CHAPTER 13 — “Persephone” #3
We don’t sleep. Not really. But we stop screaming, and the memories retreat back to whatever dark corner they live in, and eventually the sun comes up like it always does—reliable, indifferent, completely uninterested in the emotional breakdowns of reborn archmages.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════╗║ REST QUALITY: ABYSMAL ║║ ║║ HP restored: 12% (should be 100%) ║║ MP restored: 8% (genuinely pathetic) ║║ ║║ Status Effect Acquired: \[Haunted\] ║║ ? Sleep quality reduced by 60% ║║ ? Memory intrusion chance: HIGH ║║ ? Emotional stability: COMPROMISED ║║ ? Duration: Until you deal with ║║ your psychological baggage ║║ (So basically forever) ║║ ║║ RECOMMENDATION: Talk to a qualified ║║ professional about your trauma.
║║ ║║ ALTERNATIVE RECOMMENDATION: Talk to ║║ literally anyone who isn't the ║║ rabbit.
║║ ║║ He's very supportive but he can't ║║ actually respond and that's not how ║║ therapy works.
║╚═══════════════════════════════════════╝
Dawn finds me on the porch again because I have zero creativity when it comes to brooding locations.
The light’s just starting to creep over the fields—my fields, still weird to think that—and there’s a mist hanging low over the crops that makes everything look like a painting.
Soft. Peaceful. Completely at odds with the inside of my skull.
That’s when Mira finds me.
“Mr. Flower Man?”
“Yeah, kid.”
She climbs up onto the porch with the graceless determination of all children everywhere.
There’s mud on her dress—there’s always mud on her dress, I’m starting to think she seeks it out deliberately—and a flower tucked behind her ear.
Wild blue something-or-other. The kind that grows near the dungeon entrance.
Too near the dungeon entrance, actually. Gonna have to talk to her about that. After coffee. And possibly a minor existential crisis.
“You look sad,” she announces.
“I always look sad. It’s my face. This is just what it does.”
“No.” She shakes her head with the absolute certainty of someone who hasn’t learned to doubt themselves yet. “You’re different sad today. You’re—” She scrunches up her face, searching for words. “You’re heavy sad. Like you’re carrying something big.”
Kids see too much. Has anyone ever mentioned that? They just look right through all your carefully constructed defenses and see the mess underneath. It’s extremely inconvenient.
“Had some bad dreams,” I admit. No point lying to a child. They always know.
“About monsters?”
“Something like that.”
She considers this with the gravity of a tiny philosopher. Then, apparently having reached a conclusion: “When I have bad dreams, Granny Thorn makes me soup and tells me a story. The story’s always really boring—it’s usually about turnips or something—but the soup helps.”
“Granny Thorn’s soup is terrible.”
“I know.” Mira grins, gap-toothed and unashamed. “It tastes like feet. But she tries really hard, and she sits with me until I feel better, and I think that’s the part that actually helps. The trying.”
I look at this kid. Really look at her. Orphan.
Lost everything before she was old enough to understand what she was losing.
Bounced around a dying village full of people too tired to hope.
And here she is, explaining the therapeutic value of bad soup to a two-hundred-year-old disaster who can’t get his dead wife’s voice out of his head.
“You’re pretty smart,” I tell her. “Anyone ever mention that?”
“All the time.” No false modesty. No coy deflection. Just simple acceptance of fact. “I’m the smartest kid in the village.”
“You’re the only kid in the village.”
“Still counts.”
Fair point.
She hops off the porch, already distracted by something—a butterfly, maybe, or more mud to find—but pauses just before she disappears around the corner of the farmhouse.
“You should tell Mariella about your bad dreams,” she says. Matter-of-fact. Like she’s dispensing obvious wisdom instead of reading my emotional state with terrifying accuracy. “She makes way better soup than Granny Thorn. And I think she’d sit with you even longer.”
She’s gone before I can respond.
What is it with people around here and perfect exit lines? Is it something in the water? Some local skill they all share?
I add it to the list of things I don’t understand about this place and go back to watching the sunrise.
I don’t tell Mariella about the dreams.
I’m not good at that—the talking, the sharing, the basic vulnerability that apparently comes naturally to functional human beings. Two hundred years ago I couldn’t do it, and dying hasn’t improved my communication skills any.
But that night, when I pass by the farmhouse on my way to check the ward stones, there’s a bowl of soup on the porch railing. Still warm. Steam curling up into the cool air like an invitation.
I look around. Nobody there.
I look at the soup. Simple vegetable broth, from the smell. Nothing fancy. The kind of thing you make when you want to help but don’t know how to say it.
I eat it standing up, watching the stars come out, with Johnson pressed warm against my leg and the taste of something other than copper on my tongue for the first time in days.
It helps.
She was right.
The trying helps.