The sounds and smells of being in a forest near a campfire come to me first as I drift up to consciousness. A weight is on my forehead. My body feels heavy, weak, and there are aches everywhere. My breathing is odd, as if I'm trying to breathe around a few lumps of bread dough - one in each lung - but I am breathing. Somehow, I feel very fortunate.

A man's voice says, "Noriko, I'll go forage for food. Here's the water." There are sounds near me.

"Thank you, Doros," I hear from over my head. I wait until the man has gone again, then slowly open my eyes.

It's as I'd wished and hoped for. Noriko is the first thing I see as I raise my eyes. Her face is drawn, worried. "Izark," she says with the same in her voice, laced with tender hope. It's her hand that's on my forehead, and her lap is under my head. I am content to know that she is with me and we are safe for now.

"What happened?" I ask.

She bites her lip and her brows furrow. "Do you remember anything? ...No. Don't remember it. You need to rest, not feel all of that again. You'll remember it when your body's ready to remember it. I will tell you that you fought against something that wanted to turn you into the Sky Demon and you escaped. We're safe."

Little bits and pieces, flashes of memory come to me, but I don't force them. She's right. I don't want to remember them when I'm feeling this bad. But..., "How did we escape?"

At that her worry erases like the lightening of the clouds after the thunderstorm is passed. Her hand brushes my forehead lightly. "You grew wings of light - great soft feather wings. The power you had to take us out of that place was amazing. I believe it's your final level, a level of light and gentleness."

My eyes widen, staring at her. There is no way the final level of the Sky Demon is good like that. "You're lying." The words are from my lips before I know what was coming. I immediately put a hand to my mouth. The other arm doesn't move, but I'm not paying attention to that.

I move my hand from my mouth to hold it out in front of me between me and her expression. "I'm sorry," I say as contritely as possible. "I know you wouldn't. It's that surely that's impossible." My arm slumps to my chest, too weak to stay up.

"What do you remember from that time?" she asks me. I close my eyes and try to remember. "You caught me as I was falling down to reach you. They came out of your back when you looked into my eyes so that you wouldn't keep falling. One flap took us through at least two floors and the roof of the building and high into the air. The hole from that explosive exit was over one-hundred feet in diameter."

I'm remembering holding her in my arms and feeling a great peaceful strength, and remembering her worry as I collapsed at her feet to expel the blood so I could finish healing, but nothing else. "I don't remember enough. But I do remember the strength. You're right that it was a good strength, not one based on anger or fear." I try to remember more, but my mind is as tired as my body. "I can't remember it." I say weakly.

"Rest. Sleep. Keep healing. Maybe you'll remember, but...maybe not. Sometimes during a traumatic situation, where survival is critical, such strengths appear and then disappear again until through your practice you learn it properly." She bends down to kiss my forehead. "I'm grateful it's there and you were able to save us. In time that can be what you are, if you want it and keep looking for it."

Her warm kiss and kind words follow me into the healing sleep I need.

-o-o-o-

The next time I wake up Noriko is sitting next to me. She looks very weary. I don't know how long I've been recovering, but it looks like she hasn't slept and needs to. Before I can say anything, she's seen me looking and she smiles at me. "Are you hungry?"

"No." I've not recovered enough yet for that, although I can tell the worst of it is over.

Noriko gives a tired nod. "Doros found some food in the forest. He's washing and preparing it now. You can let him or me know when you're hungry. We can save some for you."

I shake my head. "Maybe tomorrow."

"Okay." She pulls her knees up to her chest and leans on them, wrapping her arms around them. She turns her head away from me, laying it on her knees as if she'll fall asleep. I know there are likely still tears left inside her to cry. She doesn't look like she's relaxed at all. To go this long without resting or being able to relax, she must be very weary.

I reach for her, then pinch her to get her attention, making sure my expression tells her how much I need her. She jumps and looks at me in surprise. "I need to see your face, Noriko. Don't look away from me."

Surprise is on her face, then the heat slowly rises until she's blushing brightly. That's what I wanted, something to distract her from her worry. And a little reward for me.

The fighting spirit comes up in her and she gets the look on her face that says I'll get my turn. She lies down right next to me with her face right in front of mine so if I should need to see it, really, there's no getting away from it. "Is this better then?" she asks me. It's my turn to blush since to answer it I would have to admit it is and that's harder for me. She gives me her teasing grin back, taking her turn to enjoy my embarrassment.

It quickly turns back to sorrow, although it's a relaxed sorrow this time, and she sighs. "Izark, I'm glad you're the Sky Demon." She takes my hand and pulls it up to hold it close to her, as she does when she needs comfort and I won't or can't hold her in my arms. "If you weren't, you would be dead from that. I couldn't bear it if you'd died. Your powers allowed you to come back to me."

It is another, different way to look at what I am and I let it be added to the little things being changed about me. Then I remember more about the time right before she was in my arms and we were escaping. "You're right. As I was trying to understand why you were coming for me, why I was even fighting to not become the destroyer they want me to become, I learned that there is something deeper inside of me than the Sky Demon, something that loves and cares, not just something that fears or is angry.

"I was finally able to see that something that will allow me to become more than just the Sky Demon. As soon as I really saw it, I felt great energy flow out of me, then I was outside with you in the woods. I want to understand what I saw then. To see it again and tap into it. I think that is the answer we are seeking."

Her face holds hope. "I hope you can soon, Izark. If it was the fifth and final stage, the stage you always want to be, then I hope you can. But if you can't even remember it, and it came under such extreme stress, it may take a long time. Sometimes a level born that way returns to being hidden until the other levels are understood and controlled well enough." Her eyes begin to close. "I will hope to see it again. It will come."

As Noriko falls asleep finally, I think that she must be very tired, to have forgotten she already told me that. It's okay to be reminded, though. Her faith in even that is encouraging.

There are the sounds of rustling and I hear the man who's been with us. "Just give me a bit, Noriko, and the food will be ready soon. ...Eh?" He's seen she's lying down, sleeping.

"It's okay, Doros. She just needs to get her own rest now," I say. He blinks at me, then a bit longer after I was expecting him to, he finally gives a nod and turns to the fire.

He's holding the front of his shirt up like an apron, large leaves peaking over the top. Likely he'll wrap those around the food he's found. I sigh. It won't be very filling. Berries, nuts, and roots, most likely. Foraging is not the best way to get energy, and I suspect Noriko will need more than that.

Surprisingly, she eats more than most people I know, unless they're wealthy and are used to buying all the food they want. Not that she overeats, it's just more than most. I didn't understand that the first few days. She didn't eat any more than we do, and sometimes a little less, but she told me it was because she was so upset. She had to relax to be able to eat. It isn't too dissimilar from when I need to recover and heal.

She said in her world food is easy to grow in quantity because they have [machines], powered tools to help them grow it. Then they have ways to transport it all over the world very fast, so people don't have to go hungry. Then she'd gotten sad. "But some countries don't care about their people. Maybe the wealthy in those countries get to eat, but they don't let their people have it. Either they won't share, or they make it too expensive because they want the money." That sounded like here, even if the machines aren't.

As Doros works on preparing the food to eat, I ask him to tell me the story of who he is and how he came to help Noriko, and thus me. It surprises me a little that he isn't afraid of me as he slowly tells the story. He knows what I am, given where he came from. But then, I am incapable of moving, so I'm not much of a threat, and the "chimos" - the animals that transport people - practically live on his shoulders, as if he's their handler, which I learn he is.

Doros bred chimos for the man who wanted to own me, Rachef. Rachef is a leader in this country, which I learn is Rienka. That makes my heart fall. We're on the east continent. Before we were brought here, we were in the middle of the west continent. Rachef reached far to capture us. It will take us a long time to get back to where we were, and we have nothing with us. The horse ran and took the bags with it. I'd thought we'd only have to fetch it once I was done fighting Keimos.

Doros tells me that Rachef killed all but these two chimos, using their blood and special ability to create the holes between spaces - a small one from the buried temple to Rachef's palace where they hid Noriko, and the large one to cross the continents and the sea. The pain in his voice as he talks about the chimos' deaths tells me he loved them and that he's more comfortable with animals than people. Likely his slow way of thinking and speaking make others place him as beneath notice.

Tazasheena did indeed go to Rachef, by boat which is why we had the time we did. The other old man I saw is Rachef's trusted seer, Gorya. The two seers worked together to create the link from here to where we were, but Tazasheena hates Gorya out of jealousy. Doros says that Noriko did fight, wanting to be with me, tried to convince them to let her go free just that much.

He gets a little smile of vindication on his face, although he's still focused on his work in front of him. "Tazasheena slapped her and Noriko kicked her flat on her backside. It was funny to see the little girl fight the queen of snobs. The men didn't let them fight after that, since they weren't supposed to let Noriko get hurt."

He gets lost in his memory and work for a bit. The first wrapped package is tossed into the coals and he begins again. "They said hurtful things to me, when I was most sad and angry. I could understand why Noriko was angry, and I could tell she was sad and worried about you. Her screams when she saw you nearly die were awful.

"When she tried so hard to get to you, even jumping from the third floor of the house, I had to help her, to show them all that they couldn't keep walking on people who tried hard and had things they cared about, too."

I'm in some shock. She saw that? No wonder she's been so tense and worried. That makes me sad, and a bit worried, that she saw Keimos injure me that way. She's seen me fight now, but that doesn't mean such a thing wouldn't harm her. I reach up and place my hand gently on her head, leaving it there to comfort both of us.

I wonder if she'll ever stop jumping from high places, and just what I've done to her to addle her sense of self-preservation so much in that fall from the cliff. I'm grateful Doros was there with the chimos to catch her. "Thank you for going to so much trouble for us, Doros. I know you won't be able to go back there again."

Doros smiles as he stuffs the bowl of leaves with the food he found. "That's okay. It was my choice...I wanted to help her. I have no regrets." He works on the food for a bit. "Maybe...maybe it was the first time I did anything on my own. All my life I just wanted people to like me. I'm so slow and stupid, you know. So I tried hard to be accepted." That sounds like me and what I was thinking about as Noriko came to be with me.

"But this time, I didn't care what anybody thought. I helped Noriko without thinking. Then Noriko thanked me." He pauses and looks up at the sky, only his eyes are closed as he remembers. "How can I explain it? I felt so glad to be alive." He looks at me. "You guys made me feel that way. S-so you don't need to feel you owe me anything." The package of food goes on the fire as I ponder his words. Even if I were up and walking, he wouldn't care. He's felt Noriko's peace and has applied it by extension to me because she loves me.

I look around the clearing in the woods we're in and again am shocked. "Irktule?!" He floats over from the rock he was sitting on to hang in the air where we can see more eye to eye.

"It's good to see you are feeling better, Izark," he says. "You were not okay. But you chose the light, so I've been willing to help. Anyone who will fight the Source of Evil is worthy of protection. I've been shielding you so the seers can't find you. I'll stay with you until you know what you'll do to fight him."

"Thank you, Irktule," I say sincerely. "I don't know how long that will be. I'm still learning to control my powers and my fear. We have so much still to learn."

Irktule nods his head. "Noriko said it might take a long time still. That's okay. It's worth it for our world to not have you broken by that evil."

"I'm in complete agreement, Irktule. Absolute, complete agreement," I sigh. It's a little depressing to know that Rachef and the demon he's working for will continue to hunt for me until they find me again, but now that I know who they are, and how bad it will be, I don't have the worries of those unknowns sitting inside me any more. With a goal in mind, and things I can do to get there, I'm able to combat the other worries of that part of my future for now.

"We can't stay out here for long," I say. "Noriko will need real food and we both need clothing. Is there a village nearby, where we can safely show ourselves?" Irktule looks thoughtful, then turns away. He gives orders, I presume to the spirits of the White Mist Forest or others, to go hunting. Then he returns to sit on the rock. He seems just a bit flighty, but then he was never human. Who knows what trees really understand and see?

"Doros, do you have any coin? All of our supplies are on the west continent. And where is my belt?"

Doros gets up and walks to the other side of me, past Noriko. He comes back with my belt and hands it to me. I search through it until I've searched through all of my hidden storage places. Only one gold coin. That's going to be a problem. Other than that there is only the sheath of my sword.

When Keimos and I fought on the hills outside of the flower town we started as before, with energy attacks and power attacks focused through our swords. On one particularly violent clash of sword-on-sword, we landed and both swords disintegrated, practically to dust. That's why we were fighting hand to hand in the temple. I shudder just slightly, not wanting to remember the difficulty of that fight. I'll have to become a lot stronger to do that again. Strong enough to completely control the Sky Demon's power.

"I don't have any coin on me," Doros tells me, having carefully searched his own person. "I left too fast, because Noriko was falling."

"That's okay," I reassure him. "I would rather have Noriko alive. I can sell my sheath. It's a nice one. And I've got the one gold. Maybe that would be enough to get us each one set of clothing. We'll need to find work, though. She and I need to return to the west continent. I'd like to be as far away from Rachef as possible, to make it hard for him to do that again."

Doros nods. "I can help." I don't say anything but I'm grateful. I suspect that like Barago followed us, Doros will, too.

That makes me think of something. "Does Rachef know our names?"

"...Yes," Doros says.

"That will be a problem then. We need to stay hidden, and if we say our names out loud any spy will know how to find us and where we're going." Doros takes a while to work that out and nod. "Can you start practicing now calling us by other names so when we're in public we aren't given away?"

Doros nods. "I'll try hard," he promises.

"Then will you be Barago?" I wait for him to learn the name. When he seems to have it, I say, "I'm Kizak. Kizak."

Doros works at that. "It's kind of hard because they're the same."

"Well, I was hoping it would be easier because of that," I say.

When he thinks of it like that, it seems he can remember better. "And there was a little girl who we knew that Noriko liked and who liked her very much. Please call Noriko 'Geena'."

He tips his head with a little surprise. "I've heard of a Geena." When he's done with his musing, he nods. "Okay. Geena. Kizak. Barago." I nod at him and we practice the names for a bit. I'll also need to work at remembering them. We'll help Noriko with it when she wakes up, but she's the most smart of the three of us, so it will probably be easy for her.