"Tell me about Garreg Mach," I said to Leonie. It was sometime later; we had arrived at her village (Sauin, she had called it) and we had sat down to a small but filling meal of stewed lentils with potatoes. Leonie's father, a quiet man named Emmanuel Pinelli, served the food with a single hand, a necessity for someone with only a single functioning hand to use. I had, of course, protested that their hospitality was unnecessary, but like his daughter, Mr. Pinelli was brusque in the handful of words he used. She had, if nothing else, come by her personality honestly.

Leonie swallowed a spoonful of stew and chewed. "It's a city at the center of the continent," she said. "It's also the lands of the Church of Seiros. You don't remember that, do you?"

I sighed. "You got me," I admitted. "I take it that Seiros is a deity of some sort?"

"Not really. Seiros was a great Saint who lived a thousand years ago. She was gifted with a revelation from the Goddess. She organized the church a thousand years ago, and defeated the enemy Nemesis, who tried to turn the people against it." She shrugged. "That's the story anyway."

"Huh."

"But that's the Church," Leonie went on. "What did you want to know?"

"Jobs," I said.

"Anything specific?" Leonie asked.

"I dunno." I thought for a moment. "Mainly, I need to find some way of making an income. At least until I get my memories back. And I don't really know what skills I have... makes it difficult to fill out a resume," I said with something akin to a laugh.

"A what?" Leonie asked.

"A... resume," I said. "You know, the thing that shows what you've done in your career?"

"I'm starting to think maybe you're not from around here," Leonie said with a smile. "Seven Samurai? Resume? Artemis? What other strange concepts do you have that I've never heard of?"

I grimaced. This indeed was one of the leading theories about my identity among the rest of the villagers. When Leonie had introduced me, the villagers, at once friendly, had gotten straight to work filling in the gaps in my memory as best they could. They decided I was a gentleman, which I took in it's original form, as a man with land and manners (I knew the etymology of the word "gentleman" but not my name... go figure). There was another notion, very nearly as popular, which had me as a foreigner, for exactly the reasons that Leonie described, along with my unusual clothes.

"Point is, I don't have a proven work history, and I don't know what skills I have," I said. "I'd bet I'm not much of a blacksmith, at least." The villagers had also remarked on my bony upper body, a stark contrast from their knotted frames, bent and broken by long hours of physical labor.

"You should join a battalion," Mr. Pinelli interjected with one of his rare comments. Like his daughter, he sported a round face and flaming orange hair and eyes, but his pockmarked features were graced and supported by a beard which obscured his chin and mouth.

"That's a good idea," Leonie agreed. "The Knights of Seiros employ a lot of enlisted men. From what I've heard, there's a good chance you can climb the ranks even if you're a commoner." She paused. "Captain Jeralt was Captain of the Knights before he became a mercenary." Leonie had already told me this,  but already in the couple of hours that I had known her, this wasn't the first time that she had repeated herself when it came to the Captain. She referred to him more than to her own father. I wondered how he felt about that.

"They like when enlisted men can read," Emmanuel noted. Yet another odd thing about me, I was fully literate. Leonie was one of three people in Sauin who could say the same. Apparently, she had taught herself how at age ten because Jeralt had told her it would be good to learn. I couldn't even figure out how one was supposed to do that all on one's own. She was a force of nature, this girl.

I nodded. It certainly wasn't a bad idea. As far as I knew, I wasn't a soldier either, but I couldn't find fault with the notion.

"I like that plan," I said out loud. "Don't really know where it is, though." I paused. "Do you mind if I tag along with you? You're going there very shortly, or so you said."

"I don't know about that," Leonie said with a frown. I blinked in surprise.

"Oh?" I asked. I had expected that she would be fine with being a guide along the road. She eyed me scrupulously.

"Look," she said. "I'm going to be working on a very tight schedule, and I have a very careful travel plan. I'm going to be catching a lot of my food instead of carrying it with me, and I don't have money for inns. If you're going to come with me, I need to know that you can keep up."

"I can take care of myself," I pointed out.

"Oh, well, I guess I should have left you under that tree then," Leonie said. I took the point.

"Fair enough," I said. "And I'm probably not much of a hunter either." In the forest that afternoon, Leonie had melted into the natural sounds of the forest; I had trampled through them. "But you could use an extra hand if you run into those bandits that you warned me about."

"That depends on whether you're any good in a fight," Leonie said. "And, I mean, a life or death situation is not the time to find out."

"What about inns? I can help there, surely," I protested. "Can't we, like, offer to do work in exchange for a stay?"

"Maybe one of us could, but I doubt both of us could," Leonie said. She eyed me for a moment. "Unless you can sing. I'm not much of a singer, but I'll bet if we could provide some music they'd let us stay on or something."

I shrugged. "I might be a singer," I pointed out.

"Yeah? Sing something."

I opened my mouth, but very quickly realized that I didn't know any songs. I snorted out a laugh at the ridiculousness of the problem and shook my head.

"Touche," I said.

"Yeah. Sorry, but I can't afford dead weight," Leonie said. "You should try Cathbad. Somebody probably has work for you there, and it's an easy trip as soon as you hit the main road."

"No," I said quickly. That was odd; as far as I knew, Cathbad and Garreg Mach were just as good as one another as a destination. But now that it came down to it, I didn't want to go to Cathbad. I wanted to go to Garreg Mach. Perhaps it was just because the only person I knew was going there. Or not... somehow, I had a sense that Garreg Mach was the place to be. Something was there. Something important. And for whatever reason, I had to be there. Not that this would sway the unflappable Leonie. I sighed in exasperation.

"How about this," I said at last, "I'll owe you. If it's just money, I'll foot the bill and pay you back when I have an income. I'll even do all the manual labor of carrying and carving meat and whatnot. That would save time and get you your money back." Leonie looked dubious, so I pressed on. "Besides, if it turns out I am able to sing, I could land you an unplanned inn stay. What do you say? Pretty cost effective. Especially when you consider that if I set out on my own, which I probably will, I'll probably be beset with bandits before I even hit the main road."

"Okay, okay," Leonie said irritably. "Fine. But you'll owe me every penny I have to spend extra because of you. With interest."

"Not knowing the economy at all, I'll take it," I said gratefully.

***

True to her word, Leonie left in the morning two days later. I had taken the liberty of making sure I knew how to skin and clean an animal, just in case this, too, was a skill I lacked. It was, so I asked one of the old women of the village to teach me. She had obliged happily, though as payment, as you might say, I had to listen to a lot of the old woman's stories while I worked. She, like the others, was convinced I was a gentleman or nobleman from someplace called the Empire, and kept pressing me on whether I was a member of one of the major houses like Bergliez or Vestra. At the time, of course, I had no idea what these were. One would come to be known very well to me in the future. The old lady also had the outlandish notion that I was going to be taking care of her "little Leonie," and I couldn't convince her in any way that in reality, it was likely to be her taking care of me.

The village practically took a holiday when Leonie actually left, a rough knapsack in hand, and everyone, from the handful of village children to the old men, had turned out to bid her farewell. I watched from the sidelines, not really a part of the procession. A couple of young men were among the village residents, closer to Leonie's age than my own (I had gotten the impression that I was a handful of years older than my now guide, maybe about five) and these seemed particularly sorrowful to see her go. I noted this with amusement; those two young men were probably worried that there wouldn't be any more young women for quite some time or quite some miles.

Unexpectedly, Emmanuel Pinelli, Leonie's father, appeared at my side. He wore a grim, unemotional expression and was silent for a long moment, watching his daughter. Not knowing what to say, I said nothing.

"She's headstrong," Mr. Pinelli said at length. I turned to him.

"I noticed," I confirmed.

Emmanuel nodded, satisfied that he wasn't the only one who knew. He was silent for another long moment. Then he spoke again.

"There are rumors of shadows," he said. I turned to him. His expression was grim, dark, and for the first time, I saw real worry in his eyes. I faced him in surprise.

"Shadows?" I asked. "Like... what? A dark power of some kind?"

A long pause. "Demonic beasts," he said. I raised an eyebrow at the name. He nodded, seemingly unaware. "Yes. They used to be rare. But there are more of them. And there are rumors about the courts too."

"Why are there more of them?" I asked.

"I don't know," he replied. His jaw was set. I said nothing.

"She's headstrong," he repeated a moment later. "And she doesn't back down from a fight. You'll need to be the level-headed one."

I frowned. "What do you mean? We won't be traveling together after we get to Garreg Mach. She'll be joining the Officer's Academy, and I'll be enlisting with the Knights."

Emmanuel nodded. I cocked my head to one side. "What are you worried about?" I asked.

He sighed. "You don't remember," he said. "But I'm old enough to see that the world is changing. Sometimes I feel it bursting at the seams like a grain sack that's too full." He shook himself as if awakening from a dream. Then he gave me a wan smile. "Take care of yourself," he said. He nodded to his daughter. "And take care of her."

"That's a lot to entrust to someone you just met," I pointed out.

"I know you about as well as you do," he said. This was... technically true, I thought as he walked away. Technically. Didn't really answer the question though.

Nor did his cryptic words leave me terribly happy with the assignment. Shadows and rumors of shadows... it sounded like a fantasy novel, I thought distinctly without knowing what I meant by it. And heck, I had only just gotten there.

The idea of shadows stuck with me though. And one day, Emmanuel's words would be proven right in ways that he couldn't predict... by none other than a friend I would meet at Garreg Mach. Even then, events were set in motion which none of us could see or stop. And in a few moments, when the village of Sauin had said its goodbyes to its favorite daughter, both of us would take our first steps toward it.