The Warrior’s Guild consisted of two buildings that appeared more robust than the shackled metal and wood houses neighbouring it. The first building was mostly stone and bricks collected from a hundred ruins, a mosaic of colours and textures carefully layered as if these irregular pieces fit together in a mix of greys, reds, and yellows. That was the main hall, Neri had told her in a hushed voice, while the second and smaller building tucked just behind it was the barracks, built of what appeared to be real panels of varnished wood.

The main hall was dark with the door padlocked shut, the lone flickering light in one of the barrack windows tempting them forwards. Neri creaked open the door to the barracks, peering in before slowly swinging it wide so they could enter, and tiptoed down a long corridor with dozens of doorways breaking up the wood panels.

“This way,” whispered Neri, waving Arna further down the corridor.

Arna glanced into the rooms as they passed, seeing that most of the initial few all led into the same large room. It was a wide, open space with rows of makeshift beds and mattresses, more than half of them occupied with both adults and children alike.

When the warrior followed Arna’s gaze, she ducked her head closer. “The new recruits or warriors-in-training sleep in there, but the fully-fledged warriors have their own lodgings.”

The next doorways revealed rooms where only a small number slept, beds overshadowed by the sets of armour and weapons laid out beside them, and then the corridor ended in a flight of rickety spiral stairs.

They climbed the stairs, trying to tread lightly despite the obstinate groaning of old wood barely nailed together, rocking slightly with their weight. Another long corridor with more small rooms, some with blankets hanging from the doorframes. Neri stopped in front of one and pulled back the rough-knit blanket.

“This one’s mine,” she announced quietly, a nervous smile tugging at her lips. She motioned for Arna to go in. “I’ll grab you some of my clothes, although they might be a bit big.”

While Arna in her original human form was perhaps an inch taller than Neri, her body was thin and only lightly toned, her limbs long and slender. A stark contrast to the obvious muscle of the warrior, even more so with her loose clothes that fell easily against her stomach and arms in sculpted slopes.

Neri’s room was one of the smaller ones, a tiny box of a window cut out of the wood on the back wall looked out onto another building’s scavenged bricks and metal. A mattress balanced on piles of books was pushed against the right wall, a simple blanket folded on top. The left side of the room hosted clothing, pieces of unfinished armour, and now her sword which she almost ceremoniously placed in the corner.

Arna was hit by how…normal it looked, as if she’d been cast back over a hundred years when people had rooms and beds and books and their own wardrobes of clothing. In fact, this room was amazing compared to where she had lived throughout her life. She had camped out on the streets and rummaged in bins before the orphanage picked her up, and that wasn’t much better. The only thing she ever had that was hers – and hers alone – was her name, and yet humanity still survived to create this parcel of society where people had purpose and were safe. Well, as safe as possible.

“Here you go.” A pair of trousers, a shirt, and a short coiled rope appeared in front of her face. “Use the rope as a belt and it should do for now.”

“For now?” Arna asked, gingerly taking the clothes between her hands.

“We’ll grab you some tomorrow after I visit the guild hall.” The warrior sat down on the mattress, placing the candle on a book that was out of place from the stack beneath.

“You didn’t go today?” Arna stood awkwardly in the centre of the room, unsure of whether to get dressed here and now.

“I did the usual greetings, but I have everything else to do yet.” Neri paused. “Are you okay?”

Arna didn’t respond straight away. This entire situation was bizarre. She was in human form, in a city surrounded by people who’d normally run or try to kill her on first sight, holding someone else’s clothing while being within sturdy walls after decades. She took a deep breath and, underneath the dust, there was Neri’s soothing scent.

“Arna?” the warrior asked, softly.

She raised the pile of clothing slightly. “Do I wear these now?”

Neri nodded, still eyeing her with concern. Then, she seemed to blush and turned her face away. “Y-yeah, you can just put them on here.”

Arna pulled the cloak over her head, letting it pool at her feet, and tugged the shirt on, her fingers deftly doing up the buttons in the dark. She then stepped into the trousers, holding them up with one hand while threading the rope through the belt loops and tying a sad attempt at a knot which looked more like a tight ball twisted too many times. It would do.

She bent down to pick up the cloak, suddenly feeling very vulnerable now that her head was uncovered, but the noise of Neri leaning forwards on the mattress stopped her throwing it back on. She looked up to find the warrior perched on the edge, the candle flame dancing in her hold again as she openly stared at the woman before her.

“It really is you…” she breathed.

Arna raised an eyebrow, letting her head fall to one side. “You didn’t believe me?”

Neri patted the spot beside her, motioning for Arna to join her. “I did, but the skull…it’s just, it’s real. The whole thing is real. And you’re…you. You’re real.”

Arna eased herself down, keeping a gap of distance between them on the mattress. She grasped onto the cloak as she felt the hot gaze of Neri’s eyes on her face, scanning over her features and the skull over them. “Of course I’m real,” she said, but she understood. The warrior had believed her story, but to truly see that the woman sat beside you was the same as the saber cat creature and believe it all over again – it was no surprise that Neri was overwhelmed, astonished even.

The candlelight shifted, flickering closer. A shaky hand reached out towards Arna’s face, then stopped short. Before Neri could retreat, she gently grabbed the warrior’s hand. “It’s okay,” she told her, in turn watching Neri’s face.

Green eyes looked alight and glimmered so brightly as they searched Arna’s expression. “Are you sure? It’s not the same as when you’re…”

“A big cat companion?”

Neri laughed, a musical sound to Arna’s ears. “I suppose so, yes.” She pursed her lips. “Is it okay?”

In answer, Arna lowered her head and closed her eyes. A second passed, and then a cautious brush of fingers on her cheek, both warm and cool at the same time. They caressed the skin over her jawline and cheekbones, along her forehead into her dark hair and up to where the skull fused with her skin. She heard rather than felt Neri touch the skull itself and opened her eyes, lifting her chin to meet Neri’s gaze.

“How are your eyes like that?” the warrior murmured, her touch returning to Arna’s cheek, her thumb beneath her eye. “They’re so beautiful.”

Beautiful. Normally it was ‘monstrous’, ‘demon’, ‘hellish creature’ and ‘inhuman’, and never were the words uttered with such quiet awe, such tenderness.

Arna pulled away, wrapping the cloak around her shoulders and was about to throw the hood over her head when Neri’s hand grasped her wrist.

“Can we talk?” she asked, a strange seriousness in her tone despite the soft whisper. “No lies, no half-truths, no holding back. Just…honestly talking together.”

Arna nearly pointed out that was what they’d been doing already, but there was something in the warrior’s expression that said otherwise. She nodded once.

A flicker of a smile. The candle sat atop the book and Neri shuffled across the mattress to press her back against the wall. She waited for Arna to join her before she spoke. She nervously licked her lips, briefly glancing up and then stiffening her jaw, as if making a decision.

“You told me your story,” she started, her voice even lower than before but Arna could still listen to her words with ease. “You followed me here and did something you didn’t want to do, didn’t think you could do, and entered the city.”

Arna made a noise of affirmation, wondering where this was going.

“First, I want to tell you my story, in return. It’s not…it’s not much, but I want you to understand me, to know me a bit more.” She hesitated for a split second. “Because I want to know you more too.”

The apprehension in the warrior’s voice was evident, nerves trembling her voice, her eyes glancing up at Arna every now and again yet her gaze never staying long. It wasn’t fear of her, it was the anxiety of someone who wanted to tell their secrets and was unsure of the outcome. Arna knew that feeling.

The dark-haired woman sought Neri’s hand, fitting their palms together and curling her fingers between the warrior’s. A moment’s pause and she could hear Neri’s heart pounding, could sense how vulnerable she was – the strong woman was allowing herself to put down her armour and lay herself bare, just as Arna had spoken of her past. However, she sensed that Neri’s story was less about her history and more about her present, the will behind her actions, and would be the basis for whatever the woman wished to talk about.

Neri squeezed her hand, their fingers now intertwined, and she began.

“My dad and I lived in a village near Atsylei until I was about seven. Half of the village was getting sick and the other half were too few to stop the raiders. They didn’t burn us, they just wanted our animals. No trade with the city, just them or they’d kill us. My dad tried to get me out, he knew that if the raiders didn’t kill us first then the sickness would, but we got caught. He died protecting me and I ran to Atsylei.”

The warrior shut her eyes, losing herself in the memories and tensing up as they swarmed. Arna closed the gap between them, their shoulders touching, hoping it would reassure her.

“I was weak by the time I got to the gates. I had no pass, no endorsement, no family, and soon enough no village to return to. They wouldn’t let me in, not at first. Then Jaako came back from an assignment, found me wasting away outside the city walls, and took me in as a new recruit for the Warrior’s Guild. Jaako is a strong man, did the tough assignments and trained a lot of recruits. My village, my dad – they couldn’t be saved anymore, but others didn’t have to share that fate. I had to be stronger, I wouldn’t let Jaako or anyone else down. You saw how that went.”

Arna growled quietly, reminiscent of her saber form, and shook her head. “I told you, you’re the strongest person I know.”

Neri’s eyes opened but they were not seeing the room. “Not strong enough. I’ve tried so hard to be someone to be proud of, to be someone who can protect others, to ensure that people don’t have to be so afraid. The city walls make you forget just how terrible it is out there, even when you’ve seen it and lived it. Not that the city itself is any better, it’s just good at hiding it – to make this place safe many are turned away and what do you think happens to them?”

Arna remembered the begging woman, the sickness a black oil, choking each raspy breath and scaling across her pale skin.

“People are terrified that if they don’t follow order, if they don’t keep up with trade or whatever reason they’re allowed in, they’ll be kicked out with the rest. I tried so hard to make sure that didn’t happen to me or to the people around me. But I failed at that too – Demly worked at an inn, cleaned floors and lived on the doorstep. He got accused of stealing food and was thrown out. He built the crossroads inn from ruins, but it could have gone so much worse and I could do nothing to help him. Then, just as I thought I could do something right, I let an entire village fall to raiders again.”

“Neri, listen to me. Look at me.”

The woman blinked, wearily focusing on Arna’s glowing eyes. Arna held her hand tighter.

“You are strong. You tried, and you can keep trying. You kept that village safe for as long as you could, and you can protect so many others too. You’ve done an incredible amount for me in the time we’ve known each other. I have faith and hope, I’m not hiding in the shadows waiting for the end, running away from everything. I’m here, like this. This is above and beyond anything I imagined could happen to me, and that’s because of you. You have given me a reason to believe. Now, look at me and know I speak the truth when I say you are the strongest person I have ever known.”

Neri’s jaw clenched and unshed tears glistened in her eyes, and she made a desperate and torn noise of acceptance.

Arna lifted her free hand and cupped the warrior’s cheek with it, catching the tears that slowly fell. “You are the light in my darkness,” she whispered. “Please, believe in yourself.”

And this time Neri didn’t shrug it off, she didn’t push it away like she did in the barn but instead she nodded, a genuine and grateful smile under the silent sobs.

Then, the woman reached up with her other hand and mirrored Arna, cupping the shapeshifter’s cheek before gently pulling her face closer, ducking her head beneath the skull and touching their noses together. Green and amber met, and Neri’s smile grew.

“I could say the same to you, Arna,” she whispered. “So, please, stay with me. Be my big cat and human companion in this hell. Don’t go back to the shadows.”

Arna’s form shimmered, just like it did when she had changed, her eyes burning brighter. “This is what you wanted to talk about?”

Neri laughed once. “It is. I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I don’t want to just let you go.”

“And I want to stay.”

Green eyes froze and then the tears fell faster, this time with joy and the warrior laughed once more. “You’ll stay?”

“I’ll stay.”

Arna moved her hand from Neri’s cheek and reached out to grab the folded blanket, shaking it out one-handedly.

“You’ll stay with me; you’ll journey with me…?” Her voice was quieter, her eyelids heavier, her body relaxing against Arna’s.

She wrapped the blanket around them, carefully shifting the warrior’s head so it rested on her bony shoulder as her breathing grew deeper with sleep. “I will, Neri.”