The Dreamfarer

13

"Are you okay?"

Folco was in front of her, his tone demanding and his posture stiff and worried. Maeve nodded, letting out a pent-up breath now that they were alone again.

"I think so. He's just... He..."

"I know," Folco interrupted. "Trust me, I know. I felt as uncomfortable around him as you do when I first came to join the warlocks." He stopped speaking for a moment, and he looked troubled.

"What is it?" she asked. She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed them with her newly-healed palms, suddenly very cold. Folco glanced at her movement and very quickly moved his eyes away again.

"We just need to get started," he replied.

Mae nodded. "When will my first lesson be?" she wondered. She hoped that it would be soon. She wanted to know more, but she also wanted to feel less helpless when surrounded by all of these... creatures. And she wanted Folco by her side as much as possible, but she didn't want him to have to save her every ten minutes.

Folco stared at her for a second, and she saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. She wondered what was running through his mind and was glad that he did not have Kroma's power, so that he could never hear what was going on in hers.

Then the second was over, and Folco blinked once, breaking their eye contact and turning swiftly around as he answered her.

"Now."

                            ☆★          ☆         ★     ☆ ★        ☆        ★        ☆       ★

Folco grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the medic's tent. He held on to her as they wove between all of the other tents, around all of the working warlock adults and all of the playing warlock children. Everybody who caught a single glance of his face did not need to be prodded to step aside; they scattered like ants before him, and Mae wondered just what Folco had done in the past to gain such full respect and admiration - and fear - as this.

Mae must have been tired, because the walk seemed a lot longer than her mind told her it was. Eventually, they seemed almost to have left the camp completely behind, as they broke through the cluster of tents and walked out across an open expanse of snow-coated grass. She shivered again; she had been outside for much too long, and even the medic's tent had only been shielded by that thin fabric. It felt as though winter was residing more in her bones than in the air.

Folco glanced over his shoulder at her, his large green eyes narrowed with concern. He pulled her along faster, and before long, a large tent came into view. It was perfectly draped and seemed to somehow be made of thicker fabric than the others she had seen. It was hard to see, really, because it was solid white; if not for the poles and pegs, the canopy of the tent would have blended in perfectly with the snow. She wondered if that was the point; the tent was close enough to the rest of the camp to get there in a hurry if necessary and to see the majority of the tents within it, but it was far enough that it was explicitly apparent that the resident of it would like to be left alone.

They reached the tent and she realized, now that she was standing in front of it, that it was bigger than she originally thought. The entrance was big enough to admit someone double her height and triple her width. As Folco guided her inside, she saw that the inside was excessively - to a ridiculously unexpected level - spacious and... opulent.

Everything followed the white theme. Folco had a luxurious bed against the back wall of the tent, and though it looked to be queen-sized to Mae, it still didn't fill up the majority of the place. It was covered with a white, downy comforter and an assortment of different-shaped pillows. It looked like a cloud, and she had to fight the urge to leap onto it and see how far into its depths she would sink.