From: Shadowsinger <shadowsinger@usa.net>

RPG:

++++++++++++++++++++++++
She dropped the fourth match on the edge of the pyre when it burned down to
her fingers. The first three had been blown out by the wind. 

Dry kindling caught and flared, creating a sudden backdraft of searing air.
While she stepped back, she didn't feel much pain from it. The blisters
could be dealt with later.

Ameoba-like, the flames crawled up the miniature mountain of wood. Most of
it was broken furniture and clothes, because she couldn't bear to leave the
things out in the open to remind her. 

When the tendrils reached the body and the pungent scent of flesh returning
to ash slithered across the wind, the solitary woman closed her eyes to the
sight. She couldn't close her ears to the crackling or close her senses to
the pungent oily smoke filling the air.

This one was harder. Maybe because she cared more. Maybe because it was too
permanent. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. The tears had long since
stopped coming, and the burning sensation in her eyes was only the smoke.

Only the smoke.

================
<eighteen months earlier, warren green>

"Ye canna be serious," she said in confusion.

"I'm perfectly serious, m'lady. I have a letter here from T'lar herself
that she says came from K'chain asking you to come," he replied with far
too much joy in his eyes for one bearing such bad news. "They insisted on
you. They don't trust the Warrenfolk to help them."

She shook her head at the complete defiance of logic. "But I'm a - oh never
mind lad. Let me tell the Warrenlady and..."

"No," he said, cutting her off, "You have to come now. K'chain is worried
they're getting worse and he can't risk getting sick. You can protect
yourself in ways he can't. I don't know what he means, but..."

"I do." The woman closed her eyes in pain. "It's the same reason they
wanted me to die in the first place lad. I know exactly what they mean."

He waited for the moment to pass and pressed her as hard as he dared, "We
have to go now, m'lady."

She nodded and went to get her things.

<Not a word of this to anyone.>

<:Why are we hiding it?:>

<This is family business. I can't afford a lecture.>

<:I still think this is wrong.:>

<Disowning me was wrong. If they need me now, maybe they will forgive me.
Maybe they will understand.>

The long silence from her dragon dogged her steps as she ran to her
apartment to gather a few basic herbs and a lunch. She was just going to go
have a look at them.

When she came back, the courier was saddled and ready to go, but her dragon
still wouldn't talk to her.

<No leaks. I want nobody following us.>

****Forests outside Falagand Warren****

She jumped off the dragon's back and ran to meet T'lar and K'chain. T'lar
had grown into a fine spectacle of a woman and carried herself well, all
things considered. She was far from the trembling, frightened child that
had been left behind the day she fled Falagand, and the woman took a brief
moment of pride in that.

K'chain stood watching her, expressionless.

"Maybe I had better warn you, little falcon," he said slowly as the courier
flew off. "They're not good."

T'lar walked up to her and extended a hand. K'chain extended a hand and
added, "Trust us to Show you."

She walked up to the two of them, tears welling in her eyes and took their
hands. The initial flurry of images knocked the wind out of her and it took
several moments to comb through them, seeing the sores, the coughing up
blood, the gauntness. K'chain and T'lar squeezed her hands reassuringly as
she sifted through the strands.

"They're dying..." she whimpered softly. "Why me? Why now?"

T'lar and K'chain looked at her and took their hands away. K'chain even
held her for several long moments while she cried it out... they were dying
and now they wanted her around. His concern for her wrapped around her mind
like a comforting blanket and she finally brought herself under control.

The Junior at Falagand looked at her for a long moment before answering.
"We tried to get them to come to the Warren, but they refuse to let
dragonriders help them. Then your father started insisting you come, that
he would only let you heal him." 

T'lar paused for a moment and ran a hand through her hair. "When your
mother fel ill too, we thought it was a plague. We can't see any reason for
it, really. K'chain's been watching them when he comes around, but he got
worried enough to bring it to me, because he figured B'nair wouldn't listen."

"She wouldn't," said the woman quietly, "She would consider it justice due
that they died. I have to do what I can."

"Take me home."

=================
Only the smoke. 

She was not crying in rememberance of walking into her house and seeing her
parents half-starved and covered in sores. She was not weeping for the long
nights when she wove their hearts and minds back together as she became
more and more ill in their stead. She was not crying for the hateful things
her father called her, even as she treated the rashes and sores.

It was only the smoke.

She was not crying for the day he died, when the last thing he ever
mustered up to do was spit in her face with his dying gasp of "Filthy
Rider." She was not crying for the hours her mother spent staring at his
empty chair while she had to build a pyre. She was not crying for the
incessant lectures her dragon gave her, the screaming matches they got
into, the horrid memories evoked by the house of being held down and raped,
gagging on her brother's body in the heat of the afternoon.

It was only the heat of the flames.

She was not sobbing for the days her mother called her by her childhood
name. She was not upset over her mother asking where Bedin was and then
accusing her of lying. She was not crying for the long nights spent lying
awake trying to remember what it was like to be little Maeglin. 

It was just exhaustion.

She was not, she insisted, crying for the days her mother pleaded with her
to let her die. She was not standing out here in front of this final
reckoning thinking about the day she heard her mother tell her she loved
her by the name she had taken as a Rider. She was not hearing her mother
forgive her and accept her and love her. She was not feeling herself grant
her mother's wish after these long months and letting her slide away.

It was only the smoke. 

Only the heat.

Only her heart burning on the pyre. Nothing more.

>From her left boot, she pulled a small razor-sharp dagger and began
haphazardly cutting her hair off and throwing it into the flames. The hair
burst into writhing masses of heat long before they ever touched the pyre.
Her hair was her pride and joy. She had been growing it since her years in
the Bardic Collegiate. It was a trophy she didn't deserve.

She had done everything.

They died anyway.

The woman, hair cleaved to just a few ragged inches, looked at the flames
through sunken, dark-rimmed eyes and closed the link with her dragon down
as far as she could. Her dragon was sleepy, which made it easier. The smell
of burning skin wasn't as strong anymore, either.

They died anyway.

What was the point in being a healer when the people you loved the most
left you anyway? There was nothing she hadn't tried. None of it was good
enough.

She was nothing but a killer. People died at her hands.

B'nair was right.

Slowly, the woman began walking towards the pyre, ragged ends of red-gold
hair waving back and forth in the heated wind.

Her dragon looked at her and did something she had never thought she would
have to do. Through the bond, the dragon knocked her rider unconscious.

The woman collapsed in a heap just feet from the edge of the funeral pyre.
Slowly, the dragon walked over and picked her up with her forelegs. There
was absolutely no weight there. Exhaustion and lack of self-care had taken
their toll in a year and a half, and the woman in her arms was little more
than a bundle of bones and skin and haystack hanks of hair.

The dragon was uncertain. She had never directly disobeyed her rider
before, but her rider wasn't in her right mind. Her heart had become so
entwined in her patients' that she was not being rational - part of her
died too.

Eighteen months ago, her rider had elicited a promise of silence, of
agreement, of keeping family business family business. 

That business was over, and her rider was dying.

The dragon understood how much Tegra and Bedin had meant to her. But the
dragon did not understand the need to die. 

There was nothing to hide anymore, and so all promises were off.

Clumsily, the dragon held the shattered woman to her chest and tried her
best to remember what home looked like. 

Not this home, real home.

The dragon teleported as far inside the apartment as she thought she could
fit to keep the sun from reflecting any telltale silver streaks, laying her
rider on the rug inside the door. Out of respect for her rider's wishes,
she closed her mind down as far as it could go, making herself nearly
impossible for any of the other dragons to See... they would discuss it
later. 

Carefully, she curled her head around and rested it near her Rider's chest
to hear her breathing. The great dragon slowly closed swirling purple eyes,
inhaling the slightly musty scent of her beloved Warren home, and waited
for her rider - her spirit sister - to wake and see reason.

====<<FIN>>====
NRPG: 

Slainte' m'hath - I'm ba-ack!! 

A'Rillia's gonna be kind of unconscious for a wee mite - Daetyn hit her
pretty hard. 

Les/Justin: E-mail and let me know if it's okay if I borrow Breeze as an
initial contact point for Daetyn to use? She won't want to talk to anyone
in the Warren until Arri wakes up, but she knows she'll need to get her
food - and SHE certainly can't go to the dining hall to get it. :)  Once I
have Dae talk to Breeze, he can accidentally mention something to someone
around the Warren about that "little silver dragon he's never seen before"
which will out her no matter HOW well they hide. (Try to keep from chewing
her out too badly when you find out.)

She's lost a lot of weight, her voice is kind of not so good, her skin's
very pale/transluscent from lack of sun, she's got dark circles and sunken
cheeks and the mess that used to be her hair. YOU try cutting off hair with
a dagger and see if you don't look like a haystack. :)

This post is third person (and I don't normally write in third person)
because she's pretty disassociated right now... Ribs, don't die on us. Let
me get her back up to speed first. If she's not well, it gives her an
excuse to get caught up with everyone in the warren. While I may know
what's up, in reality, she wouldn't.
=====================================================================
"This is who I am, what I do and what I say: If you like it let it be
      ...and if you don't please do the same"  -- Ani Di Franco
     <<=======================================================>>
            Slainte'   --- | ---   shadowsinger@usa.net
         *** The Heart And Soul of A'Rillia and Daetyn ***
  ** Voice of Torrance Graham Steele, Reluctant Prince of Amber **
=====================================================================

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