8

If Not For Me Then You'd be Dead

"It's been almost three months, Varel. Why now?" Sorrel stood beside a makeshift bed as Varel worked over the shaking Oromis.

Ary, Aryanna, and Elena had rushed in only a few moments before. Oromis had been carried in Ary's arms, while Aryanna and Elena frantically shouted for help.

Very few of them had actually witnessed Oromis have a panic attack. Aryanna was in her brother's arms, somewhere off in the corner. The sisters, Katella and Elena, were behind Sorrel. The air between them was tense.

It took exactly one minute of watching Oromis shiver for Katella to pull her sister into the hall. Sorrel, Ary, Aryanna, Varel, and everyone else around heard them shouting at each other.

"What do you think you were doing in the garden with him, Elena?"

"Exactly what it looked like, Katella." Elena wasn't shouting—yet.

"What made you feel the need to break his ankle and then give him a panic attack?"

Now Elena was yelling. It was the first time that anyone had ever heard her raise her voice, "Wait a minute—you think I did that? I don't even know how he managed to get injured while kissing me! And as for the panic attack, I don't know what caused it! He doesn't even know what causes them! Besides, don't you think I'd be dead by now if I did? Nothing stops a Dragon with a personal vendetta. Not even Sunny and Syren combined would be able to save me from Glaedr. I don't want to hurt Oromis, Katella!" She paused, trying to catch her breath. A moment after everyone thought she was finished, she blurted, "I love him!"

"You've only known him for six months! You cannot know that yet."

"Just because you've never been in love, doesn't mean I can't be!"

"You're twenty-one, Elena, and he is eighteen. He has much to sort out before he can even think about giving you what you want from him. He's not ready, and you're not ready!"

"Did you ever think that maybe I understand what it's like to grow up in the shadow of an older sibling? You are nothing like Senan, Katella, but I can still relate to what Oromis is going through."

"The relationship between you and me is nothing at all like what goes on between Senan and Oromis!"

Inside the healing ward, Oromis had gotten worse. His face was starting to tint blue from lack of oxygen, and his limbs moved on their own accord, each movement more erratic than the last.

Finally, Varel said to Sorrel, "Silence those two, now, Sorrel, or we're going to lose him. He can't stop this on his own." Varel pinned Oromis' arms down.

Ary and Aryanna were already tearing out of the room, in the direction of the sister's shouting match. Ary tackled Katella to the ground, while Aryanna tried and failed to knock Elena off her feet.

"What are you doing?" Katella cried, picking herself up off the ground.

Ary clamped a hand over her mouth, "Master, please, be quiet! You and Elena are making Oromis worse! He's been in there for almost ten minutes, and he still hasn't stop shaking!"

A deep, gluteal cry issued from within the room, followed by a crash. The four immediately raced back inside.

Sorrel was against one ruined wall, helping Varel pick himself up off the ground. There was a body-shaped imprint of splinters in the wood. Varel crossed the room with a slight limp, "We need to get him calmed down. He had his arm tangled in the bed; somehow he managed to break it. I cannot heal him until he stops thrashing about."

"How did you end up on the other side of the room, Master?"

"Aryanna, now is not the time! Elena, please tell me you know of something that can be done. He will faint from lack of air in a few seconds."

Without a word, Elena crossed to Oromis' thrashing form. She bent over him and brought her lips down against his.

The effect was instantaneous. By kissing him, she forced him to take deep breaths through his nose. As oxygen rushed into his brain, he began to calm down.

Elena continued the kiss for as long as she could, until she had to break it off, gasping for air as she did so. She inhaled only once before she captured his lips again.

She continued doing this until he calmed right down and fell into a deep, natural sleep. Exhaustion had overcome the pain of his broken ankle and wrist.

Varel muttered a healing spell over Oromis' ankle, and Katella took care of his wrist. Elena sat down heavily and put her head between her knees, fighting the dizziness that threatened to make her pass out.

Aryanna and Ary channelled some energy towards Varel, giving him the means to heal the wound his crash into the wall had caused. They wrote that crash off as freak discharge of magic from Oromis as he lost complete control.

"We will leave later, at two hours past noon," Varel said, "Oromis should be awake by then."

The roar from outside showed Glaedr's displeasure, but Varel remained firm.