Morning came quietly, and Inaria hated it.

  The sound that woke her wasn’t a horn, nor a shouted order, nor the scrape of metal against stone. It was a small electronic chirp from the table beside the bed — an insistent little rhythm that lacked urgency and yet refused to stop. It took her several long seconds to understand the noise was meant for her. By the time she reached for it, she slapped the device more than pressed it, and the sound cut off abruptly.

  Silence followed.

  Not the tense silence she knew from camps or marching lines — not the heavy air before punishment or inspection — but a soft, ordinary quiet. Air moved through a vent somewhere above. Pipes whispered inside the walls. Outside the window, pale sunlight pushed through the blinds in thin golden bands that stretched across the floor and climbed halfway up the opposite wall.

  She stared at it for a while.

  Her hair had fallen across her face during the night, tangled around one of her horns. She dragged a hand through it and failed to fix anything. The strands resisted, knotted stubbornly, and she finally gave up with a low, irritated breath. The humans she’d seen earlier in the week combed their hair first thing after waking. She understood the action but not the priority.

  Why prepare for inspection when no inspection came?

  Her eyes shifted across the small room and settled on the other bed.

  Celeste was already awake.

  She sat at the edge of the mattress, back straight, posture calm, hands resting on her knees as if she had been sitting there for some time. Morning light touched her shoulder and outlined her hair in a soft halo. For a moment, Inaria’s gaze lingered there — and then lowered.

  The bruise was unmistakable.

  Darkened skin ringed Celeste’s eye in a deep violet shade that the sunlight could not soften. It stood out starkly against her features. Celeste had made no effort to hide it. No cloth, no magic, no attempt to disguise the mark.

  She simply wore it.

  Inaria looked away first.

  The silence between them stretched, not uncomfortable exactly, but heavy with awareness. Celeste eventually rose and adjusted the simple clothing she had borrowed from the humans. When she spoke, her voice was quiet.

  “If we have lessons today,” she said gently, “please do not be late.”

  Inaria sat up slowly, rubbing sleep from one eye with the heel of her palm.

  “I have training,” she muttered, searching for the right word. “With… him.”

  She paused, brow tightening as she tried to assemble the language.

  “Some call him Eric. You call him Oryx. I do not know which is correct.”

  She spoke over her shoulder while standing, not quite looking back at Celeste as she reached for the door.

  Behind her, Celeste gave a small nod.

  Inaria noticed the movement only in the edge of her vision. For a brief second she almost turned — almost — but something held her still. She stepped into the hallway instead.

  The corridor outside was already alive with motion. Boots on tile, voices passing, doors opening and closing. No chains. No wardens. No guards checking restraints. People moved around her freely, and every time she experienced it, her mind struggled to accept it as real.

  She began walking toward the dining facility, still pulling her hair loose from its knots with impatient fingers.

  Her first peaceful morning felt strangely exhausting.

  The dining facility smelled like food long before she reached it.

  Warm air rolled out through the open doors carrying scents she still struggled to separate — cooked meat, toasted bread, something sweet, and the bitter sharpness she now recognized as coffee. The combination made her slow at the entrance. Not because she feared it, but because her mind still expected conditions attached to meals.

  In her life, food had always meant structure. Lines. Rations. Silence. Eyes down. Finish quickly.

  Inside, people talked.

  Not cautiously. Not quietly. Loud conversation crossed the room in overlapping waves. Metal trays clattered. Someone laughed hard enough to draw attention from several tables. A television mounted high in a corner spoke to no one in particular while no one listened to it. The noise was chaotic, yet relaxed — and that contradiction held her still for a few seconds longer than she intended.

  A soldier noticed her in the doorway and lifted a hand in greeting.

  She hesitated, then lifted her own hand back in a stiff imitation of the gesture.

  He smiled.

  No mockery. No tension. Just acknowledgment.

  That unsettled her more than hostility would have.

  She moved forward, taking a tray because she had seen others do so. Choosing food remained guesswork, so she copied the person ahead of her. Eggs. Bread. Something wrapped in paper that turned out to be fruit. She carried the tray carefully, hyper-aware of her strength, and scanned the tables until she found familiar faces.

  Mike spotted her first.

  He raised a hand lazily from his seat. “Hey, blue. Over here.”

  Michelle sat beside him, one arm resting stiffly near her side. She shifted slightly as Inaria approached, making room at the table. Inaria lowered herself into the chair with more care than necessary and set the tray down.

  Mike took a drink from a metal cup and nodded toward her food. “You’re getting better at picking things that won’t kill you.”

  “I watched,” she said simply.

  Michelle gave a faint smile. “That’s how most of us learned cooking too.”

  Inaria studied them both for a moment, her gaze lingering first on Michelle’s arm.

  “You still favor it,” she observed.

  Michelle flexed her fingers slowly. “Healing nicely. Still stiff.” She rotated her shoulder a fraction and winced. “Can’t quite trust it yet.”

  Mike leaned back in his chair. “Speak for yourself. That stuff your people gave me?” He tapped the spot near his ribs. “Feels normal now. First day it felt… strange. Like someone patched me together with borrowed parts.” He shrugged. “Now I can’t even tell anything happened.”

  “Different,” Inaria said. “But good.”

  Mike gave a crooked grin. “Yeah. I’ll take different and alive.”

  She lowered her eyes to her tray. The eggs steamed gently in the cooler air of the room. For a moment she only watched the heat rise from them.

  Inside her chest, something eased.

  She did not smile. She did not show it. But the knowledge sat there quietly:

  She had done something that helped.

  The realization felt unfamiliar enough that she kept it hidden even from herself.

  Mike nudged a piece of toast toward her side of the table. “You’re thinking too hard again.”

  “I think always,” she replied.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But around here, sometimes you can just eat.”

  She picked up the toast and took a careful bite. Around them, the room carried on — conversation, laughter, the ordinary rhythm of people starting a day. No commands. No orders. No expectations placed on her.

  For the first time since arriving, she did not feel watched.

  She finished her meal in relative quiet. When she stood, she hesitated.

  “Where… is the PT field?” she asked, carefully pronouncing the unfamiliar words.

  Mike pointed with his cup toward the exit. “Past the dining facility, left at the road. Walk a couple minutes. You’ll hear it before you see it.”

  She nodded, committing the directions to memory.

  As she left the building, she heard Michelle call after her, gentle but firm.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll figure this place out.”

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  Inaria stepped outside into the morning sunlight.

  She was not certain she wanted to.

  But she walked anyway.

  The morning air carried a cool edge that hadn’t yet burned away under the desert sun. It brushed against her skin and tugged lightly at her loose hair as she stepped onto the road outside the dining facility. The sky stretched wide above the base, cloudless and pale blue, and the light felt sharper here than in the city she had first seen on this world.

  She followed the direction Mike had given her.

  The road ran straight ahead, lined by low buildings and fenced equipment yards. Vehicles moved past at steady intervals — some small, some massive — each producing a different mechanical rumble that vibrated faintly through the ground beneath her feet. People passed her going the opposite direction. Some slowed. Some stared openly. Others lifted hands in greeting, quick and uncertain.

  She began returning the gesture.

  Not perfectly. Her hand rose a moment late each time, fingers too stiff, but the result remained the same: smiles, nods, acknowledgment. No one approached too closely. No one blocked her path. Their fear remained visible in their posture — shoulders tight, steps careful — yet they allowed her to walk freely among them.

  The contradiction held her attention.

  In her world, fear demanded action. Control. Confinement. Here, fear coexisted with tolerance.

  She passed a sign and paused long enough to sound the letters out quietly to herself, matching them to the sounds she had learned.

  “Fi… tness… train… ing.”

  PT field.

  The noise reached her before the sight did — shouted counts, boots striking packed earth in rhythm, breath pushed from lungs in unison. She rounded the corner and saw them.

  Dozens of humans ran in formation across a broad dirt field. Others lifted weighted bars or held positions that forced their bodies to tremble under strain. Their faces shone with sweat already, and the air smelled faintly of dust and effort.

  At the edge of the field stood a smaller group — civilians she recognized from the volunteer gathering. They moved far less confidently, copying the soldiers’ motions with uneven timing. Some laughed nervously at their own mistakes. Others focused with determined seriousness.

  And among them stood Eric.

  He had his arms crossed while watching a man attempt pushups beside a woman who was counting aloud for him. Every so often Eric corrected a stance or demonstrated a motion, then stepped back again, leaving them to repeat it themselves.

  He noticed her after a moment and lifted a hand.

  “Inaria,” he called casually, as if greeting someone he had known for years. “You found it.”

  “I followed directions,” she answered, approaching.

  Her eyes moved across the group. The civilians struggled visibly, breathing hard long before the soldiers showed fatigue. Sweat darkened their clothing. Dust clung to their hands. Yet none stopped. None walked away.

  “They prepare,” she said, studying them. “But they are not fighters.”

  “Not yet,” Eric replied.

  One of the volunteers bent over, gasping, while another clapped him on the back encouragingly. A soldier jogged past them, shouting a cadence that the formation echoed in rough synchronization.

  Inaria frowned slightly. “Why do they do this? They cannot win.”

  Eric watched them for a long moment before answering.

  “They’re not training to win,” he said. “They’re training to stand.”

  She considered that.

  A woman stumbled while attempting a run and another volunteer immediately slowed to help her regain balance. No command had been given. No punishment followed the mistake. They simply adjusted and continued.

  “They fear,” Inaria observed quietly.

  “Yeah,” Eric said. “They do.”

  She studied the civilians again. Their fear showed plainly — in their hesitation, their uneven movements, the way they kept glancing toward her and then away. Yet they remained. None fled the field even knowing she stood only a few strides away.

  Her voice lowered.

  “They stay anyway.”

  Eric nodded once.

  “That’s the lesson today.”

  He turned to the gathered volunteers and raised his voice slightly.

  “Alright! Break for water — then we start the partner drills.”

  The civilians gathered near the side of the field, breathing hard, some sitting in the dust, others standing with hands on hips. A few watched Inaria openly now, curiosity competing with nerves.

  She felt their attention.

  For once, she did not mistake it for a threat.

  She stood beside Eric, uncertain why her chest felt tight as she watched them recover.

  The day had barely begun, and already something inside her no longer matched what she expected to feel.

  Water bottles passed from hand to hand. Some drank greedily, others only wet their mouths, pacing their breath the way the soldiers had shown them. Dust clung to sweat-darkened shirts and streaked their faces in pale lines where it had run.

  Eric stepped forward once they’d gathered.

  “Okay,” he said, voice calm but carrying. “You’ve all had the briefing. You volunteered because you want to help. Today you’re going to learn what that actually means.”

  Several of them straightened instinctively.

  He gestured toward Inaria.

  “This is Inaria. She’s stronger than any of you. Faster than any of you. And if she wanted to hurt you, none of you would be able to stop her.”

  A ripple of tension moved through the group. A few people swallowed. One man shifted a step back before catching himself and standing his ground again.

  Eric continued.

  “She’s also under orders not to injure you. I will be supervising. If anything gets out of hand, I end it.”

  He lifted one hand.

  The air beside him warped — a soft distortion like heat shimmer — and a thin ribbon of void unfurled across the training area. It spread low along the dirt in a wide circle around the sparring space, silent and watchful.

  Several volunteers stared at it, frozen.

  “That,” Eric said simply, “is your safety net.”

  Inaria watched them as they watched the field. Fear sharpened their scent again — salt and adrenaline — but none of them left.

  He looked across the group.

  “Goal is simple. You try to win. She tries to stop you without hurting you. You will fail a lot today. That’s expected. You are not here to prove you’re heroes. You’re here to learn how quickly a situation can get out of control.”

  “Who’s first?”

  No one moved.

  The wind drifted across the field, carrying the distant rhythm of soldiers still running their drills. Boots struck earth in steady cadence behind the silence hanging over the volunteers.

  Then one person stepped forward.

  Her hands trembled slightly at her sides, though she held her shoulders straight. Dark hair tied back, jaw clenched, eyes fixed not on Eric — but on Inaria.

  “Inaria,” she said quietly. “My name is Monica Serrano. It's nice to meet you.”

  Inaria inclined her head slightly, " it's nice to meet you too".

  Eric tilted his head slightly, studying her face. Something about her lingered in the edges of memory — a shape he couldn’t quite grab hold of — but the recognition wouldn’t settle. He dismissed it and nodded.

  “Alright, Monica. Rules are simple: no weapons, no strikes to the throat or eyes, and when I say stop, you stop immediately.”

  She nodded.

  Inaria stepped into the circle opposite her.

  They stood only a few feet apart now.

  Up close, Inaria could hear Monica’s breathing — fast, shallow, barely controlled. Her stance shifted uncertainly, weight uneven, but she raised her hands anyway. Not professionally, not perfectly, but with enough structure to show she had learned somewhere.

  “You’ve trained before,” Inaria said.

  Monica gave a tight nod.

  “A little.”

  Eric stepped back to the edge of the circle.

  “Begin.”

  Monica moved first.

  She lunged forward with a straight punch — not wild, not clumsy, but driven by effort more than technique. Inaria tilted her head slightly and let the strike pass beside her cheek. The fist cut air.

  A second punch followed. Then a third.

  Inaria stepped aside each time, adjusting distance rather than retaliating. Her feet barely disturbed the dirt.

  Monica advanced again, faster now, committing fully. A kick came next — telegraphed but forceful — and Inaria caught her shin lightly and guided it downward before it could land. She released immediately, never tightening her grip.

  The exchange lasted only seconds.

  Yet Monica didn’t slow.

  Her breathing grew harsher. Her strikes lost rhythm, then regained it in bursts of intensity. Each time she closed distance she looked harder into Inaria’s face, eyes searching.

  Her fist grazed Inaria’s shoulder.

  Monica froze for half a heartbeat.

  Then she attacked harder.

  Again and again she pressed forward. Dust kicked up around their feet. The volunteers watched in silence now — no nervous chatter, no whispered commentary.

  Only the sound of effort.

  Inaria continued deflecting, redirecting, stepping around each strike. She felt the force in them — stronger than expected — fueled by something deeper than simple determination.

  Monica’s jaw tightened.

  Her eyes changed.

  She wasn’t sparring anymore.

  Her punches came faster, shoulders straining, breath hitching between strikes.

  “You,” she muttered under her breath.

  Another swing.

  “You people.”

  Her hands shook.

  Another strike glanced off Inaria’s arm, and Monica stepped closer than before — close enough that her voice carried clearly now.

  “I remember.”

  Her eyes glistened suddenly, rage and grief surfacing together.

  Inaria stilled for the first time.

  Monica’s voice cracked as she threw another punch.

  “I remember what you are.”

  The last punch came slower than the others.

  It carried weight that had nothing to do with muscle.

  Inaria shifted her shoulder and the strike slid past her collarbone, brushing fabric instead of bone. She stepped inward rather than back, but Monica followed, refusing to let distance form again. Her hands grabbed at Inaria’s tunic, fingers bunching cloth as though holding onto a person who might vanish if she loosened her grip.

  Her breath hitched.

  “You… you were there.”

  The field had gone silent. Even the soldiers on the far side of the PT grounds had slowed, watching.

  Eric didn’t interrupt.

  Monica shoved her, hard.

  “You were there!”

  She swung again. Inaria guided the blow aside, but Monica crashed into her anyway, driving them both to the dirt. Dust burst upward around them as they fell.

  They rolled.

  For a moment Monica landed above her — knees planted, straddling Inaria’s waist — and her fists began to come down in frantic, unstructured hammering strikes.

  Inaria raised her forearms and caught each blow, redirecting them just enough that none landed cleanly. The strikes struck her arms, shoulders, the ground beside her head.

  Monica sobbed through clenched teeth.

  “I worked—” thud

  Her fist struck dirt beside Inaria’s head.

  “I did everything—” thud

  Another strike.

  “I put up with everything!”

  Her voice broke. Tears streamed freely now.

  “I sold myself! I worked nights! I worked days! I didn’t sleep! I didn’t care what people thought! I just wanted one thing — one thing!”

  Her hands grabbed Inaria’s shoulders, shaking.

  “I just wanted to give my boy a happy memory before he grew up!”

  Her voice shattered.

  “And monsters took him anyway!”

  The words hit harder than any punch.

  Inaria stopped deflecting for a heartbeat.

  The next strike never came. Monica’s hands trembled above her, frozen, shaking violently. Her entire body quivered with the force of holding herself together.

  “I heard them screaming,” she whispered hoarsely. “I heard people dying… and it wasn’t people doing it.”

  Her gaze locked onto Inaria’s eyes.

  “It was things like you.”

  The circle of observers stood motionless. Several civilians wiped their own eyes. Even hardened soldiers watched in still silence.

  Inaria’s chest tightened.

  The smell of smoke. Burning wood. Screams in a language she’d spoken as a child.

  Her own village.

  Her fingers moved gently, catching Monica’s wrists before another strike could form — not restraining harshly, simply holding.

  Monica struggled weakly.

  “I hate you,” she whispered. “I know you didn’t do it… I know that… but I still hate you.”

  Her shoulders shook violently.

  “I have nowhere to put it. I don’t have anyone left to put it on.”

  The words cracked into sobbing.

  Inaria stared at her.

  A mother who had lost a child.

  A child who had lost everyone.

  Their pain mirrored each other from opposite directions.

  Slowly, carefully, Inaria shifted her weight and rolled them. The motion was effortless. In a single smooth movement she reversed their positions, settling into the mounted position above Monica.

  Monica pushed at her shoulders immediately.

  Nothing happened.

  She pushed harder.

  Inaria barely moved.

  The strength difference revealed itself in a way no demonstration could have taught.

  Monica’s resistance weakened as realization set in. She stared upward, tears spilling freely, breath hitching in ragged pulls.

  Then she noticed.

  Tears fell onto her face.

  Warm.

  She blinked.

  Inaria was crying too.

  Silent tears slid down the blue lines of her cheeks, falling onto Monica’s skin.

  Neither spoke.

  The wind crossed the training field, lifting dust and carrying it gently past the silent ring of witnesses.

  For the first time since arriving on this world…

  Inaria didn’t feel alone.

  The match ended with the two of them staring at each other — grief reflected back upon grief — while Eric watched quietly from the edge of the circle, saying nothing at all.