The lower they descended, the gentler the slope became. The gentler it became, the more speed they were able to pick up. And it wasn’t just about the terrain. The longer they walked, the more confidence Korra gained in her stride. At first, she avoided the large boulders, looking for the smoothest path between them to make it easier for herself and Stella. Now she was not afraid to jump from one rock to another and nimbly weave through tree trunks and roots.

Actually, Korra even seemed to enjoy it.

That was definitely not the case for Stella. Without a saddle, she found it quite a challenge to stay on Korra’s back. There were no stirrups into which she could buckle her legs, no saddle or cantle to settle her butt, nor horn, or at least pommel to grab onto. All she could do was find the most comfortable spot - which for both her and Korra was close to her hind legs just above her wings - press her legs against her sides and hold on to her fur for her dear life.

Stella had ridden horses since she was a little girl, but riding this beast was nothing like that. Sure, the movements it required of her were similar, yet alien at the same time. The beast she rode, her squadmate, however strange the notion was, was not a horse; she was not a hoofed animal; she was a predator, and she moved like one. She was forced to adapt what she knew to the way Korra moved in her beast form, all the while struggling with herself - her damaged body.

When Traiana said she should be glad she was alive, the woman wasn’t kidding. There on that cliff, when Stella came to herself, there were actually moments when she thought she wouldn’t make it. That trip through misshapen space messed her up real bad. One of her lungs collapsed, her organs were torn, and she was pretty sure neither of her kidneys were working back then. Her bones were cracked, her muscles torn too. To top it all off, hardly any of her skills worked as they should.

With the little bit of training and insight Traiana had given them, her control of her skills was much better now, and so was her health. However, Stella was far from well. Even with two healing potions and her showering herself with [Breath of Healing], her body was still . . . damaged, her organs not working as they should, her muscles strained.

She may have been able to ignore the pain, but the burden that every movement caused her, wasn’t so easy to. Sweat was pouring off her, and her feet seemed to be made of stone as she walked. She was weak, so weak, and it pissed her off. Yet whatever she did, didn’t change a thing.

Potions had their limits, and taking too many of them could turn harmful. Moreover, they had no idea how long they would be around, whether it would be just a few hours or several cycles, and whether or not their supplies would be replenished with each new one. One big warning loomed in her mind. What if she wasted all their potions now, and in the next cycle, she found herself all messed up again with only [Breath of Healing] to get her out of it? It was a great skill that could heal many, but its strength was in healing the minor wounds of both her and her squad members, not fixing collapsed lungs and smashed organs. That was a job for a healer, which she was not.

‘Fuck!’ Stella cursed mentally to get rid of at least some of her pent-up frustration. Feeling the beast beneath her, the strength and energy it moved with, she couldn’t help but regret her decision not to choose a regeneration-boosting skill after her class evolution. Her teachers had advised her not to, that her aura skills would make up for it, and she agreed with them back then - and still did; she stood by that decision. Yet, in her heart, she could find nothing but envy for Korra and her strength.

Biting her lower lip, Stella fought to push the nagging feelings away and concentrate on the ride, which she found no less taxing than walking on her own two feet. The difference was that they were making much greater strides now, almost flying through the woods at times.

‘Huh?’ She winced, feeling the heat on her thigh, finding a glowing rune under the beast’s fur. The purple glow of it was so bright that it almost seemed to be white, the heat so intense that it was burning the fur around it. There was no doubt in her mind that if she were to touch it, she would burn herself. “You’re calling Idleaf, aren’t you? That’s the rune, isn’t it?”

Korra let out a growl that sounded like a yes to her. 

“You’re hurting yourself...” Stella said, only now realizing the sheer tenacity, or rather desperation, with which Korra was trying to contact her ward.

The beast beneath her fluttered its wings, and the rune began to fade, never quite going out completely. Korra explained to all of Squad Four that when she used the runes, they would glow for a while afterwards, but Stella wouldn’t be surprised if she kept the rune on all the time now on purpose, hoping that Idleaf would find her here.

As much as Stella would wish that to happen, if Idleaf could, she’d be here by now.

“You know, maybe you really shouldn’t be wasting your mana and time, because . . .” she said, stopping short as the so far inactive rune beneath her bottom began to heat up rapidly.

“Wait, wait, wait!” she cried out. “Korra, stop. I didn’t mean . . . would Idleaf want you to suffer?”

The rune faded and cooled.

‘That was close,’ Stella breathed a sigh of relief. She would have had to jump off Korra’s back a little longer, or get her ass burned.

“Sorry, Korra. I know how much you want to get back. I want to get back, too, just . . .” she trailed off, not knowing what to say, what words to say to cheer her up when she herself was in need of comfort. “We’ll get out, we will,” she said, patting the beast on the back.

In response, Korra stroked her leg with her extremely soft tail - and that was an understatement. The thing was heavenly. Well, if you left out the poisonous part, that was. At one point, Korra allowed herself to be talked into getting rid of the poison in her tail so that the members of Squad Four could satisfy their curiosity and stroke her tail without having to drink an antidote. And then, when she tried, it felt as if Stella had buried her head in the softest blanket she could find.

Dreaming of lying in her own bed, a teasing thought crossed her mind. “Couldn’t you light the rune just a little? When it was just warm, it was quite nice.”

The beast beneath her growled, enraged.

 

***

 

>> Bitch, << I growled.

Did she think I was a car with fucking heated seats? I should have burned her ass when I had the chance. Fucking unbelievable.

Yet when Stella started to giggle, I did too. The whole situation was ridiculous - apart from the fact that we could be trapped here for the rest of our lives. Well, forever, actually. Eternal life. One of the perks of having your life restarted every five days, you might say. Though it would be nicer if it happened while we were in a resort somewhere, on a sunny beach or on the snowy peaks of mountain giants, and not bleeding and puking on a bloody cliff.

It was the little things you had to find joy in when you were knee deep in shit like we were now.

“How much further?” Stella asked as I walked with her on my back in silence down the slope into the dark woods. It took us a while to get used to each other and, to be honest, I still found it strange. Hell, I was carrying a grown woman. She rode me as if I were a mere animal. Or at least it made me feel that way. To her credit, she never attempted to give commands as she would to a horse. I suppose that's one of the reasons I haven't thrown her off yet.

Traiana, who matched my pace with ease, smiled. “We’re still a fair way off, little one. If you took out your map, I still wouldn’t be able to show our position on it.”

Damn. We walked for almost an hour, not at the fastest pace most of the time, but about as long as we had run through the maze, and still were nowhere close to our destination. I wasn’t annoyed or frustrated, just amazed at the size of this echo, which turned out to be much bigger than the maze we had encountered. How did it work? Was it some sort of bubble? Did it even have an edge? These were the questions I had to keep to myself for the time being.

“Follow me, little ones,” Traiana spoke. “But I advise you to lower your voices, unless you have the magic or tools to hide them from the ears of others.”

I didn’t. So I looked back at my rider. She was a rich kid, born with a golden spoon up her ass. Her spatial tools must be packed with all sorts of tools and stuff. Though, when I confronted her about it once, she denied it, saying she didn’t want to rely on her family’s strength. Pretty hypocritical, I suppose, when it was that wealth that got her where she was. I didn’t mean that she had bought her position as squad leader, but that the training and education she had received were not something that everyone could afford. I could hardly blame her, though. She was just luckier than most.

Yeah, yeah, who wouldn’t be jealous - at least a little. Ultimately, though, it was having a loving family that mattered. No amount of money could buy that.

“Don’t worry, Korra. I have one,” she said, her voice soothing as she misinterpreted my dejected whimper at the thought of my family. The tool appeared in her hand in an instant. It was a small orb that fit in the palm of her hand, a knot of metal circles covered in runes, enclosing a crystal at its core. Upon activation, as Stella had done, all the runes lit up, and the circles were set in motion, orbiting around the crystal. It was quite a spectacular thing to look at.

“Another crude tool. Whoever sold it to you ripped you off, little one,” Traiana commented on the tool. “Better to activate it only when you have something to say. A magus could easily detect this silencing field.”

Blushing slightly with shame, Stella nodded and put the tool back, a bit disheartened. While I didn’t feel the same, I understood. I didn’t invent cars, build airplanes or send men to the moon, but I was proud of what my people, the earthlings, had achieved. If someone, a legend to me, a hero, had said it was crude, I too, would have been disappointed and ashamed.

To cheer her up, I sent mana into the rune on my back. It did the trick, and she smiled back, mouthing a silent thank you. We were in silent mode after all, rushing through woods a millennia in the past

I knew our starting point in the maze was far, farther than we had traveled in it, but how far took my breath away. Literally. After a few kilometers of running through the woods with Stella on my back, it was I who needed to take a break and, among other things, catch my breath. I was so thirsty; the reason why I stopped where I did, by a small stream - though it was not the first one we had crossed.

Sure, there was a skin of water in my spatial store and a whole barrel to go with it, but I had no way of drinking it in this form other than asking Stella to pour it into a bowl or reverting to my human self. Never mind that it would be wasteful - both switching back and drinking the water from my storage - when I had other options.

Now, more than ever, I saw the usefulness of the essential things to have that Sergeant Pinescar was trying to drill into our heads. I was incredibly grateful that the City Guard had provided me with these things. All in all, it’s made me look at things differently. Going with my guts might have been the way of fighting that suited me best, but being prepared wasn’t such a bad way to go, either.

Anyway, I looked at Stella, stream, and Traiana, hoping that one of them would understand what I was trying to ask. >> Is this water safe to drink? << Of course, I was careful not to growl too loudly before Stella remembered to take out the Silencer.

Luckily, she was quick to catch on. “Is it okay for us to consume anything that comes out of this echo, ma’am?”

I jerked away from the stream. Actually, a damn good question that hadn’t even crossed my mind.

Traiana looked away from the silencing field and thought about what to say. “I can’t remember anyone before you ever having a problem with it. So, yes, little Guardian, the water is safe to drink - though I must say your expressions are extraordinarily telling.”

Well, I was more concerned about whether the water was tainted or something, not that it could mess up my guts just because this is the past and I’m from the present. I would not care if the water flowed into the echo, but this stream had its source in the hills that we descended flowing to the edge of the echo. Finding a way to clarify my question to be too much trouble and tormented by thirst, I braved the water and dipped my now unusually long tongue into it.

I waited. Ready for the system notification to pop up in my mind, informing me of my poisoning. But nothing of the sort happened. Duh. There was no ‘active’ system around. How dumb of me.

Still cautious, I took a few sips, waiting a bit longer to see what it would do to me, whether the excruciating pain would come or whether I would just wet my parched throat. The latter seemed to be the case, so this time I quenched my thirst without much hesitation.

A few minutes later, when it was clear that it was safe-ish to drink the water, Stella followed suit.

>> Bitch. <<

“I don’t have your regeneration,” she pointed out without shame, picking up on my irritated growl. The frustration over the fact - her feeble regeneration and small constitution compared to mine - was palpable in her voice.

I growled, but didn’t argue any further. Whether I liked it or not, she wasn’t wrong.

“What would happen if we reached the edge of the echo?” she asked Traiana, her eyes following the stream of water as it disappeared into the trees somewhere in the woods. “Couldn’t we get out of here that way?”

My ears perked up, I cast my gaze upon Traian, eager to hear what she had to say. It couldn’t have been that easy, could it?

“You can try, little ones,” the woman said, though her look was discouraging. “Though remember. That is the boundary between this echo, this past, and your present, held apart by the runes. The boundary you crossed on your way here. The boundary that has been weakened at the moment, I might add.”

Stella, sitting next to me by the stream, visibly shuddered at the idea of going through, knowing what the misshapen space had already done to us. Chances were that if we tried to go beyond the edge of the echo, we would end up being torn apart.

“Good to see you understand,” Traiana said. “Some before you were more stubborn, trying to go over the edge again and again, until one cycle they just didn’t reappear.”

“So . . . they got through?”

Traiana threw a look at Stella. “You know very well that’s not the case, little one.”

If they succeeded in passing through, people would know of such individuals, of the existence of this place. Surely no one would want to keep such an experience to themselves. Even I was ready to tell anyone who would listen about what we’d been through as soon as we got out of here.

“So, they are . . . ?”

“I may be the warden of this place, but I’m not a spatial or time magus. I honestly don’t know, and you shouldn’t burden yourself either with the fate of someone who has chosen it for themselves. Instead, you should focus on yourself and your fates.”

There was truth in that. Better to focus on what we could do, ourselves, and so we both took her words as a cue to head off. One last gulp of fresh water, and I set off through the dark woods with Stella on my back.

Half a dozen stops and five hours of sneaking through the woods later, we reached our destination. At least, according to Traiana. The only catch was that while we were in the maze, the walls - the gaps between the rune lines - were about three hundred meters apart when we first realized that we were trapped. Here they were separated by at least five kilometers. Worse, we had no idea what we were looking for or even if it was here at all.

Talk about finding a needle in a haystack.