[Sig – 13 years]

I can't believe we lost track of time like that. It's the first time we've done that this winter, but I know there will be a lot more of it. Us doing that freaked out Mr. Richardson the first few times it happened last year, since Sam was always supposed to call him when he got home, but he got used to us doing that. Mr. Michaels and Aunt Rachel were probably both warned about it from Mr. Thompson and Mr. Richardson.

Well, Mr. Michaels had a few of them towards the enter of winter last year, since Isaac did join us in February. He probably got reminded about it, while Aunt Rachel was definitely warned it happens. We're extremely active boys with a lot of energy to burn and a love of playing in the snow.

It's natural for us to get distracted and horse around for awhile. The dads understand that.

But Xander… he's probably feeling like we abandoned him, then went home. He didn't respond to my messages even though the app says he read them, so he's probably really upset. What can I do to make it up to him when we see each other tomorrow? At least, I'm hoping he still picks me up for the fitness session tomorrow. Today really was an accident but Xander… he has feelings of abandonment. And a paranoia that we'll stop being his friends because of stupid stuff that isn't true and wouldn't matter even if it were.

"Sig," Jake says, and I look over at him for a moment before making sure to keep my bike going relatively straight. "I can smell Xander. He's still at your house."

By that, he means that – if honest – he's smelling Xander's shampoo and conditioner, since Xander's mage scent can't be smelled from more than an inch or so away. He has no other scent, so it's stuff like his shampoo/conditioner/body wash, laundry detergent, or whatever that Jake would smell.

But there's no way Xander's not still there. He would've gone over to hang out, learned we weren't there, then left. Even if he waited, we're way past when he normally goes home, so he definitely would have.

"Yeah, right," I look down at my front wheel. "That's probably just his lingering-"

"No," Jake says. "Seriously. I can hear his breathing in the basement."

"That's a break from his routine," I say. "Why would he still be around? Why would he have even stayed?"

"It's Xander," Jake says. "Who knows what goes through his head?"

"Let's go straight to the basement after we put our bikes away," I say. "I wanna apologize for losing track of time."

We hadn't forgotten about him, we just forgot about paying attention to the time. I hope he understands that and isn't too mad.

Upon entering the basement, I stop and stare. Xander's just chowing down on pizza and various sides, a glass of lemonade sitting on the coffee table in front of him. Also a whole box of beef pizza which has "XANDER" written on the sides of the box in black marker.

He's in his wolfkin form, and the food is floating to his mouth as he works on something magitech, his tail swishing slightly as he does.

"Xander?" I ask, and he looks at me. "Um… sorry. We didn't forget about you, I promise. We just lost track of time and didn't realize how late it'd gotten! Two hours felt like twenty minutes!"

He continues chewing his food while staring at me, and that only makes me more nervous. I know he's just finishing his bite before speaking, but his expression is hard to read right now.

"Dad says that 'time flies when you're having fun'," Xander says. "It's not a literal flying, though. It just means that it feels like a lot less than it really is."

"So you're not upset that we didn't make it to the hangout?"

"I am," he says. "We were supposed to hang out here at four. It's almost six. You're very late, and you didn't let the person you were going to hang out with know that you were going to be. None of you did."

A slice of pizza floats up to his mouth and he takes a bite before it floats back down, and he continues staring at us as he chews. We all just kind of awkwardly wait for him to finish his bite.

"Today has not been a good day."

I guess Ms. Johnson doing her surprise visit already put him in a stressed mood, and us losing track of time has only made it worse. His schedule's been completely disrupted for today and I'm part of the reason.

"Sorry…"

I really need to figure out how to make it up to him.

"Is that Turtle I'm hearing?" Jake asks. "I can hear a dog, and Mr. Fuller. Smells like Turtle."

"Yeah," Xander answers, and his slice of pizza floats up to his mouth again as he returns to focusing on working on whatever it is he's working on.

We stand here awkwardly for a few moments, before deciding to head upstairs and get dinner.

"Hi, Turtle!" I charge towards the dog and try to tackle him, but he moves out of the way. "Huh? Oh! You wanna play!"

I keep trying to grab him so I can ruffle his ears/fur, but he keeps avoiding me. It's odd, though. He's not jumping around and wagging his tail while occasionally barking like he usually does when we play like this.

"Don't wanna do this?" I ask. "Where's your rope? Wanna play Tug-O-War?"

Turtle lies back down, curled up facing the other direction from me.

"You tired?" I ask.

"Huh," Mr. Fuller says. "When Xander told him not to play with you when you got back, I didn't think Turtle could actually understand him."

"Xander did what?" I ask. "He told Turtle not to play with me?"

He really is upset, if he did that.

"With any of you," Aunt Rachel says. "Turtle gave him a small woof, but we just thought he was reacting to the words, not the meaning. Did he actually understand Xander?"

"Xander can talk to animals," I say. "Even if he's speaking plain Zrebzialan, they seem to understand him pretty well."

And he used it with Turtle because he's mad at me.

"Aww…"

"Come on," Connor pokes me on the arm. "Let's get dinner and head back downstairs."

We do that, though Xander doesn't talk with us much. This is going to be one of those hangouts where he's just hanging out with us, even if not participating. The others start playing the evil snowmen game, but I don't feel like playing it, so I mostly sit close to Xander but not too close and text with Tate and Carter in a group chat for just the three of us.

Carter wants to schedule another collab video between us, and Tate is his camera guy. Even now that he has a streamer orb, Tate's the one who controls it for him. That actually seems like a good idea. The magi-artificial intelligence within them works pretty well, but it's still good to have someone monitor it or change things. It doesn't know everything, after all.

Having someone who knows what you're wanting is better than an AI assuming things, even if the AI is essentially another person. It might be right most of the time, but not necessarily all of them.

In the past, Connor seemed to enjoy being the one with a camera. He has his own, after all. Maybe I could ask him to keep an eye on the orb and adjust things as needed? Not for the athletic ones done at Xander's place, but for videos I record elsewhere. Even things as simple as the adjustments I made during the stream earlier are things I could ask him to do instead.

That way, I don't need to bother with it while I'm streaming or making a video, I can just ask him to. Then I won't have to worry about navigating the menus and dealing with that either on stream or editing it out for videos.

Well, the AI would probably start when it hears me telling Connor what to do, but Connor would probably be able to understand me better. He knows me as a person, not as a magical mind.

Us talking about this eventually leads to me mentioning that I upset Xander and don't know how to make it up to him. Just making him feel a little bit better than he is right now would be nice. Even if Tate and Carter are a year older than me, they seem to know a lot more about how to handle things like upsetting others. Probably from having that extra year of experience. Tate might also know more because of his empathy.

I'm not sure how that works.

[Carter]: Offer him a hug.

[Seb]: Xander doesn't like physical contact. Even with me, his mood has to be right for it. And it's DEFINITELY not right.

[Carter]: I'll give you a gallon of Tate's special barbecue sauce if he rejects a hug.

I snort a little. There's no way Xander is going to accept a hug right now, not with how upset he is with me. But it's basically a free gallon of the most amazing barbecue sauce I've tasted, so I look at Xander, who's still focused on working on his component.

We've all gotten seconds for dinner, and I think Xander is on his thirds, but he's still focused on working on the component in silence. The expression he's making is still hard to read, but it's become obvious it's just him being upset.

I do want to hug him, I've wanted to hug him since I got back, but he's definitely going to reject it. That's why I haven't offered.

"Hey, Xander" I ask, and he barely turns his head to look over. "Can I give you a hug?"

He's quiet for a few moments, then gives me a small nod.

I'm about to ask if he's serious, but manage to stop before any sound comes out. Asking might make him no longer be comfortable.

How is he okay with a hug right now? Especially since I'm still shirtless, too?

But that's not what's important. I close the chat, turn off my phone screen, and set it down. Then, I scoot beside Xander and wrap an arm across his back (not his shoulders, as I've learned not to do that). A slight hug is probably better than a full one.

Upon me doing this, Xander leans in against me. He even scoots closer to me, so that we're nice and snug and… oh. Snuggles. So he's okay with snuggles even though he's upset with me? I don't understand this at all, but it's nice.

"Whatcha working on?" I ask after a few minutes of us snuggling.

"A crucial component for my magic voice-to-regular transmitter," he answers.

"A what now?" I ask as Jake looks over.

"Magic voices and languages can't be captured by regular devices," Xander explains. "Not properly, any way. I'm developing a system which can do that. It'll allow phones to capture magical voices and languages in full and transmit them to other devices. Also a device which allows for playing magic voices and languages the same as regular ones do for regular voices and devices. That's mostly done.

"But this is for a similar system," he tells me. "It'll allow for someone who speaks in a magic language or with magic to communicate through the devices to normal people. So if Jake were to go on a video call with Connor, and Jake has the new phone and Connor has a regular one, and Jake were to speak in his real voice with his real language, Connor would hear it. But it'd be altered slightly, so that it comes out in a way Connor can actually hear."

"That'll be insanely useful," Jake says. "You're making that for the magic people of the world?"

"Yeah," Xander answers. "I'm also working on one for telepathy. There's a sort-of version of it out already, as it turns out, but I'm trying to improve it. Grandpa Blaze uses it, but he has complaints and I'd rather he be happy when he's talking with me through his phone than frustrated. Being frustrated at your phone when using it isn't good. It's worse when you're telepathic."

At a guess, that's because their emotions might get relayed as well, at least to some degree.

"As for the phones," he says. "The goal is to have all versions of this still have their voice when transferring it, much like how regular phones do. And to be able to transmit all forms of standard magical talking."

"That's neat," I say.

"I do my best."

Xander accepted a compliment so easily? Since when does he-oh. He took that as literal "neat", as in the markings and cuts and stuff.

"That, too," I chuckle a little. "But I meant 'neat' as in 'awesome'."

"Oh," his voice is a little bit quieter and when I glance at his cheeks, they've turned a little pink. "T-thanks. By the way, I gave your aunt some stuff while I was waiting for y'all to arrive. Massage balls."

"Massage balls?"

"They're scheduled to be released for sale next week," he tells me. "I originally made them because of Greyson, but then thought about you going to the spa. The balls give massages, too. That way, you don't need to have someone touching you lots, especially a stranger, to get a massage. And I get free samples of a lot of the products I make, and that included multiple kits for the massage balls. They come with the balls, a few bottles of different oils, and directions. I gave Ms. Rachel two – one for her and one for you."

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Why does this surprise me?

"Oh," I say. "Thanks. We'll probably still go to the spa, though. They offer a lot more than just massages. You made them for Greyson?"

"He likes back massages," Xander tells me. "But like me, he doesn't like his shoulders being touched, especially not from behind. And since it involves touching, it has to be when he's in a good enough mood for it, and someone he's comfortable enough with. That really restricts when he can get them. But now that he has the ball, he doesn't have those issues."

Xander really is a boy who makes things not for sale, but because of his own interests or friends or family.

"Greyson was using what I consider my final version of it," Xander tells me. "When Grandpa Adrian visited the workshop to drop off an order on Sunday. Grandpa Adrian saw it and asked me a few questions, then suggested we could sell it, too. Greyson's a clear case of someone who would ordinarily not be able to get a proper massage but would enjoy it.

"And even if someone buys it," he continues. "They might still go to a masseuse as well, only using the orbs for when they're feeling sick or the weather's bad or something. It'd be for a more in-between sessions thing for some people. But mostly, it'd help people like Greyson, who wants massages but can't handle a hands-on session. And… yeah, that makes sense. I told Grandpa Adrian that that was kind of the whole purpose of it… but I was only thinking about Greyson when I started working on it."

The day Xander starts on a project with the purpose being to make something for sale is the day the world ends. Sure, he technically did that with the puzzle spheres, but he was already making them for friends even before then. Those were just him deciding that since he knew how to make them and that others seemed to like the ones he was making for friends, he could make them for sale, so that he could earn money and buy things on his own.

Their origins came from making them for a friend. The phone system is apparently for Grandpa Blaze, if I'm interpreting him correctly.

Xander doesn't say anything else, so I return to watching him as our other friends return to playing the game. They'd all stopped to look and listen while he spoke.

"Sig?" Xander asks as he turns over the piece he's working on.

It just looks like a rounded, triangular piece of metal about 0.25" thick and roughly 1.5" across, equilateral. There's no way this is going into the final version for a phone, so it must be for another device. Or this is just him fiddling with enchantments for it and the triangle itself doesn't matter. The final enchantment will probably be shrunk down, too.

"Yeah?" I respond.

"Your aunt just got off the phone with my dad," he tells me. "It seems she got an email from an enchanting professor and she mentioned it in the group chat between her and the dads. And then Dad used his company to look into it."

Xander and his insane hearing, though Jake probably also heard the phone call. Unlike Xander, Jake was probably going to let Aunt Rachel tell me what it is, but my curiosity is piqued so I want to know more.

"An enchanting professor?" I ask. "Why?"

"He wanted to ask about doing a collab with you," Xander tells me. "I dunno the rest, but I guess it has to do with those enchantments I'm sensing outside? They're fitting, sticky, and durability enchantments, but I can't tell what they're on."

I didn't bring the stuff in from outside, I was too focused on trying to apologize to Xander. And he can apparently tell what they are through a solid wall.

"The servers for Duty of Loyalty were down," I tell him. "So I went to Nine Springs and made bottle rockets, but using my air magic to fill them up! Also looked up enchantments for the stoppers to prevent them from coming out as easily, and durability enchantments for the bottles, so that they won't break. Well, some did break, but I'm tough enough I was fine! And Mrs. Meyers, from school, turned out to be the phoenix! She's an art teacher and she has the afternoons off on Tuesdays, and came out to scold me for not decorating them like I usually do."

What would an enchantments professor want with me, though?

"I'm gonna go see what that's about!" I tell him. "Oh! Is it okay if I play with Turtle now?"

Xander thinks for a few moments, then sighs.

"Yeah," he says. "Lemme tell him it's okay. Oh. But you'll want to get pants and a hoodie on. Going outside in just shorts'll make you really cold, especially since it's snowing again. A light snowfall, but it's still snowing. And the warming enchantment wore off a little bit ago. How'd you get that? It wasn't your own magic."

"Big, fluffy dog!" I tell him. "I snapped a picture!"

I show him the picture I took.

"Oh," he says. "Greyson saw him in the summer, but he didn't have the box in the picture Greyson sent me. His owners put him out there?"

"He's a transcendent person!" I inform him. "Did that about seventy years ago, I think? He's actually a wolf, and he and his wife come from a species which can do slight changes to their forms. That's what led to them leaving their bestial natures behind. He does this for a little extra money, though he says it embarrasses his son, Tobes, who can easily switch between wolf and human form, while he and his wife require more effort and mana."

"Tobes?" Xander asks. "Oh. That's a nickname, not his real name. You probably shouldn't use it without asking him first."

"Are you sure?" I ask.

"Yeah," Xander answers. "But I dunno if he's okay with me telling you who he is. So he put a warming enchantment on you? Is that what 'warmth' is on the list?"

"Yup!" I answer. "But I think he's giving that one's duration based on how much he likes you. So you know about a family of magic, shapeshifting wolves in the area?"

Xander gives me his "well, duh" look.

"I know about a top-secret research facility near the North Pole," he tells me. "And another in Australia. Knowing about magic shapeshifting wolves who live near me is a surprise to you?"

"There are what nows?" Connor asks.

"Isn't Australia uninhabited?" Isaac asks. "Like, ridiculously filled with demons, not to mention monsters? It was too full of them by the time people start migrating that far south that no one could inhabit it. They'd probably have to be mages at least as strong as Cyrus to handle it."

"Higher," Jake says. "That's really far south, so the beasts are insanely strong from the magic levels. Like, high hundred thousands, low millions. How could they have a secret research facility there? They wouldn't be able to get there! Not unless they're people like noble dragons."

"They use a teleportation pad to get in and out," Xander says. "It costs a lot of mana, but there's an abundant supply of it there. And Grandpa Adrian is the one who put in the wards, so no beasts are getting through. Well, he did update them recently, but he didn't tell me that. I dunno how they're researching, though."

Something tells me he didn't tell you about the research facility in the first place.

"How do you even know about it?" Sam asks the question that's probably on all of our minds.

"Dunno," Xander shrugs. "They're trying to research a way to stop the Demon Rifts, or seal them, or something. Grandpa Adrian says they asked him after finding out that sealing the world as a whole is a bad idea if their research is bad. It ain't. See, Demon Rifts are different from regular Rifts, and blocking those won't cause issues on Earth. It'll just solve one that has a whole bunch of smaller ones related to it. Grandpa Adrian could just do it himself, but he'd rather let society develop things on its own. It's better for long-term progress if he does that."

There's some leniency on that, I think, because he's letting Xander's stuff out into the world. But maybe Xander's stuff isn't really too far ahead that it's an issue for the progress of others?

Or he's designed stuff that's been banned from being mentioned publicly at all from how advanced it is and we have no idea.

"Ah," Sam says.

"Well," I say. "I'm gonna go ask Aunt Rachel what's up with the professor!"

I get up as Xander puts his piece away, and the two of us head upstairs. The moment we do, Turtle trots over to Xander and puts his head up for rubs.

"Hey, Sig," Aunt Rachel says. "Perfect timing. I just got off of the phone with Trey a few minutes ago-"

"About an enchanting professor at a university," I say. "Xander and Jake heard. But they don't know everything, just that he wanted to do a stream with me?"

"Hi, Turtle," Xander pets the dog. "You can play with Sig now."

"Woof!"

"Yeah," Aunt Rachel says. "I didn't ask Trey to look into him, I was just asking the others for advice. He's a professor of magic engineering at Dragon Falls Community College, and one of his students mentioned your stream to him. After looking at parts of it, he wanted to do a collab with you to do an even better rocket, including an improvement to the burst at the end.

"I was asking them what they thought I should do," Aunt Rachel says. "Since I haven't met the man before, and this is new, I wasn't sure what. He said he's available Tuesdays for it, as he doesn't have any lessons on those days. I wasn't expecting Trey to look into him, but he said the professor is legitimate."

Most people in Kenzibri attend a two-year college before university, and Dragon Falls Community College is very reputable with excellent professors. It's also free for locals, despite that. A lot of alumni donate once they settle into careers, regardless of what it is or how much or little they're able and willing to.

It probably has to be good, considering the high population of wealthy families here. But it's definitely reputable. And one of its own magic-focused professors wants to do a collaboration with me.

"And?" I ask. "What did they say? What do you say?"

"They said they aren't entirely sure what to do in this case," she tells me. "But to not allow it to be a solo thing. You'd need to have someone suitable there, just in case of an issue. And Trey let me know he could pull some strings."

In other words, the others are saying it's okay, as long as someone is there to make sure he doesn't try to do anything to me. And Mr. Caldwell is offering to use his connections to make sure that person is strong enough to deal with the professor. A non-mage security company probably ordinarily wouldn't have connections which could handle a mage professor, but Mr. Caldwell is friends with the Gatewoods. He definitely has connections.

"I think it'd be cool to do it with a professor!" I say, then look at Xander. "Not as cool as if you helped me, but I kind of want this to be a regular person thing. Any rocket you make would outdo any we could, and I wanna play around and figure things out on my own. Do lots of tests and experiments. It's how I'll find it fun."

Asking Xander for help would feel like cheating. I hope he understands this.

"Okay," Xander says.

"You're not mad for me not including you?" I ask.

"I want to be included," he says. "But it's your thing. And if I participate, you wouldn't get to have as much fun. And people would just say I did all the work for your thing, because some people are fucking stupid or just wanna be jackasses. But I do wanna do bottle rockets with you. I watched part of the clip and it looked kind of fun. What about after your stream with the professor? Can we do them then?"

"Sure!" I say. "We'll have to figure out when to do that, then! And I'll need to figure out when I'm doing the stream with the professor, if it has to be a Tuesday. But that can come later. Since I can play with Turtle again, I wanna do that! Mr. Fuller? Can I take Turtle out back?"

"Sure," Mr. Fuller answers.

"Make sure you change into appropriate attire for that," Aunt Rachel says. "I'm sure that warming spell is over."

"Faded a little bit ago," I nod, then look at Turtle. "Alright! Gimme a minute to get my stuff on, then we'll go outside and have fun!"

"Woof!"

[Xander – 13 years]

If the pumpkin was supposed to eat a turtle, then how come the potato chips are tap-dancing on a moose's antlers? Also, where did the rest of the moose go? It was here the last time I was looking over there.

"Distracted."

I turn and face Dream Lord, which is the approximate translation of his name into a human tongue. Or maybe it's "Dream King", but that doesn't sound as right in terms of how it flows.

He likes to watch me work on the puzzle and while it's a little unnerving, I know he's not going to hurt me. He's just curious about how I reason through what to do for it. When he does that, he uses his ball form and matches its extra parts to my form.

Since I'm in this special place in my wolfkin form most of the time, that's what he usually matches. If I go flying in my winged human form, then he switches to having wings and flies with me, if he travels with me for that.

He doesn't usually interrupt me while I'm working on the puzzle, though I guess he thought I was a bit distracted, for some reason. If he says I am, then I probably am.

"Am I?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Oh," I look back at the puzzle.

"Wrong?"

"Um… I dunno?" I look at him again. "I was talking with Grandpa Adrian earlier, and…" I look down at my feet. "The topic of my old foster brother came up. And how I know he's still alive. I've gone to his special space a few times, but… it's hard for me to get closer. I want to know if he's really just a victim like me and if he feels guilty and stuff, but what if he's not? What if he's really just evil and the only way for me to know it now is to look at him in his special space? Everything I could find on him in the outside world says he's changed and in therapy and stuff, but what if it's a lie? I can't detect that kind of lie."

"Accompany?"

He's offering to accompany me, in case things go bad.

"Um…"

"Eat."

And if my former foster brother really is just evil, Dream Lord is willing to eat his mind. That would apparently "reset" him. Grandpa Adrian's avatar spell is special and works in a way that works around how minds normally work. A person's mind is the result of their soul being channeled through their brain to function.

Well, it's a lot more complicated than that, but that's the basics of it. Eating someone's mind is technically eating a part of their soul. And that removes all of their memories, the non-inherent parts of their personality, the personality parts caused by their brain's developmental stage, and other stuff. At least, when done properly, by an expert.

That causes them to essentially need to restart as if they were just born, but with a brain at whatever age their body is, since it is affected by the brain's state of development. That's why mental ages are a thing. Someone with the brain of a ten-year-old will be mentally ten, someone with the brain of a thirty-year-old will be mentally thirty.

Dream Lord is probably an expert at eating minds, since he's a sort of mind being, and the one who watches over the space which contains all of these special spaces. Since it's a mental plane, that means he must be really talented with mind magics, though he does have other powers as well. He's only a sort of mind being, since he's also partially made up of spatial and temporal magics.

"Um… okay," I say. "If he really is evil, I'd rather he die. But resetting him might not be that bad, either."

"Where?"

I shift from wolfkin to winged boy. The puzzle will take me a lot longer than the rest of tonight for me to finish, maybe many nights. It's okay to take a break. I'd be doing that soon, anyway. There's a space with a lot of food lined up, waiting for me to start eating.

"This way," I say. "But it's a little far."

"Okay."

Dream Lord shifted to being winged rather than partial-wolf when I did, and we fly together. Neither of us communicate as we fly, and I try to keep down the memories of what my former foster brother did to me. They keep trying to push themselves into my focus, and that's just making me light-headed.

Then, we arrive at my former foster brother's special space. I land and shift back to regular human, and Dream Lord shifts so that his wings are gone. Once I've finished the shift, I look down at myself. There's no way I'm approaching him like this.

Jeans form over my legs, socks and shoes cover my feet, and a green long-sleeved shirt forms over my torso and arms. That's a lot better. Out of sleepwear and into normal wear.

Then, I enter into my former foster brother's special space.

As I do, overwhelming emotions hit me. Anxiety. Fear. Guilt. It's an event about what he did to me. The fear is mixed into it. Fear of… something else. Punishment. But not for what he's doing. For if he doesn't. Mixed into the dream are memories of him being slapped a few times.

"Nights."

I glance at Dream Lord. He seems to have just looked into how my former foster brother spends his nights. Some of his events in this special space are mixtures of his memories from back then, and some nights are worse than others. This is one of the worse nights. Other nights, he has better experiences, but not tonight.

When my foster brother spots me over here, everything changes. The other me fades away, as do his parents. The setting remains and is the home we lived in back then. I don't want to be here at all and it's taking a lot of effort from me to not leave.

But my heart is pounding hard, and I'm struggling to keep my breathing under control.

All emotions in the space which aren't guilt fade away, while the guilt magnifies. It's overwhelming.

"I'm sorry," my former foster brother cries. "I'm so sorry. I'm so very, very sorry, Xander. I didn't want to. I promise. I'm so sorry. I tried telling them to stop, but they hit me. I got scared. If I didn't do it, too, they'd hurt me. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

He's sitting on his legs, looking down as tears stream down his cheeks. There is only honesty in his words, and an absolute guilt he feels over what he did. But why does he seem so small? I don't remember using any magic to make me larger, so it's definitely him who shrank.

"I don't forgive you," I tell him, and he starts crying harder. "But I understand. You were a victim, too. Be a good person from now on, okay? Otherwise, your mind might get eaten."

"I'm trying," he's still crying. "I'm trying to be a good person now. I'm so sorry, Xander. I'm so very, very sorry."

As he continues apologizing, I turn and leave. I don't forgive him, and I doubt I ever will. But he really was a victim, too. They even abused him, up until he joined in on hurting me.

"Eat?" Dream Lord asks.

That's not a request to eat my former foster brother's mind. It's to do what Greyson sometimes does – eat a nightmare. Dream Lord watches over the whole space of special spaces, so he doesn't need to ask permission to do that. But he probably feels like doing so in case I'd rather my former foster brother continue suffering because of what he did.

I think about it for a moment, then give him a slight nod. Nightmares aren't fun, and I don't wish them upon anyone. No matter how much I want them punished. There are other ways for it.

My former foster brother's space sucks in toward Dream Lord, leaving behind a white emptiness for a moment. My former foster brother doesn't seem to have noticed, but I'm sure he will. The ground is shifting to a field of grass and flowers, the sky is clear and sunny. As Dream Lord and I exit the space, a brook begins flowing through the meadow.

Once we're out of my former foster brother's special space, I shift back to my sleepwear and to my winged form. Time to return to where I normally prefer to be. There's a bunch of food waiting for me, and I'll go to sleep once I've eaten my fill.

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