Chapter 36: Thoughts and Trials

Thoughts and Trials

Severus scoffed, "I should only hope that he does not prove disappointing."

"He will not," Sarmach stated plainly, "He is very eager to prove himself I feel. Once he had become accustomed to things I am sure that he will do quite well. I feel he is much less insolent than your usual young man and not unaccustomed to hard work. You have had much time alone with him to mold him. All should be much less of a shock for him."

Sage raised an eyebrow. They were talking about him as if he was not even there. He looked forward suddenly, because he didn't want to stare rudely at the man.

After a few moments, he felt eyes upon him and he looked back over at the two men.

"You have slept for days. You are well?" Sarmach asked.

Sage looked first to Severus. His uncle offered him no support. Sage directed his gaze back upon the older man.

"Not entirely," he answered slowly.

Sarmach pursed his lips and then turned to Severus, "You will leave tomorrow."

Severus did not show any surprise if he had any. He merely nodded, his dark eyes as intense as ever.

The Chief Druid looked once more at Sage, "And you and I have much to do, and very little time, I fear. We begin tomorrow. I suggest you begin to ignore any pain that you are in. You should be much stronger than this. We will have to remedy that first."

Raising an eyebrow only slightly, he nodded as Severus had. How could he possibly ignore the pain, it was debilitating. It was not as if the pain was dull, it was rather acute. But, Sage was not about to say one word to the contrary.

"It will dull with practise, as you get stronger," Severus said to him.

Sage glared at him, "As I am now perfectly capable of speaking my mind, sir, would you cease invading it?"

Severus reached over and slapped Sage across the back of the head. "I much prefered you when you could not speak."

Sarmach looked from one to the other, "Perhaps he is much more like you, Severus, than I originally anticipated. He has your tongue, something your brother exercised much less than you did and currently do. This will be a bit more trying that I first thought." He rubbed his head slightly.

Sage jolted from sleep, his hand flying to the top of his head. Something must have fallen on him. As his eyes jerked open, he saw a large piece of wood looming over his head. A scowl firmly planted on his face, he tilted his head up and his eyes fell upon Sarmach. He was glaring at Sage as if nothing had happened out of the ordinary.

Sarmach had hit him over the head with that staff of his, for no apparent reason.

"Time to meet the day, Magi," he said.

Squinting his eyes at the window, Sage returned sleepily, "Day?"

It was still dark outside. By no means was it day in Sage's eyes.

"Up now!" Sarmach answered, with much more feeling this time. He raised his staff threateningly at Sage again.

Grumbling under his breath, Sage sat up and got out of bed. The air was still frigid with the waning night. It was not as cold, however, as if would have been at Hogwarts. In fact, it seemed to not be winter at all in Lyon Llyonyss.

"Ten minutes, I believe, should suffice to dress yourself and meet me outside."

Sarmach walked out the door, leaving Sage standing there still half asleep and feeling like his entire body was bruised. Intermittent, acute pains went through his body every so often as a reminder of what had happened days prior.

His blue eyes travelled the room, taking it in. He had not appraised it yet, nor gotten to learn its layout, as he had been in bed or unconscious the entire time he had spent in it. He imagined that Hagrid's hut must not look too dissimilar from the place he was currently making his home.

Finally he spotted his black trunk sitting in a corner. Without too much care, he lifted it open and pulled out a black sweater and pants. As he closed the lid to the trunk, he noticed a bucket sitting next to it. He stared at it for a moment and then lifted it.

It was full of water.

An idea suddenly dawning upon him, he uncovered his trunk once more and pulled out a towel and laid it upon the bed next to him.

He carefully held the bucket up and he took a deep breath before he thrust his entire head into the bucket, causing some water to spill over the edges.

His cheeks instantaneously felt like they were frosting over, the water was so cold. He pulled his head out and gasped. That was certainly enough to wake him up, which was exactly what he had wanted. He did not feel the need to get hit upon the head again to wake him further.

"The pain will lessen if you do not constantly dwell upon it. Clear your mind of it. Focus, Sage. Control!"

Sage gritted his teeth and tried to do just that, but it did not seem to be working. His body still felt like it had been trampled by those two horses. His body had trouble enough dealing with walking about, but it was completely protesting to doing anything more strenuous. Carrying two large bucket full of water counted as strenuous.

Sage had not yet fully recovered from what had happened and now, his first day out of bed, he was lugging water all over the place for various purposes. He did not understand why the Druids did not simply use magic. He still had not asked why, but he had noticed that they did many things the 'muggle way' as Weasley would have said. He hadn't learned anything all day. All he had done was get up, listen to some prattle about focus and then all the 'strengthening' had begun.

He had already endured a large lecture about how he was to act during his Rite of Passage after having to be disciplined three times in 10 hours for his 'incessant wagging of his tongue when he should be silent'. Specifically, he had once been made to clean up horse stalls after being insubordinate – i.e. disremembering that he was supposed to address Sarmach as 'master'… Once made to clean some rather nasty cauldrons after being insubordinate again – i.e. questioning Sarmach... Now he was carrying an entire day's worth of water because Sarmach thought his demeanor was rather 'insolent, disagreable, and resentful'. Who wouldn't be resentful after being woken up in the morning, feeling like a piece of rotting meat, and being asked to conduct everyday life as if nothing was wrong. Something was very wrong, and after 10 hours of trying to work through the pain, Sage was beginning to feel as if he were soon to pass out. Other than when he was actually having a vision, he had never been in such excruciating pain before.

He had a strong desire to empty both buckets onto his 'master' before apparating directly out of Lyon Llyonyss.

Briefly he looked to Sarmach, who was still telling him to focus more. The man's dark eyes were very demanding. He was accentuating his words by thrusting around his staff. Sage face ahead again, before answering somewhat spitefully, "I am not dwelling on the pain, master, it is simply just too much to ignore."

Sarmach stopped dead.

"Put the buckets down."

Sage threw back his head in frustration. He was undoubtedly in trouble again. He growled and put the buckets down, and then he sat down on the ground cross-legged and put his head in his hands. This was simply too much, how could he be expected to adapt to this life just in a snap of the fingers. Sarmach was simply expecting too much from him, too early on.

His entire body was trembling with pain.

Suddenly Sarmach spoke authoritatively, "It is too much to ignore because your mind is tripling it because you are dwelling on it. If you simply do it without being angry that you are doing it and without thinking that you should not be doing it because you are in pain, you will not feel such pain."

Sage scowled.

Sarmach hit Sage on the bicep with his staff. "Get up. Don't be so childish, just sitting there. If you let a waterbucket beat you, you have very little hope. Will you just lay down and die when you are in pain, when you fight against the Darkness, or do you wish me to continue to teach you how to overcome it."

Grudgingly, Sage got up and dusted himself off. "What will satisfy you, master? My passing out?"

Sarmach shrugged, "Perhaps. At least the next time you are in such pain, you will be able to go a little farther, you will be a little stronger. You need to strengthen your body so that you can master your powers, then you need to push your threshold for pain, so that you are protected from pain. This will condition your body, next we will need to condition your mind."

Professor Snape had come back to Hogwarts that day, and Hermione had not seen anything of Sage. She had not seen him since the Yule Ball. At first, she had wanted to see him to thank him for comforting her at the Ball. But after she had seen Mandy run inside, she had wanted to accuse him. She had wanted to confront him about it, but she knew that made absolutely no sense; Mandy was his girlfriend and there should be nothing necessarily wrong with him doing those things with her. Why did she feel so wronged then? Why did she feel as if it were a personal attack on her?

Now, he had been gone for two weeks, and she was beginning to fear that he would not be coming back. Professor Snape always had threatened to send him home, as he could always be taught at home once again. It was likely too, Hermione thought. It was not as if Sage really needed to be at Hogwarts. He knew all that they were being taught in lessons. In fact, he far surpassed the material in most classes. Whenever nobody knew the answer to a question in class, the professors would always call on Sage. Lately, he had even stopped pretending that he did not know the answers. He just gave them, humbly and succinctly.

Perhaps she was thinking about him so much because she missed his intellectual company. That had to be it, she mused. Now she had no one to ask the difficult questions that arose in her head everytime she picked up a book. She had no one to teach her how to do spells that they didn't cover in fourth year classes. She sighed deeply. Everytime she asked him a question, he knew the answer or at least most of the answer. Professor Snape had to be an incredibly scholarly man to teach Sage so much, and to guide him to learn so much on his own as well.

Suddenly her train of thought was derailed by a loud, "Oy, Hermione!"

She turned from her position in the cozy chair by the fire and faced Ron. He looked aggravated.

"I thought you were done giving me the cold shoulder," he said, sounding affronted.

"I am, Ron. You are absolutely too loud and too obnoxious to ignore." She smiled slightly to let him know that she was simply teasing, well perhaps not entirely teasing.

"We've been trying to get your attention," Harry put in, "We need some help with our star charts."

Her eyes widened. She couldn't believe them.

"You haven't completed those yet! Ron, Harry, we've had almost three weeks to finish them."

"You don't expect us to work through holiday do you?" Ron stated impetuously.

"What about the two weeks you've had since holiday?" Hermione returned, glaring at him.

"Er, we were getting back into things, you know." Harry smiled sheepishly.

Hermione put her chin up imperiously, "I shouldn't help you, you know. I finished mine ages ago. I do have other things to do besides help the two of you."

"Like what? Daydream about Krum?"

"Viktor?" Hermione stated. "What makes you think that I have nothing better to do than to think of him?"

Ron looked puzzled. "That's what you were just doing, wasn't it."

He had, however, already figured out the answer to his own question. Hermione would have been much more angry if she had, in fact, been daydreaming about Krum.

"No, I wasn't. Not that it's any of your business anyway, Ron Weasley. I can think about whomever and whatever I want."

She glared at him. Perhaps she should just help them to get them to stop pestering her. Or perhaps she should just help them to get Sage off her mind. Afterall, she was probably just being silly. He was probably perfectly fine, and he would most certainly be back. Her chest grew heavy.

I've got to stop this. This is, this is so unlike me!

Sage lay on his back on his bed. It was nearly midnight. His entire body was saturated with lactic acid. Every single muscle in his body was overworked and under-rested. Even his head was throbbing rhythmically in tune with the rest of his body. He could not move a limb, or at least he had no desire to move them. His body almost felt foreign.

He heaved a sigh. His master had informed him his first day that their first goal was to strengthen him, because with strength he would find less pain. Dumbledore and his uncle had always said that his body was too weak to handle his powers, and that was likely one of the reasons why he got sick, but he had always thought it was because he was so young. Sarmach seemed to believe that he needed more physical strength. He could wait until he was fully grown to be gain strength, but Sarmach thought that he needed it much sooner to succeed in his path. That was why Sage had been doing all varieties of manual labor: to push himself and make himself stronger.

One thing was definitely for certain. His mind had no trouble emptying at night when he was so exhausted. He also had very little to think about or be anxious about, which made it easier to focus and keep unwanted thoughts out.

There was one thing that seemed slightly amiss to him. Nobody was asking him how he was. Nobody was asking him what he was feeling. Normally, he did not like to be asked such things. Mostly because he did not like to answer. He sighed heavily again. Maybe it was the simply act of asking that helped him, especially if he was not pushed to answer. Briefly, his thoughts ended upon the remembrances of Hermione harassing him about how he was, determined that something was wrong and that he should talk to her about it. Had he found her care important, even if he found her incessant nagging annoying? Did the fact that she was one of the only persons who ever asked him that, make him miss her? He scoffed, not likely. He certainly was at least peaceful in his pain-racked solitude.

His mind shifted. He began recounting what he had done and learned since beginning his Rite of Passage. Firstly, he had learned all matter of ceremony he was expected to observe. As Sarmach was his master during the Rite, he was to be addressed as such. At first, this had seemed rather odd and a bit much, but afterwards he simply began to think of it as a fancy and 'ancient' was of saying 'sir'. Second, he had learned more about the history of Druids and about Druidic Arts, which were more commonly known and the 'Old Ways' or 'Ancient Ways'. He had been tested on his ability to recount the information. He was also being taught meditation. Thirdly, he had rebuilt an entire pasture for the magical horses. He still had blisters on his hands from that. Sage was convinced he had split an entire forest worth of wood, sledgehammered enough boughs of wood into the ground for his entire life, and hammered enough nails to hold up an entire Hogwarts built of wood.

He had only been allowed to do magic during certain times, and only if he could do it wandlessly. Druids, he had found out, did not do anything with wands. They spent their entire lives trying to cultivate an ability he had been born with. Conversely, however, he had seen more Druids do wandless magic than he had ever seen a normal wizard do. Needless to say, Sage had not been doing much magic at all.

His first day had been so trying that he was left longing for the simplicity and familiarity of Hogwarts. All that was asked from him there was a certain degree of intelligence that he could muster with little effort. It least it seemed as if life at Hogwarts was a lot simpler not that he was not there. It was not as if he did not know that he was at Lyon Llyonyss for a reason and that, likewise, there was a reason for what he was doing there.

There was only one simple thing that irked him about being in this strange new place with these strange new expectations. Only one thing that he could not completely banish from his mind. Someone was back at Hogwarts will ill intentions, someone perhaps trying to harm Harry. As much as Sage was loathe to admit it, Harry was his relation and he cared about what happened to him, even if Harry did not care one way or the other about him. Harry was a selfish person and that was that. There would be no convincing him that he was too prideful, that he undertook dangerous things without thinking. Sage knew that it was only a matter of time before others saw this trait in Harry too. The problem was that Harry did not use his brain well, and he was not crafty enough to anticipate the moves of someone who was rather sly. Sage felt rather obligated to watch out for him, perhaps that came from the fact that they shared blood, because Sage really had no other affinity for the boy-who-lived other than the fact that he played Quidditch well.

Sage had helped his cousin through the first task, keeping him from being the boy-who-got-fried. Who would be there to help Harry through the second task since he would likely still be a Lyon Llyonyss then?

Scowling, Sage censured himself for allowing his mind to ruminate about possible catastrophe. He did not need to think about those things now. He needed to work on getting stronger and getting more balanced. That was what he was here for, wasn't it.

He reached a pale, slightly shakey hand and pulled open a drawer. His hand closed around a cold blue phial. Without another thought, he drank some of it. This time it was not the Dreamless Sleep potion, but rather that anti-anxiety, anti-depression mixture his uncle had concocted using some rather rank smelling St. John's Wort.

He opened his eyes in the dark depths of water, cold upon his skin. There was nothing but darkness swallowing him whole, nothing but abyssmal blue in all directions. He could sense the chill around him, but strangely did not feel it penetrate further than his skin. His core still felt warm and unaffected by the icey waters he had found himself in.

Another dream? A prophetic dream? What could it mean if all he saw was watery blackness?

His head jolted as he heard noises from behind him. He turned himself around in the water with the agility of a fish.

A shark was coming towards him, fast. His first instinct told him to swim away fast. Then his brain kicked in and told him that no harm could come to him in a simple dream. He shuddered anyway. He sensed the shark was a threat, and never before had he wanted to know more in one of his dreams, never before had he been so desperate and dictating in one of his dreams.

Shadowy Cat – yes, you could say indentured servant. At least, that is what it begins as. There is much much more to it than that. Sage has not even begun the more intense learning part of things. He is still stuck into druid boot camp 101, or what have you. I would imagine they would be a very demanding lot. You won't get to see too much of what Sarmach expects from him right away, because this trip is rather brief for a reason to be presented next chapter, but hinted at in this one. It is all rather important what he learns there. One thing is for sure as Dumbledore alluded to, you might not go there ready, but you will leave there ready….Hee hee, the Veela blood in the Malfoys is the reason for the blonde good looks. They are very good looking for a dangerous lot, so I thought that worked well with Veela. I also agree that Snape does not seem like the type to tamper with the taste of things for anyone's personal benefit, except maybe himself on occasion. ;-)

FirePendant – What's confusing? Perhaps I can help you out if it's not part of my plot for it to be confusing. ;-) If something is written poorly that makes it confuzing or a bad read, let me know so that I can fix it. I am glad that you want more more more. Hope you liked this. Let me know what you think.

White Owl – Damn I like your new Ficcy! It's really good and I can't wait to see more Owl Eyes too. You are the only person that has told me that they like the strange new land. In fact, since introducing it my reviews have went down. I am wondering if that has something to do with it. I won't change it of course, but it's sad. You will find out about the robes in time, not quite right away. And that's not just to spite you, but something is going to happen that makes addressing that question quite impossible at the moment. You will also learn more about what he does and learns when he returns to Hogwarts and then when he returns to Lyon Llyonyss again. ;-) Thanks for giving me such great detailed reviews.

V.D. - back at Uni, huh? Blah. I am going back for grad school in a week and half. Haven't heard from you in awhile. ;-) You asked whether or not Sage is going to be there for the other tasks of the tournament… Perhaps both, perhaps only one, you will have to see. Next chappie, you'll know. I don't want to give you a stomach ulcer, hee hee. I'm glad that you liked the changes that I made. Florida was great, thanks.

BookWitch – Yes, Sage had quite a weight on his shoulders. ;-) He does really need to learn a lot as you said. Don't worry, either, we won't keep him away from those wonderful interactions with the other characters for too long. I know that's the exciting part. Thanks, btw, for sending me an email review, that was really great and sweet of you. I really hope that you liked this chapter, even though it was Snapeless and Hogwartsless. ;-) Hang in there.

Sibyl – I am glad that you really liked the chapter where I introduced Druidland. ;-) Not many people seemed to like that chapter all too much. Thanks for the great feedback. Let me know what you think of the new developments here. ;-)

To All – Hang in for Back to Hogwarts, coming soon to this fanfic for you. ;-) Lots of bang up stuff is going to happen.