Chapter 11: Sleepless night
Felix Sythias’s POV (continued):
I put down the last pile of wood. We had way too much of it now, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. Besides, it would be awful if we had to go back out into the forest at night to gather more. The forest would be significantly more dangerous then. In the cave we would be safer. The fire would also scare away weaker monsters, so staying near it was important. It was one of the very few things that did, actually. It had to be a mundane fire, though. Magical fire only attracted monsters.
“Go and rest. I’ll get the fire started,” I said to Alex, and I didn’t need to tell him twice. He sat down against a wall and closed his eyes, sighing in relief as the cold stone dulled his headache just the slightest bit. We were both exhausted, but he was practically sleeping on his feet. It was going to be a rough night.
I sorted through the pile of firewood, sorting it by size. A few times a piece was too large, and I had to break it into smaller pieces, but Alex had mostly done a good job gathering the firewood. After that, I sorted the dry twigs by thickness.
Starting the fire itself was easy. I used some tinder and dry grass to make a small nest for the fire, then built a little house of wood around it on the ground. With a thought, I lit the nest on fire with a few sparks of fire magic. Within minutes I had a nice little fire going. It would take some time to scale it up, but that was fine.
I could have lit an entire pile of wood on fire at once with my magic, but not only was there no need to, it would’ve been incredibly inefficient. I needed every drop of mana later for cleaning my remaining wounds.
I took a few small stones and put them near the edge. When they were hot, I could use them to heat the water in my canteen. I had a few bags of tea with me, so I could make some later. We could both use the warmth, even if we both had alternate ways of staying warm.
The idea I had earlier about boiling the bandages clean wasn’t really on the table anymore though. I’d forgotten I’d left my little pan at home, and boiling them in my canteen just wouldn’t work.
I slowly fed the fire, growing it in size. When it was big enough, I stopped feeding it beyond what it needed to stay the same size. I also took the little pebbles and quickly moved them into the canteen, which bubbled from the heat. It didn’t take too many for the water to boil. I poured some out into the little cups I had and put a little tea bag in them.
I’d honestly forgotten I even had these cups before today. I remembered I put them in there a few months ago so I could make some tea for myself while I was out in the forest, but I’d promptly forgotten about it once a juvenile gryphon took offense to me flying over its trees. They were of great use now, though. Even if they were on the smaller side. Well, small for me. They’d probably feel unnecessarily large to Alex.
I looked out of the cave. The sun was setting, casting everything in a golden hue. The sight would’ve been glorious if it hadn’t been for the situation.
Having nothing else to do myself, I thought about Dad and what he would be doing right about now. He likely would’ve just gotten off of work and was probably wondering where I was. He had without a doubt already looked at the copy of the tracking map he had in his office at home. It showed the positions of everyone on campus and the surrounding area. It wasn’t super accurate—as that wasn’t its purpose or goal—only showing positions within fifty meters, but it was good enough.
He had probably seen that I was down here with Alex and had come to the conclusion I was out camping again. And because of last night’s mess, he wouldn’t think it was strange that I needed some space.
He’d begin worrying tomorrow morning, and by early afternoon would come to see if everything was alright.
I pulled the tea bags out and put them aside for now. We could reuse them in the morning. I took a cup and walked over to where Alex was resting. I put the cup down and gently shook him by the shoulder to wake him up.
Alex looked up at me, blinking sleepily. “Wh-what?”
“Come, let’s eat some food. I also made you some tea.”
He struggled to get up, so I gave him a talon. We both sat down near the fire. He was mesmerized by it, and I realized that this might be the first time he’s seen fire. Or at least one so big. Wood wasn't cheap in the desert. Even heating enchantments were cheaper. So they used very little wood.
I handed him his cup, and he took a small sip.
Food would be bland this evening. Gewee jerky. It was high-quality jerky, sure, but it was still just jerky. I grabbed some from the pouch and handed a portion to Alex.
We ate in silence for a while. The jerky was about as tasty as I expected, though Alex seemed to enjoy it. When we were done, Alex asked me to tell about the fight. So I did.
From hitting the tree and tearing off my wing, to mauling the bear and the fight in the forest. Alex listened with rapt attention while I told the story, only occasionally stopping me to ask a question. By the end, he was thoroughly impressed.
“That was awesome,” he said. “And you’re a great storyteller.”
I shook my head. “I fought like a rabid dog, I don’t think that qualifies as awesome.”
“You won, isn’t that what’s important?”
I sighed. “Yeah, but I wish I could have done so differently.”
“I think that anyone winning a fight against a level twenty-three monster while they’re still level one themselves is awesome by default. And you’re even more awesome because—” he trailed off at my bewildered expression. “What?”
“Level twenty-three. Did you just say level twenty-three?!”
He looked puzzled. “Yeah. Didn’t you check?”
I stood up and started pacing. “This zone isn’t supposed to have any monsters higher than level ten. How can there be a level twenty-three monster here? It’s impossible!”
He looked a bit puzzled. “Level twenty-plus monsters are quite common, no? One probably just wandered in.”
I shook my head again. “Not possible. The walls are too well defended. They could stop a level hundred monster.”
“Oh, well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Alex said with a shrug.
I sat back down. “No, I suppose not. I’ll just tell dad when he picks us up tomorrow. He’ll have the whole place shut down while they investigate.”
“Did you at least get any levels out of it?”
I averted my eyes. “I… no. I did not.”
Alex sat up straighter, a frown on his snout. “What? How’s that possible?”
I considered for a moment to lie, but in the end, that’s not who I wanted to be. And I didn’t think Alex would judge or hate me for the truth. Many people already knew about it, but this was the first time I would actually talk to someone about it myself. Someone who wasn’t dad, anyway.
“I.. I.. don’t yet have a System.”
“You’re not eighteen yet?”
I shook my head. “No, I am. I just… don't have one,” I said, then added, “Yet.”
“What?!” He looked incredulous and a multitude of expressions flashed over his face as he thought about it for a few minutes; from confusion, to pity, to anger. Eventually it settled on compassion. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I hesitated but nodded after a moment. “I think I do, yeah.”
And so I did. For the second time that night, I told Alex a story. I told him about the awesome hatchingday party, my plans, how much I appreciated everyone showing up, the buildup to midnight, the anticipation, and then the actual event and its aftermath. The emotions of that night hit me again, all at once. The panic of something going wrong, the worry that I was even less normal than I had thought, the fear that I would be spending the rest of my life on a farm. It was awful, and it was freeing. To not keep it bottled up, but to talk about it with someone. I was glad Alex was here with me now, to listen.
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By the end of my tale, tears were rolling down my face again and Alex gave me another hug. They were tears of sadness and relief. It made me feel ridiculous.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he said. “Just let it out.”
But what if it didn’t? What if I never unlocked the System? What then? The farm had been an overreaction, sure, but what would I be doing with my life now, then? I came up empty.
My tears flowed down his back, leaving wet trails on his scales. “Stars, I feel stupid,” I muttered as the tears slowed. “Crying like a little kid? I’m supposed to be grown up now.”
He rubbed my shoulder gently. “It’s alright. Crying is okay at any age and we all need a good cry sometimes. Even I do. Stars know how much a good cry now and again helped me.”
He was right, though it didn’t make me feel less ridiculous. But it did remind me I wasn’t alone in this. There would be plenty of time to think of a solution and I didn’t have to do it alone. Dad would be there, and just maybe Alex too. I would come out on top, eventually.
I cried the last tears and wiped away the wetness on my face. I’d figure something out. I just needed time.
“Thank you. I’m okay now,” I said and he let go. I smiled at him. “I’m sorry about the wetness, though.”
“It’ll dry up soon enough, don’t worry about that.” He ran a hand down his back, wiping away most of the tears. “I’m sorry that happened to you. What are you going to do now?”
I leaned back against the rock. “Dad will be looking for solutions in the archives, but I’m not counting on it. As much as I hate it, I have to consider the possibility I’ll be stuck like this for the foreseeable future.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”
“I hope so.”
We sat by the fire in a comfortable silence, just enjoying each others’ presence. After some time, Alex slumped against me, fast asleep. I covered him with my wing and decided that I would be taking the first watch. I needed less sleep anyway.
It had always been a point of conflict between me and dad. I simply needed less sleep than he did, and it made for some unique problems. I could sleep longer, up to a month if I really wanted to—a fact that led to a bunch of interesting theories about what kind of creature I was—but what kid wanted to sleep longer than was absolutely necessary when that time could be used to play and learn? Probably quite a few, but not me.
After I got older, I learned to appreciate the silence the extra sleep provided me. No more worrying about the kids at school, no more overhearing gossip in the hallways, just silence inside and outside my head. Over time, I had started sleeping more and more to escape the real world, flipping the initial problems upside down. It hadn’t been healthy, and dad had taken me to healers and counselors. Now I could sleep normally again, though it had taken months and a lot of hard work to get back to that.
Outside, the sun had set, and the stars had come out to play in all their luminous glory. The lizardkin worshiped the stars, one of the very few species that did. The records told that they used to be the only way to navigate the ever-shifting sands of the Dry Territories before the invention of compasses, and so its inhabitants had started assigning meaning to them. That’s not what they would tell you if you asked, however. They’d give some flowery story about the beginning of time and the ruthlessness of the desert. They were nice stories, and they had some good moral lessons, but in the end it was just another religion. No, I liked the truth better. It felt grounded.
I had learned all about it while researching the lizardkin. They were still the closest thing to me in appearance and I’d sought out every little thing about their culture and stories in the hope they had a myth explaining me. There were surprisingly little books written on, or by, the lizardkin in the libraries. Except for astronomy books. Most of those were written by the lizardkin. For everything else I was forced to resort to asking the lizardkin on campus.
They were all more than happy to tell me about their homeland, religion, and myths, luckily. The lizardkin were great storytellers and had a particular knack for telling stories about treasure hunters and large sand worms. I had spent many afternoons enthralled by their tales. I had even met some really nice people, one of which I still had contact with to this day. But they didn’t have any myths about dragons. It was a dead end in that regard.
It wasn’t all fruitless, though. From one lizardkin who loved biology I had learned a lot about the inner workings of lizardkin and it had given me good theories on how my own body might work. That was a few years before Elena—the Academy’s top healer—had gifted me a large poster detailing my biology. That poster still hung in my room.
Other than that, they had taught me a lot about their culture. In short, I thought it sucked. Despite living in an ever-shifting desert—or perhaps because of it—they did not accept changes easily, and that led to a lot of cases like Alex, where some of their best left. Either because they were cast out for doing something different, or they left of their own accord because they couldn’t stand hiding who they were anymore. They pretty much always missed their homeland, though.
I looked down at Alex. He laid against my side, clutching his tail, still fast asleep. I smiled; he looked adorable like this. He probably missed his homeland as well. I decided to talk about it with him sometime. Not why he left—although I was curious—but just talking about what it was like and what he missed. It might help with any homesickness.
Looking out over the pond just outside the cave’s entrance, I wondered why he might have left. He said he taught the hatchlings; maybe he taught them something the others didn’t like? Or maybe he’d worn a dress? There was just no way to know.
I suppose I could ask, but the lizardkin I’d spoken to before had all made one thing very clear: I should never ask another lizardkin the reason they had left. More often than not they were unpleasant stories that were best left in the past.
And so I wouldn’t.
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The night was strangely peaceful and there wasn’t a single monster attack. They came close a few times, but shied away once they saw the fire. I was glad that this was only zone Zero. Had we been in any of the other zones, then this would not have worked.
In the end, I had left Alex asleep and just did his part of taking watch myself. I had thought about waking him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Between the pain and my restless mind, I doubted I would’ve gotten much sleep either way. Besides, he looked so peaceful like this, and I didn’t need to sleep that much anyway, so I figured I’d let him get his much needed rest. I’d catch up on my own sleep later.
I was glad we ended up getting more wood than we thought we needed, because it appeared my calculations had been off. Through-out the night, I used about one and a half times more wood than planned to keep the fire going. But we had gathered enough, so it was fine.
The sun was slowly creeping over the treeline now. Only a few more hours and dad would pick us up. Probably.
I looked down at Alex. He’d shifted and moved around all night. At some point he’d even let go of his own tail and had grabbed onto mine, hugging it like a large body pillow. It would’ve been cute, and for the first ten minutes it was, but then my tail had begun getting sore.
I could understand people’s complaints about cats now.
A few times I managed to extricate my tail to stretch it out a little, but I’d felt guilty afterwards. Like I’d taken a toy away from a child. And so back into the death-grip my tail went.
Once the sun was sufficiently over the treeline, I decided I wanted some tea so I once again placed a few small pebbles near the fire. Once they were hot, I placed them into the canteen. I had to move fast, or I’d burn my talons. My claws were terrible at transferring heat, but not immune. I poured the hot water into the cups and added yesterday’s teabags—I didn’t have any others. I grabbed a piece of jerky and sipped on my tea.
As the smell of the tea wafted through the space, Alex stirred and groggily awakened.
“Good morning, Alex.,” I said, raising my cup to him in greeting.
“...morning.”
He looked around the cave, confusion clear in his eyes before realization dawned on him. His head slumped back onto my tail with a sigh.
“Can I have my tail back? It’s getting sore.”
“Huh?” He looked down, then let go. Immediately, I stretched it out. “Oh, sorry. I sleep best holding onto something, so I must have grabbed your tail while I slept.”
“It’s fine. It was sort of adorable.”
“Heh,” he chuckled, then glanced at my cup. “Do you have some tea for me as well?”
I handed him a cup and some jerky. We endured through the dry jerky and sipped our tea. At least the latter was decent, if a bit flavorless.
“You didn’t wake me for my turn of the watch,” he asked. “Why?”
“You looked like you needed the sleep.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, not sounding convinced in the least. "And you didn’t?”
I shook my head. “My sleep pattern is different from you humanoids. I get cranky when I miss too much sleep, though. So, sorry in advance.”
“That’s fine. I think I can handle a little rudeness. Thanks.”
I nodded and took another sip. “Did you sleep well, by the way? Had any nice dreams?”
“I did, and why do you ask?” He frowned at me suspiciously.
“Oh, just felt like you had a nice dream, that's all.”
His frown deepened. “Felt?”
I smirked. “Well, you were pressed into my tail pretty tightly. I could—” A loud voice coming from outside the cave interrupted me.
“FELIX! Felix, where are you?!”
“Dad?” I muttered. He was too early, but I didn’t care. I sprang to my talons, the cup of tea clattering to the stone floor as I ran outside and called out to him. ”In here, dad!”
In a matter of moments and a flurry of paperwork, dad flew down into the cave. When he saw me, he shot towards me and enveloped me in a tight hug.
“Thank the gods you’re okay.”
“I’m sure the gods had nothing to do with it,” I said.
He looked up at my words, finally taking in my injuries. “What the fuck happened?!”