Life Back Home

    It's summer, the time of my twelfth birthday. I've been in the City for a little over two years now. In that time, nothing much has changed. For everyone else, that is. Things have changed a lot for me.

   I wander down the streets, looking for work, or a way to pass the time. Anything. That's when I see a woman I knew back in the village. Well, not so much knew, as nobody really talked to me back home, but she knew my parents and I knew her name. Linda, I believe it was.

  I'm about to walk past her, since I don't want to tell her that I lost the job my parents got for me. One advantage of not being able to call them is that they don't have to know just how little they prepared me for life outside of their house. For once, my luck doesn't hold up, and I hear her call my name.

  I glance at her, which she apparently takes as an invitation to approach me. "Where have you been? I couldn't find you at Lady Greaves. Have you been playing hooky?" 

  "I lost that job almost two years ago." I say. 

  I don't know what the expression on her face means. To be honest, I hate that people expect you to be able to read them, because that's something I've never been able to do. I think it's supposed to be shock, but it could be anger or sadness for all I know. Given that she, like the rest of the village, hated me, I'm willing to bet it's anger.

  "What do you want?" I ask. I'm not in the mood to deal with her, or anyone else for that matter. 

  "Why didn't you call your parents?" She asks.

  "Does that have anything to do with why you came here?" I ask. 

  "Actually, yes. The village is running out of money. I was hoping you would be able to spare some."

  "Why didn't you say so?" I say, reaching into my pants pocket. I don’t have a lot on me, though.

  "Where did you get the money for those clothes?" Linda asks.

  "Why do you care?" I say. 

  "I thought that you didn’t have a job." She says.

  "Look, do you want this or not?" I say, holding out my handful of money.

  She snatches it, counts it and declares, "This isn't nearly enough. Have you just been frittering everything on yourself this entire time?"

   "My parents never even game me a number to call them with. I had no idea you needed money until right this second." I say. 

   She looks at me, definitely angry, "I knew we should have kicked you out." She says.

   "I thought you already had." I say, turning to walk away.

   

     Later that day, I think over what happened. I've read about the charters villages and towns need to have with the ruling Nightmares, Shadows and Sorcerers mainly, in order to stay alive. It's tied up to the amount of power we use. I don't really understand the specifics, but I've read that the human realm is less "real" than the Nightmare realms are, so we need power to survive whereas they don't. Given that I've entered the Infinite from here, I can believe that. 

   I wonder, if I give the village a little more power, will they be alright? They don't like me, but nobody much does. I'm a human who hates talking to people and needs to sleep way too much, there's no reason to like me. It's my home, that's all that matters, even if I don't think I'll ever go back.

  Is it normal to not like your home all that much? If I could make my home the Temple, claim it as my own place, I'd do that in an instance. It's the only place I don't have to try and hide. I can sleep when I want, read when I want, write endless drivel and contemplate my collection. At the center, I can see Estellia's true nature. At first, it was nothing more than a game of pretend, but now it's starting to become real. I can't tell you how exciting that is. 

  I know I can help them, and I owe it to them to try. I've shaped Estellia before, and I suspect I would do so even without trying by this point. 

    So I head off to the temple, to fix something they can't fix on their own.