Epilogue: You Eat What?

Aina stretched her body as the rare chirping of birds greeted her morning. The crisp air carried their sharp calls across the valley, echoing against the mountain walls. According to her son, these were snow parrots. They were plump, white-feathered creatures with curious black eyes that shimmered like wet stones. In the past, people had treated them as omens. The parrots were known to mimic human voices uncannily well, and it was said that when one called out to you, it was not the bird’s voice you heard, but the words of the dead.

Nowadays, of course, nobody clung to such superstitions. Snow parrots still perched on rooftops or fences, muttering half-formed phrases that sometimes made listeners shiver. But most villagers just laughed it off, treating it as one of nature’s quirks. It was no more ominous than a fox stealing chickens or a goat chewing on laundry left out to dry. After all, animals were always strange. They had their own logic, one that humans rarely understood.

Aina had seen much stranger things. Back in her old world, she had once spent a whole year sailing around the globe with her grandparents. She remembered standing on the deck of their creaking ship as orcas followed in their wake, watching whales breach the waves like living mountains. She remembered meeting new people in distant harbors, every port full of new dialects, new spices, new animals that had never before existed in her imagination. Compared to that, parrots that spoke like the dead were almost mundane.

It had been three days since the battle with the mountain beast. Life, remarkably, had settled. The villagers had returned to their rhythm: sowing the farms, cleaning the irrigation ditches, and repairing what the monster had wrecked. The irrigation ditch in particular was now filled with water from the well, carried by bucket lines of sweating men and women. The air smelled of wet soil and woodsmoke, laced with the metallic tang of drying blood.

Aina walked down the worn steps of the mansion and into the village square. There, dozens of villagers were working in the morning light. Men cut up massive slabs of meat from the carcass, while women salted and rinsed the cuts in great wooden buckets. Once filled, the buckets were dragged to the well, where blood was washed away before the meat was salted again and stacked in smoking racks for preservation. It was a communal effort. Voices rang out as orders were shouted, jokes traded, children darted about underfoot, carrying handfuls of salt like precious treasure.

She had been told she was unconscious for two whole days after the battle. Yesterday, she had awakened, if you could call it that. But even then, she had not truly been alive. Though her eyes had opened and her mind was clear, her body had betrayed her. Her lips refused to move, her throat refused to form words, and her limbs lay heavy and useless at her side. It was a strange, terrifying prison. She felt trapped in her own flesh, aware but powerless, as though she were a corpse with a mind that refused to stop thinking

She shivered at the memory. Let’s not have such moments again, she thought grimly, wrapping her shawl tighter.

“Hey, corpse. You okay now?”

The voice startled her. She turned to see the soldier boy lounging by the workshop door. Captain Darus Kael, the one who had brought his strider to aid in the fight. His grin was lazy, but his eyes flickered with relief when he saw her standing on her own two feet.

Aina descended the slope toward the mech workshop. Inside, two hulking machines stood side by side. In one of the gantries, the captain’s red-green strider gleamed under the sun, its armor already polished by her sons in gratitude for his aid. They worked diligently, clambering over its limbs like ants, tightening bolts, checking lines, cleaning joints.

Next to it, however, stood her own Iron Blossom. Or rather, what remained of it

The mecha looked pitiful. Its armor shredded, plating torn off, internal circuits exposed like ribs in an open wound. Its great arms hung limp, one half-disassembled, the other dented beyond recognition. The sight made her heart sink. Her sons had tried, of course. Wanting to make their mother happy, they had pulled pieces together, attempted to reassemble plates, even fetched tools to put them together. But they were fumbling blind. They had no training, no foundation. They had only ever followed her instructions when she called for an extra hand. She had never truly taught them anything.

Aina noted that it was her own fault. She didn’t actually teach them how to fix a mecha. She simply told them to move things here and there, to hold stuff so that she could attach them to something, or to press a button and see if it worked.

Aina decided that she would involve her sons more in her mecha business now. Maybe after they managed to fix the Iron Blossom, they could build a new mecha. Next time the mountain beasts come, they would be facing two mechas. Next time, there would be the ones to bully the mountain beasts.

“Yeah,” she said at last, answering Darus’s earlier question. “I’m feeling great now.”

Darus gave a low whistle. “You have no idea how scared I was when I saw you fall that night.”

Aina glanced at him, surprised at the honesty in his tone. “Thanks for coming to help.”

“Don’t worry about it. You saved my life first. I was just paying the debt.”

“About that debt…” Aina turned, folding her arms.

Darus groaned audibly, slapping his forehead. He had completely forgotten about the 500 silver repair fee. He shouldn’t have brought it up.

“I’ll extend the deadline,” Aina said after a pause, lips twitching into a smile. “You can pay in a year.”

“Thank you for your generosity, princess.” He swept into a mocking, exaggerated bow, one hand across his chest.

Aina chuckled at his antics. Together, they walked side by side up the wooden bridge leading to the main street. It was only then that Darus wrinkled his nose.

“What’s that smell?” He slowed, eyes scanning the square. His gaze fell on the heaps of meat piled on racks, on the villagers hurrying to and fro. His brows furrowed. “What’s going on? I thought you're in the middle of famine here. Where did you get all this meat?”

Aina arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t know? You’ve been here the past three days and you didn’t know?”

Darus shrugged. “I was busy with my strider. Why? What is it?”

“These are cuts from the mountain beast,” she said matter-of-factly. “They’re preparing it for preservation. With this much meat, we won’t have to worry about food until the new year.”

Darus froze mid-step. His mouth fell open. “You eat this?”

“Yes,” Aina said, amused at his horror. “You ate it too yesterday, didn’t you?”

Darus blanched, color draining from his face. “Mountain beasts are poisonous!”

Aina tilted her head, watching his reaction with interest. The square bustled around them. The villagers chatting happily, laughing, smoke rising from the salt pits. In the distance, children chased each other between barrels of mountain beast blood.

Her lips curved into a smile that was half humor, half challenge. “Well,” she said softly, “perhaps we’re more resilient than you think.”