Abras looks up at the new person, from an angle that doesn't require exposing more than an eye and a bit of nose out from under the cloak.

The new person comes closer, kneels. "What have we here, sister?" 

"My nephew," Savil says to him, also in the Tayledras tongue, voice flat with exhaustion. "A child in need of your aid." 

The strange person reaches out to brush Abras' forehead with two fingers – and then wrenches his hand back as though burned. "Aiii!" he yelps, a sound that needs no translation. "Moondance, ashke, come here. You must see this." 

(Ashke is the only word that Abras understands.) 

Abras flinches at the man's yelp; he doesn't think he did anything but he seems to have hurt him somehow? He wishes he spoke this language so he would have any clue what was happening.

Another stranger comes into view. Same long white hair, same ice-blue eyes and exotic robes, but his features are less foreign. He also seems much younger, though it's hard to judge the age of either of them. 

He lays a hand on Abras' forehead...and keeps it there, without much reaction other than a soft indrawn breath.

–And the pain subsides a little. Not all the way, but it's the first time anything except the drugs has helped. 

The man says some more words in the foreign tongue, and then trails off, his face going oddly blank. 

"Pawn he is and pawn he has been…" Still in the foreign tongue, but his voice drops half an octave, going strange and toneless. "Pawn to what he is and will be, what he wills not to see, but it matters not, the path is laid and the game is in play, and–" He breaks off. "Starwind. I saw something. Not yet clear." 

Then he looks into Abras' eyes, and something happens, and everything fades out into peaceful, painless dark. 

Warm darkness, the sense of time passing. Music, somehow seen and felt as well, a green-gold ribbon that soothes the pain wherever it touches. In between the darkness, vague dreams of gentle hands, a comfortable bed surrounded by green, cool water and food brought to his lips. 

And then the ice comes. 

He stands in a frozen canyon, walls around him carved by magic, facing an army, remembering sending Tylendel to safety...

He can't send Tylendel away because Tylendel is DEAD. Something bad happened the last time he was here but he's never been here before. It ought to be frustrating how little sense any of it makes, but the sense of calm and peace and resignation lies on top of all of it, blurring the distinction like the snow obscures the shapes of things beneath it.

And the man at the head of the army steps forward, his mage-aura radiating power like heat-shimmer. He pushes back the hood of his cloak. Handsome face, dark hair brushing his shoulders, black eyes as calm and unreadable as a deep still pool of water. 

"Herald-Mage Abras," the mage says. 

"Leareth," Abras hears himself say, and his hands lift, lightning crackling from his fingers, poised to strike–

Wait, no, he is Not supposed to do magic and definitely not supposed to throw lightning. He simultaneously tries to attack and to prevent himself from attacking, and wrenches himself out of the familiar dream and into unfamiliar reality.

His second thought is "Oh, it was the ice dream again," but his first is the wondrous realization that he isn't in pain. It's a vast empty space in his mind. Not like the sucking void of Tylendel being DEAD, more like a clear field waiting for thoughts to move in. He opens his eyes and takes a look around.

He's lying on a very soft bed, apparently naked under a thin blanket. The air is balmy-warm, like the perfect kind of summer day. For a moment it seems like the bed is inside a tree, but no – it's a dwelling of some kind, just one made mostly of a variety of different plants. The roof is made of netting, woven through with vines. The walls have trellises that carry yet more plants, and enormous potted ferns around the edges; the room is roundish with no corners. 

"Abras. Good to see you awake." It's the younger stranger again, sitting at Abras' bedside with a crystal flute in one hand; this time, he's speaking in heavily-accented Valdemaran. With his jewel-toned robes, waist-length white hair falling into his lap, he looks both very foreign and exactly matched to his surroundings.

"I am called Moondance," he adds. "I have been your Healer. Last week, you were unconscious. How do you feel?" 

"It doesn't hurt. I can still think and it doesn't hurt!" He wonders if he could stand up, and in the resulting introspection discovers he's thirsty. "Also I'm thirsty!" he says, in the same tone of announcing an exciting discovery.

Moondance chuckles. "Not surprising. I help you sit up, and drink? And then maybe we see if you might walk to hot pool? Not far."

He gestures vaguely in the direction of a curtain of vines hanging in place of a door, then scoots his stool closer, pours some water from a crystal jug on a side table into a wooden cup, and holds out his arm for Abras to grip if he wants. 

Abras: can sit up! Can drink! Can, with some finagling, get out of bed! He moves like a newborn colt, all his limbs unfamiliar and untrustworthy and needing to be kept in line with copious mental bookkeeping. Moondance's arm is a big help.

Moondance puts a robe on him – green silk and almost weightless – and then smiles and says encouraging things as he walks Abras out through the curtain, steadying him every time he starts to lose his balance. 

Outside is just as strange and wonderful as the inside! Huge trees rear up on either side, trunks as thick across as a man's height. There's a sort of stone patio, and it holds a large, steaming pool that seems to be carved out of the rock itself. Several tiered pools, actually; there's a tiny one where the steaming, faintly milky water bubbles up, a small but deep pool that it spills into, a ledge where it trickles over into a lower pool that's shallower but wider, and then another ledge where it drains away into a little stream.

"Here," Moondance says brightly. He helps Abras ease himself down. "For washing." He points at the lower upper pool. "For soaking after." The lower pool. "Soap here. Cloth to dry." More pointing at the relevant items. "You can manage while I bring food?" 

He makes sure he's stably positioned and can reach the soap and towel, then nods. "Yes, thank you."

Cleaning himself is a relief, and the scenery is beautiful. Some of these trees must be hundreds of years old, maybe a thousand. He wishes he could show it to 'Lendel but he's DEAD no, gods, don't think about it, just focus on getting from one moment to the next.

At some point, a white shape canters over. :Chosen?: Her mindvoice is bouncy with delight as she kneels and settles next to the pool. :It's wonderful to see you lucid. How are you?:

"Yfandes!" Her delight is infectious, and anyway he shouldn't sit around wasting his new health on being sad.  "I'm so much more functional now, Moondance is a genius. I want to learn how he did it. How are you and Savil?"

:I'm well. I missed you, is all. Savil has been getting so much sleep, it's wonderful: She nuzzles at his hair. :Moondance is a Healing-Adept, which means he has a special set of Gifts. I don't think you could learn to do the same thing, but you could certainly ask, I'm sure he would enjoy filling you in:  

"I want to learn whatever I can. Starting with how to control my Gifts. Will we be staying here until I can do that, or going back to Haven soon? I missed a lot of the planning."

:Plan is that you'll stay here for training: Yfandes sends. :Starwind – he's Moondance's partner – is a highly skilled mage and teacher, and in general they're better placed here to work with strong Gifts that, er, aren't exactly under control yet. They have a lot more Adept-potential mages, and better-protected Work Rooms: 

"That's good. When do I start?" He's nervous about it, for sure, but it's the kind of nervousness where the uncertainty is worse than the actual things he's worried about and the only cure is to get it out of the way as soon as possible. He considers suggesting that he should sleep in one of the Work-Rooms in case he does something in his sleep, but probably people need those rooms at night sometimes.

:So eager!: Yfandes blows affectionately into his hair. :Get out of the water and put your robe on – Moondance is headed back, and he's going to run you through how to center and ground and shield today. This will make you a lot safer to be around others. Then I believe he wants you to focus on eating and regaining your strength for a few days, and you'll start lessons with Starwind once he deems you well enough: 

"Learning to shield will be good." He hauls himself out of the pool--he's been in much more embarrassing situations so often lately, and it's not like 'fandes isn't also naked--towels off, and gets the robe on.