"Sooner than I'd planned?  Replace you??  What are you talking about?  I 
need you, need your help."  The confused look on her face seemed so 
genuine.  He knew he shouldn't be showing his hand, but he'd hoped to force 
hers as well.  Apparently, it hadn't worked.  Damn, but she was a cool one.

"We both know you've been trying to make me look bad so that you could 
replace me," he said in a shaky voice.  He shouldn't have done that.  Pain 
meds made you act like such an idiot.  He hated them.  Oh, well, no sense 
in holding back now.  "You didn't want to feel embarrassed or be reminded 
that Velara's *boy toy* was leading the Wing..."  His words trailed off as 
a sharp pain sliced through him when he tried to raise himself higher in 
the bed to face her eye to eye.  When she made a move towards him to help 
he waved her off.  "I don't need your help," he told her and watched her 
back away.

There were tears in her eyes when she looked back at him.  "I guess I 
didn't realize until now just how much you hated me," she said.  Very nice. 
Quite convincing.  "I didn't realize that you thought so little of me, as 
to think I would go to such lengths to have you removed from Alpha."  Her 
voice broke as her tears began to fall.  "I've been trying every way I know 
how to make you see how much I need your help, and the whole time you 
thought I was trying to replace you?  If you think that, then you don't 
*know* me at all."

Her tears were falling freely now as she turned and fled the room.

Well, one small victory, he supposed.  He laid back, thinking of the 
stunned look on her face as he had revealed that he knew what she was up 
to.  But the tears... why, she was almost as good as Calette.  Hmmm... come 
to think of it, she might be better than Calette.

A woman stepped in and checked his forehead, frowning.  "You've got a bit 
of a fever.  I'm going to give you an antibiotic."  She handed him three 
pills, one of which was different than the other two.

"What's the other pill?"

"Hmmm?"

"The other pill, what is it?"

"Pain killer."

He nodded, and swallowed the three pills with the water she held to his lips.

Soon the pain killer had swathed him in a fog where images and bits of 
memory drifted.

"You, poor Tair'n, wouldn't even have had the Alpha Wing Leadership had it 
been left up to Velara."

"She loved you, Tai."

"I don't love your father anymore, Tair'n, I love you.  Won't you give me 
just one kiss?"

"... If you can't handle the responsibilities that go along with the job, 
tell me now so I can start looking for someone who can."

"She supported your appointment to the Alpha Wingleader position. ...very 
outspoken about it."

"I don't care if you respect me or not."

"I've been trying every way I know how to make you see how much I need your 
help, and the whole time you thought I was trying to replace you?  If you 
think that, then you don't *know* me at all."

"I believe I can trust you..."

"I do not want Velara remembered as randy old lady who liked to make out in 
her office with a boy who was young enough to be her grandson." 

"...I trust you to take care of the problem."

"I don't need that kind of pain."

Jayleigh seemed to separate into two people in his mind.  The one snapped, 
"Have the decency to cover yourself up," while he cried.  The other said, 
"I need you, need your help."

She had never accepted that he was more than Velara's lover, that he was 
her *mate*, but yet she claimed to respect him?  She rejected who he was in 
one breath and claimed to respect him with the next.  She lied to him, then 
claimed to trust him.  It made no sense.

There was a light touch to his forehead.

His eyes flew open.  A small, red-headed man with crystal-blue eyes looked 
down at him silently.  He didn't recognize him.  Then he realized where he 
knew this person from.

"You!" exclaimed the surprised dragon rider, trying to struggle to sit up.

The man scampered back, looking at him warily.  He was clean now, and 
dressed in something other than filthy furs.  Tair'n glanced around the 
room, but they were alone.

"Hello?"

The man said nothing, just watched him.

<Amadith, where's his...>

<She is watching the wing practice.>

<Great, so how am I supposed to talk...>

<He can hear dragons as well as his mate can, he just doesn't like to as much.>

<Okay, can you tell him I won't hurt him,> as if he could, in his 
condition...  <and ask him why he came here.>

There was a slight pause.  The man's eyes grew somewhat soft and distant.

<He says he came to see how you were,> Amadith finally sent.

<Tell him I've been better, but it's not serious.>

<He asks if you are angry with him.>

Tair'n thought.  <No, I'm not.  He just surprised me.>  He pointed to the 
chair next to the bed.  <Tell him to come sit and relax.>

The wild man approached cautiously, then sat rather awkwardly in the chair.

"I'm Tair'n."  He pointed at himself.  "Tair'n."  He pointed at the wild 
man.  "You are?"

The man considered for a moment, then spoke in a voice unused to speaking, 
"Nrocinu."

Tair'n nodded.  <Amadith, can you get any sort of life story from him.  I'm 
curious where he came from and how he ended up in that village.>

He sat back and waited to see what the wild man would say.

Respectfully submitted,
 Lynette R. F. Cowper
  Tair'n and Amadith

NRPG: Tag, Morgie, unless someone wants to come in and interrupt their 
conversation.

---
|   Lynette R. F. Cowper  *  Official INWO Rules NetRep & Goddess    |
| http://www.io.com/~lcowper  *  lcowper@io.com  *  lcowper@indy.net |
|  "If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever |
|                   get done."  -- L. Wittgenstein                   |