It would be best for her to assume that her protections would be insufficient, and approach the Lake’s heart only with a holistic solution in mind. There were few things that could act as a fix-all, but Miretrix’s instinctual hunt for magical reagents had yet to finish.

Teleporting to yet another new location, Miretrix found herself outside a quiet log cabin beside a frozen lake, somewhere in the mountains. Her heart, which had remained relatively calm until this point, suddenly began to pound in her ears. A foreboding feeling settled over her limbs, more uncomfortable than the biting chill of the frigid air.

Referring to her magical map, Miretrix saw that she was in the frozen wastes north of the Grand Plateau in Cartlan.

Something about this trip was unlike the ones that had come before.

Based on the reagents that Miretrix held, she had sufficient material for the highest-level mental protection spell that she could think of, with some materials left over.

That meant whatever was present here would be used in some capacity to repair the Lake’s heart.

A possibility occurred to the zombie-like Miretrix, who continued to act on the instincts which itched at her muscles from within.

How many years had it been?

The quiet sense of disquietude grew as the log cabin grew larger in the fairy’s vision.

But perhaps unexpectedly, the door to the humble cabin flew open before Miretrix could force it open.

“You! Not you! Go away.” Came a shout from a man. His voice was hoarse, physically feeble, but filled with vehement vitriol that set one’s nerves on edge.

Miretrix drifted closer, fists full of magical reagent ready. “You… slaver.”

“Leave me alone!” the old man shouted.

“You were expecting me.”

“Leave me alone!!” the slaver repeated.

“You knew I would come. Perhaps you knew retribution would come one day?”

But the door slammed shut before Miretrix’s instincts could act. She could’ve taken her justified revenge at any moment, but her body acted in ways her mind could not understand. What events did it remember?

Miretrix took another look around.

“A lakeside home to retire in, after everything he did? How tasteless.”

The old man’s protests had fallen silent. Sounds of shuffling and something being scraped could be heard.

“Leave my grandad alone!” came a defiant yell.

“Ava!” the slaver hissed.

Miretrix hardened her heart. Her hand moved of its own volition, sending magical reagents flying to the wall of the log cabin. Pointing with a painted fingernail, a thin laser shot out, searing a magic circle into the log cabin. The wood mutated, given life, purple roots snaking and taking hold of the structure.

The roof of the cabin collapsed. A dreadful silence ensued.

Miretrix could hear a whimper.

“Grandad!!” a visceral, animalistic scream.

“Run, Ava!” a muffled groan through teeth gritted in pain. “Go! GO!”

Miretrix’s fine hearing could pick up the sound of a door opening, footsteps retreating into the soft snow. She caught the glimpse of a tear-strewn, reddened face before it disappeared behind the collapsed hut.

Miretrix quietly approached, floating through the air like a ghost. The debris of the hut moved and cleared the path for her automatically, the purple roots an extension of her body. She was brought face to face with the slaver.

“Perhaps I will regret letting little Ava live... Much like you are regretting letting me live all those years ago.”

“I regret nothing.” The old man spat.

“Is that so? Is immortality really treating you that well? Worth committing genocide and selling the children like myself into slavery? ”

The old man snarled. “Immortality?” he scoffed, even “You know as well as I that drinking the lake water does nothing.”

“And yet, you didn’t listen, and wiped out an entire sanctuary for nothing.”

“Do you expect an apology or something? Just get on with it and kill me.” The slaver spat.

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“Before I do that, do you even know who I am? Don’t tell me that you don’t even remember my name. Miretrix Lampleer? Ringing any bells?”

“You-you?!”

“What a moment I’m blessed with. How must it feel to know that the little fairy that you once held in a cage became Lord of the Coronum?”

Miretrix followed her body’s impulses and drew a purple crystal from her long sleeve.

The slaver began to scream and flail with no abandon upon making sight of it, struggling to free himself from beneath a timber log that was pinning his legs, not even the splinters gouging his hands and fingertips could stop his desperate attempt to flee.

His reaction was far more than Miretrix would have expected.

“Do you know what this is?” Miretrix asked.

The man didn’t reply, only continuing his wretched struggle.

His behaviour struck tickled Miretrix’s mind. It was strangely familiar. Like he was acting purely on instinct and nothing more.

It was like looking into a mirror. An idea occurred to Miretrix.

She struggled internally for a few moments, trying to resist the urge to follow her own instincts. It was like holding one’s breath or stopping urination mid-stream. Deeply uncomfortable. Unnatural.

Indeed, seeing the scene of the old man in front of her, a question that had been burning in Miretrix’s mind rose to the surface once more: Where had she developed her intricate muscle memory from? She had been acting on it this entire time as a natural, necessary matter of course, And until now, she had no real reason to question it.

Now that she had stopped to think about it, the slaver had been acting strangely from the very beginning of their interaction. He had recognised her, but not known her name or title. Sure, it was certainly possible that the slaver had seen a nightwane fairy and assumed that his past had caught up to him, but Miretrix did not think that was the extent of it. The way he acted, the accusatory tone of voice, betrayed some specific expectation of her, not the general dislike of a stranger. He must have remembered Miretrix, or perhaps, his body remembered her, even if his mind could not. Similarly, the slaver’s eyes seemed to recognise the crystal Miretrix held, though by all rights Miretrix would never think that he could fathom the purpose of such a rare artefact.

Miretrix put the crystal away. The slaver came to his senses, breath heaving in his chest.

“Something strange is happening to us. Would you agree?”

“…What?” the slaver asked, bloodshot eyes bulging.

Miretrix withdrew the crystalline spirit vessel once more, causing the slaver to return to his involuntarily struggle. With Her point illustrated, Miretrix put the crystal away once more.

“That was a spirit vessel. It may have mystical powers, but causing madness is certainly not one of them. And yet, it seems that you lose your mind at the mere sight of it. Pray tell, why might that be?”

“I-I don’t know!” shouted the old man.

Miretrix’s mind raced. What could they have in common? What was causing this phenomenon? But the longer she delayed, the stronger the urge ‘to take another breath’ – to kill the man. As for what they had in common, they were both murderers, but Miretrix didn’t think that particularly mattered. No, rather…

“Did you drink the lake water?” Miretrix interrogated.

“What?”

“Come on man, did you drink the water at Virtuus Lake or not?”

“Are you going to kill me if I have?”

“I would like to kill you regardless. But who knows, I might change my mind. Answer the question.”

“Yes, yes of course I drank the damned lake water! Why wouldn’t I? But why does it matter? The immortality is a myth. We all drank the damn water, and ain't none of us become immortal.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Miretrix said.

She drew the spirit vessel and tossed it over her shoulder. A purple root caught it and unexpectedly plunged it straight into the old man’s chest in the blink of an eye. He barely had time to react before his soul was sucked into the purple vessel, leaving his lifeless corpse with a gaping hole punched into the chest. Miretrix pulled the bloodstained spirit vessel free but didn’t leave just yet. Something drew her to the simple thread of dark green woven fibre around the man’s neck.

Miretrix drew in closer and followed the impulse to snap the man’s amulet off his neck. A strange device was threaded onto it. Some kind of round, glassy vessel containing red sand. The smell of it – it reeked of fae magic. No doubt, this had been plundered from Miretrix’s home.

Her work finished, Miretrix turned away and disappeared with another flap of her wings.

This time she was transported to one of her hidden bases, built into the side of a mountain. Drawing her reagents out and arranging them on the blackstone workbench before her. Raising her hand over them, Miretrix once more resisted the urge to follow her instincts.

The mystery of her missing memories continued to pick at her brains.

Miretrix knew that Virtuus Lake did not grant immortality. But she did know that the place did hold some special power, a power that had been kept secret, even from her. As far as she knew, no one else from Virtuus Lake survived to the present day. They had either died that night or rotted to death as slaves.

Miretrix was slowly getting used to resisting her impulses. It was like finding out that one could survive after having held their breath past the point of death.

She decided to complete the spells as her muscle memory dictated.

The first was a spell to protect her. The high-level mental protection spell would presumably protect her mind from all kinds of mind-addling substances and effects.

The second was the creation of an enchanted artefact requiring the item she had taken from the body of her old slaver. Now seeing it in the magical context of her workshop, Miretrix realised that she recognised it in some capacity; the Matriarch of her village had often worn it on her person. It was no ordinary item. Miretrix cast the second spell too, resulting in a heavily enchanted capsule containing dark red sand. The sand was the essence of ‘repair’, it would simply restore anything it touched, being consumed in the process. The sand’s container was enchanted to be an exception to the rule of repair, so as to avoid wasting the volatile essence of repair.

The end of the line was fast approaching.

With both of the spells cast, and all the magical reagent consumed, it was all but certain that the next stop would be the last - Virtuus Lake itself.

Miretrix had to solve the mystery now. This was her last chance.

No matter how one looked at it, memory lay at the crux of the issue.

This entire time, Miretrix had been operating on muscle memory. She had been wondering what might have given her the extraordinary muscle memory she possessed, but she hadn't even stopped to consider the most obvious answer.

Repetition.

That was how muscle memory developed. By performing the same action over and over.

But how was it possible for Miretrix to have developed the muscle memory that she was operating on?

Following this idea to its logical conclusion, Miretrix must have been in the exact same scenarios and performed the exact same actions - over and over. And at some point, the actions she had taken had become muscle memory.

But there were only a few ways that this could be possible. With a variety of quick analytical spells cast on her person, Miretrix ruled out all but one possibility:

"...Am I trapped in a time loop?" she wondered.