks and was quickly over the wall.

“Salis,” She continued when she saw me, “You will have to forgive me. I… saw a dream about you last night.”

She had dreamed about me? “What did you dream about?” I hoped she hadn't seen too much.

“I saw your time in the mining village. From when they found you as a baby to when you came here.”

I was relieved. That much of my life I didn't care about people seeing. It was what was before that that I didn't want her to see. Maybe she hadn't because she could only see what had happened on Calorin?

“You have not changed much,” She looked sad, “I wish you would let me know more about you. I have never seen you smile, and it makes me depressed when I think about it.” She looked at me, almost sternly. “I want to see you smile Salis.”

I can't remember how many times she had told me this. She knew I didn't care for talking much, and at first, respected that. As time had gone on and we had all become more comfortable with each other, she had tried and get me to open up. She had succeeded with Helnion and they were now friends, but I knew what she wanted so it made me resist her even more than I would have otherwise.

While she had much more to do now that she had a following, she often liked to take time away from them. While she did read a lot, she liked to talk. Helnion by nature didn't have much to say, so she often ended up finding me. Most of the time only she talked. The few times she had gotten me to talk would excite her, and she tried her best to keep me in the conversation. Most of the time I would leave when it came to this, but it never stopped her from trying.

I started feeling bad for her. I saw what she went through every day. I knew that after hearing all the problems from her followers she genuinely just wanted to forget about it all; I knew I would, though I knew better than to get myself into that kind of situation.

I wished I didn't think this way. I knew being alone like I was would get me no happiness. But did I need happiness? I was fine as long as I had something to do. I had to stop thinking about this. It brought feelings up I would rather not feel. Feelings I had tried to discard. I had never fully succeeded, but I did my best.

For now, I would just have to go back to my daily routine. It would soon be time to go practice with Martu and Helnion. This was the part of the day I looked forward to because it was easy to forget about everything. Helnion had also gotten better and sparring with her had proven to be a good distraction too. She even had started to look forward to this. She was still no match for me and could never seem to get rid of her clumsiness but she didn't seem to care about that and neither did I. It drove Martu crazy sometimes, though.

For the rest of the day, I would either read if I had a book or go on patrol. Usui had finally realized how much we read and sent us books more often. When I tired of reading or my legs got restless, I would patrol. It was more like just going out for a jog now that the area was cleared of men that weren't one of Perrinu's followers.

Sometimes one of Perrinu’s most avid followers would try to ambush me. He was the one that had come first after Martu had gone. Suffice to say he didn't like me. He did nothing back in camp because he knew she didn't enjoy killing but out here away from her…

The man was still crazy in my mind. If he wasn't, he would have realized that he didn't have a chance against me, the large hole in his stomach left from his suicide not helping either. He had never had training of any sort so the few times he got close to me I could easily dodge him. I never fought back much. I enjoyed his looks of frustration whenever he missed me. It would also be too easy to kill him.

I looked forward to his ambushes. He never talked to me so I couldn't be sure, but he ambushed me because he genuinely didn't like me. He was not the first person to dislike me so it didn't bother me having an enemy out of him. He wasn't worth worrying over, anyway.

As I patrolled today I didn't see him, nor anything interesting. I had now gotten used to the thin air and the low gravity so I could cover large amounts of ground. I had also gotten better at finding my way around using the sun and now would go much farther than I had dared before.

Perrinu had often told me she would feel safer if I had taken someone with me on my patrols, but she hadn't needed to worry about that because I was sure Martu followed me. I don't know how long he had been following me but over time as he had taught me how to be more aware of my surroundings I realized that someone was following me and then who it was. I don't know if he had realized I had found out, but I wasn't going to say anything.

Today I was exploring another area littered with rocks. I jumped from rock to rock, looking for nothing in particular. There was an occasional man, but I only noted them before moving on. None of them had cared much about me so far so I had had to shoot none of them. I had long tired of shooting them so I wasn't too sad about this.

Suddenly a man leaped at me from behind a rock while I was in mid-jump. I dodged him but lost my footing when I landed and slipped. My head hit the rock hard. I didn't fall unconscious, but it took all of my will not to.

“Salis!” Martu yelled, running towards me.

The man that had jumped at me positioned myself between me and Martu. I couldn't tell exactly what was going on because my vision was spinning and I couldn't concentrate on anything other than not losing consciousness.

Martu attacked the man. Even with my slowly fading consciousness, I could tell that the attacker was trained like Martu. How well, I don't know. I never saw much more of their fight as more men came out from the rocks and surrounded him. It only took a moment for Martu to fall.

When Martu had turned to black dust, the men turned to me. One of them walked over and looked at me. He didn't look happy when he got a closer look at me.

“Vlast, you were supposed to make sure she was not harmed if possible,” He bent over me and ripped off a piece of fabric from my left sleeve and pressed it against my head, “If she bleeds to death from this wound…”

It looked like my wandering had been my weakness. I couldn't guess how long they had been watching me, but they had been waiting today. They had even planned for Martu in their ambush. If I had known that there was another group besides ours I would have more careful… no, I wouldn't have…

I didn't know what they wanted with me, but if this head wound didn't kill me, I would probably find out. I just hoped they didn't want me for… unpleasant things. They captured me. Martu would come looking for me with any others that didn't hate me too much so I would just have to wait patiently. Then, for the first time in probably months, I fell unconscious.

***

I was inside a house. It was familiar but I couldn't think why.

I was in the front room. It was small, which seemed a strange notion considering this room was the size of some entire houses in Porra-Kel.

In the room was a young couple with two young girls. The mother was pregnant. Like the house, these people were familiar to me. The older of the two girls, I should know her name. I knew I had known her for a very long time but couldn't remember why. The parents were just as familiar. There was something about them… As for the younger of the two girls, I only felt mild disgust at seeing her. Why I would feel this way about a two to three-year-old girl puzzled me.

I watched the young family. The father was playing excitedly with his two daughters, who seemed to enjoy their game as much as he was. The mother watched them play with a smile.

I was interested in the game they were playing but I couldn't focus well, and things became blurry. My head felt heavy and I couldn't remember what I was thinking the moment before so I just watched.

As I watched them I wondered why they felt so familiar. I hadn't remembered seeing them or a house like this in Flaern. Did this mean they weren't from Flaern? Then I finally remembered. Yes, this was a family from Earth. Why was I dreaming about this? Earth wasn't important to me and I had done my best to put those memories behind me.

I now knew that this was a scene from Earth. The question now was, was it a vision of something that was happening now or was it a scene from my past? I just couldn't remember, my head was too heavy.

The scene jumped. The two girls now appeared to be a year or two older and a happy-looking baby boy now accompanied them. The two girls were once again playing with their father while the mother took care of her son.

As I looked at the family again, I felt even more strongly that I should know these people. The older girl was doing her best to get her father's attention while the younger girl fought for it as well. The father laughed as they did this and urged them both to do their best.

My vision flashed and a sharp pain stabbed through my head. The scene in front of me started to fade. I was happy to see it end but frustrated because I couldn't remember why I felt I should know these people. Maybe when my head didn't feel so heavy it would all come back to me.