It took Darania close to a month to gather her thoughts. In that time, Lisa and Mayan took care of D’Argen. He healed much faster than mortals, faster even than some of the Never Born due to his innate mahee focusing on speed, but it still took him consuming songs five times a day and a full ten days before he could walk on his own. He did not dare try to use his mahee in that condition.

Lisa had taken to continuing with the massages, her hands firm but gentle. And then Mayan wrung him around like a wet rag. As much as it hurt, D’Argen felt so much better after Mayan’s strong hands were done with him and he was soaking in a hot bath.

In that time, D’Argen had also learned a few simple gestures to communicate with the mortal. The most important ones to him were for gratitude and to ask Mayan for a break on their daily walks around the courtyard.

D’Argen saw the group of mortals that sang under his window and even sat among them on a few occasions. He did not, once, see another Never Born. Lisa was talkative and friendly. She was also, apparently, considered old for the mortals. D’Argen did not look at her pale hair and wrinkled face in the same way the others did, but her age garnered respect among her peers. She told him about all events she knew of that had happened since D’Argen’s arrival in the Rube Islands almost six years ago.

“You caused quite a stir,” Lisa said with a chuckle. She was using coconut oil and a stiff brush to try and tame the wild curls of one of the younger mortals. Her hands looked harsh, but the child in front of her did not look uncomfortable.

“Mother Darania does not often bring any of the other gods here for healing, not in my lifetime at least,” Lisa continued. “And seeing you, the God of Discovery, the fastest being in all of Trace, not move at all? It was frightening.”

D’Argen hummed along as she spoke, though he was not looking at her. One of the mortals that sang under his window was Lisa’s grandnephew. He never spoke, but his voice when he sang was like a bird. He had a habit, when not singing, of sticking his fingers in his mouth and keeping them there. Lisa and his father tried to get him to stop that habit. D’Argen had succeeded in barely a few days. He had told the young boy that his hands were still stiff and then taught him a simple game with a piece of string. It kept the boy’s hands out of his mouth and D’Argen’s fingers moving swiftly.

“There, all done,” Lisa said and patted the mortal in front of her. The girl got up and ran off with a grin.

“Could you do my hair too?” D’Argen asked.

“Of course, let me get a softer brush though,” Lisa said and got up to leave. As soon as she was out of sight, D’Argen snuck a piece of candied fruit out of his pocket and to the kid in front of him. Bribery worked better than any games to keep the kid’s fingers out of his mouth.

The kid grinned wide and then ran off, string trailing after him. The game helped too.

Before Lisa returned, Darania found him sitting there in the grass and flowers, face up toward the sun and eyes closed to focus on the sounds around him rather than the brightness.

“Mayan tells me you have been healing well,” Darania started the conversation and sat in the grass in front of him.

D’Argen startled when he saw her. For a moment, the image of her sitting there overlapped with the one of her sitting in a field of flowers under a dark sky, in a dream land, where she was not herself. He shook himself out of it quickly, but ended up looking around her instead of at her.

Darania must have noticed his actions because she remained silent and calm, eyes narrowed in on him in thought, but not doing anything other than watching him.

“What happened?” Darania finally asked when he could look at her again. “In your dreams.”

“It felt so real,” D’Argen whispered out and then looked at his hands. “It still feels real. I still find myself questioning which is the dream and which is reality.”

“Maybe I can help with that?”

“How?” D’Argen scoffed out, but he was desperate. So far, all of his confusing moments happened when he was alone. He was terrified of what would happen if he thought one of the mortals around him was a demon in disguise.

“What were the differences? Focus on those.”

“So many, but so minor. Some, I didn’t even notice were different at all. And some, some were real. Is it possible to learn something in a dream? Or, maybe, I’ve always known that it was your voice we heard when we fell, but the mahee behind your spell kept me from making that connection.”

Darania hummed along.

Lisa returned and hesitated. When Darania made a motion with her hand, Lisa sat down behind D’Argen. She collected his hair and then slowly started brushing through the long strands without a word.

“Thar was not there, at first,” D’Argen finally admitted. “That was the biggest thing. But I didn’t remember him. Nobody did.”

“Thar?” Lisa questioned behind her, voice bright. “Has he come back?”

“No, no, Lisa,” Darania assured the mortal. “A different topic.”

“Ah. Alright. It has been a while, though. I know the kids love it when he creates snow for them to play with.”

“Thar… comes here?” D’Argen asked, not sure whether to be more surprised that Thar visited him—was it even him?—or that he created snow for kids to play in.

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“Oh yes, of course. As often as the leaders in Evadia allow him. He sometimes sits with you for hours and will only leave if an order arrives for him to do so.”

“He… sits with me…?” D’Argen asked, still trying to wrap his mind around it.

“Whatever happened to your mahee, also happened to his,” Darania said, her voice low. Lisa pretended not to hear her and started humming under her breath. “And that brings me to a query for you, will you allow me to examine your mahee?”

D’Argen wondered for a long time what the right answer was. He felt no different. There was something strange, he knew there was, but it was strange only because he knew it should be there. Everything was normal. The ocean waves inside him churned and they lapped at the edges of an iceberg that was too big to go around, and a gentle breeze soothed them into stilling or aided them in growing more fierce.

He had not opened his mahee once since waking up. The thought of it was terrifying for some reason. It felt too similar to that same fear he had in the dream world, where he had not used his mahee for what felt like his entire existence and had instead turned to the bottle to drown out his sorrows. He would not be turning to a bottle here, no matter how much his throat still ached.

“My throat still hurts,” D’Argen finally said. If Darania took it as permission to examine both his throat and then dig down into his mahee, that was on her.

“Tilt your head back,” Darania ordered and wiggled closer to him in the grass.

He did as told and then felt as Lisa started pulling at his hair again. “I think a braid would do nicely, no?”

“Sure,” he agreed with her as well. While Lisa braided his hair, combing out a few strands that she did not tie back, Darania gently touched at his throat.

“I feel nothing different,” Darania said. “Open your mouth. Say ‘ahh’.”

“Ahh.”

“Hmm… no swelling and no discolouration. How does it feel?”

“Like I’ve been eating iced sweets all of yesterday.”

“And have you?” Darania asked, a twinkle in her eye.

D’Argen would have looked at Lisa to check if she was listening, but he did not have to shift at all. A slightly harsher tug of a strand of hair let him know that he had been caught giving away the sweets to the children.

“It could be…”

“Thar’s mahee,” D’Argen added in when she trailed off. “I just… no. Not yet.”

“Alright,” Darania readily agreed. She did not wiggle back into her previous spot and instead reached for a loose lock that Lisa had left free. “I do hope you tell me eventually.”

“Eventually. Let me accept it first before I try to wrap my mind around it,” he admitted.

Darania quickly braided the single lock into a tiny braid. Lisa took it from her and added it to her mix at the back.

“Have you ever… have you ever not seen anything at all?” D’Argen was not sure how to ask his question so he stumbled through his words.

“What do you mean? Like being blind?”

“No. Yes. No.” He remembered not having sight for the days on Sky Mountain not that long ago and it was similar, but also completely different. “More like… a pure white nothingness.”

“Nothingness?”

“From before,” D’Argen said, putting emphasis on the words so Darania would get his meaning without him having to spell it out.

Darania did seem to understand him but her expression was still twisting in confusion. “Like an empty dream?”

Her question startled D’Argen. Was that all that place was? Not another realm, like Lilian said it, but a dream without anything at all keeping it together. D’Argen knew his thoughts tended to run around often, so the idea was not too far-fetched that even his subconscious had not been able to settle on anything at all, an answer to a few questions missing so nothing being shown at all.

“I guess, yes. An empty dream.”

“Personally, no,” Darania admitted with a shake of her head. “Not since Santis taught us all how to dream. Before that, yes. Though it was less a nothingness and more like an empty room with no walls. It felt… confining.”

“An empty dream” D’Argen repeated. Yes, before Santis taught them how to dream, that was what sleep was. Was it not? “Maybe that is all it was. I should ask him,” D’Argen confirmed.

Lisa’s hands at the back of his head stilled though it did not feel like she was done with her braiding yet. Darania’s face fell.

“What is it?” he asked.

“D’Argen,” Darania said his name slowly, “Santis is dead. He had been since the first demon wars.”

“Oh. Oh! Oh, yes, yes he is. My apologies, I got confused for a moment there,” D’Argen tried to play it off. But the thing is, he had just seen Santis the other day, had he not? The man’s wide stride that seemed completely opposite of his gifts of sleep. The scent of sugarcane that surrounded him when he had woken up from a pleasant dream that he could not recall. He and Ehora had stood shoulder-to-shoulder, whispering to one another and grinning with their conspiracies and surprised that always put the others in a good mood.

Lisa resumed her braiding without a word.

Darania stared at him with narrowed eyes as if she was trying to look through him.

“Just a momentary lapse, Darania, I promise,” D’Argen tried to assure her even if the words tasted like ashes on his tongue.

Darania nodded. A bird chirped. The sound of it tasted sour.

Lisa finished his braid and then pulled a portion of it over his shoulder for him to see. It was so intricate with multiple tiny braids and even some flowers pulled together. It looked beautiful and he told her so and thanked her both out loud and using the gratitude gestures he had learned for Mayan.

Thinking of Mayan seemed to have summoned the man. D’Argen squinted at the sky. It was too early to do his daily exercises. Then Mayan’s hands started moving through the air. D’Argen did not recognize most of the gestures, but there was one that caught his attention. Mayan wiggled his fingers through the air as his hand came down from eye level to his waist.

“Oh,” Lisa sounded from behind D’Argen. “Speak of him and he shall appear,” she sounded happy.

“What is it?” D’Argen asked, confused.

“Thar has arrived,” Darania informed him. Both her and Lisa got up.

D’Argen felt like his entire being froze over.

Thar.

He was here.

Not long after talking about him, he appeared.

Was this still the dream realm? No, if that were the case, Thar would have just shimmered into place right in front of him. The same way he shimmered out when he ran D’Argen through with the sword. Something inside D’Argen clenched tight and he felt, for a moment, as if that sword was still inside him.

Then he had a thought. That sword was important. And, as far as he knew, it was still on Sky Mountain.

Good. There we go.

“Where are you going?” Darania asked him before he even realized he was walking opposite of the others.

“I… uhh…” he hesitated.

Darania looked confused and then her small features softened. She motioned to both Lisa and Mayan and the two walked away. Darania, instead, walked up to him.

“Too soon?” she asked, softly.

“A bit,” he answered, not sure if it was the right thing.

“Ah. He will find you if you just hide out here.”

“I just had a thought. I want to go to the mainland to test it.”

Darania hummed then nodded. “Do come back, though. He will not stay long if you are not here.”

“You want me back so soon?”

“Mayan has taken a liking to you,” Darania answered with a wide grin. After a moment, it softened. “There are other things I want to talk to you about. I have… I have wrapped my mind around them.”

D’Argen thought he understood what she meant and it excited him. Would she tell him more of their fall? Of before it? Of the spells she used that were not of her aspect?

But first, Thar.

“I will be back,” he said.

“I will be waiting,” she answered.