Whether it was down to exhaustion, boredom, or Galleous's painkiller-herb tea mixture, Ingressus was drifting off and waking up again all morning and into the afternoon. Not that he was complaining much. He couldn't feel his injuries when he was asleep, after all. But by sometime that afternoon, either the herbs had kicked in enough or his nerve endings had finally calmed down, and the pain in his leg and ribs was no longer so bad. His broken foot and the rolled-up sheets under it were damp from melted ice, and he could hear metal clanging from outside his cave.

Ingressus lay on his bed for a while, staring up at the roof of the cave and listening to Galleous work on whatever he was making. He brought out his blade and looked at it, wondering how he could make it into a better weapon. It would need a handle, obviously– the broken edge was dull enough that he wouldn't cut himself holding it, but keeping his grip in an actual fight could be tough. Galleous would probably have something to deal with the rust spots– Ingressus would just have to figure out where it was and how to take it without being noticed.

He realized the clanging had stopped and quickly hid the blade again. But Galleous didn't appear– instead, Ingressus could faintly hear him talking to someone elsewhere in the cave. Was he telling them about Ingressus?

Ingressus sat up, pressing a hand to his forehead as the blood rushed to his feet. When the dizziness faded he grabbed up his crutch and limped towards the cave opening to hear better.

"– something of a rush order," Galleous was saying.

"I know," the other person said with a sigh. "But it's harvest season, and those blasted kids somehow broke both of the ones I had..."

Ingressus lingered by the wall, listening to the conversation. It didn't seem to be about him, but maybe they were speaking in code? If it were him, Ingressus wouldn't just assume the person he was talking about couldn't hear. But what the code could mean, he couldn't guess...

The conversation ended, and the sound of metal on metal began again. Ingressus waited for something to happen but nothing did; just more clanging, and the hiss of water turning to steam.

Ingressus limped out of his cave. He was bored, and there was next to nothing in his cave. He'd already scooped up the dirt from the flowerpot, making a little pile around the base of the daisy that had been in it. Maybe it would be able to keep growing. But he'd done that yesterday, after feeling a spike of guilt at seeing the flower lying forlornly on the floor, its petals smeared with the dirt it was lying in. As far as his near-nonexistent flower knowledge could tell him, it was still doing fine. Now, short of staring at its leaves twitching slightly in the occasional breath of a breeze, he was out of things to distract him from thinking about the things he didn't want to remember.

Galleous, of course, noticed him. "How are you feeling, kid?"

Ingressus ignored him as he made his way to the bookshelf and started scanning the titles. He recognized none of them– not that he had read many books in his life. Storytelling in the mountains was more of an oral tradition.

He heard Galleous set something down with a clink. "I am sorry about this morning," the blacksmith said. "But if I hadn't done it, your foot would have healed crooked, and you might not be able to walk properly again. I doubt you'll believe me any more than you have in the past, but I'm not going to harm you."

"Then what is going to happen to me?" Ingressus said. "You say you don't want to kill me or hurt me, and you say you don't want anything from me. So then what are you going to do?"

"That's really up to you," Galleous said, leaning against the anvil. "Once you're healed up, if you have somewhere you can reunite with your clan, I'll help you get there. Or if you have another plan– one that doesn't involve getting yourself killed chasing my brother– I'll give you what you need for that."

A chill ran through Ingressus's blood. Taking Galleous– or any strange Ardoni– anywhere near his clan was the worst thing he could do, the worst thing any Voltaris could do. A Voltaris could be killed for putting their people in danger like that. Yes, maybe if he could make it back to the mountains he could find a group of Voltaris who would take him in– there were ways for different groups to signal to each other, clues that every child was taught to leave behind if they ever got lost that would alert a passing adult to come and find them. But what if by going back, with or without Galleous, he ended up leading a new group of raiders right to them?

Dread pooled in Ingressus's gut. Could he ever go home? Would it ever be safe?

"Kid?"

Ingressus looked back up at Galleous. "Why aren't you like your brother?"

Galleous blinked. "You're not complaining, are you?"

"You keep saying you're not but it doesn't make sense why," Ingressus said. "Why would you go against everything he wants by helping me?" He spread his arms in frustration, wobbled, and grabbed onto the bookshelf before he could fall. He pulled himself up, ears hot with embarrassment. "Why am I supposed to just believe you that you aren't helping him?"

Galleous gaze shifted past him, staring off into space as Ingressus's question hung in the air.

"Thalleous is obsessed," he said finally. "His mentor was killed in an attack by the Voltaris, on a convoy in Sendaria. Thalleous saw it happen."

"We had to have a reason to be there," Ingressus argued. "None of us would've risked traveling all the way to Sendaria if we didn't have to."

"I don't know why they did it," Galleous said. "I only know that it happened. And after it did, Thalleous wanted revenge. I– well, I didn't disagree at first. I wasn't as close with Lairen as Thalleous was, but he was still a friend of mine. So when Thalleous went out to avenge him... I didn't try to stop him."

Ingressus scowled, managing to cross his arms without losing the crutch. Galleous looked away.

"I don't know what I expected to come of it. But as time went on, and he kept going on raids, even started entering the tournaments he... changed. It was like all he could think of was getting revenge. I would find him planning his next strike, even when there hadn't been a skirmish in ages. He would track down any rumor he could about the Voltaris, to the point of running off across the continent at the drop of a needle. I didn't even recognize him anymore. He had always—"

He broke off, glancing at Ingressus. "But you don't care."

"No, I don't," Ingressus agreed. The Champions were monsters, he'd always known that.

"Right," Galleous said. "Anyway, I tried to tell him enough was enough. That that kind of obsession wasn't healthy. He... didn't take it well. We fought. He broke my nose, I dislocated his arm."

Ingressus's eyes went to Galleous's nose. It did look somewhat... uneven.

"We went our separate ways after that," Galleous finished. "We've barely spoken since."

He snorted. "But when we have, it's been clear that that stubborn creeper-spawn hasn't changed a bit. Our nephew was five before Thalleous visited once. Even our parents sometimes won't hear from him for years on end."

Galleous had crossed his arms and was glaring at the back wall. Ingressus considered the story he'd been told. Galleous's once-broken nose did line up with his tale, but that kind of injury could happen any number of ways. And as for the rest of it– Galleous sounded sincere, but how could he be sure it was true?

"Finding you on the beach felt like some god's idea of a joke," Galleous said, oblivious to Ingressus's thoughts. "Anyone could've come across you, but the world decided it should be me. Ironic."

It certainly was. Ironic that he would be found by the Champion's brother. Ironic that said Champion's brother would do anything except kill him on sight. If there was some god or spirit involved, Ingressus very much wanted to know why they did it and whether they were indeed laughing at him.

Across the room Galleous straightened, turning back to his forge. "Take your time deciding what you want to do. I'll keep you hidden until then."

He went back to work, submerging the pickaxe head into the lava before continuing to beat it into shape. So that was what the lava was for.

Ingressus continued to stand there, leaning on his crutch and staring at the bookshelf without seeing it. He'd known that the journey back to the mountains would be dangerous, especially since he'd seen the map showing just how far away he was. Bandits, Ardoni, even other species too loose-lipped to avoid ratting him out or too ignorant to know that a red Ardoni was anything to bother keeping secret. He'd known that all along. But if he were followed back to the mountains, instead of being killed straightaway...

Ingressus knew ways of losing pursuers. All Voltaris children were taught to disguise their footprints in the snow, how to use the treacherous terrain to your advantage, places where you could make the raiders give up and assume the mountains would kill you instead– and how to tell those apart from places that might actually kill you. But all of those depended on the mountains, on having the advantage of a landscape you knew better than the ones chasing you did. Ingressus didn't know how to lose a pursuer in their own territory.

"Did anything wash up with me?" he asked at length.

"Not that I saw," Galleous said. "Why?"

Galleous hadn't answered as though he were hiding something. If he'd found Voltar, surely he would've shown some reaction to Ingressus asking about it; recognition, worry, suspicion. But there was nothing.

So Ingressus just shook his head. "Nothing. Just an old keepsake."

Galleous didn't react to the lie, either. "Sorry. I didn't see anything."

(1734 words)