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As the ninth hour of sleep concluded, Alisea’s eyes snapped open.  Dawn had yet to properly grace the world; the dimness was still too deep to make out features in the room.  Nevertheless, her body counted itself rested and urged Alisea to rise and begin her day.

Rising proved more of a difficulty than one might expect.  Alisea [i]had[/i] been hugging Aster when she fell asleep, and the pair had undergone some… [i]interesting[/i] shifts during the night.  It quickly became apparent there was no gentle way to extricate herself from the tangle of sheets this morning; she did what she could, then adopted the ‘quick-like-a-bandaid’ approach and lunged out of the bed, hoping her companion would be able to settle back down quickly.

Immediately the chill of the morning air nipped at Alisea’s exposed skin.  A shiver raced down her back, the magess trembling in the near-dark.  For a moment she tried to grip her arms to heat them; however, an active body would be far more effective, she decided.  Starting into what was becoming her regular routine, Alisea began to work and stretch her muscles.  Most of them weren’t sore.  The only pain she felt was a small twinge across her torso as she stretched her arms wide--and whether that was real or only a phantom memory of yesterday’s rending she couldn’t say.  The longer she moved and worked, the less the magess noticed the cold that filled the room--the pumping blood numbed her to it.

Slowly the room was growing more and more lighted.  Objects began to take on fuzzy shapes, then slowly resolved into a desk, a chair, the bed.  As she was working her body in the growing light, a thought struck Alisea:  was this not a time to work her skills, as well?  One in particular came to mind.  The magess began to Search.  Her eyes roved the room--looking for anything, but nothing in particular.  She didn’t expect there to be anything, and even if there was she doubted a single level would enable her to spot it now; her hope was simply that skills went up with use, not only with success (and either way, this was a chance to experiment and learn).

Concluding with deep breathing, Alisea settled down at the desk.  She pulled out her journal to start recording some thoughts on the previous day.  The light was almost bright enough to make writing manageable.  Deciding to stall a bit longer for fuller light, the magess flipped open her menu to check if Fyaira had left her a message.  She was surprised when she found a message, not from her rogue contact, but from Dirk.

Filled with curiosity, Alisea opened the message.  It was disappointingly brief; worse, it was overdue.  The paladin had requested a conversation last night.  Wondering what their boisterous bodyguard would want to say, Alisea drafted a quick response on the faintly-glowing display.

[color=ec008c][I]My apologies, Dirk!  I failed to see your message last night.  Is there something I might help you with this morning?[/I][/color]

Truthfully, she had her suspicions.  This was the man loudly proclaiming he would protect his allies from even a single point of damage.  He probably wished to speak with her about how near to death she had come--just as Reylan did.  If at all possible, Alisea hoped to not have that conversation with Dirk; he would be all apology for failing in his duty to keep her safe, and she didn’t want that.  It had been her choice to engage the wolfkin directly, and there was no reason anybody else should feel responsible for that.

Still, there was always the chance that she would be pleasantly surprised.  Perhaps Dirk had only wanted to share a meal and some conversation; or maybe he had a question about her magic.  Sending her reply off, she could do little more than wait.  And checking her clock--6:12--she might have quite a while to wait.