Asleep, Leland moved through his dreams like a gnat through jelly. With a singular goal in mind, he pushed and pulled, shimmied and twisted, any and everything to make the pieces fit. To him, they appeared like droplets around the brim of a mug. Small, almost insignificant, pieces of a whole. He named these pieces dust.

The dust hovered around that presence he found in his soul. The presence was empty, and what better thing to fill it with than dust, he questioned. It was the only other thing around, other than his actual soul.

It was strange, seeing his own soul. Here, inside his body, inside his dreams, it wasn’t green. At least, not in the traditional sense. There was no color, no physicality. Floating vibrations of consciousness and personality, that was what it truly was… but also no. Leland never saw himself as a philosopher, but here, staring at his soul, he wondered just what a soul was.

He stole others’ souls; they died. Souls could be corrupted, turning the owner into something different. Souls could be sworn upon, pacts and contracts made on, he had firsthand experience with that aspect of souls. Souls could also be used to heal or to power spells. They were energy, he recognized, but energy that bore the weight of humanity.

Strange.

Everything was strange.

What was he doing again?

The question came and went. So did the image of his soul, so did the wellspring presences that Leland desperately wished to fill. Strange. Strange, strange, strange. Why couldn’t he remember what he was doing just now? Strange. He was controlling himself, right? In a dream, right? Strange.

Strange.

It dawned on him, remembering… or rather, how to remember? Was that right? He thought so. How does one remember when their mind won’t let them?

Magic of course!

With a flex of his muscles, his dream muscles, Leland pulled on mana and lifeforce. Cantrips were something he had improperly focused on for just how special they could be. Granted, he had access to every Lord and potential contracts with all of them, but he digressed. Cantrips were the bud of magic growing alongside the perfect flower of mana and excellence.

This particular cantrip was rather difficult, all things considered. Remembering what you forgot was a task befitting only the highest ranks of mages. Leland smiled, his father didn’t even know this cantrip… though he wished his dad knew it. Spencer Silver was the better teacher between his parents—

Leland huffed in a gasp. He peered around, hoping no one heard that thought. Mom, if you can hear this, you are a fine teacher…

Strange.

A moment passed before he remembered he was dreaming and no one could hear him. No one was even around to hear him. It was just him and—

What was he doing again? Strange, he forgot. Memories were difficult to remember if you forgot, he realized. He chuckled a little at that. Luckily he knew a cantrip that could help with that. His mom had taught him it, and while he wasn’t very proficient with it, he could make it work if he wanted to. He was just that kind of person, a warlock! Special to a fault and with a degree of talent, magic was his!

He sat deeper into his consciousness, the jelly-like structure around him comfy like a couch with a warm blanket. Clearing his mind, mana and lifeforce came to him— He stopped. Mana and lifeforce were already present… Oh, that’s right. He had forgotten he was just about to try the cantrip before he forgot! Silly Leland.

Anyhoo, no time like the present. It came to him, a swirl of images and feelings. They were distant, far off memories from years ago. He stood beside someone he didn’t recognize, a woman, he supposed. She was yelling at him, a whole bundle of apples around their feet.

Oh that’s right, he remembered now. He and the others had been rushing around the market and he bumped into a fruit stall, spilling the wares. The woman was accosting him.

He continued to watch, to relive the memory. She was yelling. He was crying. His hip hurt when he bumped into the stall, his knee and elbow were scraped and blood was beading where he fell. Then there was a shadow. Someone stood over him, her face blurred.

At first he figured it was his mom, Lucia, but as the cantrip brought context to the memory, Leland realized his mom was out of town that day. Some work thing, back then she would step through Spencer’s portals, blast some big monster with lightning, and return before dinner.

So, the question became, who was the woman standing behind Leland shouting at the fruit seller for shouting at him?

He peered with the cantrip, forcing the memory to look up at the corner of his vision. Was it Jude’s mom? Was it some random lady sticking up for him?

He remembered.

It was Annie Red, Glenny’s mom. From his jelly couch, tears welled in Leland’s eyes just like his memory from years and years ago.

Fiery red hair, exactly like her son’s before the snowstorm that turned his hair white. She was shorter than Leland remembered, but she carried the same simple dagger on her belt. Hardly more than a pocket knife, he remembered how she’d spin the weapon through her fingertips while juggling with the other hand.

He smiled at the thought, Annie finally able to make the fruit seller leave them alone for a moment. He saw Jude and Glenny peeking their heads out from around the corner, both looking like kittens caught after pushing a vase off a table. He almost laughed at the sight, they were so young, but Annie stopped him.

Her arms now on his shoulders, kneeling in the dirt-ridden street, she spoke, “Leland, you can’t go running around the market like that. I know it was an accident, but now this lady’s fruit is all ruined. She can’t sell bruised apples and now she might not be able to feed herself because she doesn’t have the money.”

Adult Leland rolled his eyes at the lesson. Obviously the woman would be able to feed herself, regardless of a few dirty apples. But he supposed the point of exaggerating the truth made concepts easier for children to understand. He paused at that, for himself to understand.

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Strange.

“I-I’m sorry!” little Leland shouted through snot bubbles and tears.

“I know you are, Sweetie. I know. I’ll take care of paying for the apples today, but I want you to remember this for the future. One day someone might need your help – when you are big and strong, I mean – and I want you to think about these apples. Me paying for them hardly cost me anything, but for you, that would have been what? Two weeks allowance?”

Little Leland nodded vigorously.

“So think about the apples Leland. Sometimes making someone’s life better is as simple as purchasing some bruised fruit.”

“W-will you need help? I-I can buy you carrots—”

Annie started laughing. “Sweetie, I don’t need any carrots. But yes. Maybe one day I’ll need your help.”

“I’ll help!”

“I know you will.”

Adult Leland let the memory play a bit longer, but nothing else much happened. They regrouped with the other boys and made their way around the market. Jude fawned over Leland’s knee and elbow, stating how “cool” they were, while Glenny darted from shadow to shadow. In the end, while a sweet memory of someone long gone, it wasn’t what he was looking for.

The cantrip swapped around, mana pulling newer and newer memories until—

There was a puzzle. A well in his soul waiting to be filled. Ah. There it was, the memory he had forgotten about. Staring at his soul through a memory was even stranger than staring at his soul directly. This time, it had personality, form even.

Leland preserved his soul in his memory as a cloud of gas, not a mishmash of feelings and energy. And there, right in the gas cloud’s center, was a hole. An empty hole.

Leaning into the memory, Leland inspected the hole. The dust he had been packing into the hole was… well, it was his soul. Thicker portions, sections of his soul that were more materialized than not.

Almost like dust in the open air.

He smiled, realizing just how close his initial metaphor for his soul was. When the moment passed, he began to think about the dust and what it truly was. When no answers immediately came to him, he began some tests.

Looking through the Memory Recall cantrip, Leland began to mess with his actual soul. He found the dust and began to mess with it. Push, pull, stretch, constrict. After a moment, he ended the cantrip and looked at his soul without the memory aid. He gazed over it all, then recast the cantrip.

Between the previous memory of his soul and this new memory, Leland didn’t see much change. Except, the single dust he messed with. It had moved slightly, elongated width wise but shortened height wise.

He tried again, doing the same experiment but this time trying to gather some of the nearby gas into the dust. When he looked through Memory Recall, the piece of dust was plumper, as if it had swollen with water. He exited the cantrip and tried again, adding more gas to the dust. But why stop there? He added until he couldn’t, the dust unable to expand any larger.

Then he looked at the memory of what he had just done, finding the same gas cloud that was his soul. Some of the gas had shifted around, moving to refill the area of his soul he had messed with. Overall, he figured not much had truly changed, that was, until he saw the piece of dust. It had changed, grown into something unfitting of the name “dust.”

It was a crystal.

A grain of sand, even.

Just like the Heartgem the Mending Flame Lord had given him.

He shuddered at the realization, his mind feeling as if it had just taken a steaming bath. He involuntarily chucked, the insight so obvious in hindsight. True elements were a part of every single person. Floe had achieved Iceheart. The Mending Flame Lord told him her elements were Flameheart, Healingheart, Lifeheart, Happinessheart, and Vitalityheart.

Elements were already a part of people, their souls to be more specific.

That was how the Mending Flame Lord created the Heartgem. She consolidated the power of her soul into manifesting physically. Looking at the dust and gas with a new appreciation, Leland couldn’t help but smile. Compared to the Heartgem currently inserted in his forehead, his little crystal dust was hardly a speck.

But it was a starting point.

For the next while, inside his dreams, Leland toyed with various ways to compress the gas of his soul into dust and that dust into crystals. He’d figure out the crystals later, but for now, he had a whole lot of gas to form into dust.

A voice, however, stopped him, “Leland, wake up.”

And he did. His eyes fluttered open, finding the ever flat black sand of world Alpha. In the distance was the true tear, the light coming from the crack in reality red. He sighed, marveling at the coloration for but a moment until he remembered his dreams. He had tampered with his soul… was anything different? Was he different?

Leland felt around his body and mind. Physically nothing had changed, but now, now he felt as if a tiny bead was implanted right beside his heart. It wasn’t real, he knew, but it also wasn’t not real. It had been there his whole life, he had just been ignorant.

Briefly he entered himself and felt around this new bead. In truth, it was more akin to his memories of his soul – a big gas ball floating silently within his body. His whole body was filled with gas and dust, the bead was just the hole within it. The hole he needed to fill.

Stretching, Leland looked around at his friends. Jude and Glenny were asleep and Gelo was concentrating on a Legacy spell. Similarly to his grimoire, the Legacy of Dungeons’ materialized in a physical form to assist the Legacy. Gelo’s was a necklace with a dungeon core strung up.

Leland recognized it instantly as being the way Floe held onto the dungeon core of her home dungeon. It was a bit morbid when he thought about it.

He continued to watch her, though his mind was primarily on dreams. He laughed to himself. Just when he acquired a spell that made him not have to sleep, all he wanted to do was sleep.

Looking at the sky, he guessed he had a few more hours until he needed to truly be up. Why didn’t he go to sleep? If Gelo wanted to snooze, then she’d wake him for watch. Not that Leland worried about his safety, not with Sand Castle right beside them.

So he prepared to do just that. He pulled up his blanket, fluffed his pillow—

He stopped.

Didn’t someone wake him up?

He looked around at his friends again. Jude and Glenny were asleep. Gelo was focused on her own thing. Just who…

Lodestar.

“So you finally are talking to me?” Leland whispered.

After a brief silence, the parasite spoke, his voice appearing from his host’s back, “One of my kind approaches.”

“And?” Plenty of people could have reason to enter the Tear, not that Captain Tar would allow them a proper stay if they weren’t allowed. Someone walking over wasn’t a big deal, not in his eyes at least.

“There is no host.”

Leland sat straight up. “What do you mean?” he asked, not trying to hide his voice any longer.

Gelo’s attention snapped over as Jude and Glenny both woke up.

“The host lost. The parasite is coming,” Lodestar uttered, his voice like raw iron. But, with a cord of slow hesitance, he added, “This is my first time seeing a parasite in this state… be wary, Leland.”

Weeks, Lodestar had been silent to Leland’s question. Weeks! The parasite had ignored him after abandoning him to the wolf that was Harbinger Ashford! But now a warning?

Leland was in the air not a moment later, two raven black wings flapping wildly to bring him high into the sky. He searched, the black sand below making things difficult.

Sweat formed on his neck. A powerful enemy was approaching, one that warranted a warning from Lodestar.

No, that wasn’t right.

A powerful enemy was approaching, one that warranted concern from Lodestar.