Two things happened when Mervella finally stepped out of this strange tall box. She noticed that the white scroll she had taken from Mr. Dev had vanished into thin air.

And her surroundings had changed again. but this time she recognized it.

No...

It was all there. The little creek behind the houses, the laughter of the children in the village, the hearthfire crackling in the kitchen with the stew boiling in the pot. She smelled the scent of the pot, of polished leather, the straw roof of the house. The fresh scent of spring. She looked around. This little house with two bedrooms was more than familiar to her. She even saw this small wooden sword and shield leaning against the wall next to the one bedroom door. She remembered them as if it had been yesterday. It had been her who put them there after training. Like she had done every day throughout her entire childhood.

And when she saw it, her heart felt like it would scatter into a thousand pieces.

Please, no!

When she stepped forward and tried to touch the sword, her skin began to tingle. A tiny voice in the back of her head whispered warningly. Mervella could barely hear it, but understood the warning. She was not supposed to touch anything here. But she wanted to. Desperately. Just once she wanted to feel it again, the feeling of finally being home with her family. Being back in the village of Teng, long before it was destroyed by the Varjons. She felt tears running down her face when she noticed all the other details she had forgotten over the years. Like the cape her father used to wear when going out, but was now hanging near the main door. The bundles of kitchen herbs and garlic hanging near the fireplace over the pot. The long table in the middle of the main room where her family used to sit, either having meals or preparing them.

As if the last fifteen years never happened...

The door was suddenly opened from the outside, and a tall, muscular man stepped in, dragging a small bundle with him that sseemd to fight back with all the power it got. "I told you again and again: You don't do this." The voice of the man wasn't loud, he didn't raise it, but it had such a commanding tone to it that didn't allow for any kind of disobedience. Mervella knew this voice too well. But she also remembered this. She looked at the bundle... and remembered everything.

The bundle was finally let go, and after the struggle had died down, it turned out to be a small girl with long dark-blonde hair and a defiant look on her face. A face that was all too familiar to Mervella. "They started it," the girl proclaimed, pointing outside. "They deserve it. You didn't hear what they called..."

"And you didn't hear me, as it seems," the tall man answered. Mervella looked at him, like she saw him for the first time in her life. The broad shoulders, the fair hair and bushy beard, the green eyes that were so much like her own... "Mervella, you are a warrior. A young one, yes, but a warrior in spirit and soul. As such, you cannot run around a village and behave like this. By the Gods, you almost broke this boy's skull!"

The young girl looked at her feet. Mervella knew too well what went on in this child's head. She had been there herself... "I am sorry, father," her younger self then said. But her tone didn't sound very honest. Not to her older self, at least.

Her father didn't seem to be convinced either. "You know what you must do now." He went over to a drawer in the corner of the main room and opened it to pull out a piece of parchment with an inscription. Mervella knew exactly what would come next. Her father went back to the little girl and handed the parchment to her. "You will not leave this house until you present the solution to me."

"But father..." the girl protested. The tall man cut her off: "And don't think about sneaking out again! I will not hesitate to lock you in your room. Now, get to work!"

There was no room for discussion. The man left the house again, leaving young Mervella alone with the riddle. And old Mervella, looking over her shoulder, surprised that none of the two had noticed her presence. But that didn't really matter now. One look on this parchment, and she remembered it again. The little girl took it over to the table and sat down at her place, putting the parchment in front of her. And letting out a deep sigh.

She remembered. All too well. She hadn't left the house for an entire week. Until one night her good friend Rhojeka creeped up to her bedroom window and snuck her the solution. Too bad that she had trouble remembering it. As she looked at the riddle, she felt the same resignation that her younger self felt in that moment - confronted with the one thing that she couldn't fight, and she detested it so much.

A man calls his dog from the opposite side of the river. The dog crosses the river without getting wet, and without using a bridge or boat. How?

Mervella remembered staring at this riddle for hours, wrecking her little brain on it. So many different solutions that she thought of in those hours, but none of them seemed to work. Did the dog fly? Use a catapult? Some sort of levitation magic? Was it a special sort of dog that just wouldn't touch the water while walking on it?

But then it came back to her again. She remembered how Rhojeka came to help her friend getting released from this prison. She was the smart one, had always had a thing for riddles and enjoyed figuring them out. And when she finally whispered the answer into Mervella's ear in the middle of the night, Mervella groaned for not finding this obvious answer herself. It was so easy...

It didn't do much for her, she was certain of it. But this time, only once, she was eager to help her younger self. She leaned over her, close enough to whisper in her ear, but not close enough to actually touch her. And when she finally said the right words, she had rthe strong feeling that this had really made a difference. Not for the child, but for herself.

"The river is frozen."