Hey there, I know this is late again. I'm sorry. I'm trying to post on time, but I can't always make it at the moment. Still, new chapters will be coming, I promise. On the plus side, you won't have to wait as long for the next update. Stay safe everyone!

It was a long and exhausting hike to reach a less dense part of the forest where they felt safe enough to set up their tent for the night. But neither of them was able to sleep well. When dawn cast its light upon the sky, Beatrice wasn't sure if she had slept at all or if she'd just tossed and turned around on her straw mattress in a useless attempt to calm the flood of images and impressions from her adventure earlier that night.

They got up in silence and packed their belongings. They still had a long way ahead of them if they wanted to make it back to Beatrice's parents the same day. It had taken them two days to reach the Dark Forest, and they'd only spent half a night wandering back.

Christina had refused to speak about what had happened when she'd been off to get the stone, and Beatrice had known better than to push her. If she didn't share it of her own accord, it had to have been disturbing. Christina hadn't shown to be the reluctant type in the past. Beatrice accepted her need for silence, as unusual as it was, and refrained from bringing the topic up. She could wait and took the time to process her own experiences.

It felt good to be able to walk after the restless night. It gave her back control over her actions and thoughts the more familiar the territory became. While her body was drained from the excessive walking, her determination was burning bright, taking over and pushing her homewards. She had always been a little too stubborn, a little too selfish for a girl in Abnegation, she knew it, had often felt like she didn't belong. But now, for the first time in her life, she not only accepted this side of her personality, she welcomed it.

They reached her family's home late at night, when her parents had already gone to sleep. The fire had burned down to ember that emanated a soft glow and a humble amount of warmth. Since they didn't want to wake anyone, they put their mattresses down right there. The knowledge of being safe at last made them fall asleep quickly.

Andrew and Natalie were surprised when they found two sleeping girls on their kitchen floor close to the fireplace the next morning. They were relieved to see their daughter again, alive and unharmed. The Epaticamey root had lifted Natalie's condition, so she was able to get out of bed together with her husband now. Andrew still gestured for her to sit down at the table while he put logs in the fireplace to reawaken the flames. It wasn't easy to move and set the kettle on the fire to get water boiling to brew their tea without accidentally stumbling over the sleeping girls. Natalie wondered what they had encountered that caused them to not immediately wake up from the clatter.

When the girls finally did wake up, they hurried to sit down for breakfast. While they avoided going into details about the Dark Forest and the specifics of their task, they summed up how they had spent the last days. They had decided the day before that they wanted to stay as long as possible before returning to the castle to make themselves useful and take the time to work on their fighting techniques. It would be easier to do it here, without attracting unwanted attention from the other girls in the competition. While only Beatrice had managed to gain the requested stone, she had offered that her and Christina could try dropping it into the bowl together and see if that counted for both of them to pass.

Only after Andrew had left for the close village to help a family repair their leaking roof and all the dishes had been washed and dried and stowed back into the shelves, did Beatrice ask about Caleb. He didn't usually sleep this long, so the only other option was that he had left early for a job. Sometimes, when someone living further away than the next village needed help fixing their hut or offered any other kind of job that promised some silver, he left at dawn or even stayed elsewhere for two or three days at a time.

Natalie sighed and wrung her hands, a gesture that alarmed Beatrice. Her mother was usually very much in control of keeping signs of nervousness or worry out of her body language, so there had to be more to Caleb's absence this morning.

"He left two days ago."

"For a job?" Beatrice asked, but she already knew the answer.

"Yes and no. He was recruited to help the researchers at the Erudite laboratories. Apparently, they have found promising clues to improve crop growth and need more workers to assist them."

"When you say 'recruited', what do you mean?"

This wasn't normal. Beatrice could tell from how carefully her mother chose her words and from the fact that it wasn't common to ask people from other provinces for help. There were enough men and women looking for work everywhere, as far as she knew.

"Two men rode here with their horses. I could tell where they came from right away from their purple cloaks. They carried a piece of parchment with a list of names on it and asked for Caleb to accompany them to Erudite. He said he didn't want to leave us here, since you were busy in the competition, but they made it clear that it wasn't meant as an offer. They showed us a Royal Decree signed by the queen. He had no other choice than to go with them. At least, they promised he'd be rewarded for his work. Perhaps it will turn out to be something good that he's there now. It still is the richest province, apart from the castle of course."

"But Caleb in Erudite? How is he going to be of any help there? They spend half their time studying every day, how can someone from Abnegation be able to keep up with them?"

"I'm afraid I don't know either. Maybe you can find out more about that once you get there, or maybe you'll even be able to find him and talk to him, ask if everything is alright."

"I hope so."

Beatrice didn't want to cause her mother any more worries than she already had, so she kept to herself how suspicious she was of the queen and her decree. It was a strange coincident for this to happen just at the same time that this competition was held, and that there was a list of names that had already been decided on. Why would they refer to that instead of just asking around for volunteers? She was sure there were more than enough young people ready to go to Erudite for a bit of food and silver without having to be forced to comply.

It was a thought that kept her company all day, through her training session with Christina, through preparing lunch and darning socks and other items of clothing and through brushing the floor until it appeared lighter than it had in a long time.

Late in the afternoon, she took Christina out in the forest to collect herbs. It wasn't a particularly long distance they had to walk, and they set off in a quick pace. Beatrice knew the forest around her home like the back of her hand, could read it like a book. She led her friend to the places she knew they would find what they were looking for. She instructed her on how to pick certain herbs and how to distinguish one plant from the other and let her know what each one was used for. She planned to make a decoction to bathe their feet in that night, to help ease the pain in their soles and disinfect the blisters, so they'd heal faster. They both had several from walking around that much, but they were both too stubborn to let them dictate their day.

On the way back, Beatrice made a hesitant attempt to ask Christina what had happened on her way to the wall.

"It was so very dark, I couldn't see anything. This fog, it made me feel so lost and disoriented. I felt disconnected from everything, isolated, as if I was the only person left in the world. I forgot the time, too, and I could hear nothing but my own breathing and my heartbeat thrumming in my ears. I have no idea how you made it to the wall on your own, I could never have reached it without your fabric to cling to."

"But the fireflies, didn't they light you the way to the wall?"

Beatrice was surprised. She had assumed they'd stayed to help her friend, too. And while her own experience in the fog hadn't been comfortable either, Christina's sounded a lot scarier.

"Fireflies? No. Nothing. Just the fog, fog everywhere."

"Oh." What could she say? She had only made it because she had been lucky. If it hadn't been for the fireflies, then she probably wouldn't have made it either. If Christina had chosen to go first, would she have been the lucky one instead of her? "But... you still reached the wall after all?"

"I did. I swung the pickaxe, nine times if I remember correctly. The sound was so loud I was scared it would summon the souls and lead them right to where I was. But no matter how hard I tried, not a single stone came loose. And then the axe just vanished. I can't tell you what I did wrong, but it dissolved into thin air. I tried to hold on to it, but I was powerless to stop it from disappearing. And then I rushed back to you as fast as I could. You know the rest. This whole trip was so creepy. I understand why my grandma warned me to ever set a foot there."

"That is so mysterious. I don't understand why it didn't work for you. It took me three blows and I got my stone."

"There has to have been some kind of spell on the axe."

"Obviously. Where I come from, pickaxes don't just vanish. The most important thing is that you got your stone. You need to stay in the competition in the first place. I appreciate your offer to try to return it together and if it works, fine. But if not and I drop out, I'll still go to Candor with you and try my best to help you solve the task there. Only, I won't be able to return to the castle another time with you."

"I know. We'll see. Maybe it will work."

"Yes, maybe. And then I want to forget we've ever been at this place and never talk about it again."

"Not even to Will?"

"I don't know yet."

Beatrice poured the decoction into the circular metal bowl they used in her family to wash themselves. She put it on the floor and carefully put her left foot into the still comfortably hot water while Christina sat opposite her and also put in one foot. They had decided that it was fairer to bathe their feet at the same time instead of one after the other. Christina sighed contentedly as her foot sunk into the water.

"That's the best idea you've come up with today," she praised.

"Thanks," Beatrice said and silently added 'I know it was a brilliant one'. But she didn't dare to say it out loud due to the presence of her parents. She knew they didn't like statements like these, even when they were meant half-jokingly. Pride wasn't something to joke about in Abnegation.

They soaked each foot various times until the water had turned cold. Then they dried them and carefully covered their blisters with a paste Beatrice had made of leaves, bark and water. It burned, but it would be so much better tomorrow, and if they repeated the procedure once more then, and maybe another time at the castle if it was possible, their feet would soon be healed and ready to carry them to their next adventures.

The next day went by too fast for all the things that Beatrice wanted to help Natalie with.

When Christina had gone outside to fetch water from the rivulet that they had already been together various times now, Beatrice used the chance to seek her mother's advice. She had made another decoction for her, though it was a different one with stimulating effects. She went through the preparations in silence and then invited her mother to soak her feet in the warm water.

Natalie didn't hesitate, and Beatrice knew how thankful she was to be cared for. Washing the parents' feet was a common gesture of respect in Abnegation, but Beatrice didn't do it only to comply with the expectation. She genuinely wanted to do what she could to make her mother get better, and she was already so glad about having brought the root from Amity.

Calm flooded her as she knelt on the floor and massaged Natalie's feet in the water. It was one of those rituals which made her feel close to her.

It was silent until Natalie asked if she had managed to get what she'd set out for the other day.

"Yes, I did. But Christina didn't. We'll try to return it together, so maybe that will count for both of us to pass the task."

"I'm proud of you."

"Thank you."

They fell back into comfortable silence until Beatrice couldn't hold back what she'd gone through. And so she told her mother, told her about the old man and the fire, about Al, about the fog and the fireflies and the pickaxe and the wall and the way back. The only thing she didn't have to say much about anymore was how they'd found the dove, since she had told that part of the story during breakfast the day before, explaining about the bird she kept feeding while they were eating.

"I still don't know what to make of all of this, why Christina wasn't able to get a stone out of that wall when she did nothing differently," she concluded.

Natalie sighed and smiled as if she knew something Beatrice did not.

"Think child. Think about the story you told me. There were some things you and your friend did differently. You even mentioned how the fireflies showed you the reason they were there."

Beatrice contemplated the events of that night anew while she reached for the washcloth and started to use it on Natalie's feet.

Yes, she had offered her second to last match to the old man to light his fire with it. Was that the reason why the fireflies had showed up?

Yes, she had saved an injured dove when leaving it be would have meant its death. Could that have had an effect, too?

And yes, she had shared her fruit with Al. He had given her the pickaxe in return, and had shared his knowledge with them.

Was it all linked? And why was it that on their way back they never passed neither Al's hut nor the old man's shack, although they had been sure they'd taken the same path back on which they had come.

She looked up to her mother. Was it possible that she knew more than she let on?

"Beatrice, do you remember what I told you before you left?"

Be yourself. Never forget who you are and where you come from.

"Yes," she gasped, suddenly realizing what it all meant.

It had been an Abnegation task. Bringing a stone had never particularly seemed like one. If anything, having to go to the edge of the Dark Forest would rather be a Dauntless task. It had never been about the stone... Or at least, not specifically. Being able to get the stone was just the result of passing the smaller tests they hadn't been aware of.

It all fitted together. Christina hadn't been happy about giving away their second to last match. She hadn't exactly protested against taking care of the dove, but it had been her, Beatrice, to seize the initiative. It had been her who had shared her food with it later at Al's table, too. And, unlike her, Christina had kept her fruit for the way back to the castle.

Did that mean she had possibly made progress with her box as well?

Beatrice had to fight her excitement to postpone going to take it out of her bag immediately. It was impolite to not finish washing her mother's feet. Also, it was her wisdom that had helped her see what the task had been about in the first place.

"Thank you, mother. You've helped me more than you know."

Natalie smiled proudly at her daughter and reached to cradle her cheek in her palm.

"Just keep cherishing what I've told you. You'll get far if you do."

"I will, I promise."

Natalie leaned back in her chair as Beatrice dried her skin with another cloth and pulled warm socks over her feet. Then she fetched shoes for her mother to slip into.

As soon as she was done, she excused herself for a minute. She was bursting with curiosity, her heartbeat heavy as she held the box in her hands, its locks still hidden from view inside her bag. She enjoyed the thrill of excitement a little longer, then steadied her breath and pulled the small item out. Two locks had opened since the last time she had looked at it. She lifted the box to read the words that showed up underneath the locks.

" 'Animal' and 'stranger' ", she muttered happily.