Edit April 2010: FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to).
Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I'm really pleased so many people like it. I'll try not to disappoint you all.
Incidentally, I don't have a beta. If you spot any glaring mistakes, please let me know. I missed out the conversation between Onua and Daine making fun of Numair; to be honest, there was nothing to add, they pretty much said it all! Enjoy.
Time passed. Numair slept, mostly, recovering from the abuse his body and mind had suffered recently. There was healing, too, and severe scolding from both Alanna and Onua that he endured meekly while trying not to smile. A spidren attack, too, that he was disappointed to have missed; not that he could have done anything anyway, as Alanna pointed out.
Eventually he was deemed fit to get up; just in time to say goodbye, as it turned out, as Alanna and the Own had work to do elsewhere with the information he had gathered about Sinthya. He would make his own way back to Corus, with Onua and the ponies, and this girl Daine; he was looking forward to meeting her, curious to see anyone who so quickly earned his friends' approval, and he wanted to puzzle out his confused memories of her.
Alanna had kindly altered the borrowed clothing, so at least it fit. He dressed slowly, still a little shaky, and even made a credible attempt at shaving before leaving the tent and blinking in the bright light outside. He remembered how everything had spun and blurred, before, and smiled wryly to himself; at least Alanna's healing had shifted the last of the drugs from his system, leaving him with what felt like a hangover for a few hours before it had cleared.
Numair padded slowly over to where the two were sitting mending tack, oddly self-conscious; he never liked meeting new people, and they had met under very strange circumstances indeed. Onua smiled to see him up, asking how he'd managed to get hold of boots the right size and offering him tea in the same breath; he couldn't help smiling at his friend.
Sipping tea slowly, he talked with Onua for a few moments, glancing at Daine from the corner of his eye; she seemed as shy as he was, which almost made him laugh at himself. Setting the tea down, he moved forward to help her with the leather she was mending; she thanked him so softly he barely heard her, and blushed as well. Odd that she should be so nervous of him... but then, she had thought him a different species until a couple of days ago. "You look different," he told her impulsively; she looked up sharply, revealing bright grey-blue eyes.
"What?"
He smiled. "You were a lot bigger." It made her grin, which had been the point; besides, if she couldn't tolerate his feeble jokes, it would be a long trip to Corus. She seemed to relax a little.
"Seems to me you was a bit smaller, now I think of it," she answered quietly, the Gallan accent stronger than he had expected, and he smiled as he handed the strap back to her and moved to sit back on the log near Onua.
"I'd be dead if it weren't for you," he commented, watching her thoughtfully, remembering the vague, confused impressions he had had of her. "You're called Daine?" She nodded, and he picked up his tea once more. "I'm glad to meet you, Daine. I'm Numair Salmalín."
"I thought it was Arram."
He glanced at Onua, who nodded fractionally; she trusted Daine. That was good enough for him, although it made him a little uneasy; he looked back at the girl. "Arram's my boyhood name. I go by Numair now."
She looked a little puzzled, but took the hint. "The honour's mine, Master Numair." After a moment, curiosity overcame shyness. "Why didn't you change back?"
"I was stuck," he admitted ruefully, smiling wryly.
"Stuck?"
He nodded, noticing Onua listening as well. "When Sinthya caught me, his mage fed me drugs. I panicked, and shape-shifted. I didn't remember I was full of all the drugs it takes to knock out somebody my size."
"You're lucky they didn't kill you," Onua told him tartly; not for the first time, either.
"You're right," he agreed, also not for the first time. "By the time you found me, I couldn't tell ground from air any more," he added, looking back at Daine. "The food you offered? I didn't know it was food. Not that I was able to keep anything down." Onua had taken an almost perverse delight in telling him that he'd thrown up repeatedly, amongst other things. He sipped his tea. "It'll be a long time before I take hawk shape again."
"That's why you had funny eyes," Daine breathed. "And that's why you made me dizzy."
"I wanted to ask you about that," Numair said slowly, thinking aloud. "Onua says you got sick, disorientated. I can't understand how. She says you don't have the Gift – "
"Odd's bobs!" she snapped, startling him with the sudden anger in her voice. "I don't see why this Gift is so grand. It comes and goes. You can't do too much at once, and you need all kinds of rules. It's more trouble than it's worth." She stood abruptly. "But whenever I turn 'round, somebody asks if I have it. I'm good with animals – isn't that enough?" He was further disturbed to see that she was crying as she stormed off, and looked blankly at Onua in some confusion.
"What did I say?" he asked, bewildered.
His friend sighed and put down the tack she had been mending. "Her mother was a hedgewitch. She and Daine's grandfather were killed by raiders in January. She wanted Daine to have the Gift, not just whatever she has with animals. Fool woman kept testing her, as if she thought the girl would develop it overnight. I'd better go after her."
He winced. "No – when she cools off, I'll go." Otherwise there would be no chance of making friends. "You and Alanna were right," he continued. "She has real power. Not the Gift, though." Absently he picked up a couple of twigs, tapping one against the other, thinking. "It's wild magic, pure and simple. She's brimming with it. I've never seen a human with so much." She'd glowed when he'd first seen her, burning with inner fire.
"You felt it, then?"
He smiled. "I felt it when I was a bird, half-crazy and dying." Not that he'd realised what it was he was feeling at the time. Just a vague sense of... kinship, almost, and the knowledge that this girl would never harm an animal.
Onua sighed, the familiar half-exasperated sound he often heard from his friends. "Be careful with her, Arram," she warned him. "She's hurting."
"I will," he promised; he'd been able to see that for himself, and his words hadn't helped even if he hadn't meant any harm. He stood up, groaning at the stiffness in his muscles, and looked down at her. "Use Numair, will you? I know you trust Daine, but there's no telling who else might overhear. I still have enemies in Carthak who'd like to know where I am."
She made a face at him. "You're right – Numair."
He grinned despite himself. "Come on – what great sorcerer has a name like Arram Draper?" he asked mockingly. "I have to have a name to fit my calling, don't you think?" That was only a small part of the reason for the name change, of course, but back in his stupid days – well, more stupid than he was now, at least – it had been something he'd seriously considered.
"All mages are Players at heart, I swear," she answered. "Can't do magic unless you have all kinds of robes and props and a big audience to cheer you." And this from a woman with the Gift herself. Numair smiled wryly at her and wandered into the trees after Daine.
The girl was lying on the ground at eye level with a woodchuck, apparently lost in the animal's chatter. He watched, trying to judge how best to approach this; she burned with wild magic, but from what he'd been able to piece together she had no idea what it was. Not many people did, admittedly, but it seemed odd that she could be so powerful and not even realise that it was magic at all. The woodchuck trotted off, and he walked forward slowly. "He seemed to have a lot to say."
Daine answered absently, obviously not paying attention. "Oh, it's the usual spring talk. Freshening up the burrow, getting nice-smelling leaves. I told him where to find some wild mint." She stopped talking abruptly, and he saw her blush. "Master Numair, I – "
He couldn't help but smile. "No offense taken – if you stop calling me 'Master'. If I'm to help with the ponies the rest of the way, we may as well use first names."
She relaxed a little. "Is Onua mad at me? For losing my temper?"
He shook his head, about to say that of course she wasn't; the motion caused the tie that held his hair back to fall, and he cursed softly, half-laughing. "Gods bless it..."
It served him right for having long hair, really. He generally lost the hair tie at least once a day. Shaking his head wryly, he began searching the leaf litter, and Daine came to help him, answering his smile with one of her own. Eventually, they found it, and the last edge of nervous tension between them had dissolved as they turned to walk back to camp.
"It's easier if you wet it before using it on your hair," she told him. "When it dries, then it shrinks."
"Good advice. Your hair gives you trouble?" It was curlier than his own, a rarity in this part of the world.
"Oh, Goddess, my hair's so dratted thick I don't even bother with ties," she answered, then giggled, the first time he'd heard her laugh. "This is a very strange conversation we're having."
She'd have to get used to that if she spent any time with him. Numair grinned at her. "Boys worry just as much about their looks as girls do," he confided. "We only hide it better."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously," he assured her, trying not to laugh. This had to be the strangest way he'd ever made friends with someone. "You should see the lotions I put on my hair to get it to behave."
Two days later, morning found him feeling much more like himself; his arm was a little stiff still, but it no longer hurt, and his mind was clear. Just as well, really; it was a very long walk back to Corus, and he was definitely too tall to ride one of the ponies. To his amusement, not only was Onua watching him constantly but so was Daine; checking her patient was an ingrained habit, he suspected, no matter what shape he was in.
The day drifted past in simple conversation; it was something of a relief to just talk for a while without needing to think about state secrets or potential disasters. Strangely, Daine was easy to talk to, once she forgot to be shy; he managed to make her laugh a few times, and in the afternoon dug some pebbles from the edge of the path to juggle with – showing off, really, although he wasn't sure why. He'd never made friends with someone so easily before. Onua trusted her, and that was a large part of it, but Numair was still surprised to realise late in the day that he trusted her as well; there was something about her, a kind of strength he liked, and shadows of old pain in her eyes that his stupid jokes didn't quite remove.
He was feeling better physically too, some of his reserves returning to him, enough so that when they made camp and he noticed Daine having problems with the fire he wandered over to help.
"How does it go?" he asked, watching the tiny sparks on the wood flare and die, hearing the irritation in her voice as she responded.
"Gods bless it!"
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, they must've had rain here yesterday. Everything's damp."
"Sit back," he warned her, not sure of his control while he was this weak; she did as he asked and he looked at the pile of wood, concentrating briefly, rewarded with fire blossoming in the pile of tinder. Startled, she scrambled to add wood before it went out again.
"But you didn't point, or make circles, or chant anything – " she said, confused.
Numair shrugged. "Some people need those things. I don't," he replied matter-of-factly, wondering what her reaction would be. His strength scared people, sometimes, the ones who knew enough about the Gift to realise just how unusual it was. Her gasp seemed more mocking than anything else, though.
"Well, excuse me for breathing!"
It made him laugh, which brought a grin to her face. "What – did they have to enact fire-making rituals before anything would burn, where you came from?" he asked teasingly.
Just like that, the laughter left her face, her expression closing down, and he realised he'd said something wrong again. "Things burned easy back home," she said flatly, her voice as closed as her eyes. "Real easy." Standing, she walked away; he watched her for a moment, wondering just what had happened to her, when sudden pain flared in his arm and made him yelp. Her pony had bitten him, quite hard. Turning his head, he glared at the mare.
"Stop that, or I'll light a fire under your tail," he threatened, reasonably certain that she would understand him; she seemed to understand everything said to her that he'd seen. Cloud's teeth dug in harder for a moment, making him wince – she would have to pick the arm that had been broken and was still healing – before she let go and moved a step away, suddenly looking innocent.
Looking away from the pony, he saw Onua nearby, grooming one of the other animals. "It was going so well," his friend said softly, her tone letting him know that she wasn't sure what he'd said wrong this time. "She laughed."
He rubbed his arm, rolling up his sleeve to see that the pony had broken the skin; not much comfort to know that she could have rebroken the bone but had chosen not to. It wasn't as if he'd said something wrong deliberately, after all. Giving the grey a final glare, he looked back at Onua. "She'll laugh again." So, fire had been involved somehow? He'd remember that next time.
Please keep reviewing. It really does mean a lot to me to see that people like my writing. And if you don't like it, I need to know that, too.
Loten.