Very sorry about not posting last week! I was busy and had writer's block. This chapter is a bit shorter than the rest, since I was also busy this weekend, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.
"Show me Virion Sinra," Zarina practically shouted at her Imparter. Her mom was laying on the floor with her face hidden, unmoving. As she waited for the family Healer to pick up, she collapsed onto her knees. Using one hand, Zarina grabbed her mom's wrist which, thankfully, she could feel a pulse from.
"Hello?" the Healer's voice said, causing Zarina to jump. She positioned the Imparter so that both her mom and herself could be seen by Virion.
"Hi, I'm calling to tell you about my mom. She…I got out of control with my Charger ability and hit her. And it may have hit her right where her heart is?" Virion widened her eyes.
"Okay, I'll be right over." Zarina put away her Imparter and sat back down at the dining table, wringing her hands in an attempt to distract herself from everything that had just happened. She's not going to die, right? Never in her lifetime had she ever heard of anyone who'd died. The Wanderling Woods didn't have many trees, and she'd never been there before. I'd never be able to forgive myself.
Lost in thought, Zarina barely reacted when Virion appeared until the Healer was practically shouting in her face.
"Zarina! Hello?"
"Oh! Sorry," she muttered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Virion dismissed her apology, dropping down to her knees, flicking her hands to flash light around where Zarina had hit her mother with lightning.
"It looks like your mother will mostly be fine," Virion reported, still kneeling in front of Zarina's mom. "However, before you relax," she added, holding up a hand, "she still needs to rest for about a day. And I doubt she'll be very happy with you when she wakes up. For now, help me get her into bed, and then I'll update your father on the situation." Zarina nodded, dutifully helping Virion carry her mother up to her bedroom, where they laid her down and tucked her underneath the blankets.
"Alright," Virion said after they'd also prepared a tray of Youth, lushberry juice, and a whole assortment of other delectable elvin foods. "I'm going to go tell your father everything that's happened."
Zarina couldn't stand it. She was going to explode if she didn't hear anything soon. Her father had told her to wait in her room while the adults talked, but she couldn't hear anything when she pressed her ear against her bedroom door. It was tempting to open it and listen from the top of the stairs, but she knew that both would be listening for that to happen.
After a while of fidgeting with her hands, she ended up working on some more of her homework. She decided to start by finishing the notes for the Multispeciesial studies essay, and began writing the essay for The Universe. The essay on the Gnomes wouldn't be as hard, since she interacted with them every day, so she put that off until she was finished with all her other homework.
It didn't take long for her dad to call her down. Zarina was only a few paragraphs into her Universe essay when it happened.
"Zarina!" she heard him call, startling her in the middle of the sentence. Zarina quickly completed the sentence, not wanting to lose her train of thought and then have to scratch the sentence later, before jumping up from her desk and racing down the stairs.
"What did you decide?" Zarina asked breathlessly when she arrived in front of her dad and Virion, who were standing with identical emotionless expressions on their faces.
"We're going to wait until your mother wakes up, but we do know that there will be some sort of consequence for this," her dad said sternly. "You're fourteen; you should be able to control your powers enough to prevent this sort of situation from happening. You'll need to practice your ability outside of school, and be very kind to your mother." Rina considered retorting with a sharp comment, but ultimately decided against it. She definitely deserved any punishment her parents gave her.
Rina's mom woke up a few hours later, just as the sun began to set. She was justifiably very angry, and decided on her full punishment almost immediately. Zarina would have her Imparter taken away until she was proven trustworthy; couldn't have any sort of contact with Lyrei Torven, at school or outside of school; would need extra practice for her Charging ability; and had to receive lessons on controlling her temper by her parents.
"What!" Zarina stood frozen in front of her parents' bed, where her mom was laying propped upright by a pile of pillows. Her mother frowned, leaning forward.
"Zarina. You know better than this. These punishments are very fair, and proportional to your actions. Clearly, you need to work on both your control of your ability, and your temper, and the fact that you are best friends with a Talentless obviously has tainted your decision-making." She laid back down, gesturing towards the door for Zarina to leave.