The next morning Simon awoke to the sound and smell of bacon being fried. He hadn’t eaten bacon in a long time. He hadn’t had the luxury of eating that quality of meat since he set out on his own.

Lucy was sitting in a chair near the fire. She was pouring over the pages of a large leather-bound book. Upon noticing that Simon was awake she put the book on a shelf and placed a pair of reading glasses next to it.

“How’s your leg?”

Straight to business then.

“Feeling better.”

“Good. I will have to change the bandages later. But first we’ll have breakfast.”

She took the pan of bacon from off the fire and placed a good portion onto a plate along with some bread. He took his time eating, savoring each bite. After he was finished, Lucy pulled back the blankets and began unrolling the bandages around his leg.

Simon tried to focus on the ceiling. He did not want to think about his wound, he didn’t even want to look at it. He felt something being peeled away, and the pain began to come over him. He swallowed down bile.

“So…” He decided that small talk might distract him, “do you live here all by yourself?”

Lucy finished removing the bandages and began working of cleaning to wound, “Currently, yes. But I haven’t always. As I said, I’ve lived here all my life. My parents… left when I was only fourteen. I’ve been alone for most of the past five years.”

“You didn’t go to live in town?”

“I don’t particularly care for people. I go down for food and other supplies, but I prefer to live here on my own.”

“You don’t get lonely?”

Lucy was wrapping new bandages around his leg, and she paused, “I don’t… know.”

Simon decided to leave it at that. His leg felt better at the very least. Lucy was washing her hands off. She glanced over at Simon’s bag. On the side of it was a strange symbol. It resembled an infinity symbol contained within a set of interlocking shapes. She then looked over at Simon.

“As long as we’re asking questions. I have a few of my own. What is that symbol on the side of your bag? What the hell is up with the scars on your arms? The look too symmetrical. And why did that monster disappear after it died?”

Simon thought about the questions. He remembered asking similar questions a long time ago. He remembered being sat down on a knee, and seeing a cigarette being put out on the arm of the chair. He remembered a speech that he sometimes repeated to himself even now. He opened his mouth, and repeated what he had been told.

“When you live in this world, it is important that you know about magic. Even if you don’t use it, you must understand it. Magic is everywhere. It flows through the world, a strange power that is not completely understood, even by those who use it. The power of magic is its ability to create. Magic will randomly take form, causing all kinds of strange things. It can cause islands to float, animals to learn human speech, or even create life.

"Unfortunately, it is more likely for magic to take shape in a different way. Nobody know how, but occasionally magic becomes corrupted and twisted. When this happens, it becomes a monster. Monsters can have intelligence, or act like wild beasts, but they all have one thing in common. They want to kill. They want to cause destruction. Some believe that death causes magic to become corrupted, creating more monsters, but it is unknown if this is true. Upon death, monsters turn into the magic of their creation, leaving no evidence of their existence.

"Because magic is strange and random, there is only one way for non-magical beings like us to use it. And that is through runes. People place runes on themselves through any form of marking, with the most common being tattoos, and they can use those runes to turn the magic around them into a form depending on their runes. Runes can also be placed on objects, giving them properties that defy logic.”

“So,” Lucy interrupted, “the scars on your arms, and the symbol on your bag, those are runes? What do they do?”

“Well, the runes on my arms allow to convert nearby magic into electricity, and the ones on the backs of my hands allow me to turn the magic into blades. Meanwhile the one on my bag is a little different. It connects my bag to a large space that doesn’t truly exist. This allows my bag to have an incredible amount of space. In fact, my bag contains a tent, a sleeping bag, some food, a map, and a few other assorted bits and bobs.”

“These runes seem useful, especially for someone like you. Why aren’t you and your equipment covered in them?”

“That is the cost of magic. If something is not inherently magic, then having magic flow through it causes it to become unstable. Objects can generally only handle one rune. Any more than that would cause it to implode from the magical force. A person can survive having multiple runes, but there is still a limit. Every person has a limit of how much magic they can take. If their runes go over this limit…”

“They also implode?”

Simon nodded, “It… isn’t pretty. The more runes they try to take, the worse it is.”

“Wow.”

“Have you actually never heard any of this before?”

She shook her head, “No. As I said I’ve been on my own here for a while, and my parents never talked about magic.”

“And you’ve never seen any monsters before that Troll?”

“Well, I’ve seen monsters, but I didn’t know anything about them.” She sat down in a chair and stared at Simon intently, “And now you’ve piqued my interest. You say that you travel around fighting monsters. I want to hear all about it.”

* * *

That night, Lucy could barely sleep. For most of the day Simon had told her stories of all the monsters he fought. She had forgotten how good it felt to have someone to talk to. It put a warm feeling in her chest. But there was another feeling too. A pounding of her heart, like a war drum ordering her to step forwards.

She remembered when she was young, when she would see one of those dark-eyed creatures emerging from the woods. Her father would pat her on the head.

“Stay inside pumpkin. Daddy’s gonna take care of it.”

And he would. He would go to the back room, open the secret panel she wasn’t supposed to know about, and go off into the woods with his weapon in hand. She always wanted to follow him.

Ever since that day five years ago when they came to call, she had been too scared to pursue her goal. In trying to protect her, her parents left her vulnerable to the world. And so, she stayed here. In this house. For five years. Maybe she could do it now, maybe she could leave and...

No. Stop thinking about this. She had nowhere to go. She was just going to stay here like she always did. Alone.