LoVelly’s body acted on instinct and the moment he was awake he bolted upright. His heart was pounding, blood rushing in his ears and his head was pounding. He was on his feet before he even knew he was lying down. He was in a mostly dark room, a door cracked and light spilling across the floor in a thin wedge. There was a heavy acrid smell in the air that he could almost taste, bitter in the back of his throat. Suddenly there were hands on him, pulling him back and he didn’t have time to think about it. He was throwing them off and bolting for the door. A voice shouted behind him but he barely heard it let alone understood what was said. He was hurtling out the door when he bodily slammed into someone else and they both went sprawling onto the floor.


    “LoVelly!” Mezalie’s voice hissed as she sat up. “Why are you running?!” She was looking at him with an equal amount of irritation as confusion. He looked back at her, still breathing hard. He closed his mouth to swallow and took a deep breath and held it, trying to get his breathing and his heartbeat to calm. He finally took a moment to look around himself and realized they were not alone. There was a man standing in the doorway he’d just run out of, looking rather confused as well. There was also a woman standing behind Mezalie that he didn’t recognize who looked amused, trying and failing to hide her smirk.


    “I…don’t know.” He finally said. “I don’t know. I just panicked.”


    “Yeah I gathered that.” She said it slowly, like he was a creature easily startled. Maybe he was. He was suddenly reminded of that time on the shore that Mezalie had also sensed his panic.


    “What happened?” His brows drew in as he tried to remember what was going on. Where was he? He didn’t recognize these walls or these people. Just Mezalie. She moved to stand up and offered LoVelly a hand up as well which he gladly took.


    “You hit your head pretty hard. Knocked you out and gave yourself a pretty decent bump.” She touched her hand to the crown of her own head. “You’re not dead yet though so it could have been worse.” She said it jokingly, going for light but the words hit LoVelly like a tevvy, nearly taking him back to the ground. Mezalie put a hand on his shoulder when he wobbled.


    “Datsa!” he blurted out. It rolled right off his tongue and it felt so right when it finally did, like an itch finally scratched. He looked at Mezalie, excitement building in him. “That’s the name I’ve been trying to remember!” He told her but she still seemed confused. “Our friend. Datsa.” He said purposefully, hoping it would be enough. Something told him that this was probably sensitive information. The man who’d helped him had been dressed like the others but he’d been working against them. He’d told him the information carefully and quietly and he seemed to know things about Mezalie and the creature that they barely understood. Something told him to keep this information to themselves.


    “Oh! Oh. Right. I forgot.” And Mezalie was a terrible liar but it was too late they would just have to push on. He looked at the man who stood in the doorway and gave him a look he hoped was as embarrassed as he felt about it.


    “Sorry I freaked out on you there,” he stepped across the space and reached a hand out to the man. He smiled kindly at Lovelly as they shook. “I’m LoVelly. Thanks for helping me out.”


    “Don’t even worry about it. No lasting damage done to me at least. You have some head trauma from before this drievette though I hear. I’m Ghel, one of the yard doctors.” Ghel stepped back to lean one shoulder against the doorframe. His eyes flicked over to Mezalie and the woman with her.


    “Right.” Mezalie chimed in. “Mylen and Ghel recommended a doctor. We were getting the address.” She held up a small page with what he assumed was an address written on it.


    “Oh. That’s great actually.” In truth all he wanted to do was figure out what to do about Datsa. Friends of Datsa. How was he to find them? How was it connected to both Mezalie and the girl from his dream? She’d said he was ‘celestieling the planes’ but it felt a lot like just a vivid dream. Maybe Mezalie hadn’t been so wrong when she’d accused him of wandering the realms in his mind.


    “Let me take a look at you before you go anywhere please. I need to make sure you’re not going to fall right back over the tes you get out of here.” Ghel said, stepping aside and beckoning him back into the room that was now well lit and he saw it was a simple first aid room. He looked around at the rest of the space.


    “Where are we?”


    “Just the upper floor of the agricultural processing plant. It’s where we keep the offices and the first-aid.” Ghel told him as he guided him to sit down on the cot he must have been laying on. Mezalie and Mylen hovered just outside the door. It turned out that he’d been bandaged and he discovered the source of his pounding head when Ghel checked that the bandages he’d applied to LoVelly’s head were still solidly in place. Ghel then moved through several tests, shining a light in his eyes and asking if he heard any ringing in his ears. He concluded with a balance test, having LoVelly prove he was sound on his feet. Once the man seemed satisfied he clapped LoVelly on the shoulder, telling him to follow up with the recommended doctor as soon as he could.


    They thanked the two aids and LoVelly followed Mezalie back down a set of stairs and through the floor of the plant. There were workers buzzing around the floor, moving products from one station to the next. Some people were working their way through washing baskets of raw produce and some were separating and inspecting. There was a gentle hum of machinery and chatter as they made their way towards the exit of the building. Once outside in the cold, crisp air of the drievette LoVelly turned to Mezalie, eyes wide and full of excitement.


    “I had a vision while I was out!” He said with barely contained excitement. “There was a girl and she knew me. She told me I’m supposed to come save her but I don’t know how or from what.” Mezalie looked at him as they walked back towards the station.


    “Did you recognize her?” She asked.


    “No. She said…that this was the first time I’d met her.” He tried to explain while also working through it in his own mind. He recalled the girl''s face in his mind as she told him, eyes sparkling, that he was so young. “She told me that time isn’t linear and that she’d met me before but…” he trailed off, getting lost in his own thoughts


    “This doctor-” Mezalie interrupted suddenly, “Mylen told me that he’s pretty good with  head trauma,” she told him. “Hopefully that means he can help you out.” LoVelly was nodding along as they walked, running through all the new information in his brain when a thought came crashing in, stopping him in his tracks. Mez looked rather startled at his sudden halt.


    “Did you get the job?” he asked, reaching out to place a hand on Mez’s shoulder. They’d come all this way for that sole reason and he’d nearly forgotten in all the commotion. His mind felt so untrustworthy sometimes that it drove him mad. Mezalie just let out a short laugh at him.


    “Yes, I did. While you were being moved to the recovery room I was able to talk to the head operator. I’m going to start the driev after tomorrow.” LoVelly let out a long relieved breath at hearing the confirmation.


    “Glad I didn’t completely ruin the trip.” He sighed as they resumed their walk to the station.


    “Not at all. It was certainly more dramatic than I expected it to be.” She poked fun at him, to which he rolled his eyes at her but she continued, “Anyway, tell me more about the girl. What else do you remember?”


    He spent the rest of their walk and the wait for the car detailing what he could remember of the strange tower and his meeting with the girl. He told her about the vast emptiness outside the tower window and the disorienting strangeness inside as well. He described the girl and did his best to reiterate what she’d told him.


    “So,” Mez began, taking a deep breath, rolling the new info over aloud, “we have ‘Friends of Datsa’ and ‘Onoara’ as new pieces?” She tipped her head back and forth as if rolling the items into place somewhere in her mind.


    “Right,” he nodded eagerly, “but it’s connected. The guy in Doss that helped us told me to find the Friends of Datsa and Onoara told me they’d help me find her too.”


    “Any chance she told you how to find them though?” Mez asked as the street car rumbled into the station docking.


    “No,” he sighed in defeat and they boarded the car. They were on the opposite tracks, heading back into the city instead now.


    “Okay. Well…” she pondered. “We could try to look up records of a Datsa in the public archive…but that could-”


    “Take forever and how would we even narrow it down…?” They sighed in tandem. Mez sank low in her seat, knees pressing up against the seat in front of her. Her eyes slipped closed as she tried to think of a way that they could do something with the new information they had now but seemed futile. They had just enough pieces that it was starting to become clear that the puzzle pieces were supposed to connect but they were missing key connecting pieces to make the larger picture make sense.


    The city was much more alive on the way back in. Each stop brought more and more people shuffling into the car until it was properly crowded, standing room only. The streets outside were buzzing with energy. Mez thought it was at least partially the pre-season excitement in the air that she was feeling. There were always more people in the city, more buzz generating, right before and during the start of the Sol planting season. In truth they’d been rather lucky; they''d only had to walk past two ‘no vacancy’ signs before Mez had found them a place with a room.


    Agriculture didn’t stop when Sol went down for the Soltzet, of course. A large variety of produce only grew during the Votton cycle and there was always work to be done processing but it was a slower more relaxed season if there was such a thing. During the Drieven cycle there was an explosion of growth and the need for extra hands in the fields, the plants and in the city services was tremendous. People flocked from the outlying towns and cities, sometimes coming a great distance, to work through the season.


    It’s exactly what Mezalie had planned to do. It seemed impossible that her entire world had upended in less than a ven and yet it had only been five driev. A wave of grief threatened to spill from her aching heart but she quashed it back down quickly before it could overtake her. LoVelly must have felt it anyway because she felt his little finger snake around her own in a loose hold. A tiny zap of warmth ran through her and it helped to settle her, just as he intended for the gesture to do.


    Ghel and the others had assumed that LoVelly was her qiven, which, she understood to some degree. She knew what they must look like to others. The comfortable intimacy they seemed to share was more commonly found in a long standing relationship, not just a handful of driev. And how were they to explain it otherwise anyway? She certainly hadn’t wanted to correct them when they’d asked her if her qiven had any known conditions that would require emergency attention. She’d simply answered their questions and followed as they’d gotten help carrying him to a place to rest.


    She hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.


    The nature of their relationship was truly bizarre and she didn’t know what to call it. She liked the way they seemed drawn to each other. She liked the easy way they seemed to fit together like they were made to do so. She felt with LoVelly a way she had so often craved during her life. It was one of the reasons she’d grown discontent with her traveling lifestyle, she’d felt unable to make meaningful, lasting relationships outside of her pod with the limited amount of time she spent in any one place.


    She often felt she didn’t quite make relationships the way that others could. She was close with her Pod because everyone was close with their Pod. It was impossible to live in each others’ pockets and not be close but that also meant that your own business was everyone’s business as well. She had grown up knowing nothing else. She’d had a best friend, Vell. She’d had tambenura her age that she’d been close with like Pidka and Drenna. But she’d always felt drawn outward, toward something she couldn’t quite pin down. At first she’d thought a partner, surely, but she’d quickly found her desires were not romantic.


    With no good way to articulate what she felt was missing she’d simply felt a longing. It was that longing that drove her to decide to leave the Pod finally. She couldn’t help the crushing weight of guilt that her decision was somehow responsible for the deaths of everyone. It was irrational, of course, but that didn’t make it feel less true in her heart.


    It felt like she’d unknowingly traded them all for LoVelly.


    It made her feel sick. She readjusted their hands so she could properly lace their fingers together, letting the comfort wash over her. She wouldn’t deny herself the miniscule amount of creature comfort she had left in the world.


    The ride felt much longer taking them back into the heart of the city in the crowded, noisy car. The majority of people also exited the car with them once it pulled into the central station. Mez led them both, hands still linked, towards the big map once more.


    “Since we have nowhere else to be, let’s go see this doctor. Maybe we can get something else out of that brain of yours.”


    “If only we could be so lucky.” he groaned.


    “Alternatively, one good thump on the head knocked a little bit loose. Maybe another couple would get the rest of it?” She joked, reaching over to lightly, playfully jab him in the chest. He tried to lean out of her reach, batting back at her with his free hand.


    “Yeah yeah. Let’s just go see this doctor.”


    They didn’t need to get back on the street car, deciding instead to walk the several blocks back past their inn. Unlike the trek to the library the ground here was mostly flat so it was an easy walk. They found themselves back in an area that was more residential with the occasional shop on the street level, similar to the area they’d come through LoVelly’s portal. Mezalie was dutifully checking street signs as they went, turning this way or that to wind through the neighborhoods in search of their destination.


    Finally they came to a stop on the doormat of a shop with a large front window with the blinds half-drawn inside. There was writing on the window and Mezalie checked it against the scrap of paper she held, seeming satisfied when she reached for the handle.


    The inside of the office was simple with neutral walls and plain brown chairs pushed with their backs to the window. The only pop of color was the green baseboard trim running around the room, behind the chairs and eventually behind the high counter that boxed off the back of the room. On either side there was a door, closed, with a sign on them saying exam room: do not disturb.


    There was a young man, roughly their own age, sitting behind said counter with a stack of files off to one side as he scoured over the page in front of him. As they entered the small office he looked up from his task, a smile spreading across his face and giving them a cheerful, “Welcome in.”


    Mezalie dropped their joined hands and approached the counter with a confidence that LoVelly envied just a bit.


    “Hello,” Mez placed both hands against the lip of the counter as she approached and came to a stop. “One of us-” she side-eyed LoVelly pointedly, “suffered some head trauma and long story short Ghel and Mylen from-” the young man perked up.


    “Oh I know Ghel.” He nodded, waving with the pen in his hand. “Let me see…” he shuffled some of the papers on the countertop until he could slide a small calendar book out from beneath it all. He tapped his pen against the page, considering the things written on it.


    “Yeah, okay. If you can wait just a bit we have time for a walk in after the doctor is done with this current appointment. I’m going to put you with Briha since it’s head related. Any current dizziness, loss of vision or lightheadedness?” He looked to LoVelly for an answer.


    “No. I did pass out earlier but I’m feeling okay now.” The man scribbled something down in the book. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    “And your name?”


    “LoVelly.”


    “LoVelly…?” He looked up at him expectantly. “Surname?” He prompted again when LoVelly said nothing.


    “Oh. Uh. I’m not sure.” He admitted to the countertop.


    “He’s having some pretty…significant memory lapses.” Mezalie cut in. “It’s Chekara.” She finally supplied. The man looked taken aback at them both.


    “I see. I''m sorry to hear that.” He replied and then wrote something else down and underlined it. Twice. He didn''t bother looking up again to ask,”and what is your address?” Mezalie gave him the address of the inn and he confirmed that it was a temporary and then, “go ahead and have a seat. It won’t be terribly long.”


    They both took a seat in one of the plain brown chairs, settling in next to each other. It was suddenly silent in the little waiting area aside from the sounds of the man behind the counter shuffling and flipping pages every now and then. Neither of them wanted to break the silence to speak and many of the things they might discuss were better left for when they had more privacy.


    Mez looked over to LoVelly and made a face, brows raised high, expression exaggerated. In response he gave her his own exaggerated look of shock. They took turns making increasingly bizarre faces at each other. The sounds of them shifting in their slightly squeaky seats joined the background noise of the office space. Finally Mez had to look away, letting a snort and a hiss of laughter out before stifling the laughter to keep quiet. LoVelly reached over and shoved her shoulder playfully.


    They sat for a while longer, in higher spirits than before and the silence didn''t seem so heavy now. It really wasn''t all that much longer when one of the exam room doors opened with a creak and voices flooded out into the lobby. A woman and a little girl stepped out with a wave and a thank you. They went to the counter to discuss follow-ups with the man behind the counter and then they made their way out.


    A rather tall man came into view behind the counter, coming from somewhere around the corner. He dropped down into a crouch, nearly out of sight behind the counter to quietly murmur with the front desk man. They said something and when the first man pointed to LoVelly over the counter the new man peeked up and over at them, giving a little wave and a kind smile, before dropping back down. After a few more tes of quiet exchange he got back to his feet and disappeared back the way he''d come.


    “It''ll be just a dib.” The man behind the counter stood and said to them, “He''s just cleaning up and preparing.” Sure enough in what felt like hardly any time the tall man stepped through the exam room door and gave them a sweeping motion towards the door.


    “LoVelly Chekara, and company, please follow me!” There was no small amount of cheer to his tone. They both got up and filed into what turned out to be a rather spacious room. There was a second door on the wall opposite that must lead further into the clinic. There were high cabinets against the walls and low ones below the little sink and countertop. There were a variety of standard doctors'' office supplies pressed up against the backsplash in various cups and jars. It looked so typical.


    The door closed behind the man with a creak And a soft click. “My name is Dr. Briha. I hear you''ve had a good thump on the head.” He picked up a waiting clipboard and pen before dropping down onto a waiting stool that spun him around with a flourish. When he saw them hesitating, paused in the middle of the room, he pointed LoVelly to the low exam table and Mezalie to a seat against the far wall.


    “Yeah…I ran into someone and hit my head on the way down.” LoVelly told him, hand coming up reflexively to the large bandage covering his temple.


    “Did you lose consciousness?” Briha asked.


    “Yes.”


    “For how long?” LoVelly looked to Mezalie, unsure how long he''d been out and apparently projecting elsewhere.


    “About half a lof.” She offered. Briha jotted something down.


    “And that has caused significant memory loss?” He was at another loss for what to say because no, his memory loss was much more complicated than that but how much was safe to say?


    “Er…kind of? I''ve been having…spotty memory issues for several driev. Unrelated to this incident.” He said what he thought was enough but skirted around the actual truth. Briha looked up from his clipboard, eyes intent as he looked at LoVelly.


    “Okay. Tell me about that then.” He propped the clipboard against his thighs, setting his chin atop it as he waited patiently for LoVelly to continue. LoVelly’s eyebrows knit together In the middle as he looked down at his lap, his hands there, as he considered how to explain. They should have thought about this, they should have come up with a story.


    “Well. I- we…we were…something happened-” he paused trying to gather himself, find the right words.


    “Something bad?” Briha supplied for him. LoVelly nodded, meeting his eyes finally. Briha still looked open and kind as he nodded. “It''s not uncommon to experience memory loss after something traumatic.” He said gently.


    “I can’t remember anything before a few driev ago. It''s in here. I''ve had a couple of little breakthroughs but it''s so inconsistent.” Briha was scribbling quickly on his paper as LoVelly told his story. “And I think it forgot how to read?” he added finally.


    “Interesting. You can''t read anything?”


    “Not so far.”


    “And you don''t remember if you could before?”


    “Well no, not really,” he huffed, “but I''m sure I could. Can.” he insisted. Briha nodded but didn’t say anything right away, pen always moving against the clipboard until finally he snapped it down against the board and looked LoVelly in the eyes.


    “So my first professional opinion is that you should avoid any additional head trauma. It’s just plain not good for you.” He said it seriously but then he cracked a smile at the end and LoVelly let out an embarrassed little chuckle. At least it lifted the mood a bit.


    “Second, the best remedy for things like this is time. It will likely come back to you but your mind needs time to sort through its trauma. That said, we can help a little bit.” He spun his little stool around and over to one of the low cabinets and opened it to reveal a small cold storage case and opening that revealed a stock of bubble-bags. He pulled one out and considered it then without looking he asked, “Do you know your botanical lineage?”  he pulled a different bag out with his other hand, considering it as well.


    LoVelly considered it for a moment before shaking his head. “No.”


    “Any allergies?” Briha asked instead and LoVelly frowned.


    “Not sure about that either. Sorry.”


    “Don’t be!” He assured, placing one of the bags decidedly back into the case and closing it. “Hyotic fluids for the mystery man since they’re universal and highly unlikely to cause a reaction.” He brought the bag over to show them. “These will target your stress response systems and allow your body to relax. That should help your mind as well.” Briha pulled a tall thin metal rack from the corner of the room and pulled it over to the exam table. He got LoVelly situated how he wanted him on the table, lying back with his arm out and it was a simple thing really to poke and set the IV. Once he got the fluid dripping and LoVelly was lying quietly with his eyes closed Briha spun to face Mezalie, a glint in his eyes.


    “So, let''s talk about you.” He said it gently, kindly, but it set Mez’s nerves on edge. She didn''t want to talk about her.


    “I don''t know that there''s much to say.” she deflected.


    “I can''t imagine it''s nothing if something happened that affected LoVelly so strongly.”


    “The thing that happened to LoVelly and to me were different.” she defended.


    “But you admit something happened.” he said. She only glowered in response at first but then she took a breath, ready to say something and she saw the way his eyes narrowed just slightly as he caught her doing it. He looked confused, likely unsure what exactly he found off about her yet but she didn''t want to wait for him to figure it out either. Her eyes darted to LoVelly’s IV and she was exasperated to find that barely a quarter of the liquid had drained yet.


    “Yes,” she said finally, “It''s been a very…difficult ven.” She said on a huff that was the last of her breath. She finally looked up from somewhere around the floor and up at Briha, breathing in through her nose. “But I am processing my grief in my own ways.” She said it calmly and with little emotion but she felt a small spark within her flare just the tiniest bit at the thought of her last meal, a tingle of fen spilling forth within her, warm and strong. She took another breath.


    It was decidedly exhausting to be aware of one’s own breathing at all times. But she was sure this man would figure her out if she didn’t keep it up. His soft demeanor belied the sharp intelligence in his dark eyes, which he narrowed at her as he visibly deliberated with the expression on his face before he seemed to drop it.


    “Alright but you let me know if that changes.” Just as simple as that he turned back to LoVelly. “How are we doing over here?” He started up an easy chatter back and forth and LoVelly was more than eager to answer his questions, even if he sounded a little bit sleepy. The hyotics can do that apparently, Briha informed him. While they waited the doctor assessed the damage to LoVelly’s head, carefully removing the bandages placed there earlier. He cleaned and re-bandaged the area once he was satisfied that the damage wasn’t in need of further attention.


    Once the bag was empty and it seemed that LoVelly had dozed off Briha moved to pinch off the bag and remove the IV. Mezalie stood and went to LoVelly’s other side, intent to wake him. She gently ran the back of her hand across his cheek a couple of times as his eyes blinked open. He gave her a strange look before bringing his hand up to hers. She thought at first to hold hers.


    “You don’t feel cold.” He said instead and she looked just as strangely back at him.


    “The fluids can temporarily lower your temperature.” Briha offered before pointedly asking Mezalie, “Are you normally cold or is that a new thing? A drop in body temperature can be a symptom of shock.” Mezalie could feel him looking at her but she was too focused on remembering to breathe in a normal way. Too focused on what to say.


    “No I- Yes. I usually run a little cold. It’s normal.” She stumbled inelegantly from start to finish.


    “Alright. Well, you know where to find me.”


    They got LoVelly to his feet and he looked much more alert once he was up. They thanked Briha as he sent them back out into  the lobby to the receptionist to make LoVelly’s follow up appointment for two driev later. Mezalie couldn’t wait to get out the door and out from under the scrutiny of the doctor who probably had the best of intentions but had no idea what he was stumbling onto.


    LoVelly, on the other hand, seemed to have a spring to his step as they walked, an easy grin on his face. Mezalie couldn’t resist the opportunity to poke fun of him as a form of distraction.


    “Feeling good?” She elbowed him, a sly grin of her own sliding into place.


    “Yeah. Wow.” He rolled his neck and shoulders. “It’s like a whole new body.”


    “Enjoy it while it lasts. You’ll probably get the rest of the driev.” She’d had hyotic treatment on occasion and the lasting high was always the best part. Eventually it faded away and left her feeling like she could nap for a luel but that was the worst of it. Not bad, all said and done.


    “I think I’m hungry...” He illustrated by placing a hand to his stomach. “Yeah. Food would be good…” Mezalie considered their options. Their money was back at the inn but it was only mid-driev yet, plenty of time to retrieve it and venture out for something. They were on the very, very last of their money but she would start working soon and she would be able to pay the innkeeper at the end of the ven…It would work out.


    “Sure. Let’s stop back at the inn for a coin and we’ll get you something.”


    “Mm!” He perked straight up, nearly jumping in his excitement, “We should look up Datsa. Friends of Datsa. That’s who the girl told me to find. And the man.”


    “Right. The girl- Onoara?”


    “Yeah. I think she’s an oracle. She was dressed like a temple oracle… but I don’t know where. When I looked out the window there it was really bright so I couldn’t really see…” He squinted into the distance, thinking about what he could remember from the encounter. It was harder now the more time had passed but he could still see most of it clearly. He could see the girls soft, round features- her face, her eyes, her long hair that hung like a dark sheet around her head.


    “I supposed we could go back to the library for the rest of the driev. I’m sure there are public records we could check.” Mez offered. She had mostly expected LoVelly to want to go back to the inn and possibly lie down so she was pretty surprised when he nodded enthusiastically agreeing.


    This was how they found themselves walking back up the hill to the enormous building on the top of it. They had stopped at a little deli on their way that LoVelly had once again followed his nose to. Mezalie noted that it was carzetta, a meat and gravy dish over bread, that he was drawn to. Similar to the provotto.


    Instead of in the library floor however they waited patiently in line for a teller in the reference records section. When they tried to explain to the teller what they were looking for, and what they had to work with, Mezalie couldn’t help but feel the irritation that rolled off them. To be fair to them they really didn’t have anything else to offer but she understood where their irritation came from.


    They walked away with a handful of pages being stuffed in their direction with various results pertaining to their very broad, very unspecific request. Mezalie was shuffling through the pages, trying to figure out where to even begin, as they wandered back up to the library floor. There they were able to find a table to spread out their clues to analyze.


    “This is a lot of paper.” LoVelly noted,


    “You don’t say.”


    “Now I feel bad for suggesting it. I can’t uh…help.”


    “You took a solid thump on the head in order to get us a lead. It’s okay. I can do this part.” She assured him. She started shuffling through the pages and organizing them into piles of ‘people’ and ‘places’, as best she could at least. They were quiet as the dib ticked into a lof, LoVelly had his chin in his hand, elbow propped on the table and his eyes nearly drooped closed.


    “I think you’re probably Trezhen.” Mezalie said sometime later, almost offhandedly. LoVelly blinked his eyes distantly before turning to her.


    “Wha-?” A yawn cut him off. Mez looked up from her pile back at him.


    “Oh. Your botanical lineage. I think you’re probably Trezhen.”


    “Why’s ‘at?” He asked sleepily. She paused her work, looking at him with a grin on her face and a huff of a laugh on her lips.


    “You are always so sleepy.” She teased him. “How are you always so sleepy?”


    “Hey. Hey. I’ve had a lot of head trauma lately.” he defended.


    “Yeah. So you probably should be staying awake if anything.” She told him. He rolled his sleepy eyes at her.


    “Why Trezhen?” he asked again. She looked back down at the papers before her, away from him, looking bored.


    “Because, you seem to be craving salts and certain proteins. All my Trezhen friends have had the same reactions in the cold.” His eyebrows knit together in the middle as he considered this news. He hadn’t noticed what he’d been drawn to, just that it smelled good.


    “Huh. I guess that’s true.” he finally admitted.


    “Okay.” Mez said with finality. “I think I’ve got this organized. Let’s go over what we’ve got and see what we think we should look into.” She scooped up one pile of papers. “I’ll read them to you so stay awake. I’ve got this pile that I think are good leads,” she used one hand to point to another pile she’d placed further up the table from herself, “and those I think are less likely.” She took a deep breath and started summarizing what she thought were the best leads for them to look into.


    By the time they’d finished going through the majority of it LoVelly felt was starting to feel like the name Datsa wasn’t even real anymore. It sounded fake. It was well into the late-driev and Mez could tell that LoVelly was barely hanging in there. She took pity on him and they wrapped it up, shuffling their papers into some semblance of order and folding them on themselves. They shuffled down the stairs together and out into what had turned into a rather cold driev as it wore on.


    When they were huddled next to each other on the street car back through the city Mezalie noticed that the warmth had returned to LoVelly’s skin and it felt hot against her own. She was worried that her own cold body would leach the heat from him and she tried to shift the other way in her seat but he followed her anyway. She didn’t mind it if he didn’t.


    When they stumbled into their room finally LoVelly went straight to the bed, falling face first, sideways across the whole thing, and released a groan. Mezalie laughed at him quietly as she walked over and placed all their papers on the desk.


    “Yeah. Hyotic’s will do that to you.” She sympathized, she did, but it was funny when it was someone else. She got another groan in reply.


    “What was that?” She came and sat down at the foot of the bed. LoVelly did not get up or move but he did turn his head to the side so she could hear him. He was facing away from her though so she couldn’t see his face.


    “What are you gonna do?” he asked. When she didn’t immediately answer he clarified, “While I’m sleeping. You said you don’t sleep now.”


    Mezalie considered this. What was she going to do? She felt like she knew the answer but she also hated the idea of saying it, of telling LoVelly she was already planning it. But she felt the beginnings of the hunger, all consuming, starting to creep in. It was dull just then, but still she could feel it. It would grow, she knew. It seemed like the right thing to do to stay ahead of it…


    Was it the right thing though? Eating fae was going to have consequences one way or another. She’d heard all the stories growing up, gathered around an Anana as she told them all a folktale they’d heard before.


    “I’m going to try to eat.” she said finally, quietly and without any inflection. She resumed removing her boots for something to keep her hands busy. He didn’t reply right away but eventually LoVelly rolled over to face her.


    “Do you want me to come with you?” He asked sincerely. She dropped one boot to the floor.


    “No. That’s okay. You’re tired and it’s uh…I don’t know if I want you to see me like that.” She said slowly.


    “What if someone else sees you though? What if you need help?” He asked and she could hear the sleep in the scratchiness of his voice but he was so earnest in his concern.


    “I will be careful. I promise. I don’t think I’ll even be gone that long. But I’ll wait until it’s fully dark and hopefully nobody will see me but still I’ll be really careful.” she insisted. He seemed like he wanted to argue further but finally he sighed and rolled back over.


    “Okay…you promised.” He let out another huge yawn. She reached over to LoVelly to shake him lightly.


    “Take your boots off before you pass out.” She chastised. “And tomorrow we need to check out those leads so I’ll be back before you even know I’m gone.” LoVelly just grumbled as he kicked off his shoes and wriggled under the blankets on the bed, dislodging her from her place at the end.


    She was being honest. She didn''t plan to be gone long once the moon went down and it got properly dark again. She would just find some kind of fae and then she would come right back. She had some experience now so it should go much smoother this time.