Sigrun had said they would be on the road for a couple of days. With hopefully no grosslings they could attract, it was the ideal time to help Kitty train her mage-skills. Just, daytime-Kitty either didn´t understand what Reynir wanted from her, or didn´t care. She had great fun learning Icelandic with Tuuri though, especially since Mikkel had salvaged an old dictionary from the last place before moving on. Tuuri could use it for reference now. It happened to have nice pictures, which the little girl really liked.
“Hello, I am Kisa!”, in Icelandic were the words she woke Reynir up with after the last dreamless night.
And that was exactly the Icelander´s problem. Ever since the ghost-attack, he either didn´t dream at all or just had weird nightmares and kept on waking up. As a result, he was constantly tired and couldn´t find the dream-Kitten.
All the more surprised he was to find himself in the dreamspace now, in the middle of the day, when he had just dozed off sitting on the tank´s wheels. The vehicle had broken down, and the others were sitting around waiting for Tuuri to fix it. Kitty had immediately curled herself up in a sunny spot and fallen asleep. Reynir had intended to stay awake in the hopes of then being able to sleep tonight, but it looked like that hadn´t worked. Whatever, the kitten was here, and he was here, and he would not waste that opportunity.
It was sitting at its usual spot on the fence, fast asleep. He carefully approached it and poked the little cat´s back.
“Hey, wake up! I really hope waking you up here doesn´t wake you up in the real world… Or wait. Are you Kisa? Or her Fylgia?”
The little orange and white cat opened one of her big, blue eyes. She started stretching and gracefully leaped to the ground.
“Kisa?”, Reynir asked.
The kitten looked at him with her head tilted. Then she seemed to smile.
“Reynir!”
Her voice still sounded husky and unused, but the accent was gone.
The Icelander exulted. “Oh my gods, it´s really you! Please tell me you can understand me!”
She nodded, seemingly surprised by herself that she did.
“Why?”, she asked.
“We´re in the dreamspace. Languages don´t exist here, everyone can talk to everyone.”
Kitty looked around.
“Where Tuuri? And others?”
She still didn´t seem to be a fan of talking. Or using too many unimportant words.
“Oh, they can´t come here, sorry. Just mages can. Like me and Lalli. And you.”
She thought a bit and pouted.
“Sad. Then we still can´t talk.”
“Yeah…It would make a lot of things easier if everyone could come here… But either way, this is great! I wanted to ask you, but you never understood me: That night when the ghosts came, you were able to do something against them. Do you know how you did that?”
She shrugged. It looked funny, since a cat was doing it.
“Just knew in the moment. Wanted it to leave, and you said “help”. I just repeated. Louder. What is mage?”
“Uh… mages are people that can hear trolls speak. Like, real words. And sometimes make them do things? It depends.”
“I can hear trolls!”, Kitty exclaimed. “Wait. “Hear” is not right. More, feel. When they are near. And where.”
“Oh. Yeah. That´s when your hair gets all fluffy, right?”
She tilted her head again. “Maybe? I just try not moving. Mom taught me then they don´t come.”
“Hm, you´re right. I was taught that too. We have a rule here. “Stand still, stay silent”, then the trolls won´t come.”
“But moving house never stops moving. So they keep coming.”
“Yeah that´s because the tank is safe- wait, what did you say?”
“Trolls… no “ghosts” are following house because it´s moving. I think.”
Oh no… Reynir had thought they were done with these for a while. “Ehm… Are you sure?”
“Yes”, Kitty said sounding very convinced, though not necessarily scared. “But they are slow. We keep moving fast, and then they can´t find us.”
“Ok… um… good to know. I… should probably tell Sigrun that.” The Icelander just prayed Tuuri would be able to fix the tank.
Though, since the girl didn´t seem all that concerned, Reynir figured it was a problem he could deal with later. Back to the reason why he originally wanted to talk to the girl.
“So, Kisa. What I´m actually trying to say, you are a mage. Like me, and Lalli and Onni, the one we called the other day.”
She nodded. “Because I feel trolls.”
“Yes, and that means you have special powers that can help you here. Like how you made the ghost leave. Do you know anything else you can do?”
She thought. The kitten´s whiskers were shuttering.
He tried to help her. “Like, most mages can look like humans in the dreamspace. Can you do that?”
The little cat sat down, closed her eyes and concentrated. Nothing happened. After a bit, she shook her head.
“Can´t.” She paused. “Don´t know can I do something else.”
She seemed really disappointed by that fact. Reynir petted her, trying to make her feel better.
“No worries, Onni said that´s normal. You´re still really young. But you have to practice and learn. I´m also still learning. We can practice together if you want. But I have different magic then you do.”
She smiled and nodded. “don´t mind.”
“Ok, then let´s meet up here again to learn. And maybe even outside.”
At that moment Reynir´s Fylgia decided he wanted to greet Kitty, and ran towards her wagging his tail and barking. The kitten´s pupils became slits, she hissed, and her shape started disappearing immediately. The dog whined sadly as the shape was gone.
“Congrats buddy, you woke her up.”
The Icelander was a bit mad at the dog, but he seemed devastated enough that the new friend had left, so Reynir couldn´t bring himself to be angry at him for long. Also because at that moment a real-life-Tuuri woke him up.
“Wake up, sleepy-head! Tank is up and running again!”
“Hm…?” Reynir yawned. “Oh, great!”
She laughed. “Wow, you should really sleep more.”
