Chapter 32

“I did not like that,” Rose grumbled. “I’m supposed to be in charge of the dream. Who does Brontus think he is just pulling you out like that!?” We were again outside, at the wiry white table. She practically chugged her bottomless cup of tea, not at all slowing down until it clattered on the table. “The nerve…”

In charge of the dream, I thought. It made sense. If the magisoul was the mage’s subconscious, then taking control of the mage’s dream was a logical step. So that’s what Soulsleep must be for, I realized. Something to suppress the magisoul, which I didn’t need since Rose wasn’t tormenting me with nightmares. Well, not anymore.

“Hello? Ren?”

So, if Christopher, Sarah, and I are the only ones that don’t seem to need it, then does that mean they are on good terms with their magisouls? I thought, oblivious to Rose right in front of me.

“Ren, I’m talking to you!” she shouted, getting in my face as she would when I became distracted. “I was saying that of course I have control of the dream. See?” She held her hands out, staring at my chest.

She was still wearing her seamstress uniform, the outfit she had when she died. I didn’t know if it was out of familiarity or pride, but it looked good on her, the light blue apron over the sleeveless white dress, and a matching blue bowtie that visually kept it all together. It was clean, no sign of what I had done to it before she became my magisoul. And when I followed her gaze down to my chest, I was wearing the exact same outfit.

“Hey! What is this!? What are you doing!?” I yelled, frantically trying to cover myself. But it wasn’t like I was naked, just wearing something embarrassing, so my hands leapt from my shoulders to my chest to my neck and all around, not sure which unmanly part was least appealing.

“Sorry, sorry,” Rose said, laughing in hysterics. “You did agree you’d wear the seamstress dress.”

It took a second for me to recall what she was talking about. That conversation was only a little more than a week ago, and that felt like a lifetime away. “I never actually agreed to it,” I retorted, dropping my hands. “But point proven.”

“Good.” She smirked and waved a hand, my outfit returning to what it was before, a tan shirt more befitting of a boy. “It is too bad though, I can’t access your memories of your past life.”

“You can’t?” I asked, surprised. I shook my head though, less concerned about her peering into my memories from that far back. “Last night, you said you were from a different world. Were you human? Did you speak a different language?”

“Hmm? Of course I was human,” she said, suddenly looking a bit put off. “And I didn’t recognize any of the words you said, but—”

I tried to hear what she said afterwards, but it was enchanting. Her tone never changed but her voice was a song, ethereal and alien, a discordant melody of phonics that was like a colour which shouldn’t exist in reality.

“Ren!?”

“What!?” I jolted upright. “Sorry, I heard you. I just, uh… I don’t know what you said. It certainly wasn’t any language from where I used to live.”

“Hmm, pity,” Rose sighed. “I do quite miss talking in my native tongue. And not being so short,” she huffed.

“Well… what did you look like then?” I asked, curious.

“Hmm…” Her forehead wrinkled as she clenched her eyes, but she steadily grew taller until she stood head and shoulders over me. Her blonde hair lengthened and straightened and her ears poked out to a point that each stuck out far past her ears. Her form only thinned, just a bit, giving a lithe figure that seemed contradictory in its grace and frailty, but radiated a strength I couldn’t quite grasp the source of. She was undeniably sylvan in every way.

“Rose, you were an elf?”

“What? No, I said I was human,” he argued back, clearly confused. “I looked like anyone else on Ailv."

I bit back the comment of how much that sounded like ‘Elf’. “Well, where I come from, you couldn’t be more of an elf if you wore green and used a bow,” I chuckled.

Her eyes lit up and she reached for the table, upon which sat an ornately crafted bow. “This was mine before,” she told me as I accepted it from her hands. “It was passed down through my family line. Straight from my grandmother to me— There’s a story there but frankly it’s a bit complicated,” she remarked, waving her hand before I could ask. “And were you older or younger than you are now when you died?”

“Oh, I was twenty-six,” I answered. “The years on earth were just a couple days shorter than in this world.”

“Ah, I was thirty-two,” she said. “Though our years on Ailv were about five or six times as long as these ones, give or take.”

“Oh… so that would have made you about—”

“Don’t say it,” she cut me off, grumbling. “I’m aware that we humans differed from you humans, and clearly the humans in this world match yours or you wouldn’t be so surprised, and I can tell what you’re about to say, but I was considered a young woman just entering the prime of my life when I died.” She looked away slightly, huffing as I clearly threatened her pride, the thought about her age apparently clear in my mind before I could enunciate it.

Definitely an elf, I thought with a smirk.

“You know I can hear your thoughts here?” She tsked at me, pulling a bit of a sour face. Was that a pout? I didn’t get a second longer to look though before she quickly shrunk back to the childish size and shape, the Rose I knew in her blue and white dress. “Maintaining any other form is tricky,” she grumbled. “But I do miss my old look.”

I opened my mouth to speak but I could hear something calling to me in the distance. Rose looked behind her as if she could see it. “Well, you’d best be going. Stay safe while dragon hunting.” She waved as the world that didn’t exist grew fuzzy. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye before I was pulled from the dream and into a different reality.

Just before I woke up though, I couldn’t shake the thought: How did we know what elves are?