By the time spring arrived, my headaches were finally under control. The campus doctor had found an old-school, "non-preferred" ergot-derived medication that, if taken daily, seemed to be an effective form of migraine prevention for me, although there were still a few days when I could not stave off the dizziness and roar of oncoming pain in my head, and on those days I resorted to hitting a bottle of strong narcotics that he had finally broken down and prescribed for me. I wondered why it took him so long to prescribe them. Was he afraid I would grow addicted? If so, it was just as well that he didn't know about the shopping bag full of "flower arrangement" poppies that I bought at the craft store in the nearest mall, and how they made a halfway palatable tea if I added enough honey to feed a hungry bear, and which I only drank if I was starting to hallucinate from pain or if I was on the verge of vomiting from it.

I started to force myself to do more therapeutic stretching and range-of-motion exercises to limber up my too-taut shoulders. I found the exercises in the campus library, in a book on sports medicine. I wished I'd been doing them earlier. I also started getting more mindful of other ways to loosen up the scar tissue to avoid being stuck with constricted arm movement for the rest of my life. My motion was already constricted, of course, but I didn't want to risk it getting worse. Several times a day, I would massage camphor and menthol ointment into the tissue, hard enough that I had to grit my teeth when I did it. The scar tissue felt little or no pain; the muscles underneath it were another matter. It would have been even better had I a friend or a lover to do the massaging for me, or failing that, a heavy flogger to use to massage my muscles, but all I had then was myself, and the only flogger I had was the one that had created the scar tissue in the first place, which would have done me little good.

The chest pains and chills never went away. They were easier to endure when I wasn't constantly fighting migraines, though, so eventually I got used to them.

I continued to do well in my classes without actually expending any effort to do so. Part of me was relieved, while the other part was disappointed. I was used to more intellectual challenge; I had grown spoiled under Erastes when he was my Magister. Hopefully, the upcoming year would provide a little more opportunity to test my worth. On a wall bulletin board in the building that housed the English department, I'd seen an advertisement for a study abroad opportunity at an institute in Oxford for the study of medieval and Renaissance humanities, and upon finding out that my financial aid package could be used for study abroad, I had sent in an application. My year abroad would begin in August.

It was around the time of my twenty-sixth birthday that I made the decision that I was ready to rejoin the human race.

I had managed to secure a house-sitting job for the duration of the summer, so provided I found somewhere to store my books and miscellanea after that situation ended, I had no need to worry about the logistics of studying abroad, at least not regarding my worldly belongings; meanwhile, my bank account was slowly starting to fill from a part-time evening job that I had taken with the symphony. It involved using the telephone. Unlike my other telemarketing jobs, though, the people I called to renew lapsed subscriptions or to solicit donations were mostly happy to take the call, even when they had no money to spare, which in itself was a pleasant surprise - but even better, working for the symphony meant I got free tickets. They weren't seats in the best parts of the concert hall, but still, they meant I could attend performances every other weekend or so for free. I thought I could get used to that.

I was even able to attend concerts in that building and enjoy them for their own sake without being consumed by the memory of the first concert I'd ever heard there, and the man I'd sat next to throughout the performance.

I was returning from the calling room and was about to make for the elevator that would carry me to the floor my dorm room was on when my attention was distracted by the smell of fresh pizza. I hadn't had time to eat much before I had to go to work, and that had been a few hours ago. I started trying to identify toppings by smell. Pepperoni, I thought, and onions. Mushrooms? There were probably green peppers on there, too, and whatever cheese was used, there was a lot of it. Just thinking about it made my mouth water.

Then I heard a voice say, "Roll for initiative."

Given that I was living on the geek side of campus, the chances of my stumbling into a campaign in progress in my own residence hall were pretty high - I'd probably passed the gamers before, come to think of it, but was too wrapped up in my angst to take notice. I wondered what game they were playing. I also wondered if I could spare ten dollars or so to order myself a pizza when I got back to my room. By now my stomach was growling.

I wandered over in the general direction of the gamers.

"Oh, no! No way. I don't believe it."

"What did you roll?"

"Three."

"Uh-oh. Attempt at stealth failed miserably there. Well, we'll see. Maybe the balrog will have a bad stumble or something."

"An Elven thief against a balrog? How could things get any worse?"

The die hit the table again, three times in succession, making a clattering sound.

"I'm doomed!"

"Well, Kiera's doomed, anyway. Probably. Sorry."

"Hah. He likes being doomed by dungeon masters," one of the other gamers piped up.

Really.

My stomach picked that moment to growl exceptionally loudly. To this day, I have no idea if it was the pizza that it was growling for, or something else, but whatever triggered it, it was apparently loud enough to be heard, as I found myself invited over to help finish off the pizza.

"Is this a closed group, or do you have room for any other players?" I asked between bites.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every all-male group of role-playing gamers must be in want of a tall, redheaded female geek, especially if the female geek in question plays the game the group is playing and expresses interest in joining the campaign.

"His character just got killed. You want to play an NPC tonight, and roll up a character of your own later? His backup character's an illusionist. That makes us magic-heavy; we could really use another thief."

They weren't going to ask the new female player to take on the role of Nurse Cleric? I felt an urge to pinch myself, although I successfully resisted it.

"I'd love to!"

I sat down next to the guy who had been playing the now-deceased thief, squeezing myself in between him and another one of the players and reaching for another slice of pizza. It felt strange to be associating with so many people at once in a purely social setting, but the strangeness wasn't a bad strangeness. It was more like using forgotten muscles or speaking in a language I hadn't used for a long time.

"So," I asked him sotto voce, "what's this I heard about your liking to be doomed by dungeon masters?"

"I like playing in dungeons," he replied.

I remember thinking that he sounded like he was chirping when he said it. And indeed, there was something birdlike about him. We were both seated, so I couldn't be certain, but from what I could see, he was shorter than me by a head, and less bony than I was. Somewhere between slight and average build, then. His hair was an uncertain shade somewhere between blonde and light brown, and rumpled, like feathers in need of preening. I couldn't quite tell what color his eyes were behind his round wire rims, the lenses were so thick, maybe blue, maybe grey, but the glasses made him look owlish, in a cartoon character sort of way.

It made me wonder if there were any owls anywhere that chirped. Did the fluffy little spotted owls on the northwest coast make little chirping noises? No, wait, they didn't chirp, they whooped, I remembered. They also looked less like little fluffy feather balls and more like owls when they reached adulthood. No matter. He reminded me of one of them anyway.

"Especially if there are whips and chains involved!" one of the other players added.

The former Elven thief didn't even blush. Apparently, his private life wasn't a secret - and he was perfectly okay with that.

"Tell me more," I said. "I'm intrigued."

That was how I wound up going out on my first date in almost a year.

With the person who would eventually become my slave.