Chapter 53
The feeling was sensational. Complete aware that she had been hit by Alanna's fireball her skin tickled everywhere. Underneath her bare feet, up her legs, reaching her stomach. She knew that she should be burning, knew that she should be dying along with her unborn child, but absolutely nothing happened.
Only one little noticeable thing was going on inside her; her child seemed to be thrilled over the unexpected boost of magic. Standing with her eyes closed she didn't hear the soft thrilling sound of a musical note coming from the reptile-like animal standing between an horrified Numair and a stunned Alanna. The only thing she had her attention on was the small playful movements going on inside her belly, as if the baby was getting ready to do something.
The second she opened her eyes that 'something' did happened. The fireball left her body as it had come, flying over the deck, between two statues made of stone; one male and one female, hitting the mast and consuming the wood where a sword was embedded. With the extra magic pushed from her body she slowly felt how her unborn child fell asleep below her heart, maybe exhausted from the unexpected effort.
There was absolute silence everywhere around her, and trying to take a step she tottered. A large hand grabbed her, supporting her balance. She looked up to the man with gratitude in her eyes.
"That was some show, you did there lass, did you know that you were glowing slightly violet?" the captain of the ship said to her while leading her over to a barrel where she could sit. "Are you okay?" he asked her seeing the unsure expression on her face.
She nodded, lost for words. Moving her gaze from the captain she took in the battle scene. Both Numair and Alanna had been turned into stone. "What happened?" she choked as she could see Numair fighting the spell Kitten had enforced on him.
The captain scratched his beard. "Well, I have no idea what so ever. I don't know who that man is," he pointed towards Numair "but that lady was very angry with him. I'm not sure why":
"I know him" she simply said and called to her foster child. "Kitten, free him".
Kitten, standing on her hind legs let of a soft sound and Numair was slowly turned to himself.
Her foster child turned towards Alanna, about to do the same, but Daine interrupted her. "No, not yet. She needs to cool of a bit, even though she will be furious about being transformed to stone – nice trick Kitten".
She saw how Numair staggered backwards as the dragon baby's scales turned to a bright gold color because of pride. Two men grabbed Numair's arms, holing him firmly.
"What shall we do with him?" One of the men shouted. "He's clearly a stowaway!" Daine could see that Numair was exhausted beyond compere.
"Take him to - " the captain began, but was stopped when someone grabbed his sleeve. Looking down he looked into stormy gray-blue eyes. Daine pulled herself to her feet with the help of the captain. Unsure what she was going to do, he helped her over the the lanky tanned and unknown man. Such was the surprise for all the grew and Duke Gareth, and the rest of the Tortallan delegation, that the young wild mage supported by the captain reached for the tanned man's cheek and pulled his head down into a fierce and deep passionately kiss.
The two men holding on the stowaway man released their grip as Numair moved his arms around Daine and kissed her back, making sure to deepen the kiss enough so he could meet her tongue. Numair laughed as he broke the kiss, not at all wanting to let go of her lips yet, but had to because he had no air left "You are not dead" he whispered.
She smiled up to him. "Apparently not, but it seems that you will be if you don't sit down at some point". She pushed him backwards looking firmly into his hazel eyes. "By the way, I haven't totally forgiven you yet".
"That I know" he mumbled and sat down hard on the wooden deck.
"Will someone please explain to me, what in Mithros name is going on?" Gareth demanded as Daine turned towards Kitten.
"Just a moment" she called to the Duke, that looked like she had slapped him hard in the face by denying him any explanation. "Kit, please give our Lioness the cool-down she deserves".
Kitten nodded and crawled over to the female statue. With a short whistle the statue flew up in the air, a sounding crack was heard as the spell was released and then a furious and surprised scream came as the king's Champion was dropped into the salty cool water of the sea.
"What the – What is – Will someone please pull me up from this cursed cold water" Alanna screamed bewildered over the sudden cold. "I'm going to kill Jonathan when we get home! He said absolutely nothing about being thrown..." her words was drowned by the sudden laugh from the sailors standing around the ship.
Daine settled down on a barrel, a bit away from Numair. She didn't want him to touch her body and a little shocked over herself and the kiss she had given, she was feeling slightly dizzy "Please bring her up Kitten, I think she's cooled of now". She noticed that her young swain was moving towards her from the door, with a quite a strange facial expression on his face. She sighed resignedly, hoping not to have to explain anything to this young man who had a little infatuation on her.
The dragon baby nodded and another whistle sounded.
Alanna was now standing on the deck dripping with saltwater, her red hair plastered to her slightly angry face. Pushing the hair away her gaze fell upon the man beside Numair. "Numair Salmalin!" she hissed and began to walk over towards the tanned man who tried to move backwards, only to find that the railing stopped him.
Startled by his name, Numair looked up. "Now you remember me?" he asked "And it only took a battle, a spell from a dragon and a push into the water?"
Alanna scowled down to him. "What would you have done? Kissed me?" The angry feeling that had possessed her before was being transformed to utter amusement.
The black robe mage shrugged "Maybe. I had to do it to her" he told the Lioness, who lifted her eyebrows surprised and pointed towards Daine, who was being looked over by an very young blond man with crooked teeth. The young sailor seemed to check if his young and former student was indeed okay. "Should I be worried?" he asked as Daine gave the young man a apologizing smile.
The Lioness shook her heard making everyone near her wet. "No, as I remember one specific night in the great hall many months ago she is spoken for". She looked up at Duke Gareth and the other in the delegation, who stood with big question marks written all over their faces. "Maybe you should try to kiss him" she grinned and pointed at the Duke, how looked quite offended. She offered Numair a hand.
"Maybe" Numair responded low, taking the hand. "But I don't think that he kiss nearly as good as she does" he said tossing his head in the direction of Daine, who seemed to have trouble with the young man. "And she calls me overprotective?"
Alanna snorted "You are overprotective Numair, always have been and always will be" she looked around on the damaged ship. "We have some explaining to do – any idea how to make them remember you?" she asked and gazed at the angry Duke, who stood with his arms folded in front of his chest.
Numair shook his head. "No – absolutely no idea" he told her and followed her over to the Duke. Behind him he heard faintly Daine's irritated voice snapping at the young sailor.
"Enough! Leave me be!" she said and rose from the barrel. Walking towards the door, she called her foster child. "Kitten I'm going down below – behave!" And with these words said, she disappeared.
Numair glanced back at the young man, who only stood as if he couldn't decide if he should go after her or not, and Numair not wanting him too – glued the poor man's feet to the deck by a small spell, before turning towards an explaining Lioness and smiled politely to the Duke.
She opened the door leaving the assembly behind her and her annoying swain. If she just could tell him to back off one way or another, but incidentally he had been the last one to enter the deck, not seeing the kiss she had bestowed Numair. And with her former teacher back in her life she was face with another dilemma; telling Numair that he during the next three months was going to be a father or not telling him. And what would his reaction be? Would he be glad or sad?
With those thoughts circling around her head she wandered below deck, in the need to relieve herself when she saw the old woman again walking calmly into the gallery. Daine paused with her one hand on the handle to her the private area, not sure what to do, but she had sort of a bone to pick with the old crone or the patron of Carthak and now that the goddess was once again available, she had to jump to the opportunity.
Forcing the door open to the gallery she found the old crone waiting for her to enter.
"I see that you once again found me my dear child" the old goddess smirked, while petting a rat standing on its hind legs in her hand.
Daine pushed the door close. "I have a bone to pick with you" she simply replied and leaned against the door. "Why are you so keen to meddle with the lives of mortals? It's not that we don't have enough trouble going our way as it is".
The Graveyard Hag turned her head from the rat, looking at the young girl with her single eye. "If it wasn't because of me, my dear child, you would have been dead, again might I ad, up on the deck. It's only because of me, that you and your child live to see the light of another day. You should thank me, not scold me".
The sentence shocked Daine, who looked down at the floor a bit embarrassed before lifting her chin stubbornly. "If so, you told me once that if I died you could do nothing to prevent it. What made things different now?" she asked a bit tartly.
The crone chuckled lightly "Well – do you remember the night where me made a deal?"
Confused Daine nodded. She remembered it all to well. "That night you promised me that you would compensate the children of the men who died, the men who kidnapped me, in return you gave me a rater nasty disease".
"Nasty and nasty, it helped the matter along didn't it?" the goddess asked secretly.
"Helped what along?" Daine asked more confused and before she could ask another question, the old Hag only pointed towards her bulging belly.
"That, my dear girl. The disease wasn't a disease, but a condition only designed to be part of a demi-god. A demi-god, who coincidentally would be the one to bear the key to uphold the future. That condition my dear, is my personally ingenuity to make sure that you and your baby can't be killed. Not accidentally, not randomly and not by any other hands then the one goddess who the spell belongs to. Your dear man knows the condition as Unicorn Fever, as Elena the heal was told by your mother, but the condition is part of my little ability to restore dead things to life" The goddess smiled. "It is beneficial to be the daughter of the Black God as it is beneficial for you to be the daughter of the northern God of hunt; Weiryn".
It was almost to much. To much information giving at one time. "I need to sit" Daine said out loud. A chair from nowhere popped out of the thin air.
"Please do so" the Goddess said gesturing. "I'm not done. I, too, have a bone to pick with you" the Graveyard Hag said lifting her eyebrows "Oh, don't look at me like that" she suddenly responded as Daine was glaring daggers at the Goddess. "You was wondering about telling that handsome man of yours, that what you bear under your heart is part his -"
Daine moved uneasy at the fact that the Goddess had heard her thought "You read my mind without permission!" she spluttered, more angry with the old crone.
"Off cause! And please, don't give me that look – I'm a divine, I have to know when and where to meddle as you so perfectly pointed out a few minutes ago". The crone paused as if she had lost her line of thoughts "Where were I – oh now I remember it. You do not, and I repeat, not have your liberty to tell him anything about that bump of stomach you have. I'll prevent any say in the matter as I did even you tried to run after him, the morning after Baltane".
With that sentence said Daine stood abruptly. "You!" she yelled angrily "It was you who tricked me back then so I couldn't get to the stables – how dare you! You have absolutely no right - " she stopped, the space in front of her flashed and the Goddess was gone. She turned around checking if the old crone just had move behind her, but didn't found anything other then a large rat looking at her with black shinny eyes.
'One should not scold at the Goddess like you did' the rat told her. 'But she said that it's understandable giving the events'. It crawled forward to her toes and touched the skin with its slightly cold wet nose. A flash of silver erupted from the rat and sought into Daine. 'She saysthat when you have chilled your temper a bit, you will discover the necessity to do what have to be done'. And with the rats words echo in her ears the rat scurried towards the hole in the wall and disappeared.
"I hate riddles" Daine said hoarsely as she suddenly felt a tear running down her cheek. Lifting her hand she touched the wetness and looked down at her fingers as she withdrew her hand. "Oh gosh what now?" she asked as she felt another tear escape down her cheek on her other cheek. It became harder to breath as she started to cry and she was forced to sit on the chair that still stood behind her.
Alanna had explained, and talked and shouted at the rest of the delegation which hadn't remembered anything about Numair and he himself had kept quiet during the process. It wasn't until the Lioness had come to the point where she had to tell about the creature they had encountered that he became aware of the soft sound of gulls above his head giving off strange noises.
Suddenly someone tucked at his sleeve calling his surname, he looked down at the captain standing beside him looking a bit annoyed up at him. "Sorry" he said and send a apologetic smile down to the man "I didn't hear was you was saying".
"I said that your lass is sitting in the gallery – crying and I though that I was obliged to tell you" the captain replied.
Numair turned his full attention to the man with a confused look in his eyes "Crying? Daine is crying?" His voiced question had spontaneous become multiplied by another man asking the same question at the same time as Numair. The delegation around him became silent as he turned towards the young sailor, how he mere minutes ago had released from his spell.
"Yes," the captain replied, looking confused back and forth from the lanky, but well-build tanned mage to his flimsy sailor. "I thought it would be a good idea to tell you" the captain replied as he also looked at the red haired woman, who stood with her eyebrows lifted a worried expression playing on her face.
Suddenly a light voice startled them all by saying "I'll go see what's wrong" the sailor offered moving his feet towards the door.
"You - do no such thing!" Numair suddenly snapped, more annoyed by what the young man was offering. "You, boy – sit!" he commanded and pointed with a long finger at the boy, who found himself sitting down heavily on the deck unwillingly. His gray trousers clued to the deck.
"Ughh" it came surprised from the young sailor.
"I'll go" he said tartly "you don't know her and will never do, I'll make sure of that" With the words hanging in the air he turned from the delegation and walked hastily over the deck, leaving the young sailor yelling behind him.
"I do, you know! Her and I have talked at lot – she even half in lov..." the young sailor found himself not allowed to say more as the woman with the red hair waved her hand, before turning her attention back to the delegation. Not only was he spelled to be sitting in the middle of the deck, but the famous Lioness had taken his voice as well. He turned his attention up to the captain with a angry expression on his face and tried to gesture his resentment.
The captain leaned down to his young employee clapping him comfortingly on the hair. "Drop it my dear boy, she is out of your reach anyway and you clearly don't have a chance against him" he said and pointed to Numair, who was closing the door behind him, disappearing.
