It takes me a moment to work that out, but then I see what he means. If people moved here who just want freedom from consequences for bad behavior, that means they make it less safe for people who need sanctuary from bad behavior and unfair consequences.
But I don’t have a chance to ask anything more apt, because then I start to notice people.
Somehow, this is the bigger shock, which is a little ridiculous. I obviously knew people still existed.
But I haven’t been around them unsupervised... really ever.
I shift closer to Zan. Not that he’s my supervisor, but he’s... a filter, in a way. A barrier through which I can begin to acclimate.
I will have to be careful not to depend on him too much, to make him feel like he can’t simply pick me up in his claws and drop me somewhere and expect me to be okay.
I don’t want to trap him with me.
But for my very first day... maybe I can lean on him, just this once.
I’ll just need to make sure I learn enough so that it doesn’t become a habit.
So I subtly twist my hands as I spin, trying to make it seem casual, like I am just taking in my surroundings, which is true.
But it’s also a kata.
Mild; just improving focus. No one but a sage—a trained sage, anyway—would even notice the magic, especially with the disguise keeping it from being visible.
But Zan notices.
He notices a lot, I’m realizing.
I wonder if, like me, it’s because he’s had to learn to read a situation instantly for self-protection.
Or maybe it’s simply because he’s interested in everything. He’s had time to be, in five hundred years, hasn’t he? Though not to pursue those interests openly, and that, too, I can unfortunately relate to.
I also wonder for a moment if he’s going to scold me like my tutors would have for acting without prior approval, but he doesn’t, just continues walking—and begins telling me where we’re going.
Treating me like a person, with my own expertise, as a matter of course.
I didn’t expect that to matter quite so much, but it does.
Crystal Hollow has expanded considerably, and although it’s the only big town on Sanctuary Isle, there are even some farms around the mountain now too. Most food still comes from the Kameyan mainland—the climate here doesn’t support everything, especially without magical reinforcement—but some staples like milk and eggs are predominantly local.
By the time we reach what Zan calls “downtown,” I’m confident that I know the path we’ve taken from the mountain and can get there again by myself.
But there are... alotmore people. I freeze like my entire system has been shocked.
I thought I was acclimating, but this is sensory overload—it’s abruptly much louder, and there are more scents, and there’s so much movement—
Zan steps in front of me, blocking my view. I blink up at him in something like a daze.
He leans toward me, and my gaze fastens on him, desperate for an anchor.
Zan brings his mouth next to my ear, his breath ghosting over my skin, which drags me into full awareness of the moment, of him and his presence and nothing else.
“Can you do a kata to muffle the sound?” he says in a low voice.
I blink rapidly.
That’s right. We’re pretending to be a couple.
Pretending.
