Page 15 of Triadic

Corbi hummed happily. He rested his cheek against my shoulder, and I leaned my head against his.

Marit smiled, and it lit up his face. "Speaking of little Schneewittchen! We got something for you."

He rustled around in a bag and pulled out something white and fluffy and handed it over.

Corbi cooed, and I started crying in earnest at the cute little stuffed dog. "Oh my!"

"There's a market in the town nearby," explained Corbi. "One of the stalls makes little stuffed dolls and toys. We thought this would be a great way for you to remember your dog. Make sure to not think of her too strongly. As an astral pup, she might hear you calling for her and try to come find you. If she really is a post-mortem animal that needs help moving on to her next life, that would only delay her progress."

"I think I understand," I confirmed, squeezing the fluffy thing with little buttons for eyes. Maybe I would name her something slightly different like Snowy, Schneechen. "Once I'm feeling better, maybe I can find work in town. I ran my parents' general store; I'm sure I could help at the market."

Both Marit and Corbi made sounds of consideration and agreement.

"The monastery runs a stall there," said Marit. "You could help the older monk who mans it. We sell things from our herb gardens."

"I'd love to work," I answered, warmed that Marit had immediately tried to keep me tied into the monastery's operations. Maybe I wouldn't be cast out after recovering.

Gathering my courage, I told them what I wanted. "Please make me your friend after all this. Or at least think about it. Thank you for spending these nights with me to balance my life force."

"We are your friend already, Peter," Marit soothed.

Corbi nodded confirmation. "We don't want to cross any boundaries with you. It sounds like your family and villagers didn't care about your dignity, or any boundaries you might have wanted to keep in place. Once you start sleeping through the night after being taken off the purging medicine, Marit and I can return to our room, so you can have the bed to yourself."

"I…I don't want that," I stammered, my cheeks burning. I ducked my head down. "I don't want to trouble you, but I've really enjoyed having you herewith me."

Corbi gave me a little squeeze, and Marit put a comforting hand on my knee.

"You don't trouble us, Peter," said Marit. "We'll stay for now."

Chapter Eight: Marit

Corbi was back working at the clinic, and Ceridor was still gone on his adventure to find Peter's hometown, so I was the one keeping an eye on the maybe-angel while he slept. Corbi had mentioned that if Peter continued to not sink into fever after being taken off the purging medicine, then we could safely conclude any dangerous levels of the poison were out of his body, and if there were any lingering particles, his body could process them.

That meant that soon he wouldn't need us to lie in bed next to him in order to stabilize and support his etheric body. Corbi confirmed this, and I held back what I'd wanted to say. I wanted to stay close to Peter, but we had to respect his dignity and boundaries, of course. If staying nearby was no longer a medical necessity, then we needed to give him some space. I'd tried to ask him about it when he was sleepy, and he'd said he wanted me there, thensqueezed the little stuffed dog and snored his way into dreamland. The fact that he got some joy from the white dog we'd found at the market truly warmed me.

Even now, the angel slept next to me, not caring about the dim lamp I had going so I could read. The golden light lit his features from below but didn't make him look sinister. Despite living such a rough life in the forest, behind the scrapes and stress lines on his face, he still held a youthful beauty that made it difficult to place his age. He had said he thought he was twenty-one, but not knowing how long he was in the magical forest, he could be older.

I tried not to stare at him while he slept—though Peter had no magical training, in my case, such things wokemeup because deliberately aimed attention pinged one's consciousness on the astral plane. It still baffled me to see the greens and browns that danced around him, as if the forest had followed him into the monastery. Little fairy lights danced all over him, his aura charged by Mother Nature. Then when he opened his eyes to look at me while I had sunk into my astral vision, I saw not just his sage-green irises, but also the bright and deep green of dense Alpine groves reflected there.

Though the grime and dirt on him when I'd carried him here had been very real, I was still keeping such a sharp eye on Peter because, based on everything I had read in the monastery library over the years, so many events around him seemed angelic in nature. It would be just like a supernatural creature (such as an angelic one) to accidentally getcaught in a magical trap and appear human temporarily while they got themselves sorted out.

Corbi and I could clean him up and give him a place to rest, then if one morning he simply disappeared, leaving only golden sparkling glitter behind in my astral vision, I couldn't say I'd been surprised. This was how stories of such things got started.

So while I was watching him closely, with every day that passed and his body healed, and Peter was awake more often to talk with us, my heart calmed because it was so glad that Peter seemed to be human and therefore maybe he would stay with us.

I kept reading, careful to turn the pages softly and not disturb him.

He woke sometime later and miraculously didn't have to immediately dash to the washroom. Even as he blinked the sleep away, I could see that green and gold light shining through. Then I pressed my eyes closed and breathed, willing my astral vision to subside so I could just see his visible form.

When I opened my eyes again, Peter's eyes were only their pale sage green. He smirked slowly, still so sleepy. "Got your nose in a book?"

"You know it," I teased.

He shifted to sit up, and I resisted the urge to help him when he pressed a hand protectively over his stomach and groaned in pain. I winced. Corbi thought Peter could have gotten a stomach ulcer from all the vomiting, which would mean staying away from acidic foods for a coupleof months until it healed. Deep in the heart of winter, we didn't have much fresh fruit lying around anyway, so he wasn't missing anything. As long as he was better by the time theMarillenseason began in the spring so he could have fresh apricots with breakfast on Easter, I imagined he'd be fine.

"Medicine on the table," I directed.

"I see it," he said between panting breaths. "Thank you."