The sky outside of the wagon was a faint green as the flaps of the wagon whipped back and forth furiously in the coming storm’s wind. It had been a few days since they left Breye. Nothing much of note had happened so far along their travels other than copious amounts of bickering.

Jeremy and Kendri regularly traded in petty remarks, Meriah glared at Em and mumbled under her breath, and Belgrate kept begging for the use of Lee’s mana-infused fur. Early on, Lee gave in and tossed it over. He didn’t want to deal with being asked about it nonstop.

Lee stuck his head out of the back flap of the wagon to check on Em. She was too large to fit inside the wagon, so she settled on traveling alongside it. The wagon wasn’t too fast, and Em could easily walk alongside it comfortably. They did stop often to feed the horses, which gave Em a suitable break. Not that she seemed to need it.

“Do you want to stop before the rain begins to come down? We can make camp?” Lee questioned.

Em looked to the sky and tried to estimate the weather forecast. “Yes. We do not want to travel in the rain; losing vision would leave us unprepared for monster strikes, and muddy roads would hinder the wagon wheels. Let us stop.”

Lee relayed that information to Kooco, who was ‘driving’ the wagon. From what he could tell, she just sat in the front seat with the reins in her beak. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought she was just letting the horses plow ahead on their own. He gave a narrowed-eyed glance toward the horses.

Suspicious…

They stopped a minute later as the first rain droplets started to fall. There wasn’t much of a camp to set up besides the tents. Lee and Em didn’t have one, so Lee sat inside the wagon, and Em hunkered down in the grass next to the dirt road.

Lee had begun to notice the slow transition from grassland into temperate forest. There were now small thickets of trees along the road, and over the last day or so, they had begun to turn into long miles of thick forest.

The dirt road was transitioning slowly into a mix of stone and dirt—A good sign, in his opinion. Still, it did cause the wagon to jerk occasionally, but nothing terrible had happened along their travels—like a broken wagon wheel.

They had only passed one singular wagon in the past few days, which instantly pulled to the side of the road. It appeared to be a merchant wagon, carrying sacks of food and chests of goods pulled by a sizeable bison-esque beast of burden. Their guards had surrounded their wagon until we passed—Probably because of Em. No words were spoken between them, and Lee considered that a success.

As the rain started to increase in intensity, Lee got out of the wagon to shower. He had been using his hose method with his Conjure Water spell, but it wasn’t the most effective method of handling his hygiene, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had actually sat in the rain.

Recently, he had found himself taking joy in the simple things. He wasn’t sure if this was because everything in his life appeared to be calming down or if he was growing accustomed to his new life.

Em watched curiously as Lee removed his robe and tried to wash himself in his underclothes. He wasn’t worried about catching a cold, as his Healer’s Touch ability made him immune to illness. While washing, he kept stepping on the sharp rocks of the road. He turned to Em, who just watched creepily as he took a shower.

“Can I help you with something?” He asked mockingly.

Em continued to stare at him unerringly. “You are smaller than I initially imagined. You are thin. Your robe has deceived me.”

Lee looked at her, exasperated. “Thanks for that enormous ego boost, Em. It’s very much appreciated.”

Em glanced around at the others, who were making camp, then moved her focus back to Lee. “Why are you so different than the others?”

Lee paused in his scrubbing and turned to Em to make another snide remark but paused when he noticed her non-jovial demeanor. Her head was slightly tilted, curiousness radiating out of her form as the rain splattered across her metallic frame.

He wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but he supposed he could entertain her questioning. “Different how? My appearance?”

Em’s curiousness changed to seriousness. “You are different in many ways, but appearance doesn’t matter. Why are you so different than other healers?”

“Different in what way? I’ve never actually met any others.” He replied.

“You are carefree and caring. They are not.”

Lee finished his shower and hopped back into the wagon, soaking wet. He left his robe in his Hidden Cache; he would put it on once he dried out. He removed his shirt and grabbed his weak emberstone to rub down his wet clothes. By now, the emberstone was useless for starting a fire. Its only helpful use was as a heat source.

“I assume they are greedy for gold and look down on others?” Lee asked.

Em nodded as she scuttled toward the wagon flaps to continue their conversation.

“Well, let me ask you a question, Em. Why do you think I became a healer? You know I created healing magic, so why would I go out of my way to try and do that? Then, when I succeeded, go about teaching others?”

Em thought for a moment before unsurely answering. “If you were anyone else, I would assume greed. Perhaps someone close to you perished, and you don’t want that to happen again? A noble pursuit.”

Lee gave her a weak smile. “Close—Close enough to be mostly correct. I think the world would be a better place if people didn’t die because of illness. To have them waste away, unable to change the outcome. Their only destination being toward Death, and they must come to terms with their eventual forced meeting.”

He gestured toward his shirtless body. “You mentioned that I was thin. Why do you think I am thin?”

Lee watched as Em’s face scrunched up in concentration. He was asking her questions so that she could piece together everything herself. Back in her tower, she was curious when asking about his life element—always taking the roundabout method to reach her conclusions. He hoped this was a better way to answer her questions—by answering with his own.

“You do not eat the required amount of sustenance? Maybe the land where you’re from is wrought with the plague?! Vast fields of crops infested with death?!” She started to get excited, her eyes wandering to and fro in her imagination—A heroic journey of some kind.

Lee shut that down before her thoughts ran rampant. “No. I am thin because I was once very ill. I was so frail that you could easily see my bones through my skin, and every breath I took felt like it would be my last. I couldn’t walk, eat solid foods, or do anything without help. I was powerless and had a meeting to attend to. One I didn’t want to go to,.. At least, not so soon.”

Em’s excited demeanor fell off a cliff as she registered what Lee had said. Lee nodded as she put together the pieces.

“I once would have done anything for someone to come along and heal me. But, there were no healers capable of doing it. Do you understand?”

He couldn’t tell her the whole truth, as he would be admitting to having died and then having been brought here to Pallesia, but he was hoping he gave her enough so that she could understand. He wasn’t doing this for the money. He was doing this for the people.

Em reached inside the wagon and poked her gauntlet-like finger into his chest, knocking his back an inch or two. “You are a good man. Do not stray from your path and be blinded by greed and power. With great power, comes great…”

The sound of thunder boomed off in the distance, causing Lee not to hear the rest of Em’s sentence. They both turned their heads to gaze upon the lightning streaking through the air. The cascading webs streaked through the lit-up sky, lasting for several seconds at a time.

Lee looked at Em’s metallic body, and a sense of unease crept into his mind. “Em… You’re made of metal.”

Now, it was Em’s turn to use his words against him. “Thanks for that ego boost, Lee.”

Lee shook his head. “No. The lightning. What if it hits you?”

Em blankly stared at Lee like he was an idiot. “The odds of someone getting hit by lightning is near nonexistent.”

Lee put on his robe and then removed his pants to dry them. “I’m pretty sure metal is a conduit for lightning, Em. You’re at a higher risk than others.”

Em looked to the sky, covering her eyes with a hand to block the rain. “Well… As long as I don’t instantly perish, I’ll be fine.”

Lee gaped at her nonchelance. “I suppose that’s one way to look at things. While we have a minute to talk. Can you think of any uses for the Moonlight mana? I’ve been thinking about it these last few days, but I can’t think of a spell that could use it. I don’t really even know what it is, if I’m being honest.”

Em smiled and leaned against the back of the wagon with her human forearms. “If you don’t understand moonlight, think about what you know about the moon.”

Lee dried his pants as he thought. He knew about some facts about Earth’s moon, but he wasn’t sure any of that information was applicable here. “Well, moonlight is actually the light from the sun reflecting off the moon's surface…”

Lee wasn’t sure if he should continue speaking, as he didn’t know what people knew about Pallesia being a dimension, not a planet. At least, to his knowledge, there weren’t any infinite planets. There’s a sun, moon, and various stars in the night sky, but he attributed those to the gods. It wasn’t something he had thought deeply about, as it had never come into conversation.

Em nodded, indicating that she understood. She gestured lazily with her hand, encouraging him to continue this train of thought.

“The moon is also responsible for the high and low tides of the sea—because of its gravity.”

Lee could see this was where he lost Em, but she didn’t appear dismayed. “But the moonlight itself shouldn’t be much different than the light element. Anything moonlight can do, light should be able to as well.”

“You said that moonlight is the reflection of the sun's light onto the moon. I would focus on the reflection. The transformation of radiant rays of warm sunlight into the cold, comforting beams of light in the darkness.”

Lee smiled as he pulled up his now-dry pants, completing his typical attire. “That’s very helpful, Em, thank you.”

Em grinned before shoving off the wagon with her forearms, causing it to rock and knock Lee around a bit. “You’re welcome. I’m going to steal whatever spell you make anyway.”

Lee didn’t even dignify that with a response.