Page 48 of Thrust into the Light
Hi beast, I am Farlen. I’m supposed to get to know you. What do you look like? Would you listen to me if I told you to do something?
The rumbling starts in my stomach, and a voice I’ve heard in my head before pops in.We are you. We are one and the same. If we need to do something, we will. When the runes are broken, and we are free, you will know what we look like. Until then, we will do what we have always done, and protect you and your magic.
Oh, my magic? I am supposed to try to find it for Rhi. He wants me to touch it to see what it feels like, too. Would you let me touch it ortell me what it feels like?
It feels like the beginning and the end, life and death, salvation and damnation. It is hot and cold. But never both. It has been hurt by the one we killed. We cannot heal it until we are free, and we cannot be free while we are still stuck on the ground.
I feel soft, warm hands on me. I blink and come out of myself. Connor has his hand on my knee.
“Class is over, sweet girl. You’ve been talking with your beast for a long time. Instructor Payne came over and checked on you a few times. He said that you were talking to each other and not much we could do about it for now. But I needed to be careful in case you shifted fully. So instead of listening to him, I sat right here and waited for you to come back to me.”
My eyes feel like they have something in them. I rub them a few times and they start to leak, but not cry leak, and they are itchy. I blink a few times and it feels better. The sun is high up in the sky, and my muscles feel tight.
“Have a good chat with your beast?” Connor asks.
“I don’t know. It was really confusing. My beast said a lot of things to me, oh! It said it is protecting my magic, and that my magic is hurt.”
“Hurt how?”
“It didn’t say how it was hurt, just that it was hurt. It is hard to remember everything it said.”
Connor looks around, stands up, and walks over to Instructor Payne. They are pretty far away and I can hear a bit of what they are saying, but I don’t pay attention to it. I try to remember what my beast said to me. As soon as I think I remember something, I forget it. Connor and Instructor Payne are walking towards me now. They stop in front of me, and Instructor Payne crouches down.
“Connor said you’re having a hard time remembering what your beast said? Is it just what the beast said, or are you having problems remembering other things? We need to make sure it isn’t something to do with your healing earlier.”
I think about it for a minute. I can remember almosteverything Connor has been teaching me, I remember everything that HE did to me, and I remember almost everything that has happened to me since those men found me.
“Just what my beast said. I think I remember everything else.”
“Alright, well, that doesn’t sound too bad. Some beasts can be pretty protective of themselves and those they share a soul with. Maybe they think you don’t need to remember what you talked about. Every beast is a little different, just like every being on the planet is a little different. Do you remember what you were supposed to do while you were talking with your beast?”
“Oh yeah. My beast feels like it’s part of me. It’s very warm. It starts to get cool when I move away from it in my body, but it doesn’t get cold fast, like it is a slow change.”
“Sounds pretty normal to me. This is the last shifter class of the week. Why don’t you practice talking to your beast until we meet again next week? Make sure one of your matches is around while you practice, though. If it decides it wants to come out and play with someone, it would be a good idea to have someone you trust there so they can call for help.” He looks over to Connor, “If she does shift while at home, have Zachariah call me immediately, she may be more dominant than me, but I may get her beast to stop and think, Xander and Vashu probably could as well, but they may just end up making it worse. Hard to say, seeing as we still don’t have any idea what Farlens beast is.” He looks back over at me. “I will see you tomorrow for combat class, Farlen. You’ll have to participate in this class. We need to start training you on how to defend yourself. Connor, send me a message when you get home. I have an idea.”
He does the eyebrow thing at him. Whyyyy can he do it! He told me they’d show me how to do it, but they haven’t yet. I guess it was before class and I’ve been talking with my beast for a while, but still! How do they do it!?
Connor bends down and picks me up. I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my head on his shoulders. I breathe in through my nose. Connor smells nice, too. I stick my nose on his neck and just breathe in through it. I feel Connor's hands on my legs. Hestarts walking. Hopefully, he’s taking us back to the house. I’m hungry.
“Where’s Xander and Vashu?” I say into his neck. Connor's body does a bit of a shake.
“They went to go see about a new dining table. That’s what you call the big table. Why don’t we go wait outside Zachariah’s classroom for his class to end and you can see him for a few minutes?”
“Okay, but then food? I’m starting to get hungry.”
“I will have Xander and Vashu bring back some food with them. If everything goes well, they should be back with a new dining table before us.”
Connor carries me all the way to Rhi’s class door. He does the same thing Xander did and lowers me down his body. Just like with Xander, it makes my brain go all fuzzy, and it’s hard to think right. He pulls his phone out and hands me mine with a paper.
I hear Rhi talking to people on the other side of the door. It sounds like what he told us yesterday. I look down at the paper Connor handed me. It says Faith and has a bunch of numbers written down on it.
“I don’t understand what this is. I understand the name Faith, like the girl that was only a little bigger than me with the blue hair, but I don’t know what the rest of this means.”
“That’s her phone number. She wanted you to text her. I guess she was really worried about what happened to you after that first class. She got transferred into the night classes. Here, let me see it, and I can add her number to your contacts. She won’t have a picture to go with it, though. And let’s turn down the volume of your text to speech. The lowest volume should be fine for you, and not many people should be able to hear it.”
He hands me my phone back, and it is on a blank message screen. The name at the top said Faith. I hold the phone up to my mouth.
“Hi Faith, I was told you were worried about me?”
