I’ve never been terribly good at dreaming. Other people have described vivid scenes playing out like a theater of the mind, but I’ve never really experienced it. When I dream, on the rare occasions that I seem to, I tend to dream about ideas. Not physical places with people and things happening, but concepts. When I think of Lan in a dream, I don’t see them. I remember the feeling of being thrown in the dirt countless times, I feel the surge of triumph at finally doing the same to them(though they surely let me do it). I feel the lectures I’ve been given on magic. These things all combine to form a hazy idea of whatever I dream about that can shape larger events.

  Today I dream and I find myself feeling and seeing the idea of the last few days of my life.

  The raw terror at being caught unawares by a monster that can easily tear through walls, let alone flesh.

  The sense of helplessness at waking up hours later and stumbling into a burning village to find everyone dead at the hands of the worst thing I can imagine.

  Indignation, fury at the creature that caused it all.

  Confusion at that creature being no more a monster than me.

  A sense of duty driving me forward to kill him anyways.

  And just so much running and being afraid to stop.

  The last thought, the last concept and idea starts to suffocate the other ideas, filling my mind with itself and little else. But while I dwell on that dream in particular I feel something warm holding my hand, a familiar sensation, almost thought forgotten. Another hand, maybe hands, wrapped around my own with soft words at the edge of my mind. A prayer, maybe, or an incantation. And from a voice and tone I don’t talk with much anymore. Immediately following it, I feel my mouth get terribly dry.

  Where do I remember it from? When do I remember it from? It must be years in the past. I wrack my brain, trying to remember the specific event. I puzzle over it for a while on the fringe of sleep before it hits me.

  Six or eight years ago, a lifetime. A…friend and I had been doing survival exercises under Lan’s guidance. We were supposed to locate a cache of intelligence within the wilds around the Order’s keep as a sort of final test for our current subject of training. Me playing the role of an order knight and her the field support staff. While traveling with my partner, I remember both of us being scared. We felt like we were being stalked by something as we traveled into the night, but we could never really pin down what it was. The fact it didn’t attack us was even more concerning, as it meant that it wasn’t a dumb beast but probably a smart monster. Those wilds were known for those kinds of creatures and this test had claimed lives in the past because of them.

  I was ready to fight, I remember the adrenaline. We had found the drop location in the deepest hour of night bereft of moons — a cave network leading a little ways underground. Not wanting to split up, and still feeling that presence, we moved in together, huddling close for some semblance of support in the dark. Glowrods did what was needed of them, painting the area in a dull pink haze of Lux essence. Just enough light to accentuate and spread more shadows. Deep shadows that hid anything and everything.

  I sent her ahead to find the drop location and turned once we had found a section of cave wide enough to fight in. Scattering our remaining light sources around the room, I waited. After a few minutes I had begun to worry, but that worry was cut off and replaced when I heard something creeping in the shadows behind me and to my left, trying to sneak past me and deeper into the cave. An act that indicated that this monster knew which of the two of us was the fighter despite our similar gear and armaments. A creature with innate essence-sight, maybe? It didn’t matter.

  I waited a spare moment to feign disinterest, and when the thing started to move again, I sprang at it, daggers leaping to my hands as I did. On turning, I got the full measure of it: a monster common to that area and often used by the order beast masters — an ogre. Tall and bulky, but hunched, and armored like a tortoise. Far too many narrowed, beady eyes with essence pouring from them. It had begun to turn, but I was in its blindspot for now and if I struck right, it would be gaining a few new, permanent, blindspots. After six powerful strides I had closed the gap and felt heat radiating off of it. It began to swing its sweeping claws on instinct, but I was prepared. I slid beneath the clumsy swing, rising back up using the creature's own weight to stand back up straight. I drove one dagger into one of its left eyes and then another and another in rapid plunges. The creature screamed. So loud. A noise I still hear at night sometimes. And as I tried to fall back, my daggers covered in a pink-tinted ichor, I staggered from the screech, losing my footing.

  I saw it bringing a wide swipe down. I felt that moment for so long. It was as if everything had stopped. I was wrongfooted and stumbling backwards, unable to redirect my movement. It was planted and staring at me with one of its vicious claws held aloft. Caught out. A lightly armored fighter's nightmare scenario. An undodgeable attack due to a personal mistake. Overcommitting after a night of strung-out nerves. I was frazzled and I didn’t back off in time.

  Just like in the town with the calamity.

  The swing eventually came in the middle of a desperate roll and the feeling was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Lan and Garrick threw me in the dirt. I laid myself open plenty of times. Cuts, even bad ones, during training. But as this creature raked 4 forearm-length claws across my chest, neatly shredding through my armor and knocking me sailing. My armor blocked enough of the blow before being outright destroyed that I wasn’t in immediate mortal danger, but I felt a coldness spreading in my chest. A terrible cold that demanded that I just lay down to warm up. But I forced my focus to sharpen my mind on May, knowing that if I fell without bringing this creature down, then it would be the end of her.

  That thought lit a fire in me, a fire that would one day burn me. But on that day, I called upon my Sanctus essence for the first time in years in earnest, shouting a defiant invocation, a prayer I had enjoyed as a child, as I did so, “Watcher's Eyes, guide my hands and feet and see my enemy felled.” I felt momentarily invincible as the imbuement settled over my body. My wounds didn’t knit closed, I wasn’t wreathed in shimmering essence armor. Those are things that that essence can purportedly do, but not what it’s always done for me. The power poured into my legs and down my arms to my daggers and filled them with an avenging golden light.

  It had closed the distance far too fast, though, and when I began to move again, it was already attacking. I dove to the side, dropping a dagger as my left arm was gouged to bone and I felt my vital essence fleeing me at a terrifying rate. But I saw an opening left from its overconfident swing. I dove on enhanced legs, under a raised arm, plunging my will-wreathed dagger into what should be its lungs and dragging it forward and up, towards its neck to lay the creature open. My essence obeying my commands loyally for once, my dagger cut through with contemptuous ease and I felt a spray of blood, ichor, and viscera pour onto me as I stumbled, surely having lain a mortal blow to the creature. But as I turned to prepare another attack I was wrenched from the ground as the creature grabbed me up with both of its arms.

  It began to squeeze. I felt pops and cracks nearly immediately and let out an incoherent wail of agony. I could feel my insides shifting as it tried to squeeze the life out of me, ribs moving out of place after cracks were heard. It was indescribable and has been the subject of nightmares since. But as I began to lose consciousness, I saw a glimpse of motion behind the creature while it focused all of its attention on me. “May, please just run…” The bunny-eared black blur jumped onto the back of the beast, finishing an incantation and shaping the spell into the creature. I only heard the final words, “-Overflowing Life” as a surge of green light filled the room and I crumpled from its grasp.

  Reliving the memory was bad, but what came after wasn’t. I would come to later, May holding both of my hands within hers in a menders ward room. She'd spent most of a week tending to me personally, ensuring I was well taken care of despite having sustained fairly significant harm herself in the aftermath of saving my life. I would find out later that she had almost died due to essence overuse in keeping me clinging to this side of the cycle of souls and the Forest of Origins. I vaguely recall her holding my hands that entire time, her incantations of medical care being felt distantly while she did. I wanted to say something after I got better and we started seeing more of one another, but I never could, even after I'd fully recovered. Especially after we grew apart some years later.

  I feel those hands again as consciousness fast approaches. The hazy feeling of induced sleep clearing from my brain as my eyes open to the soft green glow of the medical wing. Looking down, I see my hands held across my chest and the perky ears of a felid beastkyn boy I’m unfamiliar with. I make some sounds that could generously be described as words, but I feel terribly dry — a surefire sign of intensive healing magic being used on me.

  Healing accelerates the body’s natural healing processes but also speeds up how it uses its own resources. You need more food, more water, more sleep in direct proportion to the speed of healing. An injury that could take a month to heal on its own being reduced to a week will see the patient need four times as much water and food in a given day, four times as much sleep.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Distantly, I recall my dream and feel a bit of disappointment on seeing the beastkyn — the wrong beastkyn — as he turns to look at me with a warm smile, his pointed ears twitching. He quickly draws essence from the air and presses an imbuement of cerulean blue into my body. I fight my own instincts to resist and allow it to take hold. Shortly after it does, I feel everything moistening. My eyes, my throat, my skin, and the omnipresent feeling of drinking cool water through my entire body.

  “Heeey, welcome back amongst the, ah… living Nyssa” he drawls, his accent a soft lilt common to the southern continent. “Before you ask… yeah, it’s been about a couple weeks of recovery. The broken arm mended at an average rate, but, uh, the state you showed up in had everyone really worried. You were covered in, uh, bandaged wounds, broken arm, and going through what was probably a panic attack. Not to mention the internal wear and tear.” He reported almost mechanically, clicking his tongue at each bullet point. “You’ve had a good few visitors in the meantime, but, uh, Dame Serafina wanted to talk to you as, uh, as soon as you’re awake. She seemed quite distressed… She was here nearly as much as May if not more.”

  I flinch on hearing her name, remembering the dream and, in particular, the way I’d treated her when I’d just made it back home. “You just sit tight. I'll let Dame Serafina know you’ve recovered. Do you want anything in particular when I come back? I know you’re probably starving.”

  I nod at him, “Honestly, anything. Travel bread works, rations.”

  “Such inventive requests,” he sighs with a huff, “May warned me about that. I’ll see if I can’t find something good for ya.” I begin to protest, but he turns and leaves the room without further delay, clearly not wanting to leave Serafina waiting.

  I wiggle into a sitting position and start to stretch. Twisting around my waist and hearing a couple satisfying pops. Extending, bending, and rotating my arms to work out the soreness of disuse. With a little effort, I concentrate, drawing Ignia into my body to purge what remains of the foreign essence lingering in my muscles and bones from the medical care. While everyone here probably means well, I don’t like the idea of imbuements running unchecked in my system. Not when I wasn’t conscious when they were applied, at least. After a few moments, I feel my will forcing the excess essentia from my body with a hot sensation akin to a fever, leaking from my pores to quickly dissipate into the air.

  Letting out a sigh of relief, I adjust the castle of pillows behind me so I can lean back comfortably and close my eyes. I listen closely to the sounds around me. Hushed conversation about patients, plans after a shift, on the best methods of dealing with a specific ailment. Clicks and clacks of metal tools touching glass phials. The gentle thrum of energy on the air that persists after spellshaping is omnipresent and leaves me feeling relaxed — probably an enchanted dispersal of Purity or Life essence to keep the area sterile. It has an antiseptic smell to it. Altogether, a very calming experience, especially now that I’m not feeling strung out.

  “Knock knock?” I hear the friendly voice of Serafina at the entrance of my little room. I give a quick assent and she pulls the curtain back and pokes her head inside. The angle she comes in at and the curious face she’s making almost makes me giggle. A clear look of relief crosses her face, followed by a very wide smile. “I’m glad to see you’re alright. May I come in?”

  I nod and she steps the rest of the way in wearing the most normal clothes I’ve ever seen one of the Blackthorn clan in. Were it not for her peculiar eyes and intense demeanor, she could have blended in with any commoner in the nearby city. Hair up in a simple ponytail with none of the jewelry associated with her station. It makes me realize in that moment that she’s actually very pretty. “Still a little out of it?” She cocks her head at me with a bemused smile.

  I stammer, “Oh- I ju-… Sorry, seeing you out of uniform threw me off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the Blackthorn clan look so…” I trail off, blushing, realizing where I was taking my sentence and feeling like I was overreaching and poorly explaining.

  “So…what? So normal?” She sits down heavily in a chair after pulling it to the bedside with a boisterous laugh. She leans in, covering her mouth with a hand conspiratorially “Between you and me, most of my kin definitely aren’t anything remotely approaching normal. At least by most people’s standards. But by my family’s standards I’ve always been the odd duck in a flock of chickens.” She gives me a soft smile, “And as to why I look so “normal”, it’s because I was on my way home for the day when Nimael caught me on my way out the door.”

  “Ah, that makes sense. I forget that not everyone lives here in the keep sometimes.” I admit, having lived basically all of my life within its walls rather comfortably until recently.

  There’s a pause with Serafina looking somewhat torn suddenly, “I wanted to apologize to you, Nyssa. That imbuement I gave you when we started talking hid exactly how bad off you were from me. Had I realized I would have taken the short version and gotten you here immediately.” she frowns, “In that, I was a poor leader to you. I offered you my help but failed to realize you needed it then and not just at some eventual point in the future.”

  I’m taken aback but quickly compose myself, “I didn’t say anything to you, that’s not your faul-”

  Serafina holds up a finger, “Nyssa, please. You pile altogether too many things on top of yourself. You take weights from others and never let anyone take them from you. You’re a strong person, but everyone has their breaking point, as you discovered.” Serafina's face turns serious — not mean, but clearly not willing to budge. “I was the one who signed off on you going along with that expedition. I am, quite literally, responsible for what happened there. Alistair thought you might not be ready. I felt differently, so I pushed for it.” A frown crosses her face, looking guilty, “And considering everything that happened, no matter what anyone is saying, you did phenomenally. You delivered vital information about something that is an unknown and at great personal expense and suffering. You faced down terrible things and still got the job done. So, please, Nyssa, let me shoulder this burden for you. I’ve earned the weight and you’ve earned the rest.”

  I watch Serafina’s outburst with wide eyes. Most times I received this kind of firmness, it was from others talking down to me or scolding me for not doing enough, but this feels different. A tide of emotion rises but I fight hard to keep it from surfacing. Despite my best efforts it manages to speak through me in a hitched and very quiet voice, “I don’t really know what to say.” I say, feeling like a kid again, on the day when Garrick saved me from the monster that took my family. Grateful, but scared. I hadn’t known what to say then, either, but I chose the simplest option then and now. “Thanks.” Many more words spin around in my head, but I struggle to look up from my lap to speak them.

  Serafina stands to put a hand on my shoulder and the other on my clasped hands. She’s very warm and her skin is soft, and the feeling makes me think back. “I have to go, sorry for needing to cut this short. I have a meeting with Garrick first thing in the morning regarding what you found. He’s due back late tonight, and unfortunately, we can’t really take any risks with this mysterious Calamity.” She makes an unconcerned and dismissive gesture, “With luck, Garrick can show up, find what remains, and confirm that the man died still whole and we can put a nice neat ribbon on this entire thing and you’ll be credited with stopping a Calamity in extremely unfavorable circumstances. That would get people talking, wouldn’t it?”

  I think about that, “I’ve been wanting to prove myself for a while and while the situation was abnormal, I did handle it overall according to my training even considering how badly I was wounded…” I look up at Serafina’s eyes again, meeting them with a growing conviction. I feel Sanctus essence suffuse my will, coming to my rising fervor like a moth to flame. “If Garrick is leaving early tomorrow, do you think I could go with him? I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered, and could recover the rest of the way on the road.” I offer to her.

  She fixes me with a warm smile, ”The menders say you have a few more days to be fully recovered yet. While your arm is feeling a lot better, the bones are still going to be fairly fragile for a while. And re-breaks are much harder to heal.” She makes a snapping motion with two fingers across her forearm with a grimace. “If it weren’t time critical, I’d ask him to wait a couple days, but we need to be as sure as possible as soon as possible.”

  I visibly deflate, having expected effectively all of those very reasonable reasons. “Alright, that’s nothing I can argue against, really. It’s pretty much objectively right. I’ll take the time and get better.” I pause for a bit, remembering, “Is Lan still around? I owe them an explanation for my behavior.”

  “Lan had to leave yesterday. There were signs from one of the seers that there was high odds of a bad monster attack on a small hamlet on the other edge of Fae territory far to the north. They were chosen for it because their heritage affords them a little more leeway when operating near them than any other Order knight would have.” She rattles off, before continuing, “I’m fairly certain that they won’t have taken it too personally. They're a tough one and they've been around here a long time. They can take a couple hits on the chin and walk it off.”

  I nod, “Yeah, you’re right. They probably were worried more than offended. And once I got here, they were probably relieved.”

  Serafina smiles broadly at me, “You think you’ll be alright here? I could have Nimael bring you books? I know it can be dreadfully boring waiting around in the wards.”

  I grin back, feeling buoyed despite the couple disappointments. I feel my smile widen, even, as I meet Serafina’s gaze. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. But I wouldn’t say no to books.” Looking into her eyes, I think I’m starting to see more depth in their strange appearance. They’re just as emotive as anyone elses, I think I just never looked closely enough before. Little glints and glimmers of purple essence build and burst throughout her eyes as she reacts. It's very pretty and somewhat mesmerizing.

  Serafina says a couple final words and then leaves the room. I watch her go, my eyes drawn to her like a magnet as she does “Yeah, I think I’m beginning to see why everyone likes her.” I shake my head and look away once she’s out of sight, trying to clear a flustered energy from my head, and settle back into the bed to relax and wait for Nimael to return.

  For the first time in a long time, I feel a warmth in my breast and a simple smile on my lips that truly doesn’t want to leave.