Rhea stroked along the back of Ulysses' nape with gentle yet firm motions until the stallion slowed to an amble, tossing his head with a gladdened whinny. She whispered soft hushes into his twitching ears, biting back a smile at the agitated shiver running beneath his strong flanks. With the dozing village close at hand, she could almost make out the slim trails of smoke rising up into the dimly lit sky from the openings within the straw-covered roofs. She ignored Ulysses' urging to hasten their stroll along the road winding around a copse of trees and fields separating the heart of the village from the hill swelling high behind it. 

The further they climbed, the more she could see the village and her lips pressed into a thin line at the sight. Gossamer, dew-tipped curtains hung in the window of each home. Ones fluttering in the sill of lit windows glowed a rosy shade of gold resembling the sky at the break of dawn; while others stilled in the darkened windows were a silvery-white and hardly disturbed even by the idle breeze. Ulysses walked on without her prodding, and she trusted his every step as though it were her own. Reluctantly, her gaze drifted above the treetops criss-crossing their shadows where they fell over her. In the breaks between the trees, glimmers of cerulean flitted across the sky.

She tightened her hand against her thigh as she strained her ears for a second to hear the melodious call. When nothing but the chirping of insects and the distant call of bats answered her, she lowered her eyes and stared down the path ahead. Half-due to Ulysses' excitement, and her wandering mind, it only felt as if ten breaths passed before the curved path widened. Rhea's eyes drifted to the far left just as Ulysses began to wander from the trodden road and lead them between the narrowed trail betwixt the boles. 

She raised a hand to bat away the persistent, low-hanging branches threatening to catch upon her clothes or tangle their leaves in her hair. Lifting a particularly hefty bough from where it barred Ulysses from passing, she shucked it over her head before turning forward with an awed sigh. 

Settled in the midst of the trees on a small plot of land was a cabin made of wood. The sturdy logs hewn together to make up its walls were bolstered by slate-grey, moss-covered boulders positioned near the front cornerstones. Flowering vines hung in garlands where they twisted up and around the porch's railings. The stable nestled only a stone's throw away from the cabin had been trellis by shrubbery which Ulysses was eager to explore after Rhea swung off his back. 

She watched him go for a moment before surveying the cabin. Her footsteps carried her whilst her mind drifted off in wonder. The corner of her lips twitching at the sight of coarse, straw-packed dummies set upon wooden posts in a fenced field. Compared to their cousin, a rather churlish-looking scarecrow with a miserly scowl and harsh painted eyes settled in the center of a series of long narrow trenches; the dummies were faceless but imposing in their sturdiness. Her fingertips traced over the shallow cuts and dents within the dummies' torso, and the areas where straw began to spill from the worn edges in the stitching. 

Her fingertip halted over the stitching, tracing the pattern where the straw spilled out in comparison to the one near the dummies' head. A furrow deepened between her brows as she withdrew her hand and walked around the cabin. The porch steps creaked underneath her footfalls as she climbed up into the shade of the roof, glancing for a split second at the rocking chair half-hidden in the darkness. 

I've no kindling, Rhea thought with a slight frown, peering over her shoulder before carefully twisting the front door's knob. She pushed it open, eyebrows arching at the lack of creak from the door nor a plume of dust rising to meet her when she stepped inside. If she had known no better, she would have thought that time had reversed itself. The cabin was just as it'd been when she was a girl. A one-room house with all that was needed and nothing more to be added; a single bed with a feather-filled mattress wedged in the far corner of the room with a chest at its foot. A table and two chairs pushed beneath the sill of the cabin's east-facing window overlooking the field and its dummies, whilst a cupboard and pantry situated at the back of it. Near the northern wall, an empty fireplace set still.

Rhea's chest tightened when she glanced above it. The room was lit by moonlight streaming in through the windows, brightening the ochre walls and reflecting off the steel of an axe hanging above the fireplace. Its steel blade glistened as if freshly whetted, inscriptions carved deeply into the bevel sipped upon the moonlight and gleamed. She remembered all too well how powerful it'd been when lain within the proper hands. Her own itched at her sides but she steadied herself against the urge to turn away, shutting the door behind her and forgetting she'd ever laid eyes on it. 

She would never dare to turn her back on the woman who'd once held it either. Her eyes shut with remembrance, as she bit her tongue and lamented her brief cowardice. Upon opening them again, she stepped forward and let the door shut behind her. The axe remained silent, but its sheer presence arrested her. This overwhelming feeling, the enormity of the house in which she'd spent her childhood days, and the silence which answered as she parted her lips to say —   

"I'm home, Mother."  It was all too much.

Mouth pressed into a thin line, Rhea swallowed the aching in her chest and ventured to the chest. She worked at the lock, dragging her palm over the iron bandings along the trimming before rubbing her fingers together. No dust clung to her fingertips, not even a fine film of fuzzy grey, and her eyes narrowed as the lock clicked open.  The chest's lid opened with a slow creak, Rhea pulling her head back as the shapeless darkness from within greeted her. Carefully, she slipped a hand into the chest and felt around the bottom of it until her fingers brushed against a silky cool cloth. Her hand wrapped around it before drawing it out of the chest with a slight frown. 

In the palm of her hand set a small bundle tied in a shimmering, pale blue cloth finer than most fabrics which graced her palm. Not a speck of dust mired the threads and as she stared at the length of twine binding it shut, the length of its ties were evened. Rhea exhaled slowly through her nose, shutting the chest's lids as she rose to her feet with a sweeping glance about the room. It had all seemed as it was during her girlhood, but she hadn't been a child for several suns.

And none lived within her home for several suns before the rise of the current moon. Rhea remained standing, clutching the small bag within the palm of her hand with a roll of her fingers to feel the flat stones within. There were two as it was supposed to be but the hairs on her nape stood on end as she undid the twine, and pulled them out. One of the stones was a deep, glossy black hardly visible in the dimness aside from when strips of moonlight caught on its smooth face. The other was a milky, fae-dusted white and gave off a pallid glow. 

When she held them higher to catch the moonbeams, iridescent writing shifted with a wan sheen and swirled as if written in smoke upon their facets. Rhea studied them for a breath longer before tucking the emptied pouch into her pocket. With a stone palmed in each hand, she gathered her breath before striking the stones against one another and recited Ignire before tossing them into the fireplace. The stones vanished into the gloom,  then a blue spark flew up into the narrowed space before flames erupted with a terrifying howl. 

Rhea held her breath and shielded her eyes from the sudden brightness which filled the room with a balmy warmth. Once the roaring light quelled into a quiet glow, Rhea lowered her hand and released the breath caught tight within her chest. She could not see the stones in the midst of the blaze but heard the crack and thrum of their burning, delicate as one would expect of logs burning in a fireplace. Her hand fell to her side as illness stirred in the pit of her stomach. 

I still cannot reconcile such an enigma, she thought, keeping her eyes on the fireplace whilst wandering to the table. Her rankled nerves soothed when the unnatural flames did not creep closer from where the stones surrounding the base of the fireplace held them at bay. She could not reconcile how fire could be made without wood nor flint though it happened before her very eyes. Explaining such an act would have been difficult to her company as well. Their belief in her, little as it was, might have dwindled further if they thought her madder than they did.

Rhea sighed at the thought and pulled one of the chairs from the table. With it positioned in front of the fire, she sat down heavily and let the warmth from the flames ease the lingering weariness in her bones. It was strange to consider she would spend a night beneath the roof of her childhood home after so long away from it. Moreover, a night of riding through the Forest of Spirits under the suspicion of her fellow soldiers turned to a race across the Kishanu Plains with freedom she'd scarcely noticed was missing before now. She drew the empty pouch out of her pocket, cradling it between her palms with her dirt-streaked palm tracing the seams. 

Her eyes cast high above the fireplace, catching the glint of light against the axe's sinuous curves. An ache twinged tenderly in her chest at the sight of it. 

A short rapping at the door snapped Rhea from her thoughts. She bolted up to her feet, turning her back to the fire with a wary glance toward the windows. Not a presence filled either one overlooking the fields or the porch, the rocking chair undisturbed in the shade and the trees unabated as they shifted listlessly with the breeze. She shifted her position somewhat, shying further away from the light's reach while creeping toward the doors. Ulysses had not made a sound since his earlier preoccupation with the trellis, and as she listened for her stallion's whiny or steps, not a sound was to be heard. 

Chills gathered in her shoulders, freezing them stiffly as she approached the door with trepidation. While Galdena might have been her home; there was no telling who or what could have been on the other side. Rhea glanced over her shoulder at the axe; she considered taking it from the wall, arming herself with the only weapon within her home but thought better of it. Then, after a moment of gathering herself, she called out to the door in a steady voice, "Who goes there?"

On the other side, a soft chuckle answered. The sound circled around Rhea's mind, its rising and falling reminiscent of a song. When the stranger stated, "Only an old friend," their voice was clear and light with a smooth cadence which almost seemed jesting. Yet, it was also quiet and almost adoring in asking, "Might I come in, Rhea?"

Rhea's eyelids fluttered with several quick blinks, awareness resting within her heart as she rolled her thumb in the wadded heather pouch. She reached for the door handle, hesitating then pulling it open until a sliver of moonlight peeked through the crack. A shadow joined it, growing in size as she opened the door wider until she could see the  woman standing on the other side. 

Her visitor had a comely face, she noticed, naturally fitted with a smile six bits sweet and four mischievous in the slightest sliver of white teeth when her lips parted. The firelight slipping over Rhea's shoulder warmed the woman's brown skin with hints of gold, redness flushing the apples of her cheeks. Long, dark hair curled and twisted into coils past her waist where they'd been wound into one long braid with three thick bands. The errant tresses escaping from their bindings framed her face, and draped low upon the swell of her bosom. 

Rhea's stomach swooped softly when the woman leaned forward pronouncing the hollow and averted her attention to the pair of dark eyes peering up from beneath thick dewy lashes. They fluttered, sparkling with interest which Rhea knew from sheer experience could not bode well for her at all. But then, the woman laughed again and the passing concern drifted further away with the musical notes of her cheer.  

The sound of them were enchanting in a way, soothing as memory drew forth numerous occasions whence her voice rang out with unbridled joy. Its radiance melted the icy rigidness of Rhea's stance until she needed to rest her arm against the doorway to keep herself upright. Bent ever so slightly forward, an uneven mirror to her visitor's pose,  Rhea parted her lips but not a sound came forth, only the steady draw of breath as if she could take this woman's joy as her own.

Soon, the mirth subsided and the woman sang between giggles, "May I come in, Rhea", whilst hiding the full breadth of her mirth behind a crooked knuckle pressed to the curve of her lips. She was waiting for something, and Rhea knew it could not be the allowance within her home for the woman seemed self-assured one would come irregardless. Suspicions gathered on her tongue as she took a deep breath through her nose and held it, reconciling her foolishness with the tiredness of the day.

At last, what passed through her lips were the words, "You are always welcome, Lyra."

"How sweet," Lyra tutted, mirth dancing in her eyes when she slipped through the opening Rhea provided for her. Glancing down, Rhea spied a reed-woven basket tucked behind her back in the cradle of her clasped hands. "For a moment, I'd believed you forgot who I was entirely. With all the finery from the capital, it would be quite easy."