The Near Infinite Names of Autumn Aubrey (Psychological Fantasy Progression)

It was only after two days of returning to the cathedral of ice in Katarina's memories that I was able to put together a shameful attempt at her third step.

It was after falling more times than I could count, getting so frustrated that I tried to rip part of the dancing cloth from the wall, and landing on my ankle wrong as well, but as my contemptuous familiar had reminded me, that was the dancer's fault, not the dance's.

Still, I had done it, and had been grateful for the distraction.

I thought The Mother in Gray's letter had been a small mercy, but all it had done was give me more time to imagine what torturous and terrible things she had planned for me.

What was someone that could look at my soul just by touching me be capable of? The good feeling that had filled me the night that I had spent hours reaching for my red, she would find some way to turn it against me.

She would make it hurt.

She would leave me in fear of the twisted knots inside me.

She would make me so scared of the pain that I would never feel that good again.

Over and over, whenever I wasn't giving Gup part of myself, in The Well, with Anna, or dancing within the dancing cloth, it was all I could think about.

I knew there was a chance that she would be like Rhiannon or Nami, but I doubted it. She had never been unkind to me, and if she had, I could not remember it, but I also could not remember her ever looking me in my eyes.

It was to hide her hatred.

The thing that lived inside my gut told me that just like Anna's had told her that we needed to stay at Lun.

After spending all morning watching the little silhouette of Katarina spin out of nothing and stop suddenly, I had sat down and taken my aching ankle into my hands.

Sam was there, and I did not want to be left alone with my thoughts, so he was forced to listen to my attempts to distract myself.

"Anna thinks most of them are love letters, but she isn't sure. Half the time she can't read what Jaka wrote." I said, remembering the pages that she had had me look at the night before. The writing had been packed so tightly together into the edges of the paper that it had been little more than scribbles.

"Brief glimpses, that is what you are seeing. It is just as it is here. You are able to see the trees, but not yet understand the forest." Sam said with his back turned to me.

If anyone else came across us, they might've thought that he was standing guard from how he loomed in the doorway, but I knew him better than that. His refusal to look at me with a silent sign that he did not want to be there.

"What if I have seen the tree and it was enough for me to know that I did not want to see anymore?" I asked, trying my best to use the same words that he had.

His tail swished violently behind him. "That is not a luxury that you have been afforded. You are already in the forest, My Lady. Finding your way out is all there is."

I thought about that, and the thinking made my head hurt. "Can we stop talking like this? Are the blankets supposed to be trees? I don't get it."

Sam snapped his eyes back to me and growled in anger. "No, child. The trees are-No. I have coddled you for far too long. If you wish to understand what I have said, then you must think for yourself."

"But I'm so bad at that." I whined as I let all of myself slump into a heavy pout.

Sam snapped his eyes forward again, and then took a step into the hallway. "Silence."

It took me way longer to hear what had gotten his attention, but then a strange sound echoed into the room and broke the silence he had commanded me into.

"What is that?" I asked as I climbed to my feet and limped over to the door.

I peaked my head out just in time to see The Mother in Blue and Precept Jasna come hurrying up the singing stairs.

"Nothing that I wish to be involved in. Take to your bed early tonight, I will come to wake you before dawn." My contemptuous familiar said as he padded away from me and disappeared around the corner.

I was too interested in what was happening to take the time to try and question him, so I let him go without a word.

Jasna was carrying something in her arms that had been bundled in a blanket. The strange sound echoed through the hall once again, and she looked down at it with a pained expression on her face.

"Yes, I know, little one. It will be over soon." I heard her say as I tried to catch up with them.

Nami looked at me, looked away, and then looked back again in surprise. "Ire? What were you doing in there? And why are you limping?"

"What is that?" I asked, ignoring her questions and trying to peak over to see what was wrapped in the blanket.

Jasna threw her feathered hair back and glanced over at me with her sky blue eyes. "A fawn. Something has injured it, but I fear we are too late."

She leaned to one side so I could see.

I wished I had not looked.

The inside of the blanket was dark with blood.

When I met the wide black eye of the panicked little creature, it opened its mouth and bleated in what could only be pained fear.

There was a sharp twinge of pain in my chest, and I thought that my heart was breaking as I followed the two sorceresses into Precept Cherith's classroom.

Whatever had been happening before, it stopped as soon as we appeared from behind the cover of the massive leaves that served as an entrance to the room.

"What has happened?" Precept Cherith asked as turned away from the flower that her and Mallory had been standing around.

Precept Jasna lowered herself to the floor and gently laid the fawn down in front of her. "I don't know what got after it. A phantom bear would have left nothing."

Mallory followed our teacher to where we all stood around Jasna, her brilliant blue eyes looking from me to Nami and then down at the dying creature. Without a word, she stepped to the side and caught Plia before the little Underwitch could see the dying deer. "Don't. It's bad, trust me."

Plia looked up at her and then over to me before letting herself be turned away. "Is it going to be okay?"

More panicked bleats came from the ruined blanket and I started feeling sick to my stomach.

I did not know if it would live.

I wanted it to, but there was nothing I could do to help it.

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Just like there had been nothing that I could do with Arthur had been gored through his middle and I had been certain that he would die.

I could move weights, duel underwitches that should have been far past my abilities, trick guards and blow things apart with little to no thought, but I could not heal, even if it was what I wanted to do most.

Vanda knelt down at Precept Cherith's side and held her hand out towards the fawn, but my teacher stopped her.

The bottom of her billowy white sleeves already stained red, she shook her head. "No, this is an opportunity. Underwitch Tana, come. You have proven yourself enough."

Tana stepped past Nami on the other side of the circle, her eyes as wide and scared as what she was being called to heal.

"I don't-it-I can't." She stammered, tears glistening in her eyes as she looked down at the fawn.

"You can and you will," Precept Cherith said, the comforting tone in her voice turning firm. "But you must hurry before it is lost."

Tana knelt down on her knees as her watery blue came trickling out from behind her.

"There, now, just as you have practiced. Slow, gentle, and with patience," Precept Cherith said as Tana's aura covered the torn open middle of the creature. "All of you listen and watch. What needs to be inside is out, and closing the wound with it like this will only prolong its suffering."

She reached towards the bloody mess that she was speaking of. "If you are ever faced with something like this, you must be willing to-"

Inside the wash of Tana's aura, everything that was out went sliding back through the gash that it had fallen out of as the fawn threw his head back and cried out once again.

A wide smile spread across Precept Cherith's face. "Brilliant, Underwitch Tana. I could not have done it better myself."

The honey haired underwitch was crying, but there was no longer fear in her eyes.

I knew that look, I knew what it felt like to be absolutely sure that you would not fail.

Her aura faded as the classroom went completely silent, and it felt like all of us were holding our breath.

Tana collapsed over into Precept Cherith's lap and covered her hands with her face.

The fawn gave one final bleat before standing up on shaking legs and trying to escape Jasna's grasp.

I couldn't even find the place where it had been hurt anymore.

Tana had done it.

From silence to cheers and laughter, the room erupted with a roar of celebration. Auden raised his head from where he lay atop the vines on the other side of the room and let out a howl. Nami and the precepts comforted Tana with smiles on their faces. Mallory shook Plia from side to side, laughing madly the entire time.

For once, I cheered for her too.

I did not care that she was getting the praise that I wished I was. Or, I did care, but I cared more that she had saved the fawn's life than I did about her being praised.

The fawn stood again, took a shaky step away from Precept Jasna and then bounded into the air in a flash of icy blue.

It was not very high compared to the one I had seen after The Mother in Purple's punishment, but considering how close it had been to dying only a moment before, I had never seen anything more impressive.

"Let us go and find your mother, hmm?" Precept Jasna said to it as she caught it in her arms.

Plia saw the smile on my face and gave me one of her own in return.

Auden came to take Tana onto his back the way that I had seen him do so many times before. When she was draped over the four eyed wolf like a little blue blanket, Nami put her hand on her back and knelt down.

"You have come very far, Spring. I will be sure to tell your mother how proud I am of you." She said, literally patting her on the back.

I tried very hard to not let that bother me, but my ankle still hurt, I had been useless, and the bloodstained blanket still made my stomach turn.

Hoping that no one was watching me, I stepped away and slipped back behind the massive leaves.

Where had all the happiness that I had been filled with gone, and how had it left so quickly?

I was halfway down the hall and heading for Anna and I'd quarters when I heard Nami call out for me.

"Underwitch Ire? May I speak with you for a moment?" She said, standing next to Precept Cherith and waving at me.

Why did it feel like I was on the verge of tears every time I saw her?

"We were going to wait until your last day of Restoration, but I will be away. May we check your progress now?" She asked once I reached them.

I nodded. "His name is Gup."

"She really does remind me of you," Precept Cherith said as I led them to my little hall. "Nami named hers Bub when we were still moons."

Nami laughed. "That's the sound he would make when he heard my voice."

I should not have let it, but hearing that made me feel just a little bit better.

We all crowded into the little room and stood around the tall table. Gup did his splashing and called out to us three times. "Gup. Gup. Gup."

"I see why you named him that. But before we look, I want to know how this was for you. Do you feel like you learned anything?" Nami asked, her ocean eyes staring at me intently.

I shrugged. "I've never really taken care of anything before. But I didn't blow him up. I kind of just let him take what he wants from me."

"That is half the battle, Underwitch Ire. If that is the case, then Gup should be as translucent as wax paper. Even if he is not, if some of your blue bled into him, you should still take pride in caring for him." Precept Cherith said. She had shed the layer of her robes that had been stained crimson, and as she placed her hands on the black box, I noticed that her arms were absolutely covered in deep cuts.

I tried to not let her notice that I had noticed, but it was very hard to not stare.

All at once, the black fell away from the box and rained down at our feet in my teacher's shade of blue.

I had not spent very much time thinking about what Gup would look like. Seeing him for the first time made me realize that it would not have mattered if I did.

The closest word I could think of to describe him was salamander, but he looked different enough from Amabura that I did not think it was right.

All I knew for sure was that Precept Cherith had been wrong.

Gup was not translucent like wax paper.

He wasn't even blue.

From the tip of his tail to the webbed ends of his little feet, Gup glowed red.

My perfect red.

"I," Precept Cherith said as she took a deep breath. "I believe that one of your sisters has played a trick on you."

Nami shook her head. "No, Cherry. This is Mother-"

Precept Cherith covered her eyes with her hands and started to leave the room. "I didn't see anything, I didn't hear anything, and I don't want to know anything. You have done well, Underwitch Ire. I will give you both the room."

Nami watched her leave, but I could not take my eyes off of Gup.

When she was gone, Nami let out a laugh and shook her head again. "She refuses to hear anything I have to say about being The Mother in Blue."

I swallowed before I could speak. "Am I in trouble? I didn't mean to do that to him."

"What? No. Bub is bluer than my eyes are. I thought Gup would be too, but this is a good thing. I do not have the time for another of your super secret trainings today, but I will keep him until I return and we can." Nami explained as she reached into the water and took the red creature I had created into her hands.

"How is this good," I asked, refusing to meet her eyes. "The point was to not use too much of my aura."

Nami nodded. "Yes, but, what's more important is that you have found your red again."

"Not on purpose." I sighed.

Nami nodded again and smiled. "But anything you can do on accident, you can do if you mean to."

I leaned forward onto the high table and kept staring at Gup, unable to look away from my red.

"Is something wrong?" She asked after a quiet moment passed.

What Sam had said earlier came flashing back to the front of my mind. "Yes. You're a part of the forest, but it is hard for me to remember that."

Nami was a Mother, but she was also the reason that I still had skin. I would have been locked away in Azza's domain if it weren't for her, and it was her little silver moon that hung from the ear that she had healed.

I wanted nothing more than to think of Nami as my friend, but The Mother in Gray's letter was pulling far too tightly on my throat for me to let myself.

"This forest, are you lost in it?" She asked as she took her eyes off of me.

I nodded. "Yes."

"I see," She sighed and ran her free hand back over her blue gradient hair. "Then I will have to spend the rest of the time that you have agreed to remain a moon showing you that this forest is not as dark as it may seem."

I thought about that, and almost cried from how hard I hoped that it was true.