The horse absolutely did not belong to Lymur.
He knew this the moment he climbed into the saddle. The animal itself was sturdy and brown and patient the way horses got when they'd spent enough time around humans to have lowered their expectations. Lymur patted its neck as they walked down the dirt road.
"Not bad," he told the horse.
The horse had absolutely no opinion.
◢◣◢◣◢◣
Two hours earlier, the road had looked different.
Lymur had just been walking, following the road when it appeared because it seemed like the sort of thing a person did when they had no idea where they were going, when the noises of shouting, metal, horses making frightened sounds reached him.
He followed it out of curiosity and stepped out of the treeline to find a caravan that had stopped being a caravan sometime in the last hour.
Two wagons were overturned with their crates smashed and contents spread across the ground. There were also a few dead bodies scattered about, and moving through all of it were six men in non-uniform armor, talking loudly, helping themselves to whatever hadn't been nailed down. One of them was still going through a dead merchant's coat pockets while another two were fighting over a bolt of cloth like it was worth fighting over.
Lymur watched at the edge of the road for a moment. Something in his chest just felt it was wrong, enough to make a person probably want to do something about it.
It was during this moral introspection that one of them spotted him.
"Oi!" The man squinted across the road. "Who the hell are you!?"
Lymur wanted to answer, but he was busy focusing on something else. He'd felt it before but now it seemed more at reach than ever. Like a prompt in his mind he can just put his hand to if he turned his attention the right way—skills. He'd been aware of them for an hour now without knowing what to do with them.
One in particular had been sitting at the front of his mind since he first noticed it.
Unique Skill: Mobius.
—Subskill: Incision.
He'd been turning it over in his mind the entire past hour without a good opportunity to try it. He looked at the six bandits and a particular thought came to him.
"Actually," he said, "this timing is pretty good. I suppose I should thank you."
The men exchanged looks. "Good for what?"
He raised one hand and focused on the shape of it in his mind.
What it wanted to do.
What it was for.
Then one of the bandits — the one still crouched over the merchant's body — suddenly went very still. A thin line appeared across his chest, barely even visible. Then it deepened. And then, without drama, without noise, the man simply came apart in two clean halves and folded to the ground.
Silence dropped over the road.
The remaining five stared.
Lymur looked at his own hand with interest.
"Yikes."
The precision was amazing. It divided at that specific point and nowhere else, the surrounding air completely not disturbed. He noted the way it felt when he used it, the focus required, and filed all of that away.
Then the other five came at him, because apparently one of their friends being bisected in two wasn't enough to make them reconsider, and the next few seconds were to each their own. The Incisions that followed were just as clean as the first. Each one drew a line through the air with almost no effort at all. None of them got anywhere close. None of them seemed to understand what was happening before it was done.
When the road went quiet again, Lymur was now alone in the middle of it and took a slow breath.
He crouched beside the nearest fallen bandit and looked at the edge of the cut. It was perfectly straight. No ragged edges, no excess. He pressed a finger close to it without touching it and thought that it was a genuinely excellent skill.
Immaculate clean work.
He stood up and looked toward the wagons. One horse was still tied to the nearest one, ears flat, stamping the ground in tight nervous circles.
"Aye, don't worry," Lymur said, walking over. "Mr. Victim has been avenged." He put a hand on the horse's neck and kept it there until the animal settled, then untied the reins and swung up into the saddle.
He realized, once more, that his body had a long memory for physical things even when his mind didn't.
He was starting to find that incredibly reassuring.
Just when the horse found its pace down the road, another thing occured to him. He'd understood every word the bandits said. The same way he'd understood that man in black he fought that morning. He scratched his cheek and looked at the road ahead.
Huh.
He had no idea why that was the case, but it was clearly useful, so he added it to the running list of things he apparently had going for him and moved on.
◢◣◢◣◢◣
The afternoon was good. That was the honest summary of it. The road wound southeast through gradually thinning forest, the sun was warm, and Lymur had a horse and nothing urgent to do except think, which turned out to suit him unexpectedly well.
He spent the first hour with Incision. Just testing, the way you'd test the edge of a new blade by running your thumb along it carefully. He sliced individual leaves off branches as he passed, trying to find the minimum focus required. He drew a thin line through a roadside stone and watched it split cleanly in two, then tried a curved line, then tried to see how far the range extended. Fairly far, it turned out, if he concentrated. He split a pinecone off a branch roughly thirty meters away and felt secretly pleased with himself.
The deeper he pushed into it the more interesting it became. On the surface, Incision was simple — a line, a cut. That was it. But there was something strange beneath that simplicity. The universal force of space seemed to be suspiciously cooperative, dividing along whatever boundary he specified and then holding that division until he released it. He spent a while thinking about whether there were applications he hadn't tried yet and concluded that there probably were, and that he'd find them eventually.
He was patient about it.
"That reminds me, I feel like I know someone really patient, too. Who, though?"
Around midafternoon, he passed two merchants on the road — an older man and his son pushing a vegetable cart, who looked at him and relaxed when he turned out to be ordinary — his unusual attractiveness aside. He greeted them. They greeted him back energetically, probably relieved to not be getting robbed. The talking was brief and confirmed he was on the right road to Xyrus City, which was the only thing he'd needed from it.
After they'd gone, he also spent a portion of the ride swinging a long stick he'd found by the road, working through sets of moves that his hands strangely knew without needing complicated instructions. At one point, he realized he'd been doing a combination drill for about ten minutes without thinking about it at all, just sitting there on horseback running through the moves while the horse was still patiently indifferent.
"I'd probably look cool with a sword."
By the time the sun started getting serious about setting, he had a working picture of where he stood. He could fight. He had at least one skill that was effective and precise and that he was already getting comfortable with. He understood the language. He rode a horse without thinking about it. His body had clearly been maintained by someone who cared about keeping it sharp, even if that someone was a previous version of himself he couldn't currently access—moreso remember.
The gaps were problematic — he had no idea who he was beyond a name and a nature, no idea how he'd ended up in this forest, no idea what this world was or how it worked or what was expected of him in it. But gaps could be filled, he assured himself. He'd been awake for one day and he already had more than he'd had that morning.
Not a bad start, he decided.
Then he saw a campfire light through the trees ahead, and heard voices drifting out with it, and guided the horse toward it.
Five people were sitting around a fire with light armor and their weapons within easy reach. They clocked him the moment he came close enough to see, several hands moving toward hilts with automatic caution.
Then one of them stood up. A tall woman with a bow across her back and sharp eyes that did a fast, thorough analysis of him without making it obvious. "Traveler?"
"You got that right," Lymur replied.
She looked at him a moment longer, then nodded. "Camp's open if you need rest. Night roads aren't safe."
Lymur considered them for a second. Five people, experienced, relaxed like a group that had real time together behind them.
If necessary, some part of him noted, I could kill all of them before any of them moved. Yep, yep. That's a good way to be cautious, Lymur. Good job!
Satisfied with that nonsense of a baseline, he dismounted and sat down by the fire.
Names came out naturally as food was passed around.
The tall woman with the bow was Helen Shard — the leader, clearly, that didn't need announcing. Beside her was Angela Rose, who had a developed body and an easy smile. Durden was broad-shouldered and had cute beard and looked like he'd been doing physical work his entire life. Adam looked younger, quicker to talk. And the woman sitting slightly apart from the group with a short sword and a watchful stillness about her — that was Jasmine Flamesworth, the youngest, who had said maybe four words since Lymur sat down and seemed perfectly content with that.
They called themselves the Twin Horns. An adventuring party, working the region.
Adventurers! He thought excitedly with a perfectly calm face.
"Where are you headed, Lymur?" Angela asked.
"Oh, uh... I'm going to Xyrus," Lymur said.
"First time?"
"Uh-huh."
"Where from?"
He thought about how to answer that honestly. "...Uhm. Let's just say I came from somewhere far away," he said, which was probably true in some technical sense.
Angela looked like she wanted to follow up on that, but Adam got there first. "You thinking about adventuring, or just passing through?"
"Adventuring sounds interesting," Lymur said, hiding his excitement at the mention of the word. "So what's it actually like?"
Durden made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Cold, mostly."
"Uh-huh. Cold and undervalued," Angela agreed.
"There was that contract in Malin," Adam said, leaning forward, "where the client specifically said 'minor infestation, probably a day's work' — "
"Oh, here we go," Durden said.
" — and we got there and it was a collapsed sewer system with something living in it that we still don't have a name for — "
"We have a name for it," Helen said. "We just can't say it in front of people eating."
"And he tried to negotiate the rate down when we finished!" Adam continued, "because we finished in two days instead of three, apparently. Like we should have worked slower!"
"That was one client," Durden said.
"That was a preview of many clients," Adam said.
Lymur listened to them go back and forth and found himself genuinely entertained by it — the fascination that was the argument, how it clearly wasn't a real argument, the relaxedness of people who'd been through enough together to find their own frustrations funny.
They were good company in a way that was hard to define. He hadn't had company in — well, he'd been awake for about twelve hours, but still, it felt like longer than that.
"The work's real, though," Helen said, when the argument had run its course. She wasn't being defensive about it, just stating a fact. "When it goes right, there's nothing quite like it."
Jasmine glanced over from her spot without looking up from the sword she was cleaning. "Yeah, when it goes right."
"Which happens," Helen said.
"Sometimes," Jasmine said, and went back to the sword.
Lymur looked at Jasmine. She hadn't said much, but everything she'd said had landed. He appreciated that.
"How old are you anyway?" Jasmine followed up.
"Oh... I'm, uh... I'm eighteen. Yep, eighteen. I'm a legal man, ahahaha..."
The talks turned to a few more topics like towns on the road, monster sightings, a long debate about whether Xyrus or some city called Blackbend had the better market that Lymur mostly followed without participating. The fire was good and the food was decent and the evening had a comfortable unhurried aspect that he found he didn't want to interrupt.
Then Angela's expression changed a little.
"Ah, it's times like this that I really miss the Leywins."
The mood changed a little then.
"Uh, who?" Lymur asked.
"A family from Ashber," Helen said. "Really good people. They used to adventure with us, actually." She paused. "They lost their son recently. Their firstborn — Arthur."
"Nobody's heard anything in months now," Angela said with a small smile. "Everybody knows it's unlikely, but... Arthur was a smart kid. Like, genuinely. You meet people sometimes and you just know — " She gestured slightly with one hand. " — they're going somewhere. Yeah, he was one of those."
"Followed us around for an entire afternoon once," Durden said, staring into the fire. "Just asking questions. Every answer led to another question. Never seen a kid listen like that."
Adam nodded slowly. "His mother would always have food out when we passed through, and it's always good food."
Durden exhaled through his nose. He didn't add anything. Somehow that said more.
Lymur listened to all of it for a moment. He understood the situation clearly. A child, probably dead, and people who had cared about him sitting around a fire carrying the memories. The emotion behind their words made complete sense to him.
The silence prolonged.
"Well," Lymur said, because silence eventually needed something in it, "statistically, missing doesn't necessarily mean dead."
The five of them looked at him.
"There's a chance he's fine. Kids survive things," he continued reasonably. "Especially smart ones. The ones that adapt fast."
Adam blinked. Angela's mouth opened slightly. Durden looked at Helen with an expression that said he was genuinely unsure how to respond to this.
Lymur looked back at them and knew for certain that the way they were staring at him meant he'd miscalculated, though he couldn't immediately identify what.
"...What is it?" he said.
Helen studied his face for a long moment. He didn't look callous. He didn't look like he was being dismissive on purpose. He looked, if anything, like someone who had made a genuine and well-intentioned attempt to contribute to the conversation and was now confused about the reception.
She let out a slow breath that was almost a laugh. "You're a strange one, Lymur."
"I think so, too," Lymur replied.
Adam made a sound that was definitely a laugh, then looked briefly guilty about it. Angela shook her head with an expression somewhere between exasperation and amusement. Durden rubbed his face.
"Statistically," Durden repeated, quietly, to nobody in particular.
"I thought it was a reasonable point," Lymur said.
"It's not wrong," Angela said, after a moment. "It's just — " She stopped. "You know what, never mind."
By the time everyone was settling down to sleep, he felt something he recognized but couldn't quite name — a warmth at the edges of things that had nothing to do with the fire.
He lay down and closed his eyes.
Within about thirty seconds, he was completely, deeply, peacefully asleep.
◢◣◢◣◢◣
Adam woke up first.
Because something had connected solidly with his shin and his eyes flew open before the rest of him was ready. He looked over.
Lymur had moved about two meters from where he'd lain down and was currently in the middle of what appeared to be a physical confrontation with the ground. His arm swung. His legs kicked. He muttered something with absolute conviction—an incoherent nonsense.
Adam stared.
"Is he — " Durden started.
Another kick landed, this time grazing Angela's blanket. She sat up looking like her patience was already depleted. "What is he doing?"
"Fighting something in his sleep," Adam said.
"Can we wake him up?"
They tried. It didn't work. Lymur slept through the entire thing. At one point he rolled close enough to Helen that she had to move her pack out of the way. At another point his elbow came within about four inches of Jasmine's face, which was the only moment all night that Jasmine's expression changed from impassive to genuine surprise.
Through all of it, he slept with the deep unconscious peace of someone who had absolutely no idea any of it was happening.
Then morning eventually arrived grey and cool.
The Twin Horns looked like they'd spent the night fighting something, which in a sense they had.
Lymur sat up, rolled his neck, and looked around at five hollow-eyed faces with the bright alert energy of someone who had gotten an excellent night's sleep.
"Good morning!" He said.
"...Morning," Helen said, trying to be professional about it.
"You move a lot when you sleep," Durden said.
Lymur processed that. "Huh."
"Like a hurricane," Adam said. "A very motivated hurricane."
"Good to know, eh?" Lymur said, and meant it.
They packed up and Helen pointed him down the road before they headed their own direction. "Follow it southeast. You'll see Xyrus before midday."
"Thanks," Lymur said. He raised a hand as they set off. "Nice meeting you."
"You too," Angela called back. She said it like she meant it.
He watched them go for a moment, then turned the horse around. He turned the previous day over in his head and took stock of it the way he'd been doing since he woke up in the ground.
One day. He had a name. He had a nature. He had a body that knew how to fight and a skill that could divide space like paper. He could ride, he could understand the language, he could apparently sleep through an entire night of unconscious combat without any ill effects. He'd met a dangerous man with grey skin and red eyes and walked away from it. He'd met five people around a campfire and left them mostly intact and somewhat fond of him.
The gaps were still significant. Everything about his past was fog, and the world itself was largely unknown, and he still didn't fully understand what he was or what that meant for wherever he was going.
But gaps closed. That was what they did if you kept moving.
Not bad for day one, he thought.
He came over a low rise and pulled the horse to a stop.
The fields ahead opened up wide — and above them, suspended in the sky, was a city.
Lymur sat on the horse and stared at it for a long moment.
His jaw had dropped at some point. He didn't bother with it.
Okay, he thought. Okay. That's — yeah. That's something.
He nudged the horse forward.