Marachius Ainsley

Naps and Dreams

“Wake up, Marc!”

The young paladin’s eyes shot open and he looked around. He was sitting in a chair next to a small table in the barracks, where he’d apparently nodded off to sleep. On the other side of the room, sitting on her bunk was his squadron mate Nara, writing on a pad of paper.

“What?” Marachius asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“You were getting rather loud there, Marc. Must’ve been some dream.”

“Dream?” Marachius repeated, finally starting to focus on the day.

“Yeah. Way you were grunting, I figured you were in a fight or something. But then you started saying someone’s name, and I wasn’t sure anymore,” she added with a smirk. “Dreaming of your girlfriend?”

“No,” Marc answered quickly. “I mean, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“What about the one you’re always going to visit? The one who takes food to the poor by the docks?”

“Reggy? She’s not my girlfriend. We’ve just known each other forever.”

“I thought that’s how all true romances started,” Nara answered with a chuckle.

“In the books, maybe,” Marc said with a weak grin. “Doesn’t really matter anyways. She thinks of me like a brother.”

“If you say so,” Nara said with another grin before looking back to her pad.

“Do you have someone back home?” 

“Yeah, something like that,” Nara said with a nod, not looking up from her writing.

“Is it hard being here instead of with them?”

“Yeah,” Nara replied with a sigh. Then she gave a slight smile. “But when I do get to see them, its really nice.” She then looked back to her writing.

“Really nice,” Marachius repeated as he looked down at the table next to him.