"Abras, hey, of course I want to stay." She sits on the side of the bed and strokes his hair. "Shh. You can sleep. If you do have any nightmares, Gemma showed me how to wake you in a way that shouldn't scare you or hurt so much – Mardic tried to Mindtouch and that was a bad idea because your Gifts are injured. Mardic's fine, by the way, he's just a bit shaken up and has some bruises but he's not badly hurt or anything." 

"Tha'ss good." Poor Mardic, he didn't ask for any of this shit . . . "Tell 'im I'm sorry . . ." Zzzzzz.

...It's an unknown length of time later and there's a hand gripping his, a worried voice gradually coming into focus as it drags him up from sleep. 

"...to drug him like this?" Familiar voice, definitely. "I guess it'll help for this. Lance wants me to test his Gifts properly – said he's not as practiced and isn't sure he picked up all of them. And wants my opinion on his mage-gift, said he sort of couldn't believe his Othersenses about it– oh, Abras, are you awake? It's me. Savil. I just got back." She sounds exhausted and sad - no, it isn't just in her voice, he's feeling her emotions directly. 

"Heyyyy," he drags himself consciousness-ward. "Sorry about . . . everything. Also I'm reading your mind again. Feelings. Those things. I'll stop." Don't do anything, don't feel anything, gotta keep his mind in his head and not anyone else's head.

"...No, that's on me." Savil...does something...and the sense of her feelings cuts off. "Wasn't shielding properly, sorry, I'm, um, pretty tired. Gate." Her voice is a bit blurred around the edges. "Not your fault. Abras, I'm–" and her voice cracks, "I'm so sorry, I - wasn't fast enough...Tylendel..." He's never heard so much emotion in her voice before. "It was - my job - to keep you safe - and I failed." 

Noooo, Savil is supposed to be the competent unflappable one, and hearing Tylendel's name is like a blow to the head. Don't do anything don't do anything don'tdoanything. "I'm sorry too." He should be saying it's okay, but it's NOT and he doesn't want to say it is. Don't do anything.

Savil doesn’t answer, just silently squeezes his hand.

"Abras," she says finally. "I need to check your Gifts, all right? Lancir said it was very painful for you when he tried. I ought to be able to do it more gently, I think, and you've had some pain medicine. Gemma really wasn't comfortable putting you under with her Gift when you've already got argonel in your system, and I'll get a better look if you can manage to be awake for it. May I try?" Another squeeze. "You can just say if it's too much and I'll stop." 

"Go ahead." He clenches his teeth, braces himself for quite a lot of pain, and fixes his mind on how much he needs to not do anything.

Savil closes her eyes and lays two fingers on his forehead.

It’s... Well, it does hurt, but less than he’s expecting. She’s lightly touching the hurt places, not poking them, and the drug still has him limp and half-numb.

At one point she whistles softly to herself, but she doesn’t explain and keeps going.

”Done,” she says finally, and squeezes his shoulder. “Abras, kechara, you did so well. I’m proud of you.”

Kechara is what she used to call Tylendel, sometimes. It’s Tayledras. Means something like ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’. She’s never said it to Abras before.

Hearing her say it to him (because Tylendel is DEAD) makes him start crying again. He tries to angle his head so she doesn't see, but it's clear enough in his voice when he says "Thanks." (And she shouldn't be proud of him, all he's done is get captured and participate incompetently in his own rescue and get Tylendel killed (he's DEAD) and himself injured and Mardic injured. But if she's going to say nice things because he's hurt and she feels sorry for him, then that's nice of her and he won't bring it up.)

If Savil notices that he's crying, she doesn't acknowledge it. 

"...You've got quite the list of Gifts," she says after a while. "You'll be a mage – stronger potential than me, can't tell how much stronger yet. Rest are - hmm, you've got strong Mindspeech, and moderate Empathy, seems you've already noticed. Fetching. Farsight. Foresight. Bit of Firestarting, Healing, even a touch of Bardic. Never seen that many active at once before. Must all be pretty confusing in your head right now. But... You're going to be incredible, once we've got you healed up and trained." 

She strokes his hair. "Don't worry about it now. Think you can manage to eat some soup?" 

Wow, that's a lot of magic. Abras remembers thinking it would be wonderful to have magic, back when Tylendel wasn't DEAD and things could be wonderful. But he got it on accident and can't use it right so he has to not do anything. "Yeah, okay," he answers.

And Lissa's there again, she helps him sit up against a stack of pillows and sits beside him so he can't topple sideways, and puts a tray across his lap and a spoon in his hand. "Here - just tell me if you need help, all right?" 

He nods, and focuses on keeping his hands steady so he can eat without someone else having to help him. It's embarrassingly slow going and he has to brace his spoon arm on his leg and pay active attention to holding his head upright, but he can do it.

After a few spoonfuls, it occurs to him that magic draws on the energy the body gets from food, and that the more he eats the worse any upcoming magical screw-ups will get. That makes soup seem a lot less worth the effort. He puts the spoon back in the bowl and lets his head fall back into the pillows again.

"Abras, hey, you've got to eat a little more than that." Lissa takes the spoon and attempts to feed him another few mouthfuls. "...All right, I know you're really sleepy, but Shavri said I had to at least get some fluids into you. Drink this water and then I'll let you sleep?" She wraps his fingers around a cup and then puts her hand over his and lifts it to his lips. 

Eating a little more soup is less effort than explaining why he shouldn't. Water is fine; he drinks as much as he can manage and with Lissa's help doesn't even spill it. Now he can go back to not doing anything until that turns into being asleep, yes?

...That seems to be the plan, yes. Lissa helps him lie down and arranges pillows and asks if he's comfortable, and then she sits quietly beside him, he can sort of feel her presence even though there's some sort of barrier on him and he can't quite sense her thoughts. 

Lissa's presence is comforting. But it's also unintentional magic and he shouldn't be doing that. He tries to squash whatever is doing it, or pull it back into himself, or something, without giving any sign that he's doing that.

It's hard to know whether or not squashing or pulling it helps, or whether Lissa's presence just goes away because he falls asleep a minute or two later. 

...After this point, things start to get repetitive. It's hard to keep track of time, or even of how many times he's been gently prodded awake; the drug makes him foggy and it's probably doing something to his memory too. Sometimes there's curtain-muffled light from the window, sometimes only the glow of candles and embers in the fireplace. Sometimes Lissa is there; sometimes it's Savil, or Mardic, or Donni, or Savil's Healer friend Andrel. They wake him and ask if he needs to use the chamberpot – which he generally does, they're making him drink a lot of fluids – and then whoever is there props him up and coaxes him to eat or, failing that, at least drink some broth. Then they'll ask how bad the pain is, and if he complains of it give him another dose of argonel, and then tuck him in, and usually it isn't long before the world goes away again. 

Abras hates not being able to think, but the drugs make it harder to feel the grief, and they do seem to be helping him not start any more fires so it's probably for the best that he keep taking it every time they offer. He tries to stay awake a little longer each time, not that he has much time-sense to tell how he's doing, and eats as little as he thinks he can get by on, and practices holding his mind very still and not doing anything.

Waking up is harder this time for some reason. Getting up to relieve himself is mysteriously a lot harder. It must be night, there’s only dim firelight and a candle by the door. Lissa is supporting him; her face swims in the foggy near-darkness as she hauls him back to bed, yawns, and halfheartedly coaxes him on the matter of soup before giving up. 

She strokes his hair. “Abras, are you hurting? I’ve got a dose of the pain medicine if you need it.”

"Yeh," he says on autopilot, then "whysss errything so . . . so . . . I cn't wake up righ." He goes "eeeenhhhh" instead of talking more because talking is too hard.

"...That does not make me feel like you need more pain medicine." Lissa grabs his shoulder as he starts to slide sideways. "Abras, hey, can you try to wake up a bit more? You didn't eat anything last time either. Come on." Pause. "Maybe some light will help?"

She jams a pillow to hold him up, then goes away. It gets brighter, in a flickery candle-y way. 

Okay. Consciousness. He needs to be conscious. Come on brain, don't be such a useless pile of mud . . .

"Abras, hey, talk to me. Are you feeling all right?"