I'd reached the point with the pain where I no longer felt it. I was numb. Someone had told me once that being numb was like floating. It wasn't. When I floated I felt everything. My pulse, my breath, the slight movement of the water on my skin, my hair as it moved in the water. This was more like being smothered. It was intensely uncomfortable. In what felt like an instant I could hear something. Unfortunately, regaining that one sense returned all the others and I was in pain again.

"Come on girl time to get moving!" The voice was female and had a no-nonsense attitude that you didn't argue with.

"Which way?"

"Use your head girl, I know you've got one!"

"All right! All right!" Somehow I managed to get moving. As I moved, the pain impossibly (or so I thought) began to intensify, then slowly decrease, like working an overused muscle. After another indeterminate amount of time, I felt like a body again, not just a mass of thoughts. I slowly opened my eyes, and saw blue. Eric was inches away from my face.

"A little space please?" At that he inexplicably burst into giggles. A 6'4" guy built like the raider he was, giggling, was a damn strange thing to wake up to!

"What the fuck are you giggling at?"

"You are still you. Even after only a few nights I'd recognise that voice and attitude anywhere. I was concerned the magic would change you."

"Oh please, my own mother couldn't change my attitude, what makes you think a bit of magic could? I want to run let's go." Despite being in pain minutes before, I was full of energy.

"We must wait here for the Pythoness."

"How long's she gonna be?"

"Another two days, you woke up sooner than expected."

"I had a little help."

"Who?"

"I have a feeling you'll meet them soon enough, and I'm not sure you'll like it at first. Dig a hole about half a foot wide and let's go." I figured if it worked for Digory Kirke and Polly Plumber, it would work for us too.

The hole dug, we started jogging, and I slowly built up speed until the trees were a blur. All my life I'd had a list, with each sentence starting 'I wish I could...' Except the last one, which said 'I wish I could do anything I wanted with no weaknesses.' Just to sum it up. Running stupidly fast with perfect control was on that list. So was the next thing I wanted to try.

"Eric stop." We came to a halt immediately. How we hadn't left a trail of destruction in our wake I'll never understand.

"What?"

"Can I read your mind for a few seconds?" He frowned at that.

"Couldn't you do it without permission?"

"Yes." He looked downright glacial after that. "But I don't like invasions of privacy any more than you do, or did you forget my point about doors already?" He smiled a little at that. I was officially intrigued.

"Eric are you normally this expressive or is it just recent? Because the you in the books came across as a real arsehole, apart from that week you lost your memory."

"I have a second gift not many know about." My eyebrows rose. "I get a sense of people. A feel for what type of person they are. Sophie Anne is fair, if a little foolish. Andre is a bully, but loyal to his maker, as are the Berts. Pam is spoil but loyal, though I doubt anyone needs intuition to see that. All vampires are deceptive and generally untrustworthy. You, well you were interesting. A mix of honesty, deception, self-preservation, selflessness, a real mess of contradictions. You were trouble, but the fun kind. From the brief read I got before they took her, this Sookie was not the fun kind of trouble."

"You came to love her though."

"If I'm an asshole I am obviously not very happy about it."

"Makes sense. Anyway, can I read your mind or not?"

"You may not like what you read. On the other hand, you may like it very much." He said with a leer.

"Not even here a full day and you start with the suggestions! I shouldn't be surprised really though. It is you after all. Anyway. I want you to think about how you fly. If I can run that fast, I want to see if I can fly too." Eric took my hand and started showing me how he flies. It was like moving a muscle. Difficult to explain in words, but ridiculously simple once shown how. Once we got a few feet up Eric started going off on a tangent a bit. Guess which direction he went in. Turns out, I can mentally flick someone. The pure shock on his face once he felt it and subsequently dropped the ground had me laughing and holding my stomach. I should have been quieter. The look he gave me simply said "you're going to pay for that." I started flying away as fast as I could. He couldn't have been expecting me to run, because I had quite a head start when I had thought I wanted to try out. I suddenly veered left, counted to 5, then darted behind a tree. I put my hand in front of me a few inches apart, and thought about a sphere hanging in between. Amazingly enough, it worked! I made it a little bigger. Then I made it invisible. When that worked, I made it surround me, with 2 inch holes at the front and back to let air travel through so I didn't suffocate. I then used telepathy to find Eric. He was floating in the air a way back, probably wondering what the fuck happened for him to lose the sound of my breathing and pulse. I moved with my bubble to just behind him, (I'd closed the holes the closer I got) then released the bubble, jumped with my arms and legs around him, bit his neck gently and said, "Didya miss me?"

"Foolish girl! What did you do? The Pythoness told me to protect you, how am I supposed to do that if I can't track you?"

"I get you were worried, but I am having a good day, Do Not Rain On My Parade! She meant my unconscious body, I'm perfectly capable of protecting myself now. Hold out your hand." He did. I created a little bubble around each of his fingertips. The first I made solid and started to close the hole I left for his finger, cutting into him. Once he had a thin shallow cut around his finger, I gently opened and pulled the bubble away, letting him heal. The second I filled with salt water. Unpleasant for vamps, as Waldo well knew. I let the bubble go. The next I filled with weak sunlight, enough to get the point across without doing real damage. The last bubble I turned to silver, and cut him slightly again. Then I released that one, created a larger one filled with water around his hand to wash it, emptied it and filled it with warm air to dry it.

"I have a very good imagination. I can manipulate those bubbles to any size, any material, fill them with anything. And before you worry about lots of people at once, attack this." I let go of him, sank to the ground, and created a bubble that was clear but impenetrable, except for small tube I pushed into the ground and across a few feet, to come up as air supply hidden by grass. It would take less energy to have a pipe than constantly replenish oxygen. I had put "no need to breathe" on my list, but I saw no need to make myself uncomfy. I closed my eyes and slipped into Eric's head.

I'm not invading, the bubble is soundproof. This way we can still talk. Although I have had a thought. Stand still, touch your hand to the barrier, and tell me what you see.

I found his senses, and blocked his eyesight. He snatched his hand away thinking that was causing it.

Eric! Calm down.

Of course he didn't. I couldn't blame him. I let the barrier go and jumped on his back again.

"Eric, stop." He did. He was breathing heavily, obviously trying to compensate for his lack of sight by using his nose. "I'm sorry I didn't give you a little more warning. I've blocked your sight. If I change my focus, I can block other senses. If I use your own cells against you, I can make it permanent. So you see, I'm fine. If we find ourselves in a fight, I won't be a liability. As I said, I have a great imagination, and now, my imagination controls the limits of my powers." I let go of the block on his sight. "I'm really sorry I had to show you that way, but it would have been hard to convince you otherwise, wouldn't it?"

"Yes. It would have. Why do you keep jumping on my back?" I was glad to hear he'd somewhat recovered.

"Because from here if you did something I didn't like I could have silver at your spine in seconds, making your self-preservation instincts kick in and you freeze."

"How do you know I wouldn't just attack? Silver burns heal."

You didn't get to over a thousand by mindlessly attacking. I am sorry I shocked you like that. Forgive me?"

"You already know I have. Let's go back to wait for the Lady and you can show me what else you can think of and do." I saw a golden opportunity, and I planned to take it.

"Oh, I can think of a few things," I kissed his neck and wriggled on his back. "But unfortunately we're in a forest, with untouchable pools everywhere, so you'll have to wait."

"Lilla brakmakare you are playing with fire again." He growled.

"But I like fire, watch." I proceeded to make pale green fire burn along our skin for a few seconds, then put it out. "Ooh, can I be cheeky?"

"You haven't asked permission so far, why this time?"

"Because I can't take the piss too often can I. Could you tell me that story about Loki? The one I fell asleep through, about Lady Sif's hair. I'm more awake this time." He chuckled.

"Am I to carry you the whole way back as I tell it?"

"That was the cheeky part." I grinned.

"Very well, but if you fall I will not catch you."

"Yes you will."

"I wouldn't be so sure."

"You wouldn't risk me falling here, Pythia would have your bollocks and your fangs."

"True. Do you have an answer for everything?"

"Pretty much actually, yeah. There's a reason my other nickname is Marmite."

"What's that?"

"A type of food. It's got a really strange flavour, and the slogan is 'Love it or hate it'. Same goes for me." By this point we were almost back to where we started from. "Hey, I still want that story you know."

"I know. Can you make that fire warm without burning the forest?"

"Sure."

"Good, you know these stories were always told around a fire. Down you get, we are here."

I made the fire in the hole, and was about to sit on the ground when Eric pulled me into his lap.

"Not complaining, but why?" I asked as I got comfy.

"It just feels better. I could make a sexual comment, but I won't. It just feels good to have you close. What's odd is I don't care. A week ago I would have avoided you for making me feel dependant in any way, if I didn't kill you. But I feel calmer now. I'll still kill anyone who threatens me or mine, but I don't feel as cold." He shook himself. "On with the tale." And so he told me the story until I interrupted him.

"Eric?"

"Yes?"

"I'm tired, I'm going to sleep. Thank you though." He just chuckled a little.

"Go to sleep little one."

And I was out.

Lilla brakmakare - Little troublemaker