Disclaimer – Same old, same old…as much as I love Valdemar, I don't own it :) That all belongs to Mercedes Lackey. However! All those oh-so-interesting characters that have never made an appearance in any of her novels from my chapters (Lyrissa, Jesin, Mikel, Piel, you know who)… they belong to me ^_^ Of course, you're welcome to use my characters… provided you tell me ;) Since this is my first fanfic, any questions/comments can be sent to dazz1eu@yahoo.com and would be greatly appreciated ^_^ Just don't be too harsh, neh? ;)
~ Chapter 5 ~
::Gods, I don't think I'll ever get rid of this headache::
Jesin collapsed into his chair, weary after a long evening. After Andil had said his piece, the Healers present had led a rather spirited discussion concerning the girl in which Talia was finally required to step in and soothe ruffled feathers.
"To bed, all of you," she had said gently. "You're tired, and even a little scared. I don't blame you for being scared, but sitting here and banging your head against a wall won't change things. Good rest might."
Taking good advice for what it was, the Healers left, though some with a bit of grumbling, until only Andil, Jesin, Kelsi, and Talia remained.
Kelsi had her arms crossed; it seemed to be her favorite stance. "I don't like this," she admitted bluntly, never one to hide behind a dance of words. "I don't understand it, and I won't deny it scares me just a little."
"Shields that throw out a Healer would unnerve anyone," responded Talia, laying a hand on Kelsi's arm, a look of concern on her face.
Kelsi shook her head, "I'm fine, just a bit worried. Especially how others will react when they hear the news. We were lucky that Bremol wasn't here."
"Indeed," sighed Andil, who had until now remained silent as he kept his post at Lyrissa's bedside. "And rumors always spread."
"What is important," inserted Jesin, pacing the short distance inbetween the bed and the far wall, "is that we need to understand what exactly is Counter-Healing. My instincts tell me that this puzzle is a lot simpler than we think, but we can't do a thing unless we know what is going on."
Talia nodded slowly, "You mentioned something about talking to the gryphons before all hell broke loose?"
"Gryphons?" Kelsi's eyes were wide.
"Gryphons," Jesin replied in the affirmative, halting in his pacing. With a glance at the bed, he continued slowly, as if reciting something he had been turning over in his mind for quite some time. "Unfortunately, knowledge of Counter-Healing was banned long ago. I found a book that talked about the history of the banning, which you can all read if you like. But the important thing I realized is that gryphons are not under our decree. They are likely to still know about Counter-Healing, and if not them, surely one of them knows."
"There are others," Talia added, nodding as she saw the truth in his words. "Even Firesong might have an insight as to what is going on. But first, we'll see who is available. Everyone is busy doing something these days."
Which was true. Heads nodded as the Healers recalled the reports they had heard about the Storms only getting worse.
"Then Jesin, I will meet you at the noon bell outside the ambassadors' wing."
Preparing for bed, Jesin inwardly winced. Yes, he would meet Talia at the noon bell. Provided, of course, he did not lose his nerve first.
~~ ^ ~~
The sun was shining directly into Mikel's eyes, refusing to let him get any additional sleep. Silently wishing that the Trainees had left his curtains closed when they had tidied up his room, Mikel squinted briefly into the light before flopping over, eyes firmly shut in an attempt to block out the morning brightness.
::Rise and shine!:: sang Cera in his mind. Mikel groaned; Cera had always been a morning Companion. How, he could never understand why.
::Because the morning is bright and glorious:: said Cera cheerfully, generating a fresh groan from her Chosen.
::Enough, enough, I'm up you songbird:: Carefully extracting himself from his sheets, Mikel stood and stretched, hearing a muscle pop.
::Good, because we have work that needs to be done:: Cera replied, all sunshine and brightness in her mental voice. It almost made Mikel's head ache. Morning people, or Companions in this case, needed to be locked away together some place far away. They could all praise the sunrise together and even leave normal folk alone.
Wasn't that a wonderful thought?
Still sluggish, he spent some time splashing his face before dressing in his Whites. It was only as Mikel was closing the door of his room behind him that he realized he had absolutely no idea what "work" Cera had in mind.
~~ ^ ~~
Alie stared idly at her work of trying to study various plants and their purposes. No matter how hard she tried to concentrate, Piel's harsh words constantly resurfaced in her mind.
"How you could be so cold and still have the Healing Gift, I really do not know."
Abandoning her studies, not that she had been getting anywhere, Alie leaned back in her chair to stare at the ceiling.
She had spent a restless night, tossing back and forth on her bed as the words had plagued her and refused to let her drift off into a dreamless sleep. At some point of the middle of the tossing and turning, it had finally occurred to her that her roommate had not made it back; the bed across the room was still empty.
Worried that it had been her words that had chased her roommate out, Alie had fallen into a deeper spiral of guilt.
As if those two were not enough, every time that Alie had thought she had exhausted herself to the point that she had to collapse, the image of those blue eyes filled with so much pain and emotion was enough to drag Alie back from whatever threshold of sleep she had been about to cross.
Finally, at the crack of dawn, Alie had been able to convince herself that at the very least, she was not completely heartless, despite Piel's harsh words. After all, she did give up her time to try and assist the younger Trainees. She had initially noticed Lyrissa's reticence and tried to be a friend, but had let her fear overtake her concern. She had tried to put a curb on her mouth, only complaining to her yearmates, but had finally slipped and complained to the study group when one of the girls had wondered out loud where Alie's roommate always was.
It was enough to at least let Alie rest for a small period of time.
However, all these conclusions still didn't give Alie much peace of mind and she was lost deep in thought when she heard the cough from the door.
She turned to crane her head and nearly toppled out of her chair.
It was Piel.
The younger Trainee looked embarrassed though. "Um, may I come in?" he asked, looking nervous and out of sorts.
"Yes, of course," Alie quickly set her chair back on the ground and turned to face him as Piel took his usual seat on the bed.
A brief period of silence followed in which Alie's mind was running in circles. Why was Piel here? Why did he look so embarrassed? Wouldn't he avoid her like the plague thinking she was a bad influence?
Finally when her curiosity was just about to get the best of her, he looked up and stared straight at her, bringing all her mental questioning to a halt.
"I'm sorry."
Alie blinked a couple times, not understanding. "Huh?" she replied in the manner of only the completely dumbfounded.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, shoulders now slumped in guilt. "I – I shouldn't have said those mean things to you last night. I really just lost my temper and all. I mean, I know you don't mean to be as bad as I made you out to be."
"Oh…"
"You do help out, honest Alie," continued Piel, trying to sound earnest, eyes pleading for her to believe him. "And well, I know it's easy to get scared of Rissa. She'd scare me too, I guess, if I hadn't seem something like it before I came to the Healers. It was just… I was so mad with having messed up that all my anger exploded." Now he looked sheepish, "You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Alie shook her head, her head whirling with this sudden confession. "No, you were right in some respects," Alie admitted. "I have been doing a rather poor job of trying to be a good roommate. And no respectable Healer would let her fear run away with her like that just because someone isn't really acting how you want them to act."
Now she straightened up and met Piel's surprised gaze. "But I want to change that. I want to find out what happened to Lyrissa. I want to be able to help her. And maybe, between the two of us, we can go out there and make a chance in somebody's life."
Piel only continued to stare at Alie as if she had grown horns and a Companion's tail. The silence lengthened and Alie resisted the urge to squirm in her chair under that startled, but measuring, gaze.
Finally, he smiled slightly and nodded.
"I would like that."
~~ ^ ~~
Jesin fidgeted nervously as he and Talia walked down the hallway to where the gryphons were housed. A small corner of his mind was babbling furiously, but Jesin had mostly managed to shutter it up into just that – a small corner.
He just hoped it wasn't easy to insult gryphons.
"Don't worry, they have a good handle on Valdemar customs," said Talia as she glanced over her shoulder, sensing his uneasiness. "They are not going to take offense at something that you think is an innocuous statement."
Jesin shoved that statement into the same small corner as his babbling mind in order to try and calm it down.
All too soon they were at the doors that marked the set of the rooms that belonged to the gryphons. Oddly enough, there seemed to be quite a bit of noise from behind the double doors. Talia knocked politely.
"Come in," replied a voice in accented Valdemaran.
The doors opened onto a lively site – two little gryphons were running around the room, happily chasing a wolf-like creature. The wolf seemed to take it all in stride, but the noise from the two little ones was enough to raise the noise level to the verge of what could be considered cacophony.
At the opening of the doors, the wolf creature paused long enough to look both him and Talia over but still stay one step ahead of the little gryphlets. With a clear wink, the creature bounded over to another door that had passed Jesin's immediate notice. The gryphlets followed, hot on his tail.
The noise reduction was quite noticeable, although shrieks were still heard from the room next door. Ears still ringing slightly, Jesin blinked a couple times, and looked around the room to take in what he had managed to overlook.
In the center of the room was a nest of sorts. Jesin was not entirely sure about what he had imagined the gryphons were sleeping in, but a small part of him had been amused over the idea of a nest constructed of sticks in the palace. This was certainly not a traditional nest as his mind had imagined – traditional nests were not made of featherbeds.
There was a woman sitting on the edge of the large nest, and Jesin would have at first thought her perfectly ordinary. And yet, there was something subtly different about her. Finally, it came to him – her eyes were slitted.
Slitted?! Jesin did a double take. Indeed, this woman had slitted pupils, much like a cat's. She also held a sword that looked like it could definitely do its own bit of damage. Swallowing hard, he finally let his eyes drift to the reason why he had come to this room in the first place.
Two pairs of raptor eyes met his gaze. Yet these eyes were full of intelligence and, at the moment at least, a hint of welcome, nothing like a normal raptor's eyes.
Welcome is good the tiny corner of his mind babbled.
"Ssso, to what do we owe the pleasssurrre, Herrrald Talia?" spoke one of the gryphons while Jesin tried his very best to not gape at the huge beak that looked like it could very easily snap him in two. A part of him abstractly noted that for such a creature to be able to speak, the tongue would have to be mobile; a beak meant no lips to form the sounds speaking usually called for.
"Healer Jesin here was wondering if you could provide him some assistance in his search for information, Hydona," responded Talia amiably. She gestured towards him and Jesin hastily stepped forward. "It has to do with one of the Trainees that is causing quite a stir in the Collegium and we figured it would be best to understand the problem before trying to tackle it." Now she tilted her head and smiled, "I take it we are not intruding on anything? We can come back later if you like. I would have wished to tell you earlier about this but –"
"But one thing leadsss to anotherrr and you werrre busssy, yesss?" replied the other gryphon, not looking at all angry over the unexpected disturbance. "Cerrrtainly. If we can be of any asssissstance, we would love to be able to help in any way we can. We werrre sssimply ssspending a little frrree time to catch up with ourrr little sssisssterrr herrre." At this, he nodded towards the woman sitting on the edge of the nest.
"Hello Nyara," said Talia, greeting the woman whom she evidently recognized. She returned her attention back to the gryphons and nodded. "Exactly Treyvan, and unfortunately free time is in short demand, isn't it?"
"That it isss," nodded Treyvan. His head turned slightly to focus on Jesin. "Ssso, how may we be of ssserrrvice?"
"Ah, it's about Counter-Healing," Jesin managed to say in a rush, though the fact that he managed to do so without stammering surprised him. "Not that I plan to do it," he continued hastily, hoping that they would not get the wrong idea. "But I have a student who managed to perform such feats. I'm sure it's by accident, but quite frankly, we don't know what we should do or even where to start." With a breath, his face took on a more determined look, "And we have to figure it out soon. Just last night, she managed to somehow apply it to herself and sent herself into a dreadful fever and shock."
Both gryphons did not look happy over that news, but also looked slightly out of element. "Unforrrtunately -" began Hydona.
::I think I could be useful instead of looking like a bright piece of tin:: said a gravely voice in his mind with a touch of humor.
Jesin's eyes grew wide, looking around to try and find the source of the voice. "Wha – what was that?"
"That," said the woman on the edge of the nest that Talia had called Nyara, "Was my mentor sticking in her two bits." Holding up the sword, she smiled slightly, a smile that seemed almost feline. "Healer Jesin, meet Need."
~ *glances around* Did you guys miss me? =) I hope I'm keeping you interested by throwing Need into the picture! ^_^ Please drop a review, I take to them kindly ;) And thanks to those who have already left your mark! Chapter 6 to come ^_^ ~