After another day of discussions and deliberations, Lia made the decision to challenge the first divide, using the middle of the night, or witching hour, to make her attempt. I was a little torn over it, mostly because she hadn’t shared her actual plan but given that there was nothing I could actually do to help her, I could do nothing but wait. Wait, guard her body, and hope that everything worked out okay.

It was a sensation I well and truly hated. Here was my daughter, sitting in a meditative pose, her mind turned inwards, exposed to a danger that I couldn’t protect her from. Nor could I help her, other than the information and the advice I had given her, it was a challenge she had to overcome on her own. A hurdle on her own path.

Maybe that was part of being a mother, or a parent, knowing that your child was being challenged but being unable to help them, that they had to make their own way, regardless of your desires. I couldn’t help her and even if I could, I probably shouldn’t, or it might cripple her future path. I had to find a middle path, between coddling my daughters until their wings clipped and atrophied or pushing them out of the nest, forcing them to fly or break on the ground below.

Shaking my head, I decided to look into my own mental state. I was still struggling with understanding my own emotions and had made a habit of trying to name them, hoping that doing so might help me with relating them to my experiences. Some were fairly easy, that buzzing, bubbling feeling when one of my daughters managed a complex exercise was happiness, mixed with some pride at my daughters’ accomplishments

Others were less clear-cut, for example, there were moments of a heavy sensation in my stomach, weighing me down when I looked at my little group and realised how well we were doing. I had no idea where that heavy feeling came from and I didn’t like it one bit, neither feeling it in the moment nor my failure to conceptualise it. There was no reason for me to feel something bad, and I considered that unpleasant feeling a bad one, even if I lacked a name for it at the moment.

Now, looking inward, I could easily find the source of my current negative mood, I disliked feeling helpless, especially when it came to those I cared about being in trouble. It was easy to find the source of that sensation, and even realise where that dislike originated. I still associated being unable to help those dear to me with the battle that cost me Sigmir, the awareness that I had been unable to save her was cutting into me even now. Survivor’s guilt, at least I thought that was what it was called and I really didn’t like it.

Amusingly, there was the intellectual question, what would I do if Sigmir had never died? Would I have been able to push as hard as I had, could I have accomplished the same feats of magical power without the utter disregard for Mundus and every living thing on it? Those feats had, ultimately, earned me the Dragon-Touched title, which I considered a major part of my strength right now, allowing me to grow far beyond what I had accomplished on Mundus, gaining power that would eventually reunite me with Sigmir. Without that trait, I would be far weaker, I might even be dead already. I certainly wouldn’t have the Titanic Ambition trait, nor would I have been able to save Lia.

It was an interesting question, though I quickly realised that I was merely trying to distract myself from the other sinking sensation in my gut, the worry about Lia. Emotions were such a double-edged blade, there had been a phase during my childhood in which I wanted nothing more than to have them, to fit in. Not that it would have been that easy, I could see it in hindsight, but despite that, the dream had been there. And now, feeling the emotions ever since the change had happened, and even before while on Mundus, it was both everything I wished for but also a horrible burden. The sweet with the sour, or something to that effect, maybe it was only thanks to the low, negative emotions that the positive ones actually made sense. Otherwise, it might be akin to a drug, one that required the user to take an ever-increasing dosage to get that high they were chasing.

“Is Big Sis all right?” Luna quietly asked, her arms going around my neck as she plopped herself on my lap.

“Hopefully, yes,” I assured my daughter, one arm automatically steadying her in a gentle hug. “But shouldn’t you be in bed, little one?” I bopped her nose, one eyebrow raised. While we were primarily moving at night, if at all possible, I also tried to have Luna follow a somewhat constant sleep schedule, as difficult as that often was.

“I had a weird dream,” Luna burrowed a little deeper into my embrace, “At first, I was wandering in the snow, but somehow, it wasn’t cold. There were a few trees, they looked like they were made of glass, all shiny and sparkling, until I got to a pond filled with glowing water. When I sat down, I heard a voice, it sounded really, really old, telling me that I should go to my Mother. That’s when I woke up,” she relayed, before yawning loudly.

It took me only a moment to realise what she described may as well have been the area around Neyto, the snowy forest of crystal trees, with the Nexus in the middle of it. This could mean that the ancient voice was the Grandmother, though I was drawing a blank as to why the Grandmother would have sent Luna to me, or why she would have pulled Luna into a dream in the first place. For the opposite to occur, that Luna had somehow reached out to the Grandmother was more likely on a personal level but felt just as unlikely on a power-level. Luna had made some incredible jumps in personal power but she was far from strong enough to traverse worlds, even I couldn’t do so. Though, there was always her connection to Hecate, acting as a wildcard, so I couldn’t actually rule out some sort of divine shenanigans. Those could always be involved, especially given that Hecate had named the Grandmother the Crone. Why couldn’t there be some sort of handbook for divine shenanigans, connections and whatever else was involved here?

I chuckled softly at the thought, the absurdity of it was too amusing, maybe that handbook should come with a bright, orange cover and the words ‘Don’t Panic!’ on the label? For a moment, one of the easter eggs, or what I had thought of as an easter egg in Road to Purgatory sprung to mind, only for me to push that idea away ruthlessly. I didn’t want to begin considering what that might mean for reality and my place within it. That way lay insanity and just thinking about it was hazardous for my peace of mind.

Instead, I made sure that little Luna was slowly slipping back to sleep, wondering what her dream might have meant. If it even meant anything, the message, if one could call it that, was far too vague.

Before I could reach any conclusion, I felt a brief moment of connection, the Astral River surging all around me and in that moment, I could feel the Grandmother, and I could feel Luna in my arms, not physically but more along the lines of the sensation I experienced on Mundus when using the Astral River to communicate with the Grandmother. In that moment, I could feel the ancient, timeless nature of the Grandmother, akin to an ancient forest, a constant cycle of growth and decay, completely different from the timelessness of a glacier, still and eternally unchanging. But I could also feel Luna, the different extreme, there was nothing timeless about her, it was the opposite. She was growth, change and impermanence, her mind and body changing quite literally from one day to the next, never remaining as she was.

It was exhilarating, feeling these two extremes around me, in opposite and yet in harmony, it made me feel both comfortable and settled but also a little restless, the drive to explore pushing me to strive further.

Sadly, it was only a transcendent moment, a moment that lasted a lifetime but also just the blink of an eye. The instant it was gone, a subtle change caught my attention, a notification from the system popping open before me, while my mind also registered that Lia’s eyes were fluttering open.

Title gained You gained a title: The Pale Lady You have taken the first step on your path. Time will tell if you continue to move on it, or if you walk a different one.

What?!