“Nii-san, are you going out again?”

I saw the little girl again, a little older now, probably no older than Diane. Her bright blue eyes stared into mine. Her blonde hair had started to darken a little into a cute dirty blond.

“Just one more time. After this time, I won’t ever have to leave you behind again. We will be able to stay in a nice little house and I can get you that doll you always wanted.”

I spoke, but the words were not mine. I wanted out, but this kept happening to me, again and again.

“I hate it when you leave, because every time you go out, you always look so sad and hurt when you come back! I’m scared… I’m scared that one day you might not come back.”

Stop it! stop stop stop!

“I do what I have to do. No matter what, I will always take care of you, Nina. Just wait for me here. I will be back, I promise!”

Thistleman sat up, fast as a bolt of lightning. His breathing was heavy. He wasn’t even trying to sleep, yet every night for the past three weeks, he kept having these dreams. They were maddening. Who was this kid? She seemed familiar. She looked like the girl from the broach.

I need to find this kid. She has to know something.

Thistleman looked over at Diane, making sure she was sleeping soundly. She had charged in to the guild every morning since they’d arrived back from the mountain and had taken on a new quest every day. She wouldn’t be waking any time soon.

Without even a hint of a sound, his body slowly melded with the shadows and slipped through the cracks in the ceiling.

It had been several weeks since Gus last left for his job and never came back. By the end of the first week, Nina had run out of food but she waited patiently in their little apartment. During the second week, she got so hungry she started begging for food. Most people ignored her, but she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t even imagine stealing from others, and so she just continued to suffer.

By the end of the second week, the landlady came around. She said that rent hadn’t been paid for this month and that Nina would have to leave. She begged her to wait for her brother, just one more day, but she wouldn’t listen.

By the end of the third week, Nina started to get sick. She was cold and hungry. Her clothes were now little more than rags. Nobody would even look her way. She had heard that a slavers guild kidnapped kids to sell on the black market. It would have been better than this, so she tried to sell herself to them. But they told Nina that nobody wanted a weak, sick kid about to die.

After that she retreated into a dark alley. The slums would be her grave. She curled up against a wall and her body didn’t even have the energy to shiver anymore. And then there was someone standing over her; they seemed to have just stepped out of the shadows.

“I see… death… you have finally come to take me.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he popped a squat and tilted his head. He seemed to be chewing on something?

“You Nina?”

Speaking was hard and she was so incredibly tired.

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“Want some jerky?”

Even though she was starving she took it hesitantly before taking a small bite. It was delicious.

“So… does this mean you will stop haunting me now?”

“Haunting you? Death, does this mean even you don’t want me?”

“I’m not death. So is that a yes or no?”

“Oh… well, then I will wait here for him…”

Her eyelids were getting heavy. There was no need to fight it anymore. At least she wouldn’t die hungry.

“That… is not an acceptable answer.”

If she stayed out here any longer, she would definitely die. However, Thistleman didn’t want to take her back to the inn either. He stretched out his arm towards the wall. It has been a long time since he’d used this spell and he wasn’t sure how well it would work. But, best to practice now before using it on the inn.

“Time and space, heed my call. Time, I hold thee constant, while space, I command you, provide me refuge from wind and rain, cold and heat. Open a new realm for me, one with a fire to keep me warm, space so I may sleep, and a door to keep out my enemies. Come forth, Dimensional Tear!”

An oozing, viscous black fluid congregated into a ball in front of Thistleman’s outstretched hand, before erupting into the stone wall. A small door materialized into the side of the alley wall.

Thistleman reached down and picked the little girl up, before carrying her through the door. Inside was a very small room, no larger than eight feet wide by five feet long. It had a small fireplace in which a magical fire burned. The ceiling was low, just barely high enough for him to stand. Thistleman sighed in disappointment.

“Seems I can only do so much right now. Well, it will have to do.”

He set his pouch of jerky in the corner of the room, and laid Nina down near the fire. Then, on his way out the door, and almost as an afterthought, he took his water skin and tossed it in to the corner with the jerky.

Tonight was what the townsfolk would call a lucky night. The sky was perfectly clear, and a full moon illuminated the forest. Thistleman could hear a monster fight nearby. He leapt from treetop to treetop, as silently as the wind.

Nearing the sounds of battle, he could see a huge, green troll practically swinging a whole tree at a saber-toothed tiger. Thistleman smiled to himself—troll hide would make for an excellent water skin. Also, their meat was naturally tough and considered repulsive to most species, it preserved well, and when smoked lost its acrid smell.

Except… something was wrong A saber-toothed Tiger should have been able to wipe the floor with a troll, even one this big, by leveraging its superior speed and intellect. Why was it just taking these hits?

Not that Thistleman could complain—saber-tooth hide was just as good for a water skin and their meat was more flavorful. If he gave some to Nina it could stop those dreams again for a little while.

Crunch.

The troll finally managed to land a killing blow. After breaking one of the saber-toothed tiger’s legs, it took a mighty swing and crushed its skull, splattering chunks of meat and brain onto the rocky ground.

The troll looked over to his prize and stared in a stupor for a moment. Then he began salivating. Delicious, soft man meat had appeared next to the cub.

The troll bellowed as he wound up and delivered his blow. However, he didn’t expect to receive a sudden shock from his club.

The human had stopped his club with his hand. His eyes… weren’t human eyes. Those yellow slits filled him with fear. His club shattered and, with a crash, the troll fled through the underbrush back into the darkness of the forest.

Thistleman turned to the nearby saber-toothed tiger cub, who had been cowering from the battle as its parent was slaughtered before it. The cub had an injured leg and was mewing pathetically. Well, best to leave it then. Thistleman walked up to the cub’s mother, touched it with his hand, and the space around the body began to distort before the corpse disappeared.

Far away, a yelp of shock could be heard from Nina’s new room.

As Thistleman turned to walk away, the cub made a fateful decision. It tried to follow him into the forest, mewing incessantly.

Thistleman stopped and looked at the little cub limping towards him. He waited until the cub reached him. It looked up and rubbed its face against him. What a weird creature. Thistleman picked the cub up and looked into its eyes. Now what about you is worth dying for? He decided after much thought that the benefits of investigating this strange power outweighed the risks. How he would explain this to Diane? After much though, he came up with a plan. A devious plan, indeed.

That morning, Diane woke up to a crash from the window, and started screaming before something fluffy landed on top of her face. Thistleman stealthily warped back into the room, took a deep breath, and readied himself.

“Why, what’s this?! An injured saber-toothed cub has come flying in through the window! Ahhh!”

Ah, a beautiful delivery! Who needs practice to be an actor when it can just be this easy?