Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

I walk back to the Academy beside Freya.

She carries one of the bags and I carry the other. We could have put everything in our inventories, but doing it this way somehow feels more natural.

The way to the administrative building is quiet, but not heavy. Freya seems busy with her own thoughts, and I have no interest in filling every gap with some attempt to make her feel better.

At the entrance to the central sector, I recognize one of the instructors coming down the stairs.

"If you find Rector Dean, tell him Freya Gunnulf is with me. We’re heading to the observatory."

The man looks at the bags before turning his attention back to us.

"Is she all right?"

"She is. Tell him that too."

He nods and heads off in another direction.

We climb.

The observatory is empty when we arrive. Dean must still be handing out orders across the Academy or trying to reconstruct the route Freya would have used to leave.

I set the bag down near the door.

Freya does the same with hers and spends a few seconds looking at the room. The telescope takes the center, surrounded by the same tables, shelves, and maps. The Safe Harbor projection I’d shown Dean earlier was already gone, but the chair where I’d been sitting was still out of place.

"You okay?" I ask.

Freya lets her breath out slowly.

"I think so. I just don’t know what I’ll say when he comes in."

"You could start with what you told me up there."

She nods but doesn’t answer.

A few minutes later, we feel Dean’s OXI signature crossing the corridor.

Freya straightens her posture.

"Thank you for bringing me back. I’ll talk to him from here."

"Good."

She waits.

...

Then she looks at me.

"You’re not leaving?"

"No."

Before she can ask, the door opens.

Dean comes in fast.

His eyes find Freya and sweep over her in an immediate check: face, arms, gear, bags. The tension he carries in his shoulders eases when he confirms she’s whole.

"Freya..."

He crosses the room and tries to hug her.

She steps back.

It’s only one step.

Dean stops.

His arms never close around her. The movement dies halfway, and for a few seconds the two of them stand face to face, not knowing what to do with that distance.

Dean lowers his hands.

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

Freya’s voice is steady, though I know now the effort behind it.

Dean looks at me.

"Sands, I appreciate you bringing her back. I need to speak with Freya in private."

I walk to the chair in front of the desk and sit.

"I’m staying."

His expression hardens.

"This conversation is between me and my pupil."

"It was. Until you nearly accepted my proposal to take on her debt before Rae walked in."

Freya turns to me.

"My debt?"

Dean closes his eyes for a moment.

"Nothing was accepted."

"We’re still negotiating," I answer. "A hundred and twenty Plates. Five a month for two years. The moment the contract is signed, your debt stops existing for you. It doesn’t pass to me as guardianship, doesn’t create service, doesn’t create obligation. It just becomes a commercial debt between me and Dean."

Freya goes still.

Then she looks at the bags by the door.

"I didn’t know."

"I noticed."

She seems embarrassed.

"Sorry. I just..."

"You don’t have to explain right now."

Dean steps closer to the desk.

"Sands is presenting a proposal as if it were settled. It isn’t. And what happened today only shows why decisions of this kind can’t be made on impulse."

Freya looks at him.

Dean continues before she can answer.

"You left the Academy without an escort, tried to enter a route you don’t know, and told no one. If something had happened, we wouldn’t even know where to start looking. That isn’t independence. It’s putting your life at risk over an emotional reaction."

There’s truth in that.

I don’t interrupt.

Dean runs a hand over his face and breathes before going on.

"I never stopped you from growing. Everything I did was to create the conditions for you to get where you are. Equipment, training, protection, access. Your family needed help, and I gave that help. If I was strict at some point, it was because I knew what exists outside these walls."

Freya presses her fingers against the side of her pants.

"I know."

Dean seems to read that as an opening.

"Then you understand why I can’t simply hand over years of responsibility because Sands decided he knows our relationship better than the two of us do."

"I said I know!"

Her voice comes out louder.

Dean stops.

Freya draws a deep breath and tries to continue in a controlled tone.

"I know what you did for me. I know what you did for my mother. I know my life would probably be worse without part of what you gave me."

Dean opens his mouth, but she raises her hand.

"Let me finish."

Her voice starts to falter.

Freya runs her fingers over her face before any tear can fall, angry at her own body.

"I’m tired of thinking about you before I think about myself."

Dean doesn’t move.

"Every time I want to do something, I think about whether you’ll allow it. When someone invites me to train, I think about what you’ll say. When I want to leave the Academy, I think about whether you’ll find out. When I want to talk to someone you don’t like, I start imagining the argument before I’ve even answered."

A tear falls. Freya wipes it away hard.

"I know I have a debt. I know you invested in me. I know you did things no one needed to do. But I can’t breathe without feeling like I have to pay for it all the time!"

"Freya—"

"I’m afraid of you, Dean!"

Her voice breaks.

The observatory goes quiet.

Freya is crying now, unable to hide it. Her chin trembles and the words come out tripping over each other, years of things she’s held back.

"When you walk into a room, I try to remember if I did something wrong. When you call my name, my stomach knots before I even know why. When I want to say no, I think about my mother, the debt, my training, what you can take from me. I hate it. I hate having to think that way every time."

Dean seems to have forgotten I’m in the room.

"I would never do anything to your mother."

"But I didn’t know that!"

She raises her hands in a frustrated gesture.

"That’s the problem! I never know what happens if I say no. I never know where the debt ends and where the part you think you get to decide because you helped me begins!"

Dean is left without an answer for a few seconds.

The certainty he carried at the start of the conversation is gone.

"Everything I did was to protect you."

Freya closes her eyes.

"I want to be free."

This time she doesn’t shout. The line comes out tired as Dean stands looking at her.

I pull a sheet from the desk.

The feather pen is beside an inkwell. I wet the tip and start writing.

Dean notices the movement.

"What are you doing?"

"Settling the part that can be settled today."

I write the terms calmly.

The Gunnulf family’s financial obligation ends the moment of signing. No guardianship, service, exclusivity, or personal duty transfers to me or to any member of my guild.

I take on the hundred and twenty Plates.

Twenty-four installments of five.

I add the commercial part just below.

The Academy receives priority acquisition of up to fifteen thousand LDP units per production cycle as the industrial expansion reaches that capacity, entering the priority queue alongside the channel maintained with Simon.

Dean reads over my shoulder.

I know that clause benefits Safe Harbor as much as the Academy.

Simon already gives us commercial presence beyond here. Fifteen thousand units moving through the Academy’s stores will put the LDP in the hands of cadets, instructors, and field teams. At some point, the numbers will reach the desk of the man who actually interests me.

Kaelen.

Dean is tonight’s negotiation.

The director is the next level.

I finish the last line and push the sheet across the desk.

Dean picks it up and reads it once.

Then again.

Freya stays near the window, wiping her face and trying to get her breathing back.

"Fifteen thousand units," Dean says. "You still can’t produce that."

"That’s why it’s written that the priority follows the expansion. I’m not selling stock that doesn’t exist."

"And if you don’t pay the Plates?"

"The debt stays mine. Freya stays out of the contract."

He lifts his eyes.

"You made a point of that part."

"It’s the reason for the proposal."

Dean goes back to the paper.

"And Silver Fang gets direct access to the Academy’s stores."

Unfortunately, I have to let that one pass and write Silver Fang. Leona will owe me one; I can’t reveal Safe Harbor yet.

"You get priority access to a potion with more than a hundred thousand units in demand for next month. I’m not pretending I do this out of charity."

Dean looks at Freya.

She doesn’t look away.

His expression changes slowly. It doesn’t reach acceptance. It’s something more tired, as if part of the argument ended before he was ready for it.

He takes the pen.

"If I sign, I want to review the commercial terms with Leona Hartwell before implementation."

"Naturally."

"And the fifteen-thousand quota depends on real capacity, not projection."

"It’s written."

Dean holds the pen still over the paper for a few seconds.

Then he signs and presses his Diver Mark into the paper.

Ocean’s Law responds.

[Contract Assigned]

[Gunnulf Debt Obligation: Transferred.]

[Freya Gunnulf: Released from Contractual Obligation.]

[Commercial Debt Holder: Dryden Sands / Silver Fang.]

[Please register the contract at an Oathmark.]

I’ll sort out the details with Leona later; it’ll be a trade for her getting benefits with the Academy’s students while she carries my lie.

Freya looks at the interface, but she doesn’t say anything.

The message stays open in front of her for a few seconds before it disappears.

I stand.

"Let’s go. I will register it right now."

She looks at Dean.

Then at me.

"I need to stay... I want to talk to him."

I look at Dean. He doesn’t seem like the same man who walked into the room minutes ago, but that conversation is no longer mine.

I nod.

"All right."

I take the contract and walk to the door.

I don’t ask if Freya is sure. I don’t offer to wait in the corridor or tell her to call me if Dean says something wrong. She just asked for the space to decide what she’d do next.

I respect it.

I close the door behind me and continue down the corridor.

I don’t know what Freya will say to Dean tonight, or what will be left between them once they’re done. I don’t need to know either. The debt is in my name now, the contract that held her is over, and on the other side of that door, she stayed because she wanted to stay.

That’s exactly what I promised to deliver.

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