Disclaimer: Not my sandbox, only my toys in the specific details.

Notes: This isn't so much the fic equivalent of arriving fifteen minutes late with Starbucks as it is showing up five years late with a tanker trailer full of making things worse. Whoops.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Anaesthetic – Analytic – Unattached – Unobtainable

It wasn't as much a sound that was filling Michael's ears as it was a sensation. Hot and hissing and strangely numb, akin to the white-noised fuzziness that you get after going to a metal gig, or to a club with a particularly obnoxious bass set up. The sensation crowded Michael, making the rest of his body seem unimportant as he floated in a sea of nausea and vague discomfort.

Something was wrong, but he couldn't find it in himself to worry, or even vaguely care.

Sleep. Sleep was good.

.

.

"But how can you not know?" Gillan winced as Kira's voice cracked at the end of her sentence, although he felt a certain sympathy with the narrow-eyed glare she was directing at Dadero.

:Tell her that I do not know that, either.: The fact that Dadero sounded as offended by this state of affairs as all of the other Heralds currently gathered around the memorials by the Grove Temple was about all that was preventing Gillan from grabbing his Companion by both ears and shaking him until some sense fell out.

"He doesn't know, Kira," Gillan said shortly. "And he doesn't know why."

The Dean of the Mages' Collegium huffed her breath out in a sigh and produced an eloquent pantomime of the stream of invective that she wasn't—quite—frustrated enough to shout within the hearing of her students. "How can you not know?" she repeated. "You're the gods-be-damned Groveborn, you're the one who makes the bloody thing ring."

Kira's Fedarrin shook his head slightly and blinked slowly at Dadero. Gillan could almost hear the other stallion saying not to blame him for his Chosen's intelligence.

:Not in the direct way you think.: Dadero fixed a cool gaze on Kira, completely ignoring Gillan's start of shock as his Companion forwent his usual stickler-like regard of The Ways Things Were Done. :And especially not this time.:

"What is that supposed to mean?" Gillan beat Kira to that question, and fisted his hands on his hips, glad that the four of them were far enough back in the Grove that the large gathering of confused Heralds and trainees couldn't see the Queen's Own getting into it with his own Companion.

:There were cases, in the past, when magic was used to conceal the death of a Herald and Companion—:

"Kris and Tantris" Kira murmured to herself. Gillan vaguely recognised the names, but he was by no means the history-buff that Kira was, and he resolved to pick her brains on the subject once things had settled down.

:Precisely.: If Dadero's tone was anything to go by, he was about as annoyed by the interruption as by the fact that he was having to reveal any secrets at all. :Steps were taken to ensure that such a thing would be exceedingly difficult to do again. Wisely, as it turns out, given the conflict that followed.:

"And this history lesson has relevance, how?"

Fedarrin swung his head around and caught his Chosen's attention but, Gillan was amused to note, obviously wasn't inclined to follow the Groveborn's lead in breaking the Silence; he was forced to rely on Dadero relaying for him. :Because the steps that were taken ensured that even if an attempt was made to block the Companions from knowing the particulars, we'd still know the generalities of who had died.:

"Then why aren't the generalities letting you know who we've lost?" Kira wanted to know.

:I fear that that answer lies with the reason that we sent our people to the southern border in the first place.:

"Horse turds," Gillan swore. "You're not doing anything to settle my innards nor my head. I have this horrible, looming feeling that something terrible is happening, and it won't go away. How do Foreseers live with this?"

"Something terrible has happened," Kira pointed out softly, leaning heavily on Fedarrin. "We just don't know to whom."

:Fedarrin says 'or who. We could have lost more than one of them,': Dadero said softly, looking as beaten as Gillan had never seen him look before.

.

.

"That is it." Tarii convulsed herself from a sprawl to a crouched-to-spring position, lashing her tail from side to side and categorically refusing to listen to the warbling symphony of pain that was passing itself off as her body. "Sssince breakfast thiss morrning, I have been shot at, leapt upon and mauled from sso many different dirrections that I barely know my beak frrom my feet, and now buildings wissh to collapse on me? I. Am. Done."

The gryphon choked down a hiss as Goldleaf sprawled on her and wrapped his arms firmly around her face, forcing her to close her mouth or risk biting her partner in half.

"Whilst anger a wonder for your dictation is, not currently useful such a thing at the moment."

Tarii growled, low and deep, taking perverse pleasure in noticing that way that Goldleaf's heart rate abruptly jumped; best friends they may be, but some responses were hard-wired into the hind brain.

:Tarii!: Hirrn's shout had more than a hint of a growl to it itself. :Stop posturing and put yourself to use.:

Tarii blinked and deflated slightly, noticing for the first time that Shadowflame and the Valdemaran part of their expedition were sprawled around the perimeter of the room, where they'd been apparently shoved by the same detonation that had coincided with whatever Michael had done with the battery, and had caused a fair section of plastered roof to fall on Tarii.

"What happened?"

:A question for mages if ever there was one.: Hirrn shook herself, sending a cloud of dust into the muggy air. :Please put yourself to use checking that we actually have some mages to pose that question to.:

Tarii flared her wings to aide her balance and picked her way over to Venni, leaving Goldleaf to follow her. When she reached the Herald-Mage and her Companion, Tarii found that Rainfox was sprawled half-under the other woman. Unlike Venni, Rainfox appeared to be blinking her way to something approaching reason.

"You arre injurrred?" Tarii asked as she pulled off her war claws and dumped them on the ground.

"No more than earlier," Rainfox said in a breathless voice. "I think I only caught the edges of that...event, and then only because I was still sharing energy with Venni."

"Event?" Goldleaf enquired, as he knelt next to Tarii and helped her roll Venni over. The Herald-Mage was approximately the same shade as the grit and dust covering her, but she didn't seem to have an obvious injuries, and she was breathing in a regular, if shallow, fashion.

"I'm not sure what to call it." Rainfox accepted Tarii's outstretched fore claw and pulled herself into a sitting position. "Something happened when Michael touched the battery, and that something arced between him and Giff, and then to the other Companions." Rainfox lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "The rest you know."

"Maybe Michael we should ask for more information," Goldleaf decided. "I do not think Venni will awakening soon."

:Where is Michael?: Melli asked, just as Tarii drew her face into a frown and said: "But why iss Shadowflame affected?"

"With Giff?" Rainfox guessed. "Shadowflame probably got knocked over like I did, Tarii."

:Giff is here.: Tarii twisted her head around to look at Dinda. The dyheli stag was on the far side of the room, his posture worried. :Michael is not with him.:

:Everyone look,: Hirrn commanded, adding an admonition. :Not you Rainfox.:

Tarii traded an understanding glance with the Tayledras mage and shook her head. There was no use in arguing with Hirrn when she had her bossy boots on. The gryphon picked her way clear from the rubble surrounding her immediate area and cast around, narrowing her eyes as she mentally counted up warm bodies.

Hirrn, well; the kyree was clearly using her bossy boots to direct the dyheli, who were now all gingerly picking their way around the room. Goldleaf was behind her, attempting to stop Rainfox from standing up by distracting her with the need to check Venni and Kit over. Velaryn was sprawled on her side, the deep breaths she was taking despite being unconscious clear from the way Yaska, who was sprawled on top of her, was rising up and down at a regular rate. Dinda was standing next to a sprawled mass that Tarii assumed was Giff and Shadowflame was spread-eagled head first over some broken furniture.

Tarii grimaced and moved over to the unconscious mage. Unlike Rainfox, the other Tayledras woman was truly and deeply out for the count. Given the way that her bad leg was twisted in a way that had nothing to do with her old injuries and everything to do with a freshly broken bone at the very least, Tarii was profoundly glad that Shadowflame was in no position to hex her feathers off as she gently pulled her to lay flat on the ground, her leg in a position approaching normal.

"Hirrrn, Shadowflame hass injurrred her leg. Morrre." Tarii peered over at the broken furniture. Michael was not, as she had been vaguely hoping, underneath it. "I cannot find Michael."

:Wonderful. Of course she has.: Hirrn stalked over to Tarii's side and glared down at the blood-stained cloth covering Shadowflame's leg. :At least this time I get to see it immediately, and not five days after the fact, when the stubborn idiot finally decides to drag her wyrsa-poisoned self back to civilisation.:

There wasn't much that Tarii could say to that, so she settled for carefully tearing away the shredded remains of Shadowflame's breeches at Hirrn's direction, and then backing away as the kyree found reserves of energy from somewhere that Tarii wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know about and sank into a Healing trance.

:I don't think that Michael is here to be found,: Dinda announced.

:I am inclined to agree.: Melli shook herself gently—careful not to dislodge the miserable looking clump of feathers clinging to the thick fur of her withers; Krii, Tarii was surprised to notice—and heaved out a sigh. :Rainfox, I think that I am resonating with you, what are you picking up?:

Rainfox looked up from where her hands were curled firmly around one of Venni's, her face creased in a confused frown. "The battery. It's gone."

"Taking with it, Michael?" Goldleaf asked, shooting a worried glance at Dinda. No—not Dinda, Tarii realised—at Giff, still and senseless but unmistakeably alive.

"What does thisss mean?" Tarii asked, just as the subject of their scrutiny shivered and gasped in a moaning breath that made Dinda scramble backwards and all of the aware members of the hall party start violently.

.

.

:Chosen.:

The single word inserted itself neatly into the amorphous almost-sleep that Gillan had been surrendering to with no little relief and startled him thoroughly awake. What? He thought muzzily, blinking up at the canopy of his bed, illuminated by the bright moonlight that was shining through the unclosed curtains. It took Gillan a moment to realise that the voice had actually been a Mindvoice.

:Dadero, I am exhausted and was nearly asleep.: With the experience of familiarity, Gillan recognised the slight change in silence that signified his Companion was about to speak, and rode over it roughshod. :I'm sure it can't have escaped your notice that not only the Privy Council, but the entirety of the Court have been climbing the walls for the past five days since—: Since the Bell had rung, but Gillan was by no means immune to the superstition and unease running rife through the Palace, and stopped short of saying the actual words. :Unless you've got some brilliant plan to stop Halla from using her crown to beat the idiocy out of some of the more hysterical orators, then I do not want to hear it.:

:Regin is waking Halla. I am waking you.:

Which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Gillan groaned and kicked free of his bed covers, wincing slightly as the chill air of pre-dawn hit his skin. :Dadero, you are not making any sense.:

:You need to get up and come to the Mages' Collegium immediately.:

:What? Why?: Ignoring the twinges in his knees, Gillan scrambled out of bed and cast around hastily for clothing, shoving arms and legs willy-nilly through what turned out to be the set of formal Whites his had stripped off too few marks previously.

:There are signs. We think the Gate may be activating.:

Gillan bit off a curse and stamped into a pair of boots, skirting the furniture in his rooms with the ease of long practice and blessing again the forethought of his servants that ensured the door between his suite and the corridor was kept well-oiled.

:What do you mean 'think'?:

:The shields in the courtyard were activated almost a quarter mark ago, but no actual Gate has coalesced.:

The Monarch's Own had no compunction about relieving one of the night candles from a wall sconce as he hurried down the corridor, his footsteps sounding uneven on the finely polished wooden floor. The dim candlelight was enough to reveal that his boots were actually from two separate pairs; one his formal Court garb, the other a battered grey-black riding boot. At least, given the gods-be-damned hour, no one was around to see him looking like a child unable to dress himself. :Is it ours?:

:No actual Gate has formed, Chosen.:

:But the mages can tell if the energy is friendly or not, surely? I thought that's what the song and dance last year about reconfiguring the courtyard shields was all about.:

Gillan felt Dadero's attention fade from the back of his mind for a moment, before returning. :Rhiska doesn't think it's anything inimical, but the mages are understandably concerned.:

Of course they are, Gillan thought sourly to himself as he clattered down a wide stone stairway and pushed through a door into the chill night air. Often, they're still professing their concern even as the remains of their experiment is melting a hole through the floor.

Dadero was evidently feeling the need to be especially Companion-like and nosey, because he added, :it was only that one time. And, to be fair, nobody had told Sunflash that the wards in that workroom were exhausted.:

Gillan felt entirely justified in ignoring Dadero as he crunched rapidly along the gravel pathway that skirted the outside of the Palace and passed by Mages' Collegium, one hand raised to protect his candle from the breeze of his passage.

In the semi-darkness of the space in front of the Collegium, a baker's dozen of the Palace Guard were standing at assorted degrees of attention around two shadowy bulks that looked Companion shaped. Gillan aimed for them, somewhat pleased to see that while whoever had been monitoring the Gate terminal had felt the need to wake up rather more than the faculty of the Collegium, himself and Halla, they had refrained from the kind of lights-all-blazing commotion that would have alerted half of Haven to something suspicious occurring.

The shadowy bulks were Companions; Regin whuffed a breath out in greeting before nudging Halla with his nose, Dadero merely flicked an ear in acknowledgement.

"Well, isn't this fun," Halla said quietly as Gillan came to a halt beside her.

"I can think of more entertaining things to be doing," Gillan said. "Like sleeping."

:Believe me, you are not the only one.:

Gillan squinted at the new Mindvoice and found Rhiska regarding them from the front entrance of the building.

:You'd better come in,: the ratha continued. :The energies just now focused enough for us to get a clear resonance off them. It's the team we sent south.:

Halla and Regin both stiffened and stood taller, before surging forwards, Gillan only a step behind them because of the glance he had shared with Dadero. The Groveborn was playing all of his inscrutable cards at once and Gillan wasn't sure whether it was because his Companion now knew what to expect, or that he was as in the dark of everyone else, but unwilling to show it. Gillan let Dadero get ahead of him as he caught the eye of the Guard captain and twitched one hand in a beckoning motion. Soft footfalls and the vague clinking creaks of armour reassured Gillan that the guardsmen were following them.

"Have they told you anything?" Halla asked quietly.

Rhiska slanted a look back at the Queen and twitched her tail. :No. The Gate opening has just been signed by one of our mages. It's nearly complete, so we will know everything soon enough.:

Gillan wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to know everything; he had the horrible feeling that everything contained quite a lot of horror.

"Well," Halla said eventually. "Standing around out here isn't going to get us any closer to anything other than catching a chill." She waves a hand at Regin as he snorts and then turns the movement into a gesture for Rhiska to lead the way.

Their little procession of ratha, humans and Companions barely raised notice, let alone eyebrows or comment. Intellectually, Gillan knew that this is because all of the Collegia—as well as their sister institutions in the other Alliance countries—have both student bodies and faculties that are firmly multi-species, but he can't help but feel...worried. Worried, and that the reason that they are garnering no reaction is because the attention of the assorted Mages and and Herald-Mages bustling around is collectively on preparing to face whatever apocalypse spills out of the forming Gate.

:One would almost think that you put the mismatched boots on deliberately and were upset that no one has noticed.: Dadero twitched one ear backwards as Gillan shoved a mental rebuke in his direction. :Stopped you spiralling though, didn't it?:

Gillan glared at his Companion's withers and pointedly did not engage in the offered distraction of conversation. He wasn't entirely sure that Dadero was trying to distract himself more than his Chosen, and that at least some of the foreboding that he feels feeling is spillover and a side-effect of being stuck inside each other's minds for decades.

Rhiska stopped a short distance into the courtyard containing the Gate terminus, sidestepping to keep the doorway clear, and immediately puffed her fur up so that she resembled a particularly irritated bottle brush. :It's nearly complete,: she informed the non-mages. :And if we weren't in the situation that we're in, I would be working myself up to thoroughly chewing out whatever idiot thought that was a sensible or safe way to construct a Gate.:

"What are you saying?" Gillan asked because both the Monarch and her closest advisor are here and wouldn't that just be a wonderful present to Valdemar to have them both killed?

Rhiska rippled her hide in a feline shrug. :You have your shield tokens?: Halla wordlessly flicked the pendant hanging around her neck whilst Gillan took a moment to let himself feel that the braided Companion hair bracelet and its innocuous silver charm are still on his right wrist. :And you have your Companions, so. You will be fine. Things might get noisy, though.:

:And possibly also a bit charred,: Dadero felt the need to add, clearly only to Gillan because Rhiska doesn't attempt to claw his nose off. :Which is why the courtyard is constructed entirely of stone.:

Before Gillan can formulate a reply there's a sudden blossoming of silence, accompanied by a stomach churning flash of dizziness.

"It's here!" An unknown mage exclaimed. "Angle your shields!"

Gillan pressed against Dadero's shoulder as the eye-twisting wrongness of the Gate was suddenly and abruptly a candlelight-and-fire outlined view of what appeared to be the inside of some long abandoned building. That view wass almost immediately obscured by gryphon and kyree as Tarii and Hirrn charged across the Gate threshold, the gryphon hissing like a steam kettle.

"Move!" Tarii barked. "They cannot hold thisss forr long!"

Hard on Tarii's hocks wass a stampede of Companions and dyheli, birds and people both clinging to them in a way that looked the kind of rushed you only saw on front lines in a war zone. Just as Gillan has realised this, several things happen simultaneously: Kit and Melli skid to noisy halts on the flagstones paving the courtyard, the Gate collapses hard with a blast of lightning-scorched air, and Venni and Blackbird make a fairly good attempt at a synchronised dive off the backs of their respective mounts.

Thankfully, several too-young looking mages manage to get themselves between the fainting people and the ground, whilst Gillan is left gaping in shock at the battered and filthy state of the returning party.

"Who?" Halla asked tightly as the chaotic crowd begins to settle somewhat, determined Healers appearing like summoned spirits and zeroing in their two and four-footed patients.

"I—" Gillan blinked and shook his head. The group is obviously smaller than when they set out—the Death Bell has ensured that everyone knows that—but it's harder than the Monarch's Own Herald would have believed to count up and identify people, figure out which not-horse-and-human pair is missing. For some reason he kept on getting stuck on Shadowflame, drooping over Datti's neck, looking about two seconds from decorating the floor, except that—except that Datti looked...wrong?

:Oh.:

Gillan pushed away from Dadero so that he can stare at him questioningly. "What is it?"

Shadowflame jerked as if someone had just plunged a red hot poker into her stomach and let out an inhuman sounding growl. "You."

She thumped Datti...? in the sides with her heels, making her(?) stumble forwards a few steps before she awkwardly slid out of the saddle, underscored by at least two dyheli and Hirrn yelling at her about her leg, and saved herself from falling only by thumping her walking stick into the ground hard enough that she chips a flagstone.

"You—you—" Shadowflame seemed oblivious to anyone except himself, Gillan noticed uneasily. He has to fight the urge to retreat a step or two as the Tayledras woman advances.

It's ridiculous to feel frightened of Shadowflame, Gillan told himself firmly. She may be wasp-tempered but she'd never actually hurt hi—

The solid punch to his nose took Gillan entirely by surprise and he reeled backwards, utterly confused by the sudden hot-copper rush of blood in his mouth and the ringing in his head until the pain overtakes the shock and then—

"You utter, utter—I hate you!" That's underscored by a meaty sounding crack and an equine shriek of pain. Gillan managed to focus enough to catch the tail end of Shadowflame swinging her stick at Dadero and catching him across the face. What is even happening Gillan wondered frantically, his link to Dadero overridden by a choking wash of painandguiltand— Is Shadowflame possessed? Are they all possessed?

"I hate you!"

A dust and mud streaked white shape interposes itself between not only Shadowflame and her objects of assault, but the enraged (crying? Why is she crying?) woman and the two Royal Guards who are about to pierce her with their swords.

Datti— Gillan thought with relief, trying to blink his eyes clear. Except that it's not.

Giff stares stonily at Dadero and Gillan both, before turning to press his head against Shadowflame's front, effectively stopping her from battering them any more.

Dadero's oh from earlier echoes through Gillan's mind as he shakes his head slowly, gaze skittering around the Companions in the courtyard, counting, counting, because maybe if he counted hard enough then there will be four instead of an utterly terrible three.

He can't. There's isn't.

.

.

The microwave beeped, strident and insistent. Michael scowled across the room at it before levering himself up from the crummy, broken-springed couch and shuffling slowly across the worn carpet. Slow and shuffling were about all that he was good for these days. Slow and shuffling and, oh, also screaming. He's pretty good at screaming at things that aren't really there.

Most days, packed neatly underneath a raft of medications—sedatives and anti-psychotics and god only knows what else the doctors and psychiatrists have decided to fill him up with this week—that once upon a time he could have described in exacting molecular detail, Michael finds it easier not to think about much at all.

Waking up from a coma that had lasted the better part of a month only to be told that the police would like to speak to you now, sir because apparently he had been missing for months and phrases like traumatic amnesia and brain damage and abucted by a possible serial killer are now firmly associated with him had been—not pleasant.

And that was even before the medications the hospital had been pumping into his body to keep it alive had worn off sufficiently that Michael had suddenly found his head full of painanddeathandregretandANGER— and had hyperventilated himself back into Coma, Part Two: Catatonia for a further week and a half.

The point is. The point is that whatever Michael was before, now he's living in some shitty one-room pseudo-apartment, and he has a raft of (sometimes conflicting) psychiatric diagnoses that boil down to being irreparably crazy and unable to ever remember exactly what it was that made him go crazy, because apparently it was so awful that his brain deleted eight whole months of memories and only half-heartedly attempted to come up with an alternative.

(Talking horses: how much more crazy can you get?)

Michael's life is one long round of medical appointments and psychiatric appointments and occasional visits by awkward looking police detectives who want to show him photographs of abandoned cellars and ask strange questions, interspersed with frequent episodes of the aforementioned screaming and seizures that have ended up being classified as temporal lobe epilepsy because god forbid his neurologist shrugs and says 'I don't know', even though Michael is pretty sure that temporal lobe epilepsy shouldn't have a trigger of being around people.

Overstimulation the neurologist had insisted. Sensory overload. And, in response to Michael's one garbled attempt at explaining that he thought he could feel what other people were feeling and thinking, a long discourse on aberrant neuron firing and the 'ghosts in the brain' effect and a whole lot more crap.

(sometimes Michael wanted to use the word 'sketi', except that he didn't, because it wasn't real)

The rice is like glue again, but Michael can't risk anything other than the microwave to cook with, not since the...incident when the kitchen caught fire because he was trying to boil noodles on the gas hob except that there was a sudden wave of black despair from the apartment above and then he was screaming and also an entire wall was ablaze and the building had to be evacuated.

That apartment had three whole rooms, unlike this one, but Michael wasn't exactly in a position to be picky about anything anymore.

Mechanically, Michael chewed the rice-stodge, standing in front of the microwave and using his one fork to eat. He needed to line his stomach before he had to choke down the next round of tablets, and the only thing worse than the screaming-seizure-whatever attacks was having one whilst also throwing up.

Something tickled inside his head and he ignored it except for speeding up his chewing. Sometimes he wished that the tickles were maggots or insects, eating away at his brain. That would be better than this.

He needed to take his pills.

He needed to lay down before the screaming started.

(he needed to forget)