i have loved the ✯s too fondly to be fearful of the night;

You come to at a table, in the cozy little house amidst the cornfields that you've always known. Though you have never met them among the living, the faces around you are familiar, their names - Leandro, Minerva, Gero - rising to the tip of your tongue; and under the warmth of an autumn sun, the frozen arena seems an eternity away, the chill but a distant memory.

"Welcome home." The boy who'd introduced himself as Manolo laughs, tossing you a deck of cards. "We've heard a few things about you up here, kid. Care for a round?"

You've heard the stories about them, too, stories of heroes and martyrs told, even in secrecy, so that you could never forget. And you understand now, the decisions, the sacrifices, the pride -

Yet there's still something missing. Benat pours you a glass of kalimotxo, and Manolo begins dealing the cards, but instead you stand up from the table, tía Patria nodding understandingly at you as you step outside. You will make your way back before long, you're sure; for now, you must follow the path that lies ahead of you, the strange intuition that guides you through the fields till the house has disappeared beyond the horizon and only unfamiliar land surrounds you.

You walk until the leaves part into a clearing; as you enter it you see their faces emerging from between the stalks - a boy you'd fought, his flesh no longer rotting, his smile genuine and without malice. A boy you've never seen before, shifting a small square of metal between his fingers. And in between the two of them -

"Gabe!"

- Gilly races towards you and tumbles into your arms, her hands flapping with excitement, and you finally realize the instinct that drew you to this clearing, the feeling that urged you onward through the maze of corn.

"I told you!" she shouts to the older boy before turning to you again. "I said to them, you had to be here somewhere, 'cause we had so many more adventures to go on together - how did you discover where I was?"

Faith, you think, and love -

"I suppose I'm just meant to find you," you grin -

"in every lifetime."