Chapter 44| Borrowed Legs
They were given a tent near the encampment’s edge for the night, modest but clean, woven mats spread across packed earth and a small fire already crackling within a circle of stones by the time Ashkar left them to their own devices. Outside, the settlement’s evening rhythms carried on much as any human community’s might — laughter, distant song, the clatter of cookware, children’s voices rising and falling in play.
Myria stood near the tent’s entrance long after the others had settled, staring down at her own legs with an expression Allen hadn’t seen from her since the earliest days of their marriage — raw, unguarded vulnerability, stripped of every layer of careful composure she’d spent years perfecting.
"You’ve been quiet," Allen said softly, moving to stand beside her.
"I don’t know what to do with this," Myria admitted, voice barely above a whisper. "I’ve spent six years building an entire identity around what I lost. Strategist instead of soldier. Mind instead of body. I made peace with that, Allen. I genuinely did." She flexed her fingers slowly, testing the unfamiliar sensation of standing unsupported. "And now I’m just... standing here. Like none of it ever happened."
"How does it feel?" Allen asked gently.
"Terrifying," Myria said honestly. "Because some small, foolish part of me already knows exactly how much it’s going to hurt when this world’s rules stop applying and I go back to needing a wheelchair again." Her voice caught slightly. "I don’t know if I can grieve that a second time, Allen. Once was hard enough."
Allen reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together with quiet, steady certainty. "Then let’s not think about after," he said. "Let’s just be here, now, with whatever this actually is. If it’s temporary, we’ll face that together when it comes. But right now, in this moment, you’re standing. That’s real, whatever happens next."
Myria turned to look at him, something fierce and grateful flickering behind her crystalline eyes, before she stepped forward and kissed him slowly, deliberately, months of practiced restraint giving way to something raw and unguarded.
"Thank you," she murmured against his lips, "for never once making me feel like less, even when the world insisted I should."
From across the tent, Irene’s voice carried with characteristic bluntness, though considerably softer than her usual volume. "You know we’re right here, right?"
Myria’s answering laugh was warm, unbothered, and Allen felt something settle contentedly in his chest at the sight of her genuine, unguarded smile.
---
Ashkar returned as dusk deepened into full night, accompanied this time by a younger woman who greeted them with a small, careful smile and, to Allen’s considerable surprise, several halting but genuine words of Association-standard English.
"You... speak?" Allen said, startled.
"Little," the woman said, gesturing to herself. "Sera. I learn from... others. Before. Not many. But some."
"Others?" Myria asked sharply, sitting up with immediate, focused attention. "Other outsiders have come through before us?"
Sera’s expression shifted, something somber crossing her features as she nodded slowly. "Some come. Long time past. Not all... survive." She gestured toward the distant horizon, toward jagged rock formations barely visible in the deepening dark. "Desert takes many. Sandwalkers too."
"Sandwalkers?" Vivian asked, head tilted with immediate, sharpened attention.
Sera’s expression grew more guarded. "Not now," she said carefully. "Tomorrow. Elder speak more, with rest, with proper words between us." She gestured toward the small fire, toward the woven mats already prepared for sleep. "Tonight, rest. Camp safe. Ashkar’s warriors watch."
She left with a final, careful nod, and Allen found himself turning the fragments of information over carefully, weighing Sera’s obvious caution against the very real possibility that whatever "Sandwalkers" represented, it carried considerably more danger than the word alone suggested.
"Other outsiders," Everlyn’s notepad read, held up with quiet, troubled concern. "Not all of them survived."
"That’s not exactly reassuring," Irene said, some of her usual bravado dimmed by the weight of the revelation.
"No," Allen agreed grimly. "But it does confirm something important. This isn’t the first time a rift’s pulled Hunters into this place. If others came before us, there might be a way home that’s already been discovered. Assuming any of them made it back to tell anyone."
Vivian’s expression sharpened with quiet, calculating focus. "Or assuming they left something behind. Records, markers, anything that might help us understand this place’s actual rules before we stumble into something we can’t walk back from."
Myria, still seated close beside Allen, tablet notably absent given the abrupt transition that had stranded them here, seemed to physically ache at the loss of her usual meticulous preparation. "I hate operating without proper intelligence," she admitted. "Every instinct I have wants weeks of research before we take a single unnecessary risk. We don’t have that luxury here."
"We have each other," Allen said simply. "And apparently, tentative allies willing to teach us their language rather than simply killing us on sight. That’s more than most first encounters with an unknown dungeon race manage."
"Dungeon race," Myria repeated slowly, turning the phrase over with visible unease. "Allen, if Ashkar’s people are genuinely intelligent — organized society, language, culture, everything we’ve witnessed tonight — that raises questions the Association has never had to seriously answer before. Every dungeon beast we’ve ever cleared, every rift we’ve ever closed. What if some of them were never simply monsters at all?"
The question hung heavy in the small tent, and Allen felt the full weight of it settle uncomfortably into his chest, an uneasy silence stretching between all of them as the fire crackled softly, and somewhere beyond the tent’s woven walls, the alien world’s twin moons rose slowly over a wasteland that suddenly felt considerably less empty than it had first appeared.
"We’ll need to be careful how we frame this, once we’re back," Vivian said eventually, breaking the silence with quiet, practical focus. "The Association isn’t built to easily absorb a revelation like this. An entire industry’s foundation rests on the assumption that what we fight in dungeons doesn’t think, doesn’t grieve, doesn’t build anything worth calling a home."
"Assuming we make it back at all," Irene muttered, though she immediately softened the observation with a faint, apologetic glance around the tent. "Sorry. Not trying to be grim. Just... realistic."
"Realistic is fine," Allen said. "We’ll need clear heads more than false comfort, going forward." He glanced around at all of them, exhaustion and quiet resolve mingling in his chest. "Get some rest. Whatever tomorrow brings, we’ll face it the same way we’ve faced everything else."
One by one, the others gradually settled into uneasy, watchful sleep, the fire slowly dimming to embers, until only Allen remained fully awake, staring up at an unfamiliar sky, turning the day’s revelations over and over in his mind.