So, he was dreaming again. Luin knew himself to be dreaming, but what he couldn’t figure out was if he had been dreaming all along or if he had really been awake not that long ago. Hmm…had he always thought of himself as “Luin” and as “himself”?

Surrounded by darkness, his consciousness floated and drifted. He saw flashes of those who used their skills, felt the emotions behind their actions. Greed, desperation, pride, joy, malice. They left him with both a sense of curiosity and a sense of revulsion. His consciousness pulled back into that darkness.

CRACK!

His place of comfortable darkness, the place he had laid dreaming for so long, shook with a violent tremor.

CRACK! BAM! CRACK!

Pale, reddish light illuminated the cracks that were forming around the space where he slept. Even as dim as it was, the light made him recoil since he had never seen light in his space at all. Wait had he?

A sense of having experienced this exact string of events rippled through him. He stared at the largest crack, now anticipating what would happen next. Claws….

Sure enough, sharp, dark claws jammed themselves into the crack and began to pull. More tiny cracks formed, racing around him in a web. The safe space he had been sleeping in until now was being torn apart.

Another set of dark claws smashed through on the other side. He could feel the murderous intent seeping through. And he felt something he had never felt before, at least not from within himself: fear.

These creatures intended to harm him, and they were powerful enough to do it. Soon, his refuge would break completely, and they would be on him.

But in the back of his consciousness, he knew what he would do next.

He called up all those images of humans using their skills, ones that had blossomed from his birth and his unconscious blessing on this place, the land of his birth. He pulled the energy through that connection and felt the shock, surprise, and confusion that his interference caused. He fought to stay afloat in that sea of emotion and energy. And just when the cracks finally fractured like broken panes of black crystal, he pushed the energy through himself, launching his form up and away from the creatures as fast as he could.

He flew through the sky while the creatures attempted to jump after him, their claws swiping towards him and just barely missing. Even without a corporeal form, he knew those claws could have injured him greatly. He was careening away from a tall, pointed structure with a large circle and symbols on it. The Imperial Clock Tower. Wait, how did he know that? It was where he had launched himself from and was the site of his birth and slumber. At least four of the dark, hideous creatures were climbing all over it despite how high the top of that clock tower was.

But the energy that propelled him was greater than the creatures’ speed, and it sent him bouncing off of several large structures until he landed between two of them. There, he waited to see if the creatures would follow him, and sure enough, he felt their attention hone in on him.

He squeezed his form into a small, dark space, as low down between the large structures as possible. He wished he was like the humans he saw in his dreams, the ones that showed him bits of their lives and their emotions when they used the skills his presence had formed in them.

Suddenly, his form solidified. Perhaps because of his wish to become small and be able to hide as well, he found he was now in the body of a small, young human. A simple covering was over his body and his feet.

How strange! He looked at his own hand. It was a real, human hand. It had form and even enough sense to feel the texture of everything it touched. He was suddenly able to smell the bitter stench of the refuse around him. He flinched and covered his ears instinctively as high pitched screams tore through the air above where he was hiding.

They’re angry. They’ve lost me. Somehow, taking on this form had saved him. They no longer honed in on his location. He sucked in lung-fulls of the putrid air, his body suddenly heavy, as the screeches got farther and farther away. Perhaps he’d used too much energy. Perhaps it was because it had not been his time to awaken. But whatever the cause, he was pulled down into sleep once more.

***

Luin forced his eyes open, fearing that he’d see an alley with garbage all around, but instead, saw a woman’s back. Her back rose and fell evenly as she breathed, deep in sleep. His forehead and hands were pressed up against her back, and the warmth that came from her settled the memories and panic that had stirred in him.

He had dreamed of when he had awakened.

That’s right. Those creatures tore into the space where I slept, but I fled and took the form of a child. He reminded himself that the events of that dream really were just a dream now. He had fallen unconscious in that alleyway after using so much energy to escape and lock himself into this mortal form, which seemed to be cut off from most of his power. He had come to the next evening after that. He had realized that his nearly powerless, current state was likely the reason those creatures couldn’t find him anymore.

A tiny tap on glass got his attention and broke him out of his reverie. Unperturbed, he carefully rolled over and looked up at the window. He got out of bed silently and brushed back the curtain. Just outside the window on the roof sat a very large owl.