DAY 2
This night the dream was different. I didn't see anyone else at first. I stood at the edge of a clearing in a thick jungle. Ahead was the lost shrine to the god of my people, I was thrilled, my journey was finally at an end! But as I got close I noticed things seemed off, when I got to the 100 length tall statue of my god I noticed that it was almost in ruins, and what remained had a black glow that looked like it was sucking in the statue. I started quaking with fear as the statue broke apart, a creature so horrible stood in front of me that I blacked out. When I woke up from the dream I whimpered, I had failed... After a moment I did notice everything was actually
“Really? That's horrible, the nightmares are getting worse for both of you...”
“Yeeinahkk!” I shouted surprised.
“It's good that you write things down, I would but I don't have any way to grip the reeds.”
“Where are you?” I asked looking around
“I'm outside hunting, I'd bring something for you but I understand Af is making breakfast for the 2 of you. I'm not sure if he's trying to make a good impression with you, or detract himself from his nightmare.”
“I've kinda lost my appetite...”
“You should eat something anyway, you'll need the energy.”
“How are you going to teach me if you're away and asleep so much?”
“I've been teaching Af for about a month, it's mostly research, at the moment, he's learning some from me and some from the research into what we're looking for about stopping whatever's going to happen.”
“Really? Research? Isn't that the wrong sort of thing? I mean kinda the opposite of what you're trying to teach, because we're trying to stop the end aren't we? Not cause it?”
“It's different techniques of magic, almost any form can be used to cause the end in theory. It does bug me when he reads the stuff about outlawed magic, he takes too much of an interest in the dark arts, bending souls to the user's will.”
“Huh, so should I help him with his research after breakfast?”
“No, I need to teach you a bit about magic before you can start researching it, I'll meet you out front after you eat.”
I walked into the kitchen where Afsen was indeed finishing cooking something for breakfast, “Hey Afsen,” I said
“Hi Kmoth, I'm just finishing making some grass-needle soup.”
“Grass-needle? What's that?”
“Well you know how I was talking to a wild grass yesterday? Well trying to anyway.”
“Yeah? It worked?”
“Not really, I was trying to ask how it's day was going, when I woke up it had grown berries that were really spicy, it referred to them as grass-needle, apparently it was very popular about 30 billion years ago.”
“30 billion? I'll be lucky if I can reach 9!”
“I didn't know you were that short lived, shame, I like you.”
“Thanks,” I said flatly, “Why isn't grass-needle popular anymore? And how do you know that's what it called them?”
“It hasn't been popular because the plants that produced it died out that long ago. I didn't actually Translate, Miss Winter did.”
“Who's Miss Winter?”
“That's the name of the mage that we're working under, didn't you know that?”
“Until I met her I didn't know she was a feral.” I said giving him a look.
He brought a pot and two bowls over “I guess that makes sense, she doesn't volunteer a whole lot of information about herself. I still don't know why she chose to set up shop here rather than in say, a big city, or a more rural area where there'd be less questions and more people who wouldn't care even if they knew.”
I ladled some soup into the bowl, “So our combined knowledge of her is her name and fur color?”
He laughed “Assuming you're not colorblind.”
I stopped with my spoon halfway to my open maw “You're colorblind? Like completely? You only see like grays and stuff?”
“Yup, I'm a gray fox that can only see grays.”
“You're red.”
“Am I? Strange that's never come up before.” He said contemplatively.
I shrugged and put the first spoonful into my mouth.
DAY 3: 0 Hour
“Do you think he'll be ok?” I heard Afsen's voice ask.
There was a pause,
“No, I trust and believe you, I'm just worried.” Afsen said
Another pause, longer this time,
“Really? Well that's good.” Afsen responded to the silence, “How're you doing Moth?”
I groaned, “Well you know the kind of headache where it feels like something is pounding on the inside of your skull trying to get out?”
“Yeah?”
“It feels like that on my entire body.”
“Well at least you're feeling better.”
“Better? Better than what?”
“The first hour and a half you were unconscious we couldn't get you to stop screaming. The first time you woke up you couldn't even remember your name, and while Miss Winter says this didn't happen I could've sworn I saw the color white start flowing out of your mouth.”
“I was out for over an hour?!” I cried, then the pain of yelling out hit me and I started to cry.
“You were out for closer to 9 actualy.” I heard Miss Winter say as she purred next to me, “Around hour 8 I was pretty sure you were dead, your heart had stopped.”
“I was out for nine 10ths of the day?” I asked, trying to wrap my mind around it.
“I wish I could say otherwise,” Miss Winter said.
“I didn't expect you to have that kind of reaction to the grass-needle, I'm so sorry!” Afsen said
“The grass also wanted to apologize, once it found out what had transpired.” Miss winter added, “We should all get some sleep, We should all feel better after an hour or two's rest.”
