For years, Mace had been blessed with lovely dreams. It had all started with a battle on a beach, and a raven-haired girl that had captivated him ever since. He owed Morgana for sleep that came easily, for mornings softened by smiles, for a pleasant thought to greet him in the dawn and ease him into unconsciousness at night.
But lately, something had changed.
Mace tossed and turned restlessly, now, dark circles deepening beneath his eyes, his pleasant dreams replaced by flashes of anxious running. A chase that never ended. An important task left unaccomplished. Maybe it was the stress of the situation, he thought. It couldn’t be the cot he slept on – he’d endured far worse sleeping arrangements in his long career – and he doubted it was the noise of camp. Whatever it was, the cause eluded him, just like whatever he was supposed to be hunting down eluded him; an indecipherable call echoing in the night.
This night was no different. He’d stayed up late, as was becoming his new custom, pouring over intelligence reports by lantern light, scratching the overgrowth of his beard. When the words blurred together he knew it was time to wrestle his insomnia, and slept a few fitful hours before an unexpected, rude awakening.
The boy’s weight knocked the wind out of him. Mace grunted.
Not long ago, this might have sent him into high alert. But becoming “camp dad” for countless would-be-rebels had somewhat softened his reactions to situations like this. As Thoth rolled off of him, he scrubbed a hand over his face, squinting against the gloom, and propped himself up on an elbow. The silhouette before him was, thankfully, familiar.
“Thoth…?” he mumbled groggily, leaning over to fumble unsuccessfully with the lantern. There were some obvious questions he should have asked: what are you doing here, what are you doing up at all, why is there a unicorn in my tent, etc. “What time is it?” he inquired instead.
To be honest, he didn’t really want the answers to the other ones. Any of those queries posed to a teenager could result in a protracted explanation with far more details than he cared to know.
The lantern finally lit, urged on by his muttered cursing, and the tent was bathed in shifting orange light. Thoth looked, if anything, annoyed. Mace could relate. But there was something else that seemed to be hovering around the boy, an energy, a glimmer of something like an aura over his body. Mace squinted.
“What is that?”
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