Lillene

Enjoy!

It took Serenity time to realize that he wasn’t in his human form. He’d reverted to his wyrmling form some time during his exploration of the planet’s ley lines. 

It took even longer for him to get the energy together to move and look around the room. Senkovar wasn’t there, but both Rissa and Blaze were. Rissa had moved one of the chairs over next to him; she was asleep with a hand on his flank. 

Blaze was seated across from Serenity, awake. He watched Serenity raise his head and look around the room. “You’ve been in a trance for three days. Senkovar was convinced you were on the trail of something, so he asked us not to pull you out. Rissa and I have been watching you while Senkovar took over distracting the Governor. How are you feeling?”

Serenity coughed weakly. His throat was a little dry, but not “three days” dry. “Honestly, pretty decent for being out for three days. Not so great overall.”

“Well, you are in a nexus. You didn’t need that much help. There wasn’t much I could do about anything other than the physical symptoms while you were diagnosing Themrys.” Blaze frowned in concentration. “Can you shift yet? I’d like to get you back to the ship.”

That sounded good. There really wasn’t any reason to stay in the Governor’s palace any longer; they’d probably want to move the ship closer to the area they needed to search. It was too bad none of the five nexuses next to the area held a portal; if they had, that might have made more sense than moving the ship. Three of them held dungeons, but none of the dungeons had a full portal node that reached Themrys City.

“Yeah,” Serenity answered before he started. “That sounds good.”

It wasn’t as easy as it should have been. If Serenity were a little more with it; that would have been obvious; he felt terrible, and shifting something that didn’t really feel right into something else that didn’t really feel right was a slow, uncomfortable process. He could feel the Skill helping to keep things moving properly; it was an odd feeling, since he usually couldn’t even notice the Skill’s assistance. Maybe he was oversensitive right now? He didn’t think he was imagining it.

When he finally reached his “human” shape, Serenity leaned over and retched. It didn’t accomplish anything. He knew it wouldn’t before he started, but he still felt like he’d eaten something that badly disagreed with himself.

Serenity couldn’t see Blaze’s frown, but he could feel it when his friend set a cool hand on his entirely-too-warm forehead. He could also feel the effects of whatever Blaze was doing as it soothed his upset nerves and made him feel ever so slightly better. If he were a little more together, he might have felt worried that he was so ill that he couldn’t actually sense what Blaze was doing beyond the obvious effects, but as it was he was too grateful that it helped.

“If I ever see you do this again, I’m pulling you out of your trance,” Blaze warned Serenity. “You should never let yourself get into this poor physical state. Handling it slower should make it far less impactful to your health. At a minimum, I’m going to want regular checks.”

Serenity nodded miserably. “Can you get it back to the same sort of vague ache it was before I started the search?”

“Not quickly.” This time, Blaze’s frown was clearly visible to Serenity because he was looking in the right direction. “It would help if we got you away from the nexus and better yet away from the planet for a bit, but that’s not possible until we get back to the Death’s Wings. Given the situation with the Governor, I need to get you on your feet before we leave here. I hate doing this.”

This time, Serenity felt the wave of mana as it pushed through him as well as the effects it had. He couldn’t really pay attention to the spell’s structure or even tell if it was structured or simply Intent-based, however, because it came with a wave of giddiness. All of the pain fell away and he felt good, even elated. At first, Serenity thought that was the pain relief, but when he tried to stand he wavered and couldn’t quite stand straight. “Whatever you did, that’s a … that’s a … did you get me drunk?”

Blaze chuckled. “A bit too much, then. I wasn’t sure; it’s hard to judge things with you. You don’t react to any spells the way you should.” He sounded a little frustrated and a little intrigued at the same time.

For a moment, Serenity wondered if the reason Blaze followed Serenity around was because Blaze wanted to see how different healing magic would work on him. Serenity banished the thought almost instantly; it didn’t make sense. Not only did he know that Blaze enjoyed both his company and the company of the others who traveled with Serenity, especially Ita, Blaze was almost painfully honest and had made it quite clear that what he was looking for was a new home.

He did also seem to want to teach Serenity how to heal, but that didn’t have any bearing on the topic. Serenity’s reflex was to say it wasn’t possible, but he now knew that there was something wrong with that reflex. It didn’t make it much easier to say yes, but he now knew he could try. If he wanted to.

“Serenity!” Blaze called out to him, then waved a hand in front of his face. “You’re going to have to focus until we’re back on the ship; no drifting off like that. Pay attention to the outside world. Get Aide to help if you need to. 

Rissa was awake; Blaze must have woken her. When did he do that?

Serenity shook himself. This was more evidence that he wasn’t all there, the way Blaze said. He didn’t really need the evidence. 

“You have to lead,” Blaze told Serenity. “I have a flyer, so all you need to do is make it off the Palace grounds.”

Serenity nodded and headed to the door. When he opened it, there was a guard standing outside. He couldn’t tell if it was one of the men he’d seen with the Governor earlier or not, but he wore the same uniform. “We’re ready to leave. Is there anything we need to do on the way out?”

The guard shook his head. “No. I’ll show you out.”

Serenity half-noticed that the guard didn’t use any respectful terms for him; perhaps he wasn’t certain what term to use or perhaps he didn’t care to. The third option, which seemed the most likely, was that he’d been instructed not to by the Governor. Serenity seemed to remember that Imperials tended to be very punctilious about rank; for all that they were speaking Bridge, that tended to bleed over. 

Serenity managed to keep his attention on the real world until Blaze restored a flyer and they were aboard, after which he promptly fell asleep. When they reached the Death’s Wings, Rissa shook him awake long enough to get him off the flyer and back to his room.

He remembered nothing more until morning, when he woke with a headache worse than any headache he remembered, even worse than the hangovers back in his college days. He groaned, then realized it made his head hurt worse and buried his head under a pillow.

It was a good thing he didn’t have to breathe; he could bury his face and not worry about it.

Serenity suffered in as close to silence as he could manage for a while, until he felt a hand on his shoulder. The warm pain relief that followed said the hand was Blaze’s, but Blaze clearly knew better than to say anything before Serenity removed the pillow from on top of his head and started to sit up. “How long was I out?”

Serenity winced in pain. His own voice was too loud. The light wasn’t bad, but it was also on the “night” setting; there was barely any light in the room. He wouldn’t have been able to tell the other person in the room was Blaze by sight.

“Only about six hours,” Blaze whispered. “I’ve been checking on you every hour, so I’m not sure how long you’ve been awake but it wasn’t longer than that. You don’t need to get up yet; I’m going to soothe your headache and you’re going to get a couple hours’ more sleep before you do anything.”

Serenity knew he should pass along the information he’d gained, but he really didn’t want to talk to anyone. Blaze’s plan sounded good.

It wasn’t until Serenity was feeling a little better and Blaze was on his way out of the room that it occurred to Serenity that he didn’t have to talk to someone, even mentally, to pass information along. Talking to Aide wasn’t really any louder than hearing himself think. That wasn’t entirely comfortable but it was better than any of the other options. :Aide? Can you pass the location of the damage to Themrys along to Rissa? The nexuses that surround it, too? Maybe the World Eaters are still there.:

:Yes, I’ll handle it. Now go to sleep,: Aide answered. It was the first time Serenity had heard the artificial sapience sound concerned about him and that was both heartening and in its own way concerning. He’d made everyone worry about him, hadn’t he? He’d be fine. 

After he slept.

The next time Serenity woke, he felt immensely better. Blaze wasn’t in the room, but Serenity felt like he could get out of bed and move around without the healer’s help. He didn’t know how long he’d slept, but he suspected it had been longer than two hours.

As he thought that, he realized he could find out. :Aide? How long did I sleep that time?:

:Four and a half hours. We’re still on the ground, but they seem to have decided to let you sleep. Senkovar and Cymryn are on the ground right now; I don’t know exactly what they’re doing. I assume they’re speaking to the Governor.: Aide was back to his usual calm, almost monotone, voice. Serenity could only assume that meant he was reassured.

“I guess I’d better go find out why they let me sleep in and why we haven’t moved over to the damaged area yet,” Serenity muttered, then hurried through a quick form of his usual morning routine. 

When he got outside the room, he found Rissa asleep on the couch in their living area. He stopped to watch her sleep for a moment and felt guilty. She’d clearly watched over him as much as she could while he was searching Themrys for the World Eaters and then when he came back he was essentially sick. Serenity was sure Blaze told her that he’d be fine, but she’d clearly worried herself into exhaustion.

He was still trying to decide if he should wake her or not when she suddenly took a deep breath and sat up suddenly. She turned to look at the bedroom even before her eyes were open. “Serenity?”

“I’m here.” Serenity stepped forward as Rissa’s head turned towards him, with her eyes open this time. She sprang off the couch and enveloped him in a hug.

Lillene

I probably should mention Jenna soon. She’s around, but I couldn’t figure out how to work her into this chapter. If it was another setting, Rissa might have brought her, but there was no way she was going to take Jenna to the Governor’s palace. I suppose I could have mentioned her in the ending bit, but I’m not quite sure where.