Snow dusted the beach of the Kaltlina, the heavy flakes quickly piling up on any surface they could stick to. Reason brushed off the powder from their cloak and hair, frustrated; the weather was quickly becoming a nuisance. They were running a check on the materials, ensuring there was enough lumber hauled over and that it would withstand the often treacherous waters of the river. At least the construction of the shipyard was making steady progress, despite the churning waters swollen from recent storms.

Reason felt a sudden tap on their shoulder, startling a little.

A worker had walked up. “Should we call it? We’ve already had someone fall into the river.”

“Are they all right?”

“Yeah, just slipped on ice. Luckily he was over shallow water.”

Reason frowned, peering up at the sky. Dark clouds threatened a blizzard. “It’ll be dark soon anyways. I’d rather lose a few hours of work than a few crew members.”

The worker nodded, trudging off to notify the others. Reason returned to their work, scratching a mark into the bark of any lumber that would need to be repurposed.

The last dregs of sun were hovering just above the horizon, though Reason wasn’t ready to head back to town just yet. They stepped out onto one of the unfinished docks, balancing carefully as they made their way towards the furthest point. With the rushing of water drowning out any other noise, it was peaceful. Perching on an exposed truss, they gazed into the dark water, too murky to see the bottom of, too agitated to see their own reflection in.

For the best, really; mirrors felt jarring as of late.

From the beginning of the memories that were distinctly Reason’s, the Dunn felt more like a tattered cloth than a person, frayed and vulnerable in the wind. But the hollow feeling currently did not come from something missing, but rather from there being too much, like the dread of sorting through a cluttered attic one reluctantly inherits.

Reason was grateful for the amount of work the Reich needed, as any moment not spent asleep or working, their mind spiraled down deeper and darker pathways, wading through memories that felt like someone else’s. At this point, they were someone else’s, these strange ideals and goals that Reason no longer felt any connection to.

As their waking life began with fiery Anacrusis, so did it follow them after they were pulled out of a smoldering pit that had decimated half of a war camp. It dogged Reason’s very footsteps, spreading its rot through everything they touched. Magic came at a cost that O’shea had ignored, which now came to haunt them instead.

Every path that had led O’shea into the arcane had been an accident, every push into the guild a means of self-preservation, every scrap of knowledge a way to demand back power he was never entitled to, every social manipulation an arcane trick to avoid a fight he could never win. O’shea had been too alone, too desperate to see how much it weighed him down. He was a man who chased after the unattainable whilst barely surviving within his own skin.

What Reason did not expect from avoiding magic to lay low was the utter relief it brought. They could lose themselves in their work, in their music, and still feel like a person afterward, that they did not need to spend every minute honing their mind and body into a weapon to be used by an unfeeling warfront. They could connect with others without relying on anything other than the softness of their words. Sure, Reason sought something deeper than themself, but did it really need to transcend that which they could not see or touch?

Yet the more Reason rejected the arcane, the more it seemed to cling to their very skin, as even dire methods barely staved away the worst of it. Every time their back turned, they were burned by embers from a fire they feared they could never put out.

And then there was the poisonous hearth within that burned persistently, the memories and reflexes that were so ingrained into their flesh that Reason wondered if their body was even truly their own. All it would take was one terrible encounter for it all to come flooding back against their will.

It made them want to sink down into the thick mud of the river, where such flames could not follow.