Long Lost

Nel sat in Aaboli’s home, surrounded by the elders of her people.
 
She had dreamed of having her extended family, her people, back for 30 years. And now that she had them, she found her heart predictably full, but also surprisingly lonely.
 
Most of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents Nel remembered were among the dead, their bones harvested by the horrible tower.
 
Those who had survived had been through devastation that Nel, who had survived the re-education camp called an orphanage, the Syndicate so far, and even a brief but horrific time in Thanatos, knew she could never fully understand. She saw their thousand yard stares when they thought she wasn’t looking, the way they looked at the newborn cubs in this good, safe village with a fervent protectiveness bordering on terror, the fear they showed at the harvests at once again having something to lose.
 
She felt like a child again in their presence — and the fact that she had stopped learning her native tongue at the age of seven only added onto that. She had a child’s vocabulary, and had to frequently stop and ask for the translations of words into Common or Orcish. She knew it wasn’t her fault. They knew that as well. But shame burned in her all the same.
 
But they loved her all the same, as desperately as she loved them. And she knew in her heart of hearts that they would have loved her even if she hadn’t come for them and helped them leave the Wastelands — just because she was one of their lost cubs returned to them. There was pain and loneliness and grief — but there was love and joy and the sense of home that was never only a place, but also a people.
 
She didn’t know how to lead them. But they taught her how. She watched them make decisions together around the fire, staying up late to talk things through until they all agreed on a course of action everyone could live with.
 
They did not need her to manage their day-to-day affairs. But with one foot in their world and another outside of it, they did need her as a bridge between them and Ruskovich.
 
So she listened more than she spoke. She made sure they knew — as if they needed the warning — that they must not build a temple to Eosphorous or worship him openly. She planned with them how to collect taxes, told them about opportunities to serve as royal guards, and poured most of her adventuring gold into supplementing their funding for soldiers among them to protect their people so that they would not need to rely on armed outsiders they would have trouble trusting and other needs they might have. She spent a small fortune on sending stones so that they could reach her whenever they needed to.
 
Her people were safe. They had food. They had land. They were as free as anyone in Ruskovich could be. This wasn’t their homeland. But it was a good place to stop and heal. Princess Orlov had shown the ursans more kindness and decency than any Run noble she had ever heard of. And she had them back.