Chương 4: First Contact

The villager was watching her. Who was she? The cold air of the night caressed her face.

"My name is Alexandra, and…" she hesitated.

"I'm lost." Hiding a wince, her mind churned to find a plausible explanation.

"Lost?" the man asked, cutting off her thoughts.

"Where do you come from?" Claiming to have been summoned from another world was a bold move. One that she wasn't ready to make. He wouldn't believe her.

"I… Don't remember." Alexandra immediately regretted playing the amnesia card. It was too cliche. The only silver lining was that she was trying to enter a random village. They wouldn't immediately suspect her of harboring nefarious intentions. Probably not. She should be able to show her sincerity over time.

"You don't remember… Right." This time, she wasn't able to hide her grimace. Yeah, of course he didn't believe her.

"The last thing I remember was opening my eyes on top of a cliff by the sea. I walked in a random direction and ended up here. Please help me." A sigh.

"I don't fully buy it, but whatever. Come with me."

"Thank you. I know it sounds—""We'll talk to the priest tomorrow," the man cut her off.

"He's a member of the Hands, maybe he can help you remember."

"Oh." Should she pretend to know what it meant?

"I'm glad. Thank you."

"My name is Therion, by the way." Therion's home was the first house on the left, set slightly back from the road with a low fence of its own enclosing a dark patch of garden. The building itself was small, about the same size as her old apartment. The stone walls supported a thatched roof with a chimney on the side. He pushed the gate open without ceremony and led her up a short path to the door, which opened before he reached it. The woman in the doorway was wiping her hands on a cloth.

She took one look at Alexandra and then looked at her husband.

"Found a lost one," Therion said, by way of explanation.

"I can see that." Her voice was dry. She stepped aside.

"Come in, then. You're letting the heat out." The inside of the house was one main room with a low ceiling crossed by dark beams. A fire burned in a hearth on the far wall, a proper fire with a pot suspended over it. The smell that came off that pot hit Alexandra right in the stomach. She couldn't identify what was in it. She didn't care. It smelled like something hot, made from real ingredients and she had to actively stop herself from walking directly toward it.

A table occupied the center of the room, two chairs, a bench along one wall. Dried bundles of herbs hung from the beams, clay jars lined up along a shelf near the hearth, stoppered and labeled. A second door, closed, led to what she assumed was the sleeping area. The floor was packed earth, swept clean. Cleaner than her apartment, though it wasn't a challenge. It was small, warm, and the most welcoming thing she'd seen since arriving in Laika.

"Sit," Lara said, gesturing at the bench.

"You look like you're about to fall over." Alexandra sat. She did not argue. Lara was perhaps a year or two older than Therion, with dark hair pulled back from her face and the same weathered practicality that her husband wore. Her hands, when she passed Alexandra a cup of water, were calloused and faintly stained, a persistent blue-green pigment worked into the creases of her knuckles that soap had clearly given up on removing. Alexandra drank the water in one go, barely managing to remember her manners.

"Thank you." Lara refilled the cup without being asked.

"She's seeing the priest tomorrow," Therion said, settling into one of the chairs and pulling off his boots.

"Memory trouble." Lara glanced at Alexandra.

"Is that so?"

"I know how it sounds," Alexandra offered.

"Mm." Lara ladled something into a bowl and set it in front of her. Thick, broth-based, with pale roots and dark leafy things she couldn't name.

"Eat first." She ate. Nobody spoke for a little while, which suited her fine. She needed it. For the record, it tasted fine. Not exceptional, but she was past the point of caring. It was better than the microwaved food she was used to, anyway. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. It was Therion who broke the silence, and not in the direction she expected. He nodded toward the closed jars on the shelf.

"We were up before dawn sorting the last of the harvest. Forgive us if we're short."

"You're farmers?" she asked, mostly to have something to say.

"Floriculture." Lara sat down across from her with her own bowl.

"Aetherveil, mostly." The names meant nothing to Alexandra, and it seemed that her expression made it obvious.

"Aetherveil is a base ingredient in many alchemical brews." She paused.

"It's fussy work. The flowers have to be processed within a day of cutting or they lose potency. This time of year we work every day."

"Hence the early morning," Therion said.

"Hence the early morning," Lara agreed. Alexandra looked at the jars on the shelf. The stain on Lara's knuckles.

"Does it pay well?" Lara blinked.

"Erm… It's fine." A beat of silence. Therion was looking at his bowl. Alexandra became aware, on a slight delay, that one did not typically ask near-strangers about their income within the first ten minutes of meeting them. She picked up her spoon.

"Sorry. I don't always—" She stopped.

"Sorry."

"It's fine," Lara said again, in a tone that had shifted slightly from the first time. Not offended. She set her bowl down and folded her hands on the table.

"It pays steadily. That's what matters with Aetherveil. The merchants always need it, so the price doesn't swing much. We know what we're getting at the end of a season."

"Unlike grain," Therion added.

"We did grain two years ago. Lost most of the harvest." Lara nodded.

"Aetherveils are robust flowers."

"And… Do you have the Farmer class?" Therion snapped.

"Listen, you can't just walk into someone's home and start interrogating them about their livelihoods. Classes, income, and whatnot. What's next, asking our level? Our skills?" Alexandra set her spoon down carefully.

"I wasn't interrogating. I was curious."

"There's a difference between curious and rude."

"Therion." Lara's voice was quiet, but it landed like a hand on a shoulder. He exhaled through his nose and looked away, jaw tight.

"She doesn't know," Lara said. Simply. As though that settled it.

"Everyone knows."

"Evidently not everyone." Lara looked at Alexandra.

"Class is considered a private matter here. You don't ask. Same as you wouldn't ask someone what tax they owe, or what's in their coffers." Alexandra nodded slowly.

"I didn't know. I'm sorry." A long beat. Therion picked up his spoon.

"Fine," he muttered. Not forgiveness exactly, but the closing of something. The fire popped. Outside, wind moved through whatever grew along the fence line. Lara refilled her bowl without asking.

"But, yes, we have the Farmer class. What are you curious about?"

"Lara!"

"It's fine. Everyone knows about us." She laughed.

"Furthermore, it's just Farmer, not like we're heroes. She'd find what she's looking for in any library." Her husband rolled his eyes. Lara turned back to Alexandra, encouraging her to ask.

"I was just wondering how it works." She paused, bit her lip.

"I'm trying to figure my class out. You know… Memory loss." Another pause. A frown. Some guilt.

"It's called Quester." Her hosts both raised their eyebrows.

"You didn't have to," Therion said.

"Lara's right, everyone knows our class."

"We'll keep it to ourselves," Lara added.

"In any case, Farmer is pretty straightforward. Our Class Art is called Sow and Reap. We get experience and attributes based on the crop we plant, and the yield we harvest. A farming skill quest, sometimes, if we're lucky."

"Never heard of Quester, though," Therion said. Lara shook her head.

"Me neither." Alexandra sighed.

"Well, me neither. I get quests, random tasks to complete every day." She wouldn't be able to hide it. Not if she planned to continue her streak. She couldn't justify sprinting off to pick flowers or whatever else would be asked of her.

"At least, I think so. That's what happened today." Silence settled over the table as Alexandra finished her second bowl. She felt a lot better, but both she and her hosts were slowly drifting. They were all exhausted from a long day of work, or wandering. Still, one thing stayed on her mind. A concern. She had to ask.

"I'm sorry. I also don't know what the Hands you talked about are." Therion shook his head, a slight smile tugging at his lips.

"Figured as much." It seemed her acting skills weren't as good as she thought.

"I'm too tired to get into it," he continued, "but Bamir, Lanterne's priest, is a follower of Fanon, the god of life. The Hands are how they call themselves. They're healers, basically." A pause. A gulp. Alexandra could only hope that Bamir wouldn't be able to see through her. Her faked amnesia shouldn't be too obvious, right? It was going well enough with her hosts. Lara cleared the bowls without ceremony.

Therion banked the fire, moving around the hearth with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done it ten thousand times.

"You'll sleep in here with us," Lara said, pushing open the second door.

"It's close quarters, but it's warm." Close quarters was accurate. The room held a bed, a narrow one by Alexandra's standards. Lara was already dragging a straw pallet from beneath the bed, dropping a folded blanket on top of it. There wasn't much else. A chest. A hook on the wall with tomorrow's clothes already hanging from it.

"The pallet," Lara said, setting the blanket down on it.

"It's not bad. Not great either, but it's all we have."

"It's perfect," Alexandra said. And she meant it. With how tired she was, she could sleep on the floor if needed. She lay down while Lara and Therion went through the quiet choreography of people who shared a space without having to think about it. A murmured exchange she didn't catch. The soft thud of boots set aside. The creak of the bed as they settled. The fire in the main room ticked and popped as it cooled. Alexandra stared at the ceiling, at the dark shapes of the beams she could barely make out.

Her body ached. Her feet. The muscles along the backs of her calves. A tightness across her shoulders. Within a few minutes, Therion's breathing had deepened into sleep. Shortly after, Lara's followed. Alexandra closed her eyes, and for the first time since she'd opened them on that cliff, the world was just dark and quiet and warm. The image of the priest kept finding her in the dark. A stranger who hadn't yet met her.

Tomorrow, she would have to explain, with a straight face, that she simply couldn't remember anything. Amnesia my ass.