Well, I'm quite happy right now, I got a bunch of reviews last chapter, and some of them made me think of some interesting plot line twists! grins evilly anyway, thank you all for reviewing my story, I think now that I know a lot more about what is going to happen in immediate chapters, I'll get the chapters up a lot faster, unless something comes up. Sorry for the wait between chapters, my family is renovating our house and I have had to help my dad pull off siding and put on new siding for the past few days, also I've had to work at the family store, gotta help pay for those riding lessons some how! :) Anyway, enough about my life, on with the fic!
P.S. Just have to make a few review comments!
Breezefire- Thanks for the kind review, I'm going to answer your Mage Power question in, hopefully, this chapter. I'm hoping that it will all make sense after I finish describing the odd predicament and solution!
AtheneMiranda- I hope that your question about the bond between all companions was answered well enough in the last chapter. If you decide to review me again, please tell me if you made sense of any of it, thanks!
P.S.S. Sorry about this, but I must define a few words that are coming in this chapter. I know that I know a lot about horses, and their markings and such, but I know that not everyone is like that! Well, here are some horse definitions that you will see in this chapter some time!
Snip- a white coloured mark on the end of a horses nose.
Star- a white coloured mark usually found in the middle of a horses forehead, and also usually resembling a star shape.
Stockings- white coloured marks found on the bottoms of a horses legs, starting from the hoof up, sometimes they are small, only going to the first joint, but sometimes they can go up to half way up a horses leg.
Sorry about that, but I didn't really want you people to be confused by the end of the chapter about horse related words! On with the third chapter!
Chapter 3, Mage Powers
Naomi walked cautiously up to the room where her rider, Aoko, was resting. Naomi was worried that Aoko had serious damage to her organs, and would not make it, after all, she was hit with a lot of arrows and she did have to live with them for almost five days!
The black Companion tapped lightly on the door with hoof, which made an odd hollow chiming sound, like with those wooden wind chimes she had seen people hang outside their doors in Karse. After waiting a few moments, the door creaked open and a young man looked outside the door.
"Is this some kind of joke?" The young man opened the door fully and poked his head out into the hall. He looked up and down, and when he stepped out to examine Naomi, she walked into the room, pushing him out of the way, and into the hall. "Hey, wait a minute you......" The man paused before carrying on with what he was saying. "You, horse!" As he finished his sentence, he ran back into the room and up to Naomi.
At that moment, the female healer that Raven had called Midori, jogged into the room, "What's the problem here Akiva? I could hear you all the way outside in the court yard! You know that yelling that loud is bound to startle someone!" Midori turned on the younger man, he went from looking in his early twenties, to probably his true age of about eighteen. That was when she saw Naomi.
Midori walked up to her slowly, and Naomi laid her ears back and put her head down in warning. When Naomi let out a sharp snort, Midori backed off slightly. "It's alright Naomi, that is your name, right?"
After saying that aloud, she moved to Mindspeaking, which Naomi was surprised she could manage, since she was a healer. :Géven has told me about you. He said that you were a black Companion and you were the one who brought in last night's patient. Must tell you that I don't think that she will survive. I believe that she is living at the present moment, but I am not sure, since I have not seen her since last night when I left to get some sleep. she is in the room connected to this one. Would you like to see her?:
:Please, if you don't mind me intruding.: Naomi's ears perked up when she heard that Midori knew who she was and what she was. Naomi shed her mean appearance and straightened up. When Midori walked past her, Naomi could see the young man she had called Akiva, cowering in the corner. Midori must have had a few choice words for him sent via mind. Naomi snorted and followed Midori as she opened the door into the new room and went into it.
In the middle of the new room, there was a small bed, and in that piece of furniture, there was a young girl about thirteen, that Naomi knew as Aoko. This was the girl that she had rescued from Edinbrook, only a few days ago. Aoko looked extremely small in the bed, and was about as white as the bed sheets, and Naomi could tell that she was fighting for her life, by clinging onto a small, thin strand and never letting go.
Midori stood beside Naomi ad shook her head in sorrow. "I don't think that she will make it my dear. She should have been looked after days before. You said that you were traveling for four days, nearly five, am I correct?"
:That is very true, left Edinbrook about five days ago, and got here last night, so closer to four and a half days of traveling.: Naomi counted back the days of their hard trip, distinctly remembering the day where she had rescued Raphill the gryphon and Senkousha, the Kyrii from eating each other alive.
"Well that is odd, I know that there are a couple towns between there and here, did you not meet them, or was it just that everyone was too afraid of a black Companion to come and help its wounded rider?" Midori was looking off into the distance, thinking about how many towns they would have hit along the way, it was probably close to three towns, she would have to ask Géven about it later.
:Well, I'm not sure how many towns we saw along the way, but most looked deserted, and one even looked as if it had been raided as well. Maybe they were also hit by the bandits that hit Edinbrook, and they had no, or very few survivors themselves.: Naomi got a quick flash of an image from the raid, she shuddered and she felt her skin crawling as she ran across an image of one of the bandits that had come into the stables to frighten all the horses away.
"Interesting, well I should go and check on that. I think that I will get Géven to have Raven Call to the nearest Herald and companion on circuit, to get them to find out about those towns, and also about how Edinbrook is fairing. I take my leave, and just to let you know, Akiva will not give you any more trouble in the future, so you can come and visit with this one any time you like." Midori was about to turn, then added, "I was wondering though, what is the girls name?"
:Aoko, her name is Aoko, daughter of Keon of Edinbrook.: Naomi recalled all that Aoko had told her in the mares pasture back at her home town, on the days when her father had nothing for her to do on the farm, and let her wonder about doing what ever she liked.
"Thank you Naomi, I'll tell Géven everything that you have told me." Midori nodded her head slightly and wandered out of the room. Naomi figured that it was time for her to go to Raven and get him to connect her to the Companion web.
Naomi found Raven outside, grazing on some greener grass than that you can find in the court yard of the hold. She walked up slowly to him, unsure what he might think since she could feel frustration boiling out from inside him. Raven looked up, mouth full of clovers and thistles.
:Hungry? I have a few things to talk to you about, and I was wondering if we could do that over a little lunch. I haven't had anything to eat since sunrise, when the stable boys gave me some oats and brushed my coat.: Raven motioned with his large head for her to come over and join him at the little patch of greenery that he had chosen as his newest meal.
Naomi bent her head and tried the thistles that Raven had just bit off of. :What exactly do you want to talk to me about? I would like to get that connection things done and over with as soon as possible, if you don't mind.: Naomi found the plant to be quite appetizing, and continued munching on it.
:As do I, but after our conversation a few hours ago, I got thinking about how you are black and not white, and how your eyes are purple, and not blue. I think that I may have found an answer, but when Rolan talked to me a little ago, again, he said that he was not sure, and I would have to ask you a few distinct questions.: After Naomi nodded for him to continue, he added, :Well, Rolan said that it was odd for a Companion to be black, since it is the Mage power that we control that dies us those colours. I mentioned to him that maybe if a companion did not use their Mage Powers for long periods of time, they might turn the natural colours of a horse, and we thought that it might have a connection to your colour problems.:
:Mage Powers? Have never heard of those before, are you sure that all Companions can control them?: Naomi had never truly heard of such things, not even from her mother or father, maybe they had left that out?
:Well, that confirms one question I had. Mage powers are something that all Companions can control, that help us do extraordinary things like, for example, gallop at speed that no horse could ever match. Rolan told me that when you were developing in your mother, she never used any such powers around you, and neither did your father, or any other companion. Rolan told me that when you were born, you were mostly black, but you had, oddly enough, light purple eyes instead of the dark purple ones you have now, and you also had a snip, star and four stockings of white on you. I think that maybe since you were not introduced to Mage power often enough as a young filly, you were not dyed the white that most companions are. Rolan said that you were not trained, at least as far as he knew, on how to use your own Mage Power, and that might be why you stayed the colour that you are now. He also said that as you grew, no one used Mage Power near you, since they did not know what might happen, and they also said that as grew, your white features faded into black.: Raven paused, he did not know how Naomi would react to this.
:Interesting, so you think that since Mage power was not used by me, or around me, and since that is what dyes Companions white, that I could not possibly become white since that feature was not added into the mix of growing up, right? I'm trying to follow, but this is mighty confusing for me!: Naomi was telling the truth, this kind of thing had always been confusing, logical that is, and she was getting a mighty big chunk of logic from Raven at the current moment.
:Well, now that lunch is over, we can get to connecting you, and then, tomorrow we can work on getting some Mage power aruond you, then the days after that, you can learn from me how to use your own Mage power, and maybe then you can get back to Haven a white and nearly normal Companion, be re-accepted and maybe eventually find your Chosen who would become a Herald. But that is in the future and that future is not looking so bight for everyone around here!: Raven's ideas were logical to him, and Naomi. Why couldn't she go back a white Companion and become a normal being now that they had discovered the true reason for her oddness.
:Sounds good to me, as long as none of this hurts along the way, I think that I will be fine. Thank you for helping me so much Raven, I owe you so much that I think that I will need to become your slave by the time I'm ready to back to Haven!: Naomi leaned near Raven and rubbed his nose with her nose, it looked like they were going to have a beautiful relationship, one that Naomi had never had between herself and another Companion.