Stars flittered with him as he sunk into a pool of deep blue mud. The sky above him swirled in a fiery pit of orange and…green? The stars circling him dove in and out of the blue mud, scorching his skin as they soared past, sending sparks racing through his body. He watched as the mud engulfed his head and slowly pulled him down to the bottom of the pool. He didn't feel short of breath, although he didn't remember breathing, or having to, and he looked around with wide, brown eyes as a pale hand reached out in front of him from nowhere and clasped him on the forehead. He screamed, but not having to breathe made his struggle fruitless, no sound came out of his gaping mouth.
A smiling face with blue hair a shade lighter than the blue mud appeared from behind the pale hand. The face was just as pale as the hand it owned, and he smiled when he saw that the face was Mia's, his beloved Mia. He reached out to pull her close, but his smile disappeared like water washing away mud when he saw her eyes. They were each a dark pool as deep as the one he had sunk in, and her teeth curled into long fangs protruding from her mouth. He tried to kick her away when a ghostly voice filled his ear.
"Garet."
He recognized the sweet voice as Mia's, but he turned white in the mud when he heard the voice again and didn't see the lips of the monster whose hand was now clenched around his neck, move. He…
…sat up with a thrashing of blankets, hot sweat dripping down his face, running down his nose as he clawed at the blankets and the moist something wrapped around his throat.
"Gods, Garet!"
He scratched at the cloth around his neck and pulled it off. It was long and soaked in cool water, turned warm from his nightmare. Panting, he looked around at the blurry faces of Isaac and Ivan, sitting on stools a little away from the bed he was in. He bunched his eyebrows together in confusion.
"Where…?" He was cut short by a groan of displease and turned his head. Sitting at the other side of his bed sat Mia, her hands held in her lab, a pulsating blue glow dying at her fingertips. She looked at him with a tight mouth and hard eyes before getting up and walking out of the room. He listened to her footsteps before turning back to Isaac and Ivan.
"What…?"
Ivan shook his blond head, "She was trying to help you heal. You broke her concentration by speaking."
He looked around the room: the walls where a light, grainy wood streaked hung over with show quilts and framed pictures, and the floors were strewn with brightly woven rugs. Each little table was decked with a vase of flowers and a candle and there were windows randomly placed on the wall at the head of his bed. He sat up against the fluffy pillows.
A plump woman in a dark green dress and white sash came up the stairs and into his room with a knock. She smiled and placed a tray of steaming bowls of soup and hot bread on the table beside Garet's bed.
"Food for you and your friends, youngling. Rest as long as you like," she smiled some more, her red cheeks balls of roses.
"Who…?"
She patted his arm before turning on her slippers and walking away. Isaac and Ivan both grinned and reached hungrily for their bowls of soup. Garet rubbed his head, bewildered at it all.
Mia came back and sat at his bedside. Nothing about her seemed to have changed, expect she radiated a perfumed smell of herbs. He nodded to her and offered her a bowl of soup and a hunk of bread before taking his own.
He gulped down bread soaked in soup, and licked his lips. "When…?"
Mia slurped from her bowl. "The monkey knocked you out."
"Yeah," Isaac piped up, a crumb of bread and piece of carrot hanging from his mouth, "he got you pretty good, Garet. You were bleedin' bad for awhile until Ivan pulled some herbs from his pouch," he glanced at Ivan and nodded before licking up the food from slipping down his chin.
Ivan reached for the last piece of bread, but Isaac glared at him and slapped his hand away.
"That's mine."
Ivan glared back, "I touched it first."
"Hmmm…." Isaac thought. "No. I did," with a sweep of his hand he snatched up the bread and waved it in front of Ivan's face with a grin before bring it to his mouth and licking the crust. "My germs."
Ivan nodded a bit and turned his head, sipping at his soup again. With a smirk of triumph, Isaac put the bread in his mouth and…
Ivan turned his head and spat a mouthful of soup right into Isaac's face, contaminating the bread and watching as soup dripped down the bread-stealer's face. With a grin to match all evil, Ivan jumped up and ran out the room screaming, "My germs!"
With a growl, Isaac let his soup bowl clash to the ground and took off chasing the perpetrator of his bread.
Garet rubbed his head, in confusion and felt a small lump. He winced and sunk back into his pillows. "Why…?"
Mia set her bowl down and waved his sentence short. "They're both idiots." She looked down and saw his bowl, yet untouched. "You should eat," she said, "we're not going to stay here to much longer. Eat as much as you can… if that's possible, considering how much you already consume." She smiled shyly at him.
He ran his fingers over the range of lumps on his head, wincing as his rough hands touched them. Mia rolled her eyes and picked up his bowl.
"Here," she reached out the bowl to his lips and pressed the rim against his mouth, forcing him to open. He frozen, feeling his ears and cheeks get hot and tingly, but letting the soup slide down his throat and fill his stomach. Slowly, he brought his hand down from scratching his head and covered Mia's, holding the bowl for him.
She turned a shade of pink and drew her hand away. Garet hadn't yet gotten a firm hold on the bowl and it fell to the bed, covering the blankets in soggy vegetables and broth. Mia gasped and immediately stood, whipping the wet cloth from the bedside table and started to try to soak in the soup before it seeped through the covers.
"Gods! I'm sorry, Garet!" He noticed she was turning redder by the moment, and he smiled. "I'm so… I'm so clumsy sometimes."
He reached over and caught her wrist. Her hand dropped the cloth, now wet with spilt soup. She shut her gaping mouth.
"Mia," he started, "I want to tell you…"
Ivan marched back into the room, munching on a piece of bread and looking quite smug with himself. Isaac stumbled in behind him, his arms folded across his chest, mumbling.
"Tattle butt…"
Ivan grinned and sat back down on his stool, chewing on the bread and smacking his mouth with each chew, "Yum yum! This is soooooo good, Isaac. Wow, you sure are missing out on a whooooole lot! Yum, and it's still hot too!" He bit into the crust and smiled at Isaac.
"Tattle but…" Isaac repeated.
Neither of them seemed to notice Garet holding Mia's wrist, the bed, or the floor for that matter, drenched in soup, and the increasingly redness of both of them as they watched their friends bicker back and forth.
Mia pulled her wrist from Garet's loosened grip and turned away.
"I'll go get a mop…"