Riika’s settlement is half a day of travel away. Without the mountains to navigate around they can travel much faster and the wolves and elk seem untiring, so they follow their rhythm without barely any stops.

They arrive at sundown to a not very big settlement, with probably less than a hundred families living in it. The huts are wooden, beautifully decorated with paintings in the exterior and their roofs seem to be made of grass. They are led by Riika to the one in the centre, visibly bigger than the others. When they enter, they see a hall of ceremony, with a big fire in the middle and long tables at the sides. There are no tall chairs on top of a dais like in Lífdagar’s town, the settlement is not big enough to have a real figure of authority. There are wooden columns at the sides of the room that turn into complicated archways at the top, the ceiling full of paintings in the fashion of the exterior, with colours and floral motifs. The place is full of people when they come in, they probably calculated when they would arrive and are ready to welcome them. The room is full of smoke from the fire, the smell of cooking meat filling the air around them. A curious thing happens when they enter, the dozens of conversations that were going on disappear in a wave, as the people closer to them realize who has just entered through the doors and the others turn to look at what made them go silent.

"Couldn't we have changed before coming here in front of everyone?" Meira asks through the Kyusei mental link. Kylem looks at her, she is already smiling to the people close to her and extending her hand so they can salute her in the same fashion Riika and the others did when they met them. Riika leads them towards a man. Even if there is no official leader in the settlement, it's clear that this man is the one who acts the role.

"Welcome, Kyusei" he says, an announcement to everyone in the room. He has a strong voice that carries around the hall. "We are honoured you came to us." Meira is sure most people in the room can't understand what he is saying, but the intent of his words is clear. "We prepared food and rooms for you, you must be tired." He is now speaking in a normal tone, no longer talking to the whole room. "Riika will show you your rooms so you can change, don't rush, we will keep the food warm."

He presses each of their hands to his forehead before Riika leads them outside through the people and to a hut not very far from the hall. Riika apologizes because the house only has four beds and offers to find something else for one of them, but they tell her not to worry, Rakan and Meira sleep on the same bed most of the time anyways. She shows them the house. It's different than the ones on Lífgadar's town. For starters, it is divided in different rooms, no big open space around a fire. There are fires lit in each room, to warm them up. The walls are decorated with colours, as are the beds, made of a full wood structure, so they seem like a small room themselves.

"Why are the beds here so damn short, are they made for very fucking short people who I have not seen yet?" Meira asks while letting herself fall sideways to the bed in the room they are in. Not that there really is a correct side, as the bed is completely square.

"They are like that to keep warm." Lífdagar answers. "If you are curled up, you don't lose so much warmth."

Meira lifts her eyebrows and nods, “makes sense.”

"Okay another question," Gabriel starts "why do they do that with the hand and the forehead, do I have to do it back?"

"They do it to show respect to powerful people, so to say." Lífdagar answers. "Wait- what do you mean do It back? Did they do it to you?"

"Yeah, the boss guy- did he say his name? - he did it to me."

"Oh, that means he thinks-" Lífdagar stops before finishing.

"You are Seoham" Kylem finishes.

"Okay, do I look like I'm from the fucking east?" Gabriel asks pointing at himself, his tanned face and dark curls.

"Well, not necessarily Seoham, but the Kyusei of the Elements." Lífdagar says.

"You've been promoted." Rakan says with a laugh while hitting Gabriel on the back.

"They don't know about Seoham?" Meira asks, surprised, getting up from the bed.

"Not the best way of getting people on your side, telling them that one of the Kyusei is off with the enemy." Rakan says. "You didn't know."

"Well, to be honest, I was not very interested in you guys or in the Hexian's business."

"Rude."

"Well, I'm going to correct them because I don't want anyone expecting me to do cool shit with powers I don't have." Gabriel says. "Now If you'll excuse me, I want to get out of these filthy clothes."

"Oh come on, it could be fun!" Meira shouts after him while he leaves.

Kylem leaves after him and Lífdagar does too, after she says that they should all probably clean themselves and get dressed. They do just that. Even if there is running water in the hut, it is cold, as no Rune Maker has worked on the pipes to make them heat up the water. Their hosts warmed some water for them in the fireplace before they arrived, but Meira has Rakan heat it up more for her. They have been riding out in the cold for hours and she needs some warming up.

They have also left clean clothes for all of them. Meira's is a long-sleeved long white dress, embroidered with floral patterns on the sleeves and chest zone, with a slightly shorter dress on top, yellow and without sleeves, it has embroidered patterns in the upper end and a brooch on each strap. Meira also grabs a thin cotton belt and ties it around her waist.

When they are all ready they meet at the door. Lífdagar is wearing a dress just like Meira's but in green, matching with Gabriel's shirt, while Rakan is wearing blue. Kylem is the only one not wearing colourful clothing, his shirt a deep black. The clothes are very similar to what the people wore where Lífdagar's family lives, but they had their clothes then, so they hadn't actually worn this clothing. It's far from the over complicated dresses of the Prunetzian court but Meira likes them.

When they come out, the sun is long gone from the sky, and with it, the little warmth it still gives has left too, so they have to wear cloaks on top of their clothes. They are not like the long ones that they are used to, the ones that move with the winds around them. They are hard, colourful and short, only covering till the middle of their thighs. It makes sense, thinks Meira, if it snows as much as they say, you wouldn’t want your cloak to get caught up inside it.

The path between the huts in not very bright, only lit by some torches on the sides of the buildings. Meira lights their path with some small balls of light that dance close to the ground.

“No artificial sun?” She asks.

“They probably don’t have a light maker.” Lífdagar says.

The effect that they had before repeats itself, with quietness falling on the hall at their sight. They are led to a table next to the fire. They sit facing it with their backs to the wall. Someone takes the cloaks from them, so they are more comfortable. They sit with the man that had welcomed them before and Meira sees that the meat on the fire is untouched. They have waited for them to start eating, and they continue to wait until they are served and finally eat. It's a change, as lately they have been surrounded by people that are used to their presence, that treat them with respect but not devotion, as someone important, but at the same time a kind of equal. Now they eat, and their plates and cups are always full.

Meira calls for the man that acts as the leader. He turns towards her, curious. “You don’t have light outside, I can create a few lights and keep them on through the night for you.”

“You are very generous Kyusei but need few lights. It… it blocks the night.” He says. Meira doesn’t say anything, of course it blocks the night, that is what people normally want, to keep the darkness and whatever dwells on it at bay. The man looks around, he seems a bit nervous, looking for words. “There is time for light and time for dark.” He starts explaining. “We respect both. Lots of lights don’t let you see the night. Night is also a gift of the Gods.”

“Of course.” Meira says with a smile, deciding to end the man’s struggle to explain the importance of the night. She looks towards Kylem, he is pretending he hasn’t heard anything, but the subtle pleased look on his face gives him away.

They are there for hours. They eat, and drink, and talk, there is even music and some dancing. Lífdagar speaks with everyone without problem, Kylem and Rakan are pretty fluent themselves from the time they have spent with Lífdagar’s family. Fluent, but Kylem doesn’t really speak much with anyone, and Rakan covers his lack of vocabulary with excited hand gestures. Meira observes, she likes to think that she is starting to learn some words, even if the language is so different to what she is used to. She was always good at languages, it helped that she grew up speaking three already, learned another after she forcefully left her Kare. After that, she used to speak with the travellers that passed her town, learnt some phrases and words, enough to bargain with them if they were merchants, and to know if they were taking about her to their partners. And Hexian. Marisa always insisted that she learnt Hexian until she was fluent but she never knew why. Now she knows.

Meira expected darkness when they came out of the hall. She couldn’t have been more wrong. The sky is dancing, that’s all she can think. The is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars, she doesn’t even know how the stars look. The sky is full of green and blue streams moving, dancing. She is frozen in place, looking up, she barely registers someone saying “The Gods know you are here” close to her. Meira had heard about these, of course she had. She had even seen pictures of them in books but it doesn’t even come close to seeing it in front of her. Moving, casting light.

She turns her head towards where she knows Rakan is -without moving her eyes form the sky- and she says his name. He doesn’t need more. In seconds she is hurled up to Rakan’s back and then flying up on top of a dragon. They are lucky, with the huts being so far apart Rakan didn’t hit anything when he changed.

They fly up, and up, and up, and Meira is thankful for the cloak wrapped around her shoulders because the air keeps getting colder the more they go up.

When they reach the light, she forgets about the cold. The blues and greens are dancing around them. Meira feels Lífdagar close and turns to see a bird flying close to her, doing loops in the air. She barely has time to think that loops look fun before Rakan is going vertical again and does a loop backwards, fast enough for Meira to not fall from him. She shouts, and laughs, delighted. Rakan does it again, that and more tricks that leave Meira barely holding on top of him, her hands numb with the cold. At one point she falls but she is not alarmed, Rakan catches her again in no time. She would stay flying there forever but the cold is too much, her hands too numb and her body shivering so they have to go down again. To the people that have all come out of the huts to look at them.

Afterwards, Meira and Rakan are on the roof of the hut, lying side by side looking up at the sky. The lights are still dancing above them, although they are not as strong as before. Everyone is inside their huts, the night too cold to just hang out outside. It would be too cold for Meira too If it wasn’t for Rakan. They are both under a blanket Meira got from their bed. Rakan is naked under it as he ripped his clothes when he turned, not very polite, but Meira didn’t see anyone upset while they were watching the Kyusei flying between the lights.

“Do you remember how we were brought up?” Meira asks. Rakan makes a confused noise, she can tell he was half asleep.

“You remember too, right? You got your memories back.” Meira can see the anxiousness starting in his voice.

“Yes, calm down.” She says and stops him from getting up. “Remember how they always encouraged us to ask about things? To question everything.”

“And you were SO annoying with that.” Rakan says with a laugh. “Jeremiah, why are we five and not six or four? Jeremiah, why can I heal if I’m not the Kyusei of life? Jeremiah, why won’t you let me try flying like Rakan?”

Meira laughs. “I think that last one was after I jumped out of a window and broke my leg.”

“You were a menace.”

“WE were a menace.” Meira counters. “You burned my back! I still have the scar because I was too small to heal myself.”

“Didn’t you ask for it? You said it looked cool.”

“I don’t remember that part.”

“I do.”

They stay in silence for some time. Until Meira thinks that Rakan is asleep but is proved wrong when he speaks again.

“Why were you thinking about that?” he says.

“When I went with Marisa, she tried to kill that part of me, I couldn’t question anything important, whatever she said I had to accept as the truth.” She makes a stop. “Life is easier when you don’t question some things.”

Rakan answers with a hum, he is falling asleep even after he was the one who made the question. Meira sighs, if he falls asleep there is no way she can get him inside on her own and leaving the Dragon Kyusei to sleep outside naked is not probably the best idea. She stands up and nudges him with her foot. When he doesn’t move, she walks to the side of the roof and looks down. She walks back next to Rakan. He is lying almost parallel to the edge of the roof and close enough to just… She braces herself and kicks him hard from the side. He turns, rolls and then he is gone, and half a second later there is a thud and groan.

Meira jumps down from the roof next to him. It is not high enough for her to even hurt her ankles. Rakan is splayed face up on the grass, pouting.

“Why did you do that?” He asks.

“You wouldn’t wake up.” Meira answers with a shrug.

“I could have died.” He says, still pouting.

“Not from that height,” she says, “not with me here.” She nudges him with her foot again. “Come on, do you want everyone to see your dick?”

He finally starts sitting up and extends his hand for Meira to grab and help him. “My shoulder hurts.” He says.

“I will heal it before we even reach the room, come on.”

The shoulder is healed before they reach the room, and five minutes later Rakan is already snoring next to Meira after putting some clothes on. It’s only the small light that she always keeps on that hears her whisper into the night “I don’t want to question what the council tells us.”

There is a little voice in her head that adds but you can’t help it.