Savil reacts instantly, flinging up a hemispherical barrier-shield without even moving her hands. The steam and shards of ceramic bounce from it harmlessly. 

Withen makes a surprised 'gack!' sound, from surprise rather than pain, tries to step back, and trips and falls on his rear. 

Lissa is the first to reach her brother. "Oh, gods, Abras, are you - please wake up - talk to me - please be all right..." 

"Lissa--gods--" he trails off into a moan of pain. He's pretty sure he's done magic again (stupid stupid careless stupid) but he's in too much pain to lift his head or open his eyes and see how bad it is this time.

"It's fine, we're all fine – Father deserved the scare but he's not hurt. Shh, it's all right...just try to relax..." She scoops him into her arms and lifts him like it's no effort at all, and starts walking. 

"Savil!" she calls out, not addressing him but painfully close to his ear. "I'll get him back in bed – can you call one of the Healers?" 

He flinches at the loud noise, but Lissa has a solid grip. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't--" he wants to say he didn't mean to, but he sort of did, didn't he, if he hadn't been angry enough to do something he wouldn't've done it. "Nobody's hurt?"

"Nobody's hurt. Savil shielded. Should've seen Father's face, though, it was priceless." A door creaks and slams and the light changes; they must be inside. "You just took out some old watering can. Probably had it coming too." Lissa chuckles forcedly at her own halfhearted joke. Her grip is solid, but she's trembling a bit as she lays him down in the bed, gently extracts his arms from the robe's sleeves as though undressing a toddler, and tucks the covers into place.

"Relax," she says again. "Just rest. It's all right to sleep now, I think." 

He gets out a mumbled "tell Savil thank you" and then curls into a ball and flees consciousness like it's chasing him with an axe. It actually takes him a while to fall all the way asleep; the headache keeps waking him up partway.

When he wakes up, the headache is still there, but at least it's dark and quiet. Savil's there; he can faintly feel her, and the barrier over him somehow has the 'flavour' of her as well. 

"...Abras?" Savil thoughtfully keeps her voice soft. "You awake? How are you feeling? Er, sit up if you can, you need to drink some water again." 

"Savil." Okay, sitting up. Uncurl, check. Roll onto back, check. Push himself upright, oh shit that involves his head changing angles ow ow check. Opening his eyes?Ehhh, better skip it. "Sorry about, um, earlier."

"Hey." Her hand brushes his hair, which is both nice and going too near the headachy part for comfort. "My brother had it coming – I told him you'd likely pick up his thoughts and feelings, I asked him if he could control himself for five minutes, he promised me he could but clearly he has a different idea of what that means than I do. So I–" brief hesitation, hint of sheepishness, "–checked his surface thoughts myself. As soon as I'd dealt with the, um, exploding watering-can. He deserved a slap to the head; I don't blame you for how you reacted at all. Wish I could've gotten away with it, actually."

She strokes his hair for a moment in silence, then takes his hand and wraps it around a cup. "Drink that. And listen – we really, really need to teach you some basic control. Think you're feeling well enough now to try a short lesson?" 

"I shouldn't even have been reading his thoughts. And a lesson would be good, please." He feels like shit, but he's going to feel like shit until he stops feeling like shit or someone offers him argonel again and he's proven he can't be trusted with argonel and regardless he really needs to learn control. He's only been out of his drugged stupor for a handful of hours and he's already fucked up again, he's not going to be safe to have around until he learns to deal with his own shit.

"All right. I'm going to walk you through how to centre and ground – if you can get a handle on that, it'll already help with the accidental magic, and it's the prerequisite for learning to hold your own shields. I know you're not reading thoughts on purpose – newly-awakened Gifts are often very sensitive like that, and us putting our shields on you isn't as effective. Anyway. I want you to focus on your breathing. Notice how the air moves – in your nostrils...your throat...your chest or stomach..." 

Most of his awareness of his body is awareness of the ways it hurts, but the sensations of breathing are there, subtle and hard to hold onto. His focus flits between his throat and his chest and his diaphragm and pain, and he tries to nod but nope that involves moving his head so how about he just says "Mhm" and then goes looking for his breathing again.

"Very good. Now, if you pay close attention, there should be a place, it might be in your chest, or your gut, or somewhere else, that doesn't move. Find the still place and hold onto it." 

Lots of parts of him aren't moving. His limbs are all not moving. He tries to check if his chest isn't moving and now he can feel his heartbeat vibrating his whole body and it is Too Loud and he loses track of his breathing and has to start over.

"Getting anywhere?" Savil says after a while. 

"Hmm? Uh, I don't think I know how to tell what the still place is."

"Hmm." She doesn't seem annoyed but she does seem worried. "...Are you feeling ill?" she guesses finally. "I know when I'm really sick, I have a hell of a time centering and ground, and it's already nearly instinct for me. Unfortunately I think painkillers will make it worse rather than better; you were incredibly out of it before, this is the most lucid you've been in days."

Sigh. "You can stop now. Just the focusing on your breathing probably will help, but it's not enough to teach you to shield. I need to think about what to do." 

He focuses on his breathing but his thoughts keep wandering to "I need to think about what to do". Eventually he says, "I have an idea. I hope it's a bad one."

"...Do go on, lad. I'm taking any ideas at this point." 

"Um. Okay, so I really do want to learn control and learn to be a Herald and stuff. And I'm willing to work on it. This isn't me trying to get out of practicing." He takes a deep breath. "But if it turns out I can't do it. It might be safer for everyone. If. Um. If someone burned out my Gifts. Except it would be really unfair to Yfandes because that's the whole reason she Chose me and I really want to try everything else first and only do that if there's no other way to make me safe to be around." And also he wants to do magic, he wants to be a Herald and help Valdemar and be useful and get good at something, but that seems like a ridiculous thing to claim when he can't even breathe right.

Savil sucks in her breath. She doesn't, immediately, respond in any way. 

"Thank you for sharing your bad idea," she says finally. "It's a good principle of problem-solving, to share anything we think of. I...don't see any world where we resort to that, ke'chara. At the very worst, we keep you drugged senseless for long enough that your channels heal and you're not so uncomfortable. Oh, hmm – actually, I ought to check on your channels again. You've had nearly a week of resting them. Is it all right if I have a look? I'll be very gentle." 

Abras lets out a sigh of relief when she says she's not going to burn out his Gifts, then takes a moment to brace himself. "Thanks. And yes, you can look."

Savil closes her eyes and then looks. 

It hurts quite a lot – more than the last time, actually, probably because there are fewer drugs in his system.