It was strange how much freedom she felt she had here. She had plenty of responsibilities as a Medic, and they were certainly heavier than her responsibilities as a mere apprentice had been, but they didn’t worry her so much as she thought they would. For the longest stretches since her arrival, she felt like her own person. Not so lost to the Wild God (and may He Dream forever), not so beholden to Tilney, though she loved them as much as her own blood and bone; not even shadowed by the Mountain, though she felt the same reverence and respect that she did for Tembovu and Alysanne. The sense of longing for what she had would likely never die, but reconciling The Bride and Alph and Ultima – that was becoming easier. They were all one girl. One girl with flowers in her long, salt-white hair, and a cleverness in her eye. One girl with hands in the garden and a cat on her shoulder.

One girl, startled by a pair of deer.

They flashed around her like a river splitting for stone, and she reflexively drew her head back, wings clamped against her thin ribs – the air that rushed after them smelled like autumn, crisp and loamy, with the faintest touch of a bygone burning season. Staring after them as they soared through the underbrush, she had to admit that the land was slowly but surely recovering. Beneath the kicked-up leaves, the clean-swept earth was stubbornly bringing forth new grass. The trees hummed, surging with all of the energy they were stockpiling for the coming Frost. Birds sat fat in the lean branches, but they still sang. Winter was around the corner, she thought, picking her way back through the woods, and after those white pages had been turned, the new year was waiting to be written.

She paused again, not soon later; another buck was drifting lamely through the treeline, knees skinned but not injured in any other way that she could see, but certainly smarting. Through the gaps in the trunks, she could see a man, gazing after the stag’s retreating figure. Ultima squinted. Although she hadn’t been introduced to everyone within the Falls, the herd meeting had been such a small one compared to the Edge – she was certain she’d seen him there, or somewhere, but as much as she knit her brows or cocked her head, she couldn’t quite put a name to the face. “Drat,” she said simply, and pressed into the clearing to settle it. If she was going to be a doctor, she supposed she ought to be familiar with the people under her care.

“Hallo! You there,” she called, minding a low-hanging bough. “I’m so very sorry, but I can’t seem to recall your name! We’ve met before, haven’t we?” A polite distance away, she gave it a moment of observation, and added, “I say, are you alright? Did you have anything to do with that buck?”