Ato was seventeen, the first time he saw them. It was a night colder than most, cold enough, that one could feel it in their bones, see it in the fog of their breath.

  Pilalde was barren from the outside, every path and field void of any man, woman, or child—each villager stayed in their home, doors and windows shut tight, not a single light left burning. Except for the warriors, and the mages.

  Out in the grass, just beyond the village, stood Kenri, Kito, and their students—the ones old enough to fight, that was—a crowd just shy of a hundred in number. Ato stood among them, torch in hand, looking out into the foggy distance, sensing for mana, feeling the crowd of notes gathered, that did not feel quite like normal, their Song somehow…chained.

  "What…do they want?" Ato knew, of course, the answer. Perhaps it was the child in him, the one raised on rumors and fairytales whispered among youths, that needed an answer.

  Lichfolk. Those who follow him, who killed the elves and dwarves with old magics… The ones…who made Ato’s father an orphan.

  The old mage chuckled. "Why, to kill us, of course. Or perhaps…only me. How lucky, I am!" He laughed again, before a hacking cough overtook his whole body, and he doubled over slightly, coughing into his fist. “Excuse me, hah!” Kito walked forward then, his blackened feet free of his sandals, along with Kenri, both becoming fainter as the fog began to swallow them.

  “Ho! Lichfolk! I know you can hear me! It is I—Kito of Pilalde, Chosen of Pritii. I am sure you know of me…” Kito’s voice found a different timbre then, suddenly less cheerful. He seemed angry, biting, now.

  “I am sure your dead know of me… Leave. Now.”

  The night filled with the empty of a long, dead, silence. In the distant grass, Ato sensed the people, the shifting of their notes. He struggled in his mind, to feel some extra detail, to make out their forms, their number, but they were too far away. All he could sense, was how they did not walk away. Finally, Kito stepped forward.

  “Perhaps I have not been clear enough. Apologies…” The next moment, Ato would remember for the rest of his life. It was, his second brush with the divine. Fire, flame, erupting into the night, at Kito’s side, barely contained by the form of a tall woman, in ancient white gowns. Pritii.

  She placed her hand on Kito’s shoulder, and suddenly, it seemed to Ato like every note of mana in the grass, the air—the very Song itself—was flowing in one direction, to Pritii, to Kito. The old mage raised his staff, pointing it into the empty night.

  “Leave.”

  Silence, again. Then, a chuckle, from the dark—a man’s voice, smooth, accented, like some far away trader. “Of course. We shall be going. We only wanted to relay a message to you all—our pitiful lost ones…” Ato heard a small, soft thud, and then Kenri was bending down, picking something from the grass.

  “Tell this to your Crown: ‘For your resistance, you are all a bit lonelier, now.’”

  The strange notes of the Lichfolk began to retreat, ‘til no mage nor Ato could feel them, and Kito looked to Pritii, after which she disappeared. He walked to Kenri’s side, and both looked down, their backs turned to their students, as the old warrior moved his hands, seeming to unwrap something. Kenri’s hands stopped, and his shoulders twitched, a small tremble moving through him. Kito placed a hand on his back. The old mage turned his head, to the crowd gathered.

  “Come, children. I would like you all to see this.”

  Ato walked with the crowd, and he was near the back, so he had the fortune of hearing the gasps, the sobs, so he could prepare himself. It did him no good, though. There was not much one could do to prepare, in all truth.

  “We have done much to shield you children, to keep you safe. Maybe we have done too much. It does us well, horrid as it is, to remind ourselves why we train…” Ato made it to the front, and saw the display, lain in torn white cloth, cradled in Kenri’s hands.

  Ato looked, and thought of his father, of the deadly scared look on his face, his trembling grip as he hugged Ato just a moment too long, before letting him go with the others.

  “This, children, is why you train.”

  Ato looked, at the bones, the hair, the shattered wood and feathers, and understood his father’s fear. He looked, and it began to dawn on him, the meaning of war, and his place in it, as a warrior. A soldier.

  And then, months later, they began.

  "Gods...he's not breathing... Gods..."

  "Ato?"

  Ato jerked awake, his chest rising and falling violently, his face stained with tears. He lay there a moment, confused, his mind struggling to understand the feelings of grief and anger that had twisted such a tight knot in his chest. He looked across the room to where the voice had come from, where his father lay, his face turned to him in deep concern. "...are you all right?"

  Ato's eyes darted around his surroundings which suddenly felt quite unfamiliar. As his breathing normalized, he tried to remember what he had been dreaming of, but found only faint scraps of detail that quickly faded, until all he could recall were a few things: a pale man...cold, colder than the coldest winter night...and white...and… red. In a moment, even the stark emotions he had felt upon waking faded, leaving only unease in their wake.

  "Um...yes. Yes, I am fine." His father was silent, his face unchanging. Ato noticed his father's hand on the ground, the way it trembled. He forced a smile. "Do not worry, Apa. It...was simply a bad dream!" Ato rose cheerily from his mat, nearly stumbling in his haste, and walked to their main hall.

  "Come, I'll make breakfast for us." He started a fire for the pan and began gathering and preparing ingredients for their meal. He made and flattened dough, fetched cheese they had bought from traders, and cracked eggs in a small bowl, all while listening for his father, who seemed to not have gotten up yet.

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  As Ato flipped flattened dough on the pan, he looked back at the room, seeing his father finally coming to the table and sitting down slowly. As soon as his father was seated, he was still, gazing at the wall in front of him, his brow turned down in a sedated expression that Ato knew all too well. Ato was almost an adult now, but it was much earlier, when he was ten, that he had come to understand the cycles of his father's mood: how he would spend weeks as a quiet, reliable man, before a something would happen, like a holiday or death, and suddenly he would rise slowly from bed every morning, and retire quickly every night, barely speaking a word, for days on end.

  Ato's father sighed, and Ato couldn't help but look again at his father, before he felt a burning sensation on his palm—he had forgotten to move his hand from the pan. "Ah—gods!" Ato's father turned to him as Ato shook his burning hand and cursed, before dismissing his pain with a laugh. "For a warrior, I seem to be very clumsy." Ato's father was silent, then he smiled weakly, and Ato smiled back. It was good enough, for now.

  Ato stood in the dark room, looking down at the deep pit of water from above, watching his lamplit reflection projected over deep, pitch, black. He glanced around the room surrounding him and his fellow warriors: larger than any house he had ever seen, lit by the single lamp above them, almost entirely taken up by the large square pit of water, and bare, except for a few cloths folded neatly at the edge of the pit. He noticed the walls, barely illuminated by the light, and the ground beneath his feet. Both were strangely smooth, the walls flecked with some faded paint: not the usual packed dirt or mud brick he was used to.

  Ato breathed, and noticed the fog from it meeting the uncharacteristically cold underground air. He thought back to this morning, when Kenri and the two older warriors—one of them his brother—had summoned their group of eight students, and said that they were now trained enough to see what was behind Kenri's secret door, to meet the ancestors. He had not expected a long set of dark stairs, or a strange room with a pit of water.

  "What...is this place?" Ato asked. He stole a look towards his brother, who rolled his eyes. Kenri's short, quiet, yet booming laugh, bounced along the smooth walls from behind him.

  "Well, that is a good question, is it not?" The old warrior walked beyond his group of students, a candle in his hand. He strolled along the edge of the pool, his now aged form hunching over slightly, the flickering candlelight illuminating paint, revealing flashes of figures and scenery. He made it to the far wall, and inspected the paint closely. In the candlelight, Ato saw brown faces, and long, pointed, ears.

  "Many centuries ago, when Pilalde was founded, the first warrior of this village built his home above this place, and one day, he was asked to dig a well..." Kenri's elder, paper rough voice almost seemed to scratch at the walls as it bounced. It felt like more paint flaked, with each word he spoke. "He proceeded to dig, and after a point, Pritii, the Elf Queen, appeared. She did not speak, and merely raised her hand, telling him to stop. Later, the first mage of the village came at her behest, and cast a spell to scour the area of soil. This room was below the dirt."

  Another young student spoke up. "And it is a..?"

  "Yes, a good question." He circled back to the group of students, then walked to the front of the pit, where a set of stairs descended into the water. He bent down, dipping a few fingers into the liquid as he faced away from the students. "The warrior is said to have asked the Elf Queen for an explanation. But Pritii does not often speak to others, save for the Honored Mage. The mage spoke with Pritii, and relayed her words: 'For bathing.'"

  Hava exclaimed a sound of wonder at this, and Kenri nodded. "Yes. To think...the elven had whole rooms, just for bathing... I have had the pleasure of visiting nobles' manors in my younger years, and even they had nothing more than a large tub of fine porcelain—a luxury, yes, but it pales when compared to a whole room!"

  Ato was perplexed. He struggled to find a reason for why anyone would want a tub the size of a room, just for themselves. Maybe parents could wash children... But...this is quite a large room... Or, lovers could bathe together... Only two people? Royals sometimes had many lovers...did elven royals bathe with all their lovers? Ato felt his face begin to burn. "And...we are to bathe, now?" Ato asked, "I confess, I do not much like that idea, Honored One." A few scattered giggles.

  Kenri laughed again. "No, that sounds a bit...unnerving. But, unnerving is part of why you all are being allowed here. As I said earlier: today, you meet the ancestors." He took off his cloak, folding it with reverent care, before he laid it next to the pit, revealing his still quite powerful physique, wrapped in the customary ribbons of a Grassfolk. He stood between the pit and the students, facing them. "Why do we wear white?" Kenri asked.

  A pause, before Hava answered. "To show we are proud?"

  Kenri nodded. "To show the blood. Of ourselves. Of our enemies. To show how we are stained. And how we are still standing."

  He walked backwards, down the stairs and into the dark water, at which point Setri and the other warrior followed, taking their cloaks off and wading into the pool as well. "In this world, this life, you have chosen to be warriors. And a warrior deals in two things: death, and fear. We deal death to others, and may find death ourselves... And, we deal fear to others, and may find fear ourselves. These are the inescapable facts of a warrior's life, the things you must contend with when fighting a dragon, a bandit, or...in war.” The old warrior paused, and he stared at the walls, at the murals of elves long dead.

  “It does us well, to become acquainted with these realities, to learn how to remain resolute in spite of them."

  Kenri stopped in the middle of the pool of water. "We are Grassfolk: none of you have seen water deeper than your knees. If you should find yourselves in those places others call a lake, you would surely drown." Setri and the other warrior stood on either side of him, and all three turned to face the group, looks of solemn reverence taking their features. Ato was suddenly very aware of the water, how it rose to meet Kenri's waist.

  "So, you will submerge yourselves. Give yourselves over to death, and to fear. But, here, in the land of our ancestors, in the place that our forefathers the elves built, you will give yourselves over to those that came before, as well. You will find the suffering that those of the past found...and the strength they found, as well... You will learn what it means, to be a warrior of the Grassfolk: that we are strong, because we are humble in the face of those that bore us, and because that makes us proud, in the face of those that would do us harm."

  And so, the ritual began: each warrior took off their cloak, and one by one, walked into the dark pool of water to Kenri and the two older warriors, where the three held them below the surface for a short while, before letting them rise again. Some came up with a small laugh, others, a quiet look of reverence, a few with a short sputter of coughs. All bowed their heads to Kenri after, and Kenri did the same. They were now full warriors. Allowed to serve outside the village, to take quests. Ato watched this, over and over again, then noticed something in a dark corner at the back of the room: a small, almost silent note of song. He looked in its direction, and saw the faint outline of a woman, just barely visible in shadow. Pritii.

  Ato turned his attention back to the ritual, trying his best to ignore the presence of the divine figure. When he was much younger, he had told his fellow students when he noticed the Queen of Elves, had bowed his head to the tall pretty woman watching them in the distance, but the other children had trouble believing him, seeing nothing themselves, and then Kenri had pulled him aside, and told him it was better left unsaid, that she liked to be unseen.

  I wonder if she is judging us… Ato remembered his earlier joking comments, wondering if she had been present then, and felt a warmth in his ears at the thought.

  And then, it was Ato's turn. He paced towards the pool of water, stopping just short of the dark water, and staring into it a moment. He took off his cloak, folding it with careful precision like he had been taught as a child, and took his first step into the water, feeling its cold arms wrap around his skin nearly to his chest, and soak his clothes, as he waded into black, mirror liquid. He made it to Kenri, who met his eyes with a reassuring smile, and Setri, who simply looked at him, his expression unreadable.

  "Are you ready, little one?" Ato couldn't help the mix of warmth in his chest and slight grimace he felt, at the term of endearment, what Kenri called all his younger students. Ato wondered, if this was the final moment that Ato would be called this. He almost thought to answer in jest, before remembering the Queen, and his face grew warm. “Y-yes.”

  "Take a breath then, and hold it. Close your eyes, and whatever you feel, do not panic." Ato nodded, suddenly very aware of how close the water was to his mouth, his nose.

  Kenri gripped his shoulder gently, his other hand pushing his back upwards, while the other warriors held him in place. Ato forced his knees to buckle, despite his fear, despite the terrible strangeness of being in water this deep, of feeling his face sink below into cold, darkness.

  We are Grassfolk... If you should find yourselves in those places others call a lake, you would surely drown.

  Ato closed his eyes.

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