"Arghh!! What in the HELL!"

Damien yelled out in pain as he felt his energy he'd been manipulating escape his grasp, disappearing through his thigh and entering the foreign object that had stuck itself through it.

He looked down immediately to see a sword tip, red from his blood and silver in places it was clean, poking through his pant leg. His breathing quickly increased in pace as his mind struggled to keep up with the situation. Turning to look behind him, Damien saw a man in his twenties with one arm, heavily wounded, and gritting his teeth while twitching on the floor; no doubt due to the energy Damien had just lost.

There was no doubt this man was the source of his pain as the sword in his hand was connected to Damien's left leg. Without hesitation, he channeled more energy over the outside of his body while trying to create an insulating layer that would be strong enough to ward off a natural strike if it happened.

Luck was on his side. No strike hit in the three seconds he surged his energy, guaranteeing he wouldn't accidentally fry his skin by having done too half fast a job on the insulation. Damien lowered his left hand behind his body and onto the spasming man's chest, releasing a concentrated blast of air that sent him flying back toward the tree line he'd come from. He felt as his opponent's chest caved inward slightly, reducing the backward force but providing a satisfying crack along with the sound of wind.

Damien turned and angled his body toward the man to see him struggling to get to his knees, giving Damien time to gather his thoughts.

'Fight or flight? Fight, probably,' he decided.

He couldn't run anymore and though the man was injured he was clearly going to be on his feet within moments. If his first attack was any indication of his age and profession, Damien knew he wouldn't be escaping easily.

Perhaps drawing out the battle would be the best option. If Damien could last long enough for the man to succumb to his old wounds or inflict enough new ones, maybe then he would be able to escape to Vanessa or Emily.

'How did he get through the Fae?!' Damien screamed in his mind.

With a plan in mind, Damien reached back and placed his left hand on the inside of the sword hilt, blasting it out of his leg with another concentrated use of his magic, and groan of agony. He then looked forward and condensed the air before him into another pocket while gathering some of the leftover energy that was dispersing from their first encounter, wishing he'd thought to do it sooner.

His opponent finished standing and they locked eyes.

"I don't know what the hell that was but you're dead now, boy. They promised me life if I cut the bracelet off your arm first, but I'll be sure to finish with your head," he stated while glaring daggers at Damien.

'Well, I guess we can't settle this over a pint,' he thought morosely.

The Fae had put him up to this somehow, what with the bracelet comment, and he wanted blood. Damien would give the man the damn thing if he could remove it but he couldn't. He didn't particularly mind being tied to the Fae but now he was vehemently against it.

The crippled man lunged at him with his arm cocked back, crossing the short distance Damien had made between them in half a second. Once again, though, he was flung backward as he triggered Damien's compressed air, this time keeping his footing as he slid with his right leg taking all his weight.

'He's protecting his left leg,' Damien noted.

"What the fuck!" the man growled, spitting blood to the side.

Damien did his best to keep his nerves under control as he slowly edged his way closer to the water.

He was a fighter, he'd done this before. This was nothing. He'd been sparring for this. He'd felt pain, he could handle this. For now, he'd keep the situation as it was while he tried to come up with a way to whittle the man down from afar. It was clear he was a combatant, perhaps he would be fine if he could just somehow maintain this distance.

He just could not let him close in on him.

While reassuring himself, Damien set into a fighting stance with his injured leg forward, all his weight rested back on his good one, just like the fighter in front of him. The man stopped raging as well and refocused, picking a rock up off the ground.

Damien's heart sank, expecting the man to begin a barrage from afar. He was strong beyond belief, he didn't need to close in on Damien to hurt him and it was foolish to think he did.

Damien braced himself to dodge a throw if the man chose not to charge again. He compressed air in the same manner as he had before him, when his opponent lobbed the rock into the air. Doing his best not to look up at the rock, Damien saw the man kick off the ground and speed toward him a moment later, but that was the trap. The rock landed on top of the air pocket and detonated it, shooting it skyward. Before Damien could react, he was hit in the chest by what felt like a ton of solid metal.

Damien felt his air leave him as a few ribs cracked the moment the man slammed into him. The electricity he'd prepped sped through the man and out of his control immediately, arcing into the ground as they flew parallel to it. When Damien finally contacted the ground, his head slammed into it from the backward momentum of the landing.

When Damien gathered his thoughts and looked up, the crazed fool was just finishing his struggle against twitching muscles to reel his good arm back, driving it downward at the speed of pain directly for his head.

While still struggling to breathe, Damien hastily created and funneled all the natural electricity he could muster in a short period of time upward.

"AAAhhhHHH!!!"

The man screamed out with his jaw clenched as the electricity singed the outer layer of his skin, his body spasming out of control and sending his punch into Damien's upper right shoulder like a meteor, rippling the skin like water and shattering the bone in its path. Upon finishing the attack, he was in a frozen state atop Damien's body, fighting yet failing to move in any coherent way.

Damien reached upward with his mana toward the sky calling on that which he could rely on. He was rewarded for his efforts in the form of a brilliant flash and booming noise.

Lightning came down and struck the man on the head as white became the only thing Damien could perceive. Conjuring air to save on the time it would take to gather it, Damien blasted his opponent off of his body by placing the eruption of air where he last saw the caved-in portion of the man's midsection.

The world stood still as Damien worked on healing his eyesight, hearing, and breathing back to its natural state, saving his more serious injuries for later and praying the man was too injured to attack him again any time soon.

Upon finishing, Damien heard groaning in the distance and he witnessed the man slowly getting back to his knees, smoke coming off his skin and the burnt remains of his clothing, once again glaring into Damien's soul while promising death. Before he could finish getting up, Damien pushed his own body to his knees with his left arm and crafted a bolt of lightning the size of his forearm, sending it directly into the man's chest.

He tried dodging to the side but his injured leg seemed to collapse under his weight, causing him to move too little as the lightning got close, turning slightly from its path to slam into his chest. The man once again locked up, toppling over onto his hand and knees while spasming.

Once he finished twitching, he began to rise up again.

"Stop," Damien demanded, hobbling to his feet.

The crippled man before him did not listen.

Another bolt was crafted from the lingering static in the air and sent on its way. The target crashed back down, losing control of his body again, then began to stand once more.

"Please. I don't want to do any more than this," Damien implored.

The man ignored him while continuing to promise death with his gaze.

Damien sent another bolt of energy toward the man's chest but as it traveled between them, it was struck by a natural lightning bolt, melding together and increasing in size as it continued upon its path. The impact on the crazed man's body was substantial as he was seemingly launched towards the water, but Damien knew electricity couldn't cause people to fly backward.

The muscles in his limbs had reacted extremely violently to the overcharge of energy coursing through his body and locked up, throwing him sideways where he lay face down, unmoving. Damien had seen his left leg snap backward on itself, the weakened leg not able to provide the support its body asked for.

Damien stood still in the rain as blood slowly oozed out of his leg and collapsed shoulder, wondering if he'd accidentally killed him. He continued to heal himself slowly until finally, his leg wound stopped leaking blood and he could hobble forward. Damien was nowhere near finished with the internal damages to his leg, let alone the rest of his body, but this would have to do for now.

He called on the last dregs of the mana he could to create, feeling pain from his veins starting to burn from the foreign mana. Shutting it off, he surrounded himself with the static energy he had made while gathering a tiny amount of compressed air. It might not be enough to launch him backward, but it could still definitely break something up close.

Damien slowly began limping forward to the bastard, determined to check to see if he was alive. Along the way, he scavenged as much lightning from the surroundings as he could without further hurting his veins.

Upon reaching the bastard's side, Damien bent down to listen for breathing. Hearing none, he leaned inward and touched the man's neck with his left hand's fingers to check for a pulse.

The moment he touched the man's neck, a hand shot up and grabbed his wrist, crushing it in its grip while trying to drag him to the ground. Damien cried out and loosed the air on the man's elbow, shattering it inward as the bone tore through skin. His wrist was released and it hung limply, giving neither of them useable hands for the foreseeable future.

Damien limped away slowly as the man screamed in agony while laying on the ground. A Fae flit down and landed on Damien's left shoulder.

"You will let him live, then? Why have you not ended it yet?" the red-haired Fae asked.

"Why... why did you do... this? Why is he here?" Damien asked, panting while sending all the mana he was slowly generating to circulate him, ready to use at a moments notice.

"You said you would protect your family. Prove it. End him," it said with a discomforting smile.

"Killing... is not... protecti-"

"But it is in this world, young one," the Fae interrupted, "This man must kill you to regain his freedom and you must kill him to protect your interests. If you leave him alive today while he is weak, he will come back healed and destroy you and your families lives. Already now he is healing faster than you. Hellials are a race that forgets no debts. He will have your head. We have brought him to you injured to teach you the hardest lesson of this world. We will not weaken him next time."

"I didn't ask for this. I've... never killed before. He is a Hum-" Damien stopped his statement, finally catching his breath as he noticed the man's back for the first time in this fight.

Where the base of wings would protrude on any Celestial, two large red circles jutted outward slightly, oozing the crimson of blood. He was not a Human.

The Hellial began to stir.

"What did you do to him?" Damien demanded, turning toward the Fae.

"You will not have the luxury of not killing in this world and I will do anything I must to ensure my families safety. Prove you will do the same. Protect your future now in blood, or die a fool later with your loved ones," the red-haired Fae declared before disappearing before his eyes like mist.

Damien's eyes flit back forward to where the man was slowly gathering himself, having lifted his torso and sitting cross-legged on the ground, a moment away from standing.

"Stop. Please," Damien begged.

He lifted his head at Damien's call and they met each other's gaze once again, the Hellial's face adorning a manic grin. Damien took a step back on reflex at the sight of the many jagged and bloody teeth inside his mouth.

Hate. Anger. Rage. All three burned in his irises mere feet away. A promise of death. A demand for sacrifice. A desire to kill. Damien stared into his eyes and understood for the first time why Hellial's were despised across the world.

"I... will... end you... boy," he declared through rough breaths, "I'll rip... your fucking heart out and... bite it as you watch... I'll rip your arms... to pieces and shove them... down your throat! I'll rape... your whore of a mother and... that little girl while you die! I'-"

The Hellial's head bent forward as a pocket of air detonated directly behind it, sending a loud cracking sound through the air as it contacted the ground. Damien was once again out of mana as he spent every ounce he'd saved to end the monster's tirade not a second sooner.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The world was red as Damien looked behind him and to the left, seeing the sword the man had initially started the fight with. He moved toward it calmly and drooped his hand onto the pommel, latching onto it with his right hand like a crane game. He completely ignored the pain that dragging it and walking generated through rage alone as he pivoted again and moved toward the Hellial. Using momentum and pulling the sword across his body, Damien lifted the tip onto the collapsed man's back and then used his chest to drive it slowly into the opened right wing wound.

"Haaaahhhhhh."

The man's face lifted slightly off the ground as he let out a gasp for air, the sword puncturing his lung. Damien let go and reached upward with the last remaining electricity he'd been holding onto, sending a ladder of negative charges as high up as his current ability would allow him, some one hundred and thirty feet into the sky, while the other end remained attached to the sword.

God help him if the energy arced to his body instead.

The distance generated an immediate response as he felt the volatility of a positive strike respond to his beckoning while his world went white. This time, he kept the ladder up as long as possible, burning through everything he'd saved as the natural disaster he called upon ripped electron by electron out of his grasp to travel downward. Damien smiled as the seemingly neverending energy descended and flowed into the sword, moving down it and executing his already dying victim in what Damien hoped was a painful and gruesome manner, imagining him being cooked alive in a matter of moments.

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A roar of sound dyed the world in a blinding white hue for two of the longest seconds of her life as Alexa stared upon the bolt of energy descending from the heavens. It remained constant, ever plummeting to the world in all it's glory and sound before disappearing, leaving no trace it had ever existed save for the image it left behind when she closed her eyes.

"Damien..." she whispered.

Looking to the shelter, it was obvious the adults had heard the flash as well, coming outside to look around.

"It was Damien practicing," she said, pointing toward where he'd gone off earlier.

"Should we check on him do you think? He's probably fine but... that was really..." Emily asked, looking in his direction worried.

"I'll go check on him," Alexa volunteered before disappearing in his direction.

She didn't believe the words Emily had said though as she flew off into the air. Something had felt weird about the strike; it felt like something he would do if he were showing off or ending practice for the day, but he had left less than thirty minutes ago. Wasting his mana like that was not something he did on a whim, so perhaps he had lost control in some manner.

Whatever it was, Alexa was extremely curious to find out just what he'd done to cause that. She'd never seen lightning strike in that manner. It was awe inspiring.

Just what would be the aftermath of such an event?

She flew to the shore and began soaring to where he'd gone. After a minute of whipping by trees and sand alike, she could make out his figure in the distance surrounded by strange figures, right next to the lake. After another few seconds, she slowly descended and landed fifty feet away from him. He was sitting down, facing away from her, unmoving.

When she reached thirty feet, she noticed they weren't ordinary figures. It was like the sand had lifted from the ground and formed into strange sculptures, seemingly hovering in midair. Damien was sitting while surrounded by them and some areas of smooth glass. Twenty feet and she was passing by the strange creations as well, still warm to the touch but noticeably solid.

Looking back forward, she saw a black, unrecognizable mass in front of him.

"Damien?"

He twitched but said and did nothing. She slowed her approach as she noticed how disheveled he looked. She reached her hand out and rested it on his right shoulder.

"Damien, are you alright? What i-"

The wind shifted and the smell of burnt hair and meat assaulted Alexa's nose, causing her to clench her hand on the boy's shoulder and recoil slightly.

Damien cried out while grabbing her hand hard, shoving it off his shoulder.

"Sorry I... what is that smell? What is that?" she asked, sitting down on his left side.

Alexa noticed the lump of metal on the masses back but ignored it, instead lowering her head and looking up into Damien's face. His eyes were tired as he stared forward at the strange metal on the ground in front of him, face completely covered in ash and soot. Alexa didn't exactly understand what had happened here, but upon glancing down, she noticed his hand and how absolutely mangled it was.

"Your hand! What happened?!" she exclaimed, examining the rest of his body.

"...three broken ribs, more bruised. Left wrist broken. Left thigh impaled. Right clavicle shattered," Damien stated in a matter of fact manner, emotionlessly. "You should see the other guy," he finished with a chuckle and empty eyes.

Alexa felt her jaw slowly drop as a jolt ran through her body and her heart began beating rapidly.

'Broken ribs... bones... what?'

"Why... why haven't you healed yourself?!" she exclaimed.

"Can't. Fresh out of healing juice."

"What? Stop messing-"

"Can't create more mana. Tried. It burns to much," he interrupted with a sigh, finally looking in her direction when she squated down in front of him.

"I... I'll go get Vanes-"

"NO!" he yelled suddenly, startling her as his demeanor became serious in a moment. "No. Pl-"

"You're hurt! Beyond belief! You're worse than the time we met!" she yelled back, beginning to stand, "You need to be healed. I'll be right back."

'He wants to stay like this?! No way. Not happening,' she thought, moving around him.

Vanessa would have him patched up in a matter of moments and then he could explain just what the he-

"If you go, I'll never trust you with anything important to me again," he said, grief in his voice

Alexa had taken a step away already yet the words were louder than the pounding in her chest, freezing her in place. She slowly turned around to see he was once again staring down to the strange metal.

"You need to be hel-"

"Then help me heal myself," he demanded loudly. "I don't need them, I need you. I don't care how long it takes, but please don't go get them. You already rat me out once when I tried to confide in you with my magic. Please."

The way he said please at the end crushed her willpower. He had never begged her for anything, but here he was, injured and alone, asking her not to leave.

Seconds passed before Alexa reluctantly moved forward and sat to his left, resting her right wing on his back as she sent her mana into the boy.

"If that's what you want..." she trailed off.

She gently lifted his left arm and placed his wrist in her two hands, causing him to wince, which caused her to flinch.

"Sorry, sorry I... I have to-"

"No, it's fine," he interrupted, smiling over at her. "Thank you, Alexa."

She nodded her head before focusing on her mana to take stock of his body. Everything he had stated was present along with excessive bruising of his entire chest and upper right shoulder. His arm even had a hairline fracture in it he probably didn't think important enough to mention.

She ran her fingers along the outside of his wrist and could feel the bone protruding awkwardly up into his skin. It would have to be corrected, but she wasn't sure she knew how.

"I... I can't heal even half of this in one sitting Damien. There is a ton of things wrong. I don't even know where to begin," she said, glancing up into his storm cloud eyes.

He looked so... resolute, even in the face of all this. It was admirable.

It was strange. Damien acted and spoke like a Celestial child if not an adult in everything he did, not a Human child. He was strong, he was mature, and he was compassionate. The boy, for all intents and purposes, was a man trapped in the body of a youth, just as she was a Woman trapped in a girls body, she felt. Being around her family she'd never noticed, but being out here among Humans had been eye-opening in this regard. She'd be lonely if not for him. Everyone she'd spoken to that was of her age acted like a child, and everyone she interacted with that looked older treated her like one.

Yet, he always treated her as an equal even though it was clear he was much more. If he were a Celestial... she may even have asked her mother that they were betrothed.

And here he was, calling upon her for help as a confidant. He wanted to trust her and she would make sure he could. She already trusted him with her life, if he could not do the same... she didn't like the way that thought made her feel.

"Start with my wrist please, it hurts the most," he said. "I'll handle my shoulder when I can, I should be able to reconstruct it based off memory of what it looked like from earlier scans I did."

Alexa struggled with her next decision, unsure of whether to try and correct his hand or just start healing it.

"I... don't know how to set it in place," she eventually admitted, cursing her own incompetence.

'He needs help and I-'

"Just grab my arm and my hand. Pull my hand out slightly and set it where it looks like it belongs. If it works, great. If it doesn't, I'll just break it again and ask Vanessa to fix it right, or do it myself when I have mana," he declared without hesitation.

Alexa gulped and nodded, once again seeing the resolute gaze he held while saying something so morbid. She looked down at his wrist and began to feel a cold sweat run down her back as she slid her hands into place.

If she didn't succeed, he'd have to rebreak his wrist.

After a few seconds of second-guessing herself, she decided to go for it. She was overthinking everything and he knew she'd never done something like this before, so what did he really expect?

She slid his hand outward in one quick motion, causing the bone that had been poking the skin from the inside to slide back under and out of sight.

Damien clenched his teeth as a sound between a growl and a hiss escaped his mouth, face reddening as veins on his temples popped outward slightly.

Alexa looked away from him, the pain on his expression giving her too much anxiety. She instead looked down and gently placed his hand across her lap, focusing her mana on it. The healing began accelerating his bodies natural restorative function while he took deep breaths and groaned.

A minute later, his breathing had stabilized.

She chanced a look up and noticed he was looking at her as well, face too close for comfort in this situation, especially after her prior thoughts, yet she couldn't look away. His eyes seemed to be clouded over more than usual, but they were enchanting at that moment, surrounded by so many unknowns.

"So, what happened here? What... what kind of creature is that?" she finally asked, face heating up.

A minute or so went by as she followed his gaze back to the metal lump in front of them before he finally vocalized his thoughts.

"The Fae. The Fae happened," he declared.

"What?" she asked, confused.

Fae weren't that big.

"I killed somebody today, Lexi. This... this was a man."

Damien looked over to her as he said this, but her mind was still catching up. It stayed blanked out as she stared forward, looking upon the mass on the ground while forgetting to breathe.

She began feeling sick.

"He... attacked me. The Fae... they brought him here, injured beyond belief and ordered him to fight me for his freedom. When I subdued him, they told me to finish him off. I didn't want to, even once they told me he was a Hellial, bu-"

"What!" she shrieked, fighting her bodies instinct to back away from the mass at that knowledge.

'It's dead. It is dead, it's ok,' she repeated in her mind.

"He's gone, Lexi! It... it's not fine but... well," Damien quickly reassured her after he'd watched her eyes go wide before continuing. "The Fae brought him here wounded to teach me a lesson of this world. Kill or be killed, they basically said. I tried to let him go-"

"You tried to let him go? Are you insane?!" she yelled, causing him to flinch.

Out of her entire life, that was the most ridiculous statement she'd ever heard someone utter.

He'd tried to let a Hellial go.

Damien continued speaking and Alexa sighed out in relief as his story went on. She'd thought he'd killed another Human initially, but it definitely hadn't been from his description.

The situation had just come back to how intense it had been before she knew it was a lump of hellial and sword before her.

"I can't believe you tried to let him go," Alexa mumbled under her breath.

"No, I just... wait you aren't bothered that he's dead at all?" Damien asked.

"It's a Hellial, Damien! They are monsters! They do nothing except murder, rape, and murder more! Of course I'd be glad he is dead! I thought you'd killed another Human at first," she exclaimed.

"No, but he was a person," Damien said to her, a confused look in his eyes.

"That was no person, Damien. That was a murderer. Feel conflicted if you want but you did the world a service," Alexa stated.

Here he was, mourning the death of a criminal. On the one hand, he felt like a naive child for this yet on the other... it felt like he just was convinced for some reason it would be seen as horrendous. As if wherever he came from he would be seen as evil for the act. Vanessa and Emily wouldn't even care that he'd killed. They'd be pissed the Fae let him be attacked when they promised to protect.

Damien nodded reluctantly but continued all the same.

"Well, I tried to let him go and he screamed bloody murder at me, threatening to... do a lot of bad things to you and our family, so I lost it. And the result..." he shrugged his head forward in a sweeping motion towards the blackened corpse before them.

While it warmed her heart to know the thing had threatened them and he killed it to protect her, Alexa still didn't quite understand why he seemed broken up about it.

She continued to heal his hand and turned to him, deciding to ask rather than take guesses.

"Why are you so conflicted about this right now? He was a murderer. The Fae... they weren't the most tactful in this 'lesson' they wanted to teach you, only telling you after the fact that he was a Hellial, but they were doing you a service in a way. Why is...," she paused, gathering her thoughts briefly before picking up again. "I want to understand you. What are you thinking?"

He looked away from her and back to the corpse. He opened his mouth to say something and stopped, closing it again and looking down. Alexa felt a lightbulb light up in her head.

"You said they were teaching you a lesson of this world. Explain that."

His body tensed immediately at her words and relaxed after a few moments.

"I... We said I'd explain all th-"

"Trust goes two ways, Damien. I want to know why you are feeling like this. I want to understand you, now. If you want me to be always here for you, on your side like this and keeping secrets, then you need to tell me everything too. I want you to trust me like I trust you. No secrets between us," she said.

'I've got him, finally!' she thought.

Though not the perfect time to play this angle, it could serve to get his mind off what had happened, so she kept an intense gaze when he looked at her and looked away again. After a moment, he looked back and she smiled lightly while nodding, hoping it would encourage him to talk.

He laughed.

"What?" she asked.

Alexa hadn't expected that to be his response.

"I just forget sometimes, that's all," he stated.

"Forget what?" she asked, confused.

"How smart you are. I forget that you're closer to an adult mentally than you look. You're almost seventeen, christ..." he said, trailing off.

"Seventeen? I'm nine. I may look like I'm seven or so to others but I'm definitely not-"

"No, no. In my world," he said, pausing for a moment.

Alexa felt a jolt run through her body at his words and stared intently into his eyes, listening with rapt attention as he continued.

"In my world, you'd be seventeen. Time... is a bit different there. Weirdly, you look exactly as a nine-year-old Human would look right now on my world, yet your mind would have enough time behind it to almost be an adult. And in my world, doing what I just did could land me in jail for a very, very long time. I executed a man. I'm nearly thirty years old and I've never killed before, yet today I ended someone's life in cold blood. I stood above him and made the decision that he didn't need to exist anymore while he couldn't fight back."

He stopped speaking and looked away from her to the many sculptures around them. She said nothing for fear he'd stop talking, doing her best to burn everything he was saying into her memory.

Finally, he started up again.

"Killing... it's... it's top shelf in my world. No one kills except those in our military or our guardsmen for cities; a very tiny portion of the population. I likely never would have had to kill anyone for the rest of my life, yet today..." he trailed off, bringing his gaze back to the ground.

Alexa noticed his demeanor and wrapped her right wing around his right side over his arm, careful not to jostle his shoulder while scooting closer to the boy. She tried to block out a bit of the world with her other wing too in an attempt to get him as comfortable and soothed as possible.

He was telling her. He was actually telling her.

Alexa felt terrible for it but she couldn't suppress how giddy her entire body felt, and it definitely showed in her expression.

Damien looked back at her and smiled a small grin that did not reach his eyes at all.

"I'll tell you; no need to bribe me with softness, I'm no child. I'm close to thir... well. I suppose I'm only eighteen or so by this world's standards," he said, chuckling slightly. "You're right, though. Trust goes both ways. I'll tell you whatever you want to know," he said.

She looked into his eyes as a million questions ran through her mind. What was his world called? Why is he here? They are almost the same age? What were his friends like?

All these and more begged to be asked, but she kept her mouth shut. Instead, she reached her right arm around his small frame and rested it on his hip, pulling him even more into her and resting her head on top of his.

She had finished with his wrist and was moving on to his thigh now, though too low on mana to finish it.

"Everything. I want to know everything," she eventually said.

He laughed lightly at that, wincing in pain from the movement afterward. Before he could speak again though, Alexa waved her hand in a forward motion.

"But first, talk to me about all this. Tell me what it is that you're hung up on. I want to start here," she declared.

Alexa saw as Damien lifted his left hand in front of his face and wiggled his fingers. It had healed right, apparently.

She smiled as she felt his hand land back in her lap, grabbing hers.

"... thanks," he whispered.

"You really need to act your age and stop being so emotional," she chided jokingly.

He laughed at that and responded, "At least I didn't cry this time."