20 . 1 . 10
This is my attempt to update in a reasonable amount of time!
Disclaimer: These characters are all mine, and I'm actually kinda proud of them. And the cheese is mine too. Heh.
I know this chapter has some blocky transitions; I had a lot of trouble switching from group to group within the room. If you have any opinions about that specifically, I'd love to hear them. And, of course, this is WriMo material: point out any other flaws you see, please!
There were cries of surprise and relief when the five appeared on the sickroom floor, and then there were hands and arms everywhere, touching and feeling and making sure everyone was alright. The sickroom was full of people; after Rose had disappeared, and Karl had been summoned into the book, Carvin and Nre had both arrived, and Sarah refused to stop pacing the floor. Now, all four anxious adults were crowding around the five exhausted figures that had suddenly appeared on the floor.
"You're all alive," Carvin sighed with tremendous relief, unable to hide the huge smile that crossed his face at the sight of his daughter.
"Linna!" Nre cried, scooping up her daughter before the girl could even stand up and holding her close.
Lilliana threw her arms around her mother's neck and wept tears of relief. Within moments, she was sobbing out apologies; it sounded like she'd been thinking of them for a long time.
"I'm so sorry, Momma," she said, "for being cross. And for reading when I'm not supposed to. And not being polite. And throwing fits."
"That's a lot of apologies at once," Carvin said, putting his arms around the both of them and laying his head against his daughter's sooty, wet hair.
"Well, I mean them," Lilliana said, looking up from her mother's shoulder to stare intently into her father's eyes. Her tears were short lived, now that she was back in her parents' arms, safe and sound.
"You're all forgiven," Nre said, kissing her daughter's grimy cheek. "But you sound all grown up! What happened to you?"
"I just learned stuff," Lilliana said, like it wasn't a big deal. "Books help you learn stuff."
Meanwhile, there was a minor commotion occurring unbeknownst to the royal family, who was very caught up in their own affairs.
"There's something the matter with Karl," Sarah said, kneeling beside the deathly pale fiari and reaching for his wrist. "Faidn, what's the matter with him?"
"Search me," Faidn said, looking a mite less concerned than he would be about anyone else. He turned to Swana to ask her, then realized she too was unconscious.
"Swana?" he said, now starting to get worried.
He put a cautious hand on her arm as Sarah felt frantically for Karl's pulse. The man was unnaturally still and pale. Swana didn't move. She was much too still.
"Swana?" he called again, images of fallen soldiers crowding his eyes.
Her eyes squeezed together in a grimace, and then she forced them open. She sat up groggily. Faidn's heart settled back down into its proper place and he sat back slightly, letting out a breath of relief.
"He's not dead!" Sarah said at the same time, her fingers finding a trace of a heartbeat.
Swana shook her head and blinked, then winced. Her eyes were slightly unfocused; she was obviously very disoriented. Nevertheless, she turned to Sarah and opened her mouth, intending to explain to the woman exactly what needed to be done to ensure that Karl remained alive.
Unfortunately, she was not nearly as understandable as she usually was.
"He—he—uh," Swana said, shaking her head violently and trying to clear it. "He used a lot of magic. He needs—he needs—oh, for the love of the sun, what's the word?"
"Plants!" Sarah said, eyes sparkling with remembrance.
"Plants," Swana affirmed, holding her head and grimacing in pain. "Something with strong roots would be best. Quickly."
Sarah took off running down the corridor.
"Are you alright?" Faidn asked when Swana didn't take her head out of her hands.
"I almost gave Karl too much magic when I was helping him," she said slowly. The words came with effort, but she was recovering quickly from the bout of confusion.
Faidn glanced at Karl, who was still completely motionless. If Sarah hadn't declared that she'd found a pulse, Faidn would have thought the fiari was dead. Sarah came rushing back, then, with a potted rose, and Swana took her head from her hands. Faidn backed away quickly as Sarah almost ran into him, feeling that his presence was no longer desired. He stood up and surveyed the room, relieved that everyone had returned alive, regardless of Karl's comparative health.
He spied Rose, who was leaning against the wall with her eyes closed, and made his way over to her. When he knelt beside her, she opened her eyes and looked at him. There was a fraction of a moment when she just looked at him, and then she burst into a smile and tackled him. Taken completely off-guard by the sudden rush of affection – especially since the extend of Rose's greetings were usually a very brief and tentative embrace – Faidn actually lost his balance and fell back onto a hand, laughing.
"Nice to see you, too!" he jested, hugging her tightly with his other arm.
"Oh, Faidn," she said, sighing in a way that sounded like she was letting out more than just a pent-up breath of air.
He released her, and she sat back. She couldn't stop smiling. Smoke and fire had crusted her face with grey and tender pink, but she exuded joy with such confidence that Faidn couldn't help laughing again.
"Rose – how did you get in the book?" he asked. "I thought you were just asleep."
"I started dreaming of the book," she said. "Things in my memories started to go haywire, and then there I was." She shrugged helplessly and looked puzzled herself; she didn't know much about the book, having been inside it the longest.
"The whole book started going crazy after Swana went in," Faidn said, adding to her story. "Words and chapters started moving around at random. Karl and I tried to follow the story, but it was just impossible. We had no idea what was going on anymore. And then, you vanished, right out of the bed!"
"I opened my eyes after going to sleep in my memories, and Derwin was trying to carry me down the stairs in Winsome Castle," she explained. "And from then on, I was in the book. As Marsha, I guess."
At the mention of his name, Derwin looked over from Swana, who was carefully winding Karl's fingers around a potted plant and whispering something under her breath, wincing in pain.
"So you're Derwin," Faidn said, nodding at him.
Derwin edged closer to them and smiled nervously. Faidn sized him up briefly; he was tall and strong, with dark brown hair and steely grey eyes. The clothes he wore were plush, but unfamiliar. They weren't from any of the western countries. The style tugged his memory toward the Philettin war ten years earlier. The man looked uncomfortable, but not frightened or intimidated.
"Guilty as charged," he said succinctly, making brief eye contact with Faidn.
The moment wasn't hostile or cowardly, but charitable and friendly. He's a good man, Faidn knew. That thought made him relax, just a bit. Rose, who had missed the interaction, was all questions, now that the danger had passed.
"So, who are you? And where are you from?" Rose asked; there was something in her voice, like the barest hint of a suspicion. Faidn wondered what she was thinking.
"That's a hard question, and I'm from Ellespeth," Derwin said, folding his hands experimentally, marveling at his hand-breadth. He'd forgotten how large his hands had once been, after ten years in the book.
"We've got time," Faidn said, his interest in the man piqued as he realized how intent Rose was on him. There was more going on here than he realized.
"I was a prince before I fell into the book," he said after a pause for thought. "Prince Isaiah, if you remember him, Rose."
"I didn't know much about the politics," Rose said, shaking her head, then looked up at him carefully. "I didn't say I was from Ellespeth."
"You commented on my boots," he reminded her.
"Wait, if your name is Isaiah, why did you become Derwin in the book?" Faidn asked, eying the man suspiciously.
"I didn't realize I was in the book at first," Derwin, or Isaiah, explained. "I thought I was still in Ellespeth. And – uh, the prince wasn't very well-liked at the time. In fact, there were hundreds of people trying to kill the prince. So, naturally, when I awoke and a group of strange people asked me my name, I said the first name that came to mind – the name of the character I had been thinking about as I fell unconscious."
"You talk about the prince like he's a different person," Rose observed shrewdly.
"Well, I'm not technically the prince," he said, closing one eye and looking at the two of them as if waiting for them to declare him insane.
"Who are you, then?" Faidn asked. He was getting impatient with the winding story.
"Before I become a prince," he said, looking at Rose, "I was a regular boy, one who had run off from home to find his best friend who was taken away."
There was a heavy pause. Rose looked at the man without a name, and Faidn saw years of life pass between them in the space of a breath. She opened her mouth, and gave him a name.
"Aerin," she said softly.
Faidn blinked, taken aback. Rose had told him about her childhood friend, Aerin, years ago – how he'd been the only friend she'd had until she met Sarah, about the games they used to play, and how he'd been forced to turn her in to the slave trader in the end. He looked at the man, who was wincing at the long-deserted name, guilt coming to the forefront of his emotions.
"I'm sorry," he blurted out, an apology fifteen years overdue. "I tried to—I'm—sorry."
"It's not your fault," she said, and there was no bitterness in her tone. "There's nothing to forgive."
"How can you say that?" he asked, spreading his hands. "I betrayed you. I should have run away, not let myself get caught. I should have just taken the beating and not tell them where you were. I shouldn't have let my fear—"
"Aerin," she said, hesitating, then putting a hand on his arm. "You were only twelve. You panicked. It was my father's fault, not yours."
He looked down at her hand.
"I still shouldn't—"
"Stop it," she said quietly. "It's done. I forgave my father long ago."
"You never blamed me?" he asked, frowning.
"I did, for a while," she admitted. Faidn remembered that. "But it was unfair."
"I'm sorry," he repeated.
Rose almost told him again not to apologize, but then she looked up into his grey eyes and saw the agony of fifteen years.
"I forgive you," she said simply, because he needed to hear it, and because it was true.
They were saved any awkwardness that might have followed this statement by the outburst on the other side of the room.
"You women are certifiable!"
Karl's voice lifted above everything else as he scooted away from Sarah and Swana and stood to his feet, sucking on an apparently injured finger. Swana was up like a shot, though, and steadying him when he began to sway.
"The flowers were a nice idea," he continued, gesturing at the now-limp plant, "but stabbing me with them was unnecessary! Did you forget that I almost died? The almost-dead don't get near the respect that they used to."
His tirade had diminished into muttering resentment, but Sarah was already on her feet, looking very cross.
"I wasn't stabbing you!" she protested, folding her arms and giving him a look not unlike the one she gave Stephen when he was being ridiculous. "I was trying to get you to hold them. They're roses. They have thorns, idiot."
Karl was about to say something nasty in reply when Swana cut him off sharply.
"Sit down," she said firmly. "Sarah just saved your life." Then, she looked over at Faidn. "Where's the book?"
"Right, so now that I'm no longer on the brink of death..." Karl mumbled sourly, slumping to the ground with a moan.
"Uh," Faidn said, trying to recall where he'd dropped it when the host of people had materialized. "By Iriana on the bed."
Saying her name reminded him that, though Rose was awake and talking like she'd never been on the brink of death, Iriana had not woken up. He stood to his feet and left Rose and Aerin to join Swana at the foot of her bed. Iriana hadn't moved since the last time he'd stood there; she still lay on the bed, looking like she might be merely asleep.
"Why didn't she wake up when you came out of the book?" Faidn questioned, looking at her motionless form.
"She's not physically in the book," Swana said tiredly, picking up the book and running her fingers over the cover. "Her mind is trapped in the spell."
"Didn't you break the spell, getting out of the book?" Faidn asked.
"That was me," Karl piped up, sitting on the floor and rolling the stem of another plant Sarah had brought him between his fingers. "I broke the spell."
"Part of it," Swana said, ignoring the fiari. "But it doesn't affect Iriana, because she wasn't in the story."
"So," Faidn said, "how do we wake her up?"
"I'm going to have to go in and get her."
"Hark, the suicidal savior speaketh," chimed in Karl; the pain was making him even more biting than usual. "After giving me all that magic you did, you're going to kill yourself if you try to fight Hughes for Iriana. I hope you don't expect me to save you again."
"I'm not going to kill myself," Swana said, a little testily. "I'm going to channel all the leftover magic from when you shattered the spell, not use my own. And, someone else is coming with me."
"Not me," Karl said flatly, putting aside the second plant, which was now wilted as well; he looked slightly less pale. "And why?"
"No, not you," Swana agreed in equal tone. "I need someone to find Iriana while I distract Hughes. It has to be someone who can fight with weapons; Hughes will inevitably throw obstacles and enemies in his way."
She paused, looking at the available candidates. Derwin stood up, Carvin folded his arms expectantly, but Faidn spoke first, looking up from Iriana's placidly emotionless face.
"I'll go."
He'd spent weeks watching helplessly as first Rose, and then Iriana fell captive to their own worst memories, while he could only watch, unable to do anything whatsoever to help. The inaction was killing him; he was happy to finally be able to do something. Swana nodded. She'd expected that.
"Once Faidn finds Iriana," Swana continued, "You, Karl, are going help him solve the spell and break it, which should get us all out of the book."
"Then we light the book on fire," Nre said wrathfully.
Lilliana looked at her like she'd grown another arm.
"I feel that statement should be recorded for posterity," Carvin said, trading a look with his daughter.
"And all of this while you battle Hughes and don't die?" Karl asked. "And I, alsowithout dying, am going to run thoughts through a complexly spelled object after just having finished hacking a fabricated world to pieces?"
"Channel the book's magic," Swana said shortly, "There's more there than I could use in twelve battles."
Swana was growing tired of Karl's complaints – evidence that she wasn't quite herself. Faidn wondered if Karl's comments didn't have some merit; he'd never seen Swana look so tired, even in their year fighting together in the Philettin war. Karl looked sullen, but didn't argue. Swana looked at Faidn.
"Touch the book," she instructed.
As always, there were no preemptive warnings, advice, or reiteration of instruction. She just acted. That's why she and Faidn got along.
After a quick check that he had his sword on his belt, Faidn put a hand on the book, and everything was black.
Enter knight in shining armor... --cheeky smile--
Captain Fantastic: --laugh!-- I'm glad I could make you so happy! And I'm glad you like that part. --chuckle-- I just couldn't throw any more confusion in there. Cadmus was starting to trip over the tangled plot-threads as he painted, which almost made him smear Nre's face more than once, so I decided not to add to the mess. Heh. And it is rather atypical, isn't it? Hum. I didn't give that a whole lot of thought, actually. The description! Yay! That was a good writing day, I remember. I was rereading and being a little impressed, myself. Cadmus is great. I'm glad you liked those lines. --smile-- Oh, Karl. I love him. I'm glad I'm not the only one. A guilty pleasure, indeed. Heh heh... Yeah, real arrows might have been more effective, but for the fact that they were probably charmed to aim true, and not hit any of their people. In such a close battle, not hitting your friend would be night impossible, yet she didn't miss once. Sure, she's awesome, but that's just a little implausible. o.O And the magical arrows probably had more of an effect on Francis, who wouldn't have been too terribly bothered by real arrows. Ah, I see someone caught the name-slip. --secretive smile--
Pimpernel Princess: --beaming-- I'm glad you liked it! It was monstrous fun to write. Cadmus was going all kinds of haywire. Oh Faidn – what would I do without him? --grin--
EVA: Well! I'm glad you (and your family by association) enjoyed the chapter! I was flattered at EEP's comparison to LotR – I can only hope to be as fabulous as Tolkein... Ah, thanks for catching that typo. It's fixed now, and you have a shout out. 1) I hate it when people mistreat books. Ugh! 2) Poetic irony, yes! --chuckle-- And I just found it amusing. 3) Heh, well, Swana is most definitely human. But, there is something about her that seems to demand more trust than the average human. 4) I'm glad you enjoyed that bit; I had a lot of fun with it. Heh, yeah, Linna fighting off Francis is a little far-fetched, but I did try to emphasize the fact that she was heavily dependent on magical spells (that would presumably be strengthening her attacks, weakening his, possibly speeding up her reactions, etc.) and she was also beleaguered. But, at any rate...
5) Yes. I didn't want to make Swana a super-human. She's been the voice of reason and the most powerful person thus far, always having the right ideas and putting them to action, but, while she may be extraordinary, she's not infallible. 6) Indeed. --grin-- Ah, I believe I said Derwin was crouching/kneeling at that point, so her face would be in his chest. Or at least that's how I imagined it. I shall have to go back and make sure I stated that. 7) I'm glad that description turned out alright, and that you liked it! Wow, did I actually make you feel sorry for Karl? Excellent! --does a happy dance-- I feel like he's a hard character to honestly pity, but I think he deserves it in that situation, so I'm glad you did. Aww, thanks. --grin-- I do hope that each story gets better than the one before it, so we shall see.
Reviewers get brownie bites!