The light was too bright. So bright it was piercing through the lids of my eyes. Even the soft murmuring around me was too bright but not loud enough to understand.

I turned around, trying to get my eyes out of the light and groaned when my head stung like a nest of wasps. Something smoothed my hair to my scalp and while the voices around me were getting louder I felt like I felt once when I was coming back up from a dive in our ice-cold mountain lake.

I could hear my mother’s voice, how she told me I was going to be alright until she started to go away slowly. I wanted to ask her to stay but nothing came out of my mouth.

The light was giving me a headache, even when I had my head burrowed inside a pillow. My mother wasn’t there. Of course not, I was not home. So instead of my mother’s black eyes, I was met with Fern’s brown ones once I turned my head and lifted my lids. Across the room, I could see Ash’s dark hair sticking out behind a chest through which he was rummaging. I sat up, a sudden panic gripping my throat.

What happened? What did I do?
Fern interpreted my hasty gestures correctly and put both her hands on my shoulders, her thumbs brushing over the skin there.

“It’s alright. You’re alright. Okay? Lady Charlotte hit you and you fell. You hurt your head badly and suddenly started screaming. Ash made sure the master knows of this. It will not happen again.”

I nodded and looked at the tear that had fallen onto my hand. Just a tiny drop of salty water that caught the light like a hunter a wild raccoon. I hadn’t realised I was crying.

“We will make sure that you will never have to come into contact with her again. Is that okay with you?”
Yes. Very much. I hate her.
“Good. Ash is looking for something against the headache right now. Do you need anything?”
I cupped my hands to mimic a bowl and lifted them to my lips. Fern nodded and disappeared for a few seconds. When she came back she held a cup of water. My throat hurt like hell but I managed to swallow a bit of liquid to soothe the pain.

Ash came over, a bundle of bandages in his hand and his eyes glowing with anger. In the bright light of the room, which I assumed to be a nursery, they looked more grey than their usual blue.

Without a word, he started taking off the bandage from my head and replacing it with a set of new ones.
“The nurse ordered us to leave you here for another day. Will you be okay alone? Her name is Elena and we told her you can't speak. She also knows all the words you taught me so far so don't worry.” he said once he was done.

“She took care of us a lot when we were younger. Especially Ash. He was reckless. Really reckless. Once took down his own trainer when that douche told him not to cry because it would make him look like a girl.”
“That ass more than deserved it.”
“True.”

I managed a weak smile and pulled the blanket further up my chest until it was tucked neatly beneath my chin. It was too warm but I had bigger problems than that.

Ash and Fern stayed for a bit longer until they were called back to training by the terrible sound of the bell I already heard in the morning. Then, I was alone and had time to take a closer look around me.

The door was on the other side of the room and I just wished it to open again so I wouldn't sit alone in silence.
The walls were all white, so white it reflected the light from the tall windows, without a single visible stain.

The windows themselves started high up the wall, out of my reach, and ended just below the, also white, ceiling. A curtain divided the room and I was pretty sure that my bed wasn't the only one. Which brought the question to my head if all the beds were the same. A simple case of wood and a semi-soft mattress, covered in white linen, the same as they were in the dorm.

After I stared at the endless white of the room for a bit longer the door finally opened again and a stout woman entered, busily correcting the placement of her funny hat.

“Well would you look at that, you blend right in with the background. My name is Elena but I'm sure our two lovebirds already told you that. How's that pretty head of yours doing?”

I shrugged. She laughed and hurried to my side, checking the bandages and took a sniff of the rather gross smelling thing Ash had given me before they had left.

“Seems like I taught the boy something useful after all. That's a greatly done painkiller. Smells awful, tastes worse but works wonders. But I don't need to tell you that, do I?”
I nodded and took a sip of the water she apparently pulled out of thin air. I liked her. She was talking a bit too much for my comfort but she at least was kind, contrary to the other woman.

My brain had already deleted the memory of her face, all I could remember was a bad feeling on the bottom of my stomach.

“One more thing, lovely, the master wanted to speak to you because of that little, unhappy incident. What do you say?”
I nodded. Both Ash and Fern had previously brought this person up in conversations and they had only had good things to say about him. As well as the snippets of conversations I heard, none of the people around me had anything bad to say and Elena’s voice had sounded more than just respectful. So I was curious to meet him, to say the least.

Elena clapped her hands excitedly, gathered up all the things lying around on the bedside table and rushed out the door, leaving me perplexed and even more curious.

The next time the door opened was several hours later. I had spent the time staring at the incredibly interesting ceiling and braiding my hair into the weirdest shapes. In the end, I had resorted to tying my blanket between two beds, which indeed, looked identical, creating a hammock. So when the door finally opened the person entering found me lying inside said construction, reading a small booklet I had found inside one of the drawers.

The man wore a dark cape, something between red and purple, and black, polished shoes which fascinated me. At home, nobody ever wore polished leather. It was really inconvenient footwear for working in the fields all day.

I put the boring bunch of poetry away and sat up.
“You are an interesting young lady.”
The voice was rough and deep, reminding me of my father when he had worked with fire for the entire day and was tired from the hard labour of burning down wood and smoking fish and meat for the winter. I fought the instinct of running up to him and hug him and instead wrapped my arms around my own torso.

Instead of scolding me for disfiguring the room he sat down in front of me and pushed the hood off his head. Below it was a broad and dark face with a scar running from the left eyebrow to the corner of his mouth. Poking out from the dark curls on top of his head were two small horns, much like those of the mountain goats that came down to the village during summer and autumn.

“Do you know how to write so you can tell me your name?” he asked.
I nodded excitedly. My mother had taught me how to write last year and even though my letters were still not looking great I was excited to show that I could do that thing not many people in the world seemed capable of doing. So when he reached me a small piece of parchment and an ink bottle with a feather in it I tried my best to make the few letters of my name as readable as possible.

“Mahin. A pretty name. Like the moon in the night, full of silver light against the dark velvet of the sky.”
I chuckled. He spoke like my grandmother when she had been drinking too much, making every sentence into an image and playing with words the way a child plays with pebbles.

“I believe you have already been told that I took care of Lady Charlotte,” he said with a sudden shift of mood. “She was removed from her position and transferred to the other end of the city where she now is working in a shelter. If something like this ever happens again, I wish to be made aware of the situation immediately. I cannot accept injustice against children in this place. Not as long as I am in charge. I want to provide training, not emotional scarring.”

Yes, sir.
“You don't have to salute to me. A simple nod works just fine”, he said with a wink and suddenly the tightness around my chest had disappeared, together with the dull mood. I hadn't even noticed it until it had gone.

And so had the person in front of me when I opened my eyes again. I shook my head in confusion. A look out of the window showed the same patch of sky it had shown during the conversation only now the setting sun that had previously been visible was gone and merely a faint glow on the lower edge of the glass indicated it was still there.

My eyes followed a shadow that was creeping into the room from under the door. It was emitting some sort of dark vapour, which would have been enough to scare the life out of me and every other child but my head felt like it was wrapped in soft fabric and didn’t recognise this as anything more than a mildly peculiar occurrence. So I watched without much care as a figure started to rise from the puddle of darkness that had formed. Purple eyes were soon looking at me with yet another look I couldn’t decipher.

However, the figure soon disappeared and I was left to stare at the wall until my mind started to create landscapes and foreign creatures there.

The sun had already vanished and night had taken over the sky when I crawled under a blanket I stole from another bed and drifted off into sleep.

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