Th'rin
***
<<Day 10 - Morning>>

Th'rin woke early for his shift and moved quietly so as not to wake his
sleeping Merissa. He did pause and take a moment to simply stare at her.
She was so beautiful .. and she still loved him. After everything .. all
that mattered was that she still loved him. They were going to be okay.
Oldreth had not won her.

He kept his mind off of Tarv'renon. That was .. something else. Besides he
and Tarv had agreed to keep things between them secret. No one would ever
know ..

Oberon was already up in the next room and playing with his toys,
surprisingly quiet for the young toddler. Of course there was an end to the
quiet when Th'rin entered the room.

"Oberon? What are you doing out of bed so .."

"DA!" the boy yelled and ran toward his foster father, nearly knocking him
to the ground with his force.

"Shhhhh," Th'rin reminded him as he started banging toys and grunting
happily. Oberon was very hard on his toys. Even when the toy maker had made
them special dense blocks and wooden animals, still Oberon found a way to
tear them apart. However, he was surprisingly gentle with Neril, Racine's
young son. Th'rin was very pleased that there was a gentle side to his
'monster' son. "Hush, little bear, Mama's still sleeping. She had a very
hard day yesterday."

"MAMA!" Oberon yelled and made to run toward his parents bedroom.

But Th'rin grabbed him. "Let mama sleep." He warned giving Oberon his super
serious eye. Then he relaxed his face, if not his grip and raised his
eyebrows in excitement, "How about you and I go see Neril?"

He had known that would please the boy, and he was not disappointed. Oberon
grinned and nodded his head wildly, before struggling to the ground to
gather some toys to take to Racine's. His urge to go in and jump on Mama
for the moment was forgotten.

***

"How is Cill?" Th'rin asked a short time later as Oberon was busily showing
Racine's infant his favorite toys. Neril was grinning and wiggling in
excitement at the toddler's antics.

"Good. Now .. I've taken the rest of the mirror's out of her room," Racine
sighed. "And Mara and Ojean have been a great help. I don't know what I'd
do without the two of them. She's scared of most of the rest of her school
friends. They wanted to help .. at first .."

Th'rin nodded, "I understand. The glasses I ordered from Tinoble should be
here in the next day or so. That'll help with her getting around."

"Oh yes, I'm sure it will." Racine nodded. She knew Cill was not happy
about the need to wear glasses and she feared that the girl might even go
so far as to destroy them .. but Th'rin had had a long talk with her and
Racine was hoping for the best.

"What about her hearing? Has she been able to hear anything out of her
right ear?"

Racine shook her head sadly, "Not so far. But you'll notice she'll cock her
head to the left to listen to people. And she seems to understand what we
say most of the time. The little bit of signing has helped as well.. Course
it also helps if she has her left side to us as well as her eyes. I'm
worried about that. Is it good for her to be looking out of the corner of
her eye all the time?"

Th'rin smiled softly. "She'll be fine, Racine. I wish there was something I
could do about her hearing, but that's going to be a wait and see thing.
I'm still hopefully that some hearing will come back in her right ear.
That'll help even things out for her."

Th'rin tried to be more positive about his half-sisters hearing, but the
fact was she had had an explosion go off in her ear .. that was very
traumatic for the sensitive membranes of the ear. That did not bode well
for returning functionality. However, the fact that she seemed to be able
to hear fairly good from her left ear was encouraging.

Racine nodded. "Thank you, Th'rin."

"Thank you for watching Oberon. Things have been so crazy .. and Merissa's
worn out."

A frown settled on Racine's square face, setting off her jawline more then
normal. She'd been worried about her step-son and his mate, but up until
now had not had any chance to talk about it to him. Merissa had started to
say something .. but then became very closed mouthed. And she did not like
that. "Th'rin, I don't want to butt in, but I am worried about Merissa ..
and you .."

"We're fine, Racine," Th'rin grinned. "Things are getting better for us
now. They were stressed but .. they're better now." Whiteriver's healer
truly did believe that now things were better and Racine could see it in
his eyes. That gave her hope for them, but did not set her heart completely
at ease. There was still something about Th'rin .. something that he kept
so closed of ..

She shrugged and smiled at him, "I'm glad to hear that." Th'rin had always
been a very private lad. Growing up with K'leev, who could blame him.

***
<<Late Morning>>

"Th'rin please," Shawnee begged. "It's a wedding. I'll be with Saul."

"Shawnee, I .." he started to protest. He had intended on releasing her to
home this morning anyway. But to travel? To go all the way to Ralengarde?
He did not think that was a very good idea.

"It was an easy birth .. and I feel fine." Shawnee begged, "And you said
Aarin was a healthy baby. He is right?"

Th'rin nodded slowly. As he understood it from Clarissa there had been a
slight problem with the infant's breathing right after birth. But that was
not that abnormal, and he'd been monitored closely all night and shown no
further troubles. Finally Th'rin nodded, "Fine. You know I don't mind
releasing you, but I'd much prefer you just went home to rest."

"I'll rest in Ralengarde. Mery's got a big place. I'll be fine." Shawnee
promised. "I just .. I want some time away and alone with Saul. I have to
know if it's truly over for us or not. And I just can't tell when he's so
close to .. Gwyna!" the name was nearly spit from her lips.

"Okay." Th'rin agreed. He wanted to see Saul and Shawnee happy. He'd seen
Saul lately and the usually jovial rider did not seem to be himself. He'd
thought about having him come in for a check-up, but knew he didn't
honestly want to get that close to the man. Being that close to Saul of
Whiteriver did very strange things to the healer.

It was different from when he was with any other man. Including Tarv, who
was as close to a best friend as he had ever had. While the man did stir
some of those forbidden feelings within him, he didn't throw Th'rin
completely off balance as Saul did.

Th'rin gathered some of his extra special herbal concoctions and gave her
strict instructions to be very careful before reluctantly letting her go.

***
<< Closer to Noon >>

Th'rin had been waiting for Merissa, who had via dragon, agreed to have
lunch with him. He was glad to see that perhaps their lives were getting
back to normal. They used to have lunch together all the time .. and it was
something he wanted to start doing again. Seeing Merissa even for such a
short time buoyed his spirit.

He smiled as she came around the corner, "Merissa, you were here?"

She nodded, "Visiting an .. old friend."

"Oh?" Th'rin asked.

Merissa didn't have time to answer as her face blanked in response to a
call from her dragon. Only seconds later, Areena too was calling her rider.

<It's Xanthia ..> Areena said. <She's .. um .. very upset! Please hurry.>

Th'rin and Merissa looked at each other as they both got the news of
*where* it was that Xanthia was .. Both knew how important Oldreth had been
to the girl. What an impact the large bear nomad had made upon her.

Th'rin, honestly, had been glad to see him go. That was one threat to his
relationship with Merissa out of the way. However, he would try to be
sympathetic to Xanthia's pain.

He and Merissa ran quickly from the med center to Oldreth's apartment.
Th'rin, running faster, arrived there first to find Xanthia, surrounded by
the remnants of Oldreth's bed. There was a certain satisfaction in seeing
it's destruction, but it was short lived as the crimson line on Xanthia's
thigh became more prominent as the blood came to the surface.

>"Xanthia what are you doing?!?"

>Xanthia's crystal blue eyes blazed like a cornered animal as she looked up
>from her handiwork startled and ashamed at being caught in act, and by
>Th'rin of all people. "No!!!!" she raged, throwing the blade across the
>room!

>"Maxima told Areena you needed me," Th'rin began.

>"I HATE HIM!!!" she screeched in response before her friend could finish,
>lifting up the nightstand with adrenaline enforced strength and flinging
>it across the room as well. She grabbed one of boards that broke loose
>from the drawer she destroyed earlier and set to smashing everything else
>in the room, blinded to anything but her rage at the absent male
>queenrider, deaf to any input from any source.

Th'rin ducked and pushed the just arriving Merissa out of the way, just in
time to prevent her from being clobbered in the face by the out of control
Xanthia.

"What the .." Merissa breathed, watching in horror.

Th'rin shrugged and started to carfully ease toward the girl, planning on
grabbing her from behind and stopping this potentially harmful rampage.
Th'rin knew that sometimes Xanthia over reacted, occasionally inflicting
harm to herself, but he had never expected this. Was it any wonder that
sometimes she scared people. He could see the fear on Merissa's face. He
felt it too. Fear for the sanity of his friend .. fear of harm to either
Merissa or himself.

He missed twice, once nearly finding himself at the swinging end of the
jagged board when finally the girl simply stopped and dropped to the floor.

***

>Xanthia turned to face the frightened couple, her blue eyes looking
>piercingly into Merissa, as she wondered when and why the dark-haired
>queenrider had arrived here. She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve
>as she asked with a childlike squeak, "Why?"

Th'rin, still moving cautiously, took the board from the girl's hands and
threw it out of reach. "Xanthia?"

"Why did he leave, Th'rin? I loved him .."

"I don't know why. He just didn't fit in. He wasn't happy here. You did
want him to be happy .. didn't you?"

"I would have made him happy .." Xanthia frowned. "But *YOU*!" She spun her
head to look at Merissa who took a step back from the attacking glare. "He
left because of you! Didn't he? DIDN'T HE!"

"Xanthia!" Th'rin said, his voice ringing loud and authoritatively.

The young woman turned to look at him, and her face crumbled. "She did it,
Th'rin .. she did. She betrayed me .. and you. She betrayed us both .."

"Oh no, Xanthia .." Th'rin said gently, and pulled her into his arms. "Shhh
.. it wasn't Merissa's fault."

Xanthia tried to push back from him, shouting, "It was! It was!", but
Th'rin had built up very strong arms from holding his foster son both in
love and in restraint for times when the child was out of control; and he
held tightly onto Xanthia, speaking soothingly until she too stopped
fighting and simply began to sob.

Th'rin turned his eyes to Merissa, looking at her apologetically, "Go on ..
I think it's best."

She nodded, knowing that it was likely her presence would simply make
matters worse, and slipped out the door leaving Th'rin to deal with Xanthia.

Regards,
Th'rin & Areena
***
NRPG: Tag, Morgie!

More coming later for some NPC's :)

Kris




------------------------------------
Kristen & Scott Gant
http://homepage.interaccess.com/~sgant/gant.htm