A loud knocking on the door woke Angie up. It was incessant and rushed. Like the person on the door just wished the door would break under their fist.

“Angie!” A female voice shouts on the other side.

Angie looked down as she sat up in her bed, looking at the palms of her hands. Before shaking her head and responding to her friend Jane outside the door. She had come to check up on her.

Angie breathes in deeply, she looks around her room, and over to her desk at the other side of the room.

There sitting atop it lies her notebook, her journal, sprawled open. All her writings in a language she doesn’t know. Angie looks down, she opens and closes her palms and quietly under a hushed breath counts to ten.

As soon as she finishes the knocking on her door continues.

“I’m up, I’m up!” Angie says.

“Just, sigh, give me a minute” She adds.

Getting dressed quickly and opening the door, Angie peers out to the hallway Jane is standing in.

Drab wooden wall with an attempt at wallpaper that peels ever so slightly , everywhere. Small yellow varnish making the hallway seem almost larger and hotter that it was.

Looking at her companion, Jane regarded her with a familiar regal look. A almost sneer on her face, though Angie understands this is her friends face of concern, it is still slightly unsettling.

“Are you okay, after last night?” Jane asks.

The genuine concern and, trepidation? In her friends voice shocks Angie fully awake and aware.

“yes, yes” Angie says.

“Sorry, it’s just, been a bit and I had trouble sleeping, but yes I am doing better” Angie says while showing a weak smile up to Jane.

Jane raises an eyebrow and scans Angie looking her up and down.

“I am to then assume, You wont be available for work today” Jane asks.

Angie nods and starts to speak than stops. She breaths deep and than relaxes her shoulders.

“If I can avoid the work, then yes, that sigh, yes” Angie says.

“Jane give another sneerish smile, before reaching over and gently holding Angie’s shoulder.

“Just rest, okay, you gave Gran and Martha a terrible scare. Martha should also be by later to help you with any little chores, okay” Jane adds.

It is like she is speaking to a sick child that a mother has to leave for a time, making sure everything is okay and prepared for Angie to be alone for a little bit longer.

Jane gives Angie one final look over before nodding her head to herself. As if she is making sure no gaping wound or terrible scar can be found on her. A deep gash of blood. Seeing none of that, Jane offers a final smile and a final gentle pat, before saying her goodbyes and leaving.

Angie is rather mad currently. I use that term in the way it should be used, for she is not upset, she is just crazy mad.

She began a mad rush to clean everything, thought about going out to buy things, put on and took off every article of clothing she owned, messing up her room again, before falling down into her chair as if she worked and toiled a full day.

That all occurred in the past hour. Rather busy hour, however.

Three days pass in uneventful torpor. Angie has bouts and small clashes of what to do and what actually happened. She starts each day fine and then remembers the chase and the fight and the magic. She then panics.

I am getting upset at all of this.

On the fourth day of her rest and leave from working with the other girls Angie woke up as normal though slightly lethargic in her movements.

She made her way grabbing a small lantern and enhancing the Hel-lights inside and puts down on her desk. She opened her journal and begins writing in her language. She is making a list of what happened the other day. The tall one, the short woman, the magic, her speed. She catalogues all of it silently and quickly. Then after a small amount of time as she taps her pen into the top of the desk she asks me a question, a question she has often asked me.

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“Can you please just explain what you are” Ange asks.

“A devil, some fiend of a sort, a deal I made.”

“Or are you a ghost a haunting figure.”

Or are you, I don’t know, something else.”

We have been silent to each other for three days and now a question like this. A rather difficult one to answer as things stand, for I know she wont like the answer.

As I have said I am the companion, and I am as mush of her as she is of me.

“I cant quite say, I don’t feel fiendish, if fiends did feel a way about how the are, nor do I feel like the moniker you have given me” I say.

I do feel that I could exist beyond this though, not truly physical but, corporeal, able to manifest myself, and not just exist inside you. But even then, no true separation can be achieved by simple giving me a puppet to move.” I say.

Angie thinks to herself, a slow and silent head nod, her eyes closed.

“So you just need a puppet then? Like a small wooden plaything?” She asks.

“No I would need something stronger, able to hold more of my essence than just a simple toy”

Angie sighs and puts her head down on the desk and just sits there quietly for a moment, the blue light in the lantern making the room feel darker and later in the day than it is.

Angie lifts up her head and faces forward blinking number of times before rubbing her eyes and closing her notebook. Standing she makes her way over to her bed and picks up some clothes she put out earlier.

As she is getting dressed she asks me.

“So what do you need then?”

“In truth, I need a focus, or more so a vessel, something that can hold me, and they tend to be enchanted objects.”

Angie putting on socks and grabbing a pair of shoes from under her bed has a small head tilt at that.

“So we need a mage or wizard, who can or has enchanted an object, and so what, if they enchanted a teacup are you just inhabit a teacup”

“No the vessel is a magical form, think of it as my heart, so I would have the heart of a teacup, but more of a apparitional body” I say.

“Hmmm” Angie says loudly as she walks over to her desk and looks over herself in the mirror.

Giving a slight smile and a quick nod she turns and makes her way to her door.

“You have a plan for today?” I ask.

“Yes, yes I do have a plan for today.” Angie responds.

I say nothing before she turns around to the room, though she cant ever see me, she is making a show of talking towards her book as if that is me.

“The plan is to do anything but be in this room” Angie says before closing the door and turning, walking down into the streets of Azdar.

Walking down the streets, the city has a life devoid in Angie’s room. Here the sun shines brightly and sound of a city roar in all ears. Carts and wagons pulled by horses start and stop all across the city carting people and goods, a burly men lift up crates and barrels of every variety.

Merchant stalls crowd around public areas in small squash stalls, brightly colored tarps and banners all with different iconography.

Smells of meat and bread, the sound of fire roaring and people going about their business buying food and shopping along.

Angie is walking around in a leisurely pace, looking and perusing but not buying. She is simply wandering the city currently.

I think about asking what she is doing or looking for, but in truth I don’t want to stop her currently. This works for be far better than staying alone in a closed off room. Here is she uses magic, the academy is sure to notice and she might finally get out of this forsaken city.

Angie continues her aimless wanderings before walking along the central road, there at the end of the road atop a hill is the central imperial place, also home to the academy, the great big ball of light shimmering and white above it while giving of small flares that shine and dissipate every few seconds.

Angie meanwhile has been distracted by something else and notices a group of bards. A minstrel band of some sort parked in a small park giving a brief show. A deflated hat of brown color and patchwork design lays alone inform of them. Inside shines the colors of silver coin, even a small golden glint of gold coin in there.

Angie walks up and listens to the show briefly. It features one very tall figure of darker skin and a long tall head. He shows pure white teeth while performing small magic tricks, and has a snake coiled around his arms.

The snake and the man are juggling small shiny balls the man kicking them up with the tips of his shoes and the snake bouncing them by raising its head.

Among them off to the side are the more traditional minstrels and bards. A large burly man with a great sick banging a drum, able to control the sound and depth of the noise immaculately.

While next to him are two woman both singing, twins form the look of it, though one has dyed white hair and the other black.

They are singing a comedy song, though just adding small vocalizations and squeaks to accent the jugglers main performance.

On a small stool is a smaller woman, though she has short reddish hair, she has in her lap a lute of some sort and is playing it with deft hands though her sound is the quietest. That is the one I am most intrigued by and it seems Angie is as well.

Angie stand to the side of the crowd and mainly looks at the short bar and her lute. For she is the one controlling the snake and she never takes her eyes off it.

A rather risky play, trying that magic here in Azdar, but brave or foolhardy. Bu most certainly skilled. Only Angie can notice it from my power, I am sure she never devised anyone would or even could notice.

She is quite skilled at this.

Quite skilled indeed.