Arna sighed, her chest filling with the faint ache of betrayal as she realized that she had fallen into the hole of misplaced trust once again, even after all these long years. She lowered her head warily, her body tensing as she shifted her weight, prepared to leap at the warrior’s throat or out the crumbled doorway in a split second.

The sword deftly held in Neri’s grasp was still despite the slight tremble in her legs as she raised herself up onto one knee. The blade was barely tarnished, the gleam as sharp as its edge, and yet Arna could smell the blood that had become part of it – many a foe had fallen before this woman and the look in her green eyes dared Arna to become the next.

“What manner of creature are you?” demanded Neri, a stern command for a truthful answer.

While Arna felt like she’d foolishly walked herself into a trap, the fact that the warrior had shown some form of ‘trust’ and now actually waited for a response filled her once more with the deceitful light of hope, even with a blade a mere inch from her face. She was being given a chance, however hesitant and meager it may have been.

“I…” Arna closed her eyes, forcing her stupid body to speak, her voice just growling grunts and gravelly hisses rumbling in her throat. She opened her eyes again, mildly surprised that the sword hadn’t moved closer and Neri still awaited her reply. “I’m…” What was she, truly? An experiment? A monster? A trapped so-called saviour out of time? A girl captured and wronged by scientists and cultists who transformed her into…this with the wild hope of creating the last weapon and defence for humanity? Regardless, the end of the world had already happened. It was too late. So, what did that make her now?

The sword glimmered.

“I’m…nothing,” she finally said.

Neri considered her in the darkness for a long moment before the blade retreated to her side, her grip still firm and ready to return to Arna’s throat. “Nothing didn’t save me from those raiders.”

Arna blinked, not relaxing her stance just as the warrior didn’t untense her muscles – both prepared to match any movement with one of their own. “Save?”

“This was my village – a massacre of civilians.” Neri licked her lips, uneasy, lifting her chin for barely a second

to glance at the surrounding wreckage of ash and stone. “I was supposed to protect them and I failed.” Her green-eyed gaze was heavy when her focus returned to the skull mask. “I failed them all and the bastard raiders didn’t even let me die with them. I was to be a trophy or be sold, and without my sword I couldn’t do anything. So yes, Arna. You saved me.”

“And yet you point a sword at me.”

The warrior’s eyes narrowed. “And surely you understand why.”

Arna released a long, slow breath. “All too well.”

Neri watched her closely despite the darkness, observing the amber glow and the grey outline of Arna’s silhouette. “Why did you save me? What do you want from me?”

There was something altogether different about this warrior – she was not dismissing her nor denouncing her as a monster, instead she was giving Arna a chance even though she was afraid. Her legs still trembled, her breath hitching as her heart pounded so loud Arna’s keen ears could hear it easily, but her sword arm was as still as the surface of a crystal lake, the stance of a well-rehearsed fighter who trusted her skills and blade above all else. Usually the warriors, the raiders, the hunters, the miracle seekers – they all feared, they all wanted to run or fight, to attack the monster or steal a part of the so-called ‘world saving’ experiment. Arna had faced terror and hatred, anger and disgust…never hope, never hesitation for her own sake, and definitely never an attempt at understanding her.

Arna relaxed out of her defensive position, settling back onto her haunches and sitting down in the rubble. “I remember the days I cried for help, the hours I spent begging for them to stop, the cuts deep in my skin as I pulled at the chains, every second an entire era of pain and isolation.” Her voice was a rolling stone on gravel, grating in her throat like razor blades on metal, a croaking growl for every word uttered. “You are stronger than I was, but I saw myself in that woman tied to the ground and kicked to the dirt. That’s why I saved you.”

“You…” Neri breathed, her grip faltering for a moment before she let her fingers flow over the hilt and slide her sword into the sheath at her hip. “You have a story to tell. Are you willing to share it?”

“If you are willing to listen,” Arna replied, standing up on all fours when Neri nodded in the dark. “But this is not the place.”

The warrior rose and Arna realized just how tall she was as Neri loomed over her. She could look many a man direct in the eye and tower over an average woman. “No, it isn’t. Come morning people will be here to scavenge what they can once they see the smoke.”

“Do you have somewhere in mind?” Arna asked, watching Neri kick at the ash and pull out a bag that had scarcely survived the flames.

“I need to return to the Warrior’s Guild.” Neri smacked the dust off the bag, glowering at a hole ripped through the top, before searching the rubble for other salvageable belongings. “My assignment here is…over. I need to report to the Guild and be given a new position.” The woman cast one last longing look around her home, sadness furrowing her brow. “It’s in Atsylei.”

Arna almost winced. Atsylei was one of the largest civilian cities in Earth’s remnants. It was the centre for guilds, clean markets, and had to be amongst the safest places left. To say it was heavily defended would be an understatement – guns, guards, constant armed patrols outside and inside the city walls. It was literally built around the ruins of a once-great castle atop a cliff overshadowing a valley, allowing sight for miles in all directions. Raiders knew better than to even consider approaching it, and common folk and hunters visited to trade their finds for a meal and a warm bed. A creature like her would never reach the gate.

Neri continued on, apparently oblivious, shoving one last tattered shirt in her bag as she swung it over her armoured shoulder. “It’s a three or four day walk east of here. I know of a few places on the way there.”

Arna slowly followed the warrior out of the charred skeleton of her home, the distant sun rising an orange warmth on the horizon and touching the countless bodies laid against doorways and stacked like unwanted trash. Neri stumbled for only a second before facing the young dawn, chin set stiff.

Arna’s fanged jaws opened with a resigned hum. “And where do you wish to part ways? Now, or shall I follow until you find camp? A day’s travel would surely suffice if you wish to hear my story.”

Neri paused and glanced over her shoulder at the beast waiting in the shadows behind her, those amber eyes aglow with such an intense solemnity, an anguished and lonely candlelight from another realm. She gingerly rested her fingertips on the hilt of her sheathed sword. “Would you be my escort to Atsylei?”

“I cannot take you there.”

“Would you please be my escort to Atsylei?” Neri repeated.

Arna bit her tongue to stop her from outright rejecting her again and instead sought an explanation. “I am a demon – no city would ever let me pass their walls. Why would you want me to be your escort when I will only bring you more trouble?”

The warrior’s green eyes were like emeralds against the backdrop of the burning horizon and they saw straight through her. “I can easily be disarmed. I can easily be overpowered. I have been on my own for a very long time and I do not wish to take that chance again.” A small smile, blindingly genuine and yet so uncertain. “And I see myself in you. So, would you please come with me to Atsylei?”

Arna let her eyes fall shut. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” came the definite answer.

She opened her eyes again and lowered her head, the fur on her chin tickling the ash as she bowed. “Then it would be my honour.”

She saw the small smile widen, relief flashing across the warrior’s face like the rapid wings of a beautiful sparrow as she too bowed her head. “The honour is all mine, I assure you.”