An Owl's Rise

Suddenly, feeling herself being shaken and shouted out, Evelyn woke up from the dream she had been having.

Looking towards the source of the disturbance she found Otis in his humanoid form, looking at her with concern. However, Evelyn was far more distressed to see him no longer looking like a tiny owl, but a young man without any clothes on.

"O-Otis! What are you doing?! Why are you in your humanoid from?!" 

Evelyn immediately averted her gaze away from him in a rare show of embarrassment. Normally an owl would not care about seeing another naked even in a humanoid form, but as Evelyn had once been human, her mind still carried some of the inclinations of her past life.

It did not help that in total years spent between both her first and second life she would not be much over eighteen years old and only considered a fledgling adult.

Of course, Otis did not understand exactly why Evelyn always reacted in such an uncharacteristic manner when he took his humanoid form, but he understood that it distressed her, so he transformed back.

"I am sorry. You were thrashing about in your sleep and mumbling about something. I was not sure what was wrong, but when you cut yourself, I had to act. When I tried waking you up at first my body was not large enough to meaningfully shake you, so I transformed. Please forgive me, it will not happen again." 

Otis hung his head low after apologizing, feeling troubled that he had upset Evelyn.

"No, it is fine. You have nothing to apologize for Otis. I must have been moving around quite violently if you felt it prudent to wake me up. I was just shocked to see you in your humanoid form. That's all."

Evelyn did her best to assuage Otis' worries, but at this rate he was getting close to developing a complex about his humanoid form. And unfortunately, Evelyn was far too embarrassed to explain.

"At least you seem to be fine now. But what was it you were dreaming about that made you convulse so violently that you injured yourself with your own talons?" Otis asked.

However, while Evelyn did not really remember much of her dream after waking up, she knew it had been about something she truly did not want to talk about. 

"Were you dreaming about that man named Mason again?" Aralee interjected.

She had been woken up by the commotion Evelyn and Otis had caused and quickly deduced the cause. Ever since the encounter with the dream flower, Evelyn had been having recurring nightmares about her and her brother's deaths.

Naturally Aralee had already witnessed several of Evelyn's violent fits while they traversed the maze together, but her sister had so far refused to address the issue.

With Otis backing her up, Aralee tried to get Evelyn to open up about whatever was unsettling her, but she was not ready to discuss it. 

"This is not the time or place for it, nor does it really matter anymore. I will tell all of you later. For now, finding the others is our priority. Otis, how long were we asleep for?" Evelyn said, quickly changing the subject.

"It has been nearly two and a half days since you both fell asleep. How are you doing now?" Otis asked, still looking concerned about the problems that had been plaguing Evelyn.

"I feel mostly recovered now." Evelyn responded. Though she was disregarding the couple of shallow cuts she had inflicted on herself during her sleep.

Aralee also confirmed that she was doing much better and would likely be back at her peak capabilities after having something to eat.

Swiftly Otis prepared some food for them, and while it was just raw meat with a few magical plants it was enough to fill their bellies.

Once they were all full, the three of them took out Aralee's magical map and began plotting their course towards the center of the maze.

"By the way Otis, what have you been up to since we were all separated? You are the only one that never returned to the first floor. Honestly, we were starting to get worried about you." Evelyn said, sensing that her two companions were still hung up on her nightmare and wanting to shift their focus.

Luckily, this worked, and Aralee jumped on in questioning Otis. 

"What do you mean, why would I have returned tot eh first floor? Wasn't the goal to traverse the maze and find each other. What would returning to the first floor have done for me?" Otis said, his head tilted to the side in confusion.

He had not considered the advantages of going back to the first floor to try and meet up with the others and exchange information. He had pretty much been single-mindedly focused on heading towards the center of the maze where he figured it would be more likely to run into everyone else. He figured that returning to the first floor would be a waste of time before they were all together again. 

This only confirmed to Evelyn and Aralee that while Otis was the strongest, his ability to plan and think was not great.

Though this only made sense, as Otis was a beast that had lived out in the wild for his entire life. Evelyn and the others had received an education at the Roost and were able to make plans beyond just brute force.

"Well, it is good to see that you are doing alright. Out of everyone I figured you were the least likely to get into any real trouble. If it had been any of the others, I am not sure I could have contained my worry." Evelyn said.

This helped to bring Otis' mood up, as he took Evelyn's words to be praise for his prowess. Of everyone, she was most confident in his ability to take care of himself.

"No, let's get moving. We are close tot eh center, but the maze has not been making it easy for us to reach our goal. The others might already be waiting for us, so we need to hurry and find a way in."