It was the morning of December 13, brisk and cold and gray. Daylight meekly filtered through the overcast that had been plaguing the city for the past several days. In a small and humble church near the gates to the city, across the street from the Rhy'Din orphanage, Asha swept dirt and debris from the floor and into the street. Though the clergy letting her stay there had been a kindness, the elf still had to earn her keep, and the healing she freely gave most days to all who called wasn't really counted toward that.

The pews were empty, and the church had a solemn, almost reverent feel to it. In the early morning, and especially in the middle of the week, it was often empty. Wall sconces lit the room with a warm, orange-toned light. The whole structure was spartan in design and decor, emphasizing humility, modesty, chastity, and other such virtues that were valued by the Christian faith. Oftentimes, Asha was a strange reminder as well in her simple, coarse dresses and shorn head. A peculiar beauty radiated from behind her rather stark appearance, and though she was not uncomely to look upon, it came from somewhere deeper than skin, from gentleness and kindness, from purity and oddly naieve-seeming tenants. But the keepers of the church had been tentative in allowing the elf lodging. For all her goodness, she did not pay homage to their God, and so her actions were suspect.

Asha did not try to convert anyone to her faith, but they watched her nonetheless, wary.

She took up a bucket of warm, soapy water and a stiff brush, knelt, and began to scrub the floors. Such a task was not unfamiliar to her, and it reminded her of another place and time. She smiled, but it was bittersweet. Guarded words from a guarded tongue had danced around the truth of her place one hundred years ago in the palace of Calacirya. The story was probably too long and complicated for casual conversation. She had tried to explain it once... and found it more challenging than she had expected.

The floors gleamed wetly in the light by the time she had finished, and her back and arms ached a little from the task. Asha glanced out the window. Part of her itched to leave, but instead she sat down on a pew to rest. She had promised to meet Maethoriel here this morning to speak of things privately, and so she would wait for the other elf's arrival.

The fragment had no legs. Hopefully, it was not going anywhere.

The day, even once the sun crested over the horizon, sending a thousand shards of light through the trees, did not bring with it warmth of any sort. It was times such as these she was grateful for her fur-lined leggings and boots and for the thin gloves that kept the biting cold from her hands without hindering her ability to properly grip a bow or draw an arrow from the quiver slung on her back.

As she approached the city, a different sort of sound reached her ears; the calming song of the forest gave way to the clanging of bells, the shouting of men, the clamor of a day just begun. These were not the sounds she craved, not the ones which gave her life more meaning than it otherwise had. But she needed to listen to them just the same.

The church was relatively easy to find; between Asha?s direction and her own memory, she arrived early, before she?d even breakfasted. Her stomach growled at her lightly, but she ignored the protestations of her body. Her mind needed clearing, her thoughts needed pouring, and Asha was the vessel into which they would go. Sunlight reflected off of the newly washed floors of the church, forcing her to look up and away. Pausing to wipe the snow and dirt from the bottom of her boots before she entered the holy building, she inwardly sighed. Recounting her story was difficult. Perhaps, with a relative stranger, it would become an easier burden. Moving inside, she approached the figure who sat in the pew, calling softly, ?Asha??

After returning Asha's greeting and taking a place next to her, she spent a few moments looking around the church, soaking in its ambience in the hopes the surroundings might comfort her. The effect was far less than she hoped.

Speaking just above a whisper, as if afraid the winds would catch carry her secret, proclaiming it in the streets and over the oceans and through the trees, she related her story ? if only the relevant portions.

?It started maybe a year ago - I was in the woods, hunting. I was tracking, and had found my prey, and then I was waking up. I wasn't sure what had happened. Later that same week, as I was running through the forest in the early morning, I suddenly found myself on the ground. I think only minutes had passed, but I couldn?t say for certain. It didn't happen again for months.?

She glanced away from Asha, her eyes settling onto the floor. ?I told no-one, except Aurelia. She made me things, potions, and we believed they were working. But then, under similar circumstances as the first time, I found myself ready to shoot, and then waking. I believe it only happens when I, or rather, my body, becomes excited. There?s never more than a few second?s warning.?

She paused, looking at the sunlight bathing the wooden pews, warming the molded flesh of the dead with its rays.

?And then, Galrin,? her voice choked in a sob at the name. ?We were sent to retrieve something. It should have been simple. Aleena, Caelen, Katurran?the others, I never told them about??

Her eyes closed as the recent memory, terrible in its accuracy, made her tremble. She could place herself back inside the moment, inside her own body, feeling now what she?d felt then. How her muscles were taut and tensed, her eyes wide but focused, her mind clear and resolute. Each movement quick but purposeful ? a turn here, a step there, her focus remained. It allowed her to reach back behind her, pull a lovingly crafted arrow from its quiver, draw the arrow down, notch it into her bowstring, pull, release, and repeat with an amazing speed and clarity. And, for the most part, she struck her targets. Subtly, she could feel something beyond those things.

Galrin fell, the creatures turned toward her.

Four more arrows slung forth.

It began to move.

This wasn?t the first time ? it nipped at the back of her mind like an unscratchable itch, weaved its way through her body with each beat of her rapidly pulsing heart. She couldn?t shake the feeling, couldn?t ignore it, and as it grew like waves on the ocean, threatening to cascade down upon her, it began to crack her feeble walls.

And then the fires came. The dam broke, and control was lost. Part of her knew that Katurran had created the fire to protect them both, but the searing heat caused her senses to overload. An arrow slipped from her grasp. She fell.

Unaware that she wept, Maethoriel opened her eyes and told Asha of the encounter, of her inability to protect her friend, her comrade. His death was her failure. His blood stained her soul.

?I don?t know what it is. There?s nothing in our lore, our histories. Aleena, she could not find its source. Neither could the High Priestess of her temple. Nor,? she said as a sad smile crossed her lips, ?likely will you. But I can hope. There is always that.?

Her resolve seemed to strengthen as she spoke those words and she straightened up, the last of her tears losing their cling upon her eyelashes. ?What would you have me do, to perform your examination??

The illusion of sanctuary dissipated as Asha peppered her with questions, each one chewing a hole through the serenity supposedly offered by these four walls and the holy relics within.

She answered as best she could, trying to pull herself out of the dark places in which her mind so desperately wanted to recede.

?Fainting, yes, that?s as good a description as any.? Her voice betrayed the wound to her personal pride; she was of a lineage too old, too strong to succumb to such an event usually ascribed to silly little human girls or sickly human women.

?There is no warning, no more than an instant. By the time I feel it, it?s too late.? She had thought long about it, and it was difficult to describe. She could only explain in the guise of what she felt when the faintings occurred ? that it wormed its way through her like rapid decay, shutting down her senses, her control, her very being. There was no fighting against it that did not begin and end with futility, no chance to repel the ominous onslaught of the inevitible.

?And by no means every time, else I think I would be catatonic more than awake,? she tried to smile at the poor joke. ?But one time is too many, and it?s been more than once. It has only happened thus far when I?ve been hunting, or during the battle in which Galrin fell. As far as,? and here she paused, eyes flicking away from Asha?s, ?arousal. I have not had the pleasure, as it were.?

?You must understand, this,? and she gestured in futility and frustration, ?brings shame to my family and my tribe.? The shame it brought to her personally was left unspoken, but it surrounded her like a burial shroud, cold and uncomforting in its intimate touch. "I must stop it before it continues. To even speak of it?is difficult. Were it not that I caused?? she could not even finish the thought. Her silence to the others had cost her friend his life; it was her fault, her choice, her penance and her purgatory.

Her hushed whisper seemed to echo through the entire building, thundering in her ears. ?Galrin.?

Her words, her face, her very being cried out for absolution, forgiveness, exoneration that she could not and would not provide for herself. She returned her gaze to Asha.

What this woman must think of her. No worse, she reflected, than she already thought of herself.