"Wait-wait-wait-wait!" Carolinne interrupted, waving her arms wildly. "You...you could do that...all along? H-How? What? Who..."

At that moment, the innkeeper tapped on the door and strolled inside with two mugs of warm milk on a tray. Carolinne clammed up immediately. Rayya rose to her feet and thanked him, placing a tip on the tray before taking the drinks. She handed one to Carolinne before making her way back to where she'd come from. The door closed with a creak and privacy was theirs again.

Carolinne blew the steam from hers and held it for warmth. It was fresh from the pot, not quite cool enough to drink yet.

She was propped up on a mound of a half dozen pillows and wearing the homespun nightshirt of the innkeeper's daughter. She looked a lot less grey than she had the previous day and had slowly begun walking again, though thus far, it had only been as far as the chamber pot.

It had been a frightening few days as the last of the Falmer poison had worked its way through her system. Rayya had never before been so glad of her natural resistances or so relieved when Carolinne had woken her up in the middle of the night for a glass of water. It had been her first moment of lucidity since they'd arrived in Dawnstar.

She set her milk on the endtable and plopped down on her bed once again. The mattress creaked under her as she got comfortable, crossing her legs and straightening her back. Carolinne took a sip of the milk and winced as it burned her mouth.

"The manifestation of a sword from one's mind is called a shehai." she went on, "A Spirit Sword. Those who can do it most commonly are Hel Ansei- Sword Saints, though even among them, it is a rare skill. But in truth, it is not a terribly useful one. My blade was a ghost blade, more illusion than reality. Had I cut that man, the only thing he would have felt was the chill of my fear and the heat of my anger."

"That is the best that most masters can do. I have never seen a shehai used in battle. There are few who can say that they have. But…"

Here she smiled, as though recalling something fond from long ago. She reached out and curled her fingers around the hilt of an invisible blade. Something glowed in her hand. Its form wavered and its light was overpowered by that of the candle on the bedside table, but still, Carolinne's eyes widened at the sight and an unearthly hush came over the room, as though all the sounds of the inn had ceased to exist.

"There are stories…" Rayya went on, smoothing the thumb of her left hand over what might have been the edge of the blade."Of warriors summoning their shehai at the end of their lives, their blades broken, their allies dead and their enemies pressing in on all sides. A shehai in its full power can only be summoned in a moment of extreme passion and purity of thought. It might only happen once in a warrior's life - or once in a generation. It is not an action to be taken lightly."

She opened her palm and the sword was gone. The faint strains of the bard's music came back and the murmur of bar-side conversation resumed. Carolinne blinked.

Realizing that the milk was still in her hands, she lifted it to her mouth and took a long, deep swig. When she pulled the mug away from her lips, in its place was a perfect milk mustache.

Rayya laughed, breaking the spell.

Carolinne threw a pillow at her and blushed, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

*.*.*

The news drifted through the camp like the smell of cooking food - slowly at first, but in time spreading to every corner of the dusty plot of land until everyone was salivating.

Rayya had not believed it at first. Slowly but surely, the memory of her childhood was slipping away. She was forgetting that there was ever a garden in which she had spent her fondest moments. She couldn't recall the coolness of her family's house's walls in the heat of the day. The war was a constant thing, like weather or tides. It could not possibly have a beginning or an end. There was nothing before and there would be nothing after.

There were a great many skeptics in the camp who thought the same, who murmured their rumors around the bread oven and the water pump. There was an air or quiet hope about the camp, but few dared to think it possible until word came from the mouth of the king's own messenger.

That news did come with the daily food delivery, though the messenger was not quite as official as all that.

The war was indeed over. A treaty had been signed in Stros M'Kai.

They could go home.

*.*.*

Mama packed all the remnants of her life into one little bag. Iya's was a bit heftier, as it contained her long-suffering mortar and pestle. Baba's contained the single change of clothes he owned. Rayya had only her stick, her doll (she had lost an eye long ago) and the paintings Iya had made for her. Bedding, food, cooking utensils and the tent fabric that had not been sewn into new clothes for Rayya when she had outgrown her old ones were divided evenly among all of them. And with that, in less than an hour's time, the shack they had called home for three years was gutted, as empty as though it had never held life at all.

Rayya looked back on the remains of the refugee camp as they headed out for the last time. A few who were not strong enough to make the desert crossing were choosing to remain behind, but the vast majority were leaving together in one large caravan. Dozens of empty doorways gaped back at her and it seemed to her a town left for ghosts to claim.

They left at sunset, their footprints carving a swath through the Alik'r sands. The Neighborhood Watch schedule was upheld, as their slow, snaking procession made a tempting target for those with ill will towards them. The hunters hunted and those with knowledge of the desert revealed their secrets of how to find water. Supplies were carefully rationed among all the families making the crossing.

Rayya trained in the early morning, when the procession had stopped for the day and the sun was not yet hot enough to burn. In the last moments of night, she summoned her
sword and danced with it in the darkness, feeling some measure after a long day of drudgery.

It felt as though the journey would never end, but week by week, the desert fell away behind them. Familiar faces said their goodbyes and split from the group to return to their own homes.

One day, she smelled the sea and the knowledge of how close they were filled her with inescapable joy.

*.*.*

The house was a shell of what it was. The adobe walls were crumbling away. Every last thing they had left behind was gone. In some rooms, the floorboards had even been torn up - the work of some long-gone looter plainly unsatisfied with what was left.

The agave was withered and dead in the courtyard, blackened with a layer of soot. Late at night, Mama took an axe to it and dragged it, piece by piece, to the dump at the edge of town. She wiped her face in between trips so that her family did not have to see that she was crying. She refused all help that was offered. But after the deed was done, she seemed lighter, somehow, as though she had gotten rid of much more than a dead plant.

Their first task was to make the house livable again. Everyone pitched in to repair the walls with fresh clay dredged from the riverbed, to pound the floorboards back into place, to cleanse the air of the lingering smell of burning things that permeated every surface within and without.

For the first month, they all slept in the same room. It was no smaller than the room they had slept in together for years and being apart, if only for a single night, was more frightening than any of them cared to admit. But after Rayya had suitable bedding of her own and had hung her paintings up on the walls of her old room, she came to remember how good it felt to have her own space again. A bed big enough to spread out on! The ability to kick in her sleep without awakening anyone!

But still, though they grew less frequent as time wore on, there were nights when she woke up in a fright, not knowing where or who she was or why Iya was not beside her.

*.*.*

Two months after they had set the house more or less in order, Iya asked her if she would like to go to the marketplace. It was not that they needed anything in particular - she wanted a stroll and perhaps a survey of how the reconstruction was going, for old time's sake. Setting down her stick and stretching her sore shoulders, Rayya agreed, happy to have an excuse to be out for a bit.

Everywhere about the city, despite the obvious signs of growth, signs of war persisted. A great many streets and houses were still marked with the evidence of Aldmeri magic. It seemed that every day another burnt-out shell of a building was being knocked down to make way for something new. The skyline was so different from how she remembered it. She lost her way in the tangle of streets, in the maze of haggard-eyed veterans begging for alms, in the places she thought she knew but was no longer so sure she did.

The marketplace was nowhere near as vibrant as it had been. The wares, on the whole, were both shoddier and more overpriced. The merchants seemed tired, worn and grey, though that did not stop them from bargaining twice as hard.

Iya waved off several persistent salesmen and kept right on walking, her steps slow and plodding in the midday heat. Rayya followed at her heels, the thread of where they were going completely lost on her. She asked the question on her tongue and Iya said nothing in return. In fact, she seemed to draw further into herself. For perhaps the first time in her life, Rayya saw her iya not as a shaman, a healer or an artist, but as she really was.

A small, old woman with no answers.

At last, she stopped. Rayya slid to a nervous halt behind her.

They stood before a blackened husk of a building. Two workmen were hard at work with sledgehammers on the few remaining walls. Her hands shaking, tears pouring down her face, Iya reached out and touched the sooty wall. Then she laid her forehead against it. Her lips moved in a silent prayer. The workmen, noticing, halted their pounding for a bit and moved away to a respectful distance.

Rayya stood back, shifting anxiously on the balls of her feet, unsure of where she should be or what she should do. Her eyes drifted all about the scene - the people walking by, the workmen murmuring in the shade, the texture of the paving stones beneath her feet. At last, they alighted on the coat of arms - barely visible in the wreckage but carved deeply enough for the outlines to have survived the fire - above the entrance.

It was much abused and the color that must once have adorned it was gone, but it was still, plainly the mark of the king of Taneth. In other parts of the city it adorned government buildings, public works, libraries, military installations...

Barracks.

The pieces fell together in her head once she realized that the blackened frames that still clung to the charred walls had once been beds.

She imagined her brother locked inside, pounding on the door, screaming in the press of bodies as the magefire grew hotter around him.

Her whole body trembled and a tear sprang to her eye. She bowed her head, not so much kneeling as falling to the ground beside Iya and said a silent prayer to Arkay for her brother's soul.

When Iya was finished, her eyes bright but sad, she took her hand as though she were still a small child toddling through the city and helped her to her feet. Rayya felt the gritty soot of the building smudge her skin in her iya's grasp and held tight, wanting to remember every detail of this day, to fix the feel of this moment in her mind forevermore. Iya's face was marked with soot and tear stains, like the war paint of a death god. Her cloak swept the ground as she walked, thick and black.

As they were leaving, she heard the workman take up their hammers again. She imagined the walls of that place being knocked down, one by one until there was nothing more than a pile of rubble where that awful thing had stood. The tension that she didn't realize she was keeping in her shoulders left her at that thought.

The arrived home and washed up just in time to start working on dinner. Iya had Rayya chop the onions for her and grind the spices when her hands were hurting her too much. While the stew was simmering, they made use of the time to shake out all the family's bedding in the courtyard.

They all laughed and talked over dinner. Mama told a joke she had heard on an errand during the day. Baba griped about the state of Hammerfell politics. Iya nodded along to all of it, smiling all the way.

When the dishes were cleared and washed, everyone said their goodnights and went their separate ways to bed.

Iya never woke up.

*.*.*

It was the peaceful death of an old woman ready to leave. Baba had found her in the morning, a smile on her lips.

The tribes of the Alik'r honor their dead with sky-burial. A frame is made for the body to rest on and upon it, the vultures perch, waiting to eat of the flesh of the one offered to them. It happens beneath the unbroken sky of the desert, as evening falls and the stars appear, in glory far surpassing that which the interior of cities offer. It is said that through this method, the soul gets the clearest glimpse of the way to the Far Shores before passing on.

In Taneth, the wealthy are buried in the ground. The poor are cremated, for lack of space. There are no other options.

She had always been so afraid of being alone in the cold earth, cut off from the stars and wind. She had always hated the city lights so much for brightening the sky.

We had not the finances to travel, nor the political clout to ask for an exception made in an old woman's name.

So, to honor her, we did the next best thing.

The wake was held in the courtyard, under the stars above. We took turns sitting with the body, being with her for one last time until the rising of the sun.

In the morning, we took her to the crematory.

Baba told me then that I must scatter the ashes in the Alik'r when I come of age.

I have not returned there yet.

*.*.*

After Iya's passing, Baba threw himself into his work like never before.

He sat up late into the night, night after night, penning letters to business contacts on his makeshift desk. In the morning, Rayya would hear Mama and him arguing, their voices muted through the thick walls, but their tones unmistakable. Around breakfast, they made sure to leave no traces of any animosity about them or indeed, any hint that they were having money problems at all.

Rayya knew, of course, though they had never said any such thing to her face. Meals got smaller and staples were stretched into thinner and thinner soups.

When anxiety filled her about the possibilities of the future and the survival of her family, she would sit cross-legged on the bare earth of the courtyard and meditate until it was forgotten for a time. Her jogs around town got longer and longer, though her energy was sapped and the time between meals made her lightheaded at times. Her training was the thing she clung to, when she could do nothing else.

*.*.*

Baba clicked his desk shut with a strange sort of finality. It was morning. He had been at his desk all night and his eyes were bloodshot and baggy. They ate a thin porridge around the table and Rayya eyed the pot hungrily for more.

"Msichana…" Baba said softly, setting his desk on the floor and turning towards her. "How would you feel about entering the Hall of the Virtues of War?"

"I thought that I had already." she murmured, dropping the dripping spoonful of porridge that was halfway up to her mouth back into the bowl.

"The one in the physical realm." he clarified, a spark springing to his eye and a smile to his lips. "It may not be simple to get in, but I believe you could do it."

She scooped up another spoonful and raised it to her lips. The tasteless paste rolled down her throat. She ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth, thinking.

"I…would like to try." she said softly, suddenly feeling very small and not at all confident.

*.*.*

Both of them were dressed in their best, such as it was. Rayya's hair was freshly braided, but there were less beads than usual and it was pulled back in a more severe, practical style that kept it out of her face. Her clothes were simple and strong, but with none of the color of past years.

Her stick was slung across her back, the notches facing proudly outwards, the bit that served as the hilt worn smooth with use. Mama straightened her jacket as they stood on the doorstep and brushed a non-existent crumb from her cheek as she said goodbye.

As they moved through the throngs of the city, Rayya wanted to hold Baba's hand, like she had when she was a little girl and the crowds pressed around her, threatening to tear them apart. But this time, she didn't. Her gut was clenched with resolve and fear and something told her that she had to make it on her own now. She set her jaw as they drew closer to the Hall of the Virtues of War.

It was one of the first structures to have been rebuilt, largely financed by the nobility of the city. It was a grand building, its walls smooth and symmetrical, its stone so fresh that she could still see the chisel marks. A group of students sparred in a fenced yard, a few of them children younger than herself, but many more of them young adults on the cusp of independence. She watched their swords fly and flash for a moment and then followed Baba inside.

The Hall's Grandmaster, an elderly man with a drooping grey beard, sat at a desk in the front hall, sorting through a stack of papers. He looked up as they walked in.

"Fondest greetings, Grandmaster." Baba said formally, bowing a little at the waist, before snapping upright.

The Grandmaster gave a tired smile and rose to his feet.

"Ah, and the same to you! Mister…?"

"In my youth I was sometimes called Haroun Hunding. A nickname I meant to earn."

A flash of recognition went through the old man's eyes and then was replaced with a slight suspicion.

"I trained at Skaven's Hall in my youth." Baba offered, "But alas, my Walkabout took me into the den of a duneripper who wounded me grievously. I could not return to claim my title of full-fledged Ansei."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

The old man's face was gentle and sad, but plainly impatient to get back to his prior task.

Baba flashed a mischievous grin and continued his story.

"But, I must say, it turned out well enough in the end. I met a woman whom I would never have known otherwise and so began my family. This is my daughter, Rayya."

Rayya stepped forward with a nervous smile and bowed stiffly.

"These past four years I have trained her myself according to the principles of my own school and she has risen to meet every challenge I, and indeed, the world we live in, have placed before her. But now, she has surpassed what I am able to give her and she seeks entrance into your hall to continue her studies. We humbly ask for your blessing on this matter."

The Grandmaster's eyes narrowed as he looked the two of them over. Rayya was suddenly aware of how old Baba looked, how small and bent. When was the last time he had beaten her squarely in a sparring match? When had he last bought a new suit of clothes?

The Hall was grand and the full weight of its history was on display. Tapestries depicting the exploits of the heroes birthed from within this branch lined the walls. Antique weapons were on display everywhere, their edges polished and razor-sharp.

As the Grandmaster's eyes raked her underfed body, she felt so unworthy before the might proclaimed before her. But she narrowed her eyes and shoved the thoughts away like inedible vegetables. She belonged here. She was going to gain entrance. She stared him squarely in the eye as he examined her, her feet planted squarely on the ground, her arms at her side.

With a sigh, he turned away and sat back down at his desk.

"Sir, you must be aware that there are a great many students looking to enter the Hall, a great many of them beggars seeking nothing so much as a daily meal and a warm bed. We cannot accept them all, no matter how pure their intentions. So…"

He paused to fasten a silver-rimmed pair of spectacles to his nose and then turned back to his papers.

"If you wish to give your daughter over to my care, there is the matter of payment. Here."

He pulled a document out of the stack on his desk and held it out to Baba.

Baba's eyes darkened and his eyebrows met to form a V of anger on his forehead. He did not take the paper.

"Is that how it is?" he said softly, but with malice. "You would turn down the only student in a generation who can form the Shehai?"

The Grandmaster snapped to attention and gave Rayya a piercing stare, his forehead wrinkling in befuddlment. He dropped the paper, stood up and knelt before her.

"Can you summon it here?" he asked, giving her a hard, curious look behind his spectacles.

"Do it, msichana." Baba whispered, squeezing her shoulders from behind.

Rayya took a few deep breaths to steady her pounding heart. She sank to her knees and sat cross-legged on the expensive carpet, her eyes closed, her head bowed in concentration.

She imagined it as she had never imagined it before, shining and firm and real. She held her palms open, willing it appear, believing that its light would be enough to overpower the chandelier hanging above them.

The Grandmaster gasped. Rayya opened her eyes. For a split second, she saw it, resting on the palms of her hands, lush greenery twining around the shining silver blade. She let out her breath and it faded away.

"I apologize for my hasty words." the Grandmaster said somberly, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and mopping the sweat from his brow. "I will train your daughter. She may stay at the Hall with the rest of my students."

"Thank you, Grandmaster."

Baba bowed deeply and held out a hand to help Rayya to her feet. When she stood, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, crushing her face into his chest until she thought she would stop breathing.

"Goodbye msichana." he said softly, letting go at last.

She bit her lip as he turned away, trying not to cry as he opened the door into brilliant sunlight and vanished.

*.*.*

"Excuse me."

The innkeeper's daughter knocked on the door and opened it a crack. There was a basket of laundry on her hip.

"Oh, thank you!" Carolinne called out, excitedly throwing back the covers.

"Should you be"- Rayya warned, her gut twisting in worry as she leaped to her feet.

"Please." Carolinne begged, standing up with a look of pain on her face. "I'm not going to get any better if I don't practice, right? Ow. Ow. Ow…"

She limped to the doorway, another "ow" for every footstep and with a look of dogged determination, took the basket. Rayya speedily gave the woman her tip and helped her back to bed. She sat down gratefully and began digging through the laundry. With a grunt of satisfaction, she pulled out the velvet gown.

And then her face fell.

That priest had really, truly done a number on it. A wide, crooked swath of fabric, the place where the Falmer arrows had pierced her thigh, had been cut to ribbons in the his quest to remove them.

She turned it over in her hands, looking at it this way and that, with a look of deep sorrow on her face.

"We can patch it." Rayya offered helpfully, wondering how one could elegantly patch a third of a dress in such an obvious place. "Or…turn it into a shirt. Or handkerchiefs. Or…"

Carolinne rose to her feet without a sound and with nary an "ow", stepped through the door.

"Carolinne!" Rayya called out, racing after her.

She stood before the firepit in the center of the inn, the dress bunched up against her chest. For a moment, she hugged it tight and then, before Rayya could stop her, she threw it into the fire. It caught flame instantly, the gold thread melting among the burning logs, the velvet blackening and then turning to cinders.

Carolinne breathed out and swayed on her feet. Rayya offered a hand to steady her and she took it, her grip trembling and slick with sweat.

"No." she said softly, as she helped her back to the room. "Sometimes you have to let things go."

Notes:

"The sword is the self. Its edge is the mind." - Book of Circles, Tirdas Maxims