Addie reached out her hand to the small baby deer and lay it on him. The action got her hand muddy, but she didn’t care. Gently, carefully, Addie closed her eyes and reached her magic out to him, and she felt the internal structure of his soul.
She gasped, as she was flooded with new sensory information: for a moment, Addie was the deer fawn laying on the ground, with broken ribs and wheezing lungs desperate for air. She was the animal lying side down in the cold mud, shivering as it sapped away her strength as mud started getting into her mouth.
With a deep breath in, Addie separated herself from the fawn’s senses. Instead, she focused solely on his soul. Addie knew what to do. Carefully, she used her own magic to probe his soul shell, again checking all of the burns. They were bad, but not as much as Addie’s had been after the nightmare from a few days ago. Addie expected the baby fawn would be better in just a few days.
Though, he wouldn’t get any better without some help.
Addie grabbed onto the magic within his soul and gently guided it up toward his soul shell. Addie played the role of instructor, much as Christena still did for her, as she helped the fawn’s magic up to his soul shell, teaching him how to heal his soul shell. A tiny trickle of his magic flowed smoothly into one of the burns and began to mend it.
She couldn’t leave him lying here like this, though. He needed a safe place to recover and fix his soul shell. Staying out in the swamp muck like this would weaken his body.
Luckily for both of them, the fawn was still a newborn. He looked so tiny, only barely bigger than Squishy. She picked him up under his front legs and began to lift.
“Addie,” Squishy prodded.
“What? I’m trying to lift the baby deer.” Even though he looked small, the deer was difficult to get ahold of. The wet mud was making his coat slick, and his body was limp and hard to move around. Addie felt like she was trying to lift a particularly large and slimy set of noodles.
“My lady,” Squishy prodded again, “I don’t think you need to lift him.”
Ignoring her silly companion, Addie continued trying to get the fawn’s body up into the air so she could carry him home. Maybe Auntie would let her put a blanket over him. Maybe he could sleep in her room? He was really muddy though.
“Squishy, what is that bright light?” Addie started to open her eyes, no longer just using her spatial sense. It seemed like the sun was somehow rising, though that didn’t make sense. It should still be the middle of the night.
After she finished opening her eyes, she realized the light wasn’t coming from directly above her. It seemed to be shining in from above and behind her.
Gently, she lay the fawn back onto the swampy ground completely and turned her head around to investigate.
Towering over her was a deer of impossible size. Pure white, and in some cases taller than even the twisted swamp trees. Above its tree branch-like antlers, lay a miniature sun, though this one shined pure white, instead of the dark blue Addie was used to seeing from the binary.
The Impossible Deer’s ginormous head patiently but persistently moved down towards Addie. A big black eyeball bigger than Addie’s head looked right into her and blinked slowly. A hot wind blew out from its nostrils, buffeting Addie and making her take a halting step back as she shielded her face. It smelled of earth and cut grass.
Stupefied, Addie just stood there passively observing the giant creature, as it too did the same to her.
The moment passed, and the deer lifted its giant corded neck, putting its head back into the air. It walked over to the fawn. No, the mother walked over to her son, and she licked the side facing the air. The baby glowed for a moment, the same blindingly white as the sun in between her antlers. Then, the baby stood up, as if nothing had happened.
Silently, without a bush so much as moving, or a twig so much as cracking, the pair walked a few paces away from Addie and Squishy, disappearing unnaturally into the swamp— almost fading away.
“Well, I think I know what you mean about not needing to carry the baby home, now,” Addie said.
Squishy and Addie walked back to Auntie’s mansion. It was a lot more subdued, now that they weren’t rushing off to save someone. They didn’t talk, and they didn’t run home, either. Something about the encounter had left Addie feeling quiet, but not in an unpleasant way. Just in the sense that she ought to take her time to peacefully go home. Nothing else would bother them tonight, Addie knew.
They reached the mansion after a nice stroll through the dark swampy night. When they returned to Addie’s bedroom, the pair collapsed into bed. Addie didn’t even bother to take off her warm dress. She just fell right to sleep.
“Why don’t you just heal Nettal’s soul from the burns like we did for mine?” Addie grabbed onto Christena’s sleeve, interrupting their lessons.
Addie hadn’t been able to focus all day long, still thinking about the encounter with the fawn from earlier, and about ways to help Nettal.
“It’s not that simple,” Christena replied as she furrowed her brow. Addie knew Christena never liked it when she interrupted lessons, but she thought Christena would be patient with her for questions like this, so Addie had taken the risk.
“Why not?”
Christena sighed as she rubbed her brow, “Do you remember how ‘we’ healed your soul, Addie?” Christena emphasized the word 'we' oddly.
Addie nodded her head.
“Well, I didn’t heal you directly at all. I simply guided your magic and taught you how to heal your soul yourself. Everything after that was your own effort.”
“Oh. Well, why don’t we just do that?” Addie was confused. It seemed like an obvious solution.
“The short answer is, we can’t.”
“Why not?” Addie was starting to get frustrated.
“Addie, Nettal doesn’t have any magic. There’s nothing for me to teach her. Even if I could teach her the technique beyond just the theoretical, it would be useless to her, since she has no magic to call on.” Christena explained patiently.
In hindsight, Addie should have known that. She knew Nettal didn’t have a bonded yet, so of course she didn’t have any magic to draw on.
“Well, how about we just get a bonded for her, then?”
“Before Nettal was hurt, I believe Ms. Lomain had a plan to begin Nettal’s first bonding initialization this summer, but if we tried to do that now, we would risk hurting Nettal even more. It’s a terrible idea to force someone’s soul to begin a magic bond while damaged like Nettal’s is. We would just risk throwing her into a cascade.”
“Addie, listen to me. Never attempt a soul bond while your soul is hurt. You’ll probably irreparably damage or even destroy your soul.”
That sounded really bad.
“I won’t try it.” Addie promised, “But there has to be a way to help Nettal! She’s just sleeping in bed all the time.” Addie wondered if it was even possible for her to get better without help. Right now, Nettal just seemed to be sleeping without getting better.
The rest of the lessons for that day were strained, and Addie could hardly pay attention. She was too focused on trying to think of ways to help Nettal.
After another few minutes, Christena ended lessons early, noticing that Addie wasn’t paying attention. It was a good thing for today, Addie thought. Neither of them was in the mood to keep practicing, anyway.
Later, Addie reflected back on her night in the swamp, the way the mother deer had glowed so fiercely and healed her son in a moment. It had taken Addie nearly a week to heal herself, but the mother had healed her son in less than a second. She knew there must be something she could do to help Nettal. She just wasn’t sure what.
Maybe the deer could help Nettal, too? But even if that impossible deer could help, Addie had no idea where to find it. She suspected the deer wouldn’t allow itself to be found easily. Earlier, she had found the fawn by following its pleas for help, but Addie didn’t hear anything from it right now, so that wouldn’t help. Randomly searching the swamp would be barely better than doing nothing with how huge it was, and it didn’t leave behind any kind of footprints either. Addie had checked.
How such a massive creature didn’t make footprints was beyond Addie— probably magic, though.
There was one other thing Addie could try maybe. But she didn’t really want to. It might be her only choice, though. If she wanted to help Nettal, at least.
Back in her bedroom, Addie closed her eyes tight and focused on her inner soul. She layered a single sheet of magic all around the outside of her soul shell, practicing the transcendent loop again. After a few moments of holding her magic like that, Addie let it go, allowing it to be reabsorbed into herself. Then, she observed her soul shell and found the tiny tendril of fate still poking at her from the outside.
It hadn’t gone away in the day or so she had been trying to ignore it. On some level, Addie wondered if it had always been there ever since she was born.
The string hadn’t become any stronger since she last noticed it, and it still didn’t seem to have any direct effect on Addie, either.
It seemed to just point her in the ‘right direction’, whatever that meant. It wanted to guide her towards something that might make Addie ‘more’. She didn’t know if she wanted to be ‘more’.
There wasn’t a lot of choice, Addie felt. If it meant finding someone to help Nettal, then it would be worth it. Addie didn’t know why she assumed the person on the other side of the string could help Nettal, it just felt right, in a way.
She was scared, though. Squishy was, too.
“You know that I will always stand by your side, regardless of who you are or may become.” Squishy had said.
But it didn’t really make Addie feel any better. If Addie was no longer herself, what use would it be if Squishy was there or not? She often thought about how the bonding initialization had affected Squishy. It had turned him from a non-thinking magical animal into a fully sapient thinking person. Would whatever was at the end of the string do the same thing to Addie but at a higher level? It scared her, even if Addie didn’t fully know why.
It couldn’t hurt to at least investigate it, or at least Addie tried to convince herself that. If it turned out to be super dangerous or scary, couldn’t she just run away? Reality was never more than a hop away for Addie, after all.
That night, Addie packed up a small leather shoulder pack, full of dried crackers and some meats for Squishy. Auntie didn’t even notice, as busy as she was running from this place to that trying to find the one responsible for hurting Nettal. Christena also was not currently at the mansion, since she tended to stay the night in her father’s Area.
It was just Addie and Squishy. And tonight, they were going to figure out where the string led. If they were lucky, they would find someone to help Nettal.
With that determination in mind, the pair spent more than ten minutes building and cycling their magic. Each cycle between either of them increased the power by double, until finally, the pair stepped into Realmspace.
AN: If you are enjoying the story, please consider leaving a review or five-star rating. It really helps get visibility for the story so others can enjoy it, too.
You can also find me on RoyalRoad and on my discord.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/82948/whispers-from-realmspace
