A/N This is for Lunasphere, as she blackmailed it out of me over something. Much thanks to Sweet Sassy Sarah for betaing.

Wyldon would lie in bed not one moment longer.

The healers had explained more than once just how important it was for him to lay still and allow his body time to heal on its own. They had mentioned it nearly as often as they had mentioned that the scars really wouldn't be that bad, truly. And not nearly as often as they had commended him for his bravery, for saving the lives of the royal children.

Wyldon knew there was no bravery involved in his mad rush through the hallways, with his heart pounding blood into his temples, his breath coming in ragged gasps. There was no bravery in throwing himself in front of a cowering child, the child of his king, and feeling the hurrock lift him into the air as muscles and skin tore. There was no bravery involved because it was his duty. It was what he had been trained to do, what he had promised to do, and he wished people would stop talking about it, thank you very much.

Dressing was a long, slow process. He was already wearing the clean tunic the healers had helped him into this morning, but he had to ease his sore arm carefully into his over jacket himself, buttoning it up clumsily with one hand. He tied his sling slowly, losing the pieces more than once and retrieving them patiently until he was presentable for the hallways of the castle.

There was a dull ache through all of his muscles, and an angry throbbing in his face and arm as he reached his office in the page's wing. He stopped for a moment to rest, just for a moment, outside of the door and braced himself for what was going to come. While he trusted all of his training staff with his pages' lives, his administrative assistant was the useless younger son of a useless progressive noble and Wyldon only remembered that he would have been left almost exclusively in charge this morning.

Hence, why he was ignoring the healers' orders.

He winced slightly as he opened the door to his office, expecting utter chaos to have overtaken the small room. The office was surprisingly calm, with his desk organized just the way he liked it; papers in three piles on the left side, his writing kit at the centre. The window had obviously been opened to air out the room, but the shutters had been appropriately closed for the night and now, in the early morning, Wyldon stepped around his desk to pull them open.

He allowed himself to be grudgingly impressed as he turned his back on his view of the palace grounds. His assistant seemed to have risen to the challenge and nothing insane or life-altering had occurred while Wyldon's back was turned.

Considering the state of the palace these days, that was almost a miracle.

-----

"You did what?"

Wyldon's dimwit assistant stammered a nonsensical reply to Wyldon's glare and cold question. Wyldon held up his free hand to stop the assistant's blabbering and barely restrained himself from rubbing his forehead wearily.

"Contact... him... immediately and inform... him... that the position has already been filled." Wyldon knew before he had even finished his sentence that something stupid had been done. The assistant flinched repeatedly. "What is it?" Wyldon asked.

The assistant gulped. "Well, my lord... I did contact him. He has already been given a date to start instructing and is only waiting on an interview from you." Wyldon's eyebrows raised and his face grew a fearful shade of red. "Sir..."

"Get out."

-----

Wyldon was lost for words. He sat across his desk in perhaps the strangest interview he had ever had to conduct.

Across from him, a ten-foot tall grey lizard was sitting almost daintily in Wyldon's uncomfortable wood chair.

Wyldon looked down at the papers he had sitting before him, most of them completely unrelated to the basilisk and the interview, but he was racking his brain for a question to ask which would surely catch the basilisk off-guard.

By the Gods' names, it is a lizard. There must be something that makes ... him...unfit to teach the boys.

He had already asked what the basilisk was planning to teach, which he expected to be as useless as the other progressives' suggestions, but which, instead, turned out to be an expansion on a class he himself had added to the pages' curriculum. Caught unprepared, he had made the foolish mistake of asking for the lizard's family history, a common question in most interviews, but one which was ridiculous to pose to an Immortal.

He now knew what a basilisk's bemused expression looked like.

Wyldon shuffled the papers slightly, ignoring the twinge in his still-healing face as he grimaced.

"I was told to speak to Veralidaine about what she has already been teaching the pages on the subject of immortals," the basilisk said in the breathy voice Wyldon was trying to despise on principle. "She was happy to have me take over, as she is still working with the Riders. There is a level of work too much even for someone as industrious as she is, it would seem."

"I assume you were asked to question her by my former assistant?" Wyldon asked, ignoring the basilisk's praise of the Wildmage.

"Yes. 'Former'? That is unfortunate. I liked that young man."

Wyldon looked up from his papers with a glare. The basilisk regarded him innocently.

"What will you offer that..." he paused before calling her the 'Wildmage', "Veralidaine does not already?" Wyldon asked, to get off topic of his errant assistant.

"Time," the basilisk said. "In almost every sense, I suppose. I have far more time to spend on training the students, and, while I do not doubt Daine's considerable experience and understanding of immortals, I have been studying our habits for many years before she was born." He smiled. "Before her at least some of her great-grandparents were born, surely."

Wyldon ignored the voice inside that said it was a good answer, the same caliber of all the basilisk's answers.

"Why do you want to teach the pages about immortals?" Wyldon snapped the question. "You do understand that this information may be used to kill immortals when the pages are squires and knights themselves?"

"The information will be used in defence of Tortall," Tkaa replied, seemingly unconcerned. "Since King Jonathan and Queen Thayat have provided me with a home here, I see it as my duty to help with that as I can."

"Your duty." Wyldon's voice was flat.

"Well, yes. My duty to Tortall."

Wyldon looked down at his papers, silent. He shifted his arm in his sling slightly and thought back to his morning walk from the infirmary to the page's wing before he welcomed the basilisk to his staff with all the cordiality years of etiquette training and the knowledge that this talking lizard could turn him into stone inspired.

He swore he would have his revenge on that idiot assistant in as painful a way as possible.

-----

As he thanked him, Tkaa had the distinct impression that the training master disliked him.

Which was too bad, really. Tkaa thought the scarred human was rather interesting.

A/N Thanks for reading! This story was a product of the Ficship Competition's Plot Auction, where story ideas can be posted for others to consider and write about. Speaking of the Ficship Competitions, the polls are underway, so if you haven't already voted, get over there and support your favourites. Links and summaries to the nominated fics can be found in the three Nominations threads, and the polls are in the Poll threads. My own Mutual Acquaintance has been nominated to the Knighthood of Ficship Multichapter competition, and I would love the support! Yes, that is a blatant hint.

http://forum (dot) fanfiction (dot) net/forum/The_Ficship_Competitions/54838/