always and forever is forever young
your shadow on the pavement, the dark side of the sun
It was two hours and eleven minutes until sunrise when Mallos woke up. He knew the time without needing to check a clock or the window; he felt it intuitively.

Why he had had woken was as immediately apparent as the time. Every cell in his body thrummed with an unquenchable energy, as if he’d just eaten out a sweet shop and drunk a dozen espressos. For the first time in months, his head felt clear. The visions and threats of black-outs which had lingered in the corners of his eyes since Therait’s attack had vanished, leaving nothing but a clear sight line. Through the darkness, Mallos could easily pick out the line of the window and chest of drawers, and even – when he focused – the knots and whorls in the wood on the door. That clarity and energy only came from magic. He sat up, reached inside and felt it there, bright and vibrant and itching to be used.

Since there was no chance of returning to sleep now, Mallos sat up in bed and flicked the lights on, revealing a figure which had been out of his line of sight before. Sperantia froze, her front right paw still lifted as she’d prepared to take another step. For a long, silent moment, the cat and the fairy regarded one another with neutral and equally met expressions.

“You’re back then,” Mallos noted after a time.

Sperantia’s paw lowered slowly to the ground. She didn’t insult him or waste time trying to explain her painfully long absence. Mallos knew the side-effects of poor magical reconstruction; he would know from the nurse she had spoken to that his familiar had awoken from her coma with amnesia; he knew, too, that the balance of probability dictated that Sperantia would have worked out or been told her relationship with him long before now. She hadn’t returned because she hadn’t wanted to. The resurrection of her memories, restored with divinity, had incited her to seek him out now. She frowned.

“Well, you’re not the easiest fairy to have, you know,” her voice, deep and scolding, was exactly as he remembered. “And you’re frankly impossible to live with. It’s a wonder anyone puts up with you.”

“You should become a teacher,” Mallos observed, swinging his legs out of the bed so he was seated on the edge of it. “You love telling people off so much.”

“You need a teacher.”

“You need to loosen up.”

She cocked her head and grinned, her lips curling like an upturned number three. She leapt delicately up onto his lap, purring like a motorbike, and rubbed her head against his chest. Since the curtains were drawn and there was no one else present, Mallos gave her a little hug.

The reunion, affectionate though it was, did not last long. Both were too drunk on magical energy to be able to sit still for any length of time. Sperantia departed shortly to hunt, and Mallos left with the intention of taking a horse out into the wadi to search for illegal Auran migrants. He never made it to the stables, but rather was distracted by a low, gentle, but persistent sound. It was quiet enough that he wouldn’t have heard it if his hearing had not been so recently and dramatically improved, and it was distant enough that any diagnosis would be imprecise. The stone walls had a way of encouraging echoes, and the sighing wind whistled through the cracks in the window frames, mingling with any noise from within the building.

With magic, it was quite easy to negotiate the winding corridors and organically added rooms. After navigating a few of these corridors closer to the source, the sound became distinct enough to identify: crying. Mallos sped up, and was presently met with a sight he was quite unprepared for: his own daughter, consistently stoic, sat on the floor of the empty hallway with her face in her knees and her shoulders shaking with tears.

Energy can be given or drained at astonishing speeds and by very individual triggers; Mallos’ dampened immediately and significantly. He’d neglected to put on shoes or even change his clothes, which were the same ones he’d fallen asleep after the battle with the ancient creature had ended. As a result, his footsteps were near-silent along the gloomy rug, although the floorboards did creak a little when he crouched down beside her. Without a word, he placed his arm around her shoulders and held her close.


i can feel you in the silence saying, “let forever be,
love, and only love, will set you free.”