Sornid opened his eyes to a familiar sight. Something he hadn’t seen for a year or two, maybe three by now. His own bedroom in the capital. Must’ve been a dream. It feels like something’s holding him down as he gets up, and gets dressed for the day.

  Why does it feel like he’s forgetting something? He doesn’t know, and if he forgot it, it probably wasn’t too important. Flawless reasoning, perfect to ignore the peasants down in the actual city with.

  Maybe he could visit his parents, he last did that months ago. The sun shining through the hallways filling them with a flawless golden light, only befitting of nobility such as him. He continues moving towards the exit.

  He knew how sentimental this was of him, but they won’t be too surprised. He knows how much they love him, and the exact opposite is true. The sky is so bright outside, it feels like the first time he’s been outside in weeks.

  The light continues filtering onto the ground, through the trees of the streets. The buildings surround him, with a temple in the distance. He looks at it, with the same twinge of forgetfulness.

  “How sentimental of me.” Sornid closes his eyes, as he goes back to wander towards his parents house. He continues on. He presses on. Something in his heart sinks as he gets closer to his childhood home on the outside of town.

  Why did his heart sink? It’s a nice home, somewhere he grew up in. But something seems off in a few directions, the tree he used his first carve spell on doesn’t have the text he personally carved in.

  Another tree, one he almost killed with using water spells, is standing healthily. Why are most of these changes he made to the environment gone? But that doesn’t matter, his feet moving are faster. And faster.

  The golden glow fades quickly, the sky no longer as perfect. There’s a hint of nighttime. And there’s a nice warm glow of orange flame. Must be his father with a torch looking for him. He’s been out for some time after all, with no writing.

  But every single illusion he tries to write in his own mind, is thrown into the same fire his house is engulfed in. It consumes everything, and he rushes in without second thought. He throws aside his grimoire before rushing in.

  He sees only one singular sight, two charred bodies in the dining room, still burning. They don’t have the energy to run, nor the energy to move. It’s still burning. He rushes over to them, narrowly dodging the falling debris.

  The debris is scorching, the fire hardly compares to it. The childhood home, with pictures of his family, all burning to ashes in the same instant. The fire is all consuming. He doesn’t care though, he has to save his mother, his father.

  He has to save them. He has to. He can’t fail, he’s the royal mage, the strongest person around when it comes to abilities. But he has nothing to stop this fire. He has nothing to save his parents. They look at him from their rotting bodies. They’re not sad, they’re relieved, that they got to see their son before they die.

  He almost collapses before he gets even the first one out, but he thankfully avoids narrow death. But the house itself does collapse, burying the second charred body. He hears a familiar voice, covered in layers of familiarity buried under raspiness.

  “I… Will always love you… son…” The last words, being a confession of no loss of love between the last visit and now simply breaks him. He collapses, begging, pleading for someone, anyone to save them.

  “Please… Please… Anyone…” His pleads into the darkness surrounding the glow of orange in front of him go unheard. The world is uncaring, but clearly it didn’t go as unheard as he thought.

  The pleads are now to an audience, all laughing at him. He’s on his knees in the middle of the stone centre of the capital, begging to them.

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  “Ha! How the mighty Sornid has fallen!” One of the hecklers laugh out as a rotten tomato stains his neatly preened white suit. Except it’s charred already, it’s niceness was already torn away from him.

  The scene shifts again, to be on a stage with a cruel host, a man in a red suit and tie.

  “And here we have the foolish Sornid!”

  While he was still slightly begging, tears burning his face and eyes, the audience laughed. The faces in the dark, only being visible with the absolute clarity on their teeth. Their annoying smiles. Their useless, pointless smiles.

  Maybe he could just burn it all down, but the scene shifts again as soon as the grimoire is pulled out. To his very childhood home, seeing a very familiar scene as soon as he launches the fire bolt. The singular spark hits the dry walls, the fire immediately sparking and spreading to uncontrollable levels.

  His movements are impossibly slow as he tries to warn his parents to run, and get out, but before he even can. His head begins to hurt, the world spins around him, as he wakes with a start. The world is still spinning, and the area around his eyes burns.

  He looked around, and lifted his hand to his face, he was crying. He can feel the dry tears. He can’t let them see him this way, he’s meant to be strong, the head of the team.

  “Are you okay?” A voice cuts through the air, one that was too feminine to be Bariton, too light to be Judine, it was Clara, looking down upon him.

  But before he could answer, a sharp pang of pain, similar to someone driving a nail through his head and into his brain, rang out along with his yelp in pain. His clutching of his head does not cease until he feels a light fall of a cloak on his shoulders.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Clara’s voice is soothing, annoyingly so. The patience is grating against him.

  “Can’t you leave me alone!” Sornid’s voice is loud. Louder than he wanted it to be. It was shouting, and before he clasps his mouth shut, Clara continues.

  “And that’ll be a no,” Clara pushes Sornid back down into the field, “You are a patient.”

  The sky is still filled with the same golden light as with the start of Sornid’s dream. Of course, this has to be a dream too. A foolish one. One Sornid has no control over, and everyone else has control over.

  He’s just the plaything in this dream, someone being treated with the most genuine respect, not spawned from fear, but also being the most disrespected he’s ever been since he became the Royal Mage.

  Which is odd. The dream keeps flip flopping, and Clara’s face is unclear. The dream switches from nightmare to dream every few minutes, and now that it’s stable, it’s Clara that’s with him of all people.

  What kind of dream is this though? It’s pointless for him to think too hard on it, after all, wouldn’t it be his mother or father comforting him? But it’s still clearly a dream, the real world isn’t so beautiful, the way the sun shines through the leaves, the way the sky blankets in clouds.

  But that’s when Clara’s words become apparent, “Did you hit your head or something?”

  “What? No.” Sornid sat back up with the exact same light push down. He’s on a cot. The same one that he used to sleep on at the start of the campaign. “This dream is getting a bit too realistic-”

  “Dream?” Clara interrupts coldly. Her hand is still gently keeping Sornid down, while her usage of [Mage Hand] bandages his head.

  It’s too tight.

  “Yeah? Isn’t that what this is?”

  “Ha! As if. I found you collapsed on the ground walking around the forest here.” Clara laughs at him, but not in the same way as the others did. It was one that had the same tone of sadness he felt. One that showed the same sympathy she always shows.

  He laughs along, but it’s not one of the same emotions. His is to hide his own. To bury them, deep within himself. Clara tightens his bandages enough to force him to stop in turn to wince in pain.

  “What’s the point in hiding something from me of all people?” Clara questions, keeping her eyes not on him, but the bandaging. Sornid looks down to see the blood covering him as she continues, “I’m your doctor idiot. I need to know how you are to actually treat you.”

  Another painful tightening of the bandages. Then the pain of the injuries starts rising sharply. He groans slightly as he tenses everything, the warmth of the sun on his face covered in a blanket of stinging.