I don't know how long it took for Anna and I to let go of each other.

It could have been a few minutes just as easily as it could have been hours, but it would have gone on longer if it had not been for Sam.

"Inside. Standing in a doorway is suspicious." The big blue cat growled as he threw himself against the back of my legs and knocked Anna and I into the room.

The sound of him shutting the door to our quarters followed and I opened my eyes to find that I could not see.

There was no light in the room. Not a match, a candle, a lantern, or an even single ember shone in the fireplace. And it was cold, colder than it had been in the hall, so cold that I thought my teeth would begin to chatter.

"Were you sleeping?" I asked aloud unsure of where Anna had gone.

"No, sorry, let me start the fire." She called back from somewhere on my right. The sharp sound of glass rolling across the cold stone of the floor followed.

She must have knocked over one of her empty wine bottles. I kept the bottom of my boots planted firmly beneath me. If she had knocked something over in the darkness, I would bring all Lun crashing down around us if I so much as stood on the tips of my toes.

I was the one who made messes after all.

"Don't! I learned something!" I shouted, knowing that there would be no better time for me to show her my werelight than there was in the dark room.

"Unlikely." Sam growled from wherever he had gone.

"Hush," Anna snapped back at him. "What did you learn?"

There were still many sad things and invisible pains that I wanted her to know about. I wanted the comfort that only she could give me, but seeing her had made me so happy, that the comforting could wait.

I let the bag that held Anna's gifts and the thin white robe slide off my shoulder. They settled gently on the floor next to my feet as I raised my left palm towards the ceiling.

I thought of her.

It was always easy, but it was even easier then. I'd only seen her for a moment before we had embraced, and I would have given almost anything to see her again. What was different from the werelight that I hoped Deebee was still playing with back on Silkcradle, was that I did imagine my working as the last remaining light in all of chaos.

Rising from my palm, painting our quarters in my azure light, shining back at me in Anna's dark eyes, glowing blue and bright until I did not need it anymore, that was what I thought of.

My thoughts became reality with nothing but my aura and my will.

My working burst out of my palm and did exactly as I wished it too.

What I saw in its light was not what I had imagined.

A storm had come through our room.

The books that Anna normally kept laid out neatly on the floor or in stacks beside her side of the bed had been thrown about like the time I had been buried in memories inside The Well. The sheets and blankets on the bed had been left in a tangled mess that looked like they had been well and truly beaten. I counted at least seven empty green bottles around the room, and an eighth beside the bed that had not been opened yet.

"You can make a light. I see that you have spent your time well. Your enemies will cower before you now." Sam growled from the bathroom counter, my werelight glinting off of his eyes.

Anna rushed over to me from where she had been kneeling by the stack of firewood.

My light illuminated her, but it looked like her day had been much longer than mine.

Her raven hair was tangled and held in a messy bun. There were dark circles under her eyes. Her face was flushed, and it looked like she had been sweating. Her skull necklace still hung around her neck from my ribbons, but she was wearing the pajamas that she had bought for me when we still lived in the little wooden shack.

"Autumn, that's so pretty," She smiled and reached a hand up towards it. "Can I hold it?"

"I think so." I said, unable to look away from her as I let my werelight hang above her hand. I had seen her sick, I had seen her upset, I had seen her think her brother was dead, but I had never seen Anna the way she was then.

She touched it with the tip of her fingers and smiled as she spoke. "It's so cold. It's like ice. How did you-no-wait, let me turn the lights on, I want to know everything."

I snapped my fingers and filled the room with warm light. My working fell away to dust in atop Anna's hand, and she covered her eyes against the sudden brightness.

The room looked worse with the lights on.

Anna did too.

"Hey," I said softly, mimicking the tone she would use with me if she thought something was wrong. "Are you well? Because it doesn't seem like you are."

She picked up the empty bottle she had knocked over before and poured the remnants of my power into it.

"What? I'm fine. I had a little trouble sleeping last night, that's all." She said as she smoothed her hair back with her hands.

"The truth, mortal." Sam growled.

Anna gave him a glare that would have left a burning hole in a lesser creature. "Stay out of this."

"Watch your tongue," Sam growled as he leapt from the countertop. He arched his back and prowled toward Anna with violence in his movement. "Lest I take it. I have allowed you to remain near My Lady because you have been honest and caring towards her. Begin to lie to her now and you will be nothing but a fond memory of hers when her grieving has ended."

Anna was a mess.

Sam was even more threatening than usual.

They had fallen apart so terribly while I had been gone, it left me feeling like I was the most important girl in all of chaos.

"Hush. You are my familiar. You do what I say. You will not harm a hair on Anna's head. Ever. She is more important than me because she keeps me, me." I said as I pointed at Sam and filled my voice with as much authority as I could.

"As you command, My Lady." Sam growled as he relaxed his back and sat down.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

The warden would have been proud.

"And you," I spun on the heels of my black laced boots and turned my finger to Anna. "What truth is he telling you to tell me?"

Anna sighed and rubbed the back of her neck in a sigh that brought out her resemblance to her brother. "Fine. When I said I had a little trouble sleeping, I meant that I didn't at all."

"Did you get sick again?" I demanded, feeling strange being the one who was interrogating her.

She followed my gaze to all the wine bottles and wrapped her arms around herself. "No. That only happened because I forgot to eat. I told you that. When I couldn't sleep, I thought drinking would help. When I still couldn't sleep, I thought that I might as well keep drinking."

"Was it the nightmares?" I whispered as I carefully stepped through the mess on the floor and took her hands in mine.

"It was because you were gone, but yes. They were bad last night." She admitted, her dark eyes cast down at our feet.

"Do you want to talk about them?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter. You're back now. I'll sleep like a baby tonight," She shook her head and smiled before trying to change the conversation. "What are you wearing? And why does it look like you stole it from a secondhand shop? There are holes all over it."

"Anna." I said her name as she lifted the hem of Tana's thin green dress.

"This green really isn't your color. It's too light. It looks sour." She continued.

"Anna." I repeated.

"Hey! You got the bag I sent you! What did you bring me?" She cheered as she knelt down and touched the overstuffed bag. Just like it had done it before with Precept Seram, the too taught straps slipped in their buckles and the top of the bag burst open.

"Anna!" I insisted, stepping between her and the gifts that were spilling out onto the floor.

She looked up at me in stunned silence, her breath held and her brows furrowed.

I knelt down to meet her eyes. "I'm worried about you. You said it doesn't matter cause I'm back now, but what if I have to leave again? I think we should talk about this to someone. Nami, or Rhiannon, maybe. There has to be something we can do."

Even with her looking as worn out as she did, even with all the worry I felt for her, when she put herself closer to me and I could smell the wine on her breath, a different kind of weakness washed over me.

"Don't. Don't worry," She whispered. "They're just bad dreams. I'm far more worried about the things that I can touch and feel."

She placed her hand in the center of my chest and slowly brought it down to my thigh and one smooth movement.

"I know what you are trying to do. It won't work." I whispered back, trying to ignore the heat that had bloomed in my cheeks and struggling to keep my hands from reaching out for her.

She scrunched her nose and let out a breath. "All I'm trying to do is show you how happy I am that you're home, that you're with me, and we're together again."

Closer and closer, our lips grew.

I knew that if they met, I would be powerless to resist her.

So, I did the hardest thing I had ever had to do.

I brought my hand up and placed it in the middle of her chest like she had done to me.

A heavy lidded smile stretched across her face and almost shredded my will then and there.

I held on to the fraying end of my focus and pushed her away.

"Hey! What was that for, dummy? We had something good going there." She said in an annoyed huff.

I held my finger up to my lips. "Shhh. I'm the warden here. You have to do what I say."

"Since when?" She scoffed and crossed her arms.

"Since I was gone for one night, and you turn into me? I'm the one that makes messes and tries to act like nothing is wrong with me. We can't both do that. It just wouldn't work." I said playfully, hoping she would take it that way.

The truth was that I wanted nothing more than to continue the good thing that had been happening between us, but if it had been me who had not slept, she would have made sure to take care of me first.

Anna took my words the right way, but of course she had, she was Anna.

"Alright then, warden," She gave me a wink as she said the word. "What do I have to do?"

"First, we are going to clean up the room. I can barely walk without falling under normal circumstances. Second, we are gonna start a fire so I do not freeze to death. Third, we are gonna take baths because you need one and if you knew what I had been through today, you would refuse to touch me until I did." I told her my commands, visions of Bru's teeth and Deebee's jelly like tentacles wrapped around me running back through my mind.

"You have to tell me about your trip while we do all that." Anna said, her arms crossed in front of her chest.

I laughed. "I'm sorry that you are under the impression that this is a conversation. I have told you what we must do. Let's get to it."

She laughed back at me. "You're a little tyrant, you know that?"

"As she should be." Sam growled.

"Not a little tyrant," I corrected her as I picked up the blown open bag of gifts at my feet. "A little monster, remember?"

She agreed, and we got to it.

The cleaning did not take very long at all. Anna did most of it. Despite how scattered and strayed all of her books were, she knew exactly what each one was and where she wanted to put it. The fire started easily, but it took a very long moment to convince myself not to throw the thin green dress I wore inside the fireplace.

I would one day, but not yet. Making sure Anna was okay was far more important than anything I was feeling inside.

We took turns getting clean, but I made her go first. While she took her long bath, I pulled off my boots and heaved the bag of her gifts onto the then made bed. Sam made his leave, but I did not notice until I heard the door shut behind him.

From how my body felt and the ache in my eyes, that I would soon reach the point where I had to sleep. More things had happened to me that day than most of my days combined, but I would not let myself rest yet.

After I had taken my turn in the shower, Anna handed me my towels, and I drew the curtain back to find her sitting on the counter, wrapped in her own.

"When did you drop your glamor? There is no dust by the-" She started and stopped in the same breath.

I did not have an answer to your question, and I did not have the opportunity to think about it. She hopped down and reached towards me, steam as thick as Amabura's swirling all around us.

"What are these?" She asked as I felt her drag her finger across a numb feeling place just above the edge of my towel.

A thumbnail sized patch of what looked to be solid, pearl stood starkly against my pale skin. I looked down my towel without dropping it, and found more patches spread out across my middle in every place that a certain crystalline creature had poked me.

"Benny." I said under my breath.

"Who's Benny? They are so pretty." Anna asked.

I felt one of the pearlescent spots for myself as I answered her. "I will tell you when I give you your gifts."

"Gifts? As in more than one? I don't deserve you," She sighed and sagged into me. "Can I have them now?"

I pushed her away and held out my pinky. "If you promise that you are okay."

"Autumn," she waved me off and sent even more swirls through the steam. "I'm fine."

She didn't take my pinky.

"You are lucky I'm not demanding a blood pact. If you are not well, if the nightmares are getting worse, we need to do something about it." I said, trying my best to stay strong, despite how weary I truly was.

Anna wrapped her little finger around mine and brought my hand up to her lips. "I am okay. I promise. I just missed you. Can we be happy now?"

I trusted that she meant what she said and gave into her.

"Fine," I sighed. " but I worked really hard to get your gifts. So if you do not like them, lie to me."

She pulled me out of the bathroom, but did not go towards the bed or the bag sat. She took me to the closet and squared my shoulders with the door.

"Deal. But I did not work very hard for what I got you. So if you don't like them, tell me and I'll take them back." She said from where she stood behind me.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "You got me something?"

"Of course, what kind of partner would I be if I asked you for a present and didn't have one for you when you came back." She laughed.

A gave her the words that the warden had once given me. "You are a rare sort, Anna Lao. A rare sort indeed."

She scrunched her nose and pushed me towards the door. "Go inside, dummy. I'm tired of keeping secrets."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.