One afternoon, Frieda had been examining some of the fine fabrics she''d discovered in an officer''s trunk aboard the ship. Among them was a piece of dark blue silk with silver threading that caught the light beautifully.
"This would make a nice accessory for Nact," she mused aloud. She had noticed how the pup would sometimes get tangled in undergrowth during their excursions, and something around its neck to protect it seemed practical.
Huh, when did I start caring about his comfort? Wilhelm would laugh at me sewing a collar for a wild animal.
She spent that evening carefully cutting and sewing the fabric into a small collar. Layla joined her, quietly observing at first. But when she finally took the needle herself, her hands moved with surprising skill, stitching faster and more precisely than Frieda had expected.
"I didn''t know you had such a talent..."
Together, they embroidered a simple smiling face onto the collar, Layla giggling as she helped guide the needle. The next morning, they presented it to Nact, who allowed them to slip it around his neck with surprising compliance.
"Looks handsome," Frieda said, patting the pup''s head.
Layla clapped her hands in delight, and even Nact seemed pleased, prancing around their camp with what Frieda could swear was pride.
As the days stretched into months, Frieda''s communication with Layla improved steadily. What had begun as simple nouns evolved into rudimentary sentences and concepts. The girl was a quick study, absorbing German words with impressive speed, while Frieda struggled more with Layla''s complex native language, which she learned was called "Aurelian."
One morning, as they shared breakfast by the fire, Frieda decided it was time to ask some of the questions that had been plaguing her.
"Layla," she began, choosing her words carefully, "why were you alone in the forest? Where is your family?"
The girl''s expression clouded, her small fingers instinctively reaching for the well-crafted pendant that hung around her neck. "Gone," she said in German, her voice barely above a whisper.
In a mixture of broken German, gestures, and Aurelian, Layla began to tell her story. Frieda pieced together the fragments: Layla had lived in a grand house with her family. Important people, nobles, Frieda gathered from the girl''s gestures mimicking fine clothes and a formal bearing.
Then came soldiers with swords and fire. Screaming. Her mother grabbing her hand, running through corridors, then into the forest. Pursuers close behind. Her mother pushing her into a hidden hollow of a great tree, telling her to stay silent, to run deeper into the forest if she didn''t return.
She never did.
Layla''s small hands trembled as she touched her pendant again. Through their limited shared vocabulary, Frieda understood this was a family heirloom, something precious her mother had placed around her neck before sending her away.
"How long?" Frieda asked, making a sweeping motion with her arm to indicate the passage of time.
Layla held up both hands, fingers spread. "Many moons," then pointed at the sky and traced the shape of a crescent with her finger, repeating the motion several times.
Weeks, then. Perhaps even months. Frieda felt a tightness in her chest. This child—born to nobility, by all appearances—had survived alone in this wilderness for so long after witnessing horrors no child should endure.
"How did you survive alone in the forest for so long? You''re just... a child," Frieda asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Layla''s fingers instinctively went to the pendant around her neck. "Mother teach me. Before..." she swallowed hard. "Before soldiers came. She show me which plants safe to eat, how to find water." The girl''s small hands mimicked digging. "How to hide, make shelter. She say, ''Noble children must know how to survive if... if bad times come.''"
Frieda nodded slowly, beginning to understand. "Your mother was preparing you."
"Yes," Layla said softly. "She know... danger coming. Lord Hans take other noble families already. She teach me secret places in forest, old hideaways with supplies." She gestured toward the trees. "Many small caves, hollow trees with dried food, tools." A tear slid down her cheek. "She know we might need run one day."
"And where are we now? What is this place called?" Frieda gestured broadly to the land around them.
Layla''s answer was a single melodic word that Frieda practiced several times until she could pronounce it reasonably well: "Aria."
"Aria," Frieda repeated. A name for this strange new world, continent, or kingdom. It was something, at least a beginning.
After a moment of silence, Frieda remembered something that had been lingering in her mind since their early explorations.
"Layla," she said carefully, "that strange stone I found deep in the forest when we first met, the one that felt cold to touch with those odd markings. Do you know what it is?"
Layla''s eyes widened slightly, and she nodded with a mix of reverence and unease. "Mother tell stories. Ancient place. Where emotion god once stood."
"Emotion god?" Frieda leaned forward, her curiosity piqued. "What do you mean?"
Layla fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, her brow furrowed as she tried to recall distant stories. "Old gods... from before. Each one for different feeling. Mother say they watch over world, but... not like normal gods." She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "I not know much. Just stories for children."
Emotion gods? Those whispers, that unnatural cold... Could there be something to these stories? If these "gods" are real entities, they might explain how I came to be here.
"But these gods were real to your people?"
Layla shrugged. "Some believe. Others not. Mother say stones are... doorways? Places where gods touch our world." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "She say never stay long near stones. Not safe."
Frieda nodded slowly, filing this information away. Another mystery of this strange world, one she might need to revisit someday. Frieda had acquired a new purpose for herself. She wanted to uncover the forgotten story of these gods. Perhaps it was these ancient gods who had brought her to this world.
Time passed, in the afternoons, when the day''s tasks were complete, they continued their language lessons. Frieda taught Layla to read simple German words, using charcoal to write on flat pieces of driftwood. In return, Layla began teaching Frieda the written form of Aurelian, an elegant script with flowing characters that seemed to blend into one another.
Nact would often lie between them during these sessions, head resting on paws, eyes alert and seemingly interested in the exchange of knowledge. The pup had grown considerably over the months, its lanky frame filling out into the powerful build of its parent. It moved with a grace that belied its size, silent on its paws even when playing.
Frieda had noticed that Nact seemed especially attached to Layla, sleeping curled against her at night and following her like a shadow during the day. The pup had clearly appointed itself as the girl''s protector, a role Frieda found herself grateful for given the uncertain dangers of this new world.
One evening, as they finished their lessons, Layla asked a question that caught Frieda off guard.
"Why your eyes so sad?" she asked in broken German, her small face solemn as she studied Frieda''s features.
Frieda stiffened. "What do you mean?"
Layla touched the corner of her own eye, then gestured to her heart. "Here happy," she said, then pointed to Frieda''s eyes. "But here, always sad."
The perception staggered Frieda. How could this child see so clearly what Frieda herself tried so hard to bury? The memories of combat, the faces of her crew, the thunder of bombs falling toward the Yamato, her surrogate father Oberst Wilhelm Flusser, all of it lurked just beneath the surface of her carefully maintained composure.
"I''ve seen many battles," Frieda said simply, unsure how much the girl would understand.
Layla nodded as if this confirmed a suspicion. She reached out and took Frieda''s hand, her small fingers wrapping around the callused palm of the naval captain.
"Battles over now," she said firmly. "New home. New start. New family."
The simplicity of the statement left Frieda momentarily speechless. Was that what they had become? A family of sorts? A battle-weary naval captain, an orphaned noble child, and a wolf-creature that shouldn''t exist in any world Frieda knew?
Before she could formulate a response, Nact suddenly raised his head, ears pricked forward. A low growl rumbled in his chest as he stood, facing the edge of the forest. Frieda tensed, reaching for her pistol.
"What is it, boy?" she murmured, scanning the treeline.
For several tense moments, nothing happened. Then, just as Frieda began to relax, thinking it might have been a false alarm, she saw it: a flicker of movement among the trees, too controlled to be an animal. The unmistakable outline of a human figure, watching them.