Talia came to the conclusion that baby blinkers were probably the cutest thing she’d ever seen. It sported none of the spikes or horns of its mother and was, for all intents and purposes, a ball of grey, iridescent fur no larger than Talia’s palm. The young woman had watched, all but frozen, as the welp crawled its way out of its mother’s pouch with great difficulty and began nuzzling itself into the older blinker’s chest.
Talia’s heart broke at the sight. The fight had been life or death. She hadn’t had a choice in orphaning the poor thing. And yet, she still felt an upswell of pity for the beast. Of kinship.
Embers of sympathetic grief stirred and itched like old scars in her chest. Talia blinked back tears. Standing, the young woman scooped up her artefact sword and stuffed it back into its sheath.
A jolt of stabbing pain drew a wince from her, followed by the warm feeling of blood running down her abdomen and leg.
The noise startled the kitten, who froze, shooting Talia a wide-eyed look before disappearing right in front of her. Well, not quite. The psion could still detect the fuzzy little critter, if only just, despite her eyes claiming the contrary.
Talia was considering how to deal with the tiny creature when she heard the approach of the fighters from the front of the caravan. The forward scouts and a few delvers that she recognized from her spars in first haven skidded to a stop as they saw her. Thankfully, most hadn’t the funds to secure obscuring cloaks, instead relying on mottled black and grey face paint to conceal themselves, which allowed Talia to follow their comically wide gazes down to the pulped face of the blinker at her feet. It looked like an anvil had been thrown at it. Shattered fangs mingled with liquified brain matter and bits of skull in a rapidly growing puddle of blood.
One of the scouts was flicking his eyes from her diminutive frame to the incongruous damage on the corpse and then back again, incredulity etched on his features.
Thinking quickly, Talia pulled out a long piece of silverite-coated steel fashioned to look like a battle wand. She’d prepared the item in case she ever had to explain away her magic use. It wasn’t an actual battle wand, just a bunch of harmless runes designed to glow when she activated the trinket.
The young woman smiled a bloody grin under her cowl and held the wand up, sliding her finger against it to set it glowing a dim orange. She waved it around by way of explanation, pointing at her empty mouth when the scout stopped, obviously clicking to her.
Hah! I knew this thing would come in handy!
Seeing the other scouts approaching, Talia crouched to grab her clicker, wiping it off on a cloth before stuffing it gingerly back into her mouth. Just in time to catch the next question.
‘Injured, require assistance; question’
‘Negative; minor injury; threat eliminated’ she responded.
The delvers clicked their acknowledgement, before heading off at a brisk jog to the rendezvous further down the line. Talia considered telling the group that the rest of the blinkers had been taken care of, but then realized that she had no way of informing them.
‘I used my psionic sense to keep track of a fight two hundred metres down the line’ wasn’t exactly something she could say, if there even was clicker vocabulary for it.
Instead, Talia settled against the wheel of a wagon and began rummaging through her first aid kit for a roll of bandages. Getting it under her armour was a pain, and she’d probably mangled the process, but it helped staunch the bleeding temporarily. She’d fix it later. Preferably after she rinsed off the contents of a blinker’s skull case from herself.
Speaking of blinkers… Where the hells did the welp go?
Her mindsense found no trace of the beastling, as small as it was. Talia sighed and hoped against hope that it would survive on its own in the Ways.
The thought was a comforting one, as untrue as it would probably prove itself to be.
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The caravan was on its way swiftly. There were next to no injuries. Once the delvers had organized and put forward a group effort to fight the attackers, the beasts had folded quickly. Not before taking the lives of three crew, however. The blinkers had been deadly ambush predators, but their strength apparently lay in surprise. That or they had been too starved to put up a good fight.
Zaric and Osra had encased the dead into the stone of the tunnel, with the promise that their names would be put onto the next memorial they came across, either in second haven, if they continued on the Ways, or in Karzurkul when they arrived there.
Talia took up her post on top of wagon two once more, after informing Calisto and Torval that her mindsense allowed her to detect beasts before they came upon them. The young woman hadn’t missed the hard look that Torval had given his second at Talia’s report on the crew’s morale.
Apparently, Calisto had gone behind Torval’s back when she’d asked Talia to monitor the delvers.
Oops. Guess that was one of those implied things I missed.
On the topic of crew morale, Talia was finally able to breathe a sigh of moderate relief. Despite the death toll, the encounter with the blinkers had actually improved morale overall. Granted, some slipped into a morose dejectedness at the deaths of friends and comrades, but for the most part, the anticipation and fear subsided after the battle, replaced with a grim acceptance in most and a few rare cases of cynical dread.
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The latter Talia reported to Lazarus.
The healer nodded thoughtfully, looking her over with pity in his eyes for a moment before coming to a decision. Talia felt nothing from him, clearly a result of the same mind shielding he’d previously employed. It was…disconcerting, after days spent tuned in to the emotional state of the entire expedition.
“We never did have that chat that Torval recommended, did we?” he mused.
Talia stiffened on her way out, lips drawn thin, and turned to look at the elf.
“Are you concerned for my mental well-being, healer?” she retorted.
“I would be lying if I said that the toll demanded by your…activities does not worry me somewhat. But I did not mean it like that, I just meant, as a fellow officer, if you would like to talk, about anything, then I am here.”
The young woman allowed the tension to melt from her shoulders.
He doesn’t think you’re going crazy, Tals, he’s just trying to help. Don’t go biting his head off.
With a shrug, Talia pulled out one of the chairs tucked away in the corners of the specialist wagon and collapsed into it.
“Sure, let’s chat,” she said.
Lazarus appeared surprised at her quick acceptance.
“Hmm. Delvers are usually more reticent to accept treatment that is not physical in nature,” he said.
Talia bobbed her head, thinking back to her experience with the rowdy bunch thus far. It fit.
“Well, luckily for you I haven’t been a delver long enough for that to be a problem,” she replied with a sardonic smile, “Besides, if the delvemaster recommended it, who am I to say he’s wrong?”
Lazarus quirked his eyebrows and pulled out a chair of his own.
“Quite so. Very mature for your age.”
Talia scratched awkwardly at the back of her neck, unsure how to respond.
“So—uh how do we do this? Is there a list or something? Like when you checked me last time—or…?”
The elf chuckled softly and tucked a stray strand of blonde hair back into the black bandana he was wearing.
“Nothing so formal. Last time was a standardized psychological evaluation. Which you passed, by the way. No, why don’t we start with how you’re feeling? You’ve been through a lot in a very short period of time. I cannot imagine it has been easy.”
Talia gave the question its due thought. Lazarus waited patiently, hands clasped loosely in his lap, seemingly content to let her puzzle it out.
“I’m not sure,” she answered, “When I first awakened, I was scared, confused. Running on instinct. It almost felt like it wasn’t real. Like it couldn’t happen to me, you know? Now? I’m a delver. Which, let me tell you, was nowhere near my plan for life. I’ve fought monsters I couldn’t even imagine before now, faced odds that I never would have dreamt of facing back in Karzgorad.”
Lazarus had an encouraging smile on his face, nodding along as she spoke, seemingly with no intention of interrupting her.
“It’s just been one thing after another. First the magic, then the responsibility that came with being an officer, oh gods the sheer gap in knowledge. Then the fighting, goblins then the garbog and now whatever those things were called.”
“I believe Darkclaw referred to them as mirage lynxes,” the elf supplied.
“Right, mirage lynxes. I was calling them blinkers. Anyway, there was the fighting and then my manifestation. Training. Monitoring the crew. The threat of the Migration. And—” Talia caught herself, “other things…” she trailed off.
Even without her telepathy, Talia could tell that Lazarus was curious about what she meant by that last part. Thankfully, the healer maintained his professionalism.
“Right well I can understand that it is a lot to deal with. But we are here to help. You are most certainly not alone in this fight. Remember that. However, I cannot help but notice that those are all events that have happened, things you are struggling with. You have not mentioned much about your feelings. While your struggles are valid and eminently understandable, I asked how you feel,” he said.
His words brought Talia up short.
He’s right, isn’t he? I haven’t given him a single feeling in the bunch.
“I’m— tired. And angry. I never used to get angry. And yea, I feel overwhelmed. Constantly. There’s never enough time to get caught up. To plan for the future. It’s just a succession of situations I never have time to prepare for— and it’s just so argh” Talia groaned.
The healer didn’t react, sitting back in his chair and nodding gently.
“It’s so damn frustrating. And then there’s the Migration and the monsters and the feelings of the crew bouncing around in my head and they’re all so scared and so am I! I’m just so—fucking scared.”
Talia’s voice dropped into a hoarse whisper by the end of it. She stared at the ground, unable to look Lazarus in the eye as tears began to streak down her face. He said nothing as solitary droplets turned into a flood of sobs. The healer let her cry herself out. Until she felt light and airy from the absence of their weight.
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Talia left the specialist wagon feeling better. The conversation had lasted longer than she’d expected, the rest of her shift, in fact. Lazarus had let her vent out her frustrations until her voice gave out, a warm, comforting smile on his face and emerald eyes full of compassion. When it had become clear that she had nothing left to say, he’d begun speaking in a low, soothing voice. First reassurance and comfort, and then things she could do to alleviate the stress, the fear. One talk hadn’t been enough to truly get into the details and rummage about in her head, but it was enough for now. Talia felt better, surprisingly so. She hadn’t realized just how full the box of feelings she kept locked away had been getting. Sharing the burden with someone else was novel. But—
It wasn’t half bad.
Luckily, Lazarus hadn’t asked about Torval’s secret, despite clearly noticing that she was holding something back.
Stupid delvemaster and his damn secrets. No that’s unfair, Tals. Torval must have his reasons. Like Lazarus said, focus on what you can control. The rest is gas in the Maw.
As the young psion spread her web of empathy over the caravan—she’d dropped it before going to report to the healer— she focused on pushing out the feeling of catharsis she felt from simply talking about her fears and insecurities.
No thoughts of home, of glory, or victory.
Just simple contentment and lightness. The indescribable feeling of having emptied oneself of tears. She sat on the back platform of wagon seven like that for a while, mind blank, meditative, and shared her well-being with the rest of the crew with a light psionic touch.
Talia wasn’t sure if it helped, but she thought it just might have.
She kept it up for an hour, after which exhaustion hit her like a barreling tunnel drake.
The young woman got up to head towards wagon two for a well-deserved break.
As she walked up the wagon train, her mindsense picked up a tiny blip of thought. Miniscule like—
The mirage lynx cub.
The faint glow of the cub’s mind was latched, unmoving, onto the bottom of wagon four.
For a moment, Talia considered doing something about it. It was a beast after all. At the very least, she should inform someone of its presence. Then a slight whisp of emotion floated over from the welp.
hide—fear. patience—hide—mother. alone—sadness.
If Talia hadn’t been burnt out on feelings for the day, her heart would’ve broken all over again. As it was, she moved on, promising herself that she’d do something about it if the beastling was still there when she woke up.
Sleep called. In a week, the expedition would have a choice to make.