Abras has never felt this helpless. He twists his hands in the ropes, but all it does is strain bones and muscles he can barely feel. 

Gods, he thinks, I wish Lendel was here! No, I don't, then he'd be trapped too, but at least I wouldn't be alone. He reaches inside himself for the feeling of his Lifebond, trying to draw strength from it.

...And then there's a thud, a flash of light, and a Companion crashing through the door, bowling the two guards over. It must be Gala because Tylendel is on her back, still in sleeping-clothes, he flings a levinbolt and misses and the mage starts to turn and it's too late, Gala's hooves slam into him and he goes flying into a haybale. Before he can rise, a fireball hits him in the face–

Things happen very quickly for a while. Abras can feel the attacks striking at Tylendel's shields, but by the time he can see straight again, Tylendel is already rising from the last fallen body, dagger wet with blood. He makes his way over a bit unsteadily, hugs Abras tightly, and then steps back and makes sure Abras is looking him in the eye before he reaches in to cut away the gag.

"Gods, ashke, are you all right? Did he hurt you?" He looks furious. It's practically rolling off him in waves. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry it took me this long to find you." 

"I'm alright, you were fast enough, thank you--we have to get out of here--" he doesn't sound alright, he's shaking with what little range of motion he has, but he's going to be alright now, because 'Lendel's here and because he has to be alright, has to not slow them down.

"I know, listen, there're wyrsa out there, Pelagirs monsters – Savil's back there somewhere holding them off with Mardic and Donni, I felt you and split off to come find you. Figure the mage must've brought them in. We have to move." 'Lendel cuts through the ropes on Abras' wrists and ankles, slightly nicking his skin in haste. "Can you stand?" 

"Shit--I think so--" he gets his feet under him, though it feels like trying to balance on a pair of tree branches that only intermittently exist. "Which way?"

"Gala can carry both of us – back to Savil, I think, she's–" 'Lendel points vaguely. "Come on, up, you sit in front of me and I'll help you stay on–" Gala knees, and 'Lendel helps Abras wrestle his leg over the saddle. "Gods, you're bleeding – they hit your head?" 

Abras sits on Gala like a sack of potatoes and holds onto the front edge of her saddle. "It's just a cut." He tries to wipe the blood away, wincing, but just ends up smearing it across more of his face. He stares in the direction 'Lendel pointed, hoping to see some sign of friends and none of Pelagirs monsters.

Mostly he just sees trees, dimly – it's pretty dark. 

'Lendel scrambles up behind Abras, gripping him tightly. "Good, Savil is that wa– Gods!" Gala bolts forward, nearly dislodging both of them, but 'Lendel hangs on and now they're galloping through a forest with only a bit of moonlight to show the trees. Gala somehow manages to avoid running headlong into any, but a branch whacks Abras in the face before he can dodge. 

Well, now he's bleeding from the face in two spots. And also got whacked in the eye and can't convince himself to open it, so he can see even less. At least he can cling to Gala, try to make it as easy as possible for her to run without flinging him off.

And then Gala plants all four hooves and skids to a stop, almost but not quite unseating him. There's a...ruined cottage? Stone building, not very large, gaping doorway and pool of darkness inside, windows like missing teeth. The roof's gone and the top of the wall is crumbled on one corner, but it's still standing. 

:Get off: The voice in his head is female, and stressed. It has to be Gala; she's never spoken into his mind before. :Go in there and I'll hold them off: 

He knew Companions could speak to people other than their Heralds but he hadn't expected to ever be involved in enough Serious Business to experience it. He slides off Gala, manages to stumble onto the ground instead of flopping on it, takes a step toward the ruined cottage and then looks back to see if Tylendel is coming too.

Tylendel, halfway through slipping down from Gala's saddle, gasps and then throws out a hand and sends a levinbolt into the darkness. From its brief light, Abras can see what looks like half a dozen black, scaly, sinuous, wrong-looking creatures rushing toward them. 

"Get in!" Tylendel shouts. "I'm coming – I can shield the doorway I think – get in get in get in–"

Of course Tylendel is taking the maximally brave option. Abras isn't nearly as brave, or nearly as useful; he gets in the cottage. And watches the fight because the only thing worse than watching would be not watching.

Tylendel stands in the doorway and holds up a shimmering half-transparent shield from one trembling hand, and flings fireballs with the other. He sags a little after each strike; Abras can sense his growing exhaustion through the lifebond. In the flashes of firelight, Abras can see one of the creatures crumpling, its hide on fire – another crunching under Gala's hooves – but there are too many and Gala's not moving as quickly now, there are gashes in her hide, 'Lendel isn't attacking anymore he's clinging to the doorway with one hand and just barely holding up a shield–

:You need to get out!: Gala's voice again. :Can't hold them off much longer. Chosen, you have to Gate. I'll help. You can do this: 

"I can't–"

:Abras. You're pulling from him already. Open the bond fully. You can do this, Chosen. GO: 

And 'Lendel glances back at him, his eyes naked and helpless. "Ashke, are you, can you...?" the rest of the question isn't in words. 

"What do you need?" He shoves at the Lifebond, trying to pour strength and reassurance across it. Whatever 'Lendel needs, if Abras has it to give, it's his.

:That: He can hear 'Lendel in his mind now; they're so close they're practically the same entity. :I love you, ashke. Hold on: 

Abras will feel Tylendel's effort, his concentration, following instructions from Gala that Abras can't quite hear but can somehow feel the edges of, the magic flowing, building a glowing threshold on the abandoned doorway while Gala defends their position with hooves and teeth, despite the gashes in her hide–

And then, just once, she's a fraction of a second too slow. 

Blood, gushing from her ripped-open throat. 

'Lendel screams. 

:Chosen: Her mindvoice already fading. :Chosen, I love you. Hold on. Please. I love you–:

And Abras will feel it, when the last of her light slips away, the gaping emptiness it tears open in 'Lendel's mind, and he's screaming as well–

–and somehow Tylendel holds the threshold...

...and, somehow, impossibly, he adds a final layer, and the spell reaches, Tylendel clings to the image of the Heralds' temple, in Haven, hundreds of miles away, the threshold that Savil used to Gate out, it must have been the first place to come to mind. Gala isn't there to hold off the wyrsa, they can't have much time–

And the shimmering archway is suddenly a door to somewhere else. 

"Ashke, go, gogogogo–" Tylendel rips Abras' fingers away from their grip on his arm, and shoves him, hard, so that he – a moment weightless in the icy dark – and he falls sprawling in the mud on the other side of the Gate. 

And Tylendel turns, turns his back on Abras and faces the wyrsa now scrambling over the crumbled cottage walls, he's never had any intention of coming through the Gate, not since the moment he knew Gala wouldn't be coming with them. 

'Lendel raises his hands. 

On the other side of a faltering Gate, the horizon turns to fire. A fire made up of everything that 'Lendel is or has ever been, going up like a candle, hopes and dreams, rage, determination, love–

Even in the final moments, no pain, and no fear. 

"No," he whispers in denial, but he can't deny it, he can feel it, and now he's screaming "No! NO! LENDEL!" 

He wants to dive back through the Gate into the fire, wants to dive back through time and make this not have happened, this thing that must not happen, that has made the world Wrong, everything is wrong and nothing can be right, and all he can do is scream. Loud enough to echo off the buildings at first, then quietly as his throat and vocal cords can't keep up with his pain.

The fire dies away. The Gate, still standing and looking out on smouldering ruins, drains away his strength, it's starting to rain and thunder crackles and his body is colder and colder.

And then there's a blurred form through the Gate, and staggering footsteps. A shadow over him, hands on his cheek, a familiar voice. "Abras! Hey, hey, can you look at me... It's Mardic. Stay with me. It's going to be all right–" his voice cracks. "I just need, to, take down the Gate – hang on..."

Mardic does something, and the glowing archway comes crashing down – and Abras feels it as well, it wants to ground itself in the earth but he's in the middle, and so it tears through him, rips at his insides, like the bolt of lightning that simultaneously lances the sky above. 

Abras thrashes on the ground, trying to curl up to dodge a blow coming from no direction, to curl up around an injury that's nowhere and everywhere. It feels like parts of him being ripped open that he didn't know he had, and now there are thoughts in his head that make no sense. It's not long before his body grants him the mercy of passing out.

Mardic, dizzy from the backlashing magic, tries to hold him as he flails and shakes, to cushion his friend's head from the stone and prevent him from hurting himself – hurting himself worse, he doesn't understand what just happened but it can't be good and it's got to be somehow his fault, for taking down the Gate wrong, it's not like he's ever practiced taking down someone else's Gate. He's not sure whether to be relieved or panicked when Abras finally goes limp. 

And then a white shape comes galloping through the rain toward them. Skidding to a stop in the mud, the mare kneels, muzzle nosing at Abras' face. Too-human blue eyes full of pain. :Chosen. Wake up: A mental voice that stings fresh wounds in places that didn't exist before, but it calls to Abras. :Chosen. Please. Come back to me. Please: 

"Nnnnnhhh? Grnk?" He wants to answer whatever's trying to get his attention, if only because then they might go away and stop hurting him. He turns his head a bit, and immediately stops because that's too much motion and now he's dizzy.

:Abras Ashkevron, I Choose you: During the fraction of a second that his eyes are open, orb-like blue eyes stare directly into his from at most a couple of inches away, and then...

– skip – 

...there's a blue place with silver threads woven through it, and a woman with tears on her cheeks, holding him, rocking him, whispering it's going to be all right, I love you, but we have to go back...

– skip –

...and then there's just cold and rain and agony, and a horse's nostrils blowing in his hair. 

...And a preteen girl in trainee Healers' robes too big for her, sprinting through the rain. "What – I felt – called me – what's happening?" She's almost too out of breath to speak, but she falls to her knees at Abras' side, pushing the mare's muzzle out of the way, and her small warm hand is on his forehead, offering a tiny inflow of strength. "Hey. Can you hear me? I'm a Healer. I mean, um, a student. Er, blink if you can hear me?" 

Where is he?

(Pain, Grief)

Someone loves him?

(Pain, Loss)

Something feels nice

(Pain, Loneliness)

Oh, those were words, what were they, something something blink if you can hear me?

(Pain, Grief)

He drags his eyes open, fails at keeping them open, drags them open again. That's sort of like a blink, right? 

(Pain)

There's a Companion kneeling over him. He realizes she's the source of the love, and the mindspeech. That means something, something important, but he can't quite hold onto the thought long enough to finish it. There's a girl there too. He tries to focus his eyes on them and listen in case either one says something else.

"We need to get you indoors where it's warmer," the girl is saying. "Hey, you – what's your name? I'm Shavri. Do you know him and did you see what happened–" She breaks off, blinking. "What? Sorry, what, why can't I bring him to the House of Healing? I don't – fine, nevermind, I won't. Hey what's-your-name, where does he live?" 

Mardic says something inaudible but the girl seems to catch it okay. 

However, now she's yanking at his shoulder, trying to pull him into a sitting position. "Can you ride? It's supposed to be really easy to ride a Companion and that's the fastest way to get you somewhere more comfortable than this." 

He tries to help her pull him up, remembers the last time someone tried to pull him somewhere and bursts into tears.

"Shh, hey – am I hurting you? Sorry. I'm trying to be gentle." The girl gets his arm over her shoulders and hauls him up, she's stronger than she looks, and directs Mardic to wrestle his leg up over the white mare's back. 

"Sorry--it's--sorry . . ." And now he's clinging to a Companion again, but she's not Gala because Gala's DEAD and 'Lendel is DEAD. He tries not to fall off because that's at least maybe achievable, tears washing tracks through the mud and blood on his face.

Hanging on turns out to be achievable, at least as far as their destination, which is currently dark and unlit but Mardic runs in ahead of them and unlocks a door and then candlelight is shining and he's holding the glass door open. They're back at Savil's suite. At the bedroom that he and 'Lendel had, before. 

Abras is, if possible, even more overwhelmed by memories. Part of him is expecting 'Lendel to walk in any minute and say "Gods, Abras, what have you done to yourself now?". But he won't, because he's DEAD DEAD DEAD.

"Heat us up some blankets," the girl called Shavri barks at Mardic, somehow managing to sound very authoritative despite being, at most, thirteen. She turns back to him and her voice is softer as she drags him off the Companion's back. "Hey. Abras – that's your name, right? It's just a few steps and then we'll be inside. You can do it. Lean on me, that's it – shh, hey, are you in pain? Your friend isn't sure what happened but I'll figure it out and I'll do something about it, I promise, just need to get you out of the cold first. Come on." She's talking to him very loudly and slowly, sort of like he's a small child, but it does make it easier to understand. 

If he had more room for emotions he'd be embarrassed that he needs to be talked to like a child and grateful that she's making the effort. "Hurts," he says. "Something hurts. Don't know what. Tylendel's dead." Oh, he said that last bit out loud.

"Who's that, sorry?" Then she makes a sound. "Oh. I see. I, um, you're really wet, let's get you undressed and in bed and then I'll try to figure out what's hurting so I can help – thank you, Mardic!" He's brought over a pile of blankets. 

He finds a moment or two to be embarrassed about being undressed in between memories of 'Lendel undressing him, but being out of wet clothes is better than being in them and being horizontal in a bed is better than any other state reachable from this one. He might fall asleep again if people stop asking him questions.

Shavri starts asking Mardic questions instead - about what just happened, and Mardic is fumblingly trying to explain about wyrsa and a Gate and he’s sorry he doesn’t know what he did wrong - but they keep their voices low.

Then Bruce is just going to follow his incentive gradient away from pain and right out of consciousness bye.

He wakes up because there are people talking at his bedside, although it's unclear if they're talking to him – also it's unclear if all the things that he's hearing are actually being said out loud. There's an adult Healer there, and...Queen's Own Lancir? 

And now they're talking to him! "Abras?" Lancir is saying. "We're trying to figure out what happened, I just need to look at something, but it might hurt if I'm right about the problem. Can you let us know if it's too bad and Gemma here can keep you unconscious for it?" 

Ouch, looks like he's conscious again. Wow there's a lot going on, and the Queen's Own is here, what's all this, ah shit he forgot to answer the question again. "Okay?" That's probably a logical thing to have said. 

And then suddenly it's like someone is jabbing him in one of the places that hurts, the ones that don't feel like they should exist anywhere in normal space, and Lancir audibly sucks a breath in between his teeth.

Nope nope this is not okay actually! "Aaaaaa!"

“Goodness. Gemma, on reflection, please do keep him under for this.”

And then everything goes away again. 

When the world comes back, there are still people in the room and they are still talking. There even seems to be a new person and her voice is familiar... What is Queen Elspeth of all people doing in his bedroom.

That's a good question! He has no clue! Maybe if he holds very still she will not notice he exists. Probably this plan is doomed because if she hadn't already noticed he exists she wouldn't be here, but it's the best plan he's got.

Unfortunately for that plan, it does in fact seem to be a conversation about him. It's hard to follow, though; it's a very confusing and nonsensical conversation, there seem to be several worried monologues happening interspersed and sometimes overlapping with it and it almost sounds like people are speaking over themselves. Gifts are mentioned? Something something Gate. Savil's name comes up. Now Lancir is talking about Tylendel and the worried monologue that also sounds like Lancir is on about lifebonds. 

Why are people talking over each other? Why are people talking over themselves? It makes sense that the world doesn't make any sense with Tylendel not in it but he hates it. 

Wait, some of them are talking without moving their mouths. Is he hearing people's thoughts. Oh gods, he is, isn't he, he's eavesdropping on people's minds and they don't know it. He should tell them. That means talking. He gets as far as saying "Um. Hello." out loud and then realizes that everyone's going to think he's being ridiculous, because he isn't a Thoughtsenser and he's just been injured and from the amount and confusingness of the resulting pain he can't be sure he wasn't hit really hard on the head.

Unfortunately now everyone is paying a lot of attention to him. 

”Abras! You’re awake?” Lancir is saying. “Can you talk to me? How are you feeling?” He sounds apologetic. And sad, guilty, regretful - no, he feels that way, Abras is sensing his feelings? “I’m sorry Yfandes can’t be in with you. She’s trying not to Mindspeak you, doesn’t want to hurt you. But she’s thinking of you, I promise, and you’ll have a chance to see her soon..”

"I'm reading everyone's minds on accident and I don'tknowhowtostopsorry." He doesn't have words for the sucking corrosive pit of grief at the center of his brain; he also doesn't know he's wordlessly projecting it everywhere.

“Are you? I’m sorry, we must not be being careful with shields. Here, I can put mine on you.” He touches Abras’ forehead and the monologues cut off. 

The girl called Shavri is still there! Abras hadn’t realized because she wasn’t talking or monologuing (Shavri is new enough to Thoughtsensing to be paranoid about checking her shields constantly, and she’s further away). “Queen’s Own Lancir, he’s in a lot of pain, can we give him something for it?”

The quiet is nice, but the noise was something of a distraction from the pain. Abras tries pressing his hands against his head; that helps with headaches sometimes but it doesn't seem to do much now. "Why does it hurt?" he asks plaintively.

“It’s a - this may be a bit confusing, lad. Did Savil ever talk to you about your potential Gifts? Whatever just happened out there, we don’t fully understand it, but they’re active now. The channels were sort of ripped open, though, they’re damaged and that’s why it hurts. We’ll try to help you out with that.”

“I doubt willowbark will cut it,” a woman’s voice says dryly. “Shavri, dear, why don’t you pick up some poppy-syrup at the House of Healing and we’ll go from there? He looks miserable, poor thing.”

"So I have Thoughtsensing now? And, I think I also have Empathy."

He's not sure how he feels about this; he dimly remembers magic being really interesting and exciting, but right now he just feels awful. He can't even manage to be scared of the prospect of getting addicted to painkillers; numbness and cravings would still be an improvement on pain and absence-of-Tylendel. And maybe the poppy syrup will knock him out again. That would be nice, he could skip some time to . . . something. There's probably some reason to be conscious and do things at some point. He just can't think what it is right now.

“And some others. Try not to worry about it now, all right? Your body’s just been through a lot and you’re exhausted. Get some rest, try to sleep.”

And he pats Abras’ shoulder and says some words to the Healer about keeping him under shields and not leaving him alone, and then the other girl is back and they prop him up and make him drink a cup of broth before giving him a dose of bitter syrup.

It doesn’t, really, get rid of the pain, but it does eventually make him feel floaty and fuzzy and very drowsy, and it looks like they’re going to stop talking and leave him be for a while.

Consciousness bad sleep good. Maybe this time he'll sleep until things are different.

When he wakes up, the thing that’s different is, one, it’s light out (ow) and two, his sister is there. Lissa is sitting on the side of the bed stroking his hair. He can’t quite hear her thought-monologue, there’s...something in the way...but she feels exhausted and worried and scared.

“Abras? Are you awake?” Her voice cracks. “I heard - I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...”

"Lissa . . . " His sister was never fully able to get between Abras and his father's total and justified disappointment, and she can't get between him and the holes that have been torn in his mind, but she's always tried and she's trying now. He leans toward her, trying to convey gratitude and reassurance, mostly projecting grief.

"Hey, it's all right, I'm here – I came as fast as I could – I'm really sorry about everything..." Lissa pulls him into her arms and holds him tightly, rocking from side to side. "Lancir told me," she whispers in his ear. "About Tylendel. It's so horrible. I should've been there." 

"No, then you would have died too--I can't lose anyone else--gods, I wish he had gone through the Gate and left me." He cries on his sister's shoulder for a while.

"Hey, don't say that - I love you so much..." Lissa can hold him as long as he's willing to let her. 

Eventually, though, there's an outside interruption. 

"Abras?" It's the grownup Healer again. "How are you feeling? It's finally stopped raining, so if you think you're up for walking outside, your Companion really, really would like to see you." 

Companion. His Companion. He has a Companion? That can't be right; only Heralds have Companions (like Tylendel, who is DEAD). But if someone wants to see him (why? he's got to be awful company) then he will go do that. If he can figure out how to get out of bed. Possibly he is not at that level of competence.

Gemma seems to take whatever facial expression he's making as a yes. "All right, then, let's get you up. Lissa, give me a hand?" 

Lissa does, and the two of them wrestle him up, without his being much involved in the process, until he's sort of sitting on the side of the bed with his legs dangling. "Good," Gemma says, and throws a robe over him and then an additional blanket over his shouldres. "Let's get you up – Lissa, on three? One, two, three..." They haul him onto his feet. 

Walking is much harder than he remembers it being but at least it doesn't require him to think. He'll lean on the available arms and go where they steer him.

It's weakly sunny outside and not too cold, and they steer him over to the bench in the garden and plop him down. There's a white mare waiting for him. Blue eyes looking right into his. 

:Abras, Chosen... It's so good to see you up: It's a woman's voice in his head again, and it stings a bit but not too badly. She noses at his hair. :I love you. I don't know how much of yesterday you remember?: 

She's beautiful. There's no reason she should love him and he's not sure whether it's good that she does. He's supposed to love her, and he thinks he might, but feeling anything other than pain is dicey enough that he might be fooling himself there. He considers her question.

"I think I remember everything before--before the Gate. Then after that . . . I don't know what gaps are stuff I don't remember and what's stuff I wasn't there for."

:It's all right, love. I know you're hurting; we're going to find a way to get you better and then we can handle the rest: She settles her head on his lap. :Mardic tried to take down the Gate because it was still draining you and would've killed you. Something went wrong, and – it tore open your potential Gifts. All of them. That's why you're hurting like this. And – I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I wish...:

She trails off, and just pushes wordless love at him for a while. 

:We don't control when we hear our Call: she sends finally. :But... I heard mine, and I came as fast as I could, and I Chose you. I wasn't there before – I'm so sorry I couldn't stop what happened – but I'm here now, for whatever you need: A soft puff of air from her nostrils ruffles at his robe. :If what you need is just to sleep and get better, that's all right too: 

He should say something to Mardic probably but figuring out what sounds very hard. 

The wordless love is nice. Kind of strange, but it isn't pain and it isn't 'Lendel-being-dead so it would probably win by default even if it wasn't nice in itself. He just sits there feeling it for a bit, then tries Mindspeaking back. :Thank you. I'm sorry I can't do . . . anything. The normal things.:

:Please don't be: Blue eyes stare up at him. :You're badly hurt – your Gift-channels are burned raw. No one's expecting you to hop up and do anything, right now all you need to do is recover. Let us figure out the rest. We will figure it out, all right? I promise. We'll get you healed up. And then we can worry about other things: A pause. :I should stop talking to you, don't want to irritate your Mindspeech channels any more. Just... I'm really glad that you're alive and here with me. That's all I want right now:

She kneels in the grass in front of the bench and curls up and keeps her head on his lap. 

She's so nice. He should figure out how to love her. He runs his fingers through her mane and lets his mind reassume its natural form of "variously unpleasant thought-fragments without a coherent narrative", now with bonus "nice soft Companion", until the next time someone wants him to do something.

Gemma is the one who eventually nudges at his shoulder. "Abras, you're shivering a bit, I think we'd better get you inside now. Lissa, help me get him up again?" 

Yfandes rises gracefully and backs away, the wash of clean, bright, affection-and-love that comes from her fading into the distance but not quite vanishing. 

He says "Thank you" again, out loud this time, to Yfandes but also to Gemma and Lissa. Now that the cold has been pointed out it grabs enough of his awareness to support the idea of being brought back inside.

Gemma brings him some broth and another dose of the pain-medicine, and then Lissa helps him lie down and pulls the blankets over him and strokes his hair. No one seems to be expecting anything of him in particular, right now. 

If nothing is expected of him then nothing is what he will be, for a while. 

He's in a mountain pass. Unnatural, vertical walls of glassy, slagged stone. Carved by magic, dark tainted magic. Ahead, an army. 

He remembers sending Tylendel away to bring help. (But Tylendel is dead?) 

Help isn't coming in time. He knows that he's going to die, and...he's ready, resigned, if not quite at peace. 

“Herald-Mage Abras.” A man dressed entirely in black, dark hair falling to his shoulders, black eyes like still water. Mage-power radiates from him in waves. His enemy. Too powerful to hold off with anything except his own death. It feels like he's always known how this is going to end. 

"Leareth," he hears himself say, and raises his hand to strike–

And something brushes at his mind; it hurts, like salt on an open wound. :Abras, wake up, it's just a–:

He tries to move away from the pain without it throwing off his attack, contorts his mind and body in the dream, and it bleeds into reality in an uncontrolled blast of magic at whatever unfortunate person tried to Mindspeak him while he thrashes himself half-out of the bed.

Mardic gets out half of a startled yelp before he slams into the opposite wall and then collapses in a unmoving heap in the floor. 

"Abras! Abras, it's all right, it's just me, I've got you–" Lissa grabs at his leg before he can actually fall out of the bed, and then wraps her arms tightly around his flailing body. "Abras, it's me, can you just – HELP! CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP IN HERE?" 

And now there's a third voice yelling at him. :Abras, wake up, calm down – you were having a nightmare, it's not real–:

AAAAAAAA he can't move someone's grabbing him and Lissa is screaming for help and there's a voice in his head! Time to panic more!

The floor starts to shake. A corner of the curtains catches fire, then part of the bedspread. The chamberpot flies into a wall and smashes everywhere, with...predictable and unfortunate consequences. The door of the wardrobe bangs open and shut.  

"Abras Abras Abras it's me just calm down–" Lissa's urgent barking is not especially calming. 

And finally a new voice, quiet but firm. "Let go of him," Shavri says. "Quiet. Just be quiet." 

The hands on him go away (he's firmly enough on the bed not to fall off easily even if he keeps thrashing.) The voices both out loud and in his head stop. 

Shavri yanks her newly-rain-soaked Healers' robe over her head and starts to smother the smouldering bedspread with it, then stops, and first presses a corner of it to Abras' face. Carefully not covering his mouth or nose, so he can breathe, but it's cold and startling and should serve at least as a distraction from the newly-urgent throbbing pain that's at least partially in his head, even if most of it is in places that seem to be outside normal space.

Eventually some part of Abras' brain realizes he'll do a better job of panicking if he has some idea where he is and what's happening, and he manages to open his eyes and start interpreting the evidence of his senses. The evidence of his senses is that things are pretty bad! Both in the room around him and in the pain department.

"Ow, ow, gods, Lissa, are you okay, aaagh, what's happening?" All of this is somewhat muffled, because he's futilely clutching his head again.

“I’m all right, I’ll be right there!” Lissa, hastily clambered up on a chair, manages to finish smothering the curtain-fire with a cloak snatched from the hook by the door, and hops down, sitting on the (not-on-fire) part of the bed and reaching for his hand.

“I’m fine, I promise.” She keeps her voice forcibly soft, even though there’s a definite undercurrent of fear. “Abras, are you all right? Your head...?”

"I think I hurt myself again . . . why was the bed on fire?"

In the corner, Mardic stirs. "Hnng?" 

Shavri finishes putting out the corner of the bedspread and moves to stand where Abras can see her; she's damp and shivering in just her underclothes, though at least they're enough coverage that she's decent.

"I think you had a nightmare and used some of your Gifts accidentally," she says. "That's why you're hurting–" she breaks off, "Lissa I need you to go check that Mardic is all right and then get him somewhere else, please." Switch back. "Abras, I've Mindspoken someone at Healers' and asked them to bring you more pain-medicine. Just try to relax. You're safe, everything's fine." 

"Oh gods, I started the fire?! I'm sorry, I didn't mean--oh no, did I hurt Mardic too? I'm so sorry . . ." 

He desperately wants to go back to sleep, but he doesn't know how to be sure he won't use magic in his sleep again. So instead he sits still and tries to stay awake but not do anything or think about anything, and mostly just feels embarrassed and guilty. He can't even offer to help clean up his own mess; he's hurting too much to concentrate.

:Chosen, it wasn't your fault: Reaching him from a distance and with everything already in so much pain, Yfandes' mindvoice hurts a LOT, but she sends a tide of affection and love and reassurance along with it. :No one can control their Gifts right away. We'll get you trained and it won't happen again. But not yet, you're still ill and you need to rest now. I love you: 

She fades out but keeps sending a faint wash of caring along with it. 

She is his Companion and she loves him and he is going to pay attention to her even if it hurts. He definitely agrees that he needs to be trained not to hurt anyone. And yes, he should definitely try to stop being ill so he can get on that; he'd be an awful student in this state. :Okay:, he sends; he doesn't want to risk Mindspeaking a longer response in case it hurts more.

Within a few minutes, Gemma is back. She looks like someone who doesn't especially want to be awake. 

"I actually don't think poppy-syrup is enough for this," she's saying to Shavri, barely audible to Abras because they're in the corner and keeping their voices low. "We gave him a dose, what, a candlemark ago? And here we are. So... I don't like it, but I'm going to give him argonel. Should have a stronger calming effect as well, help keep him from panicking – poor lad, I don't blame him, Lance says he's got multiple new strong Gifts and that's a lot to deal with on top of, er, everything else. But I'd like you to stay with him the rest of the day, all right? Make sure we don't overdose him by accident." 

Then she's at Abras' bedside, speaking to him directly. "Hey, let's get you sitting up a bit – thank you, Lissa. Drink this, please." The cup she brings to his lips holds something that tastes like fire, and burns when he swallows. 

At least this pain has a comprehensible source. "Will this make me not mess up again?" He asks once he's done drinking it.

Sigh. "It won't give you control, lad, only teaching will do that. Right now the most important thing is that you stay calm and avoid getting yourself worked up – my understanding is that's when Gifts tend to manifest accidentally, when you're feeling strong emotions. This will make you feel very drowsy, and hopefully give you a dreamless sleep, no nightmares. And, of course, keep your pain controlled for now while you heal. Lancir said it's important you minimize using your Gifts, so that your channels can recover. All right? 

"Alright." If it can keep him from doing magic in his dreams he can go back to not-doing-anything when he's awake. That should work. Probably. He's already getting less awake.

Lissa gets back while he's still just barely conscious. "Abras, I'm here. Feeling any better? Do you want me to stay?" Pause. "Oh, I just found out. Savil should be Gating back at some point today. So you'll see her soon." 

"You don't have to stay if you don't want to." Whether she should probably depends on whether he's going to start another fire but he isn't sure in which direction and he's too sleepy to explain that. He's not looking forward to facing Savil's disappointment even though the last time he was afraid of facing Savil's disappointment she turned out to be surprisingly okay with him.

"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?" 

"Words. Gotta words. Feel like . . . shit." Whether that's a description of how he feels or an expletive at having lost his train of thought is unclear.

"...I'm getting worried." Lissa feels his forehead. "You don't seem to have a fever, at least." She's grimacing, or at least he thinks so, she's very blurry. "Damn it, everyone's asleep. I – hmm. I'm going to the House of Healing to get help. You need to stay awake. All right? Abras, hey – do you think you can stay awake for five minutes?" 

". . . Dunno. Want to." He tries digging his nails into his arm but his hand is also a useless pile of mud, so instead he bites his lip really hard. Now his lip is bleeding a little but he's that bit more awake.

"Okay I'm going to be back really soon. Hang in there. It'll be okay - just five minutes..." And the door bangs shut and she's gone. 

He needs to be awake. And not do anything. Except if he set the room on fire he would probably stay awake. But then there would be a fire. So he needs to not do anything. And stay awake. He should try to concentrate on something. Two four eight sixteen thirty-two sixty-four eyes gotta stay OPEN, one-twenty-eight two-fifty-six five-twelve NOT gonna sleep, ten-twenty-four, uh, twenty-forty-eight, forty-ninety-six, uh, eight thousand and, no nine thousand, and, shit, ninety-one eighty . . . two? Four? How long is five minutes? He bites himself again and tries to remember what comes after forty-ninety-six. And not do anything. Except if he set the room on fire he would probably stay awake. But then there would be a fire.

"...All right, all right, what's the problem we've got here." It's the older Healer, sounding tired and irritated. "Hey there. Ah, you're sort of awake at least. Abras, tell me what day it is and where you are?" 

"It's . . . night. And I'm in my bed. Awake. Said I would stay awake." He knows those are the wrong answers but he doesn't have any better ones.

"Hmm." She sounds...annoyed, probably. Or something. She sits down on the side of the bed and reaches for his arm. "Squeeze my hand." And waves her other hand in his face. "Look at my finger – all right, follow it with your eyes, please." 

He squeezes her hand in the manner of a particularly unathletic kitten, and does his best to follow her hand his his eyes. This involves turning his head somewhat. Also his pupils are the wrong size, not that he knows that.

"Good," the Healer says, in a voice that does not sound especially like she means it. She turns. "Lissa, girl, how much argonel did you give him?" 

Lissa squeaks. "Just the usual times! At bedtime and at midnight. Not just now because he was, er, like this. Um, and he was pretty out of it at midnight, but I'd be groggy too if someone woke me in the dead of night, I didn't think much of it." 

"Thank the gods you've got that much common sense. He's had way too much – it's a narrow margin between here and him stopping breathing in his sleep." She turns back to Abras. "Tell me how you're feeling. Pretty drowsy?" 

"Yah." He attempts to emphasize this with a nod, but it turns into almost nodding off and then jerking awake again.

"Well, unfortunately we're going to have to keep hassling you until morning – I know you want to sleep, but I'm not super comfortable with that right now. Are you thirsty?" She turns back to Lissa. "Get him some water, please. He's pretty dehydrated. Probably he's been too sleepy to notice." 

When the water arrives it hardly seems worth the effort to drink any, but as soon as he starts it's the most delicious water he's ever tasted and he successfully downs the whole glass.

“Easy, easy.” She takes the cup away, and turns back. “He’s not in immediate danger right now, just don’t let him fall asleep. I’ll head back to the House of Healing and send you over a trainee. Keep getting fluids into him, food if he can manage.”

She pats his shoulder. “You’re doing great. Some of that fogginess will wear off by first light and you’ll feel better.”

Then the bed creaks as she rises, and footsteps, and the door slams.

The fogginess going away sounds good. He vaguely remembers having reasons he didn't want to think, but he can't remember what they were and not being able to think is really awful. For one thing, he's still really sad but now he can't have complete trains of thought about it, so his mind is going in even smaller circles. He tries to count the floorboards next to his bed; that proves hard enough to keep him occupied for a while.

"Abras, drink some water." Lissa grabs his hand and puts it around a cup. "Drink it. There. Good." She sounds very tired, and a bit cranky, but like she's trying to hide it. 

...She's done it multiple times, no? Everything being in very small circles makes it hard to tell. 

"I've got some food for him." It's the trainee again, whassername. Shavri. "Gemma thinks part of why it hit him so hard is that he clearly hasn't been eating enough. Abras, drink this." It seems to be a thick mixture of cream and honey. 

Is it the first or the third or the tenth time that she's bothering him to eat? Time must have passed, because there's some grey light coming through the curtains now, and the fog is starting to subside. 

The first one or five or a thousand times he gets bothered to eat, he eats, because he doesn't know what to do and clearly Lissa and Shavri do. Then the fog lifts enough that he remembers why he shouldn't eat. "If I eat I might do things. Don't do anything. Can't do it right so I have to not." There, now he's explained it and they'll know and stop giving him food.

"...No?" Shavri sounds confused and worried. "You need to eat – you're ill, Savil can't teach you to control your Gifts until you're better and you aren't getting better because you aren't eating." 

(Ow. Along with the fog lifting, the pain in his head and in mysterious other places, which had faded to a distant nagging reminder, is making a resurgence.) 

He's pretty sure the version of him that came up with his plan was smarter than he is right now, but the version of him he is now can't find the flaw in Shavri's logic. Also the pain is eating all the new brain he's getting, so it doesn't seem like he's going to become able to any time soon. "Are you sure? I might do bad things."

“Why don’t we take you out to see Yfandes?” Lissa suggests. “She can stop you from doing bad things by accident, I think. And if you do set anything on fire it’ll just be Savil’s garden. I can get a bucket of water just in case, but so far you only set something on fire once and it’s because I scared you.”

It doesn’t seem like they’re planning to wait for his approval; thirty seconds later, Shavri has a warm robe and a cloak on him, and the two of them are hoisting him onto his feet. 

He does his best to make his limbs do the thing; he wants to talk to Yfandes anyway and if she can stop him from doing magic so much the better.

They plop him on the bench and Yfandes is there. :I missed you, Chosen: She doesn’t say anything else right away, just surrounds him in a warm bath of love and caring, which almost blocks out the chill of the air - oh, no, her body is radiating actual heat at him as well.

Abras momentarily forgets what he was going to say because warm. 

"Sorry for not  . . . doing Herald things. Being a Herald."

:You don’t need to apologize for being newly Chosen: Yfandes sends back. :Nobody’s doing a full Herald’s duty when they’ve been Chosen five days and have untrained Gifts:

A long pause, like she’s thinking over the right words.

:I’m not mad: she sends finally. :About your, er, questionable decision to avoid eating and take as many drugs as possible. I know what you were hoping to accomplish, and it wasn’t you trying to kill yourself. But you nearly died. Do you realize that?: Fear, worry, pain. :And you didn’t run it by me at all. Do you trust me, Abras?:

"I . . . want to trust you. I know I ought to. But I don't really know you. But Lissa thinks it was a bad plan too so I guess it was and I'm sorry." Then a fact he hadn't been thinking about hits him like a ton of bricks. "Oh no, if I die you die, don't you? Shit." Now he has to try really hard not to die right when that's started being a thing he isn't good at, argh.

:Hey. Abras, love, you don’t need to take every single thing that happens as evidence that you’re bad. All right? This is OUR fault. You were impaired and no one, including me, thought to check in with you. I’ll try to do better. I love you: She nuzzles at his stomach. 

"It's really nice that you love me even though you barely know me and it's just magic forcing you to. I hope it's not too weird."

Yfandes doesn’t answer that, just nuzzles him some more. 

Time passes and Lissa brings him more water and soup, and the fog continues to subside. The pain gets worse as well, but on net he can still think more and more clearly.

Thinking clearly comes with the ability to think about 'Lendel, so it's something of a mixed blessing, but at least he's more himself. Eventually he asks, "What is having a Companion supposed to be like? I want to know . . . what to aim for, I guess."

:Hmm: Yfandes lifts her head and blows into his hair, and then is thoughtfully silent for a while. 

:I'm glad you're trying so hard: she sends finally, though from the emotion-waft under the words, her feelings about it are a bit more mixed than that. :It's different for different Heralds. You're a strong Mindspeaker, so once your channels heal, we'll be able to stay in mind-rapport most of the time, even when we're not in the same place. If you want that: Blue eyes look up at him. :Most Heralds consider their Companions somewhere between their most trusted best friend, their teacher and advisor, and...just part of themselves, I suppose. But there's no one right way to do it. Whatever helps YOU the most, to be your best self and work in service of Valdemar, is what you should aim for. So we're going to have to work together to figure out what that looks like. But it's fine if it takes a while – it usually does, there's a reason most Heralds spend three to five years as trainees first: 

"I'm going to try." Privately, he thinks he is not actually the sort of person who devotes his life to serving Valdemar (he wasn't fit to inherit his father's holding, he clearly isn't fit for this either, he was just Chosen because he has a massive pile of Gifts) but he's going to pretend as well as possible and hope practice and having lots of magic can substitute for courage and wisdom and stuff. "I think it would help if you told me about yourself? What's your life like, what do you like to do . . .?" Aaaaaa he has no idea how to make friends with people and now there's someone he really needs to make friends with and he knows even less about her than he does about random humans.

:First – Chosen, you may not believe me, but a lot of very talented and goodhearted people feel the exact way you do, that they aren't fit for the role. No one is at first? Courage takes training the same way, oh, learning to ride does. Definitely wisdom only comes with age and experience; I don't think you've got any less of it than most youngsters. You have the heart you need, Abras – you're clever, curious, you care about people - when you feel safe in doing so - and you aren't someone who flees from responsibility, no matter what you think. Your father did an awful lot to make you feel unfit; nothing you did was ever right, so why bother trying, is that right? I won't–: she stops, :I can't promise I'll never make you feel that way, we aren't perfect, but I'll try very, very hard not to. It's a terrible pattern: 

Then Yfandes falls silent. His question seems to stump her for a while. Apparently it's not one she was expecting to be asked. 

:I've spent the last ten years waiting to Choose: she sends. :Longer than most Companions. I dropped two foals but they're out on their own now, we don't take as long to grow up. In fact, Dancer already Chose, before his dam! I did my best to counsel the other Companions; I was sort of the old spinster aunt, it felt like, but I had time to talk. That's going to change now though: Some more thinking. :I like maths. Do you?:

"Thanks for saying those things." He can't tell if he believes her and either possibility is kind of embarrassing, but it's so clear that she means well. "I do like maths! And it's neat that you have kids, I always thought having kids would be nice if . . . " (If he hadn't been shaych, if he had found someone to have kids with, if he had ever loved anyone other than Tylendel, but he didn't and never will and Tylendel is DEAD oh gods think about something else) "Uh, what sort of maths do you like? Do Companions have books?"

Yfandes doesn't comment on his thoughts, if she hears them, just nuzzles his face again. :It was nice. Though they were a lot lower-maintenance than I hear human babies are: a mental chuckle, :I'm not so sure I would've been up for dirty nappies and being woken in the night for years on end: Pause :We don't have books, no, but we do have much better memories than humans tend to. I like geometry a lot – anything I can visualize, really – and some areas of algebra and logic: Nuzzle nuzzle. :How's your head? I should probably stop Mindspeaking your ear off at some point and let you rest your channels: 

"Algebra and logic are good. Um, you Mindspeaking hurts but it's not like it stops hurting when you aren't. But yeah, rest sounds good." This conversation is the most, well, anything that he's done since the Thing happened (a wall of fire filling the horizon, Tylendel's big bright beautiful self expanding beyond his body and expending itself as destruction, dead dead DEAD) and if Yfandes has a reply he might take a while to hear it on account of how he's fallen into the hole in the world 'Lendel left behind.

Yfandes keeps sending him a wash of love and affection that tries very hard to drown out the hole-in-the-world part, it can’t really compete but it’s still loud enough to be felt in spite of the hole.

And then Lissa is scrambling up beside him, her mind radiating shock and displeasure, and a scrap of loud surface-thoughts even through the barrier Yfandes has been keeping on him. What in all hells is FATHER doing here?

Abras tries to leap to his feet and does a terrible job of it, trips on a combination of Yfandes' hoof and his own foot, and ends up on his butt on the ground, hitting everyone in the vicinity with a loud projective-Empathy wave of Aaaaa what do.

:Easy, Chosen: Yfandes replaces her Empathy-smashed shield over his mind. 

(Ow ow ow ow - his head and, presumably, mage-channels don’t approve either).

Lissa picks him up like a sack of potatoes and deposits him on the bench again, then bows. “Father.”

Withen is approaching at a stiff march, eyes set on Abras, with Savil trailing apologetically behind him. He stops midstride, his head twisting as though an imaginary set of reins is being yanked. “Lissa, girl, what are you doing here?”

Ow ow ow bugger why does he injure himself so much more often now that he's injured, that's fucking stupid, and why is his father mad at Lissa who has been nothing but kind and helpful and patient?

"I obtained Lord Corey's permission to travel to Haven," Lissa says, cool and poised. "When I got Abras' letter about the, er, bad business. Only a few weeks early, actually, he and his daughters just arrived to be presented in front of the Queen." She raises her chin, just a flicker of defiance. "Aren't you glad? I know you got here as fast as you could – I've been helping Aunt Savil hold down the fort in the meantime, don't worry."

(It is, perhaps, possible that Lissa thought of the fact that Withen would be showing up earlier than, oh, thirty seconds ago, and rehearsed her speech accordingly.) 

Abras, having rehearsed precisely nothing and also not having been actually spoken to yet, is alternating between staring at the ground and staring at the air next to Withen's head. His body hurts and his brain hurts and some argonel sure would be nice right now, or failing that a nice dark quiet hole to hide in. But his father came all this way and Abras owes him a conversation and even if he is failing at conversing, per se, he is at least present.

Withen reaches them and stops. Shuffles his feet. "You look like hell, son." His voice is tight, controlled." Er, congratulations on being Chosen, it’s more than I expected from you. And Gifts, too." He ducks his head. "I’m sorry you were hurt."

(His spoken words don't match his face, which is red with a vein pulsing at his temple, or the fragments of emotion and thought coming through Yfandes' shield. Humiliating and anger - heard my own son was rolling in the hay with that pervert - freak - I'll be damned - a father's got every right to feel what I do - and my damned sister puts a muzzle on me...) 

His father being angry with him and finding him an embarrassment is nothing new, and his lying about it is, but neither of those is important next to how dare he hate 'Lendel, how dare he think he understands. He doesn't even realize he's reading minds again, just ignores the polite lies and answers "He was a hero! You don't--you don't know a damn thing! And you never will because he's DEAD!"

The shields around Abras shatter and everyone in the garden, but especially Withen, feels a wave of grief sweep through them like a flash flood. A watering can off to one side violently explodes, its contents turning instantly to steam. Abras chokes on a scream of pain and collapses into a heap, half-falling off the bench again.

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. 

Abras: did not take that into account when bracing himself. He makes a sad little involuntary noise.

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, nearly done, just hang on a second..." And then the gentle yet agonizing touches stop. "Damn," Savil says softly, more to herself than him. "That's a problem." 

Oh no what now. "W-what?" His mind immediately tries to jump to horrifying worst-case scenarios--his magic came in wrong and he'll never be able to control it, or never be able to use it without it hurting, or he screwed up even worse with the drugs than he thought and gave himself permanent brain damage.

"Hey, don't panic on me." She reaches to grip his hand. "Nothing's worse. The problem is that it's not any better either – and it's not that it healed some and then was damaged when you did accidental magic, then it'd be different, and it's not, really."

Heavy sigh. "They might eventually heal on their own. But we don't know that for sure, because this hasn't happened to anyone before; it's not ordinary backlash, that part is resolving just fine. And if we're not seeing any improvement in a week of rest, then, gods, it could take years. Which isn't acceptable. So I need to think of how we can help it along. The issue is, the Healers can treat your body, but they can't even see Gift-channels. I can, but I can't Heal..." 

Abras tries to remember any of what he's read about the interactions between different Gifts. "If there was a Healer with Thoughtsensing could you sort of, show them where to aim? I guess if that would work you would have thought of it."

"No, I don't think that would work, they aren't trained like the – oh!" Sudden light in her voice. "Abras, you might've just given me an idea. I think I do know a person who could help you."

Then the light dims. "...It's not the greatest of plans for other reasons, though. He lives in the Pelagirs, and you're in no shape to travel overland. I'd have to Gate. Lancir thinks that Gate-energy in particular is going to hurt a lot for you right now, given the, er, cause of your Gifts awakening. But it could be doable." 

Abras sits there in silence for a minute.

"I think, if it will help, and if it will stop hurting eventually, even a lot of pain for a while is better than, than being drugged until I'm not really a person anymore." (It was like being dead, almost, except he got to come back, and 'Lendel is ACTUALLY DEAD and will never get to come back ever again.)

"We may have to drug you for the Gate itself," Savil says. "Because I don't want to torture you, and I especially don't want a repeat of that nightmare you had, where you panicked and couldn't stop doing magic even though that was making everything worse. But it'd be just one time, and then, if I'm right, Moondance can heal your channels in a few days and–" her voice cracks a bit, as she reaches and squeezes his hand before, "–and we can put the worst part behind us, and move forward. Abras, I hate seeing you hurting like this." 

He stops himself from nodding again. "Drugs for the Gate makes sense. But I might just be saying that because I want drugs. I want . . ." To be a functional human being again, to not be in pain, to wake up in Tylendel's arms and hear that the last week was all a dream. "I want something other than this."

"So do I, kechara. Gods, so do I." She shuffles closer on the bed, and puts her arm around his shoulders for a moment – then seems to become uncomfortable, and backs off. "Why don't you try to get some more rest? I need to discuss this plan with the others." 

He's not sure why she got uncomfortable and pulled away but it's clearly something he should be nonspecifically embarrassed about. "Okay. I'll try not to do any magic in my sleep." He slowly transitions back to lying flat.

The next while passes in a fractured blur. It seems like the phase that involves consulting Abras is over, and what's left is some out-of-context discussions that happen to take place near enough to his bed, during moments of consciousness, that he can half overhear. 

The older Healer isn't at all happy about the plan – because of the Gate, and because it involves arriving in the dangerous Pelagirs wilderness in winter. Adequate warm clothing is discussed. Abras needs to be strong enough to ride – no, nevermind, he'll be drugged, they can strap him to Yfandes just in case Savil's Gate lands them in a place that they instantly need to escape from. Abras needs to be physically healthy enough that his body can handle a chase while drugged insensible and strapped to a saddle. He isn't strong enough right now, because he hasn't been eating. That indicates waiting a couple of days during which Lissa and others will coax (force) Abras to eat regular, nourishing meals. Gemma doesn't want to give him any argonel before departure – Gemma slightly relents on this, he can have half-doses at carefully spaced intervals. And food. Food isn't optional. Sleep is good though, they let him, encourage him even, to sleep all the time that he isn't taking care of other bodily necessities. 

Probably some days go by or something but it's hard to tell. 

...And then someone is gently patting his arm. "Abras? It's time for you to go soon, I just - wanted..." Lissa's voice breaks. "I'm going to miss you so much. Be safe, come back well..." She trails off, swallows. "I'll help you get dressed." 

Abras accepts that his "not eating" plan has not stood up in practice, and gamely cooperates with getting food into himself. His ability to tell whether he's hungry got lost somewhere between the pain and the not knowing whether it's day or night, but he can wait for food to appear and then swallow it without checking what it is and then sleep again. He dreams of Tylendel a lot, and Lissa and Gemma and Savil and Yfandes sometimes, and if any of the dreams are real things happening around him he can't reliably tell which ones. (None of the ones with Tylendel, though, that's impossible to forget.)

When Lissa says goodbye, that's clearly real, and he puts his hand on hers. "I'll miss you too. Thank you for everything." He gets dressed, and waits to find out what happens next.

Savil comes to collect him. "All right, kechara. Plan is to give you the dose now, and then get you up on Yfandes before it kicks in all the way, so you can still help us a bit. Shavri?" 

The Healing-trainee steps forward. "Here." The cup she lifts to his lips has a considerably larger quantity of the fiery-tasting argonel than his previous doses. "You're probably not going to remember much after this point," she warns him. "I'll–" hesitation, "...good luck, all right?" 

"Thanks. I'll--I'll try to come back stronger." He downs the drink and sets himself to getting atop Yfandes, realizing partway through that he's not going to remember his first time riding his Companion. It's a ridiculous thing to feel sad about, really, isn't he sad about enough things already, but there it is.

:I don't think it's ridiculous: Yfandes reassures him. :I love you, Chosen. I'll be right here the whole time: 

...Her mindvoice is already starting to get hazy, even as Abras is distantly aware of Savil and Shavri and Lissa helping strap his increasingly limp body into place, belting him twice to the saddle and wrapping the stirrup leathers tightly around his calves. He is definitely not going to be falling off. 

"Abras?" It's Mardic, probably. Donni might be there too. "Goodbye. I'm– I'm really going to miss you. Get well." 

"Love you too, 'fandes. . . . Good . . . bye . . ." he lets himself tip forward onto Yfandes' neck.

And then, for a while, there's nothing at all. 

- pain - 

It's distant at first, encroaching on his drugged stupor like an ember coming closer to already-burned skin, and then it fills everything, molten agony, fire, lava–

- fear - cold - 

The pain subsides, a little, but it's so cold. 

"Shh, ke'chara, it's all right. Everything's all right. We're just...going to wait here..." The flat, exhausted voice drifts in from a faraway dream. Something is warm, not warm enough to quite stop the shivering but better than nothing. "Just rest. I'm not going anywhere."  

Abras tries to lie still and rest, except for how every muscle in his body is shivering and half are twitching with the aftershocks of agony. If he can think at all, he uses it to keep track of Savil and Yfandes, making sure they're still there and that he hasn't gotten lost in either the real wilderness or the one made of his senses.

An unmeasurable interval of time passes. The aftershocks of pain subside but the cold doesn't. Maybe the entire world is freezing over. 

... 

Savil twitches awake, chin jerking up from her chest, and throws another stick from the pile beside her onto the embers of her tiny fire. It's not even keeping the cave above freezing, but the temperature outside is a lot colder than that. There aren't many sticks left. Kellan has been finding them in the woods and carrying them to her in his mouth (Yfandes refuses to be more than three yards away from her Chosen), but right now her Companion's body is half of their windblock and if he moves them a gust is likely to put the fire out. She doesn't have enough in her reserves for a shield, much less a heat-spell or weather-barrier.

It's getting dark. Temperature's dropping. Even wrapped under her cloak, Abras is shivering uncontrollably. She activated the talisman to call out to her friends, it must be six candlemarks ago; nightfall comes early here, this late into the year and far north. Please, please come. 

–A stick cracks. 

Savil doesn't scramble to her feet; she's too tired for that. Too tired even to reach out with her Othersenses. "Who's there?" she says wearily.

Kellan steps aside, but the wind doesn't come in; instead, a tall, slender robed figure swims into view, long white hair falling to his waist, one hand raised and holding the invisible barrier that keeps the storm at bay.

"Wingsister," he says to her in Tayledras. (To Abras, it sounds like elegant and beautiful gibberish.) "It has been a long time. What brings you here?" 

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.

"Abras!" Savil is the one who reaches him first, jogging out ahead of Moondance, and slows just enough that she doesn't actually bowl him over when she hugs him, laughing. "Ke'chara, it's so good to see you up and about." He's never seen her so exuberant before. Her goldenrod-coloured robes make her look a lot less severe than Herald's Whites, too. 

Moondance smiles as well, catching up. "Clean? Eat, first, and then if you feel ready, I have a lesson." He sets out a tray of food and more water on a table made out of a tree-stump. 

He's in a hurry to get to the lesson, but this is still the most attention he's paid to a meal while eating it since, well, Before.

It's a really good meal! There are exotic fruits and nuts and tiny pastries with various things baked inside.

Afterward, Moondance nudges him toward a wickerwork bench which looks sort of like it was grown into position rather than made. "Good. Sit. We teach different here – I go in your mind, show you, if is all right?" 

He nods before he fully understands the question, then decides he's fine with it anyway. It doesn't sound like Moondance will be reading so much as sending, and he doesn't have much to hide anyway.

"Good. You clear your mind. Think only of breathing. You practice this before, no?"

Moondance waits a bit for Abras to obey, then whistles – and the green-gold ribbon is back in his mind, dancing, winding around a single point. It feels very weird, but as it spins, he realizes there is a point of stability there. It's not a physical part of his body at all, so much as a sort of nexus at the centre of the new places that are still there, though they don't hurt anymore. 

:You feel that?: Moondance sends, his mindvoice sounding exactly like him except nearer and brighter. He pulls back. :Now find it yourself: 

Abras can, it turns out, quiet all the parts of his mind except the part constantly screaming that Tylendel is DEAD. He sees the still point when it's pointed out, but it's much harder to focus on it than on the sucking whirlpool of grief. It's going to take a few tries to get there while simultaneously remembering that doing things can have a point in a world without 'Lendel. Maybe more than a few.

Moondance waits for a bit, then seems to notice he's having difficulty. :Do you need that I show you again?: 

"No, I can do it, just give me a minute . . ." What else is he going to say, "I can't do this super basic thing because I'm too busy having emotions?" He keeps trying, focusing on the sensations of air moving in his nose and the up-and-down motion in his abdomen. The still place is there, he just needs to reach past the despair and get to it.

Moondance doesn't mind being patient. He waits. 

Then eventually he'll be rewarded with a quiet, "I think I did it?"

:Good. I test it, then: And Moondance gives him a controlled but firm mental slap, which promptly makes him lose it and nearly fall out of the chair. :Not bad for first try: he acknowledges. :Mostly centred, but not quite solid. Try again?: 

He goes back at it. The shock of the mental slap is a bit unsettling, but it's also an experience that isn't about 'Lendel being DEAD, so that sort of cancels out. It's a little easier the second time, but still slow.

Moondance waits. :Ready: Another smack, but this time it isn't quite enough to dislodge him. :Good! Very good: 

"Thanks! Now I'm supposed to learn how to shield?"

:Patience, child: A chuckle. :First, you learn to ground. I show you again, if need, but first I see if you find it alone. Hold your centre, and feel the ground under your feet? Good. Now feel it with your magic. Without losing your centre, I wish you reach out with magic and touch it. Lay down roots, that nothing may budge you. Can you do that?: 

He digs his bare toes into the dirt and tries to magic downward. Doing anything with his magic on purpose sets off alarms in his brain, no wrong don'tdoanything. Figuring out what mental motion he needs to make turns out to be the (relatively) easy part; the hard part is following through without flinching away.

Worried look. :Are you having difficulty? I can go in your mind and show it, if you wish: 

He runs a hand through his hair. "I--maybe? I think I know what to do but I just, can't make myself do it."

Moondance makes a 'hmm' sound, tilts his head to the side and looks intently at Abras for a few moments. :Might I come in your mind simply to watch you try? May understand better the problem: 

Aaaaaa Moondance is gonna see how incompetent and overemotional Abras is being. But if he says no he's just going to keep sucking until Moondance concludes he isn't trying at all. Aaaaaa.

"Let me try a couple more times first?"

:Of course: Moondance sits back and waits. 

Center and . . . flinch.

Center and . . . gods I wish 'Lendel was here.

Center and . . . don'tdomagic don'tdoanything

Center and. . . . a wall of fire filling the horizon, Abras helpless on the far side of a Gate

"Fuck. I, I don't think I'm going to get it." He digs the fingernails of one hand into his other arm. Why can't he just do things instead of being a useless lump of sadness.

"Shh, relax. I am not upset with you. Is normal, to find it hard at first." Moondance slides closer and squeezes Abras' shoulder. "Maybe a break, first, and then try again?" 

:Come cuddle with me?: Yfandes suggests, sending a waft of affection. She's been waiting at the edge of the courtyard, curled up on the mossy ground. 

He shouldn't need a break right now but he visibly does anyway. "Yeah, okay. Just for a minute or two." He goes to sit with Yfandes, and she's warm and soft and real and right here, and he can keep his senses focused on her and off his memories. She's good and soft and kind and he loves her.

Once his heartbeat has slowed down and his head's a little clearer, he says, "I can try again with you watching my mind, now." 

:Good. I am ready: Moondance is there in his head again, but not doing anything this time, just quietly observing.

"Okay, here goes." He centers, tries to ground, and again the feel of his magic responding to his will is too much like the times he screwed up with it and he jerks away.

:I do see. I think: Moondance's mindvoice is very soft. :You fear something? ...You fear your own strength, perhaps. I sympathize: Something dark flickers briefly in the overtones and vanishes. :Perhaps I show you, once or twice, that your mind sees it is safe?: 

Abras goes still. Someone doing something in his mind, especially doing something with his magic, is a different story from just looking or communicating things. But it's not that different, right, and if he wanted to do it without help he should have been better at it. And realistically there's no way Moondance is planning to harm him, so he's just being a coward about it. So he nods again, says "Good idea," and waits.

Moondance whistles again and the green-gold ribbon is back. Briefly. It catches onto his will, not grabbing so much as coaxing, and he finds his magic reaching down, coming firmly into contact with the humming flow of life under the ground.

It feels...stable. Solid. Good. 

Moondance backs off. :That is all: 

Okay. That. Was fine. It was fine, he's fine, nothing's on fire or exploding. This time he can focus on the memory of what it's supposed to feel like and make it happen again.

:Good. Very good!: Moondance gives him a sunny smile. :You are less likely to do accidental magic, not more, when grounded. Must needs practice it often:

(He's speaking, well, Mindspeaking Valdemaran a little more fluently – like someone who was more familiar with it a decade ago, but whose vocabulary was initially rusty.) 

"Okay. I'll make sure to practice a lot. Should I just keep doing that now, or do you want to go over something else next?"

:We may move on, I think. Next is to weave a shield. This is harder to explain in words – you prefer I try, or go in your mind to show it?: 

"I would prefer to try words first, if that's alright."

Nod. Moondance looks up at the sky, thoughtful. 

:A basic personal shield stands between you – your mind, your Gifts – and the world: he starts. :You had shields on you before, by others' help, no? It ought feel the same, but of your own substance and under your control. Some picture it as a garment they weave over their body; others picture armour, or an eggshell, or even the shelter of an ekele. Start centred and grounded – then reach into your centre, and pull just a little of your power, like drawing out a thread... Then weave the first layer of a barrier. Tell me when you think you have it?: 

Abras thinks of . . . no, not his room with the door to the garden, no no what's got fewer memories . . . the secret room in his father's house, with the door blocked off so the only access was through the window. A place where he could hide from the world. Now he can use it to protect the world from himself. He pulls at his magic, slowly, gingerly, like he still half-expects it to explode out from under him. The result is whisper-thin and haphazard from repeatedly almost dropping it.

Moondance prods at it. Very gently, so as not to break the fragile beginnings of a shield. :Do you feel that?: Pause. :A good start. You will need many more layers: 

"Are all the layers the same? What properties can a shield have other than how many layers are in it?" He starts trying to add a second layer on top of the first.

Moondance chuckles. :There are many kinds of shield, but must not get ahead of ourselves. For a personal shield, you need not impose any particular will on the magic you draw: He hesitates for a while. :If you prefer I not come into your mind – you might instead come into mine, and watch as I drop and rebuild my personal shielding? All you need do is: he frowns, clearly trying to find the right description, :you feel where my mindvoice comes? That is a link between us. Simply follow it and lean in closer: 

"Only if you're okay with that? I can just practice on my own a bunch if you'd rather not, it's fine."

:It does not bother me at all. We do this often, here: Moondance...does something...and the sense of where his mental voice is coming from seems to deepen, his not-quite-physical presence growing brighter and nearer. :Watch, I am unshielded now: In addition to the words, there are wisps of not-quite-verbal thoughts and feelings that seem to float near or around him. No sign of self-consciousness. 

"Okay." It must be nice, Abras thinks, to have nothing to fear and nothing to hide. He follows the mindvoice towards its source, slowly so Moondance will have time to shield again if something goes wrong.

Moondance, at least, does not seem to think anything is going wrong. 

:Watch as I shield: he sends. :I keep my shield meshed with yours, so we stay in rapport: And his mind does a motion that's impossible to describe in words – metaphorically, it's sort of like drawing out some heart of molten copper into wire, but at the same time it's more like a plant of some kind growing up from a deep still pond – and his magic encircles him, one layer, then another, slowly shaping a barrier that hugs him like a second skin. The barrier delicately meets the edges of Abras' own much clumsier attempt, leaving the link between them so that Abras can see from the inside what's happening. As the shield weaves denser and tighter, Abras has the sense that Moondance's perception of the world is dimming, his magical senses of it blocked. 

:There: Moondance sends finally. :Clearer than words, I hope. You try again, now?: 

"Yeah. Wow, I don't see how anybody could explain that out loud. Is there a way to do it that doesn't mess with your senses, or are all shields hard to 'see through' like that?"

Moondance laughs, and does something to ‘thin’ his own shield so it’s mostly ‘transparent’. :How much it does so is your choice. You will learn to shift it on instinct, but, that control does need practice:

And he pulls back. “Try your own now?” he prompts out loud.

He focuses, pulls on his magic. It's a bit like a child's blobby first attempt to spin yarn, or like trying to extract one noodle from a bowl of noodles, but he can wrap what he gets around himself. It's "tighter" in some "places" and "looser" in others, where his grip on the magic slips for a moment, but it's more substantial than the last attempt.

:Not bad at all: Moondance pokes at a thin spot. :Reinforce here? And here?: He leans back, genuine pride in his eyes. :This is quite good for a first attempt! You will need practice constantly at first, but it will become second nature soon enough:

"Thanks!" It's the closest his face has been to a smile in some time. "I promise I'll practice a lot." He will, too, he will practice So Much until he gets good enough. "What's next, do I take it down and start over?"

Before Moondance can answer, the other man is back - Starwind, that’s his name - gliding elegantly toward them with robes swishing. 

Unsmiling, he stares Abras in the eye and stabs at his fledgeling shield with a tight burst of magic. The threads of power collapse on Abras, stinging his mind, and making him thoroughly lose his centre and grounding link with the earth.

The man smiles thinly, looking down at him. “Hmm. Not the worst apprentice shield I have seen, I suppose,” he says grudgingly. “Now,  you may start over.”

Abras jumps. Well, he thinks, that's one way to take it down. I'm going to want to learn how to do it myself sooner rather than later, though, that way hurts.

He starts over, fumbling for his center and then trying to ground again.

Starwind watches him with slitted eyes in a way that makes it very hard to concentrate. 

Abras tries looking somewhere else, but it turns out that not being able to see the person making him nervous is the opposite of reassuring. Also aaaaa he is being slow and Starwind is judging him for it and that is making him slower and this is the sort of loop a competent person could get out of just by noticing it but Abras' emotions are a complete mess so he's just meta-level nervous in addition to regular nervous.

Yfandes sends a powerful waft of reassurance along their bond. :You can do this, Chosen: 

Yfandes would absolutely be saying that whether it was true or not, but also he really doesn't want to disappoint her. He holds onto the wave of reassurance, centers and (hastily, sloppily) grounds, and starts trying to pull together a shield again. It's a bit like trying to tie a pair of strings together with shaking hands.

Moondance gives him an encouraging smile. :Nearly there. My shay'kreth'ashke is very strict – it does not mean you are doing badly: He gently pokes one of the weak spots again. :Strengthen it here: 

He strengthens it there, starts looking for the next weakest spot to strengthen. It's going to be a patchwork mess, and eventually he's going to have to get it right the first time, but for now it's something to keep his mind on that isn't how badly he's doing.

"Finished, boy?" This time, when Starwind tests his shield, he does it a bit more gently; it bows but doesn't shatter. "Hmmf. Good enough, I suppose." Sideways glance at Moondance. "At least it shall keep him from leaking his thoughts everywhere. With his Companion's help, he ought now be safe to be around others."

He turns to look at Abras, still not smiling at all. "My partner wishes that you be stronger physically before I begin teaching you further. I suppose we shall meet in a few days." And he swoops off again. 

Auuuugggh worst first impression ever. He just wants to sit at 'Lendel's feet and lean on his leg and have his hair petted like he used to after a long day of classes, and he'll never ever ever get to no matter how hard he works because 'Lendel will still be DEAD. There is no amount of success that would actually make anything okay, all he can do is clean up the small disasters spilling out around the edges of the big disaster. He was going to ask something about exercises for building physical strength but he's thoroughly forgotten that now.

Yfandes hovers around the edges of his mind, radiating desire-to-help but also a background uncertainty, like she isn't sure what words to say to him. 

:We could go for a ride: she suggests finally. :It's very beautiful around here. I think you'll like it: 

He knows that's not what he ought to be doing, but he doesn't think he can manage to do any more work for a while. He walks over to Yfandes. "A ride sounds good." (That's a lie; it sounds utterly neutral.) Then he looks over at Moondance. "If that's okay with you?"

"I think it an excellent idea," Moondance says, rising as well. "You needs build your stamina; I would have waited longer even for this lesson, were it not so important for basic safety. You were ill for a long time – I expect you are tired now? That is very normal." He offers a hand to help Abras pull himself to his feet. "You did well. I mean that."

"It's true," Savil says, emerging from one of the paths and starting to strip out of her robe so she can slip into the pool. "Took me nearly that long to get my first shield up, and I hadn't just been unconscious for a week being Healed. I'm proud of you, kechara." 

"Thank you. Both of you." He tries to imagine Savil being young and inexperienced; it doesn't compute. He's definitely tired, but building his stamina sounds like a good idea and resting sounds like being alone with his thoughts. "Yfandes, is your saddle around here somewhere?"

:Over here, love: She rises gracefully and leads him around to a little storage alcove behind the weird tree-plant-house. His winter clothes are all there, tidily folded in a wicker box, and Yfandes’ saddle and tack are hanging neatly on the wall.

He's put tack on horses before, but never on one who was a person and he's not sure what if anything is different. "Um, let me know if it's too tight or anything."

Yfandes is very helpful about it, moving parts of her body to exactly where it's easiest for him to reach. :Good – hmm, adjust that one a bit – that's comfortable. Ready to go? Actually, if you'd like clothing a little more durable, there should be some in the ekele that's more suitable to the weather here: 

"Something a little sturdier would be nice, if you're sure it's okay to borrow those clothes." He can take a look in the ekele and grab something that will hold up well to riding.

:Moondance set them aside for you. He's sleeping up-above with Starwind now, since you're down here – this was his room for when he didn't feel like being up in a tree: 

The clothes are a bit big on him, but there are actual pants, and there are some soft lace-up boots that clearly aren't intended for hard outdoor use but that Yfandes says ought to do fine inside the Vale. 

Actual pants: a very important thing to have when riding. Also shoes, though he'll want to be careful with this pair. Once he's clothed, Abras levers himself into Yfandes' back. It's harder than he remembers mounting a horse being; he's very out of shape.

:It'll come back: Yfandes reassures him. :Lots of walking and climbing to be done around here. Hmm – why don't I show you the swimming-hole that's over this way?: 

She starts trotting down one of the wider mossy paths (the narrower ones are twisty and overhung with vines and not nearly wide enough for her.) It is very pretty. There are flowers the size of babies hanging from vines, and little colourful birds and butterflies, and at some point a couple of adorable children stop and ask Yfandes if they can braid her mane. She submits gracefully to this for a couple of minutes before disengaging herself. 

Abras knew the names of every kind of bird and flower around his father's estate, and Haven had a lot of the same ones, but the kinds here are totally new to him! He keeps getting hit with flashes of "I wish I could show this to Tylendel but he's DEAD", but in between it's genuinely beautiful and awe-inspiring. And the children are adorable.

They emerge from the trees into a beautifully landscaped open area. There's a deep, sparkling-clear pool of water that slopes up into a sandy beach, and a tall rock beside with obvious handholds for climbing and a flat spot on top. 

Yfandes nudges for him to dismount, and then curls up in the soft grass near the water. :Want to go swimming, or just sit awhile?: 

He gets off and strokes her mane. "I think I'll go for a swim." He takes his clothes off and folds them, leaving them in a pile on a rock before climbing into the pool.

It's not hot like the pool near the ekele; it's cool, but pleasantly so. The water is so clear that he could count the pebbles on the bottom of the deepest part, at least five yards down. 

That's really nice. He tries to swim to the bottom and grab a pebble, but gives up on that quickly when the combination of holding his breath and pressure in his ears becomes unpleasant. Instead he can swim in circles until he's worn out.

When he’s done (which probably won’t take long given that he’s been approximately bedridden for a couple of weeks) Yfandes will be waiting to snuggle, and food has appeared from apparently nowhere on a tree stump beside her.

Indeed, Abras only has about fifteen minutes of leisurely swim in him before his arms and legs start complaining. He gets dried and dressed and snuggles up, then notices the food. "Did someone drop off food while I was swimming? I totally missed them." He hopes they didn't think he was ignoring them on purpose.

:Oh no, that’s normal here. The hertasi - they’re sort of lizard creatures who live here and help out the Tayledras - are very discreet. They take pride in it: Snuggle snuggle.

Another species of people: extremely cool. A species all of whom are good at sneaking up on him: kind of spooky, for all they're apparently nice folks. Don't think about how easily he was captured by a fellow human, do not, pet Yfandes and eat and don't think about being tied up and helpless. Think about literally anything other than that. "It would be cool to meet one if they wanted to talk to me but it sounds like they don't."

:They may warm up to you at some point, but yes, they’re shy: 

Yfandes nuzzles him, and he can feel her thinking, not quite the thoughts themselves but the fact that she is thinking, and unsure of something. Kind of weird. 

:Chosen: she sends finally. :I think...it would help to speak of what happened to you, at some point. To me, or Moondance, or Savil. Maybe not yet, but - I doubt it’ll help to keep it bottled up forever: 

She sends a powerful wave of caring and reassurance along their bond. :I love you, Chosen. And I think you’re being very brave:

"What would I even say? Just tell you what happened?" He's pretty sure being brave is when you do dangerous things without freezing up, and what he's doing is freezing up in the absence of actual danger which is the opposite of that, but if he contradicts her it will just sound like he's asking for compliments so he's not going to mention it.

:Yes, my understanding is that it can help - make it just another part of your past, not something frightening even to think about. But I get it, if it’s too fresh now: 

Her soft damp nostrils blow into his hair. :Chosen, you’re very hard on yourself. You went through something that most people can’t imagine. It’s normal for that to affect you - just like a physical injury, except that wounds to our mind can take far longer to heal. It will get easier, I promise, but...it does take courage, to get up in the morning anyway.  I recognize that: 

She settles her head in his lap. :We can stop talking about that now if you want: 

"Yes please, talking about something else would be good." (He doesn't want to have a wounded mind. He is his mind. Having a wounded mind means being worse, inherently. It's true, though, for all he hates it.)

Yfandes, seeming a bit apologetic, gamely starts a conversation about math. When the sun sinks below the tall rock, the light turning golden, she suggests they head back to the ekele for supper.

Abras can talk about math for quite a while! Math is fun and abstract and doesn't remind him of anything. Yfandes can definitely keep him functional until supper and then bring him to same.

Savil, who's lounging around outside the ekele, practically beams when she sees him. (It's a weird look on her). "Abras! You look so much better, I can't believe it. Want to come up-above for supper with Starwind and Moondance?" 

She points. There's a rope ladder hanging from one of the enormous trees. Looking up, Abras will notice another treehouse, this one built into the first branches that split off from the trunk. At least thirty feet off the ground. 

His eyes go alllllll the way up the ladder, and he suddenly regrets the time he spent deliberately wearing himself out swimming. "I would love to, but, uh."

"...Is is the heights that bother you? Or are you just not feeling up for the climb?" Savil shrugs. "They can come down as well. I'll Mindspeak them." She seems...relieved, if anything. 

"I'm not scared of heights. Just, really weak arms." At least there's one thing he isn't scared of.

Savil chuckles. "That's one place you're ahead of me, then. I've been visiting this place once in a while for thirty years and their ekele still gives me the shivers." 

Seconds later, Moondance is scrambling down the ladder, light and graceful; he lets go five feet off the ground and hops down, grinning and bouncing. Starwind follows, slowly and with more dignity.

"Hello, Moondance. H-hello Starwind."

Moondance smiles brightly. "You spent a pleasant afternoon? I hope you are enjoying our Vale. I found it wonderful indeed when I first came."

He points Abras down a short path, toward what prove to be a shady clearing with lounge-chairs and more tables made of tree-stumps. 

And then Abras catches a glimpse of a colorful scaly creature! It's about two-thirds the height of a man, and just slipping away into the undergrowth. There's a laden tray of food and a jug of some sort of drink that definitely weren't there ten seconds ago. 

"Yes, it's beautiful he--" he jumps at the sudden movement. "Was that one of the Hertasi Yfandes told me about? Wow, they're fast."

Savil laughs. "They are! It's fascinating, actually. We think they're a created species, dating back to before the Mage Wars – not that they talk about their history much, but the sense one gets is that they were made to be servants. And they're very good at it." 

Moondance chuckles as well. "Though they are not exactly servile. Sometimes one thinks they consider themselves our masters instead! They adore feeding and clothing us, in the way they see fit. And trying to 'fix' our lives in all ways, perhaps things we find not in need of fixing. They are such gossips – if they think two people ought be a couple, they will go to such ends to arrange this. Romantic decorations and food will appear whenever the two are alone together. It is rather charming, and occasionally awkward." 

"Wow. . . . I guess if someone is going to create a species of servants that's one of the least bad ways it could go."

"I suppose so!" Savil passes him a bowl which she's loaded with food. "Eat up. What did you and 'Fandes get up to this afternoon? You've got colour in your cheeks, looks like you got some sun and exercise."

"We went for a ride and swam a bit and talked about math! Yfandes is so nice."

"I'm so glad, kechara." She squeezes his shoulder. "Now, eat." 

By the time they finish, the sun is down. :You look tired, love: Yfandes sends. :Bedtime?: 

He eats, and strongly agrees with the suggestion of bedtime. He's worn out enough from the day's efforts to fall asleep almost instantly, but that still leaves him a few minutes of being alone in bed thinking about what 'Lendel would have thought about this place.

He has no shortage of nightmares, but the strange ice-dream doesn't return that night, and if the nightmares wake him, Yfandes is there in his mind instantly, with wordless soothing and love. 

The next day is much like the previous day, except minus the lesson. Yfandes nudges him to bathe and soak in the hot springs, and breakfast appears while he's not looking, and Savil invites him on a walk through the Vale. Both Savil and Yfandes nag him every few minutes to re-centre and ground and check his shields. Hopefully with more practice it'll start to become easier. 

He practices and eats and practices and bathes and practices and walks and practices and tries to hide his frustration at how slowly he's improving and practices and looks at plants and practices and practices and practices. It does get easier; he learns to associate the feeling of centering and grounding with safety, not danger, and his attempts at shields get gradually and inconsistently steadier. Whenever his thoughts threaten to turn to fire and aloneness, Yfandes or Savil is there with a diverting comment or a reminder to practice. The worst times are at night, when he has to let his mind go blank to sleep and DEAD DEAD DEAD is right there to fill the gap. He stays up as late as he can manage, tries to exhaust himself with walking and practicing so he can sleep too quickly and deeply to remember the nightmares. It almost works.