Little People

Jone's sharp sigh was taken with an involuntary wince. Her smirk told me all, well before she said it. I came to the same conclusion after all. Sickening though it was to think. "Well, they'll know you're a healer now."

I was halfway to rolling my eyes at her when she began spasming. Seizing in place for a long, awkward second until she suddenly stopped and remained eerily still, her neck craned up and her eyes wide with surprise, even after she dropped them to me.

"Hey." She amiably smirked, but her voice was unlike hers. Unlike mine. It was masculine yet smooth. Charming, even. Nostalgic. And... mystic.

It could only have belonged to one person. But… "that's impossible."

"Is it?" he said, and Jone's head cocked in the same way his would.

I found myself stepping towards her in the next moment, reaching out to both her face and mine to confirm with my fingers what I saw with my eyes. "Amun?" I laughed in grotesque disbelief.

"My spell mutated." Jone calmly nodded, a wide smile spread across her face.

"Mmm?"

"Ah!" I suddenly turned towards the murmur to spread a domain across the space. "Okay." I turned back to Jone. "Continue."

Snickering softly, she peered over my shoulder and said in Amun's voice. "I see you've been busy."

"I had a bit of an accident." I smiled knowingly at the Jone inside. "But it works out for the better."

"Happy accidents are the best accidents." He concurred with a simple shrug. "We've been busy as well. Forty-one students here have pledged into our guild, the Legio Noctis."

"Legio Noctis." I nodded slowly, committing the name to memory.

"Indeed." He nodded back. "There are many changes that I'll share with you when you're less... occupied." He took another look over my shoulder and snickered. "In short, one of our allies is the Epethian Prince. So don't get caught acting against the crown."

"A given." I chortled softly.

"I figured." Jone snorted in the way Amun did, a strange sight to behold. "Let uh… Jone, know when you're free. We'll talk later."

"Okay. I look forward to it."

"As do I." Jone returned my smile, then shuddered eerily as I assumed her consciousness returned to her otherworldly body. And after a deep sigh, her voice was hers once more. But she quickly grew wide-eyed and disappeared into my shadow a moment later.

I wheeled around just as another murmur spread through the silence. The boy was rising from his pelt and blinking his eyes open, making me quickly halt in place so as to not startle him.

He had dark brown skin and eyes, with black hair that was beginning to grow into prominent sideburns along his cheek. And like the man next to him, he was small. A meter and change by my estimations, but dressed tall in suits and leather shoes that belied the trail on which they ventured.

Unlike the rugged dwarf, who was covered in many layers of mail and leather and was grasping onto a large hammer when I found him. And even now in the depths of unconsciousness, he was still swearing and cursing and swinging his empty arms about.

***

I heard… voices. Two of them. A woman's. And then a man. Hers sounded… surprised. Shaken almost. And his was deep and calm. He said something about a mutation or something.

And then… silence.

I don't know how much time passed before I stirred awake. The first thing I noticed was a fur pelt beneath me, and a hard surface beneath that. Then a fresh… almost freezing breeze.

When I opened my eyes I saw an endless field of blue around me. As my vision came into focus, I realized the blue to be walls, ceilings, and floors made entirely of ice. I was even lying on a bed of ice. And so too were my father and Pragsturosa. I could hear them breathing. Snoring.

"Are you injured?"

"Ah!" I startled awake and reached for my sword that wasn't there. And, having no choice, I turned to the owner of the voice, the same owner as the voice from before, and felt all my willpower leave my body at once.

She seemed like a noble lady from where she sat. With high leather boots and black trousers that hugged her legs nicely. A blue shirt covered her top, draped by a black hood pulled down to reveal a dark-skinned face, dotted with the most vibrant pair of eyes I've ever set my sights upon.

They were blue-white, like the walls surrounding us, and the way they stared into my soul left me speechless.

"Injured?" Her lips curled into a friendly smile. "Hurt? Does anywhere ache?"

"N- no." I turned away suddenly to shake away the warmth that found its way to my cheeks. "I'm fine."

"Good." She leaned further into her seat. "That means they are as well."

"What happened?"

"A geyser erupted. From what I understand, you all were standing too close." She gestured to the three of us. "I froze the water before it could scald you, and brought you all here."

"Freeze?" I shook my head in disbelief. "How?"

"I'm a Witch," she said simply.

"Ugh! Not just a human. But a human witch!"

I found myself turning to the witch's defense, but it was unneeded. Pa was stirring awake alongside Pragsturosa, and she didn't pay it any mind either. All she did was gesture to a side table with a hammer and two swords laid atop it.

"You're free to leave," she said, turning back to us with a soft smile. "Just head west through the tunnel. And take a pelt. It may be a bit cold."

"I'm fine!" grumbled the dwarf as he waddled over to his weapon, then disappeared through an archway at the far end of…

"Where are we?"

"And who are you?" Pa added.

"I'm Jay." She bowed. "A traveling Witch. And." She gestured to the blue walls surrounding us. "We are at the bottom of the lake."

"No lake exists this close to Oretta," Father said.

"One does now." She smiled, then stood to twice, if not thrice my height. Then, she suddenly tensed and turned her gaze upward. That's when I saw it. The imposing stature of the big people that demeaned us even when they weren't trying.

I knew if I looked, I'd see the colorless grays spreading across Pa's face at that moment. And if he looked, he'd see the same in mine.

"Can I walk you up?"