“Korra!” I heard my name echo in my mind. It was so faint, repeating over and over again, while my mom was shaking me to get me out of bed. As always, I resisted by refusing to open my eyes. Why would I get up when it was so comfortable under the covers?

“Girl!” echoed the voice again, urging me to wake up. Yet all it did was make me giggle in a playful taunt, daring my mom to try again. As she shook me again, I rolled over onto my other side, my back to her. Though, lying there, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something was not quite right. It took me forever to figure it out. After all, my brain wasn’t one of the brightest in the morning. My mother’s melodious voice now echoing in my mind sounded rather coarse, nor was ‘girl’ the nickname she used to call me. To her, I was ‘Her Little Sunflower’.

With that, I realized the harsh truth. She was no longer here, nor was I the little girl who needed comforting from her. At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself. I was a grown woman, but I’d still give anything to hug her one more time.

So, I tried, even though I knew this was nothing more than an old memory, a beautiful dream. I sat up on the bed, tossed off the blanket, and threw myself at her.

“Oy, what the fuck are you doing, girl,” growled a gruff voice right behind me, making my ears twitch. Squinting my eyes in the harsh light, I found myself on the horse, reaching out with my right hand somewhere in the distance, while my left held Sage tightly against my chest.

A horse, no, two horses, slaves behind us, a man behind me, yeah I knew where I was, who I was, and what I had become. It was all coming back to me.

“Awake at last,” Deckard said while he held me around the waist to keep me from falling. Why he sounded so amused, I dared not guess. Instead, I looked around again, just to be sure this wasn’t just another dream, a nightmare, this time checking my surroundings with my domain as well. I didn’t find my mom, though.

“Where are we? Did something happen?” I asked after I sorted out my thoughts, still confused as to why he had woken me up.

He hummed, still amused. “Castiana is in sight.”

“And...?” I blinked. His words made no sense to me. Why was that a reason to wake me up?

“Well, I thought you’d want to be awake when we got into the city. Not with your head hanging down, bobbing, drooling like a dog, and hugging your tail,” he said, paused, and then added. “Seriously, someday, you’re going to have to tell me what it is between you and the overgrown duster.”

Duster?! I frowned, and Sage twitched, releasing a puff of poison right in my face. He didn’t like the unflattering name either. 

“That’s not going to happen!” I declared, confident Deckard would never know. It was not a big secret. It was simply too embarrassing. 

“We’ll see,” he smirked and paused. “Do I smell apples?”

No...? I thought, saying nothing even though I knew Deckard was aware of my poison. He’s seen me use it. Plus, his perception was too damn good to miss something like the release of a cloud of poisonous gas.

“Were you poisoned?” I asked, as my curiosity got the better of me. 

“Did you?” he retorted back, but then he shrugged. “Smells nice, but you’ll need something much stronger if you want to kill me.”

So a bit annoyed and the only one poisoned, I got to thinking. I was sure I didn’t fall asleep hugging Sage. It happened at some point during my sleep. Was it when I wanted to hug my mom? Did I hug him instead of her? In the end, it didn’t matter. Deckard was right. The arrival he mentioned wouldn’t be very flattering.

So I wiped the drool running down to my chin in my new shirt and straightened up. Then, realizing I was still pressing Sage against my body, I let him go. 

When I finally looked in front of me and focused properly, I could indeed see Castiana in the distance. Only the city was much farther away than I expected when he said it was in sight. At our speed, at least a quarter of an hour away.

The first time I saw Labyrinth City, my thoughts were a mess, and in fact, I thought about running away even before I got there. Looking at it now, I must say it didn’t look so impressive. Sure, it was surrounded by a high wall, but that was it. No magnificent buildings towering over it, an impregnable castle, or majestic cathedral in its center. I knew that the City Lord was building a tower at his palace. But even that place wasn’t much different from the buildings in the rest of Castiana, except for the gardens surrounding it. So, all in all, a boring city to look at.

The only iconic spot was its huge empty hexagon-shaped space in the center, the place where all this mess started, Labyrinth Square.

As glad as I was for Deckard waking me up, I would have wished he had done it later, closer to the city. This way, I had time to think. Think about what happened to me in Castiana and what’s waiting for me over there. It made me quite nervous. Almost immediately, I regretted letting Sage go.

“Thanks for the hard work,” I praised the horse, forcing my mind to think of something else. In response, the mare neighed cheerfully. The meaning of which could be translated as, ‘no problem’.

“It was a surprisingly smooth ride,” Deckard said when he saw me talking to the horse again. “Especially after you fell asleep.”

“Really?” I wondered. Then I leaned towards the mare. “You did this for me?”

Her snort was just a nod of sorts, a confirmation.

I said my thanks to her just as we arrived at Castiana’s gate.

More than two dozen city guards stood outside in three lines. I even saw Janina and a couple of master guards among them in the first row. But my eyes fell on the woman standing in front with her hands behind her back, Captain Rayden.

Deckard stopped the mare a few meters ahead of them, jumped off the saddle, and helped me down. I know a bit of princess-ish, like a damsel in distress, but this was my first time riding a horse. I needed a bit of help. Standing with both feet firmly on the ground, I looked again at Captain Rayden, who was about to speak. The Agent beat her to it, though. “Captain, these people belong behind bars. Slave contracts need to be checked,” he said, pointing to the trio of slavers and the slaves.

Like her, I glanced at them too. Rutledge, bound as he was, could have rotted in jail for all I cared. I had mixed feelings about Tate and Aspen, though. They both kind of helped me, and that was also hard to forget. “That there was a guardswoman among them needs some explanation, Captain,” he added when he jumped off his horse.

“Is that Aspen?” spoke some man from the ranks of the city guards, who hurried over to the trio and the slaves after the Captain motioned for them to do so. The Imperial Agent walked up to her quite confident in his steps. “There’s a lot to talk about, Captain,” he said, gesturing to Deckard.

Or was he pointing at me? I couldn’t tell. 

“That, we do, Agent Sah,” Rayden said sternly. She didn’t even flinch under his piercing gaze.

Remembering the authority he usually enjoyed with his position had no effect on this city guards captain, he nodded. “I’m giving you an hour. Then we’ll talk about what the hell is going on here.”

“Just the two of us, Agent Sah?” she asked with a stoic face, but her tone told a different story. I don’t know if she meant it to come across that way, but it felt like she was mocking him. It was hard to say whether the Agent saw it that way too, but he certainly didn’t like the question. 

“No,” he gritted his teeth, and after taking a breath, he added. “I’ll put it so you’ll understand, Captain. The safety of your city is at risk.”

She nodded, absorbing his words. “How immediate is this...danger?”

“According to Grey here, not so urgent. That’s why I’m giving you an hour,” he said with a nod towards me, thus diverting much of the attention of those present in my direction. I didn’t like that. “Her claims must be verified. So set up the meeting. I’ll meet you there, Captain.”

Without saying another word, he passed into the city among the guards, who stepped out of his way, leaving behind the horse he rode in on. If I had to guess, it wasn’t his in the first place, but caught on the edge of the woods, just like Rutledge. 

At first, I wondered why Captain Rayden had let the Agent get away with it, why she let him order her around like that. Then I realized she was still part of the military structure of the Empire, and the Imperial Agent must have been of a higher rank than her.

She made sure the Agent was gone before she looked back at us. “Traiana’s tits Deckard, what have you done this time?” she almost shouted through gritted teeth.

“Me?” He questioned back, taken aback by her outburst. Thinking about it, he nodded to himself in bewilderment. “Actually, I didn’t do anything. Strange, isn’t it?”

Yeah, he must have been a trouble-maker, for sure. However, when I thought about it as he did, he didn’t really do anything but advise me, guide me and keep me from giving up, nothing to cause any trouble.

Rayden clenched her fists. “Don’t lie to me, Deckard!”

“What do you want to hear from me, San?” he said bitterly, throwing up his hands. “That I slaughtered everyone there, fought the Agent? Just to fulfill your request?”

“Did you?” she asked him.

He paused, a look of disbelief on his face. “You know what, fuck you!”

“Deck, be...”

“Don’t ‘Deck’ me, San. You told me to go fix your fuck up, and now that I’ve brought the girl back in one piece, I don’t get a single ‘thank you’? I’m done,” he said, making it clear he wasn’t going to talk to her anymore while I stood there struck dumb.

Not how I imagined my return would go.

The Captain sighed, rubbing her temples, wondering if she was really mistaken about Deckard this time. Then she took a breath, gave him a weary look, and made a few steps towards me.

With her hands still behind her back, she sized me up from head to toe. “Glad you’re okay, Grey. I really am. I think the apology comes first.”

To that, I just nodded. I didn’t feel she deserved more. When I was kidnapped, I still believed. When they put the collar around my neck, I still hoped, but when I left the city, shackled and a slave again, I felt betrayed by her.

Rayden pressed a clenched fist of her right hand to her chest while keeping her left hand behind her back. “Korra Grey, please accept my sincere apologies. I knowingly put you in danger without your consent or knowledge. I’m really ashamed of that.”

“She takes her job too seriously,” Deckard interjected, and I couldn’t help but hear the frustration in his voice that echoed in my mind. “Thinks she’s responsible for every fucker in the city. No offense, girl.”

His words gave me pause. Even though her apology seemed genuinely sincere, I was about to let some harsh words out of my mouth, as did he. Perhaps that’s why he spoke, sensing what I had to say, thinking she didn’t deserve to hear it from me. It was hard to say, but it made me realize it was Rayden who sent him, that she didn’t abandon me completely.

So instead of swearing, I asked a question. “Why?”

Rayden blinked and glanced at Deckard, who gave her a subtle dip and a smirk. Then she looked back at me, aware that I already knew the answer. “I had no choice. My hands were tied.”

“So, you do see it now?” Deckard said unexpectedly and full of anticipation, making me wonder if the person he was talking about back in the woods, the one who let herself be bound by her past, was Captain Rayden. She took a breath, closing her eyes, then nodded wordlessly. At that moment, he burst out with excitement like a keg of gunpowder. “Ha, finally!”

His joyful outcry drew the attention of even those who had not been paying it to us so far and made the Captain sigh a little in defeat. She did smile, though. 

Then I yelped as he appeared right in front of me without me noticing him move, despite the fact that I had the domain active. I stared at him in stunned wonder as he took my head in his hands and kissed me on the forehead. “You’re like a bundle of miracles, girl.”

After ruffling my hair, avoiding the moss on them, Deckard grabbed me around the shoulders. It didn’t come as a surprise to me that the Captain was looking at us rather confused. Nor was she alone puzzled by his behavior and words. I, in addition to said confusion, also felt heat in my cheeks.

“Ehmm...Grey, what the fuck happened there? What did he do?” the Captain asked.

“Well...” I thought again, sorting out my thoughts. “Actually, Deckard didn’t do anything, at least not anything of the sort he mentioned. He just gave me some advice.”

Then I added. “...and a delicious-looking carcass as a gift to Esu. He called him the gift bearer for that.”

“He did? You never mentioned it to me,” Deckard wondered but then shrugged to himself. “Gift bearer. Doesn’t sound bad.”

With his arm still around my shoulders, I nodded. Better than thought fuddler, in my opinion. Not something I said out loud, though. When I looked in front of me, I flinched. More than a dozen shocked faces were staring back at us. It was quite unsettling. 

The first to break the silence, the first one to speak, was one of the guards. “Did she say they met the King of the Woods?”

This brought the others out of their shock, and questions started coming from all sides. It made my ears ring. Mercifully, silence soon followed when the Captain promptly raised her aura, thus establishing order among her city guards. She rubbed her temples again. “Deckard, please tell me you haven’t met Esu?” 

These two certainly had some history with each other, and I could only make wild guesses why she saw Deckard the way she did. But she apparently saw him meeting with Esu as a guaranteed disaster. 

“What?” he threw up his hands, letting go of my shoulders. “It’s not my fault he showed up.”

I saw the horror in her eyes as she slowly looked to the southeast where the Granora mountain range loomed in the distance, with the Esulmor Woods below. “I told you explicitly not to confront him at any cost. I begged you,” she said and then turned back to her men. “Sound the ala...”

Before she even had time to shout her order, Deckard was upon her, striking with an overhead kick. Gasping, I thought he was going to catch her off guard, and his kick would connect, but in the last second, the Captain turned and crossed her arms above her in defense. The strength of the kick forced her to her knees, though.

Deckard did not follow up with another attack, although he didn’t spare himself a few harsh words. “For fuck’s sake, have you been listening at all. All I did was give him a gift.”

“It’s true, Esu has no intentions of attacking the city. He has returned to the heart of the woods.” I said in Deckard’s defense while I watched with some wariness the weapons that appeared in the hands of the city guards in response to his attack.

Rayden looked at me, considering my words. “He let you go? After he got a piece of meat? Just like that? Am I supposed to believe that?”

“It’s more complicated,” I said, standing my ground. Her fear seemed unreasonable to me. Announcing in front of everyone that I could talk to beasts wasn’t something I wanted to do, though. It was enough that the slaves and Rutledge knew.

Then Janina, the healer from Master Guards, appeared at her side, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Calm down San, and take a good look at her. Hi, Korra, long time no see.”

“Hi,” I greeted back. Not quite sure I would call two or three days a long time.

“What are you talking about?” Rayden asked.

“Does she look to you like someone who has faced Esu in his woods? In a fight, I mean?” She inquired, gesturing at me. “Look at her level, at her head. Do you know what it is?”

I subconsciously touched my head, the moss on it. “It was a gift.”

“A gift?” Both the Captain and Janina gasped. Apparently, not even the healer expected my answer. 

Deckard laughed at that. “I almost forgot how shocked I was when I saw you with Esu, girl.”

“Really?” I looked at him, my ears moving to show my puzzlement. “You didn’t seem shocked at all.”

“When your life's on the line, any hesitation, any lapse in judgment can rob you of it,” he said as if quoting someone. “By the time I got to the clearing, you were already standing in front of him. Frankly, my first thought was to bail out on you, and not just because of what San told me. Whatever she may think of me, I’m not suicidal to attack Esu.”

“Then why did you stay?” I asked because he did. He didn’t run away, didn’t bail out on me.

He gave me a wide grin. “When my shock wore off, I saw something impossible, a miracle.”

Was he kidding me, or was he serious? Miracle? Me? I was a freak. No! I was a beast, definitely not some miracle. “Wasn’t it because Esu must have known about you long before you entered the clearing?”

“Yeah, I figured he wouldn’t just let me walk away,” Deckard admitted. 

“But don’t think that was the only reason, girl. What were my first words to him?”

I thought back. “A Gift?”

He smirked. “Come on!”

“That you’re there for me,” I said, taking a breath and adding. “To train me.”

Now that I thought about it, it didn’t make sense. He didn’t see me struggle for life and freedom, my desperation at that moment. We’d never seen each other before, so why did he decide to train me back then?

“Exactly. What I saw was someone worth saving. A [Slave], one who hadn’t even evolved her class yet, with no experience, standing fearlessly in the face of a beast that made my knees buckle. As I said, I saw something incredible. I saw my apprentice in you.”

I stared at him blankly, not quite sure how to react and confused about his reason for training me. Was he serious? I thought he’d been looking for his disciple for years, and met dozens of people. Then decided on me without seeing me fight? It didn’t make sense to me.

“Deck, you...” Captain Rayden stammered, pointing at me, shocked more than I ever saw her, even more than when she found out about Esu. Janina, standing next to her, just stared at Deckard open-mouthed.

“You want to teach HER?!” Rayden managed to ask as she gathered her thoughts.

He shrugged. “Well, she hasn’t said ‘yes’ yet.”