An Owl's Rise

"Eugh! Gahh!"

Suddenly feeling herself being pulled out of some sort of liquid Evelyn began coughing and wheezing for air.

She felt like all of the oxygen in her body was stale and she needed something fresh immediately.

"Take it slowly Evelyn. Slow, deep breaths."

Hearing this soothing and familiar voice Evelyn managed to calm down a bit.

Within around three minutes she finally had enough wherewithal to look towards who had been speaking to her.

Standing right next to her was the familiar form of Melisandre and right behind her Anneli and Katrina.

'So, I am alive. I really thought I might have died there.' Evelyn thought as tears streamed down her face.

As much as she had been through already, the fear of death still hit hard for her. Especially now that she had made connections she wished to live for.

"Come on, there is no need to start balling. You are going to be able to live. Now we need to get you washed off or this stuff is going to start to solidify." Melisandre said with a tranquil tone.

Wondering what she was talking about, Evelyn looked down and found that she was sitting up in some sort of capsule that was filled with a dark blue liquid.

It was thicker than water, a bit like a gel. Though a very thin one.

Seeing it triggered Evelyn's memory, and she could only think of the dark blue energy she had seen within her dream that she used to fix herself.

"Thank you, Melisandre." Evelyn said now that she realized what had happened.

"Don't thank me yet. This is not over, and we have a lot to discuss. But before any of that get cleaned up, and then I will fill you in on what happened after you fell unconscious."

Nodding her head Evelyn did as she was told and tried to get up.

However, she immediately slipped back over as her body would not do as she commanded it.

Her muscles felt weaker than they had been before, and her body would not move properly.

Thankfully Katrina and Anneli helped her up and brought her to the nearest washroom where they began hosing her off.

"I am glad to see that both of you have recovered. You were in pretty rough shape when I last saw you." Evelyn said while begin cleaned.

Anneli and Katrina though looked at her with conflicted expressions, and Katrina said, "You should really not worry about us. Our wounds are fine. What happened to you was far worse."

"Yeah, but do not let it get you down. At the very least Melisandre will make sure you have a comfortable life." Anneli added.

But as she said this Katrina snapped at her and told her to be quiet.

'What are they getting on about?' Evelyn thought feeling a sense of foreboding.

Unfortunately, any inquiry she put towards Anneli, or Katrina was redirected, and they simply told her to wait for Melisandre to explain.

When she was cleaned off, she was brough to a familiar room where Melisandre had once asked her about her past.

"Thank you both for helping Evelyn out. I will take it from here."

Anneli and Katrina, while bowing their heads left the room that was filled with a solemn atmosphere.

'Something bad must have really happened to me. I have never seen Melisandre with such a strained expression.'

A few minutes went by in complete silence as Melisandre toiled with where to begin.

"Evelyn, I know what I am about to say will not be easy to accept, but you have been asleep for five months."

'Asleep for five months. What does she mean?' Evelyn thought with a confused expression plainly visible on her face.

It just seemed to far fetched to be real. The longest she had ever slept was for was just a few days when she pushed her body to go from the mid-tier of the fiend beast rank to the high tier in one go.

"Melisandre stop messing around. I could not have just slept for five months, right? That seems impossible. It is not like I had a horrible head injury."

"I know that it might be hard to believe, but the damage you took was far greater than I could have anticipated. Truly it is a miracle you are alive now. I honestly did not expect you to recover."

Seeing the despondent expression on Melisandre's face and the truth in her eyes, Evelyn could no longer hang onto denial.

"So, I really was asleep for five months. Please give it to me straight, what happened to me?" Evelyn said resolutely.

Sighing, Melisandre returned her gaze, and said, "I am not exactly sure what did it, but your soul and beast core were damaged quite badly. Honestly it should have killed you, but you managed to live thanks to having more than one core and an especially tough soul. A human soul."

After Melisandre said this Evelyn began to panic.

It was clear that while doing all she could to save her, Melisandre had discovered a number of Evelyn's greatest secrets.

Numerous questions began rushing through Evelyn's head, as she wondered how much Melisandre really knew.

In the end however, she realized it did not matter. With all that her master had done for her, she decided she had the right to know the entire truth.

"I see that you found something out about me during your treatment. If you would explain everything that happened to me after I fell unconscious, I will tell you all of the secrets pertaining to myself I have kept hidden or answered with vague questions."

Surprise on her face, Melisandre did not expected Evelyn to so readily agree to give up her secrets when she had kept them so closely guarded before.

"You do not need to do that Evelyn. I may have been probing you a bit there, but I still plan to honor my word. I will never harm you and won't push you to answer anything about yourself. I want you to truly trust me before you divulge such information."

However, in response Evelyn just shook her head.

"No, I have already decided to trust you Melisandre. You have saved me more times than I can count. I think that it is time that I learn to trust a little. Even if it is only you."

Looking incredibly happy Melisandre was beyond ecstatic to hear this from Evelyn, the embodiment of distrustfulness.

She had always kept everything close to herself and only told as much as necessary in any given situation.

Except this only made what Melisandre had to say that much harder.

"Thank you for that Evelyn. Now I will tell you what happened after you fell unconscious."

To start Melisandre told her about how frantic both she and the owl named Bylur were to see her suddenly pass out.

The potion that Melisandre had given both of them was called drops of life and was able to restore any physical damaged so long as the one it was applied to was not already dead.

"That was when I knew that something must have been terribly wrong. And when I checked in on your soul, I saw that it was only being held together by the thinnest of threads."