Disclaimer: I do not own anybody except for Zircah Bladewing. She be mine. Even if Rikash is slowly but surely stealing her from me. shakes fist at Rikash

A/N: Well, so much for that... OK, the truth this time. This fic has lost its zip, zing, vim, you get the picture. Couple this with the intrusion of other fandoms, the fact that I'm in my final year of highschool and the fact that I just don't have time to reread The Immortals Quartet, and you'll understand why this fic is updated so seldom. Still. Zircah is one of my favourite creations, and I do not plan on giving her up so easily. But no promises. Expect no updates for at least three months after this chapter, for you'll be sorely disappointed.

Wings of Steel

Chapter Seventeen: News from Stone Tree Nation

It took a while to convince Zircah that she absolutely was not ready to clamber out of the nest and resume her usual vigorous daily activities. Healer though she was, she was amazingly stubborn about getting back to Barzha and Hebakh whom, she maintained, needed her. After a lot of arguing, she suddenly felt faint and collapsed into another feverish slumber, worn out by the vocal exertion. Rikash cursed her soundly and went outside to sit on the roof, confident that she would be all right on her own now.

When he came back inside later in the evening, having flown for the first time in nearly three weeks and found it rather more tiring than he had expected, she was lying with her wings folded modestly over her starved body, staring contentedly at the ceiling. Her blue eyes rolled to watch his waddling progress across the floor, and she smirked a little at him. He scowled back, but he wasn't angry, really, and she wasn't truly mocking him.

"So you've finally decided to stay abed, I see." He muttered as he regained his post beside the nest. Zircah merely raised an eyebrow at him enigmatically. Rikash tossed his braided hair in annoyance. "Are you still feeling ill, is that all it is? Are you going to continue being stupid as soon as your head clears?"

Zircah's eyes narrowed slightly, but it was in amusement. She quirked her lips at him. He was relieved to see that she had regained some of her previous colouring, and the dry skin on her lips had peeled away to be replaced with soft, new pinkness. "There is no need for me to go to my queen any longer. I dreamed while I slept today, and she has sent a messenger. Micah will arrive very soon."

Rikash raised his eyebrow, wondering if she was still confused. "There is no Micah in Stone Tree Nation."

"Not before Ozorne's little stunt, no." She agreed easily. Rikash wasn't used to being so easily placated by that voice. He blinked green eyes at her in confusion, and then gave a tired shrug.

"Well, whatever suits you, love." Both their eyes widened at that, and Rikash ground his teeth, staving off a blush with admirable determination. "I've been around Sarra too long." He muttered in a forcedly offhand tone. Zircah gave a peal of high, tinkling laughter.

"I daresay you have," She said with a cruel flutter of her lashes. She would have had to be mindblind to miss how close Rikash's aura had become to her own during her weeks of sickness and dreaming. It constantly sought her out, meshing with her magicks, as though Rikash drew comfort from such a thing. The closeness gave her a sense of security, too, but Zircah was not sure whether to be angry or embarrassed about it, so she had decided to ignore her knowledge of it for now.

"But we'll have to leave very soon, and return to the flock." She added. Rikash nodded. Was that a tinge of regret she could detect in his expression?

"As soon as you're ready, we'll leave." He said in a level tone. She smiled at the strongly implied ending to that sentence – and not before. Her eyes fluttered closed and she hummed a tune lightly underneath her breath. To her very great surprise, Rikash started to hum along. When she stared at him, he shrugged and ducked his head.

"You hummed it in your sleep sometimes." He muttered, obviously embarrassed. Zircah stared at him hard for a few seconds, feeling his aura withdraw slightly.

"Moonsword, just how long did you spend sitting on that pole?"

He gave her a passive look. "I told you, Bladewing. Three weeks. I've been sitting here for three weeks, ever since I brought you here to the Green Lady to be healed. No doubt you think me a sentimental fool. But she thought that the contact would help you heal faster, and so I stayed." And he looked thoroughly humiliated about it. Zircah felt a sudden twinge of almost-pain in the region of her heart, and her face softened.

"I see. Well, then, Rikash, my thanks. Since you are familiar to me, your presence may well have helped me to heal faster. The Wild Mage draws her strength from those around her." Particularly those she cares for, she added in her head, but Rikash didn't need to know that. She closed her eyes and went back to humming softly. Rikash stared at her relaxed face intently with his dark green eyes for a few minutes, and then dropped his gaze to his clawed feet. He picked absently at the pole, which showed no mark despite nearly a month of harbouring an anxious Stormwing.

After nearly half an hour of companionable silence bar Zircah's humming, the female Stormwing's eyes opened and she started to struggle into a sitting position. Rikash glared at her more severely than she'd ever seen him glare before, and she desisted on reflex. She pouted as she sank back down onto the nest. "Micah will be here soon."

Rikash frowned and brought the tips of his wings together. A small burst of dark burgundy magic formed there and then dispersed suddenly, going from crystal to mist and then so finely spread as to be invisible. The spell could sense all conventionally magical beings within a five mile radius. Rikash grimaced at the sheer amount of them he could feel out there. But Zircah was right. A glimmer of Stormwing magic was making its way slowly in their general direction, and if the sudden veering was anything to go by, Micah had sensed Rikash's spell. The blond male scowled. He hated being detected. Still, at least the other Stormwing had something to go on, now.

Sarra opened the door with a frown. "Is something wrong?" She asked, referring to Rikash's spell. Zircah shook her head.

"We have a guest from the flock on the way. Rikash was just checking how far away he was." She said. Sarra smiled a little uneasily.

"All right, love," She said fondly as Rikash ground his teeth and blushed again. "But keep in mind we don't want a dozen Stormwings swooping down on the place! Rikash here is quite bad enough." He made an indignant sound as she shut the door and Zircah chuckled. The blond tossed his hair with a clatter of bones and sulked until the arrival of Micah.

The latter landed lightly upon the stall door with expertly folded wings. He had a shoulder length cascade of vibrant red hair and a long, straight nose. One eye was very close to lavender, the other a dark caramel just this side of toffee, a mismatch of colours that nearly made Zircah's eyes sore. His torso was covered in scars but thus far his face had escaped any lasting wounds, leaving it smooth and perfect. His eyes found Zircah almost immediately and he bowed his head briefly in reverence.

"Seer," He greeted her formally. "Queen Barzha sends her best wishes for your health and swift return. Lord Moonsword, she hopes you also are well, since she has not heard from you in so long." Rikash didn't so much as duck his head to accept the rebuke, but glared at the other male. Micah grinned, and his teeth looked rusted with blood. Zircah turned her head imperiously and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Get to the point. Our queen did not send you just to idle with pleasantries." She said peevishly. Micah nodded and began to relay Barzha's message hastily. It seemed that in their absence, the Stormwing flocks had been dealing with discord in their midst. Barzha had been the first of the monarchs to rally against Ozorne's abuse of their forces, but once she had made her feelings known, there had been several who had agreed to join her. Sadly, many Stormwings had disagreed with their own monarchs, and so a nation was no longer necessarily a line of alliance. Micah himself was not under either of the monarchs that had joined Barzha, but was with her of his own free will, having broken away from his own monarch, Queen Jachull. He shook his red hair out of his mismatched eyes and it floated in a fine red film directly back again. Zircah's eyes had unfocused as she thought hard. Rikash watched her out of the corner of his eyes until she spoke, then transferred his attention back to Micah.

"Very well, Micah." She said absently. "Tell Barzha that we will rejoin her as soon as I am well enough to fly. And tell her that if she finds Ozorne before we make it back, to save for me a feather." Some measure of amusement returned to her face at that and her eyes slid sideways to the feathers attached to the ends of braids in her hair. Rikash smiled bitterly.

"And a vertebra or some such bone for me." He added. Usually Rikash sounded jovial and mischievous when he spoke of the death of an opponent. This time, the ice in his tone made Micah stiffen. His eerie grin was uneasy.

"I'll make sure she knows it." He nodded, bowed subserviently to both of them and was off again. Zircah sighed and shifted uneasily. Rikash watched her coolly.

"I hate being cooped up." She complained after a while. Rikash shrugged and she felt suddenly very ungrateful. He'd spent so much time in here waiting for her to be healthy again and now here she was complaining when she'd only just awakened. He must have been bored out of his mind. Her ice blue eyes dipped uncertainly towards the floor. When she ventured to glance up again, Rikash's eyes were closed, chin resting on his chest. His dirty blond hair had spilled forward over his shoulders to trickle down his chest. Her eyes traced scars that she herself had placed on the dirt-smeared tan and she gave a sad sort of smile. How much Moonsword had changed.

She was flying through the black mist. It wrapped cold arms around her, traced icy fingers across her stomach, down the line of her back. Light infused the skies from the east, turning the mist slowly purple, then scarlet, then pink, then a radiant gold before fading into a more restful silver.

And away to the east, the west, the north, the south... from everywhere and nowhere came the unmistakeable sound of the vase of the very important shattering upon the flagstones of the universe...

Zircah woke gasping at the same moment as Rikash jerked to wakefulness with a battle screech almost unbecoming of a male Stormwing. For a split second that lasted for eternity, the range and power of Zircah's wild magic was extended. She felt everything, she knew everything, she was everything...

The Divine Realms rippled with the movement of a hundred thousand immortals who knew that their cage was very much lacking in ability. The barrier was broken. The barrier was gone.

The moment of omniscience passed. Zircah, whose back had arched, eyes widened with the force of the feeling, flopped limply back to lie still in the nest that Sarra had shaped for her with the feeling that she had lost everything worth knowing. She stared in surprise at a ceiling that had not previously held much interest for her and eventually managed to tear her shattered attention from the wooden beams and to the Stormwing perched on the edge of her nest.

Rikash looked as though he'd been the recipient of the full force of a tornado, directly into his mind. The usually dark and secretive green eyes were bright and glassy with shock, numb with disappointment. "The barrier..." He murmured softly.

Zircah began to struggle out of the nest, kicking and writhing her way to the floor and then to the door of the roost. Rikash stared at her movements blankly, unable to comprehend anything in this world for the moment. He'd known... he'd seen... he closed his eyes and strained his mental faculties, trying... hoping...

It was gone. He opened his eyes.

And so was Zircah. He spent a few seconds processing that before clawing his way into the air and taking off after her. "Bladewing, get back here!"

A/N: Short again. I really will try to get another chapter uploaded before the end of the holidays, though. And it'll actually contain... plot! Yay! Please review, if only to let me know how annoyed you are over my laziness.