Ranvir sighed as the door closed behind Ione and the room felt silent. Squeezing his eyes closed, heavy weights seemed attached to the lids keeping them shut. Whatever pain numbing they’d done, whether through powers or drugs, was intensifying. His entire side was starting to tingle with tiny bluish gray sparks and his ribs had gone numb and gray.

He didn’t want to think about what the grandmother had said about his lung, but his mind refused to forge new paths. So he opened his eyes again. Pashar was looking intently at him, enough that he started feeling self conscious within a few moments of them making eye contact. Squirming awkwardly, Ranvir shifted his numb limbs as he glanced away.

“How did we get here?” Pashar asked slowly.

Ranvir sighed and shrugged, “I— I’m not sure. There’s a creature in my head,” he pursed his lips, “There was a creature in my head. It spoke to me. It was the one who told me I’d need a guide if we wanted to accurately return to Kirs and Esmund.”

“And this creature somehow took control of the pocket-space?”

Ranvir nodded.

“This is the same creature you mentioned to Svenar and Ayvir?”

“Ye—“ Ranvir aborted mid-word to look at Pashar, “You know about that?”

“It’s hard not to notice when two masters suddenly unload their tether-senses in the middle of campus. Even more so when they’re targeting a student, a student that I had noted as worth observing.”

“Oh,” Ranvir frowned still, “But you talked with them?”

Pashar paused for a moment, her eyes sliding slightly off him as she considered. Ranvir tried to guess what she was thinking about but her expression was impenetrable to him.

“I didn’t,” she admitted finally, “I followed Svenar as he changed his routine soon after the incident. For the first time in a nearly half a decade, he left the academy to meet with some old veterans of the front line. I stayed close enough to listen in. From there I could elaborate on the rest myself.”

Ranvir slumped back onto what might be his bed for the night, stifling a yawn, “Did he discover anything?”

She shook her head, “Not to my knowledge. Many of them had experience with a different type of creature than what he was looking for. A sort of long limbed and slender beast with what sounded like fish gills.”

Ranvir shook his head and stretched as the tingling spread down his leg, “Nope, that’s not Latresekt. Or it wasn’t Latresekt. I don’t really know what happened to it, but I don’t get the feeling its really gone.”

“Hm,” Pashar muttered, “Maybe they’ll know something about it here.”

“Makes sense,” Ranvir yawned along with another stretch. This one he took too far and felt the slight hitch of yellow pain scraping through the gray haze of the painkillers.

“I’ll be sleeping in the room next door,” Pashar said her words growing distant to Ranvir’s ears. “Frija’s there as well. If you need anything call for me.”

He nodded already well on his way to visit his dreams.

Ranvir awoke to a knock and an orange net of pain wrapping his side. The color deepened and darkened to a red the harder he drew breath.

A sick stench enveloped him making him gag. The door opened as Ranvir fought down a retch. Without anything to deal with the pain even simple movements were middling to fairly agonizing.

Amalia appeared in his field of view. Today she wasn’t wearing pale leathers but a simpler attire closer to what he’d seen on her grandmother, but more closely fitted and tighter cut. In one hand she carried a decanter and the other a small gray sphere glowing dimly. It was about the size of Ranvir’s last thumb joint and hummed slightly.

She tapped her jaw twice as she saw him before speaking, “Good morning.”

Ranvir coughed clearing his throat, “Morning,” his voice was rough as slime had built up during his sleep. He knew enough to not start hacking and coughing trying to clear his throat in front of the young woman.

“Ugh,” Amalia made a disgusted face as she got too close to him, “you stink! Maybe it’s you whose the tsiráki!” she staggered away quickly waving a hand in front of her nose.

“Thanks,” Ranvir replied ruefully, “I hadn’t noticed. You look good too by the way. Yeah, how are your ribs?”

Amalia scowled, “Oh thanks…” she pulled at her dress. The one Ione had worn yesterday had hung loose on her, where this one sat tight both on hips and waist while hanging loose enough at the neck that Ranvir thought he could see to her bellybutton if she bent over. “It’s a grandmother special, it just so happened that all my regular clothes were set to be washed today.”

Ranvir snorted, which resulted in him wincing in pain.

Amalia chucked before clearing her throat, “You seem better.”

Ranvir nodded slowly, “A good nights sleep helps,” honestly, if not for the pain Ranvir might’ve described himself as feeling great. It was like he hadn’t slept properly for days and the suddenly got to sleep for as long as he wanted, “That reminds me, what time did we arrive here yesterday?”

Amalia shrugged, “Maybe two or three flares before midday, I’m not entirely sure. There was other stuff going on.”

Ranvir felt his smile grow brittle at the very sudden reminder that he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t even know the damn time tracking. “How long is a flare?”

Amalia cleared her throat, “Right, you wouldn’t know. So there are three klokenes in a flare, three and a half flares go to a quarter of a vesikimes, and there are anywhere between seventeen and seventeen-and-a-tenth vesikimes in a day. Then you divide that if we’re talking night time.”

Ranvir pursed his lips, trying to remember all the strange words when Amalia snorted a laugh, “Or maybe I’m messing with you, might be there’s a little of Paios in me too. Twenty flares in a day and ten flares in a night.”

“Oh thank the Goddess,” Ranvir muttered closing his eyes. He cleared his throat, subtly trying to cough up enough phlegm that his voice didn’t sound so rough, but he didn’t do a very good job as Amalia immediately retrieved a glass cup and poured some watered wine into it.

At least he assumed it was wine. When Ranvir tried to smell it all he got was the stench of rotting blood and gore still stuck to his uniform. Sipping on it revealed a surprisingly similar taste, though this was clearly heavily diluted. ‘Piss it out faster than it got you drunk’ wine was what Grevor had once called it, that and much worse. It had been early in their time at the academy, they’d been relaxing after a long day of suffering through Grev’s idea of exercises. Grev and Sansir had been playing chess when Es had asked the blond tethered about wine. They’d found out that Grevor could go on long surprisingly in-depth tirades about various wines that didn’t live up to his standards.

“Drink up,” Amalia nodded at the glass cup. Ranvir blinked returning his attention to the moment, an intricate pattern of intersecting lines had been laid out on the glass. The only other time he ever held glass like this was when they’d visited Dovar’s estates.

Smiling at Amalia, he drank it down in big gulps stifling a wince at the scratchiness in his throat, “Thanks,” he replied after clearing his throat and finding his voice much improved.

Amalia nodded, “The doctor’s coming in about ten minutes. We left you with your clothes on because grandmother worried there might be damage to your spine and we didn’t want to jostle you more than necessary. Once the doctor arrives he’ll help get you out and I’ll leave some replacements for you on the counter behind you, okay?”

Ranvir nodded, “Thank you for all the help,” then as she turned to leave, he added hurriedly, “How’s Frija doing? My daughter?”

Amalia gave him a long look, “She’s sleeping right now, she woke up a few times and we fed her some cows milk. We weren’t sure if she could take solid food yet, so we decided to play it safe.”

Cows, they have cows, Ranvir breathed out a sigh of relief, “Thank you it’s good to hear that she’s in safe hands,” it didn’t really sound sincere to his own voice, he’d have much preferred she’d be in his hands.

Amalia smiled at him, she put the glowing sphere on a table to the side of the room before she left. The doctor arrived soon after speaking in soft and gentle tones as he explained to Ranvir what he was doing. He moved slowly and deliberately, checking Ranvir first for other broken bones then helped him out of his soiled clothes, all without ever remarking on the stench.

The man then gave a closer examination of Ranvir’s ribs, decided that he didn’t need any surgery and gave him some medicine to reduce the recovery time down to about a week and half, two weeks. The man also gave him another medicine that would help him assimilate to the local climate faster, though Ranvir was going to have a horrible few days after he took those.