Of Lightning And Stars

Chapter 2: Tobias

All night my dreams are full of their usual horrors, primarily my mom's death. She committed suicide when I was six, just after Orion chose me as his apprentice, and she chose Allister as her own. I saw the whole thing, and I see it every night as a result.

Dolly is still there when I wake the next morning, at around 6:00 in the morning. She is still pressed up against my side, and my legs have begun to grow numb under the weight of her own limbs, still thrown over mine and crossed delicately.

I lean my head back again against the pillows, but sleep evades me. Even so, I don't want to get up and see the Commander just yet. He likely won't be expecting me for a few hours anyway, and I don't want to upset him by showing my face any sooner than necessary.

A few minutes later, when I've just closed my eyes again in a vain hope for sleep, my door pushes open slightly, and Jenny peers in, looking relieved. She slips inside, a cup of what I assume is tea clutches tightly in her bony fingers.

"There she is." she breathes, drawing close so she can press her fingers against Dolly's temple. She's out of her uniform, and exchanged her white coat for her husband's black bath robe. He's likely still asleep. Ryan, her husband and our fourth-in-command, has never been an early riser the way Jenny is. "You know she always misses this. She forced Allister to share his bed when you moved out."

I hum quietly in response, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with my palm. I've never been much of a morning talker. Jenny sighs, and after a bit of effort that shows how old she's actually getting, she kneels beside the bed, setting her glass on the floor.

"You're so much like her." she whispers, careful not to wake the sleeping girl between us. "Almost a spitting image."

"It's a blessing and a curse." I mutter. As if I didn't have Orion's footsteps to follow in, when mom died I took on her memory. Most people can't look at me without expressing their pity for her death, or flinching because of who my mentor is.

Jenny doesn't say anything, but as she sits quietly beside the bed I can feel Dolly beginning to stir. She stretches her limbs out before slowly sitting up, leaving a warm patch where her body was. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she blinks a few times before looking at her surroundings.

"Gee I didn't know it was a slumber party." she mutters groggily, stretching again. She smiles at her joke as she slowly pulls her legs over the edge of the bed, untangling herself from the blankets and getting to her feet. One of her socks is missing, lost in the sheets somewhere. She doesn't seem to notice, though, and slowly slips out of the room as she regains her bearings.

"Guess I better go make sure she doesn't run into anything." Jenny tells me, a small smile on her face as she references the time two years ago when a seventeen-year-old Dolly had pulled an all-nighter to study for an exam. She had run into nearly every wall in the apartment, not to mention most of the furniture.

Jenny pats the bed as she gets to her feet, grimacing. Not for the first time, I'm glad I'll likely graduate in four months, when I turn twenty. When I move up, so do the other three apprentices, and Jenny will step down into retirement. After over two decades of service, she needs a break. She'll still be relatively young to do so, with plenty of time left for her to finally get some rest.

After Jenny leaves, I quickly dress into my uniform and fix my hair before stepping out of the bedroom. The nervous energy Jenny had last night has spread throughout the rest of the apartment; I can tell that everyone else is on edge when I step into the kitchen, fastening the rapier to my belt.