Aren's Perspective
Before he arrived, my life wasn't measured in days or big decisions. It was measured in short distances, in centimeters, in the exact space between one hiding place and the next, in how long I could stay still without making a sound before something passed too close.
In Zarhama, there was no room to think about the future; every step was a calculation, every sound could be the last thing you heard. Being born human here wasn't just being born weak—it meant being born knowing that, at some point, you would become food or a nuisance, and the only thing you could do was delay it a little longer. The semihumans grew faster, ran faster, smelled better, saw better. We… hid. That was all.
Finding food was an ordeal. Because to avoid starving, you had to go out, and going out meant exposing yourself. You could run into carnivores who wouldn't hesitate and turn you into food, or herbivores who wouldn't even see you as something alive before crushing you underfoot. There was no real difference. To them, we were nothing worth caring about. You learned to move low, to leave no trace, to eat whatever you could find—the important thing was to survive, one more day. And even then… it wasn't always enough.
When the Leontaris cornered me in the red grass, I wasn't thinking about escaping anymore—not because I didn't want to live, but because I already knew I couldn't. I had seen it too many times, in friends, in people of my own blood, fall exactly the same way, surrounded, with no way out, turned into something that stopped being a person before even hitting the ground. Sometimes they killed quickly. Sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they played. They devoured them alive, slowly, as if time didn't matter, as if the screams were part of the process. And those screams… I still remember them. Not as a distant sound, but as something that stays, that comes back without warning, that doesn't leave even when you close your eyes.
They surrounded me without hurry, the way they do when they know you have nowhere to go, closing the space little by little, with no need to rush, and the smell of their breath reached me before the contact: old blood, corrupted mana, something thick that filled my nose and stayed there, as if it wanted to remain inside me, making me understand, without words, how it would all end. I didn't feel desperation. Not like before. There was no urge to run, no need to scream. My body understood it before I did; it went still, heavy, as if it was no longer worth moving. And in that moment… I simply accepted that I had reached the end.
And then he appeared. A man with strange clothes and yellow eyes. I had never seen anything like that in anyone from my tribe—there was no trace of fear in his gaze.
He didn't do what anyone else would have done. He didn't shout, didn't run, didn't hesitate. He simply stepped into that space as if there were no danger, as if those creatures weren't what they were.
And the strangest part… was that it worked.
The Leontaris stepped back. Not much, but they retreated with every step he took forward. And in that moment, I understood something that had never made sense before: they could feel fear too.
That was what changed everything.
At first, I didn't understand it, but little by little an idea began to take shape. Then they weren't inevitable. Then everything I had lived through wasn't a fixed law, nor something impossible to break. It was just a condition… and someone had just ignored it.
What happened next completely changed the way I saw the world: a human killing semihumans. The Leontaris didn't stand a chance; they died almost without being able to resist.
After that, when we climbed the mountain, something happened to me that still feels strange. For the first time, I wasn't watching every step expecting something to come out and kill me.
It took me days to stop turning my head at every sound, days to understand that I could sleep without waking up in the middle of the night expecting to hear breathing nearby.
The air here is different. It doesn't weigh on you. It doesn't smell like constant threat. Selvryn says that's hope, but I don't have a word for it.
I only know that it's the first time I breathe without thinking about how much time I have left.
The first time I ate without rushing was worse than I expected. The food was there, enough, even good, filled with mana—something we had only seen in things we couldn't touch before. And even so, I hesitated. Because eating well, having flesh on your bones, no longer looking like a skeleton… that's dangerous down there. A carnivore looks at you differently when you're worth more as prey. It took me time to accept that things don't work the same way here.
Lusian didn't try to explain any of that to me. The day we reached the top, he put a stone in my hands and pointed at the wall, as if that was the only thing that mattered.
—The mountain will be our home, Aren. We will hold it. We will create our place… our domain.
"Home…" The tears almost slipped from my eyes. "We have the right to have a place."
It wasn't a kind gesture. It wasn't harsh either. It was just something new and strange. And for me, that was worth more than anything.
Because no one had ever given me something to hold before. I had always been something that had to hide, never something that could be part of something bigger without breaking it.
Now I work every day. My body changed without me noticing when it happened.
Just like this place, which is now my home: the food shop, the forge, the elves and their strange customs.
Sometimes I watch Kara train, and I don't think about how strong she is, but how normal it seems for her not to be afraid. Sometimes I see Selvryn with the Tree, touching the roots as if they truly respond, and it no longer feels strange.
Here, many things stopped being strange.
One day I saw my reflection in a piece of metal. It wasn't a clean mirror, just an uneven surface, but it was enough to notice the difference. I no longer had bones showing, nor that dull look in my eyes. There was color. There was weight in my body. There was something I didn't recognize at first.
And that scared me a little, more than I expected. Because it meant my life had changed… and I didn't know if this dream would disappear one day, if I would have to go back to what I was before, and I wasn't sure I could live like that again.
I thought something that had never made sense to me before: that someone could look at me… and not think about eating me. It embarrassed me. Not because of the idea itself, but because it meant I now had value in a different way.
Now, when Lusian walks nearby, I straighten my back without thinking. Not so he'll see me, but because I no longer want to see myself as something that could disappear at any moment. There's something here worth protecting. Something that didn't exist before.
At night, I look toward the savanna. I know they're still there: the hunters, the ones who wait, the ones who live the way I used to. I know the Lithaar are moving too, that what we have here won't stay calm for long.
But I don't have to be afraid anymore. I used to run. Not anymore. Now I stay. And I will protect my home.
Because this… this is not just a place where I don't die. It's a place where I can live. Where I can eat without fear, sleep without expecting something to wake me, move without calculating every shadow.
Because if someone tries to take this from us… they won't find what was down there.
They'll find people who already know what it means to lose everything.
And who have no intention of going back to that.