Muffled sounds floated in and out of my consciousness as I wrestled my way back to reality. Two voices—casual, unbothered—drifted through the haze.
For a second, I wondered if I was dreaming. Because honestly, who chatted like it was a lazy Sunday picnic after a catastrophic magic event?
I pried my eyes open, groaning under my breath. The world was blurry at first, shapes bleeding into each other. Slowly, outlines sharpened: two figures sitting by a lake, their silhouettes haloed by the morning mist.
One of them had a fishing rod in hand; the other had jammed his into the ground and was busy annihilating what sounded like a family-size bag of chips.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
"I'm telling you," grumbled the burly one, voice low and gruff, like someone who had fought bears and won. "This guy's hopeless. Faints every time he touches a fragment. Pathetic."
