We’re leaving Jarrah with the linguistic enchantment book over night. Apparently he doesn’t truly need to sleep, he only meditates for a few hours every sixteen to twenty four hours or so. I wonder if that’s the reason behind his non-stop eye movement though. It’s incredibly disconcerting. He doesn’t seem to be bothered by it though at least.

We arrive to a familiar scene, Percival and Tinpu arguing, or maybe vice versa. I suppose Percival has nothing better to do, being a nearly immobile potted plant. I wonder if Tinpu enjoys their relationship, or if he feels obligated in any bad way? Percy can’t exactly mistreat Tinpu, other than dismissing him back to the celestial realm or whatever. Hm, speaking of that, I never got around to asking Percy if I could talk to Tinpu about that stuff, and now I can’t even try to ask. I’m not going to dig around for writing implements and then wait for someone to read and translate my sloppy writing to ask Percy to ask Tinpu for answers. Yeesh I’m getting another headache just thinking about it.

As we enter, I begin divesting myself so that I can rest. I shrink the armor down to toy size and stuff it in a pouch. Absentmindedly I reach up to drag the cap off my short horns. As I’m doffing the disguising cap of illusions, Dawn startles and nearly jumps out of her skin. I raise a scaled brow in her direction.

Dawn chuckles as she admits, “Ah, err, yeah, kinda forgot you were wearing a mask, and that you’re a great big old s, um dragon person right now. So, so. Um. Yeah.”

Despite Dawn’s vitality-less nature, she’s blushing madly, wildly as she looks me up and down with rabid curiosity. I jokingly wrap my arms around my torso, pretending to recoil from her gaze. Dawn becomes momentarily even more embarrassed before catching on and laughing. I flash her a toothy smile, which probably comes off as more fearsome than I intend since it sets her face to cringing.

I cough as I try to apologetically laugh, and I have to wipe a slight dribble of blood trickling from my maw. Thankfully the wall-sink shows up, and lets me rinse off. Hm, I’m not sure where my spittle and blood are going to go when the sink sinks back into the wall. I facepalm at my own mental phrasing. Really Reggie? A sink sinking? I know, I know. Obviously no pun or wordplay intended. I roll my eyes and shake my head at myself in mild faux exasperation. Despite the silliness of it, my curiosity still stands. Hm, now there’s an interesting thought. An esoteric concept exits my brain, and stands up nearby. Anthropomorphization is weird sometimes.

I squeeze my scaled eyelids shut tightly to fight back an encroaching migraine, and rub forcefully between my temples and eyeballs. Squeezing in on my eyes ever so slightly relieves the pain building behind them. It also floods my vision with sparks and stars and technicolor tunnels behind my eyelids. Oof, probably shouldn’t be doing that. Teuila playfully hip-checks me, nudging me enough that I lose my balance since I’m distracted by the pain. Realizing I can’t catch myself in time, Teuila catches me instead of simply letting me hit the floor.

Now she’s standing with me basically swooned across one of her arms, and she’s giggling crazily. Huff, I sigh as I laugh, both big mistakes that shred my throat. Still, I know what she’s finding funny. Linti had basically had me in this exact pose once, heck, I’m pretty sure I was even in draconic form that time too. Lil teased me that I looked like the perfect picture of a fantasy romance novel cover damsel in the protagonist hero’s arms. I smile while shaking my head, trying not to laugh. I manage to stifle my laughter, but I still have to breathe. My breath stings as I gulp down a wide breath, then my exhalation leaves me as a large yawn. Ow, yawning hurts.

I suppose we’re all amped up a bit from a long day of the Enochian Enclave’s training and tutelage. I crawl into bed and try to fight off another yawn, but end up failing miserably. Ugh, my poor freaking throat.

Dawn seems to pick up a conversation with Teuila from somewhere they must have left off earlier, “So, anyway, that Flint guy, Flint Darklace, right? I was puttering around the place, and it seems like he’s the, I don’t know how to put it, like the head nurse or something. Had like a little infirmary and stuff. That Alanea girl, well, woman I guess, probably as old as me being all mystical faerie stuff or whatever. Anyway, she was there, and he was teaching her some things about wounds and splints and stuff. Praised her for patching up the attackers from the other night. Then she said something about class and headed off up a ways.”

Teuila snorts, “He seemed like kind of a creep, but that’s sort of sweet I guess. Still, I almost can’t believe that Dink is the one who ended up crippling their batch of mugs so badly, while the two of us put them down gently. My goofy Airhead. Thanks again for covering my back Dawny.”

Dawn blushes and nods while avoiding Teuila’s eye contact, “Yeah, sure, no problem Boss. I saw the other three coming out of nowhere from my hiding spot, so I chugged one of those muscle potion things, and, well, at least I got one of them down before they all circled you. Hey Rej, you weren’t kidding about those potions, I felt so freakin’ strong for an hour or so. I wonder if the other one lasts longer, or makes me even stronger.”

Teuila wraps Dawn up in a hug and exclaims, “You’re the best Dawny, you rock! We can totally train to get you that strong naturally if you want.”

Dawn squirms mildly uncomfortably, though she still accepts Teuila’s hug as she responds, “Err, sure Boss, maybe. I’d like that. Y’know. If, stuff, whatever.”

My heart sinks as I realize Dawn is worried about existing long enough to accomplish such training. Teuila’s eyes well with tears and she leans forward intending to plant a massive kiss on Dawn as some form of shared comfort. Dawn reacts a tad viscerally, planting her hands in Teuila’s face and shoving away while blushing and nervously chuckling.

Dawn rambles, “No, hey, Boss, it’s alright. I’m fine. No need for any of that or whatever. I’m, I’m just. It is what it is. You know? No need to get so sappy about it. I’ll try to stick around. What do you like to say? Obvee. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll try to stick around, obvee. Just might not have much choice in the matter. I dunno, maybe, maybe if this curse isn’t breathing down my neck. Stuff. Somethin’. Maybe. Don’t get your hopes up.”

Teuila apologizes, “Right, right. I’m sorry Dawn. I just, I got so sad and worried for you for a second. I wasn’t thinking. Sorry.”

Dawn scratches the back of her head while her pulse-less body continues inexplicably blushing, “Yeah, err, no worries or whatever. It happens. Sort of. I guess. Thanks for not getting pissy about it. About me shoving you off or whatever. We’re cool. Right Boss?”

Teuila sniffles and jokes, “Cooler than cool. We’re ice cold Dawny.”

At Teuila’s answer, my brain fritzes out into an extended length blue screen of death. When I come to, I find myself blinking rapidly surrounded by Dawn and Teuila, each one laying on one of my wings. Dawn is gripping my right arm viscerally, tightly, clinging for dear life. Teuila seems to be pouting in her sleep. I fold my wings up over each of them, hugging them in much the way Lil would in Lil’s Lilagnewt form. Teuila must feel miserable for making Dawn feel uncomfortable. I’m almost positive she offered to sleep somewhere else, but Dawn probably waved it off, and just elected to lay on my other side while we slept.

Sel is just too much sometimes. I return here, time and time again, mostly fine with whatever odd desires she has. This time it’s just too much. She wants me to have a sit-down dinner with her, Jarvis, and Jarvis’s nephew. Nephew apparently lost both parents some time back. Sure I can sympathize, that doesn’t mean I want to get to know the man.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

I’m sorry Sel, we’ve known each other for a while now, but no, I won’t be sticking around for that dinner. I guess I’ll just hope that you still want to see me after the next leg of my journey. Enjoy your dinner. You look so sad in that candlelight, staring at the door, waiting for its opening to announce my arrival. Jarvis and nephew seem perturbed at waiting to dig in. I’m truly a heel. Between her friend Taylynn’s eclectic behavior, and her own idiosyncrasies, I’m not cut out to handle either one of them, let alone both.

What would they even do if I returned here nine tenths dead? I’d prefer not to find out, but I don’t see me coming out of this next leg unscathed. There is no stealth way deep enough into this compound. I either have to make a mad dash, slay my target, and flee, or fight my way in and out. Either way I’ll be taking injuries, possibly grave, deadly ones.

The few months we’ve known each other, I haven’t taken a single injury yet. But perhaps this time, if I manage to return alive, they’ll finally understand why I keep my distance. I’m an assassin ladies, taking on the job no one wants, that no one else will touch, and with good reason. It’s a fool’s errand, and I’m a fool. I’m fooling myself if I pretend to believe that I’ll ever accomplish the end of this task. Huff. Time to stop skulking, and get back to it Aces. Long trek to walk around the lake tonight. I’ve made up my mind. I won’t lie, it would definitely be faster if I went by the boathouse to steal a vessel and crossed the lake that way. If I survive, I can return it.

That’s a big if. An underground bunker northwest of Navica? The paranoia of these people. Well, until me it would have been pure pointless paranoia. I guess it’s time to prove why you don’t piss people off enough to leave them willing to chance contacting the Vale. Farewell Tavners, Taylynn wherever you’ve journeyed most recently.

As I awaken, my throat is sticky with a slick coating of some sort of healing mucus preventing my scratches from being irritated or aggravated by breathing. Still, taking a deep slow morning breath leaves me coughing. Koff, ow. My throat is barely healed, it still hurts to cough, but at least I’m not coughing any more blood for the time being. I’m sure that’ll change relatively soon.

Hm, Dawn and Teuila are both up, and sitting on opposite sides of the bed, facing away from each other. What’s going on now? Teuila is rubbing her face, specifically her eyes according to my danger wraps. Dawn is fidgeting.

Teuila starts to speak, but Dawn interrupts, “Boss, I said it was fine. Just stop. Please? We’re okay. Rej’ll be up any minute now, you don’t have to keep beating yourself up over it. So quit apologizing and bringing it up. It’s just awkward. Okay? It’s all fine. I don’t hate you or anything. I’m not even mad about it. Like you said, we’re cool, cooler than cool, ice cold.”

My brain fritzes out again in an extended blue screen of death. When I come to, the two of them have gotten up, and they’re both prepared to face the day. Te and Dawn appear to be chatting happily as can be, so hopefully that bit of embarrassment is over.

We return to the Enclave, some eight to ten hours after we’d left it. I’m starting to lose track of the days. The exercises are mind numbing, and throat-scarring. Jarrah apparently expected more from me than absolutely complete beginner levels of incantation. I rarely speak at all, most of the time I’m just thinking. Hell, a significant portion of my life has been spent in telepathic bonds. It’s still frustrating though that he misjudged me, and we wasted a day of training starting off too hard.

Not that we’re doing any better with absolutely bottom rung of the ladder, bottom of the barrel incantation instructions. I don’t know if it’s my destroyed throat, or if I’m just friggin’ inept. I hate it. I hate it! About two third of the way through the day, I finally master my second rune, a sort of word-shaping rune, so empowering it on its own does absolutely nothing. Even empowering it with the cold rune does almost nothing as well, basically just the effect of the cold rune.

Jarrah hasn’t commented on my runic training at all. He’s not admonishing me for multitasking or anything. I don’t know if he’d normally let a student simultaneously train two different parts of their brain. At least I can make some minuscule progress.

Jarrah doesn’t answer me about the linguistics book except to say, “Hm, yes, I verified what I wanted to verify. You're certainly free to hand it back to your Valkyrie, your Teuila. You’re quite lucky to have stumbled across it when you did, and find it fully ready to bestow its enchantment, its gift on a new reader. You are right, it will be quite some time, quite some time indeed before it’s ready to be used again. If certain events transpire, and unfold the way I believe they will, it could very well be thousands of years.”

I barely manage to avoid a spit-take as I’m trying to wet my throat once more to help reduce the strain on it. I blink in disbelief and shock at the length Jarrah claims it could take the book to recharge. Even if Teuila and I are ageless, we definitely don’t want to be stuck on Rayileklia long enough to take advantage of the book recharging if it’s going to require that much time. Yeesh.

I sigh, I’m making absolutely zero progress on incanting according to Jarrah. He says he can’t even move on to teaching me other helpful learning skills until I get at least the basics of incanting down. This friggin’ sucks! Two days down. I barely refrain from hyperventilating in frustration, and fear of the looming deadline.

I do catch Jarrah muttering to himself fairly frequently however. His statements seem to be about me, and definitely hint that he might be either reading my thoughts, or in some way, shape, or form, parsing my feelings. He deflects any time I ask about his mutterings however. It’s mildly infuriating, and I’m tempted to ask Alanea or Flint if he’s always like this. Not that I have any energy or time to ask them.

Leaving Jarrah once more as it nears midnight on July sixth, I sigh and slump away, defeated. I’m left fighting back tears that threaten to streak down my face. Before long though, I bump into Alanea unexpectedly coming up the stairwell, and I nearly trip over her due to her compact stature. I do tumble slightly, and end up caught in her surprisingly strong arms. I blush ferociously as I attempt to regain my balance, right myself, and extricate myself from her embrace.

Alanea, in a chipper manner, asks, “Erm, it's well, Reggie, right? Well, I’ve been looking for you just now. But, well, I’m okay tonight, but, if you plan to return tomorrow, to train and leave at about the same time. Erm, well, is there any chance you’d be willing to walk me home? Well, Flint would normally be fine walking me, but well, Flint is going to be busy tomorrow, and what with Enclave members being attacked and all, I just. Well, I’d feel safer having someone as strong and handsome, powerful! I mean powerful! As you walking me home. Err, well, You’re, your, um, your power is obvious, despite the layers of enchantments and illusions over your true form.”

My jaw hangs slightly slack. Lil said I have to answer every call. Should I try to prove Lil wrong here? Something says this request spells trouble. Likely my genre savviness senses tingling. Still, when an absolutely gorgeous lady compliments you and asks you to take her home, ah, er. Hell this is awkward. I’m not a human, not even a Rayileklian Fae. I mean, not that I’m assuming she means, ugh. I mean, she's asking for help, not a date, much less. Blah, argh, never mind. Screw this whole train of thought. A person asks for help, I try to help if I can.

I nod numbly, barely able to croak out, “Koff, glp, would be, koff, my pleasure.”

Alanea hops up two steps to be closer to my face as I flump onto my rear in surprise. My illusion must provide some level of tactile response, but not intangibility for my extraneous limbs, as she avoids my wings. She cups my throat and strokes it, mumbling, “You poor dear. Well, if it still hurts tomorrow, I’ll try to get some soothing cream down your throat. Well, that was all really, thank you Reggie dear. I, well, I appreciate it very much. Well, hopefully I’m just being overly cautious, but, well. Anyway. Thank you. Err, see you tomorrow around midnight? Well, I promise I’ll wait for you in case your training runs longer than that.”

I'm so glad neither Teuila nor Luni heard what she just said. I gulp beneath the hand that’s still stroking my throat, and all my chromatophores emit red, which likely signals even my illusion to blush hotly. I nod as I politely grasp her wrist to push her hand slightly away so I can speak, “Glp. Um, yes. See you, glp, then.”

She smiles brightly and virtually skips up the steps, apparently to speak with Jarrah before getting Flint to walk her home. Somehow I feel like I’m being used. I mean, I’m basically hired muscle as a bodyguard, my pay is a smile and some flirtation. Yeesh, what a devious web she wea— Son of a. Note to self, do not accept any invitation to enter her abode. Also note to self, maybe ask around if there’s a rumor of anyone who might have earned the nickname black widow in town. Alanea, Aranea. Are you someone I need to be wary of? Or should I be wary for you? There’s more to you than you’re letting on, that’s for sure.

Hm, Teuila and Dawn look bummed out, and both flash me big zeroes for their efforts for today as well. I return the gesture, sadly. Technically I mastered a new rune, but I’ve been working on it for two days. Our stay in the Hidden at the Heart of the Wilds is not going well so far. We haven’t even gotten around to asking about the nonsense with the summer and winter court. I draw a ragged breath and heave a deep sigh.

It will be July seventh in a few minutes. Only a few days left here. All that much closer to the end of Dawn’s curse. The panic gripping my heart squeezes tighter each passing moment.