May 11, 10:13 pm BT – 8:13 pm UT, Somewhere In The Tian Shan Mountain Range, China

"How did it end up like this?"

Irade looked over to the sun, setting behind the mountains in the distance. The sky was darkening, breaking into a kaleidoscope of color over the horizon. The clouds were tinted orange and purple, the mountains a solid, cold blue among the scattered colors.

She looked down to see the boy and Black Wind, sitting around the fire opposite to each other. The faint scent of deer meat wafted up, the smoke from the fire going straight up thanks to the lack of wind. She sighed, and hoped Black Wind wasn't making the boy feel uncomfortable.

A lot had happened that day.

After dropping the bear head, the boy had said salam. Irade remembered that this was a greeting in Uyghur. Instinctively, she copied the gesture, and repeated the word.

Then they just stared at each other for a moment.

Irade felt her face heating up. Despite everything, she couldn't help but look at his arms, and how muscled they were. She knew she should be focusing on...anything else, but d.a.m.n it those arms were very distracting. It didn't help that he kept patting his chest and saying something.

"Käwsär."

Wait, that was probably his name. Quickly following suit, Irade patted her chest.

"Irade."

Käwsär's eyes grew wide as he heard her name. Instantly Irade was on guard. Did he know who she was? Was he going to turn her in to the police?

Meanwhile Käwsär was just in shock from everything that had just happened.

First, he had heard a crying voice in earlier. His father always told him to always ignore the sound of crying and wailing in the mountains; they could be jinn looking for a body to possess. He had always ignored the strange cries he'd heard before, but for some reason this one sounded different. There was just...something about this cry that Käwsär was drawn to.

He'd been hesitant all the way, right up until he saw where the sobs were coming from; a teenage girl in rags, lying next to what seemed like a recently felled tree. He had called out nervously, and when she looked up, he was surprised to find that she only had one arm.

Was she a jinn, looking for a new body?

Käwsär had never been very afraid of his father's ghost stories, but at the time, that was all he could think about. What else could explain a raggedy looking, one-armed girl up in the mountains like this?

But before she could possess him, or even talk to him, she ran.

He had called something out to her, but didn't follow. She had disappeared so quickly that he was half-convinced that he had imagined her. After all, there was no evidence that she had ever been here.

Then he noticed the fist sized hole on the felled tree.

Käwsär decided that maybe it was best to just forget everything he had seen and move on.

He went back to hunting, only to find himself being hunted by a bear by the river. Convinced that this was his last chance at life, he shot his arrow at the bear, only to find it already dead, its head ripped off its body.

By the same one-armed girl he had met earlier that day.

Upon seeing her again, alarm bells went off. Whoever this girl was, she was dangerous. She had literally ripped a bear's head off. Or something similar, to be honest, Käwsär wasn't really sure what he saw.

He tried to say thank you, but the word was stuck in his throat. Then, remembering the manners his mother taught him about speaking with women, he put his hand on his chest, bowed slightly, and greeted her.

She seemed to like that, and greeted him back silently.

Feeling kind of like he wasn't in control of his own body, Käwsär introduced himself. He did not know who or what this girl was, but he had a feeling that if he disrespected her, she would destroy him and his entire bloodline.

Then she introduced herself as "Irade."

Käwsär's heart skipped a beat. "Irade?"

Just who in the world was this girl? Why was she here?

Irade?

The small breeze pa.s.sed between the two teenagers, the atmosphere suddenly charged with a strange tension.

Then, Käwsär bowed. Irade blinked in confusion.

He said a long string of words, and then at the end added a "rehmet!" All the while he stayed bowing, stiff as a board.

Irade wasn't sure whether she should laugh or cry. What was with this over-the-top reaction?

Then again, he was some mountain boy, who had just seen a teenage girl rip a bear's head off. Along with its spine.

It was at that moment that something growled behind Käwsär. Irade saw his eyes widen, then watched as he turned slowly

To come face to face with a large, black wolf, with piercing blue eyes. It cast the deer carca.s.s it had been holding in its jaws to the side, then snarled at Käwsär.

"It's okay," said Irade. "He's a friend."

But Black Wind did not let up. Slowly, Käwsär dropped his bow, along with his quiver of arrows. Only then did Black Wind stop growling, and walked up to Irade.

"I don't like him," said Black Wind immediately, glaring back at Käwsär.

Before Irade could say anything, something growled. Specifically, her stomach. And Käwsär's.

Both Käwsär and Irade looked embarra.s.sed, but Irade looked at Black Wind. He rolled his eyes.

"Do what you want," he said, walking over to the deer and ripping off a flank with his teeth.

He then spent the rest of the day eating as he watched Irade and Käwsär try to communicate with each other on how to build a fire and how to skin the deer. At first, Käwsär kept trying to do everything himself, but after the Irade kept insisting on trying to copy him, he decided to try and teach her instead.

"Mane, ut," he said, showing her how to build a fire.

"Ut..." she repeated, watching the embers turn into a small flame.

Käwsär looked at her curiously as Irade got up and started to gather some more wood for the fire. At this point, he had realized that she didn't speak Uyghur, and he didn't speak Chinese. His parents had told him that city people spoke it, because of the government, but he had never actually heard it before.

He looked nervously over to the wolf, who glared back at him. He was well aware that the wolf didn't like him, but it seemed to be putting up with him because of Irade. He gulped, looked away, and started to work on skinning the deer.

Irade watched carefully as Käwsär skinned the deer. She focused on his hands and their nimble movements, how he used the small knife in order to cut the skin off the meat. Every time she got distracted by his arms, she admonished herself by getting some water, then coming back to learn how to skin and quarter the deer.

It took a lot longer than Irade expected. It also seemed the Käwsär wasn't really equipped to carve a deer; from the looks of things, he had only been out to hunt for some rabbits or something. At one point, Käwsär stopped skinning and asked Irade something.

Of course, Irade had no idea what he was saying. He started gesturing making long, squiggly motions with his arms and hands, then pointing to the deer's feet. Irade had no idea what he was talking about.

"He wants something to tie the deer's legs with," growled Black Wind. "So that he can raise it up to carve."

Irade looked back at Black Wind, surprised.

"You know Uyghur?" asked Irade.

"I can understand humans," he growled. "But they can only understand me if they too have been chosen by the world."

Käwsär looked between them, lost. To him, it sounded as if the wolf had just growled, but apparently it was speaking with this girl. He held back a sigh, eyes widening as he absorbed this information. At this point, he might as well accept that this Irade could understand wolves too. Why not? She was already super-humanly strong.

He looked up to find Irade grabbing the deer by the legs and look around for a bit. After a moment, she seemed to find what she was looking for; a branch that Käwsär had been eyeing to hang the deer off so that he could more easily cut open the deer and clean its insides.

Käwsär did not believe what happened next.

Irade, still holding onto the deer, floated up to the branch, and skewered the deer's legs onto the branch. When she came down, she found Käwsär's jaw on the floor.

Oh yeah. Humans couldn't fly. Irade had spent so much time alone that she had almost forgotten that.

That said, she did expect him to adapt a little quicker. After all, at this point, he had seen her do things that were a lot more impressive.

He managed to get over it after a while though, and spent the next few hours cleaning out the guts and carving up the meat. Luckily, they were near a river, so it was relatively easy to clean the meat.

Irade mostly watched as he did his work, admiring the view as she ate her meat. He had given her a slab at the beginning, and had left her to cook it while he worked on cutting up the meat. She had a little set aside for him, but it soon grew cold as the day went on and he was not done.

After a while, he grew tired, and sat down next to Irade to eat. As he sat though, Irade got up. She took the knife, and started to carve up the meat the same way he had been.

Thanks to her strength, the knife felt like it was cutting through b.u.t.ter as she used it to cut up the deer parts. She had a.n.a.lyzed how Käwsär had been carving it up, and based on that, started to work on the rest.

Käwsär watched as this one-armed girl cut through the deer meat with ease, managing to cut between bone and ligaments so cleanly, it would've made his dad cry. He shook his head.

He had always been taught that meat handling was a man's job. Only men could handle meat. And yet, here was this girl, the same age as him, who was carving up this deer better than his father.

Clearly, this woman was some sort of immortal, or jinn, or some sort of supernatural being. All Käwsär's rules would not apply to her.

Irade finished carving up the deer about an hour later. She looked at the pile of carved up meat, then turned to Käwsär.

"What do we do with all this?" she asked him.

Käwsär, who seemed to understand the question, simply shrugged. He showed that he only had three small hooks on his waist; he only planned to bring back three rabbits it seemed.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Black Wind growled to Irade. For a moment, she had no idea what he was talking about. Then she remembered.

"Magic practice," she sighed. "Fine."

She looked at Käwsär and gave an apologetic look, bowing. He seemed to understand, and looked over to the pile of meat. If he didn't preserve this all now, it would all be rotten by inedible by nightfall.

Then again, he didn't know if he had enough time to smoke all this meat.

The process wasn't too difficult, there was just a lot. As such, he had more than enough time to watch what the girl and the wolf were doing.

It looked like they were just sitting with their eyes closed. Every now and then, the wolf would growl.

At one point, however, the girl started to glow.

Käwsär watched for a while, then nodded.

Yep. Definitely some sort of immortal. None of his business.

Since he had so much meat to smoke, it took him all day to get through it. By the time he was finally done, Irade had finished her magic practice, they had eaten again, and the sun was setting.

Irade came down from the tree as Käwsär finished smoking his last piece of meat.

"Yardem," she said, pointing to the meat.

It was one of the words she learned today. It meant help. She wanted him to know that she wanted to help him take his meat back.

Käwsär nodded.

Irade then pointed to herself.

"Uyghurche yardem," she said.

Uyghur language help.

Käwsär blinked. She wanted him to teach her Uyghur?

Slowly he nodded. After all, he wasn't one to question Irade.

"You're really going to spend more time with this boy?" Black Wind growled. "Don't you have to get home?"

"I need to learn to communicate with the people back home before I go there," said Irade. "If I can't even speak with them, what would be the point?"

But it was more than that. She wanted to know what it meant to be Uyghur, and she couldn't do that without learning the language, could she?

Black Wind didn't say anything. Instead, he simply looked at Käwsär.

Little did any of them know, what kind of worldwide consequences this small decision would have.

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