An Owl's Rise

However, while she figured that it would be easy to make a concise decision and bring her emotions under control, it was not.

Fear gripped her heart and mind whenever she thought about truly becoming attached to anyone again and then having them die violently.

Yet when she thought to give up on ever having any relations and living a lonely solitary life, only using others for her own ends, sorrow welled up inside her.

Either choice felt like it would be tearing her apart and leaving her not herself anymore.

After finding Mason's will that had been left behind for her, she decided to reach the heights of magic and try to find him again.

He was her brother, the person that stood with her in their darkest moments and the person that still held the strongest place in her heart even now.

But if she closed herself off completely, how could she retain her wish to see him again.

'Can I really just be willing to sacrifice everything in order to reach my goal. If I had to kill Melisandre, Anneli, or Katrina to take another step forward, could I do it?'

This thought caused Evelyn to struggle immensely.

At some point if she continued to reach greater heights, she might surpass Melisandre and everyone else in the Roost for that matter.

This could take several centuries but it was certainly possible.

When that happened, she could simply take all the Roost had and leave it as a wasteland since it would no longer be as useful to her intact.

She had already come to terms with the fact that her path towards power would leave a mountain of bodies in her wake, but would she be willing to cast aside even those that helped her in order to gain more power.

'No, I cannot do that. I will not be come a heartless monster.' Evelyn thought as the researcher that had experimented on her and her family came to mind.

While she knew that she would need to kill to get stronger, she had decided to never be cruel to advance herself, or for the fun of it as she had experienced before as the victim of such cruelty.

Drawing this line helped her emotions to calm down a bit, but she was still far from the root of the problem.

Whether she could truly create bonds with other people or remain indifferent to them was what really troubled her.

Would she be the person that looked after those that were close to her or be willing to leave them behind should she ever be in danger.

She had already experienced this when the empress dryad attacked Though things were a bit different now.

At that time her relationship with Bylur and Rehni had been far less than it is now. But when Bylur risked his life to save her when there really was no gain in it, Evelyn found it difficult to simply not let such a gesture affect her.

Now she wondered if she would simply leave the both of them behind to help herself.

As she thought about trying to protect them images of her brother and her getting beaten by their father as well as the psychopath who killed them flashed through her mind.

Nothing either of them did had been able to protect each other and in the end their close bond created incredible pain for each other.

Evelyn could still remember the despair she felt when she watched the life leave her brother's eyes.

She had already dragged herself out of the pit of anguish multiple times before and she feared ever going there again by losing anyone else that was close to her.

At the end of the day, as cold as her experiences had made her, Evelyn was still just a young girl that had never even reached adulthood.

She longed to have others she could rely on and look to for help even through the fear of losing everything again.

'It is already too late isn't it. I already accepted Melisandre, Anneli, and Katrina didn't I. I can say it is different since they are stronger than me and can protect themselves, but at the end of the day I already know that losing them would be a massive blow. This world is different than my previous one. Here I can gain more and more power until I can protect what I care about.'

Slowly Evelyn was able to quelle the turmoil she was feeling in her emotions.

Even though the fear of having those she cares about dying was what made her not want to create any close bonds was something she could not fully shake, she found that it was impossible for her to become completely cold to others.

Certainly, she would still be cautious and distrustful to those she did not know, but over time when their actions spoke volumes and they did so much for her, how could she simply remain indifferent.

She would have died many times over if not for the help of those that had already grown close to her and cutting them off from her heart simply to avoid feeling the pain of loss again was not something she felt she could do.

'There is no certainty that I will not lose anyone again, but I cannot bottle everything up just to avoid my fear. There are those that care about me and those that I have grown to care about in turn.'

Once she had fully managed to get her emotions under control the heat in her body that had been growing from her magical energy responding to her internal turmoil began to subside.

Almost immediately she began to feel better and when she opened her eyes, she noticed that she was surrounded by a light cloud of pink smoke, and Melisandre was sitting close and carefully watching her.