Eighty. Eighty-one. Eighty-two. Lisŗa blinked away the sweat. Droplets fell from her face, darkening the sand. In her focus she didn’t hear the approach of heavy greaves grinding pebbles and dirt outside the tent. The other girls stopped their card games and idle chatter. Chessie gave her ribs a nudge with the tip of her shoe.

Lisŗa sprung up from the ground, annoyed.

“What do you-?” She began.

Chessie pointed at the tent entrance. Soldiers burst through the flaps. In their escort was a woman in a scholar’s garb. Red lacing stitched on black robes, bound by glistening aiguillettes. A gold hawk pin sat visibly against her chest. Spectacled eyes peered from recruit to recruit before resting on Lisŗa.

The woman pointed. “You, come here.”

Lisŗa followed the instruction. She ignored the murmurs from the others. The soldiers closed the entrance behind them. She walked with the escort in silence while the morning bustle sounded all around them. The camp was alive with recruits peeling tubers, washing clothes, shoveling latrines. None of the tasks were necessary in the modern Falerian military; it was all tradition kept for the sake of discipline. A cluster of recruits jogged in rows on the track. Some of them slowed to remark, “Look they finally caught her.” Then came a short round of laughter. Sergeants whistled and cracked their whips inches away from their faces, silencing them quickly.

They entered an administrative tent. The soldiers stood by the doorway, while the woman hung her garb and took a seat behind the desk.

“I apologize in advance,” she said. With a raised finger she adjusted her gold-rimmed spectacles.

“Ma’am,” Lisŗa acknowledged.

“I’m an Empirial Investigator. Just here to clear names for the murder of Nathen Laplace. Where were you the morning two weeks ago?”

“Sleeping.”

“Can that be confirmed?”

“I was woken by a tentmate by the commotion after someone discovered the body.”

“Who?”

“Chessie Peruliana.”

“Is it possible you killed Nathen in the night and then went to bed?”

“I have no way of refuting that narrative. But the truth is I haven’t the faintest relation to the man. I did not do it.”

“I know.” The investigator sighed. A finger and thumb lifted the spectacles as she rubbed her eyes. “The only reason you are here right now, Lisŗa, is because the Laplace have become aware someone of Aldren descent is among this cohort. They don’t know your name, rest assured. But the Laplace took especially higher losses against your people in the war.”

“Only makes sense they’d suspect me, ma’am.”

“Don’t sass me. I’m telling you this because the war is over. We’ve won. Whatever quarrel Faleria had with Aldren should’ve ended the moment the throne was smashed and the citadel felled. But like all noblefolk… well, they wouldn’t be able to shoulder the Falerian ideal if they weren’t so high-strung.” The investigator rested her chin on tented fingers, leaning forward on the desk. “You are in danger, Aldrenite. If we don’t find definitively who did this to Nathen soon, the Laplace are going to start looking to save face. Your reputation won’t survive in the nobility if people can get away with murdering your heirs. And you, you’re the perfect lamb.”

Lisŗa blinked more rapidly. Her heart was racing.

“What are you saying?” She asked.

“I think you know perfectly well.” The woman stood. “You need to prove yourself exceptional, indispensable. Marry the Falerian ideal into your Mind, Form, and Soul. Make it an absolute shame to paint you as the culprit.”

“But… you said you knew it wasn’t me.”

“Lawkeepers don’t exist to enforce the laws, girl. Their work is ultimately to keep the peace. The ire of a noble family is not to be trifled with.” She paused, thinking of the words, but could only add, “I’m sorry.”

“Then help me,” Lisŗa said. “What could I do to- to be useful? I’m only here because I wanted to be independent. I don’t know-”

“I’m on a schedule. I’m running out of time.”

“But-”

“If you made it into this place, you must be excellent at something. Make yourself unbeatable. Escort her out.”

The guards were by Lisŗa’s side in an instant. Without another word, Lisŗa followed the corral back to her tent. Chessie ran over when she entered, with Dolores walking closely behind.

“Well?” Chessie asked, eyes wide.

“I might be a dead woman,” Lisŗa answered.

--

The verdant monitor scoured the forest floor in a feverish search for food. Occasionally it stopped. It was a small creature, and the pyramid of life was steep here. Pitted eyes swiveled in its skull, absorbing its surroundings once every few meters travelled. Keen ears and a forked tongue tasted the air for sounds and scents. Just for a moment it relaxed; a fresh kill nearby had attracted a swarm of carrion insects. While the six-legged creatures feasted on the dead, the lizard feasted on them. The kill was but a piece of the original body, but that was enough for most of the humble organisms near the forest floor.

The monitor snapped its mouth around… nothing. It had aimed for a bug and missed. It tried to move closer to the kill, but something had pinned it to a nearby root. A single shaft, tipped with metal, had pierced through its sides. In its last moments it squirmed, confused, wondering why it couldn’t reach its meal.

Jorge tore the arrow free from the corpse and picked it up by the tail. He bled it there before slinging it over his shoulder to bring back to his camp. Later he considered visiting the village to give some of the meat as a gift. They had taught him much in short amount of time.

The old man, who was named Lyosha, had told him a lot about the world.

“I came here in… in nineteen seventy,” he had said. “Oh it has been long time. Three decades.”

“That’s odd, I was pulled here from twenty twenty-five.”

“Ah.” He made a spaghetti motion with his fingers. “Time wibbly weird between worlds.”

“I see…”

“Tell me. Young man. What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“The conflict! The only one matters. Between my people and yours and world.”

“Oh. Well we’ve stopped fighting.” Jorge thought about it for a moment. “Kind of.”

“That’s good. Good. Better than nukes ah? Hahaha!”

But here things were different and familiar at the same time. Lyosha had travelled far before settling in the Heldrazi forest. On Etrylis, one was hard-pressed to find a decade without a war happening. Everyone wanted to rule. All it took was an ambitious lord, a warband, and a half-decent mage and one could start with the many scattered villages throughout the continent. Nations rose and fell like chaff.

Only ten great powers stood the test of time. Nine since Aldren fell, consumed by Faleria like an amoeba. And now Faleria was safe from the other eight, which were allegedly even more prodigious in power.

Collateral fell like ashen rain from the hellish, violent engines driving those economies. The Heldrazi forest once had a hundred tribes. Sometimes they feuded, but never close to the catastrophic scale under the watch of a goddess. She had been missing for years. The Heldrazi mountaintops melted as a result, and had recently had begun billowing black smoke. The tribes there had no idea when it might erupt, and nowhere to go if it did.

It didn’t concern him; he was no hero. Most of the people that found their way on Etrylis weren’t. He was no different. A mediocre nerd who could only dream of mattering in escapist literature. Jorge was content to sit in his shed by the river. He rebound the twine on the bow the villagers had given him, and began gutting the lizard with his hatchet. Next he skinned it. He cooked the meat over a fire he hid far away from his camp. It was on a small, dry hill, producing little smoke. When he was finished he snuffed it out and came back.

Jorge didn’t eat much. But when he did it felt satisfying in a way he had never known back on Earth. Watching television gave him that itch, a subliminal thought that said, ‘Go! Buy this high caloric slop and you’d feel good.’ And that had been true. For the moments it took to consume. Like an intense hit of cocaine, each subsequent sniff weaker than the last. Before he knew it he was shoveling down five to six thousand calories a day. Often more. He ate so he could forget how his parents and society in general judged him for his size, and his size grew from his eating.

After nearly two months on Etrylis, he didn’t want to eat anymore; he needed to eat. And that made every berry he had to work for taste sweeter than diet Coke. Life felt right. And then he heard tree boughs break close by. Branches as thick as he was tall were being strained past their limit. He did not see, but he heard it. The bushes nearby rustled and the two-headed deer galloped out. It stopped by his camp and lowered its back. Without thinking, Jorge grabbed his bow and a handful of arrows, and climbed onto the animal’s back. It took off. Jorge nearly fell backward in surprise from the acceleration. He dared to look behind him and saw a rising shadow cloaking a set of mountainous jaws. The shadow was brown fur. The monster was a bear. When it roared, it sent tremors through his skull. On its hind legs it was as tall as a house. And when it broke into a run it shattered everything in its path.