{"id":3376,"date":"2017-10-11T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T04:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3376"},"modified":"2017-10-10T18:12:45","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T22:12:45","slug":"twenty-three-06-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3376","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-three – 06"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Phelan’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Phelan grinned even as Kellin shook her head.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut with it, Phelan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou first,\u201d he countered, crooked smile still firmly in place. He was borrowing trouble and was fully aware of it, but at the same time doing that felt a hell of a lot better than letting his own worries gnaw away at his mind. Worrying about things he couldn\u2019t readily fix wasn\u2019t going to help him or anyone else. \u201cThe monsters still living inside of your head, Kellin.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a few seconds, she paused. They\u2019d reached the corner of the ward-lines, the spot down the hill from the forge where the ravine curled in two directions around their growing village. Emotion flickered through the young woman\u2019s eyes as she stared out over the trees and brush, one of the wards she\u2019d set into a bare patch of ground at her feet, the stones still neatly piled on top of each other inside a circle cut into the ground with the tip of a hand trowel.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I wonder if it will be enough,\u201d she said at last. \u201cEverything we\u2019re doing\u2014everything I\u2019ve done. Sometimes I wonder if I\u2019m too much. It\u2019s always been easier for some of them to talk to Marin about things. I find myself wondering if my place is really here anymore, or if it\u2019s time I move on, find another spot, find other people who desperately need someone to help them, to guide them\u2014but then I wonder if there\u2019s anyone left out there that\u2019s survived this long without that sort of help. Finally, in the end, I realize this is my home and this is where I belong, that there\u2019s nowhere else that I would rather be. My friends\u2014hell, they\u2019re my family<\/em>\u2014are here. Everything that really matters to me is here, now. But there\u2019s still this tug, this tether I can feel without seeing. It\u2019s\u2026I don\u2019t want to say it\u2019s disconcerting, because that\u2019s not quite the right word for it, but it\u2019s there and I can feel it. Sometimes it\u2019s stronger, sometimes it\u2019s fainter, but it\u2019s always there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lines?\u201d Phelan suggested. \u201cAnother nexus, something else?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels different,\u201d Kellin said as she sat down in the grass in front of the small warding cairn. She ran a fingertip along the deepest part of the circular groove, smoothing the base of it from a point into something deeper but more rounded, a tiny moat around the miniature stone mountain. \u201cIt\u2019s something beyond the lines, something\u2014older, I guess, even though I know it\u2019s not. The lines are as old as the world itself. Forgotten is probably the better word. Something old and forgotten and it\u2019s tugging at me. Sometimes it feels close but most of the time it feels very, very far away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The once-druid stared at her for a very long time, silent. He watched as she took a few herbs from the bag she carried, bundles carefully braided together, and tucked them into the small pile of stones at the center of the anchor. The power that she infused it with was familiar enough to cause a faint ache.<\/p>\n

Kellin glanced up toward him, her brow arching slightly. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what it is,\u201d he said quietly, his throat tightening. \u201cWhat\u2019s tugging you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her brows knit. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething lost a long time ago,\u201d Phelan whispered, his throat tight. \u201cBut never truly died.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Phelan’s point of view.] Phelan grinned even as Kellin shook her head. \u201cOut with it, Phelan.\u201d \u201cYou first,\u201d he countered, crooked smile still firmly in place. He was borrowing trouble and was fully aware of it, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,272,14],"tags":[171,170,19,149,173,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-3376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-23-book-6","category-story","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-kellin","tag-original-fiction","tag-phelan-ocredne","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-Ss","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3377,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376\/revisions\/3377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}