"Did I dream you dreamed about me?

Were you here when I was full sail?

Now my foolish boat is leaning

Broken lovelorn on your rocks

For you sang, "Touch me not

Touch me not, come back tomorrow"

Oh my heart, oh my heart

Shies from the sorrow."

-"Song to the Siren," Tim Buckley

The drunken soldier stumbled into the dispensary, his hand clumsily fumbling along the wall for something to grip. Ava eyed him with obvious disapproval. It was after hours and she'd only left the outside door open to bring a patient in— a grandfatherly man whose wracking cough made sleeping outside in the infirmary tents a danger in the frosty night.

"Need medicine," the soldier finally managed to say, swaying slightly.

"What is wrong?" she asked uninterestedly, helping the old man onto the cot she had dragged close to the fireplace.

"Head hurts…" he muttered, rubbing his doughy face. "An' I feel ill."

If he'd only arrived half an hour ago… Adan would've helpfully stepped in, steering the drunkard swiftly out the door, but the alchemist had already left for the evening. It was only the old man and herself. The old man stared up at her with a mixture of gratitude and wariness, clutching her arm as she gently lowered him down into a sitting position.

"Drink some water and sleep it off," she called over her shoulder to the soldier.

For a merciful minute she thought he would comply and turn on his heels and out the door. But he did not.

"An' the medicine?" he asked indignantly.

"I have none to spare," she quipped.

"But this is the dispensary!"

"And I cannot waste any good medicine on a mere hangover," she protested.

"Blasted mages!" he spat on the ground. "Causing all this trouble and now acting all high an' mighty!" he slurred.

She turned her back to the old man and rested her fists over her waist.

"At least I don't make a sorry spectacle of myself when I drink," she hissed. "Now get out!"

It was not wise of her to provoke a drunkard, not when she was probably less of a brawler than the old man in the cot, but he'd triggered something in her, something that did not want to back down.

"I'm not leaving until you give me something!" he insisted belligerently, punctuating his words with his fist against the wall.

"I'll give you something!" Her eyes narrowed and she swiped her hand across the air in a graceful arc, charging its path with crackling tendrils of electricity. The soldier's eyes widened in an instant moment of fearful sobriety before bursting out the door.

Ava clenched her fist shut and sped to the door, slamming it closed behind him with her body. She reached beside her for the heavy crossbar, and pat the rough, cracked wood once she was satisfied it was firmly in place. After a few seconds of silence, she let out a bright laugh— a mixture of relief and delight, reverberating through the small room.

When she turned to check on the old man, she caught the expression of complete terror on his face.

"Oh, don't you worry now. I am just a healer," she explained appeasingly, moving to the end of the cot and drawing up the coarse blanket. "That display was just for show— it doesn't actually do anything."

The old man averted his gaze to a corner of the room, rubbing his fingers over the ends of his cottony beard in a preoccupied manner.

"I wasn't worried about you," he whispered, staring intently at the corner. "It was the man over there. His blades looked sharp and I couldn't see his eyes."

Ava's head turned quickly in the direction of the man's stare, but there was nothing in the shadowy corner. They stared together for a bit longer, her gaze trying to draw out any concealed shape, but nothing stirred in the flickering firelight. She even wandered over to the corner, just to put her mind at ease, but found only the broom leaning against the stone wall.

It was nothing, she sighed.

She turned her attention back to the old man. He stared into the fire, contentedly. He eventually nodded, cracking a gummy smile.

"Never went back there after she died. River-washed pebbles, smooth and white…Skip them over the moonlight…" she heard him whisper hoarsely.

"What did the man look like?" she asked curiously. He raised his eyes to her, startled from his reverie, straining to make sense of her words. She repeated the question, louder. He shook his head.

"What man?"

She balked.

"Didn't you just tell me there was a man in the corner? The blades?" she insisted, indicating the corner with her outstretched hands.

He shrugged, mystified.

No," he replied simply.

Ava scanned the room once more, drawing her shawl around her shoulders, and shivered.