"You said you sought peace, were you experiencing an outburst of anger?" Basha asked.

I shook my head. "You might call it a panic attack." I said. "It's a state of often irrational fear that causes me to want to flee, which the Contract on me prevented me from actually doing so. No offense meant to you or Bahamut, but prayer was not going to help, since I'm fairly certain being here was a factor in this, even if small."

"Have you so little faith?" He asked.

"I would argue I have more faith than I had in my entire life." I remarked. "But how much of my prayers are genuine, and how much is it that I simply want an easy way out of a problem?" I adjusted myself to sit cross-legged. Basha gave me a weird look.

"Try it." I said. "I sincerely doubt the Dragon God wants us to always be in a pose of supplication, he doesn't strike me as the kind of deity to lord it over his followers and act as a tyrant."

"In that, you are correct." He said, adjusting so he, too, was sitting with his legs crossed. "You are unusual, Bahrot."

"In what way?" I asked.

"You do not act in a way that would make sense." He replied. "I do not think you are necessarily lying, but when I checked records of various villages and towns, I could not find one called 'Salem'. Teleportation magic cannot simply find a random individual and call them, one must have an intimate understanding of a given location, so you cannot be from a faraway land without having been kept by someone of power, unless Lady Wyrashe both knew where you were from and brought you to her."

"She did not summon me from a faraway land." I said. "It was a chance meeting. She learned of my curse almost immediately and brought me to her estate as a compulsory guest so she could try to unravel the curse on me."

He nodded. "She does not strike me as the kind of person who could lay a fel curse upon someone, I recall she had to remove more than a handful of Felgrats."

"That was what my curse caused initially." I admitted. "Every time I tried to speak my real name, or certain important information, one would appear in my throat and choke me. Now, I merely stop talking immediately."

"I see..." He said. "What are you, Bahrot? Where do you come from?"

"I am from another world." I replied.

Basha's eyes widened, his mouth agape. "Another world?" He asked.

I nodded. "A world with magic so weak that it is practically useless, a world with gods that nobody has seen, and indeed, many doubt their existence. A world that, until more than a week ago, had been my only home. I grew up in a city called Salem."

"I believe you are being truthful, as it explains many things. Are you of a noble family, then?"

I shook my head. "I am what would amount to a commoner." I replied. "On my world, however, even the poorest are afforded a free education, and there is no true nobility, except perhaps those who have hoarded vast amounts of money that they use to bribe those in power." I rubbed my hands together. "This world, I don't even know the name of it, there are stories that feature worlds similar to this, and though to my knowledge nobody has ever left my world, save myself, there are many similarities. The name of the Dragon God, for instance, and several qualities, match was on my world would be considered a fictional Dragon God."

"And what you were doing in the Focus Crystal chamber..?"

"Meditation." I replied. "Nothing more than silent introspection meant to calm my mind and to help me put things in perspective." I smirked. "Perhaps if I meditated on Bahamut, I would gain more insight than simply praying might grant, or perhaps he might be insulted and tell me to knock it off." I shrugged.

"Such irreverence might get you killed." Basha warned.

"Then I will be certain to be more reverent." I replied.

He scratched his chin. "It does make sense, however, that you would resort to practices outside of prayer, but have you actually tried?"

"I have." I said. "Prayer is simply a means of communication. To me, praying to have my anxieties alleviated is the same as saying, 'I am too lazy to actually do it myself. You do it for me'. Which then is more disrespectful? To ask for strength you already have, or to use that strength and not bother a deity who likely has more important things to do than cater to your every minor need?"

"There is nothing wrong with asking for help." He pointed out.

"Bahamut isn't my therapist." I said. "Nor are you, for that matter, I will do what I need to for myself, anything else, if it is outside of my capabilities, I will turn to prayer."

He seemed satisfied with this.

"This act of meditation. Do you simply just sit there in darkness and silence?"

"I could do it in a busy street." I said. "The main thing is calmness, stillness, and self-awareness. To be aware of how you interact with the world, and how the world interacts with you. I could show you. Though, I think something like a garden would be more appropriate, unless you'd like to meditate on the nature of the divine in front of a shrine to said divine."

He nodded and stood up and guided me to a door. "Acolytes are only allowed into the garden with accompaniment." He said. "Please do not just come and go as you please."

"Understood." I said.

He led me out to a garden, which was full of flowers and trees. I walked up to a particularly tall tree and rested my hand on it. I could feel it as an old tree.

"Right here." I said.

"Here?" He asked.

I nodded. I sat down and crossed my legs and he did the same.

"I will guide you through the basics. I will not ask you to do or think anything that does not align with your beliefs to the best of my ability." I said. He nodded. "Rest your hands in whatever place is comfortable. Do not be afraid to adjust as needed." He laced his fingers together and held his hands up in a pose of prayer. "Are you sure you can maintain that for a long period of time?" I asked. He nodded. "Then close your eyes and we will begin."

He closed his eyes, and I said, "We will begin with a fairly basic breathing exercise. Inhale through your nose, and exhale with your mouth. Do this ten times, like this." I breathed in slowly, I exhaled slowly. He did this. At first, it was forceful, he was thinking about it too hard, trying to figure out if there was some trick to it, but then it grew calm and even.

"Good. The purpose of this is to center yourself, to be calm. You are at rest, and you will remain at rest for as long as is necessary, or until an outside force acts upon you." He nodded slightly. "Can you feel the magic that fills the air?" I asked. "Can you feel the energy that with both inside and outside of you?" He nodded again. "Which feels more intense?" I asked.

"Within." He said, his brow furrowed.

"This time, I want you to practice the breathing exercise again, but this time, when you breathe in, I want you to visualize you are taking in the energy outside you, and when you breathe out, that you are releasing the energy within you. Do this until the intensity within you is lessened to match the world around you."

He did so, and like before, he spent the beginning focusing on breathing more than he did breathing, until he slowly stopped thinking about breathing and just breathed. The tension in his body loosened, but he did not go limp. He was relaxed, calm. "Okay." He said.

"Good." I said. "Imagine for a moment that you are like a tree. You have a root, burrow it into the ground, as deep as you are comfortable with. Tell me when this has been done."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, then he said, "It is done."

"Good. Now, imagine you have mighty boughs that reach into the stars. Reach out as far as you are comfortable."

He opened an eye and looked at me, but closed it and sat in silence. "It is done." He stated.

"As of this moment, you are connected with the ground and the sky. Just as sunlight shines down and nourishes life, allow the energy of the sky to flow through you and into the ground."

His brow furrowed, and then slowly relaxed. "I feel it." He remarked. "It is odd."

"Does it remind you of anything?" I asked.

"It feels similar to when I pray, when I channel the will of Bahamut, but there is no will behind this, it simply exists."

"When you are ready, I want you to draw back the branches, I want you to put in the ground any excess energy that you do not need, and I want you to draw in the root."

He took a deep breath. "It feels as though I just breathed in myself." His brow furrowed. "If that makes any sense."

"It does." I replied.

He took several more deep breaths until his breathing calmed. "It is done." He said. "I understand what you mean by it granting peace. But if that is all it is good for, then why need it when you are already at peace?"

"You were able to ground the energy the Focus Crystal was putting into you, right?" I asked. His eyes opened wide.

"Yes." He said. "It would normally take me longer to recover from unprotected exposure, but I feel completely well."

"There is a practical application." I said. "But moreover, you now have a means to calm yourself, to allow the stress of your position, the anxiety of being unable to do everything at once, without relying on Bahamut to do it for you. You can now do it yourself, so the Dragon God does not need to intervene."

He nodded, understanding. "I no longer am a distraction, since I can meet my own needs, I do not need." He laughed. "And yet, this time is spent away from prayer, it is spent away from helping others."

"If you only ever do for others, you will never be able to do for yourself." I replied. "For every prayer you speak for peace for yourself, you draw on the power of Bahamut to handle it for you. But if He is not capable of removing it, if he is not capable of granting you peace without doing something He would never do morally, then all you are doing is letting a wound fester without treating it."

He nodded. "Perhaps, in calling for help, I have grown reliant, and instead of being faithful, I have instead had little faith."

"Or maybe you had too much faith, and believed he would take care of your every need, and in turn allow yourself to become weaker."

He nodded.

"By the way, you do not need to set time aside to meditate, you can do it as you walk. That is what the breathing exercise is for, so that in breathing, and allowing yourself to be at peace as you breathe, you do not need to stop what you are doing."

"So, this is merely a prerequisite." He remarked.

"This sort of stuff is a huge rabbit hole that's more involved than it initially seems." I said.

"Rabbit hole?" He asked.

"A long, complex process that requires a lot of time and patience." I said.

He nodded. "And what is a 'therapist'?"

"Basically, a person whose job is to listen to your woes and to offer advice and comfort that you cannot otherwise get. Someone who is impartial, but caring nonetheless, who does not let their personal beliefs or ideals get in the way of them helping a person in need." I replied.

"I see. Then perhaps I could be such for you?" He asked.

"It's fine, you already have enough on your plate to deal with, you don't need to tackle my problems as well as yours."

He nodded. "You are a selfless person, Bahrot." He said. "To share knowledge, to take on a name that isn't your own for the sake of another. I do not doubt you would make an excellent priest."

His assessment made me happy, but at the same time, it also caught on that nagging feeling that something wasn't right.

"Did I say something wrong?" Basha asked.

"What?" I asked.

"Your expression changed." He stated.

"Just a pang of anxiety." I said. "It happens."

He nodded. "In any case, I will think on what you have shown me today, if it is of use to the Temple, I may even bring it up to the Archdrake." He stood up. "Flame within, light above."

I'd heard this spoken before, but I'd never really paid attention to it. I only paid attention now because, well, it was something related to the Bahamut faith. Was I simply getting caught up in something as a result of having something concrete, or did I finally find something that I'd been looking for since... well, ever?

I followed him out of the garden and set to doing the daily chores. It was as I was cleaning that I saw an Aelfan in slightly ornate vestments pass me by. He looked at me.

"You are new." He stated.

"I am." I replied.

"Do you know who I am?" He asked.

"Someone of importance." I replied.

He smiled. "You are not incorrect." He said. "I am Archdrake Furtael. Who are you?"

"I am Bahrot." I said.

He smiled and knelt before taking my hands. "May your faith grow stronger, may it encompass you, and may it never waver."

The blessing he gave felt oddly subdued, but it was a blessing nonetheless.

"Thank you." I said.

"Thank the Dragon God." He said as he stood. "His blessings are only possible through His power."

As he walked away, I felt a powerful need to pray...