I kind of hate dreams. I always have. Not the concept of dreaming, as in “wishing for things”, but the literal process of your brain creating nonsense while you’re asleep. I never experienced them very often to begin with, since it was something the fae largely only did for the novelty of it rather than a biological need. On the rare occasions I have slept, my dreams are nonsensical to the point of uselessness.

  People always talk about how “it came to them in a dream”, but I’ve never once believed it to be a real idea, instead just someone rationalizing a thought they had at some point but wanting to sound cool and mysterious about it. Mind you, I appreciate the idea of feeling cool and mysterious, those are some of my favorite things, but at least make up something better than “My brain thought of it while it was doing the mental equivalent of running memories through a blender and seeing what comes out”.

  Currently, I’m dreaming about a war. A really big war on an impossible scale. And it is utter nonsense. No narrative consistency from one moment to the next. No tropes to follow. Things just happen all willy-nilly whenever they feel like it. At the end of the dream, as I begin to wake, the person who, I assume, is the main character wins a fight against like 11 people at once. Ridiculous.

  Dreams are the opposite of storytelling, and for that, I strongly dislike them. Maybe hate is too strong: hate is best reserved for a lifelong foe—someone absolutely reprehensible. Maybe monsters, too. It’s probably alright to hate something that only wants you dead, and for no real personal gain apart from the satisfaction of the act. I think you can probably also hate some tasks, maybe a particular kind of weather isn’t unreasonable either.

  While my musings continue and the list of allowable things to hate grows, I, blessedly, feel consciousness returning to me. Not a fan of this sleeping thing either, to be clear, but it’s at least an actual necessity now.

  I distantly hear the fringes of a conversation. “Oh? I seriously don’t mind waiting. We can take our time.” Olly’s voice, taunting me once again with suggestive ideas between him and Ayre.

  I awake! Eyes snapping open and a probably adorable yawn coming to my lips as I stretch. For a moment, as I rub the sleep from my eyes, I realize I’m sitting on something warm. Casting my drowsy eyes around, I recognize I’m sitting, lying more accurately, in Olly’s hand. That’s pretty nice of him, keeping me warm like Ayre normally would. Blinking the last of the sleep away, I look up at Olly, who's seemed to pause his conversation to look back at me, and I find myself looking at his eyes for a few moments.

  Steel blue, with…maybe little slivers of quicksilver running through them? It’s hard to say without inspecting them more closely. I decide to inspect them in the future. I’m somewhat disappointed that they aren’t purple like his arm or different colors — if he had the eyes of a hero then there would really be no questions about his destiny — or at least something more interesting than “almost gray but not quite”. As I stare at his eyes for probably a little too long to explain away easily, I hear Ayre chime in, “Welcome back to the land of the living, Lilly.”

  The words break me out of my stupor and remind me of why I was napping. I leap up out of the rather rude boy's hand and flutter to a comfortable height. Initially, I move towards Ayre but have to stop because she is positively radiating heat as she smiles at me with all of the intensity of a cloudless sunny summer day. It’s a more “real” smile than I’ve seen on her in a long time, and it almost makes me forget about Olly’s insensitive comment. Almost.

  “Ayre, can you believe that Olly called me fat?” He opens his mouth, clearly to make some excuse, but I realize the implications of Ayre being quite that hot. “Wait! Did you use your breath? You must have! How else could you be this hot?!” I am positively bursting with excitement, Olly’s transgressions are far less important than Ayre being happy and able to set things aflame.

  When she responds, I swear I see little licks of fire and ash issue forth with her words. “Almost like a fae attuned to fire…” I think inwardly before casting aside the idea to focus on how cool that is.

  “Now that you’re up, I can tell the story.” Ayre explains how things played out: visiting the shrine, having a bit of a mental breakdown (These things are sometimes necessary for character growth, so I try not to focus on it over-much), and then feeling the presence of her parents again and her Breath, or some semblance of it at least, returning to her—though maybe coming for the first time is more accurate.

  I bounce up and down, giddy to see Ayre so happy, and Olly is sitting back, just looking through Ayre. He has a way of doing it that feels uniquely uncomfortable, but he and Ayre both assured me it’s nothing untoward. In fact, maybe he thought I was doing the same when I was looking at his eyes. I’ll work with that if he asks. Don’t want him getting the wrong idea. “So, it sounds like you’ve…borrowed your parents' essence gates, but your own still hasn’t ignited?”

  Ayre looks a little forlorn for a moment, so I continue, “But that’s not a problem! The way I see it, this is your parents wishing you well for your coming journey. Trust me, this kind of thing happens all the time. At the beginning of a call to adventure, it’s usually important for someone to manifest some unique talent, and having three gates to the Essence Sea is definitely in the realm of a “unique talent.” Plus, it’s soooo fitting that it came at the tail end of your stay here. You get to leave with them!”

  Ayre recovers towards the end of my explanation, and I let out a small sigh of relief at dodging a bullet in making her feel bad. “Think more, Lilly!”

  “So, not to sound ignorant, but I am pretty ignorant here. Gates? Essence Sea? And Ayre’s parents are with her now? I’m lacking some crucial context, I think.” Olly finally comes back to reality as he rolls his neck, making a few very satisfying and painful sounding pops.

  Ayre speaks first, taking on her Tutoring Voice. I love how passionate she gets when teaching me things, but gosh, I wish she could put a little more oomph into it. “Well, you might want to get your journal, this stuff could be relevant to whatever you have going on since your magical source isn’t something I’m familiar with.” She pauses, waiting for him, as he does as instructed dutifully. He does that a lot, I’ve noticed. Very eager to take instruction from either Ayre or I. It's kinda cute. Prepared, he looks up at her.

  “So, we’ll start with the Essence Sea, since it ties into the Gates topic… You know what essence is, obviously. There are plenty of terms for it. Magical Power, Mana, Spell Energy, Will, to name a few. They all cover the same “stuff”. Essence makes up the entire world. Lilly, you, and me are all made of essence from our souls all the way outwards to our hair and skin.” She takes a handful of her hair, reminding me for a moment how jealous I am over her voluminous locks. Dense, richly red at the roots and giving way to a verdigris green at the tips. “Well, that essence comes from the Essence Sea, or the Essential Plane. It’s a place somewhat like our world, but instead of being full of things made of essentia that has become stable through whatever processes guide nature, it is composed entirely of raw immaterial essentia. Immaterial, being the opposite to our own Material plane. Essence given shape.”

  She gestures with open arms, her wings scraping the walls as she does, indicating everything around her. “It is an entire plane that is nothing but the untamed forces of primal magic. The six main essences that are known to make up everything are easily nearly one hundred percent of the Sea. Intermingling, flowing like rivers, sitting as great basins. Every location in the Sea ties directly to a location in our material world and is believed to form the foundation of what grows where, what plants, animals, and monsters can be found, and the general terrain of a region. For example, if an area’s mirror in the Sea is predominantly Ignia, you can safely assume that that place will be prone to fires, have more active geology, and a higher than average population of aggressive animals and monsters and anyone who spends time there will find themselves growing their Ignian affinity far quicker than a more balanced location.”

  I chime in, having sat quiet for too long, “And! You know those cool compound essences like Life, Metal, and Lightning? Those are made by people purposefully generally, but if an area of the sea has managed to collect essences of the right types and concentration, you can wind up with an area in the sea that is made of that much more interesting ess…ence…” I trail off as Ayre glares at me. I try to think about the specific cause of her grumpiness, and remember. “Ah, right. I oversimplified the essences, didn’t I?”

  Ayre nods. “It’s important to think of each essence with their real names. Which is to say Victus, Mineralis, and Fulmina for the ones you referenced. The common simplifications narrow a magus’s mind and limits their ability to use their magic fully. Ignia represents fire, yes. But it also represents concepts like passion, quick decision-making, personal strength, and heat. All of those are important to keep in mind because if you only associate the word with fire, the essence will only ever manifest itself to your will as fire.” She sounds tired. Probably because she’s corrected me on this a couple hundred times. I make the choice now, as always, to do it again next time.

  “So, that aside—the next topic, Gates, is much shorter and simpler.” She reaches down and scratches a vague circle into the surface of her table with one of her viciously sharp claws, and makes the alchemical symbol for Ignia in the center. “Essence has to come to the material world somehow. The majority of it diffuses through the skein between the planes, moving from the point of functionally infinite concentration to the point of low concentration: the Sea’s material neighbor.” She pauses, drawing in a deep breath, and I see an angry red building in her chest beneath her clothes. She slowly exhales, sending a wave of visible, rippling, heat out through her teeth and the room gets hot, and fast! “These gates are direct links to the Sea, and are places that constantly draw in a particular type of essence to and through them.

  “Some places and creatures can have Gates. Either naturally or through the hyper-concentration of a specific essence. As far as I know, it’s never been done artificially, but I’ve read about people who achieved the essence concentration in the last stages of their life after actively cultivating it their entire lives necessary to form a Gate, but those have always…ahem…been in my stories, rather than being verifiable evidence.” She looks sheepishly over at her bookshelf, where she hides her journals and favorite books from me. Recovering quickly, “If there’s a Gate in the world, it’s usually considered a place of power by people and will usually see settlements form in the region, since it’s likely that rare and unique resources can be found there while also proving the perfect place to cultivate affinity and the secondary benefits of that essence.”

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  She thumbs her chest, “Some creatures can have Gates too. Usually, they’re born with them, and as far as I know, they’re mostly common among our kind: elementals and…” She comes to a dead halt in the middle of her sentence, her eyes growing distant.

  “They exist for the Fae, too!” I interject, trying to distract Ayre with something I don’t think I’ve ever told her or anything anyone knows, actually. I probably shouldn’t have said that, in hindsight. It's too late now. “Though ours work a bit differently because of the nature of our magic.” Ayre seems thoroughly distracted, if her dropped jaw and stare are anything to go by. “I…probably shouldn’t say anymore. That’s something private. Maybe later.” I feel suddenly embarrassed, but can’t really place why.

  “That’s fine, Lilly. Sorry about that. What I was going to say is that people like me, the elemental serpents, have them naturally, and they grow more potent as we live. They are what the stories of mighty Leviathans conjuring hurricanes, Lungs calling cascades of lighting to strike their foes, and Hydras surviving well past any sense of logical reason, even being able to recover from decapitations, are formed from.” She pauses for a moment before continuing much more quietly, “Dragons can usually manifest their Breath. Depending on their affinity, it has different qualities. In my case, our family was always able to Breathe life into flame. Something between summoning a familiar and casting a destructive spell. I have a vague idea of how to do it, but I never got the chance to learn more completely.” The thought seems to hurt her a lot, but I’m out of distracting tactics. After a deep, stabilizing, breath, she looks at Olly with such sad eyes that I feel my own start to tear up.

  “And that’s the answer to the last question. There’s not a lot of elemental serpents around anymore. As far as I know, I’m the last of us who possesses my family's gate.” The words drop from her mouth like a falling headsman’s axe, but she perseveres. “I never gave you the explanation I promised, Lil. Now is as good a time as any.” Looking at her face, I almost don’t want her to say it. This secret clearly hurts her a lot, but when I open my mouth to free her from her debt to me, she speaks quickly, racing through the topic.

  “It’s also probably relevant to you, Olly.” She draws a breath again, finding inner strength in her inner flame. “When I was really little, I’ve always told you that my parents died but never specified how or why.” Her voice is becoming huskier, and it’s all I can do to give her the attention she needs. “We had come here recently after our previous den had been discovered by some heroes and my parents took us away from there after the second group came looking for us and Ma’ got wounded pretty badly by one of them. Pa’ carried us both here and was nursing Ma’ back to health. Her wounds refused to heal well—some sort of magic the humans used.” She says the words “hero” and “human” with the most venom I’ve ever heard someone speak, but she softens and gives Olly an apologetic look before continuing. “Anyways, We’d been here about three months. Ma’ was up and around and working enchantments into the region to obscure our presence. They hoped that the nearness to the fae lands would give us an additional layer of peace, since most kyn are afraid of them.

  “That didn’t happen. One night, while we were resting in the cave, Ma’ heard something outside and scooped me up to hide me in an alcove before I knew what was really going on. Just had good intuition, I guess. A very long life of needing to protect herself from greedy people.” Her breath hitches and I see tears welling up. Olly is watching, nearly emotionless, no reaction, even. I find that odd, but before I can do anything she continues, “Ma’ told me to stay quiet and went up to inspect. A minute later, I heard the sounds of fighting. And after a bout of silence, she came stumbling down the path holding a lethal wound. Even at six years old or so, I knew it was bad. It looked like something had bitten her midsection and tore away her clothes and a big piece of her with them. Thinking on it now, I don’t even know how she was still moving. But she would collapse, her glaive clattering to the ground beside her.”

  “At that point, Pa' had finally woken. He was old, and not quick to rise, and everything else happened so incredibly fast that he’d not even been able to rouse. But he saw Ma' collapse. Before he could reach her, they came into the cave. The same people from before. Pa, I think, knew what was coming. He withdrew deeper into the cave, keeping them as far away from my hiding place as possible.” I watch, trying to hold it together for Ayre, but feel it getting harder with every passing word. “There was four of them, and they were all very capable. They had to be to get past Ma, even still recovering. Three were…normal. The sort of people you’d see in a book. A knight with a gigantic sword, a robed magic user, and someone covered with knives. All were draped in dark clothes.

  “But the important one. The one that clearly killed Ma' and would kill Pa' was something different. A monster of monsters. I think it was probably over ten feet tall, but I can’t say for sure -- it was a long time ago and my memories of the night aren’t perfect. It was hunched over, covered in sinewy muscle, scales, thick leather and every other form of natural defenses I’ve ever seen or heard of. It had rending claws and a mouth that could have swallowed me whole if it wanted. It…” She looks at Olly, directly at his arm, “it looked like your arm, but all over. That’s why I reacted the way I did when I saw it. That thing has haunted my every single night for nearly twenty years.” She shudders a staggering breath passing her lips as tears fall down her face freely, “Anyways, they fought and killed Pa' in about the most cruel way I can imagine. They waited for him to prepare to Breathe and then suspended the magic inside his body somehow. Prevented the living flame from being ejected from his mouth while it began to eat him from the inside. It was all…silent. The spell prevented any noise, I think. A small blessing. Maybe I just don’t remember. But, he died, copper scales and flesh melting into a pool of molten metal, and then the thing ate him and Ma’. Not normal eating like a monster would do…” Ayre seems to try with every bit of willpower she has to not, but her eyes cast a look over at Olly’s arm, and he flinches like he’s been struck, immediately hiding the arm from sight behind his back. “I never really had any context to what happened to them until recently. But with every moment it was doing it, it changed. Its body became a mockery of theirs. Father's general head shape, mother's wings, both of their scales but purple and mottled like a diseased crystal.

  “The thing knew I was there, too. I know that for certain. Its companions didn’t, though. And when they tried to draw on their gates afterwards, the thing stopped them. That’s the whole reason that mortals have hunted my kind. To get our power for themselves. They get to prove themselves better than a mighty monster and become powerful to boot? What hero wouldn’t turn that down?” She spits bitterly. “But it stopped them regardless and made them leave, all while watching me with its sick, hateful purple crystal eyes. I’ve never come up with an answer why it did that. Or why it didn’t take their Breaths for itself, since it was clearly the leader of them.” There’s something awful in the tone of her voice when she says the last bit. Her tears are gone. Their trails seem to have even evaporated, leaving no trace, and I realize how hot the room is getting. Looking at Ayre, I see her hands are clenched to the point that everything beneath her scaled hands is stark white. With a dribble of red dripping from each of her fists and onto the ground. “I need to find that thing—those monsters—and settle the score.” She declares with finality. The words hang in the air, everything silent but for some rustling as Olly stands.

  He doesn’t say anything, he just has a haunted expression as he sets down his journal—at some point he stopped writing, but I never noticed. With a few strides, he closes the distance with visible discomfort as he gets closer and holds his cursed arm behind his back and uses the other to pull Ayre into a hug. Not to be outdone, I fly over into the actual heatwave rolling off her and hug around her collar, but after a few moments she brings her arms around Olly and nestles her head against me.

  Olly whispers, his voice choked with emotion, “You both saved my life a few times over. As long as I can, I will stand beside you to see that done.” He seems to struggle with words for a moment. “Something about your story feels terribly familiar in a way I can’t describe, but I owe you both my life,” He says it before I can stop him and I feel a few motes of Elysian essence stirring around me at the claim.

  I can't not respond. And if I turn it down, that’ll have just as bad consequences! Since it’ll mean I’m throwing away his life in the eyes of the world. “Stupid, stupid! Why did you say that!?” I float back away from both of them as I feel the energy manifesting in the air, brought on by the intensity of the claim, his conviction, and speaking in the presence of a source of fae essence. There’s nothing I can do to stop it, but my mind races as both of them stare at me. Olly confused, Ayre in apprehension.

  “I…” I stop, utterly at a loss for words, for the first time in my life. Remembering a story my father told me a long time ago, I feel a little bolstered. He had done the same with a woman from a small town whose life he had saved, and she had declared the same.

  Bound thrice, life to life, I embrace,

  Your gift with a steady and gentle grace.

  By the stars and the tide,

  I shall walk by your side,

  The words bring a binding into being. Something tangible, like a thread linking the two of us. But as I watch, the energy is being drawn towards Olly’s arm, which feels wrong as each mote contacts it. I add another line quickly.

  By my word, wish, and will, I thrice accept your offer heart-to-heart.

  The thread moves in the air, pulling away from the sick arm and instead passing through his skin in his chest and settling between his heart and my own.

  The magic solidifies and I feel a potent connection between the two of us form while Ayre stares.

  I sigh, feeling dizzy at the effort but staying conscious through will alone while the effect concludes. It doesn’t stop me from being mad, though. “You just did literally the only thing I asked you not to do.” I say, feeling more than a little exasperated. “And immediately after calling me fat and after listening to Ayre’s story.” I float over and lay a hand on his chest while he looks at me, stunned.

  “I need to make this abundantly clear to you. I wasn’t exaggerating before. That claim in my presence or the presence of someone else like me is binding. If I had declined it, it would have been like laying a curse of death upon you.” I exhale softly. “I…don’t know the full scope of what this means to me” I pause, “I mean, to us.” I try to amend again, feeling somewhat frantic at the implications of the statement. “I mean, like, regarding what is all entailed in this kind of binding!”

  “I meant it. To both of you, to be open about it.”

  “I know you meant it! The whole world knew you meant it. That’s why it reacted the way it did!” I add somewhat frantically, embarrassed despite myself.

  Olly just smiles back, Ayre similarly looks like she’s holding back a bit of laughter at my expense. “What?! I don’t know how this all works! Mortals are hard to understand, and it’s not like either of you are normal.” I stress the last word hard.

  “Well, three’s company then, Lilly.” Ayre says with finality.