The human fort loomed over us on the horizon. We remained hidden, crouching down among the grass. Staring at it, it seemed scary this time seeing it. Before I had been excited, I had wanted to meet the humans. Now a tight coil of dread had wrapped its way around my internal organs. It was not a place of hope. It was a place of death.

Beside me, Honi stared in awe. "I didn't know buildings could be that big."

"Have you ever even left your forest little beauty?" Red questioned, using the new pet name she had coined for the girl.

Honi flushed beneath her veil. "Well, not exactly. I was born there and Mom said there was no reason to leave. We had everything we needed and outside the territory I knew Others would potentially..."

She trailed off, the three knowing the threat she didn't say with words. If she had left she could have been made prey by Others for her halfling heritage.

"This fort was built before the fall of humanity." I commented her sheltered life resonating with the similarity of my own. "I'm honestly doubtful humanity could do it again now."

"For a human  you seem to have little faith in them." She observed, her head tilted in that way to show she was listening.

I paused, trying to decide how much to divulge. "I don't know how I feel about them anymore."

Honi nodded her head in acceptance. "So now what?"

"Simple, we get in and save Pitri." I started drawing a diagram in the dirt with my finger. "Over here, was where I came out of the ground. However, I'm doubtful they left Pitri there. The part of the dungeon was outside the fort making it too open for attacks now that I know where it is. It's also very likely they filled the hole I came from, as best they could anyway and have more guards stationed there."

My fingers trailed about the bad doodle of the square fort and "X" of my escape. I made a circle over the entry. It would be the easiest way in, at least in part. The door would be more pliable than trying to get through stone, but there would be more guards. So perhaps it would be better to try and attempt a re-entry at my exit. I mused aloud my thoughts.

"I don't think that would work." Honi muttered, her face thoughtful to the hisses of her snakes. "What about just another new hole underground?"

"We'd run the risk of not knowing where we came up." Blue said. "Plus the amount of time and the power it would take to create a new hole would alert them to our presence."

I bobbed my head in agreement. It would be easier if one of us could fly. I closed my eyes, imaging I was back inside the fort. I could feel the grass scratch me and the sounds of human life as though I was laying beside Pitri again within our ruin of tent. I hoped he was okay. Shaking the fear from my head, I focused on Pitri again watching the one inside my head open and shut his mouth at me. Words I couldn't hear leaving his lips, like he was trying to help. He was always trying to help. The words though were being overwhelmed by another sound, but it wasn't the humans I realized. My eyes snapped open.

"We need help."

"We already tried to get help darling. That iz why we have our new little beauty." Red placed a hand on Honi's head as though I had forgotten she was sitting beside me.

"Not that kinda help. We need a distraction, something to pull the guards away." I shifted to look at Honi. "Can you hear them?"

Yellow eyes met mine, the veil separating us and yet we connected more than I ever had with someone I started eye to eye. I was told Others did not have souls, it was the reason they did not have true names. The story of knowing an Other's name to control them was nothing more than that, a story. Others did not have true names to share. They knew each other on a different level than humans could ever understand. They didn't need names to distinguish themselves in the world. Whether it was truly because they had no soul was debatable I supposed. Still, staring into Honi's eyes, I knew she must have one, even as a halfling.

"Yes I can." She breathed airly, a slight fear tinging her voice. Her head shifted to gaze into the distance past the field and into the hills. "How do we call them to us though?"

"Simple." I stood, brushing myself off. "I shall sing."

Red and Blue laughed awkwardly while Honi just gaped a bit. I flushed angry. Sure I wasn't as melodic in my voice as Red and Blue, but I could summon some ghouls. I did after all have some siren in me. Ghouls hunted this area. They were the scratching and noises Pitri and I had heard outside the wall our first day here. They had been attempting to get in, hungry for human.

Blue hummed, like she was talking down a child. "Pet, they won't hear you from this far away."

I deflated a tad, realizing she was probably right. I hadn't been thinking clearly. Honi could hear them because of her vibration based hearing, not with her ears.

"No, but they could smell you. Not even blood hounds could out smell a ghoul on the hunt of the scent of human." Red's lips pulled into a wide thing of unnatural grin.

Honi and I looked between each other. Neither of us was exactly human. My blood a brown mixture of everything that stole my humanity from me, while hers was likely to be more Gorgon than human based upon her mother being a matriarch. Honi shrugged finally.

"I suppose it's worth a try."

Pulling her spear, Honi held it steady for her and me. I cut myself first, a long slice along my palm. I pushed at my skin attempted to make more flow. I didn't want to lose a lot, otherwise I would've cut an artery, but there still had to be enough they'd smell it. My brownish oily blood pooled and dripped between my fingers, soaking into the Earth. I tentatively smelled it, wondering if I would notice the difference myself as my sense of smell was enhance. It smelled like iron, the smell of humans, but it also had the scent of Earth and fire and some other things I couldn't place off the top of my head. It was odd.

Honi copied suit of my, dragging the spear along her palm. Her blood definitely had a human tinge of red, but it was mainly a shining black like obsidian with hints of gray. I peered over, intrigued.

"Do you want to smell it?" She held out her hand and little puddle of her life.

I blinked in shock before nodding. Leaning forward, I pulled her cupped hand to me. Her blood smelled like wet stone and faint touch of iron. I think between us we would smell enough human to attract attach, at least I hoped. I held Honi's hand a bit longer, thinking. She didn't seem to mind though.

"Honi would you like to be blood sisters?" I asked suddenly, surprising myself.

"I don't know what that means."

"It's something I read about in a book. Something that people adventuring together would do. You press your blood and wounds together, mixing and swapping your blood."

"That seems odd."

"It's supposed to bond you. Show you are not just friends, but comrades and family."

She was quiet. It wasn't until I saw a tear fall from beneath the bottom of her veil onto the ground that it I realized she was crying.

"I'd love that." A huge smiled crossed her face. "Sister."

I brought my cut hand up to hers, still cradled within my palm.

"I feel like we should say something." I muttered, trying to wrack my brain for what happened in the stories.

"How about with this, 'with the exchange of blood I am yours and you are mine, bond together until the ends of time.'" Red said.

We both looked at her, a bit surprised at the rhyme.

"Your books may have blood siblings in them." Red started to which Blue finished.

"But they are not the ones who came up with it."

The two of us clasped hands, echoing each other with the words as emotions we couldn't fully express leached into them. "With the exchange of blood I am yours and you are mine, bond together until the ends of time."

We were both crying at this point. I had never imagine I'd have friends. Never once. I had been put on a pedestal from birth. I was too look down on Others and be praised by humans. There had never been the concept of being an equal with someone, never brought up I should or even could had friends. I was supposed to be better than everyone else. I was supposed to give up a life in order to be their Alice. I was supposed to be nothing more than that, their Alice. But now, now I had a friend who understood me in ways I didn't myself because of an upbringing in isolation from the world and it was just the beginning. I would protect her. I had become someone else's Alice. I belonged to her and her to me. I suppose Pitri would have to learn to share, I thought with a laugh.

The moment was interrupted. A inhuman howl of hunger erupted over the hills. It was soon echoed and matched by more. The group forming a symphony of death. The ghouls had smelt us and they were coming.