Frost 1st 122 AS, 2:03 AM
In a dim room lit by one candle sat Myles writing in a travel worn journal. The faint scratch of his pin and two soft sets of breaths were the only sound in the room. In the darker corner of the room slept the girl who’m he’d saved from the explosion of Zaichaer, a faint lavender glow still emanating from the crystal that was slowly growing outward from her head.
I’ve been in the capital for four weeks now and little headway has come of it. I’ve met with three doctors so far, one of which was a practicing mage… and nothing has come of it. I fear for the girl, even as quiet as she is, I can tell that she’s uncomfortable and.. her condition is steadily worsening. Still the doctors I met with, they filled me with a sense of dread I can’t describe. The empire while advanced is a harsh place, there is little charity or goodwill to be found here, even when compared to Zaichaer.
It’s the beginning of Frost and the situation here is untenable I fear that my assumption that the capital of the empire would cure all our woes was largely mistaken. I have barely allowed the girl to leave the small room we’ve rented for fear of someone seeing her and taking an unsavory interest in her condition, I’ve never had much love for academics but this city has truly soured them for me for even the question of the concept of a human embedded with a dragon shard seems to draw more interest than any concern. On one hand perhaps showing the girl would provoke pity, but I fear the opposite.
It does not help that the city seems to be growing more and more dangerous, the twilight that shrouds the lands doesn’t seem to be letting up, and worse this cities security nightmare they call the gash seems to be growing all the more dangerous. The criers on the street corners seem to bear more ill tidings with each passing day.
We need to leave, but I don’t know where I can go, these last few months have shown how ill prepared I am to care for someone else, and now I haven’t even the arms of the military to fall back into. Further more the girl seems to be getting cabin fever, I’ve caught her peering out the window despite me asking her not to twice now.. not that I don’t understand her frustrations. I feel guilty to still be calling her “girl” at this point but I feel I haven’t any right to name her and she’s given me no indication that she’d like to be referred to as other. I fear that curing her dragonshard will do little to help with the trauma I’m sure she’s endured, I only hope I’m not inflicting more upon her myself with our travelling. I still believe I’ve made the right choice leaving Zaichaer.
Closing the journal Myles rubbed his tired eyes. He hadn’t slept well in some time. Each creaking floorboard or whisper in the alley outside set him on edge. The girl stirred in her sleep brushing hair from her face but finding hard dragonshard where a child’s face should be and briefly starting before settling back to sleep. Those moments used to ruin entire nights of sleep for the girl but thankfully she’d grown more accustomed to them with time, Myles hated that it was something she had to bear but he was ultimately helpless to do anything for her so far.
Rubbing his face in the dark the weary ex-soldier wracked his brains for answers to the same question he’d been asking it every night now. How could he help her without further exposing her to mages, the people who’d brought this all about in the first place. He feared he could not, but the idea was so distasteful to him that even as the girl worsened he considered going to one a last resort at best, the one mage he had met with so far had tested his restraint in ways he hadn’t expected. He’d asked the man if he knew of people who’d been afflicted with a condition that would cause dragonshards to grow from their flesh.
Ash 86th
Not only did he not know, but he offered to pay me to show him such a person.
After much assurance that it was only a hypothetical he eventually quit pressing me but it still feels like I can feel him staring into my back the way he did when I left his clinic. I feel I’ve made a grave mistake
Just thinking about it still made him shudder. It felt like since he’d arrived in this city he’d had a ball of iron in his gut, killing his desire to eat, to sleep… to be himself even, all of that had taken a backseat to a growing paranoia of what would happen if he couldn’t fix things for the girl, he couldn’t accept the idea of any alternative to her getting better.
Pinching the bridge of his nose Myles cut down the increasingly negative train of thought. Taking a slow breath he reminded himself to neither rush nor panic else he become sloppy. He needed to find some way to disguise the girl or at least make her condition less obvious… though he had his doubts about his own ability to hide something as obvious as the dragonshard. If hiding it was impossible was there a way to perhaps convince people it was some strange fashion statement or some intentional thing and not a magical malady. If there was any realization to be had about the folly of his absolute hatred of magic, it was that he understood almost nothing about it, he felt now like his intentional ignorance of the subject had come now to haunt him, he didn’t need to practice it to understand it, but even the thought of understanding magic, or empathizing with its wielders felt loathsome to him.
His eyes growing increasingly as he pounded the insides of his skull for any insights he might have tucked away in his memories. Slowly standing Myles took special care not to wake the child as he pushed the chair away from the desk. Grabbing a pillow and rough blanket from the floor Myles walked the few paces to the door and laid the pillow against it. Then he sat back against the pillow and door, his eyes watching the one window in the room, the windowsill locked tightly and checked often.
When sleep did come it was fitful. Visions of the maudlin sky above his home the day it had been violated, the screams of the Ziachaeri as they warped from human shrieks to cries of damned creatures that had been twisted into abominations by dark magic. Always his mind would wander to that moment where he was crushed beneath rubble and every night before he could wake up Myles again had to dig his way out.
Consciousness came with a shuddering gasp, the girl was awake now, watching him with the placid expression she often wore seemingly appraising him with her one good eye. “G’morning” he mumbled knowing no answer would come. Eyeing the stock of their rations and other edible supplies Myles sighed, they would be eating porridge again, thankfully Myles had enough dried fruit still to season the bland dish. Porridge with or without fruit was still better than hard tack and road rations, if there was one thing he had missed on their journey it was regular hot meals, something he could again enjoy while in Gel’Grandal. Eating in silence with the Orphan Myles lamented the quality of life they were enduring and his failings at being a companion to the girl. He’d tried at first to talk to her, even knowing she could not, the first few leagues of their journey had been filled with anything and everything he could think to have a one sided conversation about, but few things a soldier could speak on seemed to spark the interest in the girl, their only seeming similarity he’d found at this point was that she shared his sweet tooth, something he’d been enthusiastic to learn about. From a small pouch Myles produced a caramel candy from a dwindling supply. In the weeks he had been in the capital perusing for food and candy had been something he hadn’t allowed himself until he’d made headway on finding someone that could help the orphan. Still there was no need to deny themselves what few pleasures life still offered he argued back mentally. Perhaps a trip to a sweets shop could be the lift to there spirits they both needed.. that was if one was still open during this cursed twilight.
“Well, I think we’ve gone long enough without getting something special to eat, lets say we find the yummiest thing we can for dinner tonight hmm?” A single nod was the only response he received, but by his reckoning it was the most enthusiastic nod he’d seen from her so far.
