Oh, she hoped things would have been different. That her mother, that she would never have let it get this far. But then Aurora remembered the multitude of reasons why she left in the first place—including all those papers she found on her mother’s desk, fines and expulsions over minor infractions, the piles and piles of denied applications for citizenship. It all seemed so very cold and cruel, and nothing like what she had naively thought her kingdom to be.

But she had a chance to make a difference now, even if it was only in a small way.

Aurora broke away from Kiran to approach a group of women who were watching a few small children play in the dirt. The little ones were resourceful; they had made toys from branches and rocks, knotting them together with twine to create figurines, and they were using them to fight, creating the sounds of what sounded like thunder and wind with their chapped mouths.

Aurora stepped closer to the women and raised a hand in greeting. “Hello. May I sit with you?”

The women looked at her, silent for a long moment, but eventually one of them nodded, and Aurora took a spot on a medium-sized rock that seemed to have been hauled to this spot for just such a purpose.

“We only just arrived,” Aurora told them. At this, their eyes left her to gaze above her head, to where she guessed Kiran had taken up sentry. “We came very far. We have not heard much news of what has happened here. Have you all been here long?”

Aurora was unsure if she was going to get an answer, but then one of the children distracted her with an incredibly dramatic roar. He threw himself back in the dirt with his toy, flailing and yelling in as deep a tone as he could manage. The girl across from him held her hands up high in victory, declaring, “I have defeated the Stormlord!”

One of the other women jumped up quickly, taking the little girl by the arm and shushing her firmly. The atmosphere grew tense, as though the mere mention of his name might bring a tempest down upon them.

The children, however, were oblivious. As soon as the woman returned to her seat, they carried on playing, though this time in quieter tones. One or two would pretend to be storms while the others fought them off with the help of their homemade toys.

Aurora smiled, knowing exactly how it felt to play such a game. When she was little, her older brother used to pretend to be a twister, spinning around her ominously, sometimes even catching her up in his arms and whirling her around as fast as he could. Eventually though, he would always let her win.