Downtime: The Waker of Sleeping Souls II

Tertius collected the assortment of papers and alchemical ephemera scattered across the room - instruments of what had transpired to have been a four day revery of his senses - and the room beginning to take on some form of normalcy. As he did, so too did his thoughts become ordered, settled, he found a composure of sorts, and he is voice was again steady; the slight exertion acting as if a refreshing tonic.

“A man of my means and station can not afford the niceties that tenure brings.” He said, placing a bruised copy of Velak’s guide to Toxiferous Lepidoptera of Tycheros upon the desk. The book bulging and distend by paper markers, signposts to what would reveal his journey these past few days.

“You asked for my assistance, and I have provided.” He gestured to papers that Malista held, still seated upon the bed, upon the raft that had borne him on those dark waters these past four days. “And, I may add, I have not asked anything of you, despite what you had proffered.”

Malista looked up as she idly thumbed the papers in her hands. She smiled, an innocent disarming expression, as if slightly bemused with a child.  

“Between us, these things are a trifling matter. They are for a friend who can ill afford…” She paused, searching for the words “Association with questionable activities. Activities that could sully her good name.”  She placed the papers beside her and moved across the room towards Tertius.

“I will not feign understanding of the scope and nature of your work, but my... friend... is well placed to understand the value of your learning.” She stopped before him, lightly resting her hand upon his chest, before gently lifting a finger to his downturned chin. She slowly raised his gaze back to hers. Ordinarily an act he would have found too forward, too familiar  had it not been for the demure smile she now paid him.

“You will never regain the life you have lost, but perhaps my friend might provide you with some semblance of that life. A new purpose?” her smile grew wider, and now beamed. His return, a weaker one.

“You should not involve yourself with this, it is unseemly.” He said, the weak smile collapsing under the seriousness of his tone. “I have little to lose. But you...” He paused, uncertain if he rested on a statement. “Even those half formed ideas would bring ruin upon you.” His words pulled him down, and he slumped upon the chair. She guided his head towards her, into the soft folds of her linen dress, stroking his hair as she did. The fabric was soft and cool against his cheek, her sweet scent filled him.

“You should rest, you’re still weak.” She said, crouching down before him, again looking up at his downcast eyes. "You should not be afraid to show me what quiets your mind. "

Downtime: The Waker of Sleeping Souls I

The voices in the room were soft and indiscernible, on the periphery of Tertius’s awareness, the vestiges of the last soporific he’d ingested still gripping his senses. As if cast adrift at sea, he fought for purchase onto the voices as if flotsam, tumbling in the waves of consciousness as he struggled up from the heavy waters of sleep. His clothes, his dreams weighing him down and back under away from wakefulness. With one last kick, he pushed himself up breaking the surface of sleep, back into the dimly lit room somewhere in Silkshore.


He struggled to right himself on the bed, clothes slick with perspiration, shielding his eyes from the weak candle light that lit the room. Eyes now too sensitive after many an indulgent and impatient experiment. How many hours had it been since he’d ingested the lotus seeds? 6, 12 hours, a day?

“You’re awake?”

He recognised the voice that came from the figure seated beside the desk. She turned, curtly nodding towards the doorway, and a shadow turned, gently closing the door behind it. The slight figure of the girl stood slowly, pulling her simple, but fine white dress up as she walked towards the bed, lightly tiptoeing her way through the papers and books strewn across the floor. The candle she held out as if to help find her way through the maze of detritus Tertius could not fully recall having created. He winced as the candle light fell upon him.


“I thought you had learnt to temper your proclivities for…” She said, her words trailing off as she cast her eyes across the room, finding a space to sit at the end of the bed.

“Malista, your low opinion of me is misplaced, I’ve...this is, the, the necessities of study, not of pleasure” He said, his voice dull and parched as he pulled himself up to face her.

They held each other’s gaze momentarily. He took in that piquant and familiar face that oft reminded him of his mother. The long black hair that hung loose across her shoulders, sharp nose, framing large inquisitive, at times playful blue eyes… eyes that belied the strength of will behind them. Malista studied him in turn, his eyes, those two shining points of light that burned bright in the weak light, lustrous despite his recent return to consciousness from whatever substances he had drowned his senses in.

He does have have our look She thought. The slight features of his mother and her hair, he could easily pass, should easily pass for... despite those eyes... what else marks you Tertius?

“You mistake admonishment for concern my dear Tertius.”  She adjust herself, and reached out a hand to push back the damp hair clinging to his brow, smiling as she did.

“Whatever the causes of your present circumstances, I was glad that we found each other again. I’ve always been concerned for your health, I think fondly of you dear cousin.” She noticed his eyes sharpen slightly at the word cousin.

As abruptly as Tertius had entered her life, he had left it. Those few short years after he had arrived from Tycheros, rife with rumour and innuendo, turning quickly to accusation had lead him away from a comfortable existence ensconced within the family home, and away from his place in the academy. Though the trouble he had so readily embraced at the academy, propelling him into his current predicament, were orchestrated through a fastidiousness that clearly earned him the right to the family name.

To think in this past year her life had changed so radically too, and a fire now burned in her mind. And Tertius, who nearly found himself as kindling for that blaze, was going to help that fire of the mind, a fire that burned and consumed completely.

“Now cousin, please do enlighten me” She said.