When they get to the Brackenbury Sanitarium, maybe the most unusual thing about the place seems to be the talking statue. One of the odder things in Eora, but not nearly as dangerous as most of them - and not as unusual as it would be anywhere else, considering this place studies the soul. They get directions to head downstairs and look for a 'Bellasage' - shouldn't be too hard with Cera's powers.
They open a door to find about eight other doors - all closed - so Cera says "Hang on, I'll take a look." She closes her eyes for a moment, then points to the nearest door on their left. "She's in there."
When they open the door, there's a Vailian woman pacing the floor - until she nearly walks right into the two of them. "Eccosi! I am so focused I cannot see the Kith right in front of me!"
Cera says "We're looking for an expert on Awakenings."
"Ac, that would be me. Though my lack of subjects has made me more an expert of counting floorboards. I'd like to transfer Animancy's success in buttressing pre-Awakened souls to soothing those whose souls have already Awakened - but all the subjects here cannot produce reliable results, unfortunately."
"You're in luck, I've got a volunteer."
Aloth's eyes go wide in their sockets, but before he can even begin to protest - a lot - the woman is steering him onto a couch and ratcheting copper bands onto his wrists and forehead.
Cera, why would you think this is a good idea?!
I'm thinking that you've got a chance with her, that's what I'm thinking. A chance to maybe get Iselmyr slightly more under control at least, if not gone.
He grumbles mentally, resulting in her laughter echoing through the mental link she made between them.
If something goes wrong, I'll stop it somehow. Deal?
Deal.
Despite the fact that he'd rather be doing anything else. Despite the fact that she doesn't trust her own skills as a Watcher.
Bellasage tells him to talk about his past before his Awakening - there wasn't anything to tell, he was a normal child living in the Cythwood.
Bellasage is too busy fiddling with her ridiculous scope - couldn't Cera just do this herself without the copper and contraption? - to notice that he's neither relaxing nor talking about his childhood. Cera sits down next to him, and softly asks "What do you remember about your home?"
He closes his eyes, feeling a little less tense now, and says "Modest, quiet when mother is away - which is most of the time. Quiet enough to hear the clink of glass on wood, this is when I know to be most careful. Father is good about hiding the bottles. Mother, when she's here, is good about pretending to not notice them." He's remembering things now, details about the place that he'd almost forgotten. The way the place was always neat to the point of sparkling - his father always went into a rage when it got dusty or messy - or the view out the windows. Little details that didn't seem at all important at the time.
"Ac, good. Now, tell us of your Awakening." Bellasage's voice doesn't seem all that intrusive anymore, not when he can feel Cera's mind with his own thanks to her Cipher abilities - they really come in useful - and starts recounting what happened to bring Iselmyr forth. "Eccosi! He's hypnotized himself with this old memory!"
He feels a squeeze on his hand, and distantly hears Cera's voice says "It's fine, your safe." Wake up, Aloth! Wake up, wake up, wake up!
He can feel her worry pouring into him, and then Iselmyr responds to it. Now he's awake, but he's not currently in control. "He's nere safe when I hap upon him." Iselmyr! Would you just stop it already?!
"Eccosi! I'm seeing two distinct flares of essence! He seems to respond to you, keep going."
Another squeeze on his hand, and Cera says "Aloth, ask Iselmyr why she's here."
Now he's in control, at last, and says "Sticking weed. Worming parasite."
Iselmyr laughs and says "Ye'd say the same to yer own kindled twig when it betrays ye!"
Cera's hand on his tightens, and Bellasage exclaims "It seems that where one ebbs the other flows. This Iselmyr fills the gaps Aloth leaves empty."
Another flare of worry from Cera, though she tries to keep it from him - too late, Iselmyr felt it when he did. Her voice is steady though when she asks "Iselmyr, what exactly are you taking from Aloth?"
"Nye more than I'm givin'! Ye should ask whit I did that tha' auld man o' his. How I brek his hand in three places last time he laid it on us."
Aloth jerks his head to the side furiously, away from Cera, and says "That wasn't your decision, it's never been your decision."
"Nye was Awakening, but now I'm stuck with ye and be damned if I let yer ninnying drag us both through the scupper!"
Cera's worry - worry for the both of them, as she's never seen this happen - flares up once again, but Aloth manages to get Iselmyr under control long enough to get the copper bands off his wrists as Bellasage declares she finally has results to publish - namely that Iselmyr is the result of black bile, as she's supposedly concentrated around his spleen during the times when she's most present. The two of them may have had their arguments and disagreements, but both he and Iselmyr agree on this - that is utter horseshit.
When he says as much, Cera quickly intervenes before the Vailian woman can get too angry and says that Iselmyr appears when Aloth feels threatened or she determines there's a threat to his safety. Finally, some common sense.
Bellasage says she'll have to check with her other notes but that Cera may be onto something - no kidding, of course she's onto something - when the elven Cipher starts rubbing her head. He whispers "Cera, something wrong?"
"No, just…a loud mind. Full of thoughts, full of feelings. Makes it hard to focus on the physical world sometimes." She closes her eyes and gets a look of concentration, and then Aloth notices Bellasage's notes on the table - and given all her nonsense, he really doesn't want his personal information published like this. While Bellasage is resetting her scope and Cera's rubbing her head, he quickly hides her notes - Iselmyr, for once, doesn't disagree with him.
Once the notes are hidden away, to be torn to pieces or burned late at night when everyone else is sleeping, he gets up and helps Cera to her feet - and when they get upstairs, there's a wealthy man talking with an animancer heatedly and somewhat arrogantly; Aloth can bet Cera can feel a lot more than the arrogance in his voice. No wonder she's having a hard time focusing through it.
When they get out of the building, Cera takes a few deep breaths and seems to recover her bearings.
"Are you okay, Cera?"
"Yeah, I'm…I'm alright. Most times I can handle other people's minds, but sometimes they're just a little too much. Makes for a decent headache when it gets too crowded in here." She gives him a weak grin and adds "But hey, it's a welcome distraction from my own thoughts at times. Sometimes I'll go seek some mental company when my own thoughts are too brooding. Might've done it a few times while traveling as a distraction from my own thoughts. And sometimes it came in handy. Like this one time I was being tracked down by some of the guards, they were thinking 'how hard could it be to find her? She's got to be the fanciest person in this place!' Too bad for them I'd already cut my hair and changed into traveling clothes. And I didn't give people my real name until I was out of Aedyr."
"So what did you call yourself, if not Cera?"
"Velanya. Velanya Fyrnwiga. Got a few stares, but it kept the guards from finding me."
Aloth chuckles, and says "Sounds effective, if nothing else. Wherever did you come up with such a name?"
"I spent a lot of time in the library, where there was only my own thoughts and the words on the page to take my attention. Read a lot of stories, learned a lot of names. I may have borrowed the names of two characters from completely unrelated stories."
Aloth laughs slightly harder, and then the sound of crackling paper comes through his cloak. He freezes, but Cera only give him a knowing look and asks "You ever hear of the Giftbearer tradition of throwing items connected to memories the owners would like to forget in the ocean?"
"Yes…"
"Something you'd like to forget?"
"The past thirty minutes, to be honest. Bellasage and her nonsense."
"Let's go, if we hurry we can get to Ondra's Gift in around ten minutes. Mind explaining why you took her notes?"
Aloth sighs, and says "I didn't appreciate her prying, not with all her nonsense. Removing my spleen solving my problem with Iselmyr, honestly why is she even an animancer if she thought a solution like that would be viable?"
Cera doesn't say a word, and just pulls at his arm in the right direction.
When they get to an empty part of the pier in Ondra's Gift, he tosses the notes into the waters, dearly hoping they'll be swept away out into the bottom of the ocean. "Did you forget?"
Cera's looking at him half-expectantly, and he shakes his head and says "No, I didn't. Unfortunately. I am, however, glad Eder wasn't present at the Sanitarium. Whatever it is about Iselmyr that fascinates him, I'll never understand."
"Yes, I heard him suggest to Kana that they find a few wolves or bears or something and chase them to us, see if that got her talking - or cursing, as Eder seems to think Iselmyr knows a lot of them."
"Well…he's not wrong. I've learned plenty of very ancient curses in Hylspeak over the past fifty years. In varying degrees of insult. 'Coxfither' is one of the lesser ones."
Cera stifles a giggle, and says "I may have picked up a few over the course of my travels. Mostly when troubles arose, and then the curses were extremely colorful. Not that I'd use them most of the time."
He can see the mischievous twitch of her lips though, and says "I'd rather you didn't give Iselmyr a few lessons. Her language is already intolerable as it is, and she's in no need of more modern or foreign curses to add to the list."
"Right, got it." She's blushing though, Aloth can feel the her amusement traveling across to him.
"Oh, and I may have seen one of your memories while we were talking with one Arledr Gathbin earlier. I didn't mean to pry, but-"
"No, it's my fault. I'm usually better about not involving the minds of others with my own, but-"
"Cera, it's okay. I wasn't complaining, the mental link you set up isn't a bother or anything."
"Then…" Her look is one of total confusion, like she doesn't get why he'd mention it if it wasn't a problem - he can bet that's another thing her parents left her with.
"What I was going to say is I'd like to learn more about you. And…the mental link between us, is…"
Cera's eyes go huge when she realizes that's how he saw her memory, and quickly starts apologizing - it would happen every so often where she'd accidentally connect with the mind of someone, and she'd always get yelled at when it was discovered. It hasn't happened in quite a while, usually only happened when she was stressed - what a surprise, she's stressed out lately.
She's working against the clock to not go insane, trying to track down the Leaden Key, and was dealing with an arrogant noble attempting to take away her new home - wonder why she'd be stressed.
She thought she set up the link when they went into the Sanitarium, and he can tell she's about to sever the link between their minds when he says "Cera, it's alright. I wasn't complaining. It's not a burden or anything. I was just wondering how it happened so easily is all."
"Usually a connection can form with someone you trust. Or…never mind. And such things can happen unconsciously when a Cipher is under a lot of pressure or has pent-up feelings and they find an escape. In this case, well, I'm fairly sure it was the latter." She's blushing so much that her face is almost as red as Kana's clothing, but mumbles "And, I'd…I'd like to learn more about you to. If you don't mind, that is."
"Not at all. I wouldn't mind at all."
Cera sighs and says "We'd better get over to Copperlane, otherwise they'll come looking for us eventually."
"Yes, Edér with more comments. We'd best be off then."
AN: Wonder what else could make a mental link form? Because Cera's doing it quite a lot with Aloth, intentional or not. How long until these two finally figure out what's going on? Read on and find out! Anyway, enjoy! More chapters coming soon! New puppy is a lot of work, and absolutely adorable, and we're currently working on housetraining him! Given how much rain we get, that's a bit of a challenge as nobody really likes getting soaked to the bone in cold water. Please review! Suggestions appreciated! PS. will be doing WM 1 and 2, along with the Master Below. Enjoy!