After months of agonizingly boring lectures and tests, every second I could spare spent imagining how I would distinguish myself from my sisters in my coven, we had finally left the claustrophobic confines of Zenithcidel for our first journey into Chaos.

All that time and all my anticipation only for I, the illustrious Fawn Feathee, to get trapped in the gelatinous clutches of something that moved slower than grass grew.

A jelly cube.

My world tinted in a sickly green, I could already feel the slight tickling of my exposed skin being slowly melted away. The sundress I had thought was perfectly suitable for dungeon diving thankfully had long sleeves that would buy most of my body extra time my exposed legs wouldn't enjoy.

Damn my reasonable mind for valuing mobility and range of motion over coverage and practicality.

When I had been rudely awoken from a nap I desperately needed by the sound of the jelly slopping towards me, there had barely been enough time for me to fill my lungs with air before it had pounced.

Yes, semi-aware gelatinous acids can pounce and yes, taking a lung full of said jelly was a very bad idea.

My chest had just begun burning when a spectral orb snaked around the corner and into view. It shot over to me, remaining a small distance away from the cube.

"Underwitch Fawn," Ooo, Precept Muida's familiar, spoke. The words came directly into my mind, bypassing my goop filled ears. “You will lose consciousness in two minutes and thirteen seconds. You will perish in four minutes and thirty five seconds. Do you wish to call for assistance?"

"What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?" I thought back at Ooo, trying and failing to so much as wiggle one of my fingers.

I wondered if any one had ever survived long enough to watch themselves dissolve. Though, if they had by some arcane method, their eyes would be gone before they could see their bones liquify.

"Underwitch Fawn, you have one minute and fifty eight seconds before loss of consciousness." Ooo said to me.

Right, being slowly dissolved was not the time for me to ponder morbid hypotheticals.

Giving movement one more try, I flexed and pressed against the hold of the jelly, but nothing moved. If it hadn't been for the tickling sensation that was quickly giving way to stinging, it would have felt like I had no body at all.

"Do you wish you had a body?" I thought at Ooo

"It is against my directives to allow you to die. I will call for Precept Muida and the remainder of your coven in eleven seconds."

"No!" I shouted in my mind at the familiar. I would have rather died than be found by that bunch of wicked little imps I was forced to call my sisters, especially considering I was trapped in the gelatinous clutches of something that you basically had to let catch you.

"Nine seconds."

"Just," I thought back at Ooo, pooling my aura into the bottoms of my bare feet.

"Six seconds."

"Hold . . . on!" I wouldn't be able to hold my breath much longer and I couldn't hold my aura for another second. I had to channel it.

A burst of my yellow energy pulsed out of the soles of my feet, pushing the green ick of the jelly below them towards the cave floor. When the ick couldn't go any further down, it flared out, leaving a momentary pocket of space that I oozed into until my feet touched something solid. As fast as I could push my power out of me, I filled the gap against the pressure of the jelly trying to do the same thing.

"Two seconds."

The pocket grew and my aura filled the space, pushing the cube out of its square shape and washing over me until I felt myself pop free from the goop.

Precept Muida, her face set into her permanent scowl appeared in front of me. The rest of my coven in tow.

I resisted the overwhelming urge to gasp for air. The space I had forced to exist within the jelly wouldn't have air for me to breathe until I broke the vacuum the cube created by being stuck to the floor.

A smile spread across my face. "This couldn't have worked out any better." I thought at Ooo.

I spun on my heels, throwing myself into a wild series of spinning kicks. The yellow flash of my aura trailing behind my feet sliced through the jelly cube, releasing me and spraying my coven with droplets of green ick.

Dropping back to my feet, I landed in a crouch and flared my aura one last time before releasing the flow. I took a deep breath and then another, before gracefully standing.

"I'm so badass," I said under my breath. Precept Muida, Ooo, and my sisters were all silent. "Hey everybody!"

A collective "Ewww." Came from the other girls, as the droplets of jelly began inching off of them and towards a few larger chunks that were still jiggling on the floor.

"Underwitch Fawn, How do you feel?" Precept Muida asked, stepping over to me and placing her hand on my shoulder.

"I'm so happy to see all of you, here, in this wonderfully dark and damp cave! Did you see the size of that thing? It almost killed me," I laughed, clapping my hands in delight. "If I kept a piece of the jelly in a vial on my desk, would it constantly try to roll off and return to the rest of itself?"

"Fawn, calm down." Precept Muida said, her stern face relaxing just a smidge as the cerulean glow of her aura flashed underneath the hand she had on my shoulder.

She charmed me.

Only after the giddiness faded did I understand I had been caught in the high of manifesting my aura.

"Thank you, Precept Muida. Listening to her is bad enough without her channeling." Favelin, one of my sisters, said snidely.

Precept Muida took her hand off me and addressed the coven as a whole. "What Underwitch Fawn has accomplished is no easy task. We will all break for lunch and listen to her describe her decision making."

The sound of my sisters groans of displeasure trailed off and I felt myself fall.

I opened my eyes.

My room was dark and I was in my bed. Through a gap between the blanket and the window it was tacked over, I could see that morning had not come yet.

I laid on my back, feeling like I was sleeping on a cloud. Why hadn't I been smart enough to realize that hanging a blanket over the window was a much better idea than using the mattress? How many more memories could I have viewed if I wasn't constantly worn out from sleeping poorly?

Nearly falling back asleep, I thought of waking up encased by a jelly cube.

Wait. I thought. I had been in a memory.

I hadn’t focused my aura, I wasn't in the bath, I was wearing clothes. How had I entered a memory?

Fawn, I remembered Fawn Feathee. She was an Underwitch and her aura was yellow, like the center of a sunflower.

Wait. I thought. Where the fuck is Sam?

I squinted and looked around the dark room. My familiar wasn't atop any of his usual perches.

Mothers help me, had I closed the window?

I had.

I remembered the jelly and added that to the growing list of things I hadn't known existed but was deathly afraid of, right alongside the four eyed familiar and Ms. Lao.

The Well had never opened itself to me without me explicitly trying to gain entry, either in the bathtub or the pool that I had used back within the confines of Zenithcidel. Where had been the circular room of that strange black material? Why couldn't I remember crossing the stained glass walkways or choosing a door from the near infinite variations?

Could someone sleepwalk inside their own mind?

That is called a dream, Autumn. I thought to myself.

Was I asking myself entirely too many questions for my sleep-addled mind to make sense of?

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Yes you are. I thought.

Sam had still not reared his little blue head to ask me his questions, which made sense. Whatever arcane directive he was under couldn't be triggered if he didn't know I had been to The Well.

I don’t have to answer any of his stupid questions. A sleepy smirk spread across my face and I rolled onto my left side, facing the window. The air underneath my blankets was warm and turning had settled me into a cool spot on the bed that hadn't been heated by my body yet. I yawned and began to let my mind drift to wherever it needed to go to find sleep.

“What is your name?” Sam's deep baritone boomed.

My eyes shot open to see Sam's haunting blue eyes, peering at me from a distance less than one of his whiskers from my face.

“Ahh!” I screamed and violently pushed him off the bed.

His little body hit the wall and then dropped to the floor with an equally small thump.

Immediately, he asked again. “What is your name?”

"Ahhh," I groaned, not out of fright but out of frustration. "I thought I found a way out of it."

"What is your name?"

"Autumn Aubrey."

"Who is Autumn Aubrey?"

"A very tired girl!" I snapped.

"Who is Autumn Aubrey?" His constant baritone repeated like I knew it would until I answered the fucking questions. I hated it, but that didn’t make it untrue.

"I am a Maiden of Zenithcidel. Daughter of Idensyn Aubrey. Thief and possessor of The Well. Debtor to the Circle of the Nine Mothers."'

I saw the dark form of my familiar jump onto the dresser at the foot of my bed. "What were you doing?"

"Viewing memories from The Well so it may be extracted from me and returned to the Mothers."

Sam fell silent, his duty fulfilled.

Which annoyed me to no end because I was left fully awake.

"Sam?" I called.

He sighed audibly. He actually fucking sighed. "Yes?"

"You're a dick." I said.

Silence.

"Did you hear me?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Can I ask you something?"

"No," He growled. "The only time I have to think is when you are asleep and I am counting the seconds until you return to unconsciousness."

I raised an eyebrow. "What do you think about?"

"All manner of things that are beyond your appreciation and understanding." Sam stated.

"Are you thinking about killing another bird?" I asked, yawning.

Silence.

I resettled myself and began to relax. Just before I drifted off, I heard my familiar answer my question.

"I am now."

Sleep took me.

I'm going to die.

"I implore you to act, Lady Enna!" Nathaniel yelled in his whistle pitch voice. My familiar’s incorporeal form, the visage of a long dead dandy, passed through the golden bricks of the pyramid I sat atop and through my own body as if their solid state was a suggestion and not a fact. The crumbled body of the slain shaman, the gash along his open throat and wrists still encased in my violet aura, was beginning to smoke.

If I could have come through the void and arrived three days before, I probably could have halted the ritual. Traveling by conventional methods had me arriving just a little too late it seemed.

A sphere of molten rock and flame that grew larger every second hung in the sky above me, the last violet remnants of my crystalline attempt at containing it shattering against its mass. The volume of its roaring combustions rendered all other sounds insufficient. Visible heat radiated towards me, waves of moving air fanning down and burning my eyes and nose.

The only reason I could hear my familiar's pleading was because he was passing through my ear when he said it.

I could no longer hear the thousands of villagers at the base of the pyramid that undoubtedly were still chanting the same two words they had my entire ascent to the top of the pyramid. "NEW SUN, NEW SUN, NEW SUN."

I wondered how much work it would take for me to celebrate the thing that was going to leave me and everything I had ever known in ashes.

"I can't, Nathaniel." I said, only realizing the truth of the words once I said them aloud.

My familiar scoffed. "Nonsense! Surely, you don't intend to lay about and watch yourself burn," Nathaniel stuck his ghostly head out of my chest and looked into my eyes. "By God, You are a Sorceress of the Third Circle!"

I sighed and let out a little laugh. "And that's all I'll ever be."

Reaching up, I started taking out the three tight braids I always wore when I expected trouble. I always made them too tight and they made me feel like I couldn't close my eye lids all the way. If I was going to die, which I was, then by the beauty of the Mothers my hair would be down. It was a small relief in the face of my end, but felt all the more relaxing because of my impending end.

My familiar continued to protest my acceptance, which was odd. Nathaniel was incorporeal. He could take the sun on his ghostly chin and it wouldn't leave a scratch.

I interrupted his babbling. "Nathaniel?"

"Yes? Yes! We have to go, your skin is starting to burn."

The massive palm fronds, visible from my perch, charring and catching flame were a good indicator that he was telling the truth.

I flared my hair out with my hands and rubbed my scalp with my fingers. "You've been a good friend. Whenever I arrive wherever I will go after this, I will remember you fondly."

Nathaniel's ghostly face grew several shades paler and he cupped his head in his hands. "Take it back. Don't say those things. I'm despicable, vile, I'm evil," He exited my body and mimed grabbing my arm and pulling me up. "You won't have to remember me and you won't have to go anywhere if you will just get up."

The new sun burned hotter, stinging my eyes despite the moisture that flowed out of them. The scent of my long hair singing and smoking filled my nose in the last few moments before the air would become hot enough to burn all of my sense of smell away. Seeing blisters beginning to rise on my skin, I shut my eyes, both in pain and fear. I didn't want to scream, the last hope I was holding onto was to die with dignity. Nathaniel had been right, I was a Sorceress of the Third Circle, I had lived as one and I wanted to die as one. The New sun burned closer, steaming all of the sweat pouring out of my body as soon as it passed through my pores.

My will broke in my final moment and I screamed. "Mother's help me!"

Light bright enough to blind me through my eyelids as I felt my robes burn away.

Then, the heat vanished and my world grew silent.

I couldn't help but sigh in relief. "I died."

"Lady Enna, Look!" Nathaniel's shrill voice called.

Had my familiar passed on with me?

I opened my eyes.

A woman hung in the air before me.

The violent light emanating from the flame of the new sun reduced her to nothing but a feminine silhouette. Dwarfed by the rapidly expanding sun, she should have been burned to ash in an instant but she faced it down, unburned.

Her aura, so dark a blue it was nearly black, washed over her. She raised her arms above her head and a torrent of rushing water began to circle the new sun around its bottom. The woman crossed her arms and twisted them suddenly above her head.

The torrent of rushing water spiraled up and around the ball of molten destruction, covering it completely.

Centuries, it would take me centuries to begin to understand the skill and power of the working I had just seen.

The water encased the new sun in a whirlpool and it stopped gaining mass. An endless stream of white steam spewed from the top of the dying sun.

I knew who the woman was, her working had stripped me of any doubt.

The steam filling the air concealed her from my eyes, but after what could have only been a moment later, Her bare feet stepped into sight.

“What is your name, child? She asked, her voice washing away any trace of stress and fear I bore in my body.

She was beautiful, beautiful and terrifying. A simple white dress contrasted against her dark umber skin. Eyes, the same dark blue as her aura had been, were set into a diamond shaped face that looked comforting and sharp with grace. Her hair, midnight blue at its roots, lightened to the color of seafoam at its ends.

Underneath her calm surface, there was a riptide, a power that could drown you if you were caught in its depths.

Once the shock of still being alive had faded, I realized all I had done for my savior was stare at her. I hadn't answered her question.

Enna Viot, I tried to say, but all that came out was a broken and burnt croak. My lips split when I tried to force out, Thank you Mother.

Nathaniel came into view, his eyes wide and somehow sad. “She is Enna Viot. Can you save her, Mother?”

Save me? She had already done that.

A small smile appeared on her face as she sank to her knees beside me. "I am no Mother, only a Lady. This will take much from me, I will need to be cared for afterwards."

She placed her hands on me. I tried to sit up, but she must have kept me in place with her power because my arms and legs would not move.

"Like a lake in winter, be still," She commanded in a soothing voice that I was powerless to disobey. "and try not to look either."

I tried, but could not keep myself from shifting my eyes down to my body.

I wished I hadn't.

Burnt black, my dress having burned away and left me naked, my skin looked like it would crumble into char if it was touched.

Coughing violently, I managed to make myself rasp out. "Failed."

"Do not trouble yourself with such self pity. It is unbecoming of a sorceress." She said and I watched as thin tendrils of her aura ran out of the shoulder straps of her dress and down her arms. They flowed off her palms and onto me. It did not burn. It did not sting. My blackened flesh did not break apart. Her Aura cooled me as it spread, covering every inch of my ruined body.

"I am not in pain. Do not waste your strength on me." I said, finding it easier to speak.

"Do not tell a Lady how to use her strength. It is no trouble at all." She replied. I shut my mouth. Evaporating into a cool mist, her aura left me.

I took her hand and did as I was commanded.

I stood and found myself completely unburned. Feeling myself underneath my robes, my skin was smooth and clean. I looked at the Lady and opened my mouth to speak, but no words came.

Nathaniel rose out of the golden bricks of the pyramid beside me and dropped into a dramatic bow. "It is an honor, my Lady. If it hadn't been for your fated arrival, my master would have willingly let herself die."

I winced. Wishing with every part of my newly restored body that my familiar had possessed the good sense to not speak, for once.

The Lady did not respond to my familiar.

Tears began to flow down her face and she collapsed.

“My Lady!” Nathaniel gasped.

I caught the Lady before she could collide with the golden bricks of the pyramid. “It is her Afterglow.”

Savior, she had been my savior only moments before. She had healed my ruined body and it had cost her greatly.

I held her in my arms, not knowing what other manner of comfort to offer her.

“How could she,” The lady sobbed. ‘How could she do that to me?”

I heard the voices of thousands of villagers rise from the base of the pyramid, repeating the same chant I had heard on my ascent. "NEW SUN, NEW SUN, NEW SUN."

Only this time, they sounded angry.

“All will be well,” I told her, not knowing if my words were true. “All will be well.”

Her tears rolling down the skin she had healed from me, I held the Lady until my mind swam and I felt myself fall.