Iskra bounded up the Half Pint Inn's spiral stairway with a giddy trill, completely forgetting the elf dressed up as a squirrel perched on the landing halfway up. Tripping over him, her face met the iron railing with a reverberating clang. Babbling a numb-nosed apology, she took the rest of the stairs slower, one paw reaching out in case someone else was in the hallway above.

She made it to her room without further incident, and after latching the door, began her bedtime rituals. Bag dropped by the door, corset untied and chucked aside, dress yanked off and tossed at the foot of the bed, cane hung carefully around the bed knob to her left, sunglasses placed in the center of the bedside table. She flopped back onto the bed and kicked the sheets aside with her galoshes. She hugged herself tightly as she gave another squeal, despite the blood gushing over her lips.

When she had finally calmed down enough, she rolled over and pulled herself over the edge to rummage in her backpack tucked beneath the bed. Finding the box with her talismans, she felt around for a moment, and sat back up with the bat-shaped one clutched to her chest.

It took a while.

Breathe in, breathe out. Focus. Let it gather, hold it, feel it. A tingle in the tailtip, then the tongue. Fingers, whiskers, every hair rising until her mane began to nearly float away from her head. Focus.

A flapping of wings. She smiled in the darkness that she couldn't see.

"Saoirse!"

"Mistress Iskra! How is my sweetums today?"

Iskra settled back as her familiar's nose and tongue tickled at her face. Delicately wrapping her arms around the creature, she nuzzled her nose into its furry little chest.

"Oh, golly, I've had just the loveliest time... I got purchased by this lady named, um, Azettie, well, she really purchased everyone, I think, but then she was pairing us up, pff, I would have kept everyone to myself, well, not the ones that weren't soft I suppose, but then! Oh gosh! It was me and this mister Crobin, he's - can you find my kerchief? - really nice, and probably handsome, but he's married and maybe too old anyway, we danced a lot - thank you - and had a mostly good time, I tripped on someone, a few people, I think they were rolling around on the floor? Heehee, that tickles... its just a little blood, I tripped on the stairs, I'll be fine! I had my dance slippers at the ball, but I put my galoshes on because those are better anyway, I think we won an award, but I'm not sure what for, I don't remember if there was a gift, it was all a blur, or maybe mister Crobin has it, it could be a trophy, I'd sure like to show ma that, and then he brought me back here, did you know people like to sigh and make little 'hmmm' noises when you mention you live at an inn? People can be so judgemental, I don't even knock on the walls to tell them to keep it down, you know, even when it wakes me up, golly, I don't think I could sleep right now, I'm still so giddy, here, there's a bit of cake in the pocket of my dress, I ate so much sweets I almost burst out of my corset, golly, could you imagine what people would have thought about that, although I guess most wouldn't mind, I know I wouldn't, if I could see... did you find it? Saoirse? ...Saoirse?"

Her ears strained, but the room was still. She sighed, tracing the bat-familiar's outline with her thumb.

"So that was my night... how about yours... what's the elemental plane like tonight... did you find a nice aether swirl to snuggle while I was away..."

Focus. Breathe. Let it gather... let it gather... Focus...

Not even a zip of a charge. Iskra sighed, ears deflating, tail sagging to the floor.

She dabbed her nose with the kerchief one last time, and straightened her back, crossed her legs. Breathe. Focus. Breathe. Focus. Don't cry, don't give up...

The room began to warm from the morning sun before she was too exhausted, her head pounding from the strain, and fell back onto the bed with the bat talisman clutched tight under her chin. Her cheeks were already dry again.

"Love you, Saoirse... I'll practice more, I'm sorry..."

................

It was several days later.

Sitting at her usual spot in the corner of the saloon, tail safely tucked away where no one could step on it, she sat with her head pressed against the table. Arms limp, fingers idly twisting her cambrinth bracelet around and around in her lap.

"Charge, gosh darn it... what's wrong with you?"

It didn't make any sense. Just the day before, she'd been able to put at least five streams... the day before, seven...

With a sudden growl, she yanked at the bracelet, snapping it in half. No one glanced up at her; it had been less quiet than a spell going off successfully.

She grabbed her cane and stomped off into the streets, where the lack of stormy weather fouled her mood further.

Grumbling still, she began preparing the Raincloud cantrip, her newest and most prized skill. To her delight, it went off without a problem, and a tiny growl of thunder perked her ears. The heat of the sun withered for a few seconds as the cloud grew above her head, and tiny raindrops began to pepper her.

Within a roisaen, it was gone.

She slumped against the side of whatever building she'd been passing by, unable to stop herself from bursting into tears again. Her head hurt, and no matter how she tried to focus, she couldn't sense any mana. The familiar shapes of roiling mana were simply not there, leaving the world a shapeless void of noise and smells. Her mind's eye was its usual storm of chaos, bright lights and colours eternally shifting into new and confusing forms. This wasn't mana, it was simply noise. Aggravating, distracting, senseless, ceaseless. She wanted to tear her eyes out, to stop the ache of her tears, to put an end to this gaudy light show in her mind, but it would be no use. Simply more pain.

The street grew more busy as the day wore on. Eventually she stood up and stumbled her way back to the inn, crawled up the stairs, into bed. Her stomach rumbled, but she ignored it. A warrior mage who couldn't cast magic didn't deserve to eat.

................

She stood in the doorway of her inn room, and wondered why. She'd pat-down every surface, reached under every piece of furniture. Her entire life now weighed heavily on her back. There was nothing to say goodbye to. She was just staring at an empty room she couldn't see. No one would even know she'd been there. Perhaps, no one would care that she wasn't.

The squirrel-shaped elf was gone from the stairway.

She wondered if anyone but her would miss him.

The clattering of her varied belongings obscured most of the sounds of the city, and it was not long before the smells were far behind her as well. Every step was slow, weary, and cautious, her cane tapping the way as cobblestones faded to dirt and mud. Carriages and horses passed her by, adventurers huffing along up and down the road, none of them stopping to acknowledge her. There were a few close misses, but she had learned long ago to wait by the side of the road until people had passed.

She stopped to eat somewhere between Arthe Dale and Kaerna, fishing a few dead mice from the lunch box strapped to her belt. They had been too noisy the night before.

Sitting on her overstuffed backpack, she took a deep breath and tried again. To her surprise, her fur stood on end, which, in turn, caused her fur to stand on end further. An excitable squeak chirruped from her throat, and she yanked out the first talisman she felt.

Focus. Breathe. Focus. Feel it... there! It was happening! She could do it!

Now, who was this... oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

"Pfeh. The so-called Mistress. Why have you summoned us, churl?"

"Lizard! Oh, I'm so happy to see you! Um, you know what I mean! I thought I'd lost all my magic..."

"CEASE THIS OFFENSE, MORTAL, FOR WE ARE NOT LIZARD! WE ARE THE CONQUEROR OF - happy to see me? Us?"

"Yes! Oh, its been weeks since I was able to summon! Hold on, maybe I can... oh no... I can't sense mana, still... can I? It feels so faint..."

"Faint... we feel faint. Do not let us go, we have not yet finished subjugating the masses of this pitiful plane! Do you hear us, mortal? Our hold on this plane is weakening - it is your fault! Maintain the connect - "

Iskra's heart drooped lower than her ears. The lizard was gone, and no matter how hard she focused... all there was, was the maelstrom of sparks pinging around in her head, bright blues, pale purples, shivers of light distorting every buzzing cloud her pounding brain could conjure. No electricity against her skin, no mana to shape the landscape. Gone again.

"Goodbye, lizard."

She stood up, hoisted her backpack up onto her shoulders, and trudged onwards. No more tears.

She had not yet reached Kaerna when she became aware of rustling in the trees around her. Footsteps in the distance, stopping when she stopped. Her paws prickled. She hurried onwards, despite the weight of her backpack. Her breath ran ragged in seconds. She had to stop.

Ears swivelling, nose raised to the wind, she spun around slowly.

"H...hello? Who is there?"

Silence. Just the wind. An animal in the woods. Nothing to worry about.

No. A longer rustle. Something smelled off. Gor'tog? Dwarf? Alcohol. Mud. A pebble rolling away. The wind whistling fiercely behind her. She turned -

Her cheek burned, and she was falling, dust filling her nose and mouth. Another whistle, and she slumped to the ground, her head numbed, yet aching, from the blow. Dust turned to mud, blood on her tongue, dripping down her neck.

If there was darkness after that, she wasn't awake to sense it.

................

It was raining. She was cold, hurt. Breathing. Tangled in a bush, little twigs pricking her skin. Naked. Alive.

She couldn't move, couldn't crawl, could barely manage to cough out a week cry. Anlaen passed, or perhaps days, or merely seconds.

Somewhere nearby, the dull rattle of hooves. She gathered as much breath as she could, and roared.

................

It was warm. Soft sheets. No more pain... no, a little... a lot, in her stomach now... Something gentle against her arm, a fingertip, running back and forth, ruffling fur. A hand pressed to her shoulder.

A voice.

" - we can only assume is a necromantic taint, untreatable save with the most advanced of transference techniques. Go ahead and touch her, one at a time. Feel that, there? Focus on the connection between the eyes and the brain. Now, what you may not be able to sense is that this taint had been spreading. It had reached several parts of her nervous system, including that which attunes to mana. These parts of her had atrophied, and if untreated for much longer, could have led to gangrene, or something worse. They will continue to do so without monthly treatments. Now, we could put that to rest with enough skill, but its unlikely this patient will ever wake, so there's been no reason to call in a more skilled empath for that. Yes, in the back? Good question. She's been with us for a year now, more or less. Do you know how do we keep coma patients alive? Well, its very simply a matter of keeping the body alive. Its no more difficult than treating any other patient. We give them what they need from ourselves. Keeping the muscles active with a few exercises helps, and there is enough memory in the muscles to let them swallow water. No, its not necessary to feed them. During the monthly tests, we do allow some simple foods to pass through, for those students curious about the process. Yes, another question? That's... alright, so, when she was sent to Shard for study, they did, in fact, shift her body younger by a few years. My best guess is that Shard has a problem with inappropriate students. A problem we do not have here, yes? Good. Alright, no further questions. This next patient is an Olvi man who won this spring's Arthe Dale tart eating competition... its no laughing matter, actually, to make room in his body, the stomach had to displace several organs prior to explosion..."

Despite the hunger in her belly, sleep came shortly after the voices faded. Real, proper sleep.

Real darkness.

Aw, thank you! It means I'm doing a good job!

.............

No one in Backend Holler paid any attention to the scrawny, stumbling Prydaen girl covered in mud. The look of despair and dread on her face only completed the illusion that she belonged. And it always helped to mutter something under your breath. In Iskra's case, it was how many steps she'd taken since the last turn.

There was a slight chance she'd miscalculated, in which case, the door she was about to knock on was the wrong one, and her day was going to get a lot worse than it was going to if it was the right one. Probably.

She rapped four times, paused, and then twice more. A draft of damp, warm air hit her face, carrying the scent of tea. Something grabbed her wrist and yanked her inside, and the door shut with the quiet scrape of misshapen wood.

She was dragged inside, turned around, and pushed back into a lumpy chair.

A ragged, hoarse voice barked, "Sit, girl."

"I'm sorry I'm late - "

"Tea's cold. On the table to your left. Drank mine. Now, tell me... what did you learn?"

Iskra ignored the tea, and recounted the last few days - her confusing discussions, her lecture, and the reason she was covered in mud.

" - so once there was water in my galoshes I knew it was a deep puddle and I really really wanted to stomp in it, so I did."

There was a long quiet, and then a creak as the old woman began to move about again. Iskra felt her clawed fingers grasp her arm, and stifled a shiver, then relaxed, letting the empathic link form between them.

"Hylomorphic sorcery, eh. Fire that doesn't act like fire. Explains a lot. Life and elemental mana... gods, girl. Life that doesn't act like life! Drink your damn tea, would you?"

With trembling paws, she found the cup, and held her breath as she downed as much as she could. The dregs slopped down onto her tongue, and she whimpered as she swallowed them, too. When her chest began to burn, she let air seep into her mouth, keeping her nose pinched off so the taste wouldn't be as strong.

"It will help," the old woman said, her voice softer now. "And there's a stick with a sock wrapped around it. Clean sock. Next to the dish."

"Are you... going to start right now?"

"In a few rois. Let the tea settle you. I want to try something different. You may feel a slight... elderliness. Allow it in, would you?"

Stilling herself, Iskra let the foreign sensations invade her senses. The swirling, morphing shapes began to solidify, painting a blurred picture of the inside of the hovel.

"This... this doesn't hurt at all, almost! I can see... my knees ache... and my hips... and my teeth... I can't move..."

"Hah. Those are my eyes, girl. My age. This is a deeper link, the kind we use for shifting. You've been shifted, haven't you? Ah... the tightness of youth. To have once filled out a dress with curves the moons envy, and now, flatter than the floorboards here... So we begin, so we end. No, don't withdraw from it. Let me in. What in tarnation is - ah, the tail. No wonder you fidget, can't get comfortable in a chair like that. Right, here we are."

Her body began to ache more, her head throbbing, eyes burning as her vision faded in and out. One moment fifteen years old, ninety the next. Bone-thin, soft skin, ears in the wrong place, jaw weakening, tailless!

Time stretched on, one second a year, and then she was herself again, slumped in the lumpy chair, clutching her tail to make sure it was still there.

"Girl."

It took a moment for her to respond.

"Yes, miss?"

"Lightning from your eyes, was it?"

"That's what miss Aislynn said."

"She say what direction it came out?"

"No... she wasn't there. And I didn't see it..."

"Look, girl, I'm no warrior mage. But I've seen lightning strike. Storms come and go. Going being the important part there. And there's always a bit of it in anyone's body, like I told you before. Now I can't see in your head, but from what I can sense, you've got far, far too much. And it ain't going nowhere. Round and round. Burning you up, I reckon. That's why healing hurts you. It has its favoured spots, and soon as those are working again, its zipping through like a cackling hag tearing it up all over again. Working its way through your brain... Aye, I reckon that's your coma, not the hit to your skull. Maybe both. Burns through your eyes, burns through the bit of you that works mana, burns through a few more things, then someday, there's just not enough left to burn."

Iskra waited a few moments, in case there was more.

"How do I get it out? I was casting lightning all the time even after that! I could feel the charge... could feel it leaving me..."

"Lightning, sure. What's in you ain't lightning, girl. Not anymore. You made it something else. Maybe there's no getting it out. Maybe its part of you forever. And if you do get it out, what then? Where does it go? Lightning that ain't lightning?"

Iskra said nothing.

"Alright... listen, girl, we'll keep at it. I'll fix what I can for now, and you come back when it starts burning too hot for you. But you ought to know its not going to get better. I told you to come back an andu earlier this time, and sure, you missed a day, but that's still three days less than before, and there's more burnt up than there was last time. I reckon every time you use these parts of you, you're letting that lightning zip through more often than it would otherwise. Give yourself a rest after this. No magic, if you can help it. Not even sensing. Got it? Right, put these on."

A pair of heavy leather mitts was plopped into her lap. She slipped her paws into them, and settled her arms against the chair's. They said nothing as the old woman set about strapping her down. There was a bop on her nose, and she opened her mouth, tucked her tongue away and tried not to gag as the fuzziness of the sock filled her mouth. She bit down.

"Ready?"

"Mmhm."

Pure white. Cold and heat at the same time, numbing and burning. Flashes of colour, the old woman's face twisted in familiar agony, then her eyes shut again. The chair clattering, her muffled screams echoing. Then it was over.

She woke up in a bed, drenched in sweat, fur in clumps. She knew the routine. She dabbed herself dry with the crusty towel by the pillow, and put her galoshes back on, felt her way to the front door.

"Iskra."

She paused. That was the first time the woman had ever used her name.

"It means spark, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

A grunt from the kitchen.

"Fitting."

She pulled the door, lifting by the handle to un-jam it.

"Two years, girl."

"Sorry?"

"That's my best guess. That's how long you've got. Before there's nothing left for it to burn. Even with my help. Thought you should know that. Two years. I'm sorry, too."

"Oh."

"Don't pay me no more. I'll get by. Come back sooner next time."

Iskra shut the door quietly behind her.