AN: Hey everyone! I'm sorry about how long it took for me to get this out but I had to decide between two chapter threes and had to get opinions of some of my friends and just stuff like that. I found this one much more interesting so please tell me what you think!
"Daya! Daya!"
An insistent voice was calling me back from that faraway road, north of Haven. Something shook my shoulder, further breaking my concentration. I tried to re-center myself, to go back to that happy mother cuddling her child, so that maybe this time I would get some type of reward. Someone shook my shoulder harder.
"Daya!!!"
The shouting voice pierced through my attempts at returning to that poor little, ravaged village. I opened my eyes in exasperation, the rage building towards whoever had interrupted my trance. As I struggled out of my unconscious state, the world swimming before my eyes, as blurred visions appeared. A face leaped and was suddenly peering into my face. The lips moved and I could hear shouts and people running around, and a few screams echoing in the distance.
"DAYA!!!!!" The screech of my name brought me fully from my trance and I leapt to my feet, ready to kill, or at least verbally kill, the one who had disturbed me. Grabbing my sword, I searched for my awakener, only to discover it was my best friend Muriaria, pale and shaking, shouting in my ear to Move, damn it!
"Muri! What in the Star-Eyed name is going on?!?!?!" I shouted at her my words slurred, trying to open my shields just to her, and immediately froze. I had spent to much of my power saving that girl, and now I couldn't risk taking my shields down for I might not be able to put them back up. I scrambled up with a groan, my muscles protesting. I shook my sweat-soaked, golden hair out of my face and tried to take stock of what was happening.
I couldn't and squinted around like a newborn puppy until my best friend shouted in my ear, "Attack! We're under attack! Damn it! Get up!" I struggled to my feet when a sudden reaction headache struck me and my last vision before I dropped into the welcoming darkness was Muri's terrified face getting closer, as if everything was in slow motion, and arms sweeping me up. My head jarred and I slipped into blissful nothingness.
* * *
I woke with a terrible pounding in my head. I tried to move, but stopped as my head jarred and a wave of pain swept between my temples. I heard distant voices, tried to listen, but they were just outside my hearing range. I cracked my eyes open, and the strange pale green walls swam before my eyes. A hand appeared before me and laid itself on my brow. A mug appeared before my mouth and I took a sip as a cooling sensation filled my mind and my body, calling me back to sleep and into nothing once more.
And so time passed. I would wake with a throbbing head, someone one would lead me to and from the bathroom, then would place a potion to my lips. I would drink, slipping back into the blessed unconsciousness.
I finally woke, truly woke, instead of those half awakenings between potions and fevered sleep. A chuckle caused me to cautiously turn my head and I felt the melodic presence of a healer sitting on a chair next to my bed. I cracked my eyes open and immediately wished I hadn't as pain jumped between my temples.
"Now, we can't have that, can we," said a soft, calming voice, and a callused hand on my forehead disintegrated the pain. I sighed with relief, but caught my breath as her Healing Gift began developing along with all of my other ones.
"Where am I?" I asked, my mind still befuddled by potion and fever, "Who are you?"
Another soft chuckle, and she spoke in her beautiful voice, "Much better than I had hoped. I was expecting, 'Who am I?' for such terrible reaction headache I have never seen at such a great magnitude. Well, you are in the House of Healer and I am Resha, your Healer." A small frown played over her lips, "Because I know you will ask, you have been here for a week and a day, and have had a fever, a mild case of pneumonia, and have lost almost all of your shields." The frown deepened, "I examined your gifts and I saw none of your channels were open, yet you seemed to possess many gifts. More than any Herald I have ever seen, except the famous Herald Vanyel, perhaps." A gasp echoed through the room, "And now even as we speak, you are developing a Healing gift equal to mine! How is this possible?"
I closed my eyes, memory taking me over. . .
I had been six, and eager to watch the Herald go through Zalmon as anyone else. I had gotten to the front of crowd somehow and as the white-clothed, hansom man rode by I touched a bit of his exposed skin. As soon as I had touched it, a tremor had gone through me, making me blink in surprise. I had just stood there as he rode away, benumbed with what a simple touch had caused.
As I had drifted back to the inn in a daze, my head had begun to hurt, terribly. I had began seeing red spots in front of my eyes and my forehead had begun to worsen. When I had finally gotten back, I had complained to my aunt of my head and my aunt had just nodded in a preoccupied way and said sympathetically to me that crowds gave her headaches to her, too. My aunt had merely sent me up to my room to take a nap and to get some willowbark tea to ease the pain of my headache.
I had taken the nasty tea with a huge amount of sugar and had gotten into bed with still pounding temples. I had drifted into an uneasy sleep and had woken the next morning hearing strange voices in my head. My headache was gone, but strange voices kept saying the strangest things. I had walked downstairs to the kitchen, only to see the cook come out with a harried look on her face. I heard one of the louder voices say something about thieves then the cook shouted, "I swear, we have thieves robb'n this o' place a'nite!" And I had realized in bewildered shock that I was picking up thoughts! It was crazy, impossible, but it was true. I had gone to go ask my Aunt Tresana some questions that would prove my new power to myself, and maybe to others. . .
An impatient question shook me from the hold my memory had grasped me with, just like how Muri had shaken me from when I had saved that girl. . .
"Muri! The company! What happened to them?" Healer Resha blinked with surprise as I heaved myself up, trying to struggle out from the bedclothes to reach the door. She jumped up, and firmly pushed me down, softly saying hush, like she was soothing a crying baby.
"They're fine. Hush. . . They are all fine." She smiled softly, obviously having forgotten my Gifts. I still struggled a bit, but my fear and strength had disappeared as one. " Would you like me to get them?" My head bobbed, unwillingly, and I sank down onto the soft, green pillow.
She stood, brushed off her robes, then I shut my eyes, the beginnings of my headache returning. I felt her presence pause, as if considering something, but I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to open my eyes, content with the feeling of her soothing presence in my traumatized mind as I used it as a beacon, connecting me from the bliss of being passed out, to the happiness of seeing my best friend alive, and kicking. A smile fluttered across my lips as I drifted into sleep, content, for the moment.
* * *
I woke to a soft, familiar singing in my ears. . . Muri. . . I thought drowsily, as I opened my eyes to her blue eyes framed by her pale yellow hair. "Muri. . ." The singing stopped as my words echoed my thoughts, "Are you alright?" My mind suddenly remembered and focused in on the night I had woken from that trance. "Attack!" Muri had yelled at me, trying to get me to move. "Is everyone alright? What happened?" I struggled to sit once more, "Where is everyone?" I remembered now we had been camping in the forest, just South of Haven, where Captain Kero had sent us to flush out some bandits.
"I'm fine. We're all fine. We're all on leave, as well." I sank back onto my pillows with a sigh then looked back up, expectantly to Muri, who frowned, worriedly, "The only damage we took was you, Daya, and that wasn't even from the our attackers." The frown deepened, "What happened to you? You got up out of your trance, then you just dropped! What happened?" She repeated, and I opened my mouth to answer, but a slight movement from the, and my Healer entered. I looked back to the expectant Muri, then smiled and shook my head slightly. She made as though to question me further, but I interrupted the "Wha-" with a flow of questions of my own.
"What I'm more interested in is what happened with our company." My eyebrows creased, "Say, for instance, who attacked us, uh. . . Maybe why or a wherefrom, or a did we win?" I glanced inquiringly at her but she just seemed bewildered. "Was it the bandits? Did we catch any? Did w-"
"No, it wasn't the bandits." She interrupted me, and began to giggle, "It wasn't even that bad! I thought you knew." She had to stop as her giggling became unstoppable.
"Muri! Tell me now or I'll find some way to hurt you!" I grabbed my spare, pale green pillow and managed to hit her in the head before she burst into true laughter. "Tell me!"
"You see. . ." She stopped once more and I held the pillow up, threateningly, "You see, it wasn't the bandits, it was a troupe of circus bred bears that had escaped from their keepers and knew only how to balance plates on their noses! It was hilarious!" She burst out laughing again, and I couldn't help myself as I joined her. I could completely picture the scene. Pink and blue striped bears coming crashing into the kitchen tent, trying to juggle some plates, "But you see, these were really poorly trained bears so they smashed every plate they tried to juggle!" but with all of the commotion smashing everything!
We laughed for quite some time, but it finally died out when the joke got old. We continued talking about more casual things. Healer Resha came in at that point and began bustling about like a mother hen. She then turned to Muri, and I smiled a slightly pained smile just as a flash of my headache returned. I turned to my Healer, "How long do you believe I'll have these headaches?" I asked, but I immediately regretted it because her mind turned back to what had caused them, and my powers.
"Will you tell me now how you got so many-" She started but stopped as a flash of pain zipped between my temples and I winced. She sighed, then motioned for Muri to leave. They slipped quietly out the door and I heard Muri whisper a quick get well.
On the pain factor, I, of course, had completely exaggerated, just so I wouldn't have to answer any questions about my Gifts. As soon as I was sure they were gone, I sat up, without any pain, and plopped myself down in the cushioned window seat where I sank into a trance.
This trance wasn't the same as the one in which I had saved that girl, but it was a Healing trance, and I immediately set my only Gift at full strength, to Heal me, oblivious to everything around me. Once set, I slipped back into my bed, and into the bliss of painless sleep.
I have seen many things, in my time, being a Healer and all, but this was the most mysterious, yet miraculous. Once I had left the room of my patient, one Dayanama, the second time since she had woken, something strange had happened. When I had come back from leading her friend out of the House of Healing, she had been sitting deep in a trance, on the window seat. After getting over my initial surprise, I had examined her with my Healer's Sight and she had been healing herself. Her powers were exactly the same as mine, yet she used them with such deftness it was impossible to believe she had just developed this Healing gift in such a short time. Suddenly, Daya moved, slipped into her bed and into true sleep, without once ever noticing me.
And all the while, still in that Healing trance and even in sleep, Healing herself.
AN: So. . . did you like it? If you
