A Salamander, but Mighty

POV: Tamara

The caravan had left, Tamara had hidden inside one of the carriages and had decided to stay there; Luchael had brought her some food, but she had refused it: every time she saw food she saw the corpse of the croconoid again and felt the intense desire to feed that she had felt, and that was something that led her human half to tighten her stomach to the point of almost feeling sick.

Tamara opened one eye and moved her head slightly so as to emerge from the cloak under which she had been hidden to look outwards: the reddish light of the sunset signaled that the day had passed, and the vibrations of the wheels during the day – aside for the slight inclination of the carriage floor – suggested that they must now be close to reaching the Cloudbreaker Mountains.

SYSTEM: [Nourished] status worsened to [Hungry]. [-2] penalty to all Traits.

Oh no, what a nightmare… she thought sarcastically, I'm also walking away from Seething Forge, and the possibility of quickly returning to Velen to free her.

Both Luchael and Helen had stopped by to visit her earlier in the day, even Helen had tried to bring her food, food which she had refused. Sooner or later she would have left her hiding spot, it was just that at that moment she didn't feel like it... what would be the point of going out to seclude herself together with the Templar and the Leporan? It wasn't like she could talk to them about what was consuming her up inside, she didn't even have eyes to cry...

The only thing I really have control over at the moment is learning to write, she thought, lowering her head, I just have to find the will to get out of here...

Tamara went back to covering her head inside her hiding place and probably fell asleep again since when she was gently moved and raised her head again, only the lights of the torches reached her from the outside. The person who had visited her was the leporan, who had settled on his knees next to her with his back to the exit of the wagon.

“Hey, Aradra…” Luchael whispered, “is there anything I can do to cheer you up?”

Tamara looked at him, “can you rewind time? I was almost better off when I was a weak little monster helped by the spirit of a river..." she replied dejectedly. Noticing Luchael's perplexed expression, she sighed and shook her head.

“You've been acting like this since we fought the bandit leader,” Luchael muttered, “was he the first person you killed?”

Tamara nodded.

“Oh, now I see,” he smiled cheerfully, “you're more human than you seem!”

Am I… am I human? Tamara thought, shaking off the cloak that covered her to lie down in front of the leporan, with her eyes turned towards his face.

“It's normal to feel like this the first time... the problem would be if you didn't feel like that,” explained the leporan, stretching out an arm forward to give Tamara a few caresses on her black and slimy skin, “in that case, it would mean that you don't have a heart."

Tamara hadn't had an easy life outside of home, but at home, her parents and brother were the best a person could have asked for; Luchael's caresses brought back memories of her mother's when she was still very little, and made her relax almost instantly under that gentle touch.

“You know, I had to kill someone in the past too…”

Tamara gathered her courage and came close enough to be able to rest her head on one of the leporan's legs. She closed her eyes and took another deep breath.

“He was a bandit in that case too,” he continued his story, “they were about to raid my family's farm, we could have escaped, but then we would have starved and we would have been left in the cold with all our things destroyed or stolen.”

And I thought that leporans always preferred to flee, Tamara thought to herself, maybe they are like foxes? They simply avoid the fight as long as there is at least an escape route?

“This is a cruel world, and we couldn't afford to lose our crops,” Luchael sighed, “I was afraid, but do you know what I was even more afraid of?” The leporan scratched a spot between Tamara's eyes, "I was afraid that my parents or siblings might die if I ran away, so I fought."

The sound of footsteps made Luchael prick up his ears, and he was interrupted in his attempt to pull the cloak back over Tamara by the voice that reached them moments later, “it's me. How is Aradra?” Helen asked.

“I think I know what's wrong.”

The feminine and athletic silhouette of the human templar blocked the lights of the camp for a moment. She sat down on her knees next to Luchael, placing a plate on the wooden floor; vegetables and a few pieces of dried meat where on it, "so... what's the problem?"

“I think that that croconoid was the first person Aradra ever killed,” Luchael replied, lowering his voice. “I was telling her about the first time I killed someone to cheer her a bit.”

"Really?" Helen showed an expression of skepticism for a moment, Tamara had the impression that the human still saw in her a threat to all the poor souls of that world... and yet, Helen at a certain point changed her expression, she smiled, "I want to hear it, too!"

“He was a bandit, they were about to attack our farm and… I was forced to choose whether to flee and lose everything or fight to defend what was dear to me… but what about you?” Luchael smiled slightly, “have you ever killed anyone?”

Helen nodded a few times, “it was an escort mission. As followers of Gornowayl, the god requires the performance of potentially heroic deeds such as saving innocents from a cruel fate or killing a great monster at the cost of one's life," explained the templar, "it was a band of adventurers working for the Brotherhood of Shadows, they had been tasked with assassinating the family of the merchant we were escorting.”

Tamara tilted her head slightly, Brotherhood of Shadows? Sounds shady, she said to herself in the voice of her thought as she absentmindedly reached out a paw to try to drag closer the plate Helen had brought.

“What disgusting people,” Luchael grumbled, “we'll never be able to get rid of them.”

“As long as the Adventurers' Guild respects the laws of the realms, less noble-minded adventurers will turn to the Brotherhood of Shadows for illegal quests,” Helen said with a shrug, “in any case, my companions and I killed them all, my first victim who wasn't a monster died with the tip of my messer right in her mouth.”

Meanwhile, Tamara was chewing her food, listening to the two's stories and noticing how they talked about them: they reminded her a little of the documentaries she had seen on the veterans of the great wars of the past - those of her world, of course -, there was detachment in their tones, as if ending someone's life was an eventuality that was bound to happen rather than something horrible that in an ideal world should never happen.

The normality of this world is horrible, she finished eating the meat, all the thoughts that were stopping her from eating were gone, although how long she would remain in that condition was to be seen.

At least she had eaten something!

“Luchael, I…” Helen took a deep breath and clicked her tongue, “I'm sorry I got mad at you. Thinking about it now, if you had told me the truth I would have immediately called you crazy and ended up fighting a salmadrer who doubled me in level,” she said, tucking a few strands of her dark brown hair behind one ear.

“Don't worry, after all you still had valid reasons to be angry,” the leporan smiled at her, “rather… how is your hand?”

Helen looked down at the bandage encasing her left hand and rubbed it gently with her right hand, “It's still too early to tell if I'll heal completely.”

Poor Helen, if she was hurt it was because I refused to fight immediately... it's almost ironic now that she thought about it: when she emerged from the dungeon she felt ready to fight every adventurer or threat that appeared before her, only to hesitate when the eventuality had actually presented itself.

“Tomorrow we should arrive at the first village on the slopes of the Cloudbreakers, maybe they will have a magic potion there to heal your wound instantly and completely,” Luchael mused aloud, “I also heard that they have problems with packs of monsters that attack periodically, we could abandon the caravan and stop there to solve the situation and get some more leuns.”

Packs of monsters? If there are gangs of monsters there are experience points to accumulate, Tamara remembered what she was told about Seething Forge, about how lethal it could be even for her current level... "fighting monsters!" She exclaimed in her language of hisses and sighs that only she could understand. Tamara jumped with her paws on Luchael's legs and tried to shake him, “we have to fight the monsters! I need to level up to free Velen!”

“I think Aradra is trying to communicate,” Helen said, “do you want to stop at that village?”

Tamara nodded vigorously, she couldn't rewind time and the croconoid would almost certainly not be the last person she killed, but at that moment the only thing she had any form of control over was its level growth and the promise to return to Velen with the means to release her into the world.