Xeik and Aaya were Mia’s moon. No matter how beautiful the moon looked at her Xeik had become a very important part of her life. Mia sat down on the shelf and looked up at the stars again. She noticed Aaya looked at her chest so Mia grabbed herself and made a face at Aaya. Before long Mia was groping Aaya’s chest and pushing her over so she put her face there. Mia looked up at him and smiled.

This was nice, she liked this. Wrapping her arms around Aaya’s waist Mia closed her eyes. To Mia, Aaya was pretty much perfect and her chest wasn’t so bad. She gave Aaya a squeeze for a hug and turned her head to give a smile.

Ayaa had been caught up in the breast size comparison when Mia surprised her, practically leaping into the poor healer and groping her. This caught Ayaa completely off guard as the two splashed around, Ayaa’s face turning a bright red. Soon, Mia was resting her head on Ayaa’s chest, and the splashing subsided, and ended up with the lycan woman just laying there, seemingly content. Ayaa was still flushed, definitely feeling heated and embarrassed, but pet Mia’s head, just accepting that she was there.

And she couldn’t deny it, it felt nice to have Mia there. Almost comforting. They stayed like this for a time, with Mia resting her head, and Ayaa petting her hair.

“It’s a nice evening,” she said with a smile. “I’m glad you’re doing better, Mia. Soon, you’ll even be able to come out here on your own, and go wandering without the need to have Raine or I tag along all the time. You’ll be truly free to do whatever you want.” There was a hint of sadness in her voice. She had grown accustomed to having Mia around, and the thought of her suddenly being gone was a strange one.

“I’m sure Angela will give you a place to stay while you find your way in the world, though.” She smiled. “But for now…just get well.”

Mia quickly put her arms tightly around Aaya and shook her head at the thought of her leaving Xeik. If the whole world wasn’t like Xeik then why would she want to leave? She was content and safe where she was. Even if there was a whole wide world she wasn’t sure she wanted to experience it without him. He was quickly becoming a whole part of her life even if Raine was better at communicating what she wanted… He took care of her and cared about her welling being.

Pulling herself up the lycanthrope had Aaya under her and gave her a stern nod as Aaya told her to get well. She settled herself onto Aaya again this time laying on Aaya and looking up at the sky by leaning her head back. There was a look of wonder in her eyes.

Once she let out a yawn Aaya helped her out of the hot spring and got her all dried off and settled. She was sad that it was ending so quickly. Getting back into the room it wasn’t long before Aaya became Xeik and he was moving her into her bed. There was a huff from her as he left.

Her hands fumbled at the things around her bed and she started to throw things at him. Pointing at her then the hammock and then to him. She shuffled herself and dragged her body to the edge of her bed and put her arms up to him giving him another huff. She wasn’t quite ready to let go just yet.

Once they got back to Xeik’s room, Ayaa helped Mia get into some more comfortable clothes. After a quick change back into Xeik, the mender tucked Mia into bed. He thought he heard a huff from Mia as he walked away, but he figured it was another yawn and readied himself for bed as well. It wasn’t long before he was crawling into his hammock, and almost immediately he started to doze off. The poor healer had exhausted himself with the day’s activities.

It wasn’t long though before he felt a random object pelt him. Groggily, he looked up as a book hit his face. It hadn’t been thrown hard, but it was enough to startle Xeik, and he groaned, shaking his head. “Mia? What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” He noticed that she was on the edge of the bed, holding her arms out.

“You can’t sleep?” He sighed, crawling out of the hammock and over to her bed. He laid down next to her, pulling her into his chest and slowly stroked her hair. “It can be a lot sometimes. Your mind racing with everything that happened through the day, too tired yet too excited to sleep. When that happens, sometimes it’s best to just close your eyes, and hope that you drift off to sleep when you least….” His voice seemed to trail off as he fell back asleep.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t sleep but it was still hard to get Xeik to understand her. She figured Raine could understand her because the girl was quirky and odd. While she didn’t end up in the hammock Mia did at least get something she wanted as Xeik pulled her onto his chest. She snuggled in and listened to him.

Mia’s mind was a mental maze since everything was always so new to her. The safe places she had were Xeik’s room and Xeik himself. She moved herself once Xeik was good and asleep. Settling Xeik’s head right into her chest so she could pet his hair. She considered this returning the favor.

Wrapping her arms around him she snuggled into him and closed her eyes. Sleep found her soon enough and her dreams were rather vivid. She couldn’t describe what she was seeing but her body was having a reaction since her voice couldn’t. She would jolt and attempt to toss but thanks to Xeik being on her it was just subtle movements and huffs that came from her.

Mia’s grip tightened on him and dug her nails into him at various parts of the nightmare. It was very vivid and she couldn’t remember having anything like that before thanks to the drugs.

Xeik was woken by the sudden feeling of Mia reacting to a nightmare. At first, he wasn’t sure what was happening, having not realized he fell asleep in the bed versus his normal place. Then he realized Mia was twitching and breathing hard, seemingly terrified by what she saw in her dreams. As she started to dig her nails into him, the mender held her tight, whispering that she was okay, that she was safe.

“Mia,” he whispered as he ignored the pain she was causing. “It’s okay, I promise. You’re here. Everything is safe. There’s nothing that can hurt you here…I promise.” He stayed like this for some time, comforting Mia as she pushed through the nightmares, hoping that his voice was reaching her. There was a thought to wake her, but he wondered just how much that would help. “Mia…I’m here for you…” He ran his hands through her hair, gently petting her. It seemed to calm her down eventually, and he smiled.

Rest. You’ll need your strength to live in this world…and though you’re discovering the joys of life and having fun, you also know that there are dark and evil things in this world. Your freedom is just the first step… There was a pang of guilt in his heart as he thought this. She was having so much fun, but soon he would have to pull her away from it and show her the reality of the world. The good and the bad…

“But I can keep you in the dark for a little while longer…for now, I can chase away that darkness…”

Another week passed as her rehabilitation was reaching its end. Mia put her feet on the floor. Today she was with Simone learning how to read and how to write. “Mia, please be careful. Xeik is letting you come here on the terms that we don’t let you get hurt.”

They had been working on stuff for a while and Mia had that determined look on her face. Xeik had been overprotective of her.

‘Mia, don’t strain yourself.’

‘Mia.’

‘Mia.’

She puffed her face and jumped up out the chair before she balanced herself. Looking back she saw the surprised look on Simone’s face. It was very rare for the mother to be surprised like this, but Mia was a strong-willed girl. “Xeik will be excited to see this.”

Xeik.

Mia’s face lit up and she twirled around on her foot like she had seen Aaya do. She lost her balance only once but she jumped up and down at Simone. “Calm down! What do you want?”

Mia started to do a whole bunch of hand signs. Simone was trying to follow along but she ended up sighing and taking a guess with a laugh. “You want to show Xeik?”

Mia gave a nod and was almost in a half jog as Simone took her to the preset portal. “Okay, but remember your lessons at least a little… Don’t kill poor Xeik. You are a lot stronger than he is,” Simone went into full lecture mode but Mia ran past her as soon as the portal was open. Simone looked annoyed as she sighed. “Did I ever act like this towards you?” She directed it towards Lewis as she shut the door.

Mia was in full sprint her bare feet clapping against the floor. It hurt only a little but she was powering through it as she skidded past the workshop and hit the wall. After pulling herself up she ran into the workshop and threw herself onto Xeik’s back. He had been so into what he was doing he hadn’t heard her crash where everyone else was busy looking at her in shock.

She was hugging him and spinning him around. Once she got done hugging him she spun him around and then she did a little twirl once more. She wanted to show him how much better she was.

Xeik had been working on replenishing his tonics and salves, something that he had been neglecting due to his lack of time. With Simone helping teach Mia, this had given him the much needed break from taking care of the lycan woman in order to catch up on this. He wasn’t in any danger, of course, still having more than enough reserves, but he liked being prepared in case an emergency happened.

Of course, since his entire focus was on the salves, he missed when Mia came bounding in, and as she leapt onto his back, the shock and surprise almost caused him to fall over. However, Mia wrapped her arms around him, and started to spin him around. Where she had seen this from, he wasn’t sure, but later he would reflect that Rhenakos may have been involved.

After setting him down finally, she twirled herself around, much like Ayaa did, and Xeik let out a sigh. “You’re really pushing yourself too much, Mia,” he replied in a worried tone. “I’m glad that you can move, but you should still try to take it easy. Stamina is something that’s built up by time.” Sure enough, after all of that, Mia seemed a bit winded, but stubbornly she stayed in front of Xeik.

“All right Mia,” Xeik said as he crossed his arms. “Be honest. You’re about to fall over now, aren’t you.” She shook her head, huffing. “Mia….”

Mia was pretty tired but she didn’t want to have to try and explain that she hit the wall hard. She was rubbing the back of her neck and huffing whenever Xeik said something she found dumb.

“WHOAAAA,” Raine bounced in. “You should hear all the priestesses Xeik.” Raine didn’t even see Mia as she came in and carried a stack of books. “Apparently Mia came through like a herd of elephants and crashed into the wall. There’s even an impact mark where she hi-” Mia had taken half the stack of books to give Raine a stern look.

“I mean I didn’t see or hear a thing about Mia ruining the wall outside,” Raine let out a laugh. After putting the books down Mia facepalmed and she planted herself on a seat.

“He would have found out Mia you can’t be upset at me!”

Mia gave a huff at her and pouted at Xeik.

“I’m sure she just wanted to show you how much better she is! She’s been looking forward to you not worrying so much about her!” At that sentence, Mia was bright red and she took a shoe off one of the priestesses and whipped it at Raine’s head. It nailed the phoenix right in the back of her head and Raine turned around scolding Mia.

Mia held a blank look and huffed at her. The priestess was yelling about how Mia took her shoe. All it got was another blank look from Mia and she pointed at Raine blaming her.

Xeik couldn’t help but smile when Raine explained that Mia was happy, and when the poor lycan turned a bright red, Xeik started to laugh. Raine and Mia’s argument seemed to be getting a bit heated, and Xeik stepped between the two, and he held up his hands. “Calm down both of you…Mia, I’m glad you’re doing better, but you really do need to take it easy. You have plenty of time.” The warmth in his smile never left as he spoke. The healer was genuinely happy to see that she was feeling better.

“But, I think one of the tasks for you to do today or tomorrow is to help fix the wall,” he said, looking over to her. “Angela can fix it with magic, but she tends to rarely use it. Something about it not being good enough unless it’s done by hand.” Xeik looked to Raine. “And I’m tempted to make you supervise so you two can work out this little tiff…”

Despite the whole thing, Xeik was feeling really good about how Mia was acting. She seemed to have a lot more spirit, and now that she was able to move, it would be easier for her to learn about the world on her own terms. She had even started managing to visit the Terrowin’s on her own. This was all just the beginning.