The shop had reeked of magic so strongly she swore she could still feel it on her clothes after she left. It had been the fourth one she had visited, but the first where Sira had been confident that she could find answers. The others had been full of snake oils and charmers, no one who had the keen eye that Godfry'd had, none who seemed caught by the why more than the what as he. She could respect someone who acted out of intrigue for a puzzle, who yearned to know more.

But f#@% if the....things in his shop didn't creep her the hell out. The talking heads, the brain in the jar that followed her every move....the teapot with spider legs! Not that she's afraid of spiders or anything, but when he asked her if she wanted tea out of the thing...!" She'd already been at the point where she wanted to run away. She was glad she had remained.

She stepped away from the shop keeping a wary eye on the shadows. She had said once that she swore she could see faces staring back out at her, and that she thought she had been going crazy. Ever since her extended time in the Dream she thought they must be the same watchers she sometimes felt there. Just like when they watched her flounder in the dark place, she both felt insecure with the observation and certain they were merely....curious.

Still, she hated to be watched.

Sira was reflecting on the conversation with the....She wasn't entirely sure what Godfry was. Outwardly human, but that meant little in this city. Some kind of magic user, though his shop implied alchemist. She wasn't sure if one could be both of those things. There was a period of time when she was new to Rhydin and she had dabbled with a little alchemy, but that is a story for another time. It was another thing she could respect. These thoughts bounced around in her mind as she headed north towards the city walls and home.

Godfry had suggested looking for more spikes, Sira had insisted on waiting until the next day. She'd hit her threshold of magic and weird, and there was something about him that she just didn't like. She couldn't put her finger on it.

She almost didn't hear the soft footsteps behind her.

At first she did nothing but keep walking. They didn't sound human, but rather like a dog. In this town that didn't necessarily mean a friendly pup. It could easily be a wolf or worse. She darted down a familiar alley and was off running by the second step in. When in doubt look for high ground. By the time she got to the—thankfully closed—dumpster she had angled her messenger bag so it wouldn't unbalance her too much when she vaulted herself up. Next step would have been to catch the ladder to the fire escape, but she caught sight of her stalker.

A white fox sitting at the mouth of the alley.

Sira let out a huff of air that she'd drawn in for the jump she would have needed to make, which now felt unnecessary. She was certain it was the same fox who had been following her. The same fox who had found her in a very different alley where she could have died. She still wasn't sure how she had ended up inside her apartment, unless the fox was some sort of shifter"

It had always been hard for her to feel farther than a few arm lengths away from herself with her threads of thought, even harder since her mind was a mess. The thread she stretched out was as delicate as a dusty old cob web, so fragile she was sure it would snap before reaching the fox, but somehow it did. She'd yet to be able to do more than sense the presence of thought at this distance, and one swipe was all it took for her to be sure the fox was in fact, just a fox.

"But you're not, are you?" She asked the fox from her perch. She was loathe to give up her lofty escape just yet. "I would really like you to stop following me around."

The fox only stared at her. One if his ears twitched and he lolled his tongue out. He looked friendly.

Sira frowned. After a minute passed and the fox seemed content to just watch, she turned back to the fire escape. A quick leap and she had caught the bottom rung of the ladder. She climbed the ladder spryly, then after one quick glance to make sure the fox hadn't moved, she was up the fire escape just as quick. From that rooftop she could access the next building, and then another....She could make it almost to the city wall before she'd need to descend.

—————

The fox watched Sira's climb without moving more than his head. He could have followed easily if he needed to, however this time he merely let her go.

After all, the command he was obeying wasn't to follow her. It was to keep him away.

Speaking of the man, he waited for the nimble woman to disappear from sight over the top of the fire escape before he stepped from the shadows.

The fox's ear flicked again and he looked at the man. He looked like he was laughing.

"You can't keep this up forever," the man told the fox. "Your master cannot keep her from me forever. Sooner or later she's going to discover the truth, and there will nothing left to protect."

When the fox didn't react he turned to walk away. He looked back over his shoulder.

"That is if the boy doesn't succeed this time. He has something planned, and I won't complain if he kills her after all."

The shadows reclaimed him.

The fox stood guard.

(edited and posted with permission from all players involved)

It was odd to see the inn's porch so busy, the day chilly and overcast with a biting gust of wind. Still, it was a dozen degrees above freezing and a welcome respite from the bone cracking cold the tail end of winter had brought. Sira had been heading for the inn to waste a little time before she returned to the little hidey hole she used as a clinic. All had been quiet on that front. She almost wished for some trouble break out in the city so she'd have a little more business.

She almost walked away again to avoid the crowd, but there was a familiar figure up there on the swing. One whom she had been trying to hunt down for weeks. Still, she hadn't wanted to talk to Oriax with so many people around, so she loitered out on the lawn hoping the others would go about their business.

Instead the mortuum joined her on the lawn. She'd chided him for his little teleportation trick which he had dismissed. He had gathered about them protective shadows that would obscure their conversation when Sira had indicated her desire for a private conversation.

—

Sira glanced nervously towards the porch. "Tell me again what that book is," she said in hushed tones. Shadows or no shadows, she did not trust that there could be no prying ears. It was bad enough there were eyes she didn't entirely trust and ones she didn't know. "I need to know, Oriax."

He watched her sedately with his usual blank expression. "You are ill at ease. You have not discovered it's meaning?" He tipped his head to the side. "I am surprised you still cannot read it. You should be able to."

"Oriax," she hissed his name and crossed her arms over her chest. "I am going to hit you if you keep with these non-answers." She meant it! Her fists were balled up, fingers digging into her sleeves. "What is that book?"

"There is only so much help I can give, Sira. I may have over stepped my bounds as it is." The shadows around them thickened protectively. "It is not what it seems. Do not focus on the words."

"You told me you can't see the pictures," she retorted, her eyes narrowing. That muscle in her cheek that had a habit of dancing when she was upset was jumping again. "What else *can* you tell me?"

"I cannot. I did not know there were pictures until you told me." He did not go on from there as he had nothing else he could tell her. He reached out suddenly to touch her cheek lightly. "You should not look for me, Sira. There are many places I go that are too dangerous for you."

She had been about to let out a sigh when Oriax touched her. Her breath caught in the back of her throat for the sudden intrusion on her personal space. Her frustration over the puzzle, the riddles, and the limited information boiled over into harsher words than she intended. "Don't try to help if you can't actually help at all," she spat as she pushed his hand away. In the same move she stepped away from him, calling sharply for her dog to follow.

Oriax had watched her go as blank and emotionless as ever. Perhaps more so than he had been with her. They were not alone. He left once she was out of sight inside.

—

It wasn't long after that when Sira left. A few moments to make sure the dead elf was gone, but not long enough to give the ever curious Mesteno a chance to ask. She had seen the look he'd given her, the slightest edge of a question in his eyes. She hadn't wanted to talk about it.

She hadn't returned to her office, instead she sought out someone else entirely, who was very surprised to see her.

"I spend almost two hours tryin' ta find ya an' you go givin' me the slip, now here you go showin' up on my step?" Garrett had been a little irritated just mostly happy to the doc wasn't avoiding him completely.

Sira had pushed her way past him, deliberately brushing her hand against his arm to establish a contact. The big man never seemed to notice when her tendrils of thought latched onto his. Or if he did he gave no indication outwardly or inwardly. "You told me once you'd teach me how to use one of those energy guns of yours," she reminded him. "I'm assuming that offer is still on the table."

He watched her through sleepy lids and rubbed at his jaw. He'd shaved recently but already had a decent amount of growth dusting his broad chin. "Yeah, I said that." He knew she was up to something and he wasn't gonna like it. Not that she'd tell him. "I'm guessin' ya expect ta borrow one, too."

She fixed him with a hard look and smiled. "Absolutely."

The door opened so hard it slammed into the wall. Sira jumped at the sound, but didn't stir herself from the blanket cocoon she'd worked herself into on her bed. She was pretending that the world beyond didn't exist or had been until the world decided she couldn't hide away any longer.

"Sira Elizabeth Ardal," said a stern female voice. "You get your skinny ass out of that bed right now. We are going to the bar."

Sira grunted. "You can't make me."

"Carly!" Sira jumped again at the yelling. "She thinks we can't make her!" The other girl was clearly shouting to someone outside of the room. Sira picked out at least three distinct laughs, but she already knew how many of them had shown up. Her emotions were raw, and it took a great deal of effort to keep theirs from bleeding in. She hadn't yet learned how to create the wall and push them out.

"Sira," said a second voice. "You can't hide away forever! Do you even know how many classes you've missed?"

The lump that was Sira grumbled. Another set of footsteps indicated a third person had joined the first two inside the room.

"We're going to have to just pull her out," the third girl said. The other two agreed in a murmur. Sira strained to hear what they were saying, but it was all hushed whispers that didn't carry far. She didn't have long to fret about what they were up to, because suddenly three sets of hands had grabbed on to her blanket and hauled her straight out of the bed. There was a brief struggle where she tried to regain control of the covers that the girls pried from around her. Then there was a chorus of gasps.

"Why are you wearing that!?"

"Oh, my, god, you still have that thing?"

Only two of her friends vocalized their disappointment in her attire, the third just shook her head. The three of them were as varied as people could get, the first in the room had been Ashley, the tall blond whose pony tail was swaying with her disapproving gesture. Carly, the petite red head was also tapping her foot. And Michelle the mixed-race tom boy with short shorn, aqua blue hair.

Sira looked down at herself, then wrapped her arms protectively around the red flannel shirt. "It smells like him," she said in a wavering voice. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, and more tears threatened to break. Before the first drop could roll down her blotchy cheek the three girls were on the floor with her and had piled into a big group hug. All the while she cried they consoled and urged her to let it all out. She'd been all cried out long before they had shown up, so it wasn't long before she was just sniffling with her face buried into one of their shoulders. It was hard to tell which.

"We should burn it." That was Michelle in a matter-of-fact voice. The other girls added their chorus of approval, but Sira was shaking her head adamantly.

"I can't do that!" She said on the edge of panic.

"Sure you can," Carly had told her. "If he can just dump you like that, you can burn his shirt." The other girls agreed. Girl power, and all that.

"He didn't dump me, we broke up with each other," Sira tried to reason with them. They'd had this conversation before, it was no use. It was a lie and they all knew it. "He'll always be my first love..." She burst into tears again and the girls tried to lure her out of her sadness.

——-

It had just been a memory, not one of her vivid dreams. It didn't matter to Sira as it felt no different. Those dreams were like she was back in the past. In the present silent tears made wet trails down her cheeks to drip off her chin and onto the shirt in her lap.

That had been years ago, back in the beginning of her second year of undergrad. She and Liam had been dating since almost the first day of high school and she always thought they'd be together forever. He had spent the summer before the semester started off with his friends doing charity work in South America. He admitted that while he was there he had 'hooked up' with a girl in the group, but that they hadn't had sex. Sira forgave the indiscretion, then a few weeks later he wanted to take a break.

Over the next year Liam had gone off and dated more girls that she cared to keep track of. Though she relented to being dragged out to parties and bars (with fake IDs) by her friends, she never dated anyone else. Liam was the only boy she had ever kissed. They promised their junior year to save themselves for marriage, and Sira kept to that.

Winter break the next year he had come crawling back, begging for Sira to forgive him. And she had. He was her first and only love and she was blind to her senses. She always was when it had come to Liam.

He had proposed their senior year, and they got married before she started med school. Originally she had been planning on going to Harvard as her first choice, but Liam hadn't wanted to leave NYC, so she went to Columbia instead. Still, the strain on their relationship during that time was real. Between her course work, the long hours spent at clinicals, then internships, and him working at his father's company as well, they barely saw each other. They barely had time to be intimate after their honeymoon. She knew it'd get better once she was done with her last residency and had transitioned into a real staff position.

That chance never came along, that life was not hers to claim. She doubted it was ever more than an illusion.

She frowned down at the shirt, rubbed the well-worn fabric between her fingers. It was one of very few items she had from her old life. Back when she was a very different person. She had been open, warm, well-liked. Trusting. That shirt had reminded her of the person she had been and it had brought her peace.

"How long did you know?" She asked the shirt, like it knew the answers only its original owner could tell. "You seemed so surprised when I told you."

The shirt couldn't talk back. It couldn't tell her what she wanted to know, and it couldn't protest when she tossed it into the flames crackling merrily away in her fireplace. It may have been years, but she was finally taking Michelle's suggestion.

He'd still always be her first and maybe only love.

She wouldn't hesitate to kill him if she got the chance.

"What else did you see?"

Sira had been preoccupied with wrapping her hands. She noticed Garrett's eyes on her, but she had been ignoring the question she knew he was going to ask. Answering him straight away took a back seat to her making sure the gauze and athletic tape was sitting correctly. Last thing she wanted was split knuckles.

Garrett grunted at her non-responsiveness. He expected it from her. It felt like he'd known her for years and not just barely one. It took a lot for him not to push her. That would just make her flee. "I know you saw something else."

She glanced up once she was satisfied with her work, though she held them out for the brawler's inspection. Unfortunately for him, she still held her tongue.

He let out a vexed noise. But he consented to examine the wraps. "They'll do. Next time go a little tighter around the wrists." He touched her as he spoke to indicate just where he meant. "You think too much like a doc, doc." He grabbed her wrist tight suddenly. In just as quick a movement he was trying to twist her about into a wristlock. It'd feel like he was trying to wrench her shoulder out of the socket.

Sira would have responded, maybe she would have answered the question she was avoiding, but the grappling move was understandably distracting. She only had a split second to remember how to counter the hold, and she almost made the mistake of letting him pull her in close to lock it in. Instead, she twisted her wrist to weaken his grip before dropping her weight and hammering down on his forearm with her free arm. There was no pulling punches here, no playful wrestling. She wasn't afraid to hurt him!

"Good!" He praised at her attempt. Had he used a double hand lock that move wouldn't have worked. He also wasn't expecting the force she put behind the hammering. Not that it didn't also open her up to his next move where he went for another lock, this time on her elbow. He tried to use it to get her to bend at the waist.

It was Sira's turn to grunt when she was suddenly free, and hiss like a wet cat when he went for the second hold. This time she was ready for it and she wouldn't give him the chance to get a good grip on her. She twisted the arm out of his reach and at the same time aimed a kick at his knee. If she was lucky he'd go down.

The kick he wasn't ready for. It didn't have the effect she wanted and he kept his feet but he did stumble back a step. He threw a hand out trying to catch her by the ankle before she could withdraw her foot.

Oh no, she was too fast for that, Garrett. You should know better by now! One attack followed the first, the foot dropping fast so that she could plant and pivot for the swing she took at his jaw. Time to test out how good those wraps were.

He managed not to take that hit full on even if he couldn't avoid it completely. A shift of his head changed it from jaw cracking to just creaking. It also got him off balance enough that he fell like a great oak in the forest.

Sira crowed triumphantly when he went down, but she wasn't satisfied yet. She dove for one of his ankles to try to twist that sumbitch around. One had to wonder if Sira hadn't watched a little too much WWE at some point in her life...

She went for the wrong lock. That wasn't even really a proper lock at all. It left her right open for him to actually just tangle her legs with his and basically squeezer her like a human pair of scissors while trying to wrench her around at the knee.

"...!" She let out a note of painful surprise, prefacing her own fall to the ground. It was all over now, she was just going to flail and kick to try to get free, even though it was futile. She knew her ground game was piss poor at best.

Just like her before he wasn't going to take it easy on her. The moment he had the chance to get the leg lock in he was putting enough strength into it to really twist at her joints.

That was it, she gave up. The moment he started to wrench on her leg, she started tapping at his arm to let her go.

He let her go and untangled his legs immediately so they weren't touching. He hadn't even broken a sweat in their scuffle nor was he breathing hard. He got as far as a kneel to grin at her. "You got cocky."

She wasn't breathing hard either, but her heart was pounding in her chest. Before she moved to get up, she tested her knee to make sure the cap was in place. She had been certain he'd dislocated it. "I know who you're working for now," she said as she slowly rose to her feet. "That's what I saw."

He rose to match her. His jaw was aching now that he had a moment to think about it. "Yeah?" He rubbed at his face. "That why you been ditching on our practices?"

Sira nodded slowly. "Yes," she admitted quietly. "You're in for a world of hurt if you stay for him," she went on in a warning tone. "I saw a lot of death in that man's head, and not just the murders at the docks."

He let out a slow and quiet breath. "I know what I'm getting into, Sira." He crossed his arms over his chest.

"I'm not going to get involved," she asserted in the firmest tone she could manage. "I can't, Garrett. I won't. You call on me again for that and I won't answer." There was an edge of finality in her tone.

He nodded again. "I know." He glanced down a moment then back up at her. "We gonna keep sparring" You're weak as a kitten. I don't even get why you want to know how to fight, anyway, with your mindgames."

Sira was working on fixing her wraps. They'd gotten a little messed up during their brief scuffle. "It doesn't work on everyone," she replied. "Some people I can't read at all. Some it's all....off. I don't want to rely on an ability that so many people here are immune to."

He offered out a hand to help her with the wraps. "Those are the ones your fists probably can't do nothin' about anyway."

It was her turn to nod again, agreeing quietly. She didn't agree to his help, though. "It will still give me more of an edge than I have now."

"Maybe." He doubted. "Let's get started, I need to go over counters with you again."

—————

A couple of hours later a very sore Sira was limping from Garrett's studio. It had taken her a few weeks to even convince him to start training her, and then she ended up flaking on half their sessions. He seemed to think she was going to miss more and was intent to drill every last escape into her. He refused to teach her more offensive moves until she could break every last hold.

She hadn't been entirely truthful with him. She suspected that he knew that.

A few weeks earlier he'd asked her to interrogate a man that had killed some of his crew. At the time, she didn't know who Garrett was working for, not that she ever asked. Not that she ever would. They had their own niches in the dark underbelly of the city, his being far further into the shadows than hers. She clung to a place where she could still see the sun shine through.

That man had put up no resistance to her mind probing. "I know who you are," he'd whispered to her before she began.

It'd been a mistake. There had been few minds that had affected her much beyond a general feeling of disgust. His mind felt like it'd left an oil slick across hers and she was still struggling to scrub it clean. She swore that people looking at her would see the filth coating her like a second skin.

She wasn't sure the dark images he showed her would ever leave her.

Worse. They knew her face. They knew her name. Worse still....They knew what she was and who wanted to find her.

She was tired of these days of looking over her shoulder, fearful of black vans and dark rooms.

Rabbit she is not.