The words barely made it out of Ander’s purple lips, his voice coarse and dry.

“Is he awake?” Exclaimed Thaddeus, his voice a mix of surprise and curiosity. “How the hell is he still conscious!”

“Relax, kid,” Leon pried Ander’s hand from Thaddeus’ sleeve, speaking to the boy in a soft voice. “No one’s taking your knife. Close your eyes, hit the hay. Relax.”

With Leon’s soothing words, Ander let his head fall back onto the stone floor, as did his hand drop from Thaddeus’ sleeve. He went limp once more, falling into the arms of unconsciousness. The whole scenario was beyond bizarre, and the idea that he was still aware of the ongoings around him was shocking to the lot.

“Thad, mind fetching a set of clothes? Dame’s should fit him.” With careful hands, Leon leaned over and took Ander in his arms, carrying the frail boy as he stood up. “I’ll get him clean, you lot can worry about the bear.”

“Try not to move his shoulder,” Bella stood up with Leon, her hands still glowing with magic. “Once he’s clean, we can bandage him up. You’ll let me know if he wakes, yes?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Leon replied, sharing a nod with the girl as he took off towards the washroom with a slow and steady stride. The chaos of the moment began to subside, and the remaining members of the group took up their arms in an effort to clean the den, again.

“Dame was right,” Thaddeus, who had given Leon the spare clothes for Ander, spoke aloud. “How the hell did he kill that thing?”

The bear was long gone from the interior of the stronghold, now resting outside where the younger archer had taken it to prepare its meat for storage. There was a fair amount to clean up, with a mix of snow, blood, and vomit painting the floor near the entrance. The group made conversation as they worked, mostly centered around the headless beast the boy had dragged with him.

“Well, if I had to guess, he chopped off its head.”

“Shut your trap,” Bella began to chuckle as Thaddeus berated her. “Obviously it died when it lost its head. But how’d he do it is the question!”

“With the knife, no doubt,” Sylas spoke from the corner of the room, watching Damien work as he skinned the bear. “Still doesn’t answer how he did it.”

“There’s more to that boy than meets the eye,” the older archer shook his head, ringing out a bloody cloth into a nearby bucket.  “That’s for sure.”

“Well, look on the bright side. If he lives, he’ll do rather well around here.”

“That he may,” Sylas added., lost in thought about the whole ordeal. “That he may…”

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O

In every direction, there stretched an endless, all-encompassing void, barren of light nor darkness. A limbo between existence and extinction, a threshold for the quick and the dead. It was true emptiness, an eternal abyss with nothing held in its guard. Except, that statement wasn’t entirely true. There was something within the confines of the void. A young man, draped in blue nightwear, stood alone in the dark, shivering with his arms crossed across his chest. With every exhale, he would let out a cloud of frost from his lips as the warm air of his breath met the freezing nature of the void. His body quaked from the cold, shuddering to try to keep warm. He had not a clue where he was, nor how he came to be in such a place. All he could see, for as far as the eye could reach, was nothingness.

“H-Hello?”

He called into the void with a meek voice, his teeth chattering while he spoke. There came the sound of footsteps as he began to tread forward on the invisible plane, sans a destination in mind.

“I-Is anyone t-there?”

“H-Hello?”

“Anyone?”

“My Son…”

It was his father's voice, calling to him from every which way. Ander spun around on his heels, trying to discern where the call sourced from, but to no avail. It had been so long since he heard that voice. The pain he had endured, the suffering he had undergone. So much had been lost in the time he spent sojourning. The call brought him to tears at once, the drops streaming down his face to fall to the ground, freezing in flight.

“My child…”

Another voice rang out, this one belonging to his mother. Memories flashed through his mind, pleasant thoughts of days long gone to the past. He shook, not just from the cold, but from the emotion swelling within him too.

“My love…”

“Nina!” He called to his lost love, tears streaking down his pale face. In the far distance, meshed with the void, he could see the outline of three figures, blended with the shadows around them. The boy was swift to notice then and was off in their direction at once. But they never grew nearer, seeming always so close, but just out of reach. A poor footstep made him fall to the ground, his head facing the dark plane below.

“Ander…”

His family stood before him, draped in greyscale, yet just as wonderous as they were in his memories. Ander pushed himself onto his knees, holding his body up with his arms as he gazed into their lost faces. Words tried to form on his tongue, but they never arrived at the phantom’s ears. Rather, they were the ones to speak.

“We have nothing left to give…” 

His father approached him, kneeling down to place his hands around the boy’s head. Tears made it hard for him to see his parents clearly, yet the resolution in his father’s eyes was not at all lost to him.

“It is up to you…”

His mother joined his father’s side, placing a hand on the last Idris’ left shoulder. Her other hand took up his left palm, tenderly holding the scars burned into his skin.

“To keep us alive… To live on, even when all else is lost…”

Nina kneeled before him, holding his right hand with both of hers. He had no words, no words at all for the apparitions of the void. 

His father released his head and reached into his coat to pull out a small bundle of cloth. There appeared a faded cloth wrapping housing a long, thin object. When it was unveiled, the fabric fell to the ground, sinking into the void as its contents were revealed. His father bore him Nina’s knife, the very same he had used to slay death incarnate. Its hilt was held out to him, which he took with his right hand.

“We are what drives this blade, my son…”

“We live on, only in you. All of us who have been lost to the cold…”

“Yet with your love, we will never be truly gone…”

“Go, my son.” His father leaned down to kiss his forehead, brushing his bangs behind his ear. Ander held the knife close to his chest, gripping its hilt with all of his strength. “There is much for you to do… Never forget what drives you…”

“I-I,” he stuttered, overcome by the moment. As the apparitions began to fade into the void, he reached out to them, calling to those lost to the cold.

“I’m not ready! Y-You can’t leave me so soon!!”

The figures continued to fade, their faces holding out last in the barren void. The boy cried out to the shadows, begging them not to leave. Why would they come to him, just to leave him alone again? In the fading shadows, he heard one final call.

“Althi harv ni klee lurr ess; urv paa ce syon.”

Then, there was silence. Sensation was lost to the boy as he tumbled through the void, and eventually, so did the abyss fade away. 

“*Whistle*...*Tew* *Tew* *Whistle*”

Ander’s eyes fluttered in the morning light, blinking away the remains of his slumber from his sight. The world he found himself in was a vibrant contrast from the dream he was captive to not a moment prior. For one, he was warm. Around his body, there was wrapped a heavy woolen sheet, with white candles and lanterns lit around the chamber he roomed in. It was a small, stone room, with wooden outlines placed about the structure, acting as support and trim to the greater whole. There he layed, stationed beside a thin window, which was opened just a crack to allow ventilation for the heating elements of the room. Behind the murky glass of the window, there perched a beautiful white cardinal, with outlines of red painted throughout its feathers. It was busy composing a song for its aerial audience, using his window sill as a podium to address the other birds of the wood.

His hair, having grown long during his exile, was laid across his face, blocking some of his vision. An arm was levied to brush it aside, but he failed to do so as a sharp pain rang out from within his shoulder. It was then he noticed he lacked a shirt, and all along his torso and arms there were wrapped bandages, specifically around his shoulder and chest. As he noticed this, the sensation of his wounds hit him, making him cringe in pain. It was all coming back to him now. The bear. The journey. His arrival at the thieves' hideout. And his subsequent succumbing to sleep.

“That must be where I am,” he whispered, unsure of whether he could speak in a tone louder than a bare whisper. Among the pains of his wounds, there was also his starvation, and now raging thirst, much more prevalent than when he was last awake.

“Hello?...” He called out, attempting to sit up, only to fall back against the mattress. The movement spooked the white cardinal, who took off from his window sill into the air. Cold crept through the window, but not enough to affect him. The outside environment was still strewn with snow brought about by the snowfall he had walked through.

“Helloooo?...”

“He’s awake!”

There sounded a voice from the other side of the stone walls, creeping through the cracks of the wooden door. Scuffling could be heard as voices communed outside the room.

“About time he’s up.”

“He’s been sleeping for over a day, I had half a mind to assume he was gone.”

“I’ll bring him some stew, I’m not sure what he’s able to eat considering the state he’s in.”

“If food is what ends up killing him, I’ll eat my own arrows!”

The handle to his chamber began to turn before the door swung open entirely. Behind its veil stood the magii girl, holding in her hand a small steaming cup of soup, and in her other, a glass of water. She entered the room and closed the door with her foot, before approaching the bed. Again, Ander tried to sit up to address the woman, for whom he only knew her name. Yet his body forbade it, making him groan in pain as he reeled back.

“If it hurts to move,” Bella spoke as she placed the items she carried on the nightstand beside his bed. “Then don’t move.”

Ander gave no reply as he turned onto his back, staring up at the plaster ceiling above. Whoever these thieves were, they sure had a sturdy place to call home. Memories of him passing by a storehouse and stable during his night in the woods rose from the back of his mind. It was an expansive lot, far larger than required for the half dozen outlaws residing in its halls. He had a great many inquiries, but whether he wanted to ask them was the real question.

“Here, let me sit you up.”

“I need no help.”

“Be quiet and let me help you.”

Her tone grew fierce, and with great reluctance, Ander let her prop him up on the headboard of the bed. She placed a pillow on his lap, and overtop of it a small wooden table with folding legs sourced from beneath the bedframe. Making sure it was fashioned right, she placed the bowl of stew before him, along with a small metal spoon for him to dine with.

“Eat,” she said the word as if she were commanding it, sitting herself down on the edge of the mattress. He sent her a cautious glare but eventually yielded. Taking the spoon in his hand, he began consuming the stew rapidly, not caring for the soreness brought on by the use of his arm.

“Do you like it?” Bella asked, smiling. For a thief, it was an uncharacteristic look, but it fit her. She brushed a lock of her red hair behind her ear as she waited for a response, unsure of whether the boy heard her over his rabid consumption of the stew.

“Did you hear me?”

“Ish gwood,” he said through a mouthful of food. The meat was one he wasn’t acquainted with, but it was tasty nonetheless; hunger was the world's greatest seasoning after all.

“It’s bear stew. I don’t often get the chance to work with bear meat. Thanks for that.”

He paused, looking down at the bowl. He hadn’t realized it, but for the first time since the closing of the poorhouses, he was eating something warm. It filled his stomach with a euphoric feeling, spreading through his body like fire in a forest. It only made him quicken his pace, not caring what the older woman thought of his manners.

“...You’re welcome…”

“Did you enjoy your rest?” She resumed her questioning, unsure of whether to be put off by his eating or to be prideful at how much he was enjoying it. “You slept through yesterday. A whole day. Did you know that?”

“...So I did…”

The conversation was dreadfully slow, with every passing second chipping away at Bella’s patience.

“Have you nothing to ask me?... Have you nothing to say?”

Ander paused his eating, swallowed his food, and then slowly turned his gaze over toward the red-headed girl.

“...I am eating…”

“I can see that,” Bella’s voice bore great annoyance as she sighed, leaning away from the boy to let him resume his meal. It took no longer than a minute for the bowl to be drained, with all of its contents being put to work on rebuilding the young man’s slender frame. Despite the attitude he was showing, she made sure to set it aside given his state. There were surely untold hoards of troubles belonging to the strange boy, and whatever front he may have been putting up, it was likley just his way of protecting himself. When he reclined back against the headboard of the bed, she spoke again.

“Are you still hungry?” She asked.

He gave her no verbal reply, but his head did nod in response.

“Great, there’s plenty left,” she moved closer, taking the bowl in her hands. Instead of standing up to retrieve more, she placed the ceramic on the ground and eyed him with a sharp glance. “And I’ll get you more, so long as you talk.”

“What do you want to know?” He looked down at the small table before him, not willing to look the woman in the eye.

“How about we start with your name?”

“My name…?” His eyes found comfort in staring out the window, having caught a glimpse of the white and red feathers of a flying cardinal. “My name’s Ander.”

“Do you have a surname, Ander?”

“...Idris…”