A couple of days passed as Willow slowly recovered. Her father and brother covered her share of the daily chores, much to the young teens annoyance. Her sister checked in on her constantly, clearly feeling some guilt at being the cause of the young girl's current discomfort, but Willow didn’t blame her. In fact, she mostly didn’t notice the comings and goings of her family as she was too focused on her project.

  She spent the time mostly in bed looking through scrolls searching for a name good enough for her friend. She still couldn’t read of course, but she had largely memorized each of the stories her father and sister had read to her from the scrolls, and physically looking at them helped her to remember what names were associated with what stories.

  Calypso the Artist, whose stories usually involved using her beauty and wits to outsmart people trying to coerce her into making things for them. Willow liked her stories well enough, but preferred ones with more fighting and less kissing. However the pictures that went along with her stories were some of the best to look at, even if the subject matter didn’t interest her, so it was a bit of a wash.

  Phoebe the Prophet, whose stories were mostly cautionary tales about not seeking out prophecies. At least that’s how Willow viewed them. She very much did not understand why people kept searching for her so she’d tell their future when inevitably it was something bad. They then had the audacity to get mad at Phoebe about it. Some people were just silly, she supposed.

  Andrea the Poisoner, who had only one story in the whole collection. Hers was a tale of revenge as her family was killed by a rival one when she was a child. She then spent years learning the art of poison making and finding a powerful serpent beast to bind for her cause. After making all of the necessary preparations she then got a job as a servant in the household of her hated foes. There were no survivors when she was finished. Willow’s father did not like reading her this story, but Maple always seemed more than happy to. Personally the girl felt like the extent of the revenge was a bit much, but she hadn’t seen her whole family killed in front of her so she withheld full judgement.

  There were many more such as Megara the Breaker of Chains, Pyrrha the Flame Haired, Helen the Healer, and Calliope the Songstress. Not even mentioning the countless other side characters and villains featured in each of these stories, but she wanted only the best for her friend which meant the name of a proper hero.

  However there was only one name that felt like the correct choice. The name of the hero of the story she was “reading” when the candle flame first came to life. The name from one of her absolute favorite stories.

  The story of Eos the Dawnbringer was a rather simple affair. The realm was plunged into darkness by a powerful spirit of night and Eos fought it off with the help of her spirit of sun and light. There were of course many different challenges and obstacles that got in the way as usually happens in such stories, but the bones of it were quite simple. Big bad guy causes problems and a hero thwarts them. That’s what Willow liked about it, and why it was a personal favorite of hers.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  She hoped her friend liked the name she picked. She worried that a human name might not be suitable for a spirit, but a couple of the ones from her stories had human sounding names so she thought it would be fine. She just had to wait and see what her spirits had to say on the matter.

  Willow was in the middle of an afternoon nap when the whispers began. At first the girl thought they were part of whatever half remembered dream she was having, but as they continued she realized she recognized them. She jolted upright, causing some of the open scrolls that covered her to rustle and roll across her bed. Her body ache was completely gone, but her father was insistent she rest until her core was fully healed. Which, judging by the voice she was hearing, might’ve just happened.

  “Willow.” Change called through the connection they shared, his voice fainter than it should’ve been. It even echoed a bit, which didn’t seem right. “Can you hear me yet? I’m still sorry, please be unharmed.” He sounded sad and scared, like he had been asking and saying this for a long time with no response. Had he been calling out to her this whole time? Willow felt bad for her new friend if that was the case.

  She tried using her spiritual sense and it worked, but it felt like a limb that had fallen asleep, slow to move, tingly, and slightly painful. Despite the difficulty she sent it to the internal space where Change resided so she could speak to him. It felt far different than the girl remembered.

  Willow had always been unsure what exactly the internal spaces were. All she knew was that they were created at the same time the bond between binder and spirit was formed. She had also instinctively known that she had to anchor them to a physical point in her body. The girl had wanted to ask her father about them, but his reaction to her candle flame spirit had made her hesitant to broach the subject, and her sister was unlikely to know.

  All of this to say, the small pocket of space that Willow had nestled in her brow was unrecognizable now. For one thing it was far larger than she remembered, and for another it was filled with a whorling chaotic maelstrom of Change. In the center of the storm was the infant form of her spirit curled up in the fetal position. His one eye was closed and leaking a black fluid that spread to his surroundings, as it moved it morphed and merged into the chaos, and seemed to be its source.

  “Change?” She tried to call with her qi, but it didn’t seem to be reaching him through all of the spiritual noise in his space. If only she could just…

  *Pop*

  A projection of Willow made of qi appeared at the edge of the space. Oh. She didn’t know she could do that. She was even able to instinctively move it. Neat.

  Ignoring her curiosity on how she just did that, Willow moved her projection slowly and surely through the storm. Thankfully it didn't seem to have as large an effect on her as she initially feared and she managed to make it to her friend in a relatively short time.

  Willow embraced and comforted her crying spirit, whispering to herself while sending through her qi. “We’re all right, Change. Everything is fine. We made it home safe and sound.”

  Slowly the storm in her brow began to still.

  Her friend's eye slowly opened and looked up at her projection, the black fluid vanishing as the moments passed. Change hugged Willow back and whispered in a hoarse voice.

  “I’m glad.”