Sam sighed heavily.
Words were not going to work.
The five hunters still stood at the edge of the stone circle, staring at her as if she had just crawled out of the sky and personally insulted their ancestors. Which, to be fair, she kind of had. They had seen the stones wake, the floor turn into a map of galaxies, and then watched her yell at the heavens like a furious little prophet in a bunny suit.
None of them had understood a word.
That was the problem.
Sam did not want worshippers. She did not want followers. She did not want five starving seal-murdering cavemen and their dogs hanging around her island while she tried to figure out how to survive, grow up, and maybe turn the place into something livable with magic rocks.
Honestly, at this point, she would rather slide back down to the shore, apologize to Big Guy, and eat whatever horrifying dinner the seals decided to vomit up for her.
But first, she had to make these people understand one thing.
She was not some divine spirit, or a goddess. She was just Sam.
A very unfortunate baby girl with a little bit of healing magic, one warm rock in her mitten, and far too many problems.
With another annoyed breath, Sam planted both mittened hands on the edge of her hood and tugged.
The thick white bunny hood slipped back from her head, dragging the long floppy ears with it. Cold air touched her hair at once, though Neo's warmth in her right mitten kept the bite of it from truly reaching her. Short, messy strands of platinum-blond hair spilled free, pale enough to look silver beneath the Arctic light. Some of it was flattened from the hood. Some of it stuck up wildly because, obviously, she had not had time for hair care while surviving alone on a frozen island.
Her small face was fully exposed now.
Round cheeks. Tiny nose. Pale skin. Wide violet eyes narrowed into the angriest pout a baby face could manage.
Sam put both hands on her hips.
"See?" she snapped. "Nothing special. Now stop staring and leave, okay? No offense, but you are not the people I was looking for, and I don't like you."
The hunters stared harder.
Sam's pout deepened.
She pointed at herself with one mitten. "I'm Sam. Okay? Sam. Baby girl. Unfortunately. Very annoying situation for everyone involved, especially me."
Blank faces answered her.
Of course.
Sam patted her chest slowly, as if speaking to idiots might somehow make translation unnecessary.
"Sam," she said. Then she pointed at the island beneath them. "My island." Then she pointed away. "You leave. I have nothing for you."
The men looked at one another. One whispered something under his breath.
Then the youngest-looking hunter moved.
He was shorter than the others and less weathered, though that did not mean soft. His face had fewer lines, but hunger and cold had still carved shadows beneath his cheekbones. Dark eyes watched her from beneath his fur hood, serious and wary. He lowered his spear slowly and stepped closer as if approaching a dangerous animal.
Sam watched him come, then allowed herself a tiny smirk.
Good.
Maybe one of them finally understood that she was not going to burn them alive or curse their bloodline or whatever they thought tiny sky babies did.
The young hunter crouched in front of her, and for a moment, they simply stared at each other.
Then he reached out and touched her head.
Sam's eyes narrowed.
Before she could move, his fingers caught one pale strand of her hair and tugged.
Pain sparked across her scalp.
Sam flinched, then slapped at his hand on pure instinct. Her mittened paw struck his fingers with a soft little pat.
The hunter yelped.
He jerked back as if she had burned him, lost his balance, and dropped onto his backside on the cold stone.
The other hunters reacted instantly. Spears came up. The dogs barked, excited by the sudden movement.
Sam's temper snapped.
She pointed at the man on the ground and roared in her squeaky baby voice, "No touching! Bad caveman! Bad!"
The dogs barked louder, tails whipping through the snow.
Sam spun on them next. "And you! Shut up!"
The largest dog barked once, as if answering.
Sam glared at it, but to her annoyance nobody was listening.
Not the dogs, not the hunters or the universe. Apparently, she had been dropped into the past with magic powers, a baby body, and absolutely no ability to have any authority.
She threw her mittened hands up.
"Ah, forget it. I'm leaving."
With that, she marched past the young hunter and toward the gap between the others. The men immediately made way for her. So did the dogs. For one glorious second, Sam thought that maybe being a terrifying sky baby had at least one practical advantage.
Fine.
She would slide back to the beach, return to the seals, and pretend this entire encounter had never happened.
Then the young hunter got up behind her.
Before Sam realized what he was doing, his hand caught the loose fabric at the back of her bunny suit.
The next moment, her feet left the ground.
Sam dangled in the air by her collar like a furious little bunny.
For one stunned second, she could only stare.
Then she exploded.
"Hey! You big bully! Put me down!"
She kicked. She punched the air. She twisted and grabbed at his wrist, but her tiny mittened hands did absolutely nothing. The hunter held her at arm's length, blinking at her furious little struggle.
Then, slowly, his fear faded.
His mouth opened.
He laughed.
The sound broke the tension like cracked ice.
The other hunters stared for half a breath longer, then one of them barked something in their language. Another answered. Then they began laughing too, nervous at first, then louder, relief spilling through them as if they had just discovered the terrifying spirit from the sky was, in fact, very small and harmless.
The young hunter lifted her a little higher and gave a short triumphant cheer, as if he had captured some legendary beast.
Sam kicked harder.
"I am not prey! I am not a trophy! Put me down, you fur-wearing idiot!"
The dogs barked around them, delighted.
The hunters laughed and spoke over one another, completely ignoring her protests.
Sam dangled there in the Arctic wind, cheeks puffed with rage, Neo pulsing warmly in her right mitten.
And for the second time that day, she realized something terrible.
They were definitely not leaving.
Then the largest hunter turned his back.
At first, Sam did not understand why that mattered. Then two of the others moved in around him, tugging at the rough hide pack strapped across his shoulders. It was a primitive thing made from leather, wood, cord, and bone, more like a tall sack tied to a frame than any backpack she knew.
Sam went still.
"No," she said.
The hunters opened it.
"No, no, no."
One of them rummaged inside, shifting something heavy and wet-sounding deeper into the pack. Then the young hunter holding her by the back of her bunny suit walked toward it.
Sam's eyes widened.
"Don't you dare."
He stuffed her into the bag, and the world became leather, shadow, and stink.
Sam kicked immediately, twisting with all the fury her tiny body could manage. Her feet struck the inside of the pack. Her mittened hands punched at the rough hide. She wriggled like a furious white rabbit thrown into a sack, snarling curses that came out in a high, squeaky voice and meant absolutely nothing to the men outside.
"Let me out! Hey! I said let me out!"
Then suddenly a hunter gave the pack a sharp slap. Not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to make the whole thing jolt around her.
Sam froze.
Through the opening above, she saw several stern faces looking down at her. The message was obvious even without words.
Stop moving.
Sam glared up at them.
Then the flap closed, the cord tightened and darkness swallowed her.
For a moment, she could only sit there, breathing too fast in the cramped space. The air was warm from bodies and blood and old hide, but it smelled awful. Meat. Fat. salt. cold iron. Something raw and dead pressed against her side.
Sam's mittened hand shifted and her fingers touched something slick.
Then she went completely still as she understood what she was sitting upon, it was seal meat. The remains of the seal they had killed earlier.
Her stomach twisted so hard she almost gagged.
"Oh God…"
She was sitting on pieces of her dead friend.The smell became worse now that she knew what it was.
Sam could not escape the smell, she could only pull her hands close to her chest, trying to make herself smaller than she already was.
Then another thought crawled in.
If they had packed her into the same bag as meat, what did that make her?
Her breath caught.
"…are they going to eat me too?"
The words sounded tiny in the darkness.
No answer came.
The pack jolted upward as the hunter lifted it back onto his shoulders. Sam tumbled sideways with a startled squeak, landing against the cold meat and rough hide. Outside, muffled voices spoke over one another. Dogs barked. Snow crunched.
Then they started moving and her world bounced.
Sam wanted to see, so she shoved both mittens against the tied flap, struggling to push it open. It would not give fully, but one narrow slit appeared where the hide overlapped. Pale light slipped through.
She pressed her face close and looked out. In the distance she could see the stone circle and they were moving away from it.
The twelve dark monoliths stood behind them in the snow, silent and useless, shrinking with each step as the hunters descended the slope. Sam stared through the slit, her heart pounding with a helplessness so deep it almost made her sick.
She was in a bag, on a stranger's back. Surrounded by hunters who could not understand her. Leaving the only place in the world that might have held answers.
"Hey," she called, forcing her voice not to shake. "Can you just let me go? Please? I'm not food. I'm not useful. I'm mostly problems."
The hunters kept walking.
Of course they did.
Sam swallowed and twisted toward the dogs, who padded behind the group with bright eyes and wagging tails.
"You guys understand me, right?" she whispered desperately. "Come on. Help me out here."
One dog noticed her face peeking through the slit and it's ears perked.
Sam's hope rose.
Then the dog barked once happily and continued trotting forward casually. The other dogs followed, delighted by whatever game they thought this was.
Sam slumped back into the darkness.
"Traitors."
The hunters continued down the slope, leaving the ancient circle behind.
For a while, Sam tried to think. She tried to plan. Escape. Fighting. Magic. Negotiation. Anything.
But every idea died quickly.
She could not overpower them. She could barely move inside the pack. Neo was warm in her right mitten, but warmth was not a weapon. Her light could heal, maybe comfort, maybe strengthen stones, but it could not cut rope or knock five armed men unconscious. And even if she somehow got free, then what? Run across the Arctic in baby legs while starving hunters and dogs chased her?
No.
She was trapped, left completely at their mercy. And that realization settled over her heavier than the quest for the stars she was supposedly upon.
By the time they reached the coast, Sam had gone quiet.
Through the slit, she saw the island flatten into white shoreline. Beyond it stretched the ice sheet, pale and endless under the gray sky. The hunters did not stop.
They walked out onto the ice.
Sam's chest tightened as she realised that they were leaving the Island.
"Wait…"
She shoved her face against the narrow gap, searching the coast as the hunters carried her farther out across the ice. At first, there was only snow, stone, and broken white sheets stretching beneath the gray sky. Then something moved near the strip of open water.
Seals.
They had returned to the warm patch.
Several of them clustered near the shore, making low, uneasy sounds that drifted faintly over the ice. Among them was Big Guy, larger than the rest, his head and shoulders rising from the dark water as his black eyes fixed on the departing hunters, and then on her with recognition.
Sam's throat tightened.
"Big Guy…"
The old seal gave a deep, mournful call that carried across the frozen distance.
Sam forced one mitten through the slit as far as it would go, reaching toward him even though he was already too far away.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
The hunters kept walking.
The island slipped farther behind them with every step. The seals grew smaller. Big Guy's dark head remained visible for a long time, watching from the water as if he understood more than any animal should.
Sam watched it all fade through the narrow opening, and the pain of it settled deep. She was not only leaving the seals behind. She was leaving the strange little sanctuary that had kept her alive, the shore where Duo waited, the cave, the stone circle, and the only fragile hope she had of finding answers. Part of her still believed that if she could understand the circle, if she could learn how it had brought her here, then maybe it could send her back. Back home. Back to her old body. Back to a life that, miserable as it had been, at least made sense.
But now the island was shrinking behind her, and with it went that hope.
Her eyes burned. The coast blurred. Tears gathered in her wide violet eyes until the slit became nothing but a trembling line of white and gray.
Then, through the despair, she remembered Duo.
Her second Lightstone was still hidden in the ruined shelter, tucked beneath sticks and driftwood in the warm hollow by the shore. It was small, weak, and young, but it was there. Still glowing. Still holding back the cold.
Sam pressed her teary eyes shut.
If she was being kidnapped, taken away, or carried off to become the next meal for a group of starving cavemen, then she could at least leave something behind. Something for the seals. For the moss. For the tiny impossible patch of life she had made on that frozen coast.
She breathed in slowly and turned her focus inward.
There was her heart of flesh, beating fast with fear. Around it pulsed the second heartbeat, the white core wrapped around her life like a small hidden sun. From it stretched two threads of light. One was close and warm, curled around Neo in her right mitten. The other was distant and faint, thin as spider silk across the cold.
Duo.
Sam reached for that far thread with her mind.
It trembled.
Then it answered.
Relief struck her so sharply she almost sobbed.
"There you are…"
Carefully, she pushed.
A small current of white light flowed from her chest into the distant thread. It raced away from her, crossing the ice and snow faster than any footstep, running back toward the shoreline she could no longer properly see. The connection felt strange at that distance, thinner than touch and weaker than holding the stone in her hands, but it worked.
Far behind her, Duo received the light.
Sam felt the tiny core brighten.
Only a little, but enough.
Its warmth deepened. Its small presence expanded, settling more firmly into the stones and driftwood around it. The sanctuary would last longer now. Maybe the moss would keep spreading. Maybe the seals would stay warm. Maybe Big Guy and the others would have somewhere safe to return to after she was gone.
A weak smile touched Sam's face in the darkness.
"It's working…"
Then the cost reached her.
Her limbs grew heavy. Her thoughts softened at the edges. Hunger and exhaustion opened beneath her like a pit. She had already used too much today: the stone circle, Neo, the anger, the fear, all of it pulling from a body that was still tiny, fragile, and running on almost nothing.
But she pushed a little more, just a little for Duo, the seals, and the island she had barely begun to call hers.
The thread brightened once, then steadied as Sam let it go.
The darkness inside the pack seemed to soften around her. The bouncing rhythm of the hunter's steps became distant, almost like waves rocking her in place. The smell of hide, blood, and seal meat still surrounded her, awful and inescapable, but even that began to fade beneath the pull of sleep.
She curled around Neo as much as the cramped space allowed.
Outside, the hunters crossed the ice, carrying her farther from the island, farther from the seals, farther from the stone circle, and farther from the only answers she had found.
Sam tried to keep her eyes open.
She failed.
Her last thought before sleep took her was small, frightened, and stubborn.
Please don't let them eat me.
Then the world slipped away.