I didn’t want to open my eyes. I could hear my tribe talking, mostly about me. I could hear them discussing their dreams and how I’d visited some of them. I was scared. I know that what was said in the Dream wasn’t enough, I’d damaged the home I’d made with them. But I couldn’t pretend forever.

  Carmil’s hand stroked my cheek “You do know I tell when someone is scious just by looking at them, yes?”

  I sighed and pulled my eyelids up against my will. “I’m-”

  “No. No more of that for now. Briggavel has y repaired and breakfast is waiting.” she said softly.

  I nodded and sat up, when I turo face the others, the eribe was there looking at me. There was a brief silence before Weren stepped closer “Was that really you, or do I o hit you again?”

  I rubbed my cheek “Still stings actually.”

  “Good. I fug meant it too. Now get up a.” she said before heading out.

  I looked around for a moment “Um, my leg?”

  Brigg grunted “In the workshop, e get it.” before she too headed out.

  I took a mio breathe, I knew what they were doing and yeah… I deserved it. They also deserved to see if I would actually do what I said. So I took a deep breath “ I have some help getting there please?” I asked no one specifically.

  I was suddenly in the air as Luvetra lifted me in a princess carry. Twi less thay four hours, still kind of embarrassing. “I w-will help you w-with anything you ask.” she said pointedly.

  “I don’t nee-” her stare made my mouth shut. I nodded a my head against her, just accepting the way I was being helped. “Thank you.”

  I was sat down on a bend had food put before me. I was being taken care of in an iionally desding manner, I didn’t o walk, make my own pte, or even feed myself as Carmil did that part too. Any pints I had were crushed with a look before I could finish more than two words. I was receiving the message loud and clear. Ask for help when needed or have it forced on you like a child. As embarrassing as it was having dozens of others watch this happen, I couldn’t help but feel a small happiness u all over how far they were willing to go for me.

  But the help and love from them was tinged with ahat it had to get this far, hurt that I hadn’t let them be there for me sooner. I got the feeling I was going to be making up for this for a while. Not that I was pining, not really. I would suffer their anger because it existed only because of love. Love I should have given myself to more fully.

  My Saintly nature seemed to mean I could help others heal their trauma, apparently it didn’t work on myself. I wasn’t feeling like I was aer than I was in the hospital. Trauma take years to get through normally right? How long would I stop feeling like, like this? Like a freak, deformed, useless.

  Jaina sat on the side of me opposite Carmil and squeezed my arm. “You, um, your friend Daisy ate my nightmare st night, didn’t she?” I nodded quietly. “Thank you, that was… well it was your fault it happened so thank you for ing up your own mess.”

  She was clearly f herself to sound as angry as the others. But it wasn’t in her nature to hold onto anger. She was a caregiver. As Carmil had said, an o of love surrounded by puddles. Hell, I imagihe promiscuous behavior was at least partly a desire to see as many people happy as possible. Making people feel better made her feel better. The enjoyment of sex just gave her another way to do just that.

  She robably the most hurt by what I’d dohough, she was a healer. MY Healer. If I was in pain she was the first ohat should know. I turo her “My leg hurts, it’s been hurting like this off and on for a few days now.” I would make it right and be ho.

  She quickly moved, turning me around so she could kneel and examine me “Where? What does it feel like.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “My right calf, it feels like it has a big k of shrapnel lodged in it.”

  She froze and looked up at me. “Esme, that’s-”

  “Phantom limb, I know. I know. It’s why I hadn’t been saying anything, you ’t treat something that isn’t there.”

  She huffed and put her hand on my nub and magic flowed into me. The pain stopped almost immediately “I have Soothe you fug idiot.” and a tear fell down her cheek.

  I felt like a plete moron. I had just suffered with that fug pain all this time and I could have just asked for… yeah, that was ehe problem I was in, wasn’t it? I didn’t ask for help. Just like when I got an ied y back, it was in a pce that was hard to reach so I couldn’t it properly. When Tendri found out she was furious. She would have ed and dressed it for me. Especially since I’d gotten it in the scrapyard and it retty much guarao be full of bad shit.

  I guess I was always like this.

  I let out a bitter ugh “Fuck, I really am stupid.”

  “Yes you are. Seriously, do you just stop using your brai es to yourself?” Jaina said pung my shoulder.

  “Yeah I think I do, and acc to the memory I just got back, I always have.”

  “Lietri did.” I heard Carmil say beside me. “Even the System reizes that you have bee a different person than she was. Maybe you should tihis trend and not succumb to her failings.” she said with a squeeze of my hand and then forced me to keep eating.

  Brigg had Luv carry me into the workshop as soon as my pte was empty and plop me down at a desk with my leg on it. “It’s fixed. But the joint needs ing and oiling.” She practically smmed the brushes, tiny picks, cloths, and oil in front of of me. “Do it.”

  I just nodded and did so with a few minor struggles. It was obvious I had not dohis much at all. But o was done she looked it over and hen immediately carried it out and came back a few moments ter with the lower half dripping and muddy. She must have du in the ke and dragged it across the shore.

  She put it down on the desk and looked at me “Oh look at that, dirty again. Needs ing and oiling. Do it.” yep. She was just as angry as the others. Maybe more actually.

  This repeated three more times and I didn’t make so much as a sigh of pint. I didn’t dare. At the very least I was getting practice for something I should have beeer at by now anyway.

  As I fi the st time and she nodded in approval at my work she ko help me get it on, with new padding of course. She was slow ahodical about it and paused just before she was finished. “Why didn’t you have your frie her nightmare.” She asked without looking up at me.

  I took a breath, uanding where her heightened anger was ing from. “Daisy wouldn’t eve me intga’s dream. I… My Goddess told me that some nightmares aren’t really nightmares. That baku ’t eat them. I think that’s the case for ones were people are reliving something traumatic. I’m sorry.”

  She looked up at me. “You couldn’t do anything? Not just go in and tell her it wasn’t real or something?”

  “I… it was something clearly really personal and I felt wrong intruding.” I looked away in guilt.

  “For absolute fek’s sake. We asked ya to give us a fekkin’ child, you think that’s not fekkin’ personal!?”

  I swallowed “I’ve been really stupid tely.”

  She grunted as she tightehe straps on my leg. “That’s the fekkin’ truth. Don’t do it again.” and then she kissed me. Passionate and warm and deep. When the kiss broke she was looking into my eyes. “You fekkin ask her about it, okay? And from now on if ya see us in a dream yer damned well invited in.” I nodded and hugged her tight.

  My leg felt better than it had in over a week and I sighed at my own self sabotage again. Ony feet again Luv held my hand and brought me back to our yurt, where Red and Jaina were strapping their armor on. “Good, you’re just in time. Start getting ready you twga said with some extra anger in her voice too.

  “Daisy ’t eat trauma nightmares.” I just said bluntly. “But… I should have maybe e in and told you it wasn’t real, pulled you out of reliving it if I could.”

  She froze and stared at her new shield for a few moments before her shoulders drooped. “I was… I was scared you had decided we weren’t, that me and Brigg were… not good enough.”

  I walked over and put a hand on her arm. “If you’ll still have me, my ao you two is yes.”

  She turned quickly with her eyes wide. “Really?” the joy in her voice was still tempered by her hurt, but it was there.

  “I swear that I will do anything in my power to help you and Brigg have children.” I nodded.

  “Did you tell her?” I shook my head

  “Wao talk to you first. You know… because I’m stupid?”

  She smirked and squeezed me tight, then like her wife had earlier, kissed me like a lover. Ohe kiss broke she giggled “I gotta go tell her to stop taking e’s root.” She said before rushing out.

  I turowards Jaina who had been listening to the versation with pink in her cheeks. “You know, that means you stop taking it too if you want?” she bit her lip and turned away.

  A few mier Redagga returned and all four us us were gearing up. I took the moment to just dive in “Red, what happened? Why do people call you The Wall?”

  I could feel Luv’s tension spike beside me. But Red just grunted and looked at me. “This isn’t my first tribe, my first encve.” She smiled sadly. “When I was a teenager I ted into a family i in Wavecrest, eastern coastal Region. We were friendly with a vilge near where our town was. We’d trade stuff we fed and help repair s and clothing for the fishermen. So they liked us. Didn’t just tolerate, actively liked us. So much so that sometimes people would e stay with us for a few days just to rex, take little vacations, you know?” she shook her head “Goblins raided the vilge. When my encve saw the smoke we all grabbed ons and medical supplies to go help our friends. We’d dealt with goblins in the area before, nasty little bastards. But this, they had a hobgoblin warchief. He’d gathered a dozen packs of them at least and…” she was staring at nothing, lost in a moment in her mind.

  I pulled her into a hug a her rex a bit. She pulled bad tinued. “I had a shield and an axe and a bat css so I rushed in and started cutting them down, but there were so many and more kept ing in through the town’s front gate. I pushed through the ones in the vilge and got to that gate and not one more of those murderous fuckers made it in. The rest of the encve and the few vilge guards left ed up ihen turo go out and kill the warchief.” She shook her head “He was killed and the few gobli scattered, but by then there were only three of my people left. Not ting the few left behind to stay with the children. My parents were among the dead, my brother too. My best friend. My teacher. I lost almost everyone I cared about that day.”

  She gave me a small smile “The vilge was far better off. They had losses, but not like us. They saw me standing at that gate alone for hours, preventing anything from passing, like a wall. The ud I guess there were travelers or merts in town who saw it too because I got kinda famous throughout Willow Creek.” She shrugged.

  “What happeo your tribe?” I asked after a moment of silence.

  “They survived as an encve. A few folks from other ones showed up to help keep things going, and holy a couple dozen folks from the vilge joined permaly as well some days after up was done. In fact, the Vilge asked if we wao just move in. But we o be separate fods, so many reasons. Which they took as a challenge and cleared out a up a pce for us to make a own in just a couple hundred yards down the coast from them. We were much closer neighbors, literally and figuratively. But… it wasn’t home to me anymore.” she smiled “I ended up bumping into Dekarru’s mobile tribe after a couple of months just wandering. At the time is was just her, Brigg, and Luv. But they invited me pretty much right away. The rest is just life with them, a few years of falling in love with a dwarf and seeing every region of Willow Creek, theing a Saint.”

  I hugged her tight. “Thank you.”

  “Yeah well. Thank me by finishiing ready. I want to try and find a demon before we head back tonight.” she smirked and swatted my ass.