Vision? I think to myself. Blurry.

Head? Throbbing.

Arms? Feeling restraints around my forearms located on the arms of the chair I was seated in. Can’t move those, but I can still feel them.

Mouth? Smacking my lips a bit a letting my tongue wonder the insides of my mouth. Surprisingly functional and not too dry.

All things considered? I’m obviously not dead, so already doing good. Past that… where even am I? the last thing I remember was meeting that girl from my dream. Past that? I’m not entirely certain as to what happened. Though judging by the pounding in my head, I’m assuming I got hit by something, just… not quite sure what that something was.

You’re one of us? Now that, that I was not expecting.

Jerking my head up from where it hung from my shoulders. I whipped it from side to side in an attempt to see where the voice had come from. Blinking rapidly in the process to try and clear up my vision, and in the process I saw that I was alone. No one. Wait… that voice was like when Luna talks to me or… or when I first met Tesoro in his office. Saint’s can touch the minds of other Saint’s and Saint Candidates is what he said. And if someone touched my mind just now… well it didn’t sound like a God, talking down to me.

Sooo…. Saint I take it? Or a Candidate at least.

Look at that, it knows how to converse. Though you obviously don’t know much as you sent that thought everywhere around you rather than in my direction. So you know the what, possibly the why, but definitely not the how.

All around… how can I focus my thoughts? Aren’t thoughts nonexistent to begin with, so how can I send them everywhere?

Questions for a later time young Saint. For now, I have questions that need answering, but to save your position a bit, I think these questions need to be asked in person. I’m currently in the middle of something, but I’ll be through shortly. Think you can hang around?

Looking down at my arms and their bindings, I gave a quick tug once more and nothing happened. Don’t worry, I like this seat. No plans to go anywhere quickly currently.

The sound of mental laughter came through my head, surprised at my response. Soft yet stern, a kind laugh. A joke in your situation? I’m impressed. Being able to make jovial statements like that after my daughter, I mean Captain Suamalie, brought you in here in a limp mess. I honestly thought she killed you at first glance, come to find out she just sucker punched you from her subordinates. Either you are very lucky or just naturally stubborn, but the fact that your head is still located between your shoulders is rather impressive.

That at least explains the throbbing head I have. Wait… you said daughter?

Oh, this is going to be a fun questioning session. She’s aware of Saint’s as well, though she is untapped in terms of that form of divinity. So don’t worry, this conversation is our own, between us and whether our Gods are paying attention or not. Regardless, let me finish up here, and then I’ll head down. I’m sure that you’ll hear me coming before you ever see me, my position currently doesn’t allow me to travel anywhere by myself.

The next few minutes were kind of boring thankfully. Left alone to my thoughts… or not, any time my mind would wander to an odd topic, I would hear a slight snicker in the back of my head. Much like when young Rays were allowed to stand in the back of the amphitheater. Far enough away to not get in trouble for not paying attention, but close enough for a few rows of people to hear the inappropriate laughter. And not that I was thinking anything inappropriate, rather I was trying to figure out how to either focus my thoughts so other Saints in my vicinity would not be able to actually hear me, or try and figure out how to protect my thoughts... somehow.

I wasn’t having any luck at all with the former, so I decided to try and work on the latter. And with this, I did not make much progress either. I would imagine building a box and then surrounding my head with it, get laughed at. And then a different shape, and then laughter. At one point I actually managed to conjure a mental projection that elicited a different response from my current mental neighbor. Imagining a cave inside of my head rather than surrounding it, I imagined total silence, save for the occasional droplet of water falling from somewhere and hitting the floor. And then from out of nowhere, a loud ’HELLO IN THERE!’ burst forth from outside the cave… somehow. This brought my mental solitude crashing around me. The worst part is I actually heard it echo as the walls came crashing down. Not sure if that says much about me or more about the abilities of my neighbor, but either way I was mentally tired from all the trial and error I had done up to that point. Mental or not, it was a lot of work, and it takes a lot of effort to go in circles in different directions all that time only to end up at the same starting point.

About to finish up here. Sorry for the delay, there was more work up here than I thought initially, and it was fascinating watching you try and figure out this whole mental situation out. Not to look down on you as you obviously have not had a mentor in anything like this before, but watching you do all of that work was like watching a toddler trying to put a block through a hole it won’t go in to but trying regardless simply because it doesn’t know any better. It was kind of cute in that sense. But your last attempt shocked me, not that it did you any good as a simple greeting shook your concentration enough to shatter it. That, and I really wanted to try and make an echo. When you live in the forest, nothing echoes, everything simply fades.

Well congratulations… whatever your name is Saint of Gaia. You created an echo. Though I’m not so sure if it was because I created a cave that caused an echo so much as it was the difference in our abilities overall. I mean, you did, as you said, and shattered it with not a whole lot of effort on your end.

A sandcastle is still made of sand, no matter how magnificent it may look.

Our conversation stopped there as I assumed that she started moving from where she was to my direction. She did have a point though, not matter how big a sandcastle was when built, it never took much to knock over into a mound of sand with no resemblance as to what it looked like previously. With that being the case, how do I change what I’m making my shield out of? Obviously thinking about it real hard is not the way to do things, but what can I do other than think about it? I let this question run through my head over and over and over again, but all it did was run laps through my mind much like what happened with me earlier. Running forward, but always in a circle. Until I get some external help on this situation as a whole, I’m basically at a standstill till then.

Taking my mind off my shield, I proceeded to take a look at my arms, now wrapped in a silvery-blue color, similar to the shine of a full moon. Without trying to think about it, I attempted to do something with that aura. Do what exactly? I wasn’t sure. But something. And it appeared to work somewhat.

It almost felt like trying to work a muscle I didn’t know I had. It was incredibly difficult to get it to do anything quickly or with any amount of accuracy, but I could get it to move which was more progress than what I had trying to control my thoughts. After a few minutes of steady focus, I managed to consolidate most of the aura to around my fists and feet, a line of aura ran from all of those points towards my chest? I think? The contact seemed to constantly shift and move. One moment I could see it on my chest, the next I could feel it somewhere on my shoulder blades, and the moment after that I saw it appear on my side. This continued for a few moments more before I realized that the point was like Luna.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

It was orbiting.

After doing this a bit more, it stayed put around my right shoulder. But I couldn’t maintain my focus and the silvery-blue aura went back to surrounding my body. Not that I really had any idea how I was doing that in the first place other than instinct, which was not very helpful. And then I heard it.

A large constant thumping noise. I couldn’t tell if there were a lot of them, but I could tell that they were heavy. Whoever my new neighbor was certainly wasn’t exaggerating when she said that I would be able to hear her coming before I ever saw her. At it’s loudest the noise suddenly stopped in off to my right. Not that there was a door there that I saw, but from all the commotion, I assumed that that was where the hallway was.

“Out of the way. OUT OF THE WAY!!” came a booming female voice from the other side of the wall. A few moments later after hearing the sounds that sounded like someone knocked over a rack or two of swords was heard, a portion of the wall began to twist and writhe and seemingly unfurl. Seconds later, there was a hole in the wall large enough for several people to come in at a single time if they wanted to. Instead, the one person who came in first in an almost panic like state had brown skin I wouldn’t expect to see while living under trees. Not that I’m one to say anything, for as much time as I spent in the sun, I’m about as white as could be. They had long white hair tied up in what looked like the back side of a horse that came down to her waist, an observation I only made as her hair swung to the side as she rapidly pulled herself through the newly made hole. And piercing green eyes, or, well, eye anyway. She had a nasty looking scar on the left side of her face that started somewhere above her hairline near the middle of her head and ended near the corner of her jaw right in front of her ear, and running right across her eye from what I saw. As she took rapid steps in my direction, I noticed that that they were wearing a gray cloak.

When they finally stood in front of me, putting hands that had way to much power for the tiny frame she showed onto my shoulders and jerking my upper body to be as square with her as my restraints would allow, I saw that the cloak had a dog like head on one shoulder that started around the top of her right shoulder and ended up hanging limply. The paws of the animal that adorned her back were used to tie the carcass and let it hang as a cloak.

As this woman continued to look me over, up and down repeatedly, I saw Captain Suamalie come through the hole. As she came in, another person clad in metal tried to come in as well, but the captain held up her hand in a motion to stop and shook her head. “This is an interrogation that you guys aren’t needed in here for, but don’t go to far, this shouldn’t take to long to finish up.”

The armored figure who was mid stride, immediately retracted their step to behind the hole. I heard the thunk of a pole hitting the floor followed by a clang as I assumed his arm came to his chest in response. “YOU HEARD HER MEN! FORM A LINE AND MAKE SURE NO ONE STOPS IN FRONT OF THIS ROOM!” came a thunderous voice that sounded like a mixture of animal growls and vocalization. “I want you, you, and you down at that end. Post up and unless what the person needs is urgent and on the other side of you, turn all others away and tell them to find another way. You and you, you’re with me at this end, same deal. Corporal, you drew the lucky straw this time, I need you by the portal and just watch. What I don’t need is inexperience in the action, so if anything happens, asses and then act. All right then, DIIIIISSMISSED!!!”

“SIR, YES SIR!!!” came the response.

As the sound of metal steps going down the hall echoed into the room, the captain raised her hand in an arcing motion and the doorway closed in a similar manner as to how it opened, only in reverse. She took a few steps from where she stood and took a seat across the table from where I sat.

“I thought you said that this boy was a Solite?” came an almost concerned voice from the woman in front of me, whom I recognized as my new mental neighbor.

“This boy is. At least, that’s what his pilgrimage papers say. The others he came with also had Solite papers.”

The person in front of me closed her eyes and took a deep breath before releasing me. “Boy you have plenty of explaining to do in the next little bit. The questions I have for you keep growing the more I find out about you.”

Walking to the other side of the table she took a seat next to the captain. In that position, they looked like polar opposites in just about everything at a glance. One had dark skin, light hair, and eyes that looked like shining green gems that pierced through anything; the other had very fair skin, hair that almost wouldn’t look out of place in and amongst the midnight sky, and eyes so blue that one could get lost looking into them… which I caught myself doing as I made that mental observation.

“While I find the mental flattery kind of you, lets get to the main point shall we?” said the dark skinned woman.

“Mental flattery? What are you talking about Huntress?” voiced the other.

“My dear, you can call me what I am in front of this one, he knows already. No need to put up a front.”

“Knows? Knows what? How much of what does he know?” panic and surprise started to sprout within the captains eyes and grow rapidly.

“Oh, a few things more than you’d expect, but a whole lot less than what I’d hope,” I spoke up. Looking at the one called Huntress I continued. “Not going to lie, up until you two sat down next to each other, I couldn’t see the resemblance. It’s subtle, but I can see it when you two are next to each other.

As I spoke my brief statement, the eyes of the captain continued to grow wider as she realized an important fact. “You…” she spoke through gritted teeth that seethed with anger, “you’re a ‘Grace Felt’ aren’t you?”

“Umm… I guess? I don’t know what that is simply from your statement, but if ‘Grace Felt’ is what she is,” I said as I nodded to the Huntress, “then yes, a ‘Grace Felt’. Though before you jump out of that chair and strangle me like it looks like you’re not far from doing, I feel obligated to say that this was not by choice on either end.”

Suamalie’s demeanor did not change much, however, the Huntress’s expression changed greatly. Leaning forward slightly and bringing her hands together in front of her face so that she could glare at me from over her knuckles, she spoke. “The questions just keep piling up for you. Of all the questions that I feel I must ask, the most important ones are as follows. One: what do you mean by ‘not by choice on either end’? Two: why is a Bighton traveling with a bundle of Solites and carrying a Proof of Pilgrimage from the Sol territory. And three: what exactly did you do prior to our arrival in front of your cell? Your unrepressed aura all but disappeared for a moment after steadily shrinking. I thought you had tried to escape just before we arrived.”

The face Suamilie made in response to these questions coming from her mother was definitely what I was feeling at them, though for some reason I could feel that my face was very unresponsive. “To start things off, I’m going to answer the third question as that will be easiest and less time consuming. As for the other two questions… lets just say it’s a long story that you’ll hear in a moment.”

“For the honest answer, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Like you said earlier, I haven’t been trained in anything. Up until you started talking to me, I had almost forgotten that Saint’s can sense each other and communicate with those who have been touched with divinity to a certain extent. Like when you said that I spoke everywhere around me all at once? I had no idea I was doing that, I just knew that I was speaking. All I can say about the, well I call it aura, that you felt disappear is that I used instinct to… do something with it. By the time I actually realized what was going on, the aura was around my hands and feet. It felt right for it to be there, but not having any idea what I did to get it there, it just kind of floated back to being all around me again. That’s about that time you showed up.”

“Really now, by instinct you say? That is indeed impressive,” spoke the Huntress. “It took me about a week to be able to feel the aura as you call it, and just as long to be able to move it as I wanted to. But enough about that, I do believe that you have a few more questions left unanswered. And depending on how you answer those two, I might have more to ask you immediately after or some time later. Regardless, I will have more to ask you.”

Thinking of the first two questions, I thought for a moment on how to answer what can I tell them? What was off bounds? And Luna, as she usually does rather than sending me a message through thought, and instead sent it through a whisper like wind.

… All…

Well that’s simple. As I readied myself to speak, I noticed that the long pointed ears of the Huntress and Captain had twitched, almost as if in response to Luna talking to me.

“Well now,” Said the Huntress, “another thing I wasn’t expecting. A semi direct connection. You just keep coming up with surprises one after another don’t you?”

“A connection? Mother, the only odd thing that just happened is a gust of wind in an enclosed room. Which is odd yes, but far from any connection I have seen you perform.” This statement earned a sharp look from the Huntress.

“I’m not quite sure what is or isn’t surprising at this point, as you’re about to find out, I haven’t been a part of this side of the world for very long. Anyway, my story begins about… oh, going on something like twenty days now, give or take a few days. Please try your best to save all of your questions for after I finish unless they are super pressing. This story makes the most sense when told all at once up to recently, and even then, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. To start things off, I woke up one night to weightlessness and cold. Turns out, I was falling from a height I didn’t think was possible, and this was not a dream…”