Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own any of this.
-Bows head in shame- I can't believe it's been half a year since I updated. I'm so sorry – I hope I actually still have readers after not writing for so long. I've just been utterly overwhelmed with school and exams and I just haven't had any time at all. Only seven chapters left in the story, as well. Please forgive me, all; I promise I'll try and finish the story with haste, after all this time.
Reviews, if anyone still remembers what they wrote to me a whole half year ago –hangs head lower-
Ali – it didn't take you as long to get around to reading as it did for me to get around to writing chapter 36! Glad you approved of Treet's decision.
Ocean: Yeah, it had gotten about time I pulled his rear out of the fire. Of course there will be a reunion, and a couple more minor surprises before I close up shop for good.
Kathleen: Nope, not many more twists to go. I thought Karissa would go after him too, but I needed some reason to get her all mentally fixed up.
Fireblade: Sorry about the anti-climax. In all honesty, I didn't really feel up to writing a fighting scene, I don't know very much at all about fighting or battles or anything like that, so I decided to end it peacefully.
Frequency: Oh, I'd DEFINITELY have done more damage than Adin did…with steel-tied boots and possibly a very long and pointy metal object or so. But what can you do? These merciful Herald types…-shakes head-
Now, without further ado, on to the MUCH awaited and, I'm afraid, maybe a little short, chapter 36!
Chapter 36: Greens
Lirain awoke to a timid rapping on her door. She blinked bleary eyes, trying to bring her room into focus, and realized with a start that it must be past suppertime, for the time candle on her dresser had burned down almost to the bottom.
Lirain pulled open the door to find a short, scrawny looking page standing outside, proffering a note. She waved him away with automatic thanks and unfolded the note, wondering who could have sent it. She could think of many people who might be looking for her, but almost none who would send a note with a page rather than coming to find her themselves.
As she opened the note, her heart jumped into her throat. What if something was wrong with Treet? What if his family had gone after him again? Like a drowning man grasping for a lifejacket, she clawed at the faint and incomplete link between her and her lifebonded with a mental hand and nearly sank to the floor with relief when she detected only a brooding sense of thought and faint, old pain, untainted by the sharp tang of fear or threat.
Lirain,
Please stop by my office as soon as you see this note; I have something to discuss with you.
Rith
Lirain read the note over again, puzzled. She would very probably have gone to see Rith sooner or later anyway, very possibly as soon as she got up. Why on earth would Rith send her a note?
'Whatever it was,' Lirain decided, 'if it has warranted sending a page with it, it must be important.' Closing the door again, she quickly threw on a clean pale green robe over a tunic and trews. When she had done that, she went down the hall to the Trainees' bathing room and splashed some water on her face, rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes.
For the first time in days, her head felt completely clear, and she reveled in the clarity. She hadn't slept well since Treet had left, and that combined with the complexity and difficulty of Healing Karissa and the emotional and mental strain of reaching Treet that last time had left her reserves almost completely depleted. She knew that she still wasn't up to full strength, but she was much closer than she had been when she fell wearily into her bed the previous day, and there was no longer anything wrong with her that time and a few more nights' solid slumber wouldn't cure. Still, she reflected as she strode quickly and confidently to Rith's office, she would sleep easier still when Treet was safely home and she could be with him again.
Lirain knocked on Rith's door and announced herself. It didn't do to just walk into a Healer's office, especially a Mindhealer's office; you never knew when you might interrupt something delicate.
Lirain had become easy with Rith over the past years; as soon as she heard Rith call for her to enter, she walked in, closing the door behind her, sank into a chair without waiting for an invitation to sit, and eyed Rith with barely-concealed curiosity.
Rith saw her barely suppressed emotion and laughed to herself, far merrier than she had been in a while. "It's good to see you looking like a living thing again, child, and not like something out of a horror tale, and better yet to see your eyes with some sparkle and less of the dark bags."
The assessment was half-friendly and half-clinical but all in complete seriousness.
Lirain nodded, sobered slightly by the memory of the terrible days she had endured, a memory that had faded away into a blur of fear and pain and sleeplessness.
"Anyway," Rith continued, lightening the mood again. "I didn't call you here to make you gloomy again. I actually wanted to discuss something good with you."
Lirain leaned forward slightly.
"As you know," Rith began, steepling her fingers in front of her and looking irritatingly pleased with herself, or so it appeared to Lirain, "it is the right of your mentor, namely me, to decide when you have completed the requirements of your training and have attained the level of competence necessary to call yourself a full Healer."
Lirain nodded, wondering what Rith was up to. Come to think of it, it had been almost four years since she had begun training with Rith.
"I wonder…" she thought to herself, not wanting to entertain the notion in case she should be wrong and be disappointed.
"I have to admit, I was waiting to test you with a complex case, to see how you would handle it on your own, without my help. If Karissa hadn't shown up so providentially, I would have found you something, of course, but once you met Treet and I realized that the you and he were Lifebonded, I suspected that you would eventually be called on to demonstrate your considerable skill with Karissa. Of course, I didn't realize that the circumstances would be quite so dire," Rith said.
Rith's face twisted in an expression of distaste and Lirain's echoed the expression more strongly still, thinking of several unHealer-ly things she would like to do to Treet's so-called family.
"Anyway," Rith continued. "I thought that perhaps Karissa would be more comfortable with you than with me, since you are lifebonded to the closest thing she has to a friend, and it seems that my predictions were accurate. Your work with Karissa, who, I think, would have been a test even to my skills, was entirely satisfactory, though I don't know the details, of course," Rith said, sharing a small smile with Lirain.
Lirain might have felt affronted at the word 'satisfactory,' but she knew that Rith was really paying her a compliment, acknowledging her as an equal and fellow Healer; obviously a teacher would know exact details of even the most advanced student's work, but a colleague would know nothing more than whether or not the Healing had been a success.
"Lirain," Rith said in a formal tone, "As of this day, I am prepared to deem you competent as a fully trained Mindhealer and member of the Healers' Circle. Are you willing to swear to our craft once and for all, for the rest of your days?"
Lirain felt awash with such joy that she almost couldn't contain it. She had known, of course, that the day would come when she would take up a full Healer's Greens, probably staying at the Collegium because of the rarity of Mindhealers, but able to take a larger portion of the burden from Rith's shoulders, and finally able to practice her craft in her own right. She nodded an answer to Rith's question, too overcome to speak.
Rith stood up and came over to where Lirain was seated, taking Lirain's hands in her own and looking into her eyes. Lirain would have to take a formal oath in front of the full Healers' Circle at their next meeting, but she and Rith both knew that that oath was a formality only, and that it was really this pledging that made her a Healer.
Lirian felt the light brush of Rith's mind against her shields and gladly opened them, allowing Rith into her mind. The oath of the Healers was given not with MindSpeech, for not all of the Healers had that Gift, but with Empathy, which all Healers had a touch of.
Lirain displayed her feelings for Rith to see: her desire to help and to serve, in any way possible, her joy in her craft and her absolute devotion to the way of the Healer.
Rith withdrew from Lirain's mind, projecting acceptance and a joy equal to that of her student.
"From this moment forth, you must consider yourself no longer under my tutelage. Instead, your responsibilities will lie with the Healers' Circle and with the well-being of your patients, to whom you owe your best service," Rith said solemnly before hugging Lirain like the mother she really was.
"Not, of course, that you won't always be welcome in my office as a colleague and friend," Rith whispered in Lirain's ear as she embraced the newly-christened Healer.
Lirain smiled, a smile of pure and brilliant joy. "I won't let you down," she pledged. "I'll help you, take up enough of the work that you can have a rest."
Rith smiled slightly. "I look forward to it."
From her desk drawer, Rith pulled out a set of full Healer's Greens. "Housekeeping should be making you up some sets of Greens in your size, but I took the liberty of having this one set requisitioned a moon or so ago, when it first begun to seem like you were ready; I thought you wouldn't want to have to wait for Housekeeping to take the correct size out of storage and bring them to you."
Lirain took the bundle from her teacher, thanking Rith profusely. Rith was right; she didn't want to wait. Even now, she was itching to run back to her rooms and admire herself in the mirror before running to find all of her friends to tell them her news. She would be the second of her Yeargroup to receive Greens; Jodyn had gotten his from Healer Rhea nearly two weeks ago.
The only sadness in her ocean of joy was that the person she wanted to tell most of all wasn't around to see her triumph.
