His eyes found her floating near the window, a small figure no taller than a foot, hovering in the air without wings. It took a moment for the pounding in his chest to slow. She hadn't attacked. She hadn't vanished. She just floated, watching.
She looked human but clearly wasn't. White hair, blue eyes, wearing a simple black dress.
The way she stayed suspended there, completely still, made it obvious she didn't belong to any world he knew.
"Did I scare you? Sorry, that was not my intention."
When Vencian saw her, something settled into place. The feeling of being watched, the fear of the unknown that had started to eat him alive—he realized he had been waiting for this moment without understanding why.
"No," he said, pushing himself upward from the ground. His voice was steadier than he'd expected. "I think I've been expecting you."
Her expression brightened slightly. "Oh? That's... interesting."
"Who are you?" He studied her floating form. "Or rather, what are you?"
The cheerful look faded from her face. "I wish I could give you a clear answer, but..." She trailed off, looking genuinely troubled. "It's complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"Well, I exist. I can think, I can speak to you. But everything before feels like fragments of a dream." She gestured helplessly with tiny hands. "Like trying to remember something you dreamed about weeks ago."
"But you know things," Vencian pressed. "Otherwise why come to me."
"Some things, yes. Others..." She shook her head. "It's like having a book with half the pages torn out. I know your name isn't really Vencian, for instance."
Vencian felt a flicker of curiosity. He'd been careful, so careful. No one should know that.
"What did you just say?"
"Your name," she said, tilting her head with an innocent expression that didn't match the bombshell she'd just dropped. "It's not Vencian, is it? That's just the body you're wearing."
The room seemed to shrink around him. All his careful planning, his cautious words, his studied mannerisms might have been for nothing.
"How could you possibly—"
"I know lots of things I shouldn't know," she interrupted gently. "Like how your real name is Luke. How you're terrified someone will discover you're not who you pretend to be. How you lie awake wondering if you're going insane."
Each word confirmed what he'd been wondering about since arriving in this world. Vencian found himself leaning back against the wall, studying her with growing interest.
"What are you?"
"I told you, it's complicated." Her voice carried a note of sympathy now. She paused, looking almost embarrassed. "I can see your memories, Luke. Not all at once, but they're there when I need them. Your life before this world, your confusion when you first woke up in Vencian's body."
"You can see everything?" The violation felt almost worse than being discovered.
"Not everything, and not constantly. It's more like... when something is relevant, I just know it. I don't go searching through your private thoughts, if that's what you're worried about." Her expression softened. "But I'm not here to expose you. Quite the opposite, actually."
"Then why are you here?"
"I'm not entirely sure." She paused, a distant look crossing her face. "There's a voice in my head. It's been there since I first became aware. It told me to find you, to stay with you."
knock knock
The sound made both of them freeze. Vencian's eyes snapped to the door, then back to the small figure.
"Can others see you?" he whispered.
"Not unless I want them to," she whispered back, then spoke normally. "Answer it. I'll stay hidden."
The young monk, Korik, if he remembered his name correctly, stood there with a food tray. Vencian opened the door wider, letting him enter while his eyes tracked the small figure's position. She had moved to hover near the window, completely still.
Korik set the food on the table and arranged the dishes with practiced efficiency. His eyes never so much as flicked toward where the mysterious being floated. When he finished, he bowed politely.
"Will there be anything else, my lord?"
"No, that's all. Thank you."
After Korik left and the door closed, Vencian turned back to the hovering figure. "So that works."
"I told you it would."
"Do you eat?" he asked, eyeing the food.
"No need. I just... exist."
"How do you survive then? What exactly are you?"
"I wish I had better answers." She drifted closer to the table. "When I first became aware, the voice told me my name. It guided me to you. Beyond that..." She spread her tiny hands helplessly. "I know what I am in the moment, but not what I am in the larger sense. Does that make sense?"
"Not really." Vencian sat down. "Can't you ask this voice for more information?"
"I've tried. It's like shouting into a cave and getting only an echo back." Her frustration was evident. "The voice gives me directions, not explanations."
At this point, Vencian found himself feeling sorry for her rather than annoyed. Here was a being who seemed as lost as he was, thrust into existence without understanding her purpose.
"So we're both stumbling around in the dark," he said.
The wind whistled through the window shutters. The candle flickered, casting shifting shadows on the walls.
"Seems that way." She settled onto the windowsill, her small form casting no shadow in the candlelight.
"This voice that tells you to stay with me—does it mean Vencian or Luke?"
"It doesn't use names. It just says 'him' or 'you.' But I think it means you, Luke. Not the body you're in."
So it knows I'm not from here. That voice has to be whatever brought me to this world.
"Do you know what happened to the real Vencian? Did that ritual he performed create you?"
"I don't think so. I woke up around the same time you arrived, but I existed before that. Just... sleeping, I guess." She paused, thinking. "I probably wouldn't have woken up at all if you hadn't come here."
Vencian paused, realizing he'd been thinking of her as just 'the creature' or 'she' this entire time. "What should I call you? Do you have a name?"
Her face brightened at the question. "The voice told me that when I first became aware. My name is Quenya."
"Quenya," he repeated, testing the name. It felt foreign on his tongue, yet somehow fitting for the mysterious being before him.
A thought struck him as he studied her floating form. The way she appeared, her connection to some guiding voice, the timing of her awakening with his arrival—it reminded him of something he'd read about in Vencian's memories.
"Are you one of those Archeans? The spirits that bond with the Arksprens?"
"I don't think so." She tilted her head, considering. "I know about them from your memories, but they feel... different from what I am."
"Then what's the difference?"
She was quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed. "They're... old. Part of the world's bones, maybe? I'm not sure." She gestured vaguely with one tiny hand. "People bond with them—Arksprens, they're called. Get power from it. Fire, ice, other things. But it changes them too."
"Changes them how?"
"I don't know exactly. Just that they become... less human, I think. More like whatever spirit they're bonded to." She shook her head.
Vencian nodded slowly. That matched what he remembered from Vencian's scattered knowledge. Arksprens were respected and feared in equal measure, wielding abilities that could reshape battlefields but gradually losing pieces of their humanity in the process.
"But you're something else entirely," he said.
Quenya nodded, her voice barely audible. "I think I was made for a different kind of purpose."