Once back inside the grotto, Sheilah eyed the individual pieces of clothing she’d worn since... She couldn’t remember. Months? Did it matter? She couldn’t figure out how to put them on. It seemed like she’d been putting clothes on for years, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember how to dress herself anymore.


    She ran her tongue over her lips; the bitter, metallic taste of the lizard was good. The thin and brittle crunch of its bones against her teeth was good. The feeling of its meat and innards sliding down her throat was good.


    “Sheilah.” Fialla called, and Sheilah blinked again, struggling to keep a coherent thought in her head.


    She turned back to look at the half-elven girl curiously.


    “Clothes?”


    She nodded. “Right.”


    Sheilah struggled into her clothes, berating herself mentally. She knew how to put on clothes. She’d been dressing herself since before she could remember. It was easy. She helped Fialla pack up her bedroll, and struggled to eat one of the girl’s travel rations.


    “As expected, it’s not very tasty.” She muttered with a grimace.


    “It’s probably better than that lizard you ate, at least.” Fialla chided. Sheilah blinked at that. Had she eaten a lizard? When? Where?


    Her head was dizzy, and it was difficult to concentrate. It felt... weird... to be herself. To exist within her own skin, to hear her own thoughts after so long.


    After so long? Fialla had said ‘months’, but that was so vague. How long was that?


    There was a pair of bundles that was a part of Sheilah’s belongings that she couldn’t identify by sight alone. What were they? She opened the drawstring on one and blinked a few times at what greeted her; the sack bulged with dragonling teeth.


    “Whuh.” She muttered. She’d only needed a few dragonling teeth before her necklace was full and complete. She cinched the drawstring bag up, packed her things up, and turned to Fialla, who was doing the same.


    “You were really chasing me all over the Redstone?” She asked after a bit.


    The half-elf nodded. “I was asked to.” She replied simply. “I’d’ve done it anyway; someone has to keep an eye on you, after all.”


    Sheilah’s expression soured. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sheilah asked, a touch of petulance and irritation in her voice.


    “You don’t remember? I watched your fight with that dragon.” She replied. “The one you killed with your knife.”


    “That was...” Sheilah started, but let it go. “Was it really a full-grown dragon?” She asked.


    Fialla shook her head. “Almost.” She replied. “That’s what your father told my father. There were a lot of questions as to how something that huge managed to get so deep into Clan lands.” She finished.


    Sheilah nodded. Something that big shouldn’t have happened. Someone should have said something. If a Glass Spider were to wander through Dragon territory, they’d immediately report it to the Glass Spider clan. Part of it was politics, but the main reason was the simplest: Killing another clan’s totem animal was offensive.


    “I have something for you, by the way.” Fialla took out a small pouch and emptied the contents. “Father says there is turquoise in the Redstone, though I’ve never seen it.”


    Sheilah nodded. “The Timberwolf clan sometimes trades a few pieces, the same way we trade Dragon Metal.”


    “Father says that We- that is to say, the Wild Elves- had turquoise in our lands before the High Elves and Dark Elves took our lands from us.” Fialla said, and offered Sheilah a short necklace. It was a simple leather thong with a turquoise bead in the middle. The bead was a sinuous teardrop shape, and had a hole bored through the larger part.


    “My father helped me make this.” Fialla mentioned as she spooled it in her hand. “It’s turquoise, like the kind found here, but from the Wild Elf homeland, across the sea.”


    “What’s a sea?” Sheilah asked curiously.


    The half-elven girl laughed. “That was my first question to my father, when he told me about the Wild Elf homelands. He told me it’s like a great big lake, but so big you can’t see the other side.”


    Sheilah tried to imagine it, but shook her head. “I can’t even imagine it.”


    Fialla nodded. “Me either.”


    What was Fialla doing?


    “Among the elves, something like this is given to a family member or a very close friend.” She explained, her milk-chocolate skin blushing heavily.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Sheilah grew more and more alarmed at Fialla’s behavior, remembering her affectionate embrace and kiss from the day prior. It seemed more and more like her friend had deeper feelings for her than she’d realized.


    She moved to sit down, but realized she was sitting down already. She took a breath.


    “Is this something I should...” She paused. She didn’t know how to ask, and it was an incredibly awkward question, anyway.


    “I mean, do I need to give you an iron knife?” She managed to ask, even as her heart pounded in her chest and her face heated up.


    Fialla returned an awkward laugh, blushing just as heavily.


    “No, that’s a different gift entirely.” Fialla replied. “I just... I think of you as my sister, that’s all.” She added.


    Sheilah nodded, and tied the necklace around her neck. Clearly she really was reading too much into Fialla’s intentions. In Adlan''s time- the time of her great-great grandfather- husbands gave their wives an iron knife.


    “You can’t do that anyway, until you kill a dragon.” Fialla pointed out as they exited the cave.


    Sheilah looked around. She was immeasurably close to the Ashlands. All she had to do was cross the passes. Was it possible that she’d been working herself up to cross the passes and chase down a dragon?


    “I think I’m nearly ready.” She muttered. She suddenly glanced at Fialla and her face flushed again. “To hunt a dragon, I mean.”


    Fialla offered her a look. “Well, you’d need your dragonling armor, but I think you could do it.” Fialla encouraged. “A dragonbone bow with dragon-tooth arrows, I think you could definitely pierce the hide of a dragon.” She exclaimed.


    Sheilah eyed her arrows curiously. How many teeth had she used for arrowheads? She felt for her necklace at her throat and discovered it was filled. One of her sacks bulged with teeth already ground to arrowhead points. When had she done that?


    “Apparently I’ve been very busy.” She muttered to herself.


    Fialla scratched her cheek with a finger. “You really have.”


    Sheilah remembered something from their conversation the night previous. “You said that you’ve been skinning them?”


    Fialla nodded. “You didn’t seem too interested in them, but dragonling hide is important, Sheilah.” She paused, and then added, “You’ll need at least that much armor when you head into the Ashlands.”


    Sheilah shook her head and smiled. “Haven’t you heard the stories of my father, Fialla?” She asked. “Apparently he went into the wastes and killed a dragon without armor.”


    Fialla shook her head. “Right, and he defeated the dragon by kicking a rock on its head.” She rolled her eyes, showing her belief in the credulity of the story.


    Sheilah laughed, warming up to the tale. “He climbed atop the cave where the dragon was making its lair, waited for the dragon to come out, and kicked a boulder off the top of the cave to knock it out. Then he killed the dragon.”


    They traded the usual series of tall tales, stories, myths and legends back and forth, stories they’d practically taken in with their mother’s milk.


    The first man of the Clan of the Dragon, the primogenitor was supposedly immortal and barely human. The Dragon Clan were his descendants, and Davian was the direct inheritor of his blood.


    There was a story of an ancient clan member that grew dragon wings, there was one that could regenerate any wound, no matter how grievous. Heroes and villains, tyrants and kings, and each of them had marched into the Ashlands, the Burning Wastes, had killed a dragon and returned.


    Sheilah was almost ready. She could feel it. She’d craft her set of dragonling armor, forge a set of tools for everyone in her family from Dragon Metal, take one of her family’s weapons into the Dragonlands, and face a dragon.


    “You’re planning on turning around and heading into the passes, aren’t you?” Fialla asked.


    “...sort of.” Sheilah admitted. “I have to face tradition, first.”


    “I never understood the point of forging tools.” Fialla offered with a disgusted frown.


    Sheilah rubbed her chin and ignored the gnawing rumble in her stomach that demanded food as she thought.


    “I have a guess.” She offered.


    “Let’s hear it.” Fialla eagerly pestered Sheilah.


    “If you die, that’s one less person to till crops, butcher animals, prepare food, so on and so forth. It’s an apology for dying.” Sheilah offered.


    Fialla frowned. “That sounds incredibly stupid.”


    Sheilah shrugged. “You remember that I did say it was a guess.” She took an exaggerated swing at Fialla, who dodged adroitly.


    Fialla looked up at the sun, and shielded her face. “It’s going to take weeks to get home. Maybe a month.”


    “You said I was gone for longer than that.” Sheilah observed, though she thought she knew the answer already.


    “You roamed around a lot- and I mean a lot. You barely slept.”


    Sheilah nodded.


    “You ... even went to the forbidden places, so... you’ll probably be punished.”


    There were three “forbidden areas” in the Redstone Cliffs. There was the Tower, the Castle, and the Town. Stormheim had tried to forcibly occupy the Redstone Valley several decades prior, and they had left their mark on the Valley.


    They built a town to educate the ‘savages’ and give them jobs so that they could be useful and productive members of society.


    They built a keep with towers and imposing stone walls to garrison soldiers- ostensibly to prevent things from the volcanic wastes to the north spilling into the civilized lands to the south- but really it was emplaced to make sure the civilized barbarians stayed civilized.


    Finally, as an insult to the Totems, they built a great Tower for the study of magic.


    Each of them- the town, the keep, the tower, each of them were considered forbidden places.


    There was nothing good that could come from visiting such places, and it was possible a great deal of harm could come from visiting them, so the Council of the Clans had decided to label them as “forbidden”.


    Besides, who wanted anything that had to do with Stormheim?