It was bizarre, being back here in the dorms. More so, because when I had been in the Huntsmen dormitory, this place had been.. Quiet. Dark, except for when I was in here and lighting things up as I busied myself with tasks in the dark of night. Now - now, everywhere I looked, there were people moving about, bustling and doing things. Sharpening simple daggers, arguing with each other about various weapons, different creatures. It - made my heart sting. Because this was what I had so desperately desired when I was schooling here, for there to be other people here. But now - now I was so much older, and had another entire life separating me from those around me. Not that they knew that - they all knew me as Fil’ayn Ansari, recent graduate. Not Kiljarden, one of the oldest Huntsman who had suddenly disappeared without word, his family vanishing the same night.

And that had been a shock to find out. The news leaflet still sat on the end of the bed I had been pointed to, and it had drawn a few odd looks. Until someone realized that I ‘must be looking up the famous Hunter that I had been named after.’ Which had spawned a whole wave of new fascination in me, as people realized my ‘namesake’. I had finally got them to leave me be, long enough to read the article that Tryvain had indicated I needed to read.

My family, and I, had been declared as completely missing, due to malicious actions from an unknown party. The fact that she, and I, were still so ‘young’ had been remarked upon - but in an ironic twist of fate, the fact that it was magic at play had been accepted readily, and in fact praised, because of what we had accomplished in our own small ways. I as a Huntsman, and she as a respected Alchemist, helping research magics. Ironically, it was she who had created the antidote to the Gorgon venom that I had used to save Celandine, Philomel’s daughter. I wondered how the Faun might take it, if she learned that it was Amari who had created that medicine, nearly, what, four hundred years ago? I chuckled dryly and sat back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Investigations had been done into our disappearance, but.. Nothing had come of it. All they knew is that while my wife and I had vanished, our daughter had - had died. I swallowed, as a renewed ache stung my heart. It was the clue that my wife and I had been - taken, vanished. Because everyone who knew us, knew we cherished Ky’lin, and if she had died, then something had to have happened to the two of us. But no culprit ever came to light, officially, or in the more intense, private investigations that Tryvain, Galain and a few other of our close friends had spearheaded. It was apparently still a topic of debate over a century later.

That had been another odd thing that I had found out. I had consistently, before, thought that I was eighty seven. And when my memories had come back, I had thought that I had just lost them eighty seven years ago. I was -wrong. My vanishing, Ri and Ky’lin’s deaths - they had happened over a century ago. I was somehow still missing roughly twenty years - years where not even Tryvain knew of what had happened to me. I had shown up at his door in the middle of the night, unaware of where, or who I was, or even who he was. All I had known was - how to fight. How to kill. It had panicked the man. I had thought ‘Ansari’, the Huntsman I had been, had been an emotionless automaton. It turned out, I had been even worse when I showed up that day.

Hearing that I only responded to direct orders, even for things like satisfying physical needs like food, water, and slumber. It had -frozen me to the core. What in the name of the sweet moon had happened to me that night? Where had I gone? What had I done, and become? It ate at me, the back of my mind. I had nothing. Not even Amari’s second delve had revealed these missing years to me, all I knew was a silvery, shimmering haze that stretched, now, from when Ri had been gutten in front of me, to the moment clarity returned to me roughly thirty years ago. I’d been at the Academy in truth, but I - couldn’t remember any of it. And I felt, whatever was locking those memories away from me, was also locking away what happened in those twenty years where no one knew where I was. I swallowed roughly, clearing the lump in my throat, and rolled over. I had to sleep, even if this bed was somewhat uncomfortable. Tomorrow would be a full day. Giving a guest lecture, then… visiting my home.