Ambition, such a curious concept. Talking to Chris, knowing what he had achieved in life before the change had happened, remembering how he had taken a few of his friends, one of whom had been me to form the core of what would eventually become a world-famous eSports team, I could only wonder where his drive had gone.

During one of our talks before the change, he had confidently talked about moving vast amounts of money, trying to get the largest profit without losing the capital, which was always a risk. And yet, he had dared to act, had the ambition to see things done.

Now, he didn’t even dare to venture outside and take the power that was offered to us all, he didn’t dare to reach for the strength needed to protect his family. None of the people here did, they all preferred to wait and pray for help.

Was it only because before the change, the biggest risk had been financial? Or did they simply ignore the risks they took with other peoples’ money, knowing that they had some personal insurance, that it wasn’t truly a risk for their lives and livelihood? Now, the risks were obvious, nobody could ignore the risk of fighting the Undead, especially not with the occasional casualty of their expeditions to gather supplies.

One such casualty, as I learned from the sleepy little girl still resting her head in my lap for some reason, had been the girl’s father. It might explain why nobody had dragged her away from the dangerous predator that had invaded their space. Now that I wasn’t standing in their door, but talking to Chris and Jenn, there were quite a few hostile glances, though the people doing the glancing did their best to be covert. The air inside the shelter stank, not just of unwashed humans but also of fear. It was bad enough that Lia had quickly taken her leave after I introduced her, she simply didn’t want to endure the scent. Silva, on the other hand, remained with me, or maybe she remained with the little girl on my lap, Silva had certainly been interested in her, burying her nose in the girl’s stomach and snuffling her within an inch of her life. Even now she was stretched out in front of the couch I was sitting on, though more in front of the sleepy girl.

Jenn bowed out of our talk first, having to take care of their child, leaving me with Chris. Her absence changed little about the conversation, I remained curious about their experience while he had some interest in my abilities but it was far less than I would have thought. His interest was more focused on Apple Gate Farm and the people there, how they had set up, how they organised themselves and who was in charge than it was in gaining the power to defend his family.

Our conversation didn’t last too long after Jenn left, mostly because I knew little about the details Chris was interested in. I knew that Mrs Wu with that council they had set up was leading the Farm but beyond that, I had no idea. There might be some chain of command set up, I was almost certain that there was because I knew Mrs Wu, but who held which position, I didn’t know. Nor did I know how chores and supplies were distributed, not beyond my knowledge of their cold storage and I only knew about that because I had set it up originally and helped one of their spell casters to get the Ice Magic to keep it going.

“Neh, Miss Fairy,” the child still resting her head on my lap tugged at my shirt, pulling me from my thoughts, “What did you mean about washing earlier? Do you have a way to get us clean without using our water? They said we have to ration it;” she asked, her speech surprisingly clear for her age. Or at least I thought it was, I had little knowledge about the speaking ability of children, hell, I had little knowledge about children, period.

“Yes, little one, I have a way,” I couldn’t help but grin at her interest, “If you like, we can go into the old showers, I hope the drains still work, and I’ll help you,” I offered.

“And call me Jade, or Miss Morgana, if you have to,” I added, not quite sure I wanted to be called a fairy. It didn’t sit right with me, maybe due to meeting the weird fairy-like Sprites on Mundus. Those had been the closest thing to the description of a fairy I had ever seen and I wanted nothing to do with those things.

“What should I call you?” I asked, needing something to call her, other than girl, or fairy child.

“Sure, Miss Morgana,” the girl grinned, “I’m Sabrina,” she introduced herself. Looking down at her, I noticed something crawling around in the child’s thin hair, some sort of bug or something like that. Nothing that should be on a human, certainly not a child, and as a shiver of disgust ran down my spine, I decided to do something about it. Namely, gently pushing the child off my lap, covertly brushing away any bugs that might have crawled on my clothes, and standing up to pull her towards the shower room, Silva following closely, making me wonder if she was keeping an eye on me or the child. Maybe both, I certainly didn’t think I should be trusted with the care of a child younger than Lia.

There was some muttering as we were moving, but nobody had the temerity to actually say something, not that I knew what they would want to say.

“Now, let’s get you out of that dress, I’ll make sure it’s clean after, okay, little one?” I asked, not that I was going to take no for an answer. Instead, I simply pulled the clothes off the child, noticing as I did that she was far too thin for comfort, with a few bruises that made me frown. Next to me, Silva let out a quiet whuff, likely just as appaled as I felt.

Luckily, the bruises weren’t anything a little magic couldn’t deal with. Healing required a massive amount of focus, thanks to my draconic magic trait, but it could be done, though it might have caused the lights I had left in the other room to fade away, simply because I couldn’t be bothered to maintain them.

“That tickles,” Sabrina giggled, as I carefully healed one of the bruises, squirming under my touch.

“Just trying to make sure you are unharmed, little one,” I told her, as the last of her bruises faded away, “And now, you get to have a shower. Do you know how to wash yourself?” I asked, carefully pushing her towards the area with drains installed. When she nodded, I raised my hand, quickly drawing the runic formation I used to conjure a shower, making sure that the temperature was as it should be.

The look of glee on Sabrina’s face managed to make me grin, she looked so incredibly happy that I just couldn’t help it. She even started to dance around under the spray, giggling all the way, as if all the world’s ails had been healed. But sadly, dancing around in the spray didn’t make for a good cleaning and given that the child didn’t look like she was going to do anything but, I let out a sigh and stepped up. Magic was an incredibly useful tool, especially in this case. I didn’t need to make sure that I stayed dry, which would have been an impossibility with the squirming child, nor did I have to strip myself, which would have been uncomfortable with untrusted humans in the other room, I could simply draw the water out of my clothes with little trouble. That control over the water, alongside some soap to get rid of the dirt and some Death Magic to kill off any bugs that tried hiding in her hair, meant that she soon lost all the sweat, grime and dirt that had been clinging to her.

“Neh, Miss Morgana, why are there all these strange sounds around you?” Sabrina asked me, when I used my Water Magic to pull away the water from her hair, making sure that she was nicely dry.

“What strange sounds?” I couldn’t help but ask, before focusing on the dress she had worn. It looked rather damaged, little more than a rag, but I didn’t have anything better. Maybe we could find something later, but for now, it would have to do. Letting out a sigh, I once again summoned some water, only for Sabrina to react to the summoning.

“This, it sounds bubbly and splashing,” she told me, making me raise an eyebrow in surprise. She had been strangely attentive the whole time, twitching whenever I used my magic, but I had thought she had reacted to the effects, not the magic itself. But describing it as sound, that didn’t seem to correlate to the effects, but to something else.

“Looks like you truly are a special young lady,” I grinned, almost forgetting to continue cleaning the dress, “Why don’t we play a game, to try out just how special you are?” I asked, already planning to see how talented this child was.