dimensions | original

Awake Again

When Luma woke up, she was in an unfamiliar place. And while that had happened an unnatural amount of times in the last couple days, this time she felt safe. Warm.

She sat up, looking around. The room itself looked dark and foreboding, but candles in silver and gold colored candle holders lit the room in a warm, buttery light. There was a nightstand by the tall bed she lay in, and a pile of plain-looking books atop it. Two doors and one curtained window seemed to be the only ways to get out, but Luma felt tired enough that she didn't really want to investigate.

Instead, she slumped back onto the bed with a long yawn, her eyes fluttering closed.

"Luma?" a voice roused Luma, and she sat up as fast as possible. Not a good decision, for she immediately felt her head spin with the abrupt change.

"You're awake. That's good. You were sleeping too lightly for the twins to perform their voodoo when you were asleep," Dia shut the door quietly, walking over to her bed with a glass in one hand. "so they didn't even try. But now I'll have to give you some medicine to make you pass out."

Luma didn't object. She was so tired already that the idea of more sleep sounded almost alluring. "Okay."

"Here you go, then." Dia gently handed Luma the full glass, raising to her mouth in an almost mother-like fashion. It was an unusual sight, for Dia's human form looked just as young as Luma, just another child taking care of a child.

"Dia? Can I ask you a question?"

"Ask away, little girl." Dia smiled, brushing her dark hair out of her face with her one free hand.

"What exactly happened between you and Mark? And why are you a crow? Most importantly, why are you helping me? Why are you being so nice?" The questions spilled from Luma's mouth like a sort of verbal waterfall.

Dia sighed. "That is rather more than one question. But I will try and explain to your satisfaction." She paused, sitting at the foot of the bed. The mattress was so tall that her feet hung off the edge, and she swung them childishly. "I was a shapeshifter, once upon a long time ago. Mark was a hunter at the time. And so I appeared to him and his fellow village boy Keme, asking for meat."

"Why?"

Dia looked puzzled. "Pardon?"

"Why would you do that? Couldn't you just, you know, shapeshift and hunt something? Or get it with magic?" Luma felt that if she had such powers, she'd definitely put them to use.

Dia looked slightly abashed. "I mean- well- it's just something you do. Isn't there something that you do for no logical reason?" Luma shrugged. "Well, it's like that, kinda. It really is difficult to explain. You could say that strange happenings add to the amount of stories. And stories, Luma, are history. And history is just time. You could say that I was just pushing time along. Everything's going to happen sooner or later, so why wait around? I have all the time in the world, but I suppose things get boring. Do you understand?"

Luma was struggling to comprehend. "I think so. At least a little bit. It's easier to see, I think, if you've done it. And I'm just 13! Or maybe 14. I don't know how long it's been, actually, but I'm not old enough to get bored of not-happenings just yet."

Dia smiled a little bit. "Anyways, I was the shapeshifter that they helped, so when they were in need of help getting food, I gifted them the ability to shapeshift as I. They couldn't shapeshift as cleanly or neatly, nor transport as I have shown you, but they certainly could turn into wolves. You know what happened next." Luma nodded. "I, too, was 'punished.' I was given the choice of two forms, and I found that I wanted to fly and I wanted to pass as human.

"As for why I am helping you? Because Match is an old friend who means well. He just isn't very good about making things happen. Because of you, Luma. And because I suppose I wanted to push history along. Because I wanted to do a sort of good, and if I know one thing, it's that the twins aren't exactly known for their kindness.

"And if anything, Luma, I am not very nice at all. I'm just fair, and at least a little bit empathetic. You know, I was once a little mortal girl, too." Dia sighed, and the silence hanging in the air felt reassuring. Luma had only half-listened to the last few sentences, and whatever had been in the now-empty glass was taking full effect. "It's just that now I'm an immortal little girl." she murmured.

"Things change. I haven't really, not at all. I really do feel like the powerless mortal child I once was, occasionally at least." Dia looked over at Luma to see the girl had fallen completely asleep. She laughed, a light, quiet sound. "Good night, Luma. I'll see you when your soul is healed."

***

Everything fell into a sort of blurr. She remembered being cured, the moment where everything painful disappeared and fell apart, as though she was shedding an ugly cocoon. She remembered Dia transported them all away, back to the Vitae headquarters

She remembered whisper shouts over her very existence and state. She remembered Dia kissing her forehead and murmuring goodbye, and she remembered Emersyn sitting by her bedside dutifully as she rested.

She remembered trying to wake up and telling them all thank you, but only her eyes fluttered, giving her glimpses into the outside world, and of everyone's relieved, worried faces.

She didn't know how long it was that she was in her strange sleep-coma, but she did know it was terribly boring, after a while.

She missed walking, and eating, and talking. And she missed her mom. Her dad. Cassidie. And her friends. Even her grumpy school teachers didn't seem so bad now.

It hurt to think about. Her only reassurance was that they probably believed her to be dead at this point, that they had already mourned her death. She almost wished she could reverse things, that she could already be home. After all, what was there for her in the strange and magical dimensions where she was a foreigner? But the thought of Mark stopped her. She was a mortal, which is why is was more important that she had helped a deity instead of her own pathetic self.

And besides, she reminded herself, Spirit and Sacrifice are bad guys. Giving them Mark would be like handing over a ticking weapon... Speaking of which, something that Luma was oblivious to is that Mark was, in fact, not a traditional werewolf, despite being the first. He was the father of werewolves, but even werewolves evolved with time. Mark had the ability to freely change between wolf and man, but when he transformed he would not have control over his own thoughts, but instead morph into a wolf with wolf-like thoughts.

So, in the end, Luma was able to convince herself that she had chosen the right thing.

And that was when she finally was healed and awake again.