Dreams

She parted from Sister Garaele reluctantly, practically afraid to leave the only safe, familiar thing anchoring her to a world that felt like a scattered jigsaw puzzle. But the Sister had seen the exhaustion in Sef’s bleary, red-rimmed eyes, and promised again and again that they would speak the next day. With a final desperate embrace, she’d said goodnight to Garaele and went to the room she rented with Flicker’s money.
 
Sef couldn’t help but notice how spare the furnishings seemed. She’d lived a comfortable, modestly rich life in that town. Or at least she thought she had. She breathed a mirthless, unsmiling laugh as she sat on the bed. No, she had not lived comfortably or rich. She had barely lived at all. Not, at least, until they had shown up.
 
She’d told Eethyl that she wanted to hate them, which was true enough. She wanted to hate them for destroying the perfect world that had been crafted for her. In that world, that place, she had been content. But it was not real. And she could not hate them for saving her from a death trap, no matter how beautiful it had been.
 
Looking across the room from where she sat was a tarnished mirror. In some way she had known her appearance was different, but this was the first chance she had to gaze upon her reflection. If her throat was not so sore, if her eyes were not so dry, if she’d had a scrap of energy left in her, she might’ve cried again. Full of lethargy, she reached a hand as if she would catch a ribbon of hair between her fingers. But of course she caught only air.
 
Unbidden, she heard her father’s voice. "Touched by the Light of Lathander, this one!," he had beamed, and though she couldn’t recall his eyes just then, in that moment, she knew she’d thought his smile was as beautiful as the dawn itself. They had all fawned over her hair, she remembered, even before it had all grown in. Family, friends, strangers, even the clergy.
 
Another memory pressed on her. She was but a child, and she was with her father and mother, uncles, aunts, and a few cousins older than she. They were in a serious conversation, speaking gravely as adults do, tense with debate. What the debate was, exactly, she could not recall. But there was a problem that needed a solution. She remembered…it seemed they had forgotten she was even there. As young as she was, she had been quiet and gave avid attention to the conversation. At least until there was a lull, at which point she leaped from her seat and brandished her amulet!
 
“Don’t worry,” she had declared, full of a child’s untainted conviction. “As sure as the Morninglord’s glorious dawn, I will vanquish our enemies!”
 
This announcement was initially received with stunned silence. Indeed, they had forgotten she was there! And then the tension broke as smiles came to nearly everyone present, and she was scooped up by her father. “Indeed you will, little sunbeam,” he had said, pressing a kiss into her hair as he carried her to the door. “I have no doubt.”
 
The memory faded to nothing as Sef closed her eyes. She had lain upon the bed without realizing it, too heavy to stay awake another moment, and was soon asleep.