From the Ashes: Spark of Change (ch. 2) (Patreon)

"Hnnngh…!" I groaned loudly as my consciousness surfaced and I regretted it immediately. My head was pounding something fierce with the worst headache I had ever experienced. And that was counting the time Kallian stole a bottle of wine and I ended up chugging half the bottle because I didn't know how much I should drink to get drunk. My brain felt like it was overstuffed, so full that it was threatening to split apart.

Despite the pain, I forced my eyes to open and they peeled back over my eyes with all the tenderness of sand. The light hurt, but so did everything else. I looked around to see that I was in a room that I recognized -- I was in Kallian's house. Her room. I recognized it instantly because it was a rare elf that got their own room.

"He's awake! He's up!" I heard Shianni shout, making me wince at the harsh sound.

"Thank the Maker," I heard a familiar voice say. Adaia. Kallian's mother. "Azoth? Can you hear me?" She asked and I blinked away the fuzziness that blurred my vision to see a woman that looked like an older Kallian looming over me. I swallowed thickly, feeling a sharp pain in my throat, it felt like I had been eating sand my throat was so dry. All the same, I let out an affirmative grunt. "Here, drink this," she said and I felt a cup pressed to my lips and I drank deeply from the cool water that slid down my throat.

"What…?" I croaked out, looking around but Kallian was nowhere to be found. My heart started to pound -- even in this state, it was impossible to forget what had happened.

"You were attacked by a human," Adaia informed me and that had been no human. "He slashed your throat, but he didn't do a good job of it. Kallian, Shanni, and Soris dragged you back… what were you thinking being outside the Alienage at night? You all know how dangerous that is," Adaia told me, sounding worried.

Kallian had lied. "Sorry," I said, not willing to trip over whatever lies Kallian spoke to cover up what really happened. Adaia pinned me with a fierce look, telling me she suspected the truth but not the whole truth. She suspected that we were out to find some trouble to get into, but if she suspected the trouble that we found, she wouldn't have sighed at my apology.

"You were very lucky, Azoth. Your family has been worried sick about you," She told me, and I felt pretty terrible about that.

"S'not like I planned to get murdered," I muttered and Adaia did offer a nod at that.

"I would hope not," Adaia remarked lightly. "But that didn't  stop you from nearly getting murdered. From now on, you stay in the Alienage. That goes for you and the others." She said, her dark blue eyes softening a fraction. "You'll have a scar. It'll look a lot nastier than it is. We were worried you'd never be able to speak again, but it seems like your voice is just fine."

I flashed a weak and feverish grin, "More's the pity for the rest of you," I said, going to sit up. Adaia's hands hovered to catch me, but I managed it without collapsing. A hand went to the bandages at my throat and I could distinctly remember slashing it open. That slash had been deep. Losing my voice should have been the least of my concerns. I should have bled out and died in that quaint hovel.

"Can you stand?" Kallian's mother asked me, earning a nod from me before she helped me to my feet. I still had a splitting headache, and my eyes felt dry and bloodshot. My body felt weak, and while I did sway dangerously, I remained standing. "Good. Because you have a lot of people worried sick about you."

"My family?" I asked, gingerly making my way out of the bedroom into the main living room. The Tabris family was an old one in the Alienage. As well respected as elven families get. Their house was three rooms -- a living room, a side bedroom, and a master bedroom. They even had wood floors. Old wood that was rotting, but wood all the same.

"They're at your home. Your father and mother had to work, but your grandfather and siblings have been at your bedside for days. They just left," Adaia admitted, catching my attention.

My lips thinned as I neared the door, "How long…?" How long has I been asleep?

"Four days. All things considered, you're a fast healer, Azoth. Don't use that as an excuse to get injured like this again, understood?" Adaia told me, earning a slight nod from me as I went to open the door to walk myself home. I paused to glance over my shoulder.

"Thank you," I told her, earning a soft smile from Adaia. "For saving my life," I clarified.

She nodded at me, giving me a kind look. "Of course, Azoth. You're the one good influence my daughter has." She said, and we traded smiles before I left the Tabris household. The door swung open on rusted hinges, revealing the Alienage in all of its glory. It was a dreadful place. Even if it was my home and I loved it, I could admit as much to myself. Everyone in the Alienage knew it. The buildings were all poorly maintained, some made of mud and grass that was painted when the wood to older houses became so rotted that they collapsed.

The roads were all made of dirt -- mud technically since it was rain season -- with old wooden boards tossed over the worst of it. Houses were packed close together, using up every available inch to make room for the population of elves that was three times too many to fit in the space that was allocated to us. Though, we did make room for the Vhenadahl tree -- the tree of the People. The only tree I had ever seen, but it seemed like an impressive one with a thick trunk and long branches filled with green leaves.

It was more than the elves in Orlais could claim. Everyone said that there were so many elves in the Alienages in Orlais that they had to cut down their Vhenadahl tree to make room to fit them all. They were packed together -- twenty thousand elves lived in the Alienage, but in Orlais, that number would surpass a hundred thousand in the same space. So, as bad as things were, I was very glad I wasn't an Orlesian elf.

My gaze swept over the Alienage, and… something was different about it. No… no, that wasn't right. Something was different about me. I… the Fade felt… thin here. Thin enough that I could catch glimpses of it, almost as if this were a dream. I could almost hear the echoes of emotions that had long since past, but left an impression. The echoes were unintelligible, but if I strained my ears, I could almost…!

"Azoth," I felt a hand on my shoulder, prompting me to look at Shianni, who gazed at me with wide worried eyes. "Are you alright? Should you be up?" She asked, breaking me out of my stupor.

I blinked a few times, not really sure how to respond. "What happened after I passed out?" I asked Shianni as we began to walk to the Vhenadahl tree. I was feeling tired after just that short walk. I was weaker than I thought I was.

"We busted the door down, near broke it off its hinges. Saw you on the ground and no one else. Kallian wouldn't say a word about it -- just that you saved her and we had to save you." Shianni explained to me as I took a seat at the base of the tree. "We told everyone you had just been attacked by a shemlen while we were sneaking out for a bit of fun near the docks."

A short and simple lie. "And the hovel?" I asked, my hand going to my throat.

"No one's been near it," Shianni confirmed and I made a decision. Magic coiled around my fingers, an invisible force that only I could see, and the Fade sang in a way that it never had before. My mind wasn't my own. I felt it. I had cast a spell I had never known before and I suspected that was why I wasn't dead. Why Adaia could mistake the slash for a botched attempt to slit my throat rather than a deep slash that had nearly beheaded me. My magic was begging to be used, humming with a power that was foreign to me.

I needed strength to see my decision through. So, I cast a spell.

Rejuvenation, a whisper in my ear told me. No. Not a whisper. Knowledge that wasn't my own. Knowledge that had been implanted in me during the Transference spell where Gaxkang's spirit was meant to crush and overwrite my own so he could possess my body. I had interrupted the spell by slashing my throat -- the pain, I think, caught him off guard and that disrupted his focus. It made him make a mistake.

The knowledge was of little comfort as I felt strength flow into my limbs where than had only been feebleness before. For that knowledge came with the understanding of what I was.

I was an abomination. A mage that had been possessed by a demon. I don't think there was a sliding scale for abominationness, so even the partial possession marked me as something that the Chantry decreed should die. That it was holy work to slay an abomination. My own religion wanted to kill me. For reasons beyond being an elf and an apostate.

Lovely.

I rose to my feet, "I'm going there," I decided. Shianni didn't seem surprised.

"Soris and Kallian have been watching it. In case the shemlen mage comes back," Shanni said, going to walk with me. I paused, realizing that Kallian had also lied to Shianni and probably Soris. That had been no human mage. That was a demon and Kallian knew it.

We walked out of the Alienage and, luckily, depending on how you looked at it, the demon's lair wasn't far. Rejuvenation offered a burst of strength, but it couldn't be denied that I was still incredibly weak. By the time we reached the hovel, I was sweating with effort and resting a hand on Shianni's shoulder. I spotted Kallian watching the hovel and Soris watching her back. Because of that, he was the first one to see me. "Azoth! You're up!"

Kallian whipped around as Soris brought me into a hug. "The next time you say something's a bad idea, we're going to listen," Soris promised me. At the very least, something good had come from this mess.

Kallian watched me with wide eyes, concern shining in them as she took my appearance in. Her gaze was centered on the bandage on my throat. "You shouldn't be up and about," Kallian said after several failed attempts to speak. I could tell she wanted to talk about what happened, but didn't want to give anything away.

"I'll manage for a bit," I said, heading to the hovel, making all of them tense. I understood why. "The human isn't coming back," I told them in a low tone. "He's gone. For good."

Soris and Shianni relaxed at that while Kallian was confused. "Thank the Maker," Soris breathed. "I wouldn't know what to do if we had a mage after us."

"I haven't slept a wink," Shianni admitted. "I kept thinking that he was going to slip into our homes and sacrifice us to a demon or something." She sounded afraid. They both did. It was one thing to fear a human, but a human mage was an all too different beast. Like the rest of the world, they were afraid of magic and mages. It was for that very reason I had spent my entire life hiding that part of myself.

I said nothing in response and walked over to the hovel. The door was shut, but with a gentle push, it swung open with a low groan. The heavy and oppressive darkness was gone, revealing a deceptively simple hovel. Kallian looked to Soris and Shianni, "You two stand watch." She instructed before she followed me inside.

The first thing that I noticed was the blood in the dirt. A lot of it. I wasn't a stranger to blood. It was a common sight in the streets of Denerim where the guard was more concerned with taking bribes than keeping the streets safe. Enough blood that I should be dead. I saw signs of the scuffle, complete with the Keening Blade resting in the dirt where it had fallen.

Kallian closed the door behind me, "You're a mage," Kallian whispered at me as I dropped to a knee to pick up the Keening Blade. I didn't at all like how it felt right in my hand, as if it was a long familiar weapon. Nor did I care for how the air and the Fade screamed when I gave an absentminded slash in the air. It was a quiet thing. So quiet that Kallian didn't hear it as she walked up to slug me in the shoulder. Hard.

"Ow!" I yelped, my arm going numb. "What's wrong with you? I'm injured, you know."

She wasn't amused, unsurprisingly. "You're a mage. And you never told me!" She started to raise her voice, but caught herself and forced herself to speak in a low whisper.

"It's not something I exactly shout from the rooftops," I defended, rubbing my shoulder. I could feel the bruise forming in the shape of a fist.

There was no pleasing Kallian, it seemed because she glowered at me. "Does anyone else know?" She asked me directly, crossing her arms over her chest.

I opened my mouth, a scathing sarcastic remark threatening the leap from my tongue, but I swallowed it down. "My mother," I admitted. That caught Kallian off guard.

"That's it?" She blurted, expecting the list to be a lot longer. "Not your Dad or Grandpa? Or the rest of your family?"

I shook my head slowly. "If my father or grandfather knew, they'd hand me over to the Templars. My mother knows only because she was there when I found out," I told her in a low tone. And that had been an unfortunate surprise. As far as rumors said, magic could manifest at any age before adulthood. Some discovered they were mages as infants while others lived up to a decade before discovering it. I had been the former case, according to my mother. I had wanted to play with her hair and just about ripped it out of her head with my magic as a babe. "My sisters don't know how to keep a secret even if their lives depended on it. And my brother… I think he'd sell me out if it meant one less mouth to feed."

"Oh," Kallian muttered, seemingly mollified. "I thought you were keeping it a secret from me because you couldn't trust me."

I arched a brow, not really sure how to respond to that. "So… you punched me?" I asked, trying to make sense of it.

"I thought you were keepin' secrets from me. I didn't know you could do that," Kallian said, sounding so astonished that I managed to keep a secret from her that I felt insulted. I mean, she wasn't… completely wrong to think that. If Kallian, or Shianni, caught a whiff of a secret of any kind, they'd sniff it right out and extract it from me. And Soris. And generally everyone else. They were very nosey. Which is why I made sure neither of them had any clue. I suppressed my magic, crushing it down, and just… I don't know. Hoped it would go away someday.

A sigh escaped me, "Well, now you know. You can't tell anyone, alright? Not even Shianni or Soris." Kallian's brow creased at that.

"They wouldn't snitch you out," she proclaimed, certain of it.

"I don't think they would," I agreed, catching her off guard. "But it's dangerous for them. And you. Harboring an apostate is a crime. I'll be taken away to a Circle, but if the Templars find out that you knew about me and didn't say anything? They'll drop you from high up with a short rope around your neck, Kallian. You and everyone else who knew." I stressed and… I expected bravado. Maybe indignation over the idea that the Templars or Guard would ever catch her. But what happened in this hovel clearly left an impression on her, because Kallian nodded gravely.

"I'll take the secret to my pyre, Azoth," she swore to me and I felt a burden I had been shouldering for as long as I've known her lift from my shoulders. It wasn't like I ever wanted to lie. I was horrible at it. I just had to for everyone's sake, including my own. "But what about that demon? He was just gone when I busted the door down."

I took in a slow breath and turned my attention to the bookshelf tucked in the corner. It was a small thing. A few thin books -- one of which I recognized as smut, which was all kinds of weird -- but my attention was on the small box that was used to prop up a half empty shelf. Inside the box were marbles that seemed to be made of bone.

"Gaxkang is dead. I killed him," I told her, earning a startled gasp from Kallian. My hand went to the marbles made of bone -- something completely worthless that disguised something much greater. Even if we had managed to rob this place, none of us would have thought to rob marbles. Little would we have realized, we would have missed the greatest treasure of all. "He faded into nothing, but… I think that might just mean he returned to the Fade. Gaxkang was a demon. A powerful one. An old one. He may not remember us when he reforms at some point, but he will reform."

Such was the nature of spirits and demons. So long as there was joy in the world, there would be spirits of Joy. So long as there was rage, there would be demons of rage. And, so long as there were choices, there would be spirits and demons of choice. The spirit or demon that would replace Gaxkang would be an infant in comparison, but it would carry the same essence that Gaxkang the Unbound did.

"Maker's balls, you killed a demon?" Kallian whispered, looking at me like I grew a second head. "And what are you doin' playin' with marbles?"

"These," I said with a smile, knowing it to be true, "are not marbles." To prove as much, I tossed one on the floor after I sent a pulse of magic through it. The spell itself was old. Very old. Ancient, really. Something that hadn't been utilized since the days of Arlathan.

I didn't know the spell, much to my chagrin. No, rather, I didn't know all of the spell. Polymorph was an advanced spell that the intricacies of which were lost on me or too me. Magical theories that started, then cut short like a page torn in half, leaving me ignorant of what the last half said. Or they referenced things I didn't understand. What Gaxkang shoved in my mind wasn't neatly sorted and categorized. Instead, it was a jumbled mess that I couldn't make heads or tails of. In short, I knew enough to recognize the spell, I knew that Gaxkang polymorphed his more valuable items into trinkets that even a trained eye would pass over, and I remembered where he kept them.

The spell on the marble was undone, revealing a heavy book that's cover… yeah… yeah, that was a face. Kallian flinched back, yelping in disgust. Soris responded instantly, busting through the door, ready to fight. For a moment, if he ever got enough to eat that he could put some weight on, I thought Soris would have made a ferocious warrior. Like an Emerald Knight that the Dalish used to have when we still had a Kingdom.

"Oh? Oh, Maker, what is that?" Soris breathed, looking at the twisted book.

"Kindling," I decided, lighting a candle before taking it to the book. I'm sure it would be a great loss of knowledge but, in my humble opinion, if that knowledge had to be bound in flesh then I believe the world was better off forgetting. Especially when I heard screaming in the Fade as the book was burned. Vile, vile thing. Not interested in learning from it at all.

I pocketed the rest of the polymorphed items that were turned into marbles. I didn't know what most of them were. I just remembered where they were. Some hadn't been changed back into their true form in literal Ages. "Soris, check under the bed, would you?" I asked, knowing there would be some decoy coin. At the same time, I rolled the Keening Blade up in a blanket to hide the fact I was bringing a sword into the alienage.

I knew I shouldn't take it. The weapon was dangerous by half, but Gaxkang was attached to the blade and the part of him that was in me rebelled at the mere thought of abandoning it. The Keening Blade had been his weapon of choice for thousands of years and that attachment… I think he passed it on to me. It just felt so right in my hands. Like it was as much of me as my arm was. It was a disturbing thought and I’m not sure if it was a reason for or against selling the damn thing.

Soris made a strangled sound when he found the decoy coin that Gaxkang left for intruders to think they found his horde. "Azoth, Kallian -- look!"

Kallian gasped when she did. "Is that what gold looks like?" She breathed, reaching into the pouch to retrieve a gold sovereign. Most common folk went their entire lives without ever seeing a single speck of gold. Especially elves. Gold was a currency that was reserved for wealthy merchants or nobles. I never expected to see gold in my lifetime.

"What did I tell you?" Shianni boasted, marveling at the coin that was adorned with the Therin family's royal crest -- a sword pointed in the air and some lines surrounding it in a half crest. Not sure what it meant. Looked pretty, though. "We are as rich as shemlen nobles now," she said with a disbelieving laugh.

I snatched the coin from her hands and tossed it into the pouch that Soris obediently handed over to me. The pouch was light, but heavy with sixteen golden coins. A fortune. A well-paid servant, if they pinched every copper with white knuckles, could amass such a fund after a full year. That was assuming the servant was human. A sovereign was worth twice that -- a full hundred silvers. In short, we had thirty-one years of hard, well-paying, work in a single pouch.

Shianni scowled at me, but caught herself when she caught my look. "No one would let us keep it if they knew we had it. Elves running around with gold in our pockets?" I questioned, shaking my head. They knew it was true. That's why none of them argued. "We need to keep this quiet for now. Until we can break the sovereign into silvers and find an explanation for why we have silvers in the first place. We never spend more than we need to and we always keep our treasure hidden."

"Since when did you get so bossy?" Shianni questioned, giving me a scowl that would have sent me running for the hills before. I don't think it was Gaxkang's influence, or not in that way. It was just very difficult to be afraid of her temper when I had looked into the eyes of a demon that had walked Thedas longer than most nations existed.

Kallian spoke up for me, "He's right. We need to be careful. Elves don’t rob each other, but gold is gold. We need to be careful with it.” She decided, nodding at me. I’m glad she saw my point. To that end, I tossed her the pouch of money. A fortune if there ever was one. She seemed surprised.

“You have the smallest family out of all of us and they’re the least likely to go snooping. Find a good hiding spot inside and keep it there until we figure out what to do with it,” I told her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shianni and Soris exchange a glance with mirroring looks of surprise. I didn’t usually tell people what to do, did I? Was that because I was braver now? Or… or was that Gaxkang? I got snippets of his memories, his knowledge… did I get snippets of his personality?

I didn’t know. Either because Gaxkang didn’t know or because the answer had been shoved into my brain.

“Let's get out of here,” I decided, casting one look at the glowing embers of a book. Thankfully, it didn’t carry the stench of flesh that funeral pyres did. The rest of the hovel was just that -- a hovel. Completely unremarkable. No one would ever think that it had been the dwelling place of a demon for the past few ages.

The others agreed with the assessment, and we quickly left the hovel and I hoped that would be enough. The hovel belonged to Gaxkang and I hadn’t forgotten how we were led here -- Fibian had seen humans go into the hovel and come out. Meaning that they were likely mages. Maleficars. Possibly blood mages, the vilest form of mage according to the Chant of Light. I clutched the Keening Blade wrapped in rough linen to my chest as we entered the alienage once again.

All of us met gazes, realizing the adventure that we had, and promised to meet up soon to discuss what to do with the money. With nothing else to do, we all split up to head home.

My home wasn’t as grand as the Tabris family. Walking up a set of creaking steps, I walked on a balcony that took me over a back street, before I reached the door to my home on the second floor of an ancient building. The door opened easily, revealing the home that I grew up in. It was roughly the same size as Tabris’ living room but it was divided by curtains to give the illusion of privacy for our rooms.

Grandfather slept in the ‘living’ room. Mother and Father in one corner that was covered by curtains. My sisters slept in the other corner. My brother and I slept in the last corner. Altogether, there was a small open space for meals and a thin corridor of faded and moth-eaten fabric.

At the moment, it was completely empty. I’m guessing because Grandfather took the girls out to distract them. It was useful enough for me as I headed into my room and saw my bed -- a frame filled with old straw that had a cover thrown over it. Lifting the cover up and shifting the straw, I slid the Keening Blade into the straw to hide it along with the polymorphed marbles. I couldn’t unseal them now. Not when I didn’t have a place to hide them or know what they contained.

I was in the process of throwing over the covers and straightening them out when I heard the door open. “Azoth?!” I heard a young voice cry out, making me look over just in time to see the sheet get ripped from the string that held it up as a small body tore right through it. The sheet fell over my youngest sister as she all but tackled me, wrapping her small arms around me. A small grunt escape me at the impact, her headbutting my stomach at full force, but a small laugh followed not long after.

“I’m okay, Nessira,” I said, hugging her back while the others filtered through the door. Grandfather was an old elf -- wrinkles gathered around his eyes and mouth while his brow was marked with worry lines. His hair was a dark gray and his eyes were a dark blue, much like my own. They were filled with relief when he looked at me. Pushing past him was my other sister, Nikkia, who was five years younger than me.

“Azoth!” She exclaimed, much like Nessira, running forward and glomping me while Nessira was intent on squeezing me in half. “We tried to stay with you but you were asleep for so long. We didn’t know if you were ever going to wake up! We prayed to the Maker every day,” she told me, muttering into my shoulder. I was short for my age, but Nikkia and Nessira were shorter still.

Grandfather closed the door behind him, looking at ease. “Your parents and brother had to work, I’m afraid.” He told me, earning a nod. Mother and Father served Arl Urien Kendell and had for close to two decades at this point. My brother, Aiezn, worked at the docks as a hauler. All three of them worked long hours. I had been searching for a job as well now that I officially entered my fifteenth year, but between my lack of physical strength, short stature, and clumsiness, most prospects were thin. I wasn’t even good looking enough to be a whore.

“I understand,” I told him, giving my siblings a squeeze.

“Are you alright, Azoth? We never saw the wound, but Adaia made it sound quite serious,” Grandfather said, taking a seat. Then he sighed, “Let go of him children. Your brother is weakened from his wounds. Let him sit down,” he instructed, and it was only with the greatest of reluctance that Nikkia and Nessira obeyed. The latter tossed off the sheet as I took a seat on my bed, very aware of the blade underneath.

My sisters and I looked very alike -- dark black hair, dark blue eyes. Their hair was braided and tied off with ribbons, and they were going to grow up to be beautiful. A very dangerous thing for an elf. They sat with me on the bed and Nessira, out of curiosity, poked at the bandage at my throat. She was young. Eight years old to Nikkia’s ten. Aiezn was eighteen to my fifteen.

“Are you going to have a scar like Grandpa?” Nessira questioned, going to poke at my bandage again, only to have her hand smacked away by Nikkia. It could only be described as well-practiced ease when I interrupted the brewing fight.

“I say your brother is going to have a more impressive scar than me,” he remarked, giving me a concerned look while he patted his side where he had been struck by an Orlesian Chevalier. Grandfather had been one of Teyrn Loghain’s Night Elves back during the Orlesian occupation of Ferelden. They were a company of only elves that were allowed weapons and all elves possessed great night vision, so they made use of it with ambushes throughout the war until the Orlesians were forced over the border.

Grandfather, Ayen, was the first Surana as all members of the Night Elves were permitted last names to distinguish them for their service.

“Adaia said it’s going to be an impressive one,” I answered both the unspoken and spoken questions. Grandfather’s brow creased as it was wont to do whenever something didn’t go how he wanted it to. Scars were fine, but one across the throat? Not many noblemen or ladies would want a literal cutthroat serving them tea. And I didn’t have the body for hard labor, much to my shame.

Nikkia seemed distressed, “Does it hurt?”

It didn’t. The skin hadn’t mended yet, and I could feel the stitches in my flesh, but the muscle and veins beneath it? I felt that the damage was already done healing. I was going to have to answer some difficult questions when Adaia insisted on checking my wound to make sure it wasn’t infected or something. “A little, but it's fine,” I reassured them both, prompting Nessira to hug my side tightly.

“Don’t let the humans take you away, okay?” She muttered into my side and I rested a hand on her head, stroking her hair.

“No one is going to take me away,” I promised her. Not Templars. Not demons. Not humans. Nothing could make me leave my family. Not even death itself. “Why don’t you two tell me what I missed while I was sleeping?”

“Aiezn had a big fight with Mum and Dad,” Nikkia was quick to gossip and that was hardly a surprise on both accounts. I let her rambling about the usual fights wash over me, indulging in the familiarity. The parts of me that was undoubtedly still me. I wasn’t Gaxkang with memories of Azoth Surana. I was Azoth Surana that had some memories of Gaxkang. There would be time to discover exactly what had been done to me and explore the changes that were forced upon me…

But, for now, I savored the opportunity to listen to my squabbling sisters that talked over each other to tell me stories of what happened while I was asleep. And things were as they should be.