I woke in a haze to the gentle light of a sunrise. I decided to close my eyes again and just revel in the moment of quietude. I listened intently to the muffled sound of morning birdsong, duetting with a tame breeze that nonetheless seemed deafening in the morning silence. Only a few people would be up as of yet, and none of them lived anywhere near our house, so I was in no rush. I thought I felt a weight at the end of my bed and let myself assume that one of the rabbits had managed to escape. I would deal with it soon enough, it wasn’t like they could open doors.

  I begrudgingly clawed my way to full consciousness, smiling a little at the thought of a rabbit trying to open a door. I pictured its little paws slipping off the handle after a desperate leap and had to suppress a small chuckle. As I opened my eyes I saw a figure perched on the foot of my bed, details hidden from sight through a combination of dim light and blurry vision. It was definitely not a rabbit.

  “Hey,” the figure said softly. A feminine voice, melodic and usually so energetic. A voice that I knew very well.

  “Cass?” I asked, a little slow because of the early hour. I couldn’t think of why Cassie would be in my house so early. I noticed another discrepancy. “Why is my window open?”

  The figure resolved itself slightly as she moved, and I could just about make out the dark brown hair and soft hazel eyes of my friend. Cassie shrugged, and if I knew her she was probably grinning, too. “I had to get in somehow, silly.”

  There it was. The casual teasing and limitless confidence was back, replacing the softness in an instant. Cass had moments like this, where she was quiet and earnest, but most of the time she was loud and excitable. Not to say that she wasn’t genuine. If anything, it was the opposite. She was so constantly herself that it was a little impressive. It was for this reason that I had a couple of guesses about her presence, now that I’d had a moment to get my thoughts in order.

  “You had to get in, did you?” I said archly. Or as archly as I was able to while currently horizontal.

  “Well, yeah. I stayed up all night prepping our zone for the Festival, so it was too late to go home and too early to do anything. I was so bored! So I thought I would see my best friend!” her familiar brand of exuberance came back into her voice as she spoke, somehow making it seem like breaking into my house in the small hours of the morning was the only logical move.

  “The sun isn’t even up yet, what were you hoping was going to happen? Also, please be quiet, Mum needs her sleep.” I sat up as I spoke, supporting myself on my arms as I shifted to get more comfortable. If I had to have a conversation so early I would not be doing it perpendicular to my friend, thank you very much.

  Cassie didn’t respond, just staring at me. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question.”

  Only then did I realise that Cassie wasn’t staring at my face. In fact, she was looking me just about anywhere but. I looked down just in time to remember that I hadn’t bothered to dress before going to sleep and flushed. I quickly gathered the sheets around myself and slid down a little on my bed, desperately wishing to be smote on the spot or summoned to another world, anything to avoid this situation.

  “O-oh gods, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to… I didn’t see anything! Promise!” My movements seemed to break Cassie from her trance, and she was immediately apologetic. Even if she was obviously lying, I appreciated the attempt.

  “I-its fine, just… This is why you don’t break into my room at nonsense o’clock, yeah?” I couldn’t meet her eyes, and my voice came out far to quiet for my liking. My face was still burning like nobody’s business, too. I managed to drag my gaze up to Cassie, still not meeting her gaze, and saw that she looked just as red as I felt.

  I felt out of my depth, as per usual. I was never able to deal with situations like this. Normally Cassie would help with this type of thing, at the very least letting me know what I should have done in retrospect. For obvious reasons, she couldn’t really give me advice on how to act here though. She could still do the next best thing and act for herself, however.

  Cassie began to shift, slowly sliding across the bed until she wrapped me in a quiet embrace, being very careful to keep my sheets between us. I’d never understood why, but where anyone else doing this to me always felt uncomfortable, it never did with Cassie. Even my own mother’s hugs always felt stilted to me, although I still let her indulge frequently for her own good. Cassie’s weren’t like that though, which was good because she was all kinds of physically affectionate.

  I felt the tension bleed away as I melted into the embrace. Not all of it, certainly not immediately, but still. Cassie’s hug worked the same wonders it always did as my mind calmed and resumed its normal operations. For the millionth time since we’d met, I marvelled at my friend. I had always counted my blessings that I had met Cassie, who was a rare mix of genuinely affectionate and socially open that let her effortlessly glide through most situations. She was just about the perfect person to get me to try something new, or help me through a tough time, or show me how to relax.

  Even as the conversation resumed several minutes later, Cassie didn’t let go. Rather, she shifted the both of us, until we were both facing the far wall and she was leaning against me while I braced myself against head of the bed.

  “So. You were bored?” I said with a half-grin, not that she could see it.

  “Yep!” She chirped, once more her enthusiastic self. “The whole area’s all set up for the kids later. And the new stage is set up, too.”

  “I’m still not sure about that part. I mean, shouldn’t we stick to what we know works?” For the past few years, I had brought back some small forest animals to let the kids play with for a while, and in a couple of cases just to keep. It was always a hit with the younger audience, and we got a few grateful remarks from the parents of the younger kids who wanted to enjoy the Festival without worrying about their children.

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  This year was different, however. We still had the animals, which was what the rabbits were for. I had a couple of others that I had collected over the last few days, as well as a particularly grumpy hedgehog. However, Cassie had decided that we needed to scale up, so we were putting together a two woman theatre, a miniature play about a brave huntress (me) taking out a legendary monster (Cassie). We had thought it would be a good way to keep the kids entertained after the animals got old, and to buy us some more points with the parents.

  I was anxious, however. I mean, Cassie was a natural talent at this sort of thing, all outgoing and confident, not to mention dramatic. I, on the other hand, was just about the opposite of that. I tended to keep to myself, struggled to keep up in a conversation with more than three people, and preferred to downplay most things. Cassie was set though, so I would stomach it. I knew that she was excited for it, because she had insisted on ‘workshopping’ the scene we would play out several times more than necessary over the last two weeks.

  “I know. I’m worried too.” She admitted, which surprised me a bit. “But I’m also sure that we’ll do great!” There she was.

  “Yeah, but what if they don’t like it? I mean, we aren’t exactly trailblazing with our performance.”

  “Our target audience is like, five, dumbass. I don’t think they’re worried about cliches,” Cass said flatly, twisting to look me in the face. Her face was still speckled with red, despite the fact that minutes had passed.

  “Besides, you can’t say that you haven’t gotten a little bored of the petting zoo. Its nice to see the kids happy, but they all do the same thing!” Cassie through her arms in the air dramatically. “Pick up the rabbit, pet the rabbit, carry the rabbit around! I mean, some of these kids have been at this thing all three years, you would think they’d have come up with some new moves by now.” Cassie huffed, before she settled back down again, jostling slightly against my chest as I laughed quietly.

  We sat in silence for a while, content to simply enjoy each other’s company. I was always a little surprised when we got our moments like this. Cassie was so lively that it came as a minor shock to get her to sit in the quiet with me for a while, but I always enjoyed it. She must too, because if she wanted to stop she just had to pull from her seemingly endless supply things to say.

  Eventually, our quiet time had to end. “Come on, we should go and get prepared. The sun is basically up already.” Cassie pushed off of me, sliding off the bed and standing. She stared again for a moment, before nonchalantly gesturing towards the pile of clothes on the floor by my bed. “You should probably get dressed, unless you want to scandalise half the village.”

  I chuckled, before simply giving Cassie a flat look when she didn’t move. She shot me a grin as I made a shooing motion with one hand, using the other to keep the sheets around me. “Go on, out you get, or I’m getting a lock for my window.” Cassie put her hand over her mouth with a melodramatic gasp before quickly hopping out of the window. As soon as she was gone, I got to my feet and dressed with alacrity before unlocking the door to let Cassie back in. As fun as it would have been to hop out of the window, it would have been far less enjoyable while carrying multiple animals, so door it was.

  Before long, we were walking side by side towards Vernal proper. While there were more animals to carry, there was also a second person to carry them, even if that second person currently cheating. Cassie had been studying magic for a few years now, and was currently using her education to levitate the cage that held the hedgehog, lightening her load significantly. Small blue sparks seemed to manifest from nowhere around the cage, which indicated her lightning affinity.

  She noticed me looking and grinned, although I couldn’t help but notice the look of concentration on her features. “Not bad, huh? I haven’t managed two objects at once yet, and its straining my weight limit, but its so cool!”

  Cassie’s eyes were practically shining as she spoke about her magic. She had always loved it, even the smallest work of magic drawing a look of awe from her. Including her own, apparently, although that kind of made sense. If I could move things with my mind, I would probably flaunt it all the time, too.

  I knew that Cassie had some magic planned for today, but she wouldn’t tell me what. It was part of what had me nervous, because Cassie had clearly been putting a lot of effort into whatever it was, which meant that there was a fair chance it would be over the top. In the end I decided to trust her, however. After all, I always did.

  As we walked into the village, I took a look around at the decorations. Like any holiday, there were the houses that put in way too much effort, strung to the gills with effigies and bunting. There were also a few houses that did little or nothing, although those were few. The Festival of Rebirth was a popular holiday, after all.

  The Festival itself was run by the Church of the Three, which had been the dominant religion in Vernal since long before I was born. They venerated the gods of Life, Death and Fate, which admittedly did make for a pretty all-encompassing trio. Most people around here were followers of the Three, although we had a fairly even mix of zealots and casual believers, of which I was significantly closer to the latter. There was no harm in a little reverence, but at the end of the day my life was mine, not some deity’s.

  As the Festival was religious in nature, it naturally adhered to a strict colour scheme. Specifically, it stuck to greens, purples and darker blues, since each of those were linked to Life, Death and Fate respectively. I had never actually learned what the origin of the Festival of Rebirth was, but I knew that it was meant to be in celebration of when the One had split into the Three.

  Soon enough we were at the village centre. Or, close enough. The actual square would be occupied by the main celebrations, with all of the food, drink and revelry that came with them. Cassie showed me to where a small square of wooden fencing had been set up, more for the kids than the animals. We set the cages down, and set to checking that everything worked. The gate on the fencing opened without issue, the animals all seemed healthy, that kind of thing.

  By the time we were confident in everything, the sun was officially up. Cassie took that opportunity to lead me over to the secondary attraction, a small stage set up in front of a load of seats, which were all fairly mismatched because they were borrowed for a series of different people. None of this was new, given that I had helped set most of it up. What was new were the plants and shrubbery decorating the stage, as well as the fact that the wood that made up the back wall had been coloured a dark green. It looked a lot more like a forest scene than it had before, so it would add a lot to the production.

  “Where did you get paint?” I asked as I examined the wood, which was very consistently coloured.

  “I didn’t!” Cassie declared proudly. “I got Almon to help.”

  I turned to look at Cassie. “How did you manage that?”

  Cassie puffed out her chest. “Why, by being a model student and prodigal practitioner in the arts magical, of course!” She attested, before deflating. “Also, I owe him a load of ingredients. You know how he is with his alchemy.” She straightened up and gave me an award winning smile. “On a completely unrelated note, I’m gonna need some help gathering some herbs in the next couple of weeks.” She gave me pointed look, as though daring me to call her out. I just sighed.

  “Fine.”

  “Wonderful. Now, we should probably run through one more time before anyone shows up.”