Nis had never heard of a Waiting Room before. She’d also never heard of a Life Counselor. Nevertheless, Lesch had brought her to this place, signed her in, and then told her to take a seat in the Waiting Room until they called for her. Lesch would return to pick her up after her meeting. The Waiting Room itself was moderate in size, with small groupings of chairs placed throughout and a pair of doors on the far side, away from the main entrance.

There were a only two other people in the waiting room with Nis, a father and his young son. They both gave Nis kind smiles and she tried to return them.

“Is this your first time here?” the father asked Nis.

She nodded and took a seat not too far away to seem rude but far enough that she hoped they would leave her alone. The father gave her another smile and turned back to his son. They were in the middle of reading a small, colorful book together. There were others like it, scattered here and there throughout the waiting room on the various short tables in the Waiting Room. She’d never seen such books before. Judging from the book covers she could see, they appeared to be intended specifically for young children with fantastical characters and made up stories.

Nis picked one up and flipped through it, though she didn’t really read it. Mostly she was just looking for something to help pass the time while she waited. Unfortunately, the childish nature of the book only served to make her feel more uncomfortable. She wished Lesch would have stayed with her but there were things she needed to get done. It wasn’t as though Lesch had any sort of responsibility over Nis. In fact, Lesch was flying back to First Respite later that day. After today, Kerchek would be the one Nis would need to rely upon, but even he would only be checking in on her and Meric once a day.

One of the doors in the Waiting Room opened and a wrinkled old man poked his head out.

“Nis?” he said in a raspy voice.

“I’m here,” Nis replied and the man waved  for her to join him in the room.

Nis obeyed and made her way over to him. He held the door open for her and inside she saw a room not that dissimilar to the sitting room she’d spent much of the previous night in.

“Take seat anywhere you like,” he told her and shut the door.

Nis selected a soft chair, a woven blanket resting on the arm. It wasn’t cold in the room but Nis nevertheless wrapped herself into the blanket. A woman that Nis hadn’t noticed at first, just as old and wrinkled as the man, sat on the couch opposite the chair Nis had chosen. She smiled in a friendly way at her and held out a tray of small cakes.

Nis shook her head.

“No thanks.”

“There’s some water, or juice if you’re thirsty,” the old woman said.

Again, Nis declined.

The old man sat down beside the woman and cleared his throat.

“I’m Shen,” he said in his whistly voice, “and this is D’Aora. We understand you’ve been having some difficulty with a past life.”

“Yes,” Nis replied. “How much have they told you?”

“We’ve been told a few things,” D’Aora said, “but it’s best if we hear it all from you.”

“Alright,” Nis sighed. She’d hoped that she wouldn’t need to go back over everything again. “One of my past lives was the queen of Dural. I think she wanted to stop people from remembering their past lives so she could better control them, especially the stolen lives. There were other things, as well, that she wanted to conceal and when those things come up, she tends to take over.”

Shen and D’Aora listened and nodded along as she spoke

“This is the life right after Mel?” Shen asked.

“Yes,” Nis replied.

“Do you know the name of this past life?” he asked.

“I don’t.”

More nods.

“Can you help me?” she asked, feeling frustrated and more than just a little embarrassed.

“When was the first time this happened to you?” Shen asked, his voice maintaining that sense of calm interest.

“I was in the archives,” Nis began. “They had taken me and made me part of the collection because of my dreams. One of the archivists was asking me about something from a past life and the next thing I know, I’m watching myself grab a knife and trying to kill him.”

“And that’s when you decided to run away?” D’Aora asked.

Nis nodded.

“And the next time this past life of yours came forward was in First Respite?”

“Yes,” Nis said but then shook her head. “No, there were moments, just brief ones, where she seemed to speak through me. I think there may have been a couple times along the way that it happened.”

“But nothing violent until First Respite?”

“Right.”

“What was your impression of First Respite?” Shen asked. “When you first arrived, I mean. What were your thoughts about it?”

“I don’t know,” Nis replied. “I was pretty surprised to find it there, but I was mostly focused on just getting away from there.”

“Did you feel trapped in that place?”

“I was trapped,” Nis insisted. “They’d forced us to stop, forced us off the raft,” her voice was rising in emotion as she remembered the fear of that moment as she was taken captive.

“It’s alright,” D’Aora said calmly. “You’re perfectly safe now.”

Nis realized she’d begun gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that her knuckles were white. She relaxed her hands and steadied her breathing.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” D’Aora said. “You’ve been through something very difficult and frightening. It’s completely understandable that you’d have some very powerful emotions tied up in all of that. How have you been since you arrived in Quet’tzos?”

“I don’t know, we only got her last night.”

“But your past life hasn’t done anything since your arrival?”

“No, I guess not, but why would she?”

“We understand that seeing maps in First Respite was quite upsetting,” Shen said.

“I think my past life had wanted to hide the knowledge of the lands north of the sea,” Nis said.

“And yet you are here and with no issues.”

That gave Nis reason to pause. Why would seeing maps upset her past life, but being here had barely stirred up anything from her.

“In Dural,” Shen began after some time in silence, “you were held against your will in the archives. Then, again in First Respite you were held against your will. Along the way to First Respite you were being pursued, yes?”

“That’s right.”

“But before all of that you were, more or less free to do as you pleased?”

“I had chores around my parents farm,” Nis said.

“But you weren’t their prisoner,” Shen observed.

“Of course not.”

“And now that you’re here, you’re not being held against your will.”

“Right,” Nis agreed although she wasn’t sure where this all was going.

“Nis,” D’Aora said with a thoughtful expression. “Sometimes, when we’re in particularly stressful situations, we can reach back to those lives who’ve had similar situations, or at least felt similarly powerful emotions. In those moments we can form a sort of link with them, bringing their past words or actions to ourselves. With the archivist, for example, your past life didn’t want to kill him. She has lived her life and is done, but something in that moment with the archivist must have been similar enough to a moment from her life that, because of the stress you were feeling from being so confined, led to you reenacting a moment from her life.”

“I couldn’t control myself,” Nis insisted.

“We know,” both Shen and D’Aora replied.

There was silence between them again but this time it was Nis who broke it.

“So, do you think since I’m not feeling trapped anymore that I won’t have any more of those…that it won’t happen again?”

“Such a powerful connection is difficult to make,” Shen told her. “And they can be difficult to break.”

Nis felt her shoulders sag but Shen hurriedly added, “However, that connection seems tied to your own feelings of being trapped or captured, so I would not be surprised at all if it rarely if ever causes you or anyone else any more concern.”

“I think for the time being,” D’Aora said, “we should get together a few times a month and see how you’re doing. Does that sound alright?”

Nis nodded, not sure whether she felt relieved or not. Shen and D’Aora were nice enough, but she wasn’t sure how talking with them was supposed to help. Though, if she was being totally honest with herself she didn’t know how else anyone was supposed to help with her past life. She hoped that they were correct, that now that things seemed to be calming down for her that her past life wouldn’t cause any more issues. With time, perhaps, she’d stop feeling like there was some unseen timer, counting down to the next outburst from her past life.