Seeing her like this breaks the dam.
Namir.
The name hits me, a forgotten word that defines me. I see my mother, my father and my clan. They flash before me as if beckoning me home. I remember my life before. The sun. The sky. My people.
Then... fire. Elves. Screams.
I recall the magic tearing my bones and stretching my skin, the red haze descending for the first time, smothering Namir, burying him alive inside this monster's body.
And then… her.
I remember the cold. I remember the snow. I remember the pain. But most of all, I remember the red. The endless, screaming red haze in my mind. It was a cage. It was agony.
Until her.
My heart breaks. Not with pain. For her.
I stand, my new legs strong and sure in the snow. I am naked, but the cold doesn't bite me. Not like before.
I walk toward her, my steps silent in the newly falling snow.
She flinches. She looks up, her blue eyes drowned in tears, her face a horrid mask of pure, absolute grief.
Her grief turns instantly to terror.
She sees me. A stranger. A naked, green-skinned warrior with tusks looming over her.
Her eyes roam over me, full of disbelief and questions.
“Betty,” I murmur.
It is not the Urog's growl. It is deep. It is clear. It rumbles with a tone I do not know. It is my voice.
"Threk?" she whispers. It is not a question. It is a prayer. It is a ghost's name.
"It is... it is me," I say, my new tongue clumsy with words. I kneel in the snow before her. I show her my hands. Hands, not claws. "It is me."
She stares at my face, her eyes darting from my hazel eyes to my tusks, to my long, black hair. She is confused. She is looking for her monster.
I need to show her.
I touch my chest. My chest. The skin is clean, smooth, green. Except... one place.
I place my fingers on the scar. The star-shaped scar, pale and silvery now, right over my heart.
"It is me, Betty," I say again, my voice thick with an emotion so powerful it steals my breath.
Her eyes lock on the scar. Her breath hitches, a small, sharp sound.
"Threk," she breathes.
"I remember," I say, my voice breaking. I need her to know. All of it. I cannot hide anything anymore. "I remember before. I... I was Namir. I had a clan. A mother. I was a warrior."
She listens, her eyes wide, her tears forgotten, her body trembling.
"Larda... he took it," I say, my hand clenching into a fist at my side as the memory of the pain surfaces. "He put me in a cage. Inside my own mind. It was... cold, Betty. So cold. And red. Always red. A constant screaming inside my head. Always pain. Always rage."
I look at her, my heart aching with a love so vast it drows me.
