Update A/N: I'm updating all 4 chapters to fix some little things that have been bugging me for a while. No major rewrites or changes.
A/N: Before anyone asks, no, I haven't read Trickster's Queen (or even Trickster's Choice) yet. So I have no idea what, in the "real" world of Tortall, would be going on at this point. I'm just making it up -- I hope nobody minds.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Tamora Pierce's. All hail.
1: Anger and Aftermath
The woman crossing the university's main courtyard resembles nothing so much as a small ship running before a gale. Her progress is a little ungainly; her blue shift bellies out before her like a full sail; a small dragon and an even smaller child swirl and eddy in her wake.
The three of them are a sight to see. The woman is of middle height, but currently considerably more than middling girth; her thick brown hair, which she has tried to restrain under a headscarf, escapes in wild curls on every side. Her fair skin glows warmly from the exertion of carrying herself this far; her blue-grey eyes fairly crackle with anger. The little girl – she is perhaps two years old, certainly no more than three – is of striking appearance, with fair skin, rosy cheeks, huge blue-grey eyes, and an untamed mass of glossy black hair. She appears to have been dressed – or to have dressed herself – in considerable haste. Several times she loses a shoe and waits, standing forlornly on one foot, for the dragonet to retrieve it and help her put it back on.
The dragon's scales are glowing red, and – alone of the otherwise silent group – she gives vent to worried and indignant noises.
The odd little procession halts outside a certain university building, under a certain window on the second floor.
The woman looks up at the window. Absently, she lays a hand on her rounded belly, stroking it, and her angry expression softens for a moment. Then she frowns again. The large, delicate ears of a bat sprout from under her tangled curls. She pauses briefly, listening hard.
"Numair!" she shouts, as loudly as she can. She winces at the sound of her own voice, and instantly her ears go human again. "Numair Salmalín! I know you're there – I can hear you. Come out this minute!"
The little girl tugs on her mother's skirts. "Ma?" she says. "Are you sure he's up dere? I can't hear anyfing."
"I'm sure," her mother replies grimly. "Did you see those big bat ears, love? Bats can hear even very very tiny sounds."
Then she takes a deep breath and raises her voice again: "I'm waiting, Master Salmalín!"
Finally a head is thrust out of the window, followed (in the normal way) by the rest of its owner's top half. The mage, too, is a sight to behold, though for a rather different reason: his hair is unkempt, his eyes bleary, his skin tinged with grey, and dark stubble has sprouted on his face. "Magelet, must you?" he says plaintively. "I'm just in the middle of a very complicated—"
"Numair. Do you know what day it is?"
He frowns. "Of course I do. It's four days before Midsummer's Eve."
She throws up her hands, exasperated. "That's just what it isn't," she says. "Midsummer's Eve is tonight, Numair. They're laying the fires right this minute."
He is staring at her, eyes wide in dismay. "Do you mean I've been here four days?" he demands."Daine, why didn't you send for me, or—"
"Lindhall came by your office twice and couldn't get in. Alanna and Onua both tried to speak to you in the fire, and got no reply." She is telling the messengers off on her fingers as she speaks, her small shadow nodding along; around the courtyard, other windows are sprouting inquisitive heads, and passers-by linger just within earshot to watch the fun. "I sent two or three of your students. I sent a few pages I happened to spot around the palace. This afternoon I sent Kit, and she came back frantic when she couldn't get your door open. I'd already sent everyone I could think of, so I thought I'd better come round myself."
The significance of what she is telling him has begun to sink in now. "But, magelet," he says weakly, "Alanna said you had to stay in bed."
"I know that," she replies. "Why d'you think it's taken me four days to come out here to shout at you?"
Whatever has been absorbing all his attention for the past four days has also – unsurprisingly – sapped his strength and energy. Gingerly, he lowers himself to the seat under the window so that he can lean out without risking a fall. "Stay where you are," he says. "I'll come down."
There is a pause.
"In a minute."
"You'll do no such thing," says his wife grimly. "You're done in. We'll come up."
He tries to protest, but she is already marching toward the door, daughter and dragonet on her heels. "Mithros, Mynoss and Shakith!" he mutters, running disbelieving fingers over his prickly jaw. "I've really done it this time."
Numair opens the door to admit the three of them – it is all he can do, by now, to lever himself upright and walk across the room – and takes a convenient but precarious seat atop a stack of books. With a tired smile, he holds out a hand to his daughter, who looks alarmed and darts behind her mother's skirts.
Daine opens her mouth to speak – to shout, really – but the look on his face stops her; he already knows what she is going to say, and saying it in front of their daughter will only frighten the child for no good reason. Deflated, she looks around for a seat – a safer one than his – and subsides onto a corner of his cluttered desk. Her small companions lean against her legs, clinging a little fearfully, and she strokes their heads.
"We were so scared," she says softly. "Sarra and Kitten and I. I thought you'd blown yourself up, or lost track of things and – and used yourself up." Her tone sharpens a little: "Looks to me as though you nearly did, at that. You're always after me to be more careful, Numair, and look at you! Have you slept at all? Have you eaten anything?"
"I think …" he waves a large hand vaguely in the direction of a bookshelf, on the top of which rests a small stack of dirty plates.
She follows his gesture and sighs. "I see. Numair, what in the name of Shakith were you doing in here?"
He tries a sheepish smile. "It's a rather complicated spell …"
But she is glaring now, arms folded, and he knows that this won't satisfy her.
"A complicated spell for who?" she demands. "Nobody I've asked knows what you've been up to, so it can't be anything Jon asked you to work on, or—" She sees his expression and stops abruptly, shaking her head. "What am I going to do with you, Numair?" she asks him. "I've asked you again and again to leave the healing to the healers. I'm going to be fine. The baby is going to be fine. You, on the other hand, look half dead. For such a clever man," she adds, "you can be awfully stupid."
She hauls herself to her feet with another sigh. "Come along," she says. "You can lean on me. Let's get you home and into bed."
He has enough strength left to object to this, at least. "Out of the question," he says firmly. "Alanna told you not even to lift Sarra. You certainly mustn't try to lift me. And, magelet, with respect, I don't think either of us can walk all the way home at the moment."
She laughs – the sound a welcome relief that goes some way toward easing the knot of misery in his belly. "You are a silly man," she says. "Of course we can't walk. Cloud and Spots are coming to take us home. I called them as soon as I saw what you'd been doing to yourself. All we need do is get ourselves down the stairs."
She turns to the dragonet, whose glistening hide has subsided to a more contented golden hue. "Kit, would you mind neatening him up a bit? People will think I don't take proper care of him …"
The dragon makes a sound that says, more clearly than words, You are a very bad man and don't deserve it; then another that, in an eyeblink, cleans and unwrinkles the mage's clothes, tidies his hair and whisks away the incipient beard. He thanks her gravely.
Then he turns to his wife, who is eyeing him critically. He levers himself upright, with considerable difficulty, and makes his feet take one step, then two, until he is close enough to touch her. Little Sarra, evidently deciding he really is her Da after all, transfers herself darking-like from her mother's leg to his, and he reaches down to ruffle her hair. Then, gingerly – because he is very tired, and she is still angry with him – he puts his arms around his wife.
"My sweet magelet," he whispers into her hair, "what would I do without you?"
Daine sniffs at him derisively, but, to his immense relief, she returns his embrace. Perhaps not quite so enthusiastically as usual. "I think we all know the answer to that," she says.
Then she raises her head, suddenly alert. "We'd best get a move on," she says. "Cloud and Spots are downstairs, waiting."
They have both been scolded thoroughly and sent to bed, their daughter borne off "to be looked after by more sensible people." Both exhausted, they drift at the edge of sleep.
"I wasn't trying to be a healer, you know," he remarks.
"What?" she has sufficiently forgiven him to cuddle against his chest, and hears his comment only as a vague baritone rumble under her ear. She raises her head to look at him.
"It was a protection spell to—"
"Mouse manure." She is frowning at him again. "What protection spell would take four days and practically kill you? I've watched you ward a whole army camp, remember? What was it really?"
"It really was a protection spell," he retorts, nettled. "At least … part of it was a protection spell."
She waits, one eyebrow raised. He can resist that look, they both know, only for so long.
"A foretelling," he finally mumbles – face turned away so that he doesn't have to meet her accusing eyes. "I just wanted to see – to make sure—"
A stifled sound makes him turn back to her, alarmed. To his astonishment, she is laughing, a muffling hand over her mouth.
"And what – what did you see?" she asks. It is an effort to get the words out.
He scowls and folds his arms across his chest. "Nothing. You interrupted me at a very delicate stage in the working, and—"
"A delicate stage, yes," she interrupts. "The stage just before you got to the end of your Gift and started in on your life force, which I'm sure you'd have drained as well, since you clearly haven't the sense the Gods gave an apple tree. Honestly, Numair, do you have any idea how idiotic—"
But she stops there because, in the split-second before he turns away again, she has seen his dark eyes fill with tears. This is almost more shocking than anything else: he hates to cry, and she can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times, in all their long acquaintance, that she has seen him do so. Disarmed, she reaches up to turn his face back to hers.
"It's going to be all right, love," she says, holding his gaze. "Nothing terrible is going to happen. My parents will be here tomorrow, and the baby will be here very soon, I think, and I promise you, both of us will be fine."
He holds her tight, fighting to master the sobs that well up in his chest. "I had a dream," he whispers, finally. "A nightmare. It frightened me – it was so real, so vivid, like those dreams we had in the Divine Realms …"
"I remember," she says. "You woke us all in the night, shouting, and when Sarra and I woke up again the next morning, you'd gone. You didn't even leave a note," she adds accusingly.
"I'm sorry, sweet. I meant to be back by suppertime. But I had to know, I couldn't bear not knowing whether it was true, or waiting around for it to happen …"
"For what to happen?" she asks him, gently.
He chokes down another sob. "I dreamed – I dreamed that you died – and the baby. That Alanna and Baird couldn't save you. It was – there was so much blood, so much pain … I heard you screaming – I made them let me in, and – and I saw you, lying there, and the baby – a beautiful little boy, but dead, stillborn … and your parents came, and Sarra, and I had to tell them … Magelet, I wanted to die too. I'm not strong enough to go on without you, but the thought of leaving Sarra …"
"Numair." Her voice whispering his name like a soothing caress. "Love, not every dream is a sending from the Gods."
"I know that." Voice muffled against her shoulder.
"I have horrible dreams, too, love. It's one of the symptoms of pregnancy." She kisses his cheek tenderly. "Before Sarra was born, I used to dream every night about dropping her on her head or leaving her on the floor of the stables and watching her be trampled. They're only dreams, Numair. Trust me. I'd never leave you and Sarra alone."