Much of the morning flew by like the flocks of birds traveling north. Between games and stories about that big dog, who had been the only company Lucahn had apart from his parents, for practically his entire life, living so far from society that he had rejected them for reasons that Tristessa did not know at the moment.
Resting under the shade of a tree and using the old, tired animal's back as a pillow, the girl listened to Lucahn tell her an anecdote about Gaal hunting a wandering spinnarak, all on his own. The reigning peace made her smile from ear to ear, listening to the breeze passing in the distance through the labyrinthine corridors of the Sea of Trees, descending to the plains and heading north, just like how the flocks of birds were doing. Towards where the epicenter of the Dominion was.
"Towards my next objective," thought the girl, aware that she could not continue abusing the hospitality of the Mercer-Archeos family for much longer, or wait for the answers to her momentous questions to fall from the sky for her. "My heart…"
Her heartbeats were fast. Restless. Full of fear. She was scared to think of the road ahead, but seeing Lucahn at her side, alive and well, inspired her not to give up. Learning from the now lost past timeline and a present with new possibilities, she had to move forward.
Her two deaths had taught her that any misstep could be fatal; she couldn't afford to run when there were invisible obstacles, waiting for her to crash into them and end up in the worst way imaginable.
The smartest move was to gather information, like in the art of modern warfare, and as she looked out the open kitchen window, Tristessa couldn't ignore the fact that the teacher who lived in the house was more than ideal for her plans.
"Lucahn, I'll go see if your mom needs help making lunch," she told him after a moment of silence in which the boy almost fell asleep, intoxicated by the perfect tranquility of the patio and the rocking of his head thanks to Gaal's soft breathing.
"—Yawn— It's okay, Tessa. Just… Don't fight with her, please," he asked, smiling sleepily at her. He had taken her hand when she got up, so she could hear him. "She doesn't hate you."
That made Tristessa laugh, and in a way she couldn't quite understand why, it covered her fearful heart with nostalgia.
"Maybe I have a talent for getting along with moms, though I can't say much with this empty head of mine. I only remember my mom's name, Selene… I hope that with time, I can remember her, and what's missing about my life."
"…Huh?"
Lucahn let go of her hand, his sleepiness going up in flames in an instant to be replaced with utter confusion. He stared at the girl with his mouth agape and wide-awake eyes, but she didn't notice his strange reaction, as she was more interested in ruffling his hair again, now free of its brown cappie.
"Don't miss me."
With that said and without waiting for a reply from her not-so-new friend, she headed into the house. She returned to the atrium through the side entrance and, for the first time since her second return to life, she entered the kitchen.
"Ha... Uff, wow...," she whispered, feeling pain in the constriction that arose in her chest. Breathing became a little more difficult, as she stepped back into that place, tidy and neat unlike the last time. Table and chairs in their place, shelves standing and tidy, no broken glass and ceramics everywhere. Order, hiding the chaos of the non-existent past. "Uff…uff…"
She inhaled and exhaled, feeling cold perspiration forming on the back of her neck. With each step she took, dark memories came back to her. The center of her face remembered the acute pain of being disfigured by blows, making Tristessa bite her lower lip, dry as a desert.
And that pregnant woman, stirring the steaming contents of a pot with a ladle, brought back the worst of all memories. She wasn't going to faint, but the dread that was etched on her soul, and more than anything the knife she carried secured in her belt and inside a leather sheath, was impossible to ignore.
"Calm down. Calm down," she told herself, in the privacy of her mind, going towards her host. "Everything is going to be okay."
"Mmm…mm… Mmm…mm," Tiara hummed under her breath, her deep voice working against her. The aroma coming from the pot filled with chunks of spinnarak meat was not to Tristessa's liking, but watching her go about chopping vegetables gave a glimmer of hope to her stomach, inexperienced in the culinary arts of Nekrom.
"Miss Tiara, may I help you?" she asked, standing at a safe distance. Tiara glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, not stopping her task but her humming. "It's the least I can do to thank you for your hospitality, and…"
Tristessa cleared her throat. This time, it was going to go well. It HAD to go well, she couldn't start off on the wrong foot again.
"I also wanted to apologize for my behavior. You gave me a place to sleep and eat, while I returned your solidarity by locking myself up there."
Tiara's naturally cold gaze made Tristessa more nervous by the second. Silence was always a bad sign, making her lose hope… Luckily, the woman sighed at the end.
"Forget about it. Do you want to help? Here." She offered her a kitchen knife; a catalyst for more dark memories that made the girl hesitate for a moment before taking the handle with a trembling, sweaty hand. "Keep cutting the vegetables, and by Xiliarra keep your Discord under control before you make me sick."
"Y-yes!"
The fear and anxiety that Tristessa let go at that moment with the knife had released the essence of her soul. She could imagine a dark miasma surrounding her and Tiara, whose grimace of disgust and repulsion fit well into the mental scene she had created.
With her sleeves rolled up and her black hair tied back, the girl did her best to calm down and complete the task at hand, which, surprisingly, didn't turn out to be difficult at all. There was some muscle memory at play, from the way she cut the peppers and onions into uniform pieces. She even caught Tiara glancing at her work and making a satisfied grimace, while she took care of seasoning and continuing to taste the contents of the pot.
"It's been a while since I saw Lucahn having fun like that," the woman commented, after leaving the ladle on the table and crossing her arms. Over her shoulder, Tristessa saw her going to the window, her hair hiding her face. "It's a pity that dog doesn't have much time left."
"Really? Oh… poor Gaal, is he that old?" the girl asked.
"It's a miracle he's still alive after all these years… Don't forget the potatoes."
"No, I got it!" Tiara didn't seem to want to hear her cooking without the sound of a knife cutting something against the wooden board. Quickly, Tristessa grabbed four potatoes with dark, dirty skins and began washing them in the sink. "I wonder if I had a pet… I like the idea of owning a kitten."
"Once Severus visits us, he's sure to take you to town to treat your condition. Knowing that eccentric blood elf, he'll make you work like a slave to pay for any magical treatment for your memory loss," the woman commented, still looking out at the yard.
She didn't get a chance to see that sparkle of excitement flashing across Tristessa's eyes. The idea that there were elves and magic in that world was wonderful; Lucahn's Divinity had already left her speechless, in the other timeline. Not so with her own "Divinity", if her ability to return from Death could be considered that.
Tristessa had experienced so much affliction in such a short time, such an abysmal and indescribable amount of physical and mental suffering, that she found it hard to believe that the reflection staring back at her in the pool's waters was her and not someone whose soul was broken, plunged into absolute madness by all the horror she experienced in the flesh.
"It's strange, you know? Looking at myself in the surface of the water and wondering who I am. What kind of person is Tristessa Irandell," she said in a lower voice than normal, as she began to peel the potatoes and distort her reflection.
"You are most likely a kidnapping victim from the Coven." Tristessa felt the woman's anger directed at this mysterious group that she knew practically nothing about. "You escaped from them, something very few people are able to tell the tale, and the experience must have traumatized you to the point of repressing your memories. That is one of the theories I have about you… You know that I need to consider all options, especially if I have a possible enemy sleeping under the same roof. That is one of the first lessons in the military, child: a Stranger is an enemy of the Empire of the Night's Watch."
Tristessa licked her lips, a little nervous at the way Tiara was leading the conversation. There was something unsettling about the word Stranger; said with a different connotation, something unique to Nekrom and its inhabitants.
"Once you regain your memory, you will remember who you are and where you come from," the woman continued. "Your last name, Irandell… I wonder where it's from."
"Y-you say that as if it weren't from this Domain," the girl replied, not thinking about what she was saying as, ironically, she wanted to know the same thing as well.
"It might not be. It might not even be a surname from this world."
Tristessa forgot how to blink. Those words froze her, along her blood inside her veins, inside her heart that for a second forgot how to beat. Slowly, she looked to the side and saw Tiara's face at almost no distance from hers, staring dangerously and fixedly at her. With her hands behind her back, the woman had come to her side so quickly and silently that it was scary; those red eyes bared, discovered any vulnerability, and no secret could be kept safe from them.
The girl had already seen those eyes obtain forbidden information and succumb to madness. It was something she never wanted to see happen again.
"Are you a Stranger, Tristessa Irandell?" Tiara asked, softly and with a gentleness so deadly that it gave chills. "Are you someone from another world?"