The night before:

  Kragon slept peacefully in his hideout. His mind drifted to when he first met JaKaelath.

  A young but already large scavenger child with black hair arrives at the camp with his parents.

  After a few days, he sees a young girl playing with a doll. This is the one the others told him about.

  "Hello, why are you like that?". "Like what?" JaKaelath says. "So ...different, the other kids said there is something different about you. You don't seem like a Ponu," he continues.

  "Who are you? Leave me alone," JaKaelath shouts.

  "I'm sorry, my name is Kragon, my family just moved to this camp, ours was wiped out by a Dowath attack. I was named after a great warrior from the 2nd Ponu-scavenger war."

  "Are you a great warrior?" JaKaelath asks, getting annoyed by this conversation.

  "No, I was named after one. They didn't tell me your name."

  "JaKaelath". With that, Kragon folds over, laughing with his eyes closed.

  "Stop that!" JaKaelath says. "They named you the found one!" he cannot stop laughing.

  "I said stop!" JaKaelath, now fuming, says.

  "They actually call you the found one," he opens his eyes just in time to see a small fist connect, knocking him unconscious.

  The jolt snaps him awake in time to see her approach.

  Kragon was startled and almost didn't recognize her. He had instinctively reached for a weapon at the pink-clad stranger, but then he recognized the face of the woman he loved. The long, light brown hair that he was accustomed to was gone. Now her hair was short, almost boyish.

  When she told him the news of the test, Kragon didn't appear as shocked as she expected.

  He listened, and when she was finished, he took her hand.

  "I know," he said softly.

  "You knew?" she whispered back in disbelief.

  "I didn't know for sure, but I suspected," he confessed. It all makes sense. Your uncanney quickness, your looks, our trouble conceiving. I can't tell you when I first accepted that, but I've felt it for a long time. You're one of them..."

  JaKaelath looks at him, thinking this can't be the final betrayal.

  "But you're also one of us," he continued, turning his head down, "although...I don't think a lot of people back at the camp will feel that way".

  “What do I do?” she asked, her chest heaving in panicked breaths.

  He just shrugged, his eyes firmly on her. “We go home.”

  The walk home went by much quicker than JaKaelath would have wanted it to.

  When they made it back to their camp, they found that Kallian was waiting for them. He had gotten word of their approach and couldn't wait to hear any news that might help him stomp out the Ponu threat once and for all. Still, as much as he was happy to finally hear the news, his eyes held a disdain for her, maybe a disappointment that she was not killed in the mission. He could never say it, but it was there if you looked close enough.

  “So how did it feel to… pretend to be a Ponu?” Kallian asked, a cruel smirk on his face. “Was it easy for you?”

  Kragon tensed, wanting to step in to defend her, but he knew challenging Kallian would only bring disaster. The moment passed, and Kallian directed them to follow him into his tent to debrief. He seemed happy with something he said he wanted to show them.

  JaKaelath had already made up her mind; she would not tell him anything that could be used to hurt these women she now knew were her people. They were not the monsters she had been taught they were. She didn't fully understand them, but she knew they were people with lives, hopes and differences of personality trying to live in peace.

  Inside Kallian's tent, on a small, salvaged table, a tiny hologram of a Ponu man rotated in the air.

  It was a perfect miniature, down to the fit of the pink Ponu-Suit.

  "What do you think?" he said, "Dukota found this in that nearby Geeryo vault and gave it to me. You know these are programmable, right?"

  The programmed reaction of the hologram Ponu man was fear. Whenever he rotated to face Kallian, his entire body shuddered with fear.

  This is what Kallian liked: to see his enemies tremble, to be totally helpless in his power, to know their place. He grinned as he looked down at it, and the rotation stopped facing towards Kragon and JaKaelath.

  The message was not lost on JaKaelath, who approached his table, wearing the same Pink Ponu-suit as the poor hologram man who was standing scared of the scavenger.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  She delivered her report, a carefully constructed set of half-truths and lies. She spoke of the cave's beauty, but never its defenses or, most importantly, that almost all the Dowath were hibernating. She spoke of the Ponu's strange ways, but never their strength. Kallian, sensing her lies, scoffed. “Is that all? What did you do, spend all that time, eating marshmallows around a campfire with your sisters?”

  “That’s enough,” Kragon said, stepping forward and giving a warning. He knew the comment was over the line, even for Kallian. JaKaelath placed a hand on Kragon's arm, pleading with him not to go further with it, that it was okay. To risk Kallian's wraith was to, at best, be outcast and, at worst, be killed. He was not the direct local leader of their camp; that would be Janeda, the older, elderly lady scavenger who had a soft spot for JaKaelath, but Kallian was the overall leader of all the Red Band scavenger camps.

  "You sent saboteurs to the cave while I was there?" Kaela questions. "That was only a distraction; the charges on the devices were not set," he says with a smirk. "They were too small to truly be effective anyway. While the Ponu were busy chasing off our saboteurs, we wanted to see what they would do, how many reacted and how fast they reacted. Besides, we couldn't take a chance that you were having such a good time with your...sisters, that you forgot to get any useful intel. Turns out we were at least partially right. "

  They left the tent, glad to be dismissed by Kallian. Once they got back to the tent they shared together, she told him not to do that again; he would be risking both their lives by challenging Kallian.

  Then she gave him a long kiss; her mind was back at peace enough after the cave revelation to do something she enjoyed like kissing her boyfriend.

  Kragon held out a bag to her. “I have your clothes in here.”

  JaKaelath looked back at Kallian’s tent. She shook her head. “No,” she said, “Maybe a little later. I want to keep this on a little longer.”

  She took a moment to think about those she left behind. She thought of Drookan and their emerging friendship. She thought of her "twin" Francesca. There was so much more there to learn, to experience. She hoped Drookan, especially, could understand her departure. He seemed to know more about her situation than he let on. She felt guilt over her developing feelings for Drookan, although it was obvious something was forming between the two; nothing actually happened.

  She hoped Francesca would be ok. JaKaelath knew she looked like Francesca's sister Charlotte, who, for all she knew, could be dead. That's why Francesca had bonded so quickly with her. She worried about what effect her quick, sudden departure would have on Francesca.

  She knew her time in the cave city had to end eventually. Maybe it was better, she thought, to try not to think too much about it, as a part of her was saddened by the departure.

  That night, JaKaelath sat with Kragon and her friends around the campfire in the scavenger camp. This was home, and she was back. Kallian would be leaving in the morning, going back to his home base camp. It couldn't come a day too soon for JaKaelath.

  Tomorrow, they would also start packing to move the camp 5 miles away because of the Ponu edict. But tonight would just be about having a good time.

  Her friends JaLena and the couple JaMaya and Joric had lots of questions for her, but maybe the most obvious was why she was still wearing the "Ponu-suit" under her scavenger jacket and pants.

  Extra warmth, she would say. The suit has a body temperature control mechanism.

  It gave her a strange mix of comfort and vulnerability in the presence of her people. She told them a little of the cave city, glossing over the details, focusing on the more harmless things. She described the salon, the farms, the movies, and the vacation spot pond.

  They listened with a mix of fascination and fear.

  Then, Kragon prodded her gently. “Tell them what you told me earlier,” he said, his eyes excitedly encouraging her; he could hardly wait to see their reaction.

  JaKaelath hesitated, her eyes darting nervously between the faces of her friends.

  "I... I met someone in the cave," she said in a soft, low voice. “Nothing will ever compare to being with my love, Kragon,” she added, giving him a playful punch on the arm, attempting to deflect the rising tension. “But being with around this person… it felt so… felt so… like we…”

  JaLena leaned forward, her brow furrowed. “Like you belonged together?” she finished for her, the question hanging in the air. Joric looked uncomfortable.

  A heavy silence fell over the group. The crackling fire was the only sound. A shared, uncomfortable realization passed between them. JaKaelath’s face lowered, but she nodded, the truth finally out. “Yes,” she said, barely higher than a whisper. “Yes, almost like it felt we belonged.”

  JaLena uttered, "The things you have to do as a spy, I could never." She looked back at the others for agreement.

  A nervous, uncomfortable laughter rang out, breaking the tension, but it couldn't fill the void. JaKaelath rose quickly. “I’m going to our tent,” she said, turning away from their awkward gazes. Kragon, without a word, followed her, wrapping his arm around her waist as they walked.

  From the flap of his open tent, Kallian watched the gathering in the distance. He saw the shift in their body language, the abrupt end to their easy laughter. He remembered JaKaelath’s father, a man he had respected, then grew to despise, and the fight they had when he dared say what the child really was. "A damn Ponu that should have been killed," he muttered under his breath. He turned away just as his eyes caught JaKaelath’s as she led Kragon to her tent. "Another day," he thought. He would wait.