'Huh? What was I doing? Why am I flat on the ground? And covered in moss?' It was everywhere, clinging to me from head to toe. Even though there was a small opening around my mouth enough for me to breathe, panic bit into my heart. 'What happened? Was I left behind? Buried? Think I was dead? Wait - who were they? And... how did I even die?'

  The memories came back to me sluggishly, like something dragged through deep mud. Every thought felt so heavy and veiled by a thick fog. I saw flashes - me, on all fours, growling, yowling, wagging a tail. 'Was I… a dog?'

  No. That didn’t feel right. I had been talking to people, hadn’t I? Real, living people. Dogs didn’t do that. Dogs didn’t talk to people - or did they? Why did I remember talking to a dog, too?

  'Oh, stop it!' I jerked, or tried to. The tickle of moss crawled to the level where I couldn’t stand it anymore. I tried to move, shove it off, but I couldn’t. Not even a little. Ropes - or something like them - bound me tight. My heart pounded hard enough to hurt. 'Did they really bury me? Tied up? Why? And who the hell were THEY?'

  Shapes pushed through the fog in my mind, growing clearer with each step - faces, bodies, all moving closer. 'Was this a dream?' My family stood there, but so did a fox girl, small and cute, and a massive minotaur man. More and more figures crowded my head, most of them dressed like they had stepped out of some medieval tale.

  'I said stop it!' What appeared to be tiny moss roots pricked and tickled my entire scalp, a sharp reminder that I lay buried under the green stuff. I pulled hard at the ropes, desperate to shift, but they refused to budge. My breath came fast, but the earlier panic had thinned, just like the fog weighing on my mind. Truth be told, under all the itching, the moss was oddly comforting, cozy even, and warm - almost too warm.

  'FIRE!!!'

  I remembered fire, a lot of it. Fire on my face, fire on the street, fire tearing through the forest. Even the moss burned. Wait - moss? 'Was the moss I was buried under on fire?' Didn’t make sense. 'Who buries someone in moss and then lights it up?' Besides, I could breathe just fine.

  'Oh, no, no, no, no... not there!!!'

  The way too dangerous tickling, mercifully, quickly fled my crotch and crept down my right leg, stopping at the stump below my knee. My leg! The mossbear had bitten it clean off. The memories stormed back - the forest, the clearing by the ruins of the Esulmor Edge Inn, the fight. The whole bloody mess. I was a HUMAN - or at least I used to be.

  'Mutt!' That’s what the mind mage called me. The bitch thought she could make me her pet. I fought back, called for mossbears, but I slipped up. She crawled into my head, stole my will, and... the rest was a blur. Deckard stopped me - that much I knew. But no matter how hard I wracked my brain, I couldn’t remember who tied me up or how I ended up under that cursed moss. It wrapped around me, smothering every sense, locking me in my own head.

  I couldn’t see or hear a thing. Even the blasted [Spatial Domain] couldn’t break through, save for the sliver of space near my mouth. For a heartbeat, I dared to hope. That hope didn’t last. All I could make out was the air above me - empty as my head just a few breaths ago. My body, though… I could still feel it, somehow. And what I saw? It couldn’t be real. The haze in my mind had lifted. I knew I had lost a leg. Yet there it was, whole and solid. Both of them were.

  What I didn’t have anymore, though, were my clothes. Sure, after the fight in the city, Harcon's flames, and dragging through the forest, they had been nothing but shreds. Still, they were mine, and better than nothing.

  'Did they strip me before burying me? What for? Some local tradition?'

  Once again, I fought to squirm out of the ropes, twisting and straining, but they didn’t give. In an effort to save myself from panic, I let my attention drift - and it landed on the only thing I still had: the ring on my finger.

  "H-Hello?" I croaked, fear tightening in my chest. Had they really thought I was dead? Left me here? “Is a-anyone there?” No, that made no sense. Elira and Vara knew better - they knew I could come back. My thoughts, however, got no further…

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  "Girl?"

  'Deckard?' That was him. His voice. He still had the ring. And that I could hear him meant only one thing: he was close. He didn't abandon me. 'Why bury me under the moss, then?'

  "Y-Yes, it's me," I cried, struggling to hold back the sobs, trying not to sound like some tearful fool.

  "For a moment I thought we'd lost you," he said, his tone elated and relieved but there was a shadow of hesitation and doubt. "Are you able to tell me your name?"

  'Huh? What?'

  "It’s Korra, K-Korra Grey. W-What h-happened? Why am I..." I stopped, turning my thoughts away from the union ring: 'Why am I tied up, buried under moss, and naked?'

  "The cognizant, the mind mage woman, mind blasted your brain," he explained slowly - for which I was grateful.

  "S-She did what?"

  "Basically fry your brain - nasty trick they do when things don’t go their way," he said, his voice dropping with a hint of guilt. "I can't apologize enough for that, girl. I should have seen it coming - I should have acted. But..."

  "But?"

  "Even if I saw it coming - well, if I moved, I'd risk getting us all killed."

  What? How did helping me and stopping that bitch, that thought fuddler, from messing with my brain relate to…? So much rage swelled in my chest.

  "Girl? Are you alright?"

  "N-No, I don't get it," I said, something breaking inside me. "Why not help me? Why tie me down instead? Why bury me under all this moss?"

  Deckard let out a long breath, his voice calm after I had vented. "That was all the mother mossbears," he said. "Wanted to stop them, but… look, feel free to hate me, but you couldn't ask to be in the hands of better healers."

  "H-Healers?" And I thought I was the one having her brain blasted into oblivion.

  "Believe it or not, yes. They did put your mind back together, didn't they?"

  My first impulse was to argue, to tell him it was my regeneration, my weaves - like [Indomitable Will] - that had fixed me. But something in my chest tightened, and I held my tongue. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t the same. The feeling was different. Where my own healing had been raw and demanding, this... this was tender, almost soothing. Comforting, even. Yet...

  │????

  │Certainly not a trivial task to put back together what was shattered,

  │be it your sanity, memories, reason, or character, it does not matter.

  A phrase from the description of [Indomitable Will] came to mind. By all means, I should be able to recover on my own, given time.

  "It… it hasn’t been that long, has it?" I asked, Deckard confirming my suspicion. "No, hardly a few moments, but..."

  "B-But?" I inquired when he fell quiet. "The mother mossbear, the one healing you, seemed angry about something. Any idea why?"

  'How the fuck would I know?' Did he forget that I was buried under all this moss? "N-No, I don't. Why not ask her?”

  “I’d love to, girl. But as far as I know, the only beast talker around here is you. On that note, we could really use your talents here."

  Seriously, had he lost his eyes? “H-How am I supposed to help? I’m tied up, and…”

  “Use your tongue, girl.”

  'Oh. I guess I could do that.'

  “But what am I supposed to say? ‘Let me out of this moss’?”

  "No, I wouldn't do that," Deckard said, clearly considering his words. "Tell her you'll explain everything once she's done healing you."

  "That's it? No thanks?"

  "From what I understand, the beasts prefer straightforward answers."

  Rather than that, no deceptions and lies. Honesty mattered. It didn't change the fact that he was right in a way. "O-Okay, I'll try..." I stopped myself, realization rushing blood to my cheeks. "Do you… do you have any clothes I could borrow?"

  "You're the third chick to ask today,” he said through the ring, chuckling out loud. "You don't mind wearing drawers, do you?"