Author:  The Wanlorn

Title:  Sickness

Summary:  A continuation of my Nire ficlets.

Rating:  PG

Spoilers:  None

Distribution:  Ummm…No one would want this, but if you do, ask first.

Disclaimer:  Nire is mine.  However, Jander belongs to WotC and Christie Golden.

Sickness

            "How are you feeling today, Nire?" Jander asked carefully.  Disease had been raging rampant through the girl as of late, which put her in an ominous mood.  She was likely to take any small comment or question as being officious and intolerable.  He had already given everyone else explicit instructions to stay away from her while she was sick, unless they wanted her to banish them so they would die, destitute on the open plain.
            "How do you *think* I feel?!" she asked mordantly.  "Good gods!  Nothing we've done has been able to extirpate this disease!"  Nire was not a very pious person, so she said the gods' names in vain often.  "Pretty soon, I'll have wasted away and be nothing but carrion!"
            Jander tried to suppress his mirth.  Her fever had already reached its pinnacle and was coming down, he could sense it.  One of the things his vampiric abilities comprised of was to be able to sense sickness.  "M'ija, it's been, what?  Three days?  You're already getting better."  He had meant it to be a solace, but it was an inopportune thing to say.
            "Yeah, that's what *you* think."  She glared at him.  "I wonder, if you guys don't believe that I'm dying, is that premeditated murder?"
            Jander couldn't keep in the laugh.  "Ah, M'ija, you're so funny."
            She brandished the thermometer at him.  "Look!  I've got a temperature!"
            Jander took it and held it up to the light - it was an old one from her world, still using mercury.  His eyes were deft at picking out the number.  "Yes you do," he acceded.  "A whopping one hundred degrees."
            "See!  I'm dying dying dying."  She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose.  "Dying.  In accordance with the prophecy."
            "Knock it off, Nire.  That is so annoying."  Jander rolled his eyes.
            "No it's not, in accordance with the prophecy."
            "I'll buy you whatever you want," he offered.
            But Nire wasn't in a venal mood.  "Liar!"  It was ironic that Nire was calling Jander, who *never* lied, a liar.  It was not an auspicious thing.
            Jander decided to change the subject.  "What's that?" he asked, pointing to a garland in the corner.
            "Mistletoe," she grumbled.  "It's almost Christmas in my world.'
            "And what's that musty smell?" he asked, stretching his supple body.
            Nire held up a book.  "An original copy of 'Antigone'.  We're reading it in English class.'
            "What's it about?"  Jander glanced outside at the stately peaks of the Spine of the World.
            "I have no idea.  I haven't read it yet.  When I'm done writing my composition for English, I have to read the prologue."
            "And what do you have to write your composition on?"
            "Three points for all twenty words, another one if it's about 'Antigone', and two more if it uses all the 'Antigone' vocab, too.  But I can't do that because I don't have all the vocab.  Which bites."
            "Eh, you'll get a good grade anyway."  His curiosity sated on that subject, he moved on to another.  "Do, Nire… Do you know hoe to take the venom out of hyper-snakes?  Make them unvenemous?"
            "Yes I do, in accordance with the prophecy."
            "Stop that!"

*Fin*