Author's Note: Yeah, 'flue is pretty ghastly. But I'm over it except for a slight cough. The good news is that I have two short chapters for you that should take care of the updates this week. Thanks for all the quick reviews. They made me feel so much better.
"Can you see anything at all?" Pandora asked, moving the candle carefully before his eyes.
Toby was concentrating fiercely, his jaw tensed against the panic that it would be so easy to give in to. But eventually he sighed and shook his head. "Nothing. No light, no shapes, no colours. Just a thick wall of black."
The lady put the candle back down on the bedside table and looked across to Hessie. The woman was grave, hands clasped lightly over her apron, greying hair tied back under a cheerful red scarf. "It seems that your vision is affected, dear. Probably only temporary but I think we should send for a healer just to be safe."
Just to be safe. Toby knew what 'just to be safe' meant. It meant that the Lady Pandora didn't want to worry him and desperately didn't know what to do. Damn Jareth and his savage temper! Damn him and his powers! Wasn't he supposed to use them for the good of his people, not to blind innocent men? Toby was very afraid and trying hard not to be.
"Really, I cannot imagine what Jareth was thinking of. Using lightening on Jervohl and starlight on you- anyone would think he was mad."
Toby stayed very quiet, shifting uncomfortably on his bed and wishing he knew where to avert his face because he was certain he would be blushing sometime soon. Jareth had acted terribly, true, but Toby was an honest man and in all honesty he had provoked him. He had said some terrible things to merit retaliation and he had hit him as well. It was just unfortunate that Jareth's powers were greater than any other in the land. Toby should have been more controlled himself.
A lapse of rationale that he was now regretting.
"Will I regain my sight?" he asked instead, putting up a hand as he blinked. If he hadn't felt the soft brush of his lashes against his fingertips, he would have thought his eyelids were squeezed shut for all that it helped. Opened or closed, he saw the same thing now.
"Oh, yes," Pandora declared robustly, "It was just the shock, no doubt. Drink this and it will help you sleep for tonight. A good rest will make all the difference in the world."
All the same, the cheerful words did not help the man get his fingers around the glass without knocking half the medicated mixture to the sheets. And once he had it in his hand, it was still no easy matter to judge the distance between it and his mouth. It was humiliating. But he drank as much of it as reached his mouth and he gave the glass back and then lay down, still blinking rapidly when his eyes decided they wanted to see again, past that thick dark wall of nothing.
Pandora murmured a few more inane words of cheer and left him alone, walking softly out of the room with a worried look on her face and a finger on her lips. Hessie obeyed her command of silence and followed her out, shutting the door behind herself when she was outside.
They made their way silently to the dining room where Jervohl was waiting for them, eagerly impatient for news. "Well?" the younger fae demanded, "What happened? Is it very bad?"
"He cannot see a thing," Pandora sighed, sinking into a chair, "We gave him jegg powder to make him sleep. Hopefully he just needs to rest them."
Hessie took a seat respectfully in one corner, nodding to Eloise as the latter busily mended a glove. Soft brown eyes glanced up with an enquiry and the woman shook her head almost imperceptibly. 'Wait' the message said, 'Later'. Eloise settled herself in to wait.
"But how in the world did such a thing happen?" Jervohl demanded, "No healthy young male suddenly loses his eyesight like that. Unless… is this something to do with mortals? A disease?"
Both females turned to look at Hessie, who sat up straighter and shook her head. "Not that I know of, Ms. Jervohl."
Pandora nodded and turned back. She offered just one word by way of explanation- "Jareth".
"What did he do this time?"
"It seems they finally had that argument that's been threatening all month. In the heat of the moment Jareth seems to have flashed starlight at him. Toby said he couldn't open his eyes for a full minute after that and when he could, he was blind."
Jervohl nodded, elegantly scratching the skin on her neck irritated by the stiff lack collar. It sounded perplexing but not unlike something Gildred had once done. Only, of course, Gildred had acted deliberately. "Were there any physical effects?" she demanded, turning professional.
Her mother seemed surprised but answered as fully as she could. "His eyes are reddened and slightly swollen. They keep watering. His pupils are extremely small. Too small. And I think he is running a low fever."
"Hmmm…" That itch on her neck was getting worse. "It sounds reasonably like Neva's symptoms."
"Neva?"
"Centaur. Neva's village was in alliance with another centaur village. Neva and three of his young friends looted one of the houses and under cover of the alliance framed an innocent band of nomads for the theft. Gildred punished him by flashing starlight in his eyes. It was meant to be poetic justice of some kind."
"The symptoms were the same?"
"Much the same, yes. I had charge of the prison wards, then, so I saw first hand the state this one was in. His eyes did not water, but his pupils were very tiny. The healer said the light had been so much that they had shrunk and the sudden attack had shocked the nerves and damaged them so they couldn't return to normal."
"Did he heal? What happened?" Pandora was not looking forward to telling Toby that after all of her reassurances, he would be blind for the rest of his life. If there was just a chance that he could regain any of his sight at all…
"Oh, he healed," Jervohl soothed, patting her mother's arm, "But I think you should remember that he was a centaur. Toby is human; his body does not fight ailment the way ours does. It may be that his recovery needs more than just time and rest."
"At least there is hope," Hessie offered quietly, "Mr. Williams is a resilient man from what I see. If he knows that he has an equal chance of recovery as not, he will wait patiently."
Pandora snorted. "Then you do not know Toby. He will be demanding to get out of that bed by this time tomorrow. Even with a high fever he could never stand to stay still. He was worse than Dieter, Jervohl, except he does not ask to be constantly amused. No, he asks to be allowed to live his life as if nothing had happened. You wait. He will be asking to clean dishes or dictate letters just for something to do."
Jervohl winced in sympathy. She could well imagine how someone so used to an active and ordered day would hate to be left to nothing but mental ruminations and sitting propped up in bed. She herself hated it. Even if she was sitting wrapped up in a corner of a busy room, she preferred that to lying down by herself. And Dieter! Oh, Dieter had been a terror when he had to stay in bed! The entire household had had to work out a duty roster to make sure he had enough visitors to make his day interesting.
"I simply cannot imagine how Jareth could do such a thing," Pandora mused, uncoiling the ribbon from her left hand and putting it on the table, "To be so careless! There is no excuse for him to lose his temper so badly."
Eloise snorted.
The two fae turned around again and regarded her suspiciously. "Yes?" Pandora asked, "Did you say something, Eloise?"
"Me, my Lady? No." She bent down to knot the gossamer thread perfectly and then straightened up to reach for the sharp blade she kept for her sewing. One flick of the wrist and the job was done; quite neat too, if she said so herself.
"Eloise, you clearly have some opinion on this matter. Tell us."
The goblin laid the glove carefully aside and then folded her hands primly in her lap. Lifting her chin defiantly, she steeled herself. "As you wish, my Lady. There was no excuse for His Majesty, you say. Perhaps we should hear the facts first, my Lady."
"Fair enough. Do you know any of the facts?"
"Enough, my Lady. Ezreeka spoke with me, my Lady. Pretty young thing she is, with no one else to talk to that she can trust apart from Hessie." The goblin bestowed a respectful nod to the woman beside her. "She tells me they were arguing, and badly. Said they were almost shouting when she left."
Pandora nodded. "Did she repeat any of it to you?"
Eloise's face never changed expression. "Never asked to hear it, my Lady. None of my business, I'm sure."
Jervohl rolled her eyes and stifled a grin. Where Jareth had dug up this little fighter, she didn't know. But her brother would have to face more in-depth questions that where he got his servants. Their parent was livid over what had happened to her mortal foster son. And Pandora and Jareth had always been at loggerheads, since he had been a youth and begun to think for himself. Pandora had never made concessions for any of her children and Jareth had quite simply refused to be anything but outspoken to her in his turn. She always suspected the worst of him, whatever she might want to be true.
"Mother, I am sure Toby can tell you everything that occurred before Jareth blinded him tomorrow morning when he wakes up," she remarked, tugging on the older lady's arm to get her to rise, "Come. We should go eat. I am sure Hessie and Eloise want their dinner too."
"We should wait for Jareth."
"Mother, listen," Jervohl urged.
The older fae started and turned her ear to the faintly audible outside. Something sounded vaguely unusual, but she wasn't quite sure what… "Rain?"
"Rain. Jareth's just changed the entire weather forecast for this evening, Mother. I imagine he is not up to dinner with his family tonight. If he isn't dining off rats and other small creatures as it is."
Pandora shuddered and grimaced. Rats! He spent far too much time as an owl. Had she ever raised him to think that living life as another species was acceptable? No. This was not her fault! Galen couldn't blame her for the way their eldest had turned out. Though knowing her late husband's opinion of that eldest child, no doubt the fae would have bluntly said Jareth was all spine and no body.
She pushed those thoughts away and smiled at Henn as the goblin brought the food in. Time enough there would be for these things. At the table, she tried to keep the conversation free from any potential landmines.
