Llana stood by the open window, her hand hanging loose on the sill. The scent of frost and dried herbs mingled faintly in the air. Distant voices echoed from the village down the slope—but it faded quickly, as if swallowed by the mountains themselves. She turned as the faint creak of the garden door alerted her to the presence of a girl making her way back for the second time.

  Llana didn't look up right away. Instead hunching over the wooden table beside her as her eyes drifted to the ledger below. A kettle still sat on the table beyond it, untouched. Its steam had long since died away. Her eyes darted back and forth between the ledger and the jars of herbs on the far shelf as she jotted down quantities onto the ledger with practiced ease.

  She did glace--just briefly--out of the corner of her eye, as Chase wiped her boots at the door. The girl didn't speak. Though Llana didn't mind it, as she had provided more than her fair share of obscured muttering in the hours before. Her arms were folded tighter than the dirty apron around her waist as her mouth twisted downward. She let the door slam behind her with a dull thunk and dropped the bucket beside the table with even less concern than usual.

  She was clearly still upset, Llana mused. Chase trotted past her, brimming with the heat of a kettle moments away from boiling over. The girl hadn't done much to explain her behavior when she'd first returned from the garden, though her behavior was hardly mysterious. If it was her intention to hide her frustration, she was doing an exceptionally poor job of it.

  Llana had sent her back out after taking a quick glance at the half-watered stems and haphazardly piled bulbs --still in the bucket she'd brazenly left out to freeze. Though she'd scowled the whole time, Chase didn't argue. Clearly, it was not the labor which upset her.

  Now she was quiet. Suspiciously so.

  Though she hadn't known her long, Llana could confidently say that Chase wasn't the type to hold her tongue. It was rare for her to go a minute without speaking, let alone an entire afternoon. Not unless she was afraid of something. Or-

  "Llana," Chase suddenly blurted, causing Llana's head to abruptly twitch up.

  "Hm?"

  Chase was turned away from her, fiddling with a bundle of dry roots at the front counter as if she, too, hadn't been ready for the words that left her mouth. She appeared to hesitate, rolling the bundle awkwardly over her palm before speaking again:

  "Why... didn't you tell me about the fortress?"

  Llana froze. Suddenly, the only sound in the room was the soft sputtering of the fire in the hearth and the pulsing of her own heart.

  How much did she hear? Llana's fingers curled instinctively over the ledger's edge as she watched Chase's back. She hadn't realized she'd done so until the frayed edge of the paper poked her palm. "What do you mean?" she asked, her voice careful.

  Chase finally turned, her eyes curved into a furrowed brow and lips puffed in a defensive pout.

  "I'm not stupid, you know," she stammered. "The boys told me about it. About how the strongest kids get picked to go fight the trolls at the top of the mountain. You never even mentioned it. Was that on purpose?" Her voice was rising, but in what sounded more like hurt than anger. "Do you think I'm not strong enough to know stuff like that? Or too dumb? Y-you know, I only broke all those bowls because I-I was still getting used to holding them. I never break any bowls now!"

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Llana exhaled--slow and relieved. She hadn't overheard her conversation with the Chief. Though, now that she thought about it, they had never brought up the fortress in their conversation. It seemed her nerves had gotten the best of her.

  Still, she took a moment to answer after her gazed returned to Chase's wronged expression. She leaned back in her chair, her squinted eyes narrowing slightly.

  "You broke a bowl this morning." Llana suddenly spoke as Chase stiffened up instantly. "W-what, how did you..."

  "Or to be frank, it looked more like three. Behind the Balt work basket isn't a bad hiding place, but you should know that I go through the pantry every day." Llana added as she glanced towards Chase, the slightest indications of a smile tugging on her lips as she took in her crumbling expression.

  "But." Llana finally added, feeling she'd teased her enough. "That's not why I didn't tell you."

  Chase's expression loosened slightly at the words, though her arms soon tightened around her waist before her voice dropped once again.

  "But... that's what the boys said." She stared down at the floor. "They think I'm too weak and stupid to even know about the fortress. But I already beat a troll!" Her head jerked up suddenly, eyes wide. "I killed one! But they- They think I just got lucky! That I couldn't ever beat a troll just because I'm a girl."

  Llana opened her mouth, a silent look of apprehension taking ahold of her as she searched of the words to say.

  Finally, she let out a brief sigh. "Chase... even if you didn't kill it... you survived it. And that's more than most people can say."

  Chase blinked. Her mouth twitched, ready to begin her retort.

  "You know," Llana began again, dissolving Chase's words before they'd left her mouth. "when I was younger... I was very much like you."

  Chase blinked. Her lips pressed into a faint line, uncertain. But she said nothing.

  "I used to think that if I worked hard enough—if I threw myself into something with everything I had—it would be enough. That I could live however I wanted, so long as I earned it.”

  Her eyes didn’t rise. She kept them low, tracing the rim of her cup with a single finger.

  “I chose something that made sense to me. Something I believed in. And even though people laughed at me, said I was wasting time. That I was soft. That I didn’t understand what was expected of me.”

  She gave a breath of a laugh—dry, brittle.

  “I kept going. Because I thought… eventually, if I just got good enough, they’d have to accept it. And maybe I’d even get what I wanted.”

  Chase watched as Llana's face darkened.

  “I didn’t,” Llana said simply.

  "I had to run away." She let the silence settle before adding. "From what I wanted, what I had. From everything.” Her grip subtly tightened on the wooden table below "I had to let go of my dreams, and live a life I never could've imagined when I was younger."

  "But because of that, I lived." Her voice lightened somewhat as she spoke. "Even when most people didn't."

  "So whether or not it was you who killed that troll, Chase." Finally, she turned back to the girl. "What matters is that you lived."

  Chase looked at her then. Her expression wasn’t bitter, or challenging—but something quieter, honest.

  "That's not living." She suddenly said. Llana's brows knit together as she looked down at the girl.

  Chase's eyes looked back, open and clear as the hearth's flames danced in its reflection. "That's just surviving --like one of the plants in the garden."

  Llana didn't respond. Her gaze simply trailing over the girl as she remained steadfast under it. It was strange.

  It wasn't as if her mind had suddenly been opened by the words. It was the naive sentiment she would expect from a child her age. Still, the way she'd said it...

  Her voice firm and clear as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it was just the extent of her ignorance, but she felt something weighty behind the sentiment.

  Either way, she thought she should offer the girl some kind of retort before she ran off to try and fight the trolls up the mountain. "Chase, you-"

  Suddenly, from outside, came a thunderous crash. The front door to the cabin exploding inward—

  “Llana!” A voice boomed as a large figure burst through the frame, snow peppered haphazardly over his hair and a woman lying red-faced in his arms. “It’s Usra—she’s—”