“Ach my head hurts…,” The overhead lights are far too bright, everything is far too loud, and I evidently got far too drunk last night. Rubbing my eyes to get the stinging pain out from behind them, I sit up, trying to figure out exactly how last night played out. But between a pounding headache, and the general haziness of drinking that much, it seems like a doomed effort. Groaning, I swing my legs down from my bunk and rise to a sitting position and am immediately punished for doing so as a wave of nausea rolls over me. “Hrk, oh gods above why do I do this to myself.” I groan and lean my head against the wall next to my bunk. It is refreshingly cool, at least.

  As the nausea starts to work its way away, the rest of the noises in the room start to sound like something again. Hushed conversation mingling with the sound of donning arms and armor. “Yal’right up there Marshey?” a familiar tone reaches through my haze and tugs on my foot. Jes, my ever faithful companion, looks up at me from below with raised eyebrows and a smirk. “Look like you’ve been through a couple rounds in the ring with Garrick or Kyla.”

  I ignore them and focus on beginning to call water essentia for an imbuement. Magic has never been my best thing, but I can manage a simple healing imbuement to alleviate this common problem at least. I picture in my mind a flowing river, a turning water wheel, and a cup of water. Imagining lifting that cup, and drinking, I feel water essence filter into my body. My mouth hydrates and the taste of cool water fills the back of my mouth. Letting out a contented sigh as the edge of the nausea and headache go away, I look down at my delightful, helpful, friend. “Ya Jes, doin’ jus’ fine. Someone musta’ gotten me drunk last night!” I smile weakly at them.

  Rolling their eyes they toss their jade-green hair with a sigh, “Uh huh, “someone”. You coming to breaky? Your little water trick won’t fill your stomach, after all. Hop down, let’s go.” They tug on my leg and almost pull me off the bunk.

  “‘ey, stop that. I’m gettin’ down.” I grab the bar just above the bunk and lower myself to the ground, flexing everything I can on the way down to try to wake up my muscles. “Lemme put on somethin’ that don’t stink like mistakes.” I palm Jes’s head and rustle their hair to shove them away to make some space for myself. Digging into my little locker, I pull out my downtime uniform, simple coveralls in Order black and gold and quickly strip down to put it on.

  As soon as I’m down to my briefs Jes looses a whistle of appreciation, “Great, we can go now? Wouldn’t mind being seen walking with that at my side.” They make a very obvious show of looking me up and down and I just stare back at them with heavily lidded eyes, “Look all I’m sayin’ is maybe if you strut around like that she might notice.” Their face grows the most smug grin one could imagine, wiggling their eyebrows with a slight glitter of mischief in their sharp emerald eyes.

  “Can ya’ lay offa’ that?” I give them a wounded look. I’ve been trying to build up the courage to talk to a girl for a while - but always flounder whenever the chance might have come up. “It ain’t like that, ya’ know me better’n that.” I finish pulling on my uniform and boots, bouncing from one leg to the other. “Le’s go. I’m starvin’.” I push past Jes with a bit more force than is probably needed, but I’m not really feeling the jabs right now.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it, ya know that, right?” Jes has to almost jog to keep up with my longer strides, so I make a point of slowing and shortening my pace. They reach up to put a hand on my shoulder as we walk, “Come’on Marcis, don’t be like that.” I keep ignoring them, until we make it to the mess hall and join the line.

  “Ya know why I wanna talk wit’ her so bad?” I ask them abruptly after things have fallen into a real awkward silence.

  “Cus she’s…real pretty? Got a thing for horns?” Jes tries again to lighten the mood, and fails to really “get” why I’m bothered, per normal.

  I sigh, taking another step forward with the line, “It’s cus she’s always lookin’ so down. I ‘tink she’s pretty, sure, but that ain’t all of it or even most of it.” I pause, trying to think of the best way to say it, “I…heard ‘tat she used ‘ta be more…ya know, smiley. People don’ stop smilin’ for no reason and she’s got a big job on ‘er shoulders.” Another step and Jes seems to be waiting for me to finish, “Ya mean you’ve never seen the way she avoids the barracks? Ya forget what happened with Instructor Siobhan a week back? Or how I told ya what happened with the beastmaster ‘n her that day?”

  Jes looks distinctly uncomfortable, but I find it hard to care right now, “Well, it’s not like you got in the way of that, huh? Wasn’t your probl-” They stop talking when they look up at my face, trailing off as I feel heat rising.

  “Ya know what? S’all good. Forget I said anything.” I turn and grab a tray, turning my back on Jes. I get my meal - eggs, eggs, some more eggs, and some sausage. As I get to the end of the line, I turn to Jes, “I’ve a nasty headache, I’m gonna sit by myself.” I walk off before getting a response, hoping they’ll get the message for once.

  Sitting down heavily near one of the doors I begin to eat. The process is mostly mechanical while I sit there thinking. Keeping my eyes largely on my plate, I try to get my mind off of the last little while by trying to work my way through my night.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “I remember leaving for the evening, catching a skyglide wit’ a couple friends, and makin’ it ‘ta the bar . Those emberguard were having a birthday, I ’tink? It was an open tab and ‘tey invited us in with open arms despite never meetin’ us ‘afore.” I smile, remembering the music and the cute flirty emberguardsman, “Was ‘tat when I started drinkin’? Pro’lly. I ‘tink I wound up turnin’ ‘em down though. I was too drunk, they’re too drunk too, no good for anyone.” I wrack my brain, so much so I feel m headache worsening as the night gets blurrier, “‘Tink I left, then? Grabbed a skyglide home and…”

  It hits me like a sack of bricks from on high. “I actually spoke wit’ Nyssa last night, for’eal?” I say aloud, disbelieving my memory.

  “You did?” I look up and realize that quite a ruckus has hit the mess while I was thinking. I make eye contact with May Vendala, who looks…really distressed.

  Remembering the rest of that conversation, I quickly stammer, “Oh, ach, ya she, ah, came and asked me a question yesterday at breaky.”

  She eyes me suspiciously, “I’m pretty sure I heard you say “Last night” in there.” She leans down, looking at me over the rim of her glasses and looming in a pretty intimidating way, being honest. “Look, if you know anything, I could use your help Marcis. Nyssa went missing at some point this morning and nobody knows where or why or if it was under her own power. Her window was found open in her wardroom.”

  The raven haired lapine’s face is dead serious, “Oh…I uh…I ain’t supposed ‘ta say nothin’ specific May, ‘m sorry.”

  “Well, why the fuck not?!” She all but shouts at me and a few people look over but she keeps boring into me.

  I squirm and look at the door, “She asked me not ‘ta say anythin’; said it was an important secret, I ‘tink.” I see her tall ears stand up straight as she opens her mouth to probably shout at me again, “Look she was fine enough when I saw her, but I was real drunk at ‘te time.”

  May takes in a deep breath, and lets it out very slowly before pulling over a nearby chair and slumping into it. The change from anger to this is, once again, intimidating. She manages to do that a lot despite being a foot and a half shorter than me. “Marcis, I don’t want to call Nyssa a liar, but I can say for sure that she was not working on anything official - she is still on medical recovery after a bad run-in with a monster. If you can’t tell me what she was doing, can you at least tell me what she was wearing?”

  I gulp, trying to remember, “It was a…uh…light armor set? I ‘tink. Maybe a Pat’finder or Sojourner set?”

  “She was armored?” Mays voice rises again, this time with disbelief, though clearly not at me. May starts mumbling for a moment, “Marcis, if you can’t tell me what was going on, will you tell Serafina Blackthorn? Whatever Nyssa might have been working on may have been related to the archivist and her duties.” I nod and May abruptly stands and gestures for me to follow. “We can’t waste time, please come.”

  I stand and follow her, and have to actually put in effort to keep up. Lapine sure can move when they need to. But in short order we arrive in the “important people” wing and I find I’m suddenly less certain about this, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried now, too. May knocks three times on a door sharply, waits a second for a response, and then steps in, bodily dragging me with her.

  “May, Marcis, what can I do for you?” The archivist looks rough, probably as rough as I was this morning, she’s not even in her uniform which is a shock to see. I bring myself to a ready attention out of habit and to keep my mind from wandering.

  “Marcis has something to tell you that he won’t tell me.” She says flatly without looking at me, “It’s regarding Nyssa.”

  Dame Serafina’s eyes light up, “Okay, let’s hear it.” She stares right through me as she says it and I feel a chill run down my spine at the tone.

  “I saw Nyssa last night when I was comin’ back after a night of drinkin’, ma’am.” I pause and she continues to start at me expectantly, “And…uh, she tol’ me not ‘ta tell anyone ‘cus she was doin’ ‘n assignment ‘ta test ‘te nightwatchmen.”

  “Where did this meeting happen? Did she appear to be going anywhere? Anything notable at all, Marcis?” Dame Serafina’s eyes and tone soften a little as she asks, returning to the more “in control” appearance I’m used to. It’s relaxing to see.

  “It was…ach…at ‘te stables. I tripped ‘n fell outta the skyglide ‘n she caught me ‘n got me right. I uh, ‘tink she mighta been waitin’ for ‘te skyglide maybe? She ‘ad a full suit of light armor ‘n a carryall.” I feel sharper as I talk, the memories coming more easily despite the haze of booze smothering them. Maybe it's the incense in here?

  Dame Serafina’s face falls. And she slumps into the big chair behind her, sighing shakily. “Ah.” She says after a moment. I feel quite uncomfortable seeing one of the Blackthorns looking so…normal. Even May seems a bit shocked. “This…this is probably my fault.”

  Both of us just stare at her with wide eyes, but May speaks first, “I don’t think I see how that makes any sense, Dame Serafina. It sounds like Nyssa left on her own entirely for…whatever reason.” May falters at the end, and I decide to keep my mouth shut. Between a senior, the new slayer and the archivist being involved I fully understand that I am the smallest potatoes, so I just try to not exist.

  Serafina stands, composing herself. “May, please do me a favor, pass along two messages in the order I give them.”

  “One, please stop by the armory and ask Theron to prepare my equipment.”

  “Two, Tell the wardstaff to stop searching and let them know I will personally handle it from here”

  May stands there for a moment, clearly stunned, “Isn’t this something that any of the knights could do? I mean, I’ll go, just give me leave to.” She all but demands.

  Serafina loses her smile for a moment and I feel chill run down my spine. May reacts similarly, “May, please deliver those messages for me. Every so often we have to own our own mistakes, and should anything happen to Nyssa while she’s suffering the results of one of mine I don’t know what I would do with myself.” She looks exhausted, “So, please-. Actually, better idea, we can save time. Marcis, you deliver my message to the armorer and May, you to your superiors.”

  We both exchange a glance before giving our own crisp salutes, stepping outside, and going our separate ways to complete our tasks.