To Love, Once Again

"He has a high fever. It hasn't broken for 5 days, and this is the 5th. If it doesn't break today..."

A little boy, who looked to be around 9-11 years old, was laying on a grass mat, body soaked with sweat.

Outside the tent where he lay, sheep bleated and horses neighed, punctuated by the squalling calls of babies crying as their exhausted mothers rocked them to a dry chest, their bodies unable to provide the milk to nourish them.

——————

Sera had been surprised when Lois rushed her to the cart parked in the back of the castle, near the servant's quarters, and set her mule to trod over what looked like a animal trail leading deeper into the forest beyond the Keep.

"Child, what you're about to see, I need to ask you to to keep it to yourself."

Lois stares ahead as they pass by tightly knit trees.

"I need you to trust me, so please, don't be surprised with what you're about to see"

Her age-spotted hands pat Sera's on the roughly hewn bench of the cart.

Sera could feel the question marks popping into her head. The cart trundled along as Lois clicks her tongue at her mule, doing her best to speed up the animal's steady pace.

Soon, the smell fire and cooking meat permeated the air, and Sera was shocked to see the sight before her.

Her fight-or-flight instincts kicked in.

That's an Azark tent! This was enemy territory!

Jumping off the cart while it's still rolling forward, Sera moves away from Lois.

Had Lois betrayed her!? What was the motive of Lois bringing her here?!!

Her rib twinges with the sudden movements. Sera puts a hand on the side of her chest, trying to stay calm, as she backs away, eyes roving about wildly for any Azark soldiers in their blue uniforms hiding in the forest around them.

Pointing a finger to the distinct round colorful Azark tents that ringed a large campfire "Lois, don't you know who those tents belong to!"

Lois stops the cart, the wood creaking as she carefully makes her way off it.

She sighs. "I asked you to trust me." Lois folds the finger Sera has pointed at the tents, and taps her on the shoulder.

"Look closely"

Squinting her eyes at the campground, which was hard to see with the thick foliage that obstructed most of the sunlight and smoke from the fire, she noticed small children, grubby and thin, running amongst the tents. Animals brayed and called to each other, making the neat military tents Sera had seen so far off on the battlefield adopt a domestic air.

Taking her hand, Lois brings Sera forward.

"We haven't got much time. I'll explain as we treat the boy."

Yes, there was that boy with a high fever Lois had told her about on the way to this place in the castle.

Lois lets Sera's hand go and marches forward, barking out a greeting in the harsh Azark language.

Sera decided to trust Lois. It was a hard decision to make, when she herself had personally seen all the destruction the Azarks had wrought upon the people of Thornmere. But Lois was a good woman. Everything action she made had a clear purpose and motive, and besides, Sera couldn't imagine kind Lois was a traitor.

Drawing closer, the tents weren't as brightly colored as they'd appeared. The colors were muted and faded, with rips and spots of mud here and there. The mud was all over the children too, who didn't seem to mind as their pale skin and blond hair, trademarks of an Azark, was covered with dirt. From the way their faces and hands seemed to be wiped clean, there was obviously a mother that cared for them, but was unable to keep up with the copious amounts of mud and animal feces that littered the small clearing.

The children stare at her with bright eyes, running over to her and fingering the smooth cloth of her skirt. Chattering at her, some of them jump, trying to touch her smoothly braided plaits. The strange thing was, Sera could understand every word they said.

"Are you a princess??" A little girl with a gap-toothed smile asks.

"No, she's a mermaid! Look! She's wearing blue" amAnother boy with so much mud and dirt everwhere that it made his hair look brown spoke up.

"No! A fairy!" Another girl hugs a straw doll and stomps her foot with determination.

"Miss Fairy do you have food?"

"What kind of food does a mermaid eat?"

"Who cares what she eats if she's brought us food?" An older girl with a distrustful gaze, pinching a piece of wool off the patches in her skirt speaks up.

"We're hungry!" The other children cry in unison.

"Pfft. A fairy? Look at her, she's from Thornmere. Let's go look in the cart if Lois brought us anything"

Calling out to the children from his seat on a log, a boy who looks to be the tallest and oldest says sardonically, and stands up.

The Elder's words were true. She could understand all languages in this world. Sera wasn't sure since she'd only interacted with people from Thornmere. This was a remnant of her days as a Summoned One. The great magic that brought her here in the first place also luckily included a translation filter. After all, it wouldn't do to summon a person from another world and have them arrive unable to understand the language.

"This way!"

Lois calls out, and Sera follows behind, nodding and smiling at each child that calls out to her as she extricates herself from the circle of children surrounding her.

From the blankets laid out on racks, benches, baskets, other furnitures, as well as looms that held half-finished works of bright clothes, it looked like someone had taken what they had into a large basket, and dumped it all here, setting it up in the clearing, turning the land into a home.

It was a struggle between man and nature, man with their technology versus the overwhelming encroachment of the mud, trees, and grass, of nature itself.

Sera warily enters the tent after Lois, who can be seen talking to a Azark woman, blonde hair falling out from where it's tied up with a kerchief, rocking a baby on one hip while gesturing animatedly to Lois. A man that looked like the father sat on a tree stump, puffing away on his pipe, ignoring them.

There was no uniformed Azark soldier in the tent either, only the pots and pans strung onto the wall and a large grass mat in one corner where a boy lays, groaning.

Laying a hand on his forehead, the burning heat of which tells Sera he needs medicine, and fast.

The medicinal paste spread on his chest, which Sera knew was Lois' handiwork, wasn't working.

Quickly pushing herself off the ground, she runs to the cart and fishes out her purple knapsack from where it forlornly lay, wedged between stacks of empty wooden crates.

There, from her stash of emergency medication, she finds the fever relieving pill. This pill had acetaminophens, exactly what he needed in a concentrated form.

"Lois, I need some water for him!"

Rushing back inside, Sera calls to Lois, who speaks to the mother, who hands her a shrunken leather flagon.

Placing the white pill in the boy's mouth and dribbling water to make him swallow, Sera watches nervously, the mother peeking behind her at her son.

The boy's throat moves up, and back down, as he swallows, and Sera smiles, breathing a sigh of relief.

"He should be alright now," she tells Lois, who turns and translates her words to the mother, who thanks her, tears rolling down her cheeks.

At the same time, a woman's scream rends the air, joined by the piercing cries of children crying in terror, and roars of men shouting, the sounds outside the tent as if utter chaos had descended upon them.

—————
Leo looks up as the sunlight is suddenly blocked above him, a shadow enveloping his small child body. He was squatted down in the Royal Gardens, staring at the pretty flowers, lost after losing track of his Mama and the old woman who'd disappeared as he'd scrambled to catch up to them.

His eyes curve into perfect crescents, smiling up at the person who towers over him, tiny finger pointed up at them.

"Didn't your mother teach you it's rude to point at people?" The shadow asks.

"Youwer haer look like mine"
Leo pats the dark red ringlets that curl around his face.