Gram sat at his desk as he finished some of the last paperwork he had for the night, across from him sitting in a chair was the girl he fished out of the alley. She could speak, but apparently didn’t have a lot to say. He offered to get her some water but she declined. For the hour or so she had been there, she barely did more than breath.

The most she said so far without prompting was that she would have been fine sitting outside. Of course, Gram protested on principle, and due to him not wanting the guard knocking on his door about the vagrant posted against his wall. She wasn’t all together resistant to coming inside, it more just felt like she was trying to brush off any need for help.

He couldn’t be sure, but he was almost positive that she was the source of the uneasy feeling he felt a while ago. He could tell from the way she was dressed that she was a mage, and the color changing hair was a second point in her at least not being normal. Mages didn’t have the greatest rap on Betel so he wasn’t surprised to see one out on the streets.

When he finished his work, he let out a long sigh and pointed his attention toward the girl. She was quick on the uptake and returned his stare.

“So, what’s your story?” He asked. His job was gathering information, and this was nothing if not information needing to be gathered. If anything, this whole the situation would be an addendum to his report.

“I don’t know what’s safe to say.” She said.

“Names could be a good start. My name is Gram, just Gram.” Gram suggested.

She was silent for a moment.

“I don’t have a name” She said, spoken in a way that could not more loudly scream, “I don’t want to tell you.”.

“Be that as it may, you have to call yourself something. People don’t just not have names.” Gram said. She didn’t respond again, which didn’t help along this already stressful conversation.

“Fine, like I said, my name is Gram. We’re currently in the head office of Blue Runs. You were leaning against my wall and strange things were happening. Things were putting themselves back together and the pain in my leg disappeared. You don’t seem so normal yourself so I thought there might be a connection.” Gram said.

The girl raised her hand, which Gram could now see looked a bit strange, the tips of her fingers were as white as snow, they looked almost like the fingers of a Medea. An aura of light surrounded her hand, then the vase Gram had sitting on his desk shattered silently into dust. Before he could even react to that, the dust itself vanished.

When he looked back to her, the vase that just shattered in front of his eyes was in her hands. Then she dropped the vase on to the ground beside her, again shattering it to pieces (this time loudly), and once again before he could raise an objection, another glow surrounded her hand and the vase was back on his desk.

“Not normal is a good start, I guess.” She said.

Gram picked up the vase and looked it over, it was the same vase he knew from the collective hours he had spent staring at it over the years. Nothing was altered as far as he could tell, and if he didn’t just witness it breaking twice with his own two eyes, he might have thought nothing happened at all.

“So you are a mage.” Gram said.

“Yes, a little bit.” She said.

“Are you from around here?” Gram asked.

“No.”

“What’s your business here?”

“Can’t say.”

“Why were you sitting outside in the rain instead of bunking somewhere?”

“No money.”

“Why?”

“Can’t say.”

“Did you lose it? Or are you just broke?”

“Can’t say.”

She was stonewalling and he was getting tired of it. “Alright, let me ask this. What CAN you tell me?” Gram asked. She sat quietly again, but not for the same reason as before. Her eyes darted side to side ever so slightly enough to tell him that she was forming her thoughts.

Then, he felt something strange again, something that didn’t feel quite right. It wasn’t like before where he was just feeling on edge, he was feeling something that wasn’t just nerves.

Gram closed his eyes again and tried to clear his mind. It took a bit of effort because of the aforementioned feeling, but once he did, he tapped his desk. When he opened his eyes, he looked at her closely. Her eyes flickered as they had before, but there was sequence to it.

The race of man had very developed eyes, even considering the other races that existed in the world. They were created over millions of years of evolution by taking the path of least resistance in accomplishing their goals. When a system like evolution goes on for long enough as it does, it develops what some might call “quirks” that illuminate what is really going on under the hood. In short, taking shortcuts leads to shortcomings.

The human mind is especially specialized in the topic of communication. As such, it has countless quirks. One is that the eyes will move subconsciously when listening to someone speak. That much is understandable, but more importantly, there is a subtle change when listening two others speak. The listener will turn their eyes just a bit to the speaker when there are multiple people speaking.

Even if they are not visible.

Gram watched closely, a few moments pass and her eyes turn one way, then a similar time passes and they turn the other. This matched the exact flow of a conversation, but the occasional flicker from one side to the other would suggest not just a conversation, but an argument.

She turned her eyes back to him at that moment. There was a feeling of absence from them, the kind that you give someone when you don’t trust them.

Before she could say a word, he spoke first.

“I take it the voices in your mind said it wasn’t a good idea to speak up?” He said.

Instantly, there was a loud and painful scream in his own mind. A mixture of nails on a chalkboard, the sounds of tearing metal, and the growls of wild beasts filled his mind. Through the pain he saw the girl stand up from her seat and walk to the front of his desk, before she reached it the wood of the desk dissolved in front of him, turning to wooden pulp that fell to the ground.

There was a deadly look in her eyes.

In his day, Gram had seen his fair share of people who wished him harm. Some were even mages or medea, but this one. There was a deep and inhuman look in her glowing eyes that concerned him in a way he couldn’t place. It wasn’t that he felt like he was in danger, he felt as though he was staring into the dark without knowing what was behind the void.

“How did you know?” She asked, her voice as cold as ice. The calm tone hiding the veiled anger that seemed to bubble just below the surface.

“I’m very perceptive, but if you asked me specifically how, I wouldn’t be able to tell you in words.” He said.

This didn’t ease her at all, but the feeling of immediate danger had left him somewhat. The scream in his mind stopped and she turned away.

“I’m leaving, don’t follow me.” She said.

Gram wasn’t going to stop her, but as she got toward the door, she stopped herself. Though her hand was on the door handle, she didn’t open the door. She nodded her head several times as if someone was speaking to her, then she said something Gram couldn’t hear. She turned back around and walked back to him.

The girl raised her hand and the desk reformed from the mush it was before. She stared at him again, but not with veiled malice. Just regular annoyance.

“Look, I’ve had probably the worst last couple days that anyone could have without dying. I tried to take my first nap in three days, where I thought I would get some peace. Only to have some grizzled looking bum wake me up within 20 minutes. THEN you call me out on something by rights should have no idea of. So excuse me for not opening up to you.” She said.

“Don’t worry about it.” Gram said.

The girl backed off and walked back over to the chair she was sitting in before. Gram reached over to the vase that was sitting on his desk, having been disintegrated three times now and restored just as many. The girl tossed her head around in thought, then finally initiated in conversation.

“People don’t usually let things like that go, why did you?” She asked.

In response, Gram tossed the vase onto the ground just beside her. Not close enough to suggest it was a threat, but still close. Without a word, she raised her hand and the vase restored itself to it’s place on the desk.

“I’ve had a lot of people threaten me over the years, a lot justified, but some not. It might have been easy for you, but not everyone would go to the trouble of fixing something they broke if they were really upset. It takes a certain kind of person to do that.” Gram said.

She squirmed slightly at hearing this. “I feel like I’m an open book right now.” She said.

“Look, I understand that you've gone through a lot, I could have told you that just from looking at you. But clamming up when somebody reaches a hand out will never help. Not trusting people is the quickest way to be untrustworthy yourself.”

That struck a cord, one that even Gram didn’t intend to. Because he could see tears welling in the corner of her eyes. But despite herself, she held them back. Possibly due to the words of whatever was speaking to her.

“I could tell you what’s going on with me, but it’s not going to do you any good. In fact, it might just make it worse. I won’t put that on you unless you’re willing to accept that it might ruin your life.” She said.

“Now hold on, if you know telling me will make it worse, then don’t tell me.” Gram said. This prompted a defeated sigh from the girl, and for just a moment he thought she would cry again, but he wasn’t done.

“However, I’d be more than interested in hearing how you intend to fix things. That is something I’m willing to hear.” He said.

-----

After their surprising short conversation, the girl, whose name was “Andromeda”, decided to take him up on his offer. But considering the late hour and the fact that she had nowhere else to go, he set her up in the loft with a spare cot. She was under instructions to stay up there and remain quiet if anyone besides him were to visit, and that she could only come down when he was in the office. She would explain more in the morning.

He didn’t want to be so restrictive, but it was the best he could do. He was told that this operation was to remain a one-man job, and until he could get clarification, he wasn’t sure if taking in a vagrant counted against that.

Andromeda herself seemed fine with the arrangement. Despite her protests to not needing it she nearly melted into the old dusty cot and barely spoke a word before passing out on it. Gram was reminded of himself when he saw her, someone who pushed themselves entirely too hard and thought it would all work out in the end.

Once he was sure she was settled in, he gathered his things, set the report up to be clearly seen on the desk in case someone came looking for it, and took off. He chose not to mention Andromeda as part of the report. Mostly because that would immediately incriminate himself.

In retrospect, he didn’t even know why he was sticking his neck out so far for this girl. For all he knew, she would steal everything that wasn’t nailed down and run off. Worse yet, he could lose his job if she is found.

Considering that she was a mage, it wouldn’t be impossible that she did some magical mumbo-jumbo and make him want to help her. But at the same time he usually had a good feeling for that kind of thing and already sussed it out once.

No, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, there was a small part of him that was still soft, and that part would never let him sleep well at night if he knew someone else was sleeping in the cold when he could have helped it.

Whether that will work out for him going forward was another question, but it was a gamble he was willing to take.