The Scholar's Tale (Original Fantasy)

Book IV, Chapter 8

Ryzhan

I did not need to sleep, anymore.

I had not for a while, in truth. Remembered vitality, made reality through my Gift, could stave off exhaustion, starvation and thirst with equal ease. I had not fallen asleep out of tiredness often, in the past (it would've felt like too much of a lapse in judgement, given the danger I'd believed myself in and the ones I'd actually been in), but now, I didn't think I could have if I tried.

Mana was starting to seep into my constitution, and not just that of my flesh. I had heard legends of spellslingers so suffused with their Gifts that they had become more godlike than mortals, shedding the weaknesses of the bodies they'd been born with. I told myself that would be a welcome change, if it came, and that helped ease my mind.

Falling asleep was more of an effort of will than anything, nowadays. I could make myself rest, while still aware of the world around me, and it was easier when I was at peace, with myself and the world.

Unsurprisingly, it happened rarely. But when it did, I was, more often than not, aware that I was dreaming, and able to shape the world around me.

Not unlike my waking life. Sometimes, I wondered if we were all shards of this being Ib said dreamed our worlds and all its kindred into beings, and that was why we could make something of the lucid dreamscape that was existence.

We could perceive it, or at least, fractions of it. The early layers we inhabited. And in those, we could mould the substances in our reach in order to carve out our own place in the world.

And that was what I needed to do. And would, after I shook this damnable grogginess off.

I didn't think I'd woken up confused in years, nor had I felt dazed much since my magic had awakened. Not without foreign forces attempting to tamped with my being. As such, I'd have wagered I felt so out of sort more out of unfamiliarity than how dizzy I felt in of itself.

My room's small window could be covered with a flexible metal shutter at will; the ship's will, of course. At the moment, it was so, for reasons I could not discern right away. If we'd been caught in some awful weather that could destroy the steel-like glass used for windows here, I'd have felt it. Perhaps the ship would deign to inform me.

It tended to treat orders as suggestions and vice versa, in that it took the liberty to interpret the former, but presuming to command it ticked it off, even if it was Mharra doing it. Unlike most smug hypocrites, however, the steamer was very much a danger to me, even from what little I knew of its capabilities.

Considering how foul-tempered the fraction of it that had conveyed me to Serene Rest had been, I wasn't eager to pry.

Not that there was much need, to be honest, I told myself as I remembered my day clothes, letting them settle over me as my sleeping ones disappeared, then began making my bed. Neither of my crewmates would have given a damn if they'd seen me naked and daubed with mud and plant juices, as some eccentric mages liked to, but when it was so easy, there was no need to drag it out.

My bed could've also been arranged with a thought, but, while my casting wouldn't have been overly hampered by the fact my head felt like a misshapen bucket full of rowdy fish, physical activity would help centre me, allowing the parts of my being to realign.

There were some reasons the archetypal cryptic teacher of magic gave ridiculous, demanding tasks to their students. Not because it built character, obviously - that had always been and would always be a bald-faced lie spouted by lazy dotards -, but because most mages needed to be at peace with their bodies to use their Gifts.

By the time I was done, my head no longer felt heavy and awkward, but the memory of that would likely put me off sleep for months to come, if not years. Nothing gained, except some half-remembered dreams about being caught in an endless, becalmed ocean, with every motion of my oar sending my boat backwards. That was such an obvious metaphor for our situation it was probably a trap. Must've meant something else.