>"Wwwhhheeerrreee iiisss ssshhheee?" The voice asked, the face a twisted 
>contortion of rage and agony.  It looked around, seeing the healers 
>fingering a syringe lightly.  He/They laughed in spite of it.  A'rillia 
>was the first to speak.  

Arri looked for a long hard moment at the starlight around David's skull. 
>From the bruise outward, it was blackening... the light darkening and 
engulfing the sense of reality that connected David's body... She touched a 
finger gingerly to his temple and pulled it back in pain. No.. it shouldn't 
have been happening yet...

>"David.... no, you're not David." She corrected.  "Who are you?" She asked,
>realizing the entity was taking over David's very soul.  She could see it
>from her viewings, the starlight web surrounding his body turning 
>blacker every muinute.

>"Wwweee hhhaaavvveee tttooolllddd yyyooouuu, Hhheeeaaallliiinnnggg 
>Bbbiiitttccchhh!  Aaannnddd wwwhhheeennn wwweee aaarrreee fffrrreeeeee, 
>yyyooouuu, aaannnddd ttthhhiiisss pppiiitttiiifffuuullllll lllaaannnddd, 
>wwwiiillllll DDDIIIEEE!" The entity screamed, causing everyone to cover 
>their ears.  The blackness spreading across his soul moveing faster, and a 
>soft keening could be heard from outside.  Kaylin was prepareing to die.  
>The black dragon, in his distress, wondered where Kirimith was...

"NO!" screamed Arri... "Put him under... now!" D'sarrian looked at her for a 
long moment as if she had lost her mind. Maybe she had. She didn't care.

"If you don't sedate him, his dragon is going to teleport out and he won't 
have a *reason* to live... Can't you hear him crying out? I don't want to do 
it either, but what choice do we have?"

>Finally D'sarrian shot David up with another dose of sedatives, knocking 
>him out again.  He paced across the room, wondering what was going on.  
>Turning on A'rillia, he shook his head.  "Can't you help him any more?" 
>He asked, an almost pleading look on his face.  A'rillia thought the 
>options, the whole idea of touching David's now almost blackened soul 
>again made her stomach curdle.  

She needed a moment's respite.. She was exhausted and needed to be away from 
here for a moment to think... she needed... 

David began moving again. "Holy damn," she hissed under her breath, "he 
shouldn't even be moving... I..." A'Rillia's breath caught... "I don't know 
if I can control him..."

>He was now tossing restlessly, and David's true face appeared for a brief 
>second, the look sad and lonely.  His eyes, now human, focused on
>A'rillia, and he spoke.  "Have mercy... and kill me." He whispered, and 
>the humanity was gone, replaced by something inhuman.  

Suddenly it was no longer David. A'Rillia was a child again, and the face 
looking up at her in resignation was not that of a man, but that of 
K'Legra... B'Nair's mother.

It was happening all over again. Again she was going to die. Again Arri 
would be outcast... feared, hated... all again...

Arri shrieked incoherently in fury and fear.

"No... nononononononono... NOT AGAIN! Do you hear me? **NEVER AGAIN!**"

>A'rillia grew angry, knowing now that David, the true David, was giving up. 
 >Standing up, hurling her chair backwards, she ran over to the entity, and 
grabbed 
>David's head between her hands, extending her mind.  

Her hands slid into the starlight, anger giving her fingers edges of razor 
sharp steel. Strand by precious strand, she began paring the darkness from 
the light and reweaving it with her own... and when he wavered on point of 
death she pulled him back with the sheer force of her own soul, pouring 
herself so far into him that they became one entity...

>"I WILL NOT LET YOU DIE!" She screamed, both out loud and with her thoughts, 
>letting her soul merge with what was left of David's, the white seeking 
>desperately to push the darkness away.

**Goddamnedyouman FIGHT!**

Arri stood again in the desert, facing the black entity that was the Wraith 
mind. David was collapsed against the tree, breathing heavily between sobs.

**{Leave me}**
**{<No David I will not le...>}**

The doppelganger cut her thought off by attacking her with a hideous dark 
laugh, but as she ducked his blows with a skill born of long years of 
training, she noticed it/they was no longer wearing the amulet. She drew her 
sword and stood her ground.

**(<Where is it?>}** she taunted.
**/BBiittcchh/** The doppleganger attacked her in anger and left itself 
open. Her blade scored below the breast in the space between the stomach and 
the heart. Not enough to kill, just to hurt. Horrified, she watched as the 
being's blood began to form in globes around it's body and spin around it in 
cycles. Everywhere the blood touched, a piece of it/they would disappear. 
It/they began to shriek... and so did David.. in a terrible harmony...

>David threw his head back, screaming loudly, with both a human and alien 
>voice.  From his body it seemed that his soul was ripping out, tearing 
>away from his mind and heart, A'rillia unable to let the bond between 
>their minds break.  Further the evil ripped away, tendrils clinging 
desperately to whatever they could on his body.  White lay underneath, 
exposing a tottaly 
different soul, a soul that was real.  

Finally, she saw a clean break... blade whirling over her head, she stepped 
into the bloody maelstrom and smote the head from the body. It continued 
screaming, but it was different... it was defeat, and fear... 

>A'rillia watched with terrified eyes as the entity was forced out of
>David's body, the millions of voices crying out in a surge of death, 
>clawing at anything near them.  The air around David began to shift, the 
>colors becoming blurry, like they were seen through a sheet of rippleing 
>water.  

David's voice grew louder and louder... his voice rising in triumph...  He 
stood... And she watched him smile at her and attack it with his bare hands.

>The force flung A'rillia from David's side and she landed on the 
>floor across the room.  She winced, and looked over at the healers.  
>They too were witnessing this.  
>
>The ripple encompased David, and it seemed as if he were viewed 
>from a kaliedoscope, his body splitting from itself and yet still 
>attatched.  The entity became real for a brief moment, its hellish gaze 
>turning on the three people, reaching to take them with it.  Light, from 
>what seemed a million stars, filled the room...
>
A'Rillia screamed in pain and clamped her hands to her ears, tears flowing 
down her face and blood leaking from the corner of her mouth where she had 
bit through the inner flesh of her cheek...
>
>C'tain, who had fallen against one of the walls, lowered his arms from 
>his face.  He had shielded himself from the light, and as his eyes became 
>accustomed to the dim illumination, he looked around.  David was lying 
>still on his bed, his face peaceful, breathing normally.  D'sarrian had 
>already gotten up to see to A'rillia.  She was helped into a chair, and 
>C'tain walked cautiously over to David, checking his vitals.  He couldn't 
>believe it, everything seemed normal.  
>
<:Arri... ARRI!:>
<And I take one, one, one cause you left me
   And two, two, two..>
<:Arri... Come back... You are not a child... Arri... Come back...:> Daetyn 
pleaded.
>
>A'rillia, slumping tiredly, smiled.  "He's fine, I can see it.  For some 
>reason, he's perfectly fine..." Her voice held a tinge of madness, her 
>mind desperately seeking to understand what she did.  

<Who did I heal? Who? David or her>
<:Shhhh, sweetling... I'm here now:>
<Who? Mother... mother? Help me? I can't remember... Why did she stab me?>
<:Arri... Maeglin... come back to now...:>

>D'sarrian gave her a mild sedative.  C'tain shook his head and put a hand 
on Arri's 
>shoulder.  "My dear, you did it..."
>
>David woke up, yawning slightly, shaking his head.  He blinked and looked 
>around.  "D'sarrian, ye would think that those drugs ya put me on would 
>get rid o'headaches too." He said, making a small joke.  The healer 
>laughed, and looked at the other two.  "That's the David I remember!" He 
>said, and went to check his patient's shoulder.
>
>Opening the bandages, the wound seemed to have healed considerably, the 
>scar tissue a pale white against his skin, but that was all.  David 
>looked over to A'rillia and made a confused look.  "Do I know ye?" He said.
>
A'Rillia looked into David's eyes and began to cry all over again. He was alive.

"I only saved your life. No reason you should remember my name anama-bach" 
she said with a tinge of bitterness. "Live. That is reward enough for what I 
have been through..." she added through a voice choked with tears.

>
>Between the three, the healers recounted the story of what David had went 
>through since for some reason he didn't remember any of it.  It took a 
>while, and after they were finished, David just shrugged.  "I still don't 
>remember a thing, and from what ye all have told me, I don't want t'."
>
>Suddenly, David heard a keening.  Kirimith was calling out to any who 
>would listen.  *Please, someone help me!  Minty is dying!*
>
>David's face turned pale white, and he jumped out of bed, unconcerned 
>that he was wearing just some loose shorts.  C'tain tried to hold him 
>down, and he shrugged the hand off.  "Minty is in trouble!  You've got to 
>save her!" He told C'tain, and as he was running out the door with the 
>healer, he found out where Minty was.  
>

NRPG: Insert Les' post and my comments thereon here. 
Now I just have to get her out of Med. God I hate getting behind.
(*exhausted yawn*)

========================================
 "Learning that we're only Immortal for a limited Time..."  ---N. Peart (*Rush*)
 "What does my body have to do with my gratitude?"            ---A. Di Franco
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    Slainte'!    <Good Health...>           |          Shadowsinger@greatgig.com
          **Shadowsinger**                    |        
tlw663@winnipeg.freenet.mb.ca
 
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                         ***Heart And Soul of A'Rillia and Daetyn***  
     ( **Periodic Bard of CuddleLand**     -<Will Sing For CheeseCake>- )
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