Esmerelda 01: I'm sorry if you found it a little weird. The Red Mage was over confident and wanted to be hero in order to prove himself. Numair was always going to win (I won't kill him off), but in truth he should have beaten Osric easily, without sapping away all his strength. he was also too over confident and left himself wide open for an attack by a mage who was beeter than her thought. I hope that clarifies some things. Thank you for your review, I found it very funny!

Silverlake: Thank you.

Sonnet Lacewing: Thank you. I found the fight hard to write. I don't envy you doing the Inar Hadensra battle.

Lela-of-Bast: Thank you, as always. When's the next chappie of Tell Him up?

Chapter 17 – Talking in Your Sleep

Numair stepped shakily outside of the cave into the new morning sunlight. His sense of relief helped to keep him on his feet as he stumbled over to Spots who was grazing hungrily on a patch of grass. He pulled himself up onto his mount, cursing the draining of his gift and the deep gash to his back. Shape shifting, no sleep and a fight with an unknown, rather powerful mage had thoroughly exhausted him. Using an arval cahr curse disguised as a nalian ball had also taken some effort, but at least he hadn't turned him into a tree.

Spots trotted on, Numair grateful that he had such an even-tempered mount. In the distance he could make out a band of people on horseback and sensed Alanna's gift at least. No doubt he would be in for a lecture on dashing out without knowing what he was facing. He grinned to himself, predicting Jon's words. His daydream was short lived, however. Between him and his allies he noticed a group of a half-a-dozen dragon-like creatures, their tails the same as snakes, fire erupting from heavy jaws. Numair halted Spots. They were wyverns. He had read about them, but hadn't met them until now and naturally it was the day when he had used up enough of his gift to seriously weaken him. Alanna looked as if she was still too far away to be of any assistance and the wyverns were advancing towards him, fast.

He felt Spots nervously step backwards; he murmured words that he hoped would soothe his mount. The wyverns continued to close in on him. Drawing on the remainder of his gift he began to blast the immortals, sending sharp shards of black fire into their torsos. They winced, visibly in pain and began to retreat away from him. About to take a breathe of relief, Numair watched in horror as six more seemingly appeared from nowhere. He emptied the last bit of magic he possessed and threw it at the wyverns. Simultaneously, Alanna, Daine and those who could wield a bow shot, lynching the rest of the creatures. Numair looked at them, as if he was about to say something and heard in the distance a cry from Daine as he toppled off his horse onto the ground into a still, lifeless heap.

"Idiotic mage!" Alanna cursed, dismounting Darkmoon and rushing to Numair. Daine was already there, starting to move him into a more comfortable position, a look of deep concern etched across her face.

"Leave him, Daine," she heard Alanna say. "I think he's probably broken a couple of bones after that fall, and I need to check that that thick skull of his hasn't sustained any damage. He's also bleeding quite badly from a very bad cut on his back. I can heal that now and stop any more blood loss," Alanna began to check him over with her gift and started to weld fragment of his femur together. "We need to get him to Duke Baird straight away. He's totally drained himself. Whatever magic he's been playing with has sapped him of all his reserves. We need to have a closer look at him. Stupid man, going for those wyverns. He knows that archers will do as well with them as him. Jonathan is going to go insane."

Daine sat on the bed in the infirmary, watching Numair sleep deeply. So far he had not awoken since his fall and there was some worry about concussion. She sat close to him, her hand resting on his arm. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy from lack of sleep and an overemotional night.

Alanna had woken her just before dawn to help look for Numair, as she hadn't recognised the place Arvid had told of when she grilled him a second time. Strangely, Daine had known of it, and it's reputation, which had caused Alanna to raise her eyebrows.

"Since when has Numair been taking you to places like that?" The Lioness teased.

"We talked about it when we were looking at the different properties of quartz. I've flew over it a fair few times as well," Daine replied, blushing scarlet.

They had spotted Numair in the distance, almost falling off Spots even before the wyverns came. Once the dragon-cousins had arrived they had watched in astonishment as Numair had disabled them.

Daine gently ran her fingers through his raven hair. Alanna and Jon had left her and Kitten to keep vigil over him as he began to recover his strength in the infirmary. He wasn't expected to regain consciousness for a while yet, although he appeared to not have suffered any lasting damage. His bones had been healed thoroughly by Duke Baird and his colouring was beginning to change from the pale grey that had worried Daine immensely to his usual swarthy tone. He had suffered a bad cut on his back and they had had to help replace the lost blood, but that was now healing well. She half dozed as she sat there, the new day passing by her slowly, people milling about the ward quietly, performing their jobs going completely unnoticed by Daine. As time went on, she swung her legs up to rest on the bed and lay parallel with Numair. Someone pulled curtains round the bed to shield them from prying eyes and Daine felt herself relax. Numair's breathing had ceased to be awkward and he seemed to be now sleeping peacefully, although everyone would be more reassured when he had woken up and shown that the fall had not damaged him in anyway mentally.

Tiredness and exhaustion began to overcome the weary girl and she started to doze off into a soothing sleep, dreaming of streams and a whispering breeze that flew around the leaves of the trees. Daine saw Numair standing by the stream, his colour restored, fawn coloured breeches and a white shirt that was unbuttoned further than normal. She started to run towards him, but no matter how fast she ran, he still remained the same distance away from her, standing by the rippling stream underneath the same weeping willow, the summer sunlight blazing down on him. She couldn't hear him calling her, she wasn't even sure he was aware she was running to him, and frustration was now taking over her as she just didn't seem to be getting anywhere nearer. She found herself calling his name, asking him to help. He didn't seem to hear her at first, and then he started to walk to her, his long legs covering the ground between them easily, finally pulling her to him in one of the long, deep kisses which had permeated her dream since she had had unicorn fever. She felt his arms around her and the pulse of his heart, beating a rhythm like her own. She heard him call her name, over and over again, a little louder each time. She didn't understand why he was shouting her.

"Daine!" She opened her eyes.

"What?" She said, drowsily. "Why are you shouting me? I'm right here, we were by the stream…" she realised she was awake.

"You were talking in you sleep and I heard you call me and shout for help. I thought you were having a nightmare. Are you alright?" Numair still lay flat on the bed, one arm resting over hers.

Daine nodded. "Are you alright? Your head…"

Numair looked at her weakly, his eyes focusing on her making his heart pound hard inside his chest. "I'm tired and achy," he replied, smiling into her lovely face. "How mad is Jon?"

"I heard him briefly as I came in here. He was outside shouting at Alanna, swearing and calling you every name under the sun once he knew you weren't particularly damaged. What happened in the cave?" Daine said softly.

"I was caught out by someone I didn't think was going to be particularly powerful. I didn't think or plan out my theories enough. I was stupid, really."

Daine's eyes widened. It was rare for Numair to make an error, let alone admit to it.

"You should have left the wyverns. We were close. Draining away the rest of your strength wasn't necessary, we had you covered," he noticed that she was almost annoyed at him and found it quite endearing, especially as she was lying close to him. He raised his hand, ignoring the sharp jolt of pain and gently moved a tendril of hair away from her cheek.

At that moment, Kitten chose to wake up, nudging in between Daine and Numair as she had done before he had gone to find the mage who had ordered Kitten's capture. Daine laughed at her attempt to cram as much of herself as possible in the middle of them and caught Numair's eye. A shiver went down her spine at the shared intimacy between them, and she wondered why when Kitten had moved them a few inches apart that she felt closer to Numair than ever before.

Two days later the mage was allowed back to his own rooms to continue his recuperation. As was typical with Numair, once he began to get better he did it with speed, grumbling about not being able to get on his feet straight away and help Daine with the firegills that had attacked the stables overnight. They were particularly small, nasty creatures that looked like a small, flying fish, exhaling fire through gills on the side of heads. He had found that he enjoyed swatting them with his magic, it was therapeutic and calming and he was annoyed that he had not been able to assist Daine in their extermination. A silent Jonathan and Alanna came to visit him once he had returned to his rooms to find out what had gone on inside the cave. Jonathan remained silent throughout, a sign of how angry he was and Numair was now dreading the moment when he would be confronted by the king about his actions.

"What happened when you got to the cave?" Alanna asked him after a moment or two of pleasantries.

Numair recounted the tale, including the spell his had used that had cause the demise of Osric Ragenhere causing Alanna to take a deep inhalation of breath.

"You should have been out cold after that!" she exclaimed. The king still silent and sullen.

Numair shrugged. "I was foolish. I should have considered more before I went in about what I was going to do. I also shouldn't underestimate a foe. We have to consider the possibilities that Scanra may have more powerful, unheard of mages. Maybe it would be worth while to send a spy in and try to find out their strength in that area."

Jonathan nodded in agreement at this point, and left the room. Numair let his eyes drop to the floor. Jonathan was his friend as well as his king and he didn't like this atmosphere between them. He looked at Alanna, his thoughts visible on his face.

"He thinks you need to learn to control your temper," she said in calm tone.

"He's probably right. Although I had to go after him. As soon as I realised that a gagging spell had probably been used everything clicked. But I never for one second considered that the whole ploy with Kitten was purely to attempt to kill me," Numair sighed, partly ashamed.

"That crossed our minds after you'd left. There was no way an intelligent mage would use Arvid to take Kitten. That part stopped making sense. Who was behind this? Do you really think that Ragenhere knew you well enough to predict how you would react?" Alanna reasoned.

"I think he did know of me well enough, the real question is who taught him?" Numair gave Alanna a knowing look.

"Ozorne," Alanna answered, unnecessarily. "Kitten's connected to Daine and Daine is your weak spot. We discovered that in Carthak."

"I don't do her any good, really. Do I, Alanna?" He said rhetorically, in a rather mournful tone.

Alanna laughed. "You'd do her more harm if you stopped."

Numair half-smiled. "She had a nightmare that woke me up – when I was in the infirmary – she was shouting me to help her."

"You are her hero, Numair. Like George is mine."

"I don't think I deserve to be."

"Then that's your problem and I'm not discussing it anymore until you've come to your senses," Alanna said, tartly.

Numair laughed again. "Is Jon still mad?"

"I think 'mad' is an understatement. I'd rather chew both my arms off than be you at the moment. It's not the storming off after an unknown mage that's upset him, I think he appreciates that; you effectively dealt with something that no one else could. It's the wyverns. You shouldn't have thrown away the rest of your strength on something that archers could have dealt with as well as you. The fall you sustained could quite easily have killed you," Alanna said directly.

"I didn't realise just how close you were," Numair defended.

"Even if you had you would have still attacked them. You can't always be the hero. Let someone else have a turn sometimes. We need you to be alive, you're more useful that way," Alanna argued back. "You really need to go and sort this out with Jon. He needs to get it off his chest. He saw us bring you back when you were unconscious and I think he momentarily thought you were dead. It's shook him up and he needs to vent his anger at someone before he bursts or Thayet maims him."

Numair sighed. He stood up, a little weakly but there was too much defiance in his eyes for Alanna to even consider stopping him from going to see his friend and king.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please review! I need cheering up! New story starts on sunday. It's called A Stepping State, if anyone's interested.