Sequel

A certain part in this made me stop and go "... gweh..." I think the tea just made Rel accept it.

Which makes me want the tea but at the same time to smack Rel. Because had Rel had his wits about him, we could have learned a lot more than we did.

De is the peoples' version of Murphy's law. It makes me giggle.

Read, Review and Enjoy.





Something tapped his cheek gently. Rel dragged himself up from the darkness and forced his eyes open. Muan crouched beside him, one hand on his cheek, the other over his heart. The Sidhe was pushing power into his body, inspecting every little aspect of his insides. Muan twitched things about inside Rel, sliding them back into place and making Rel feel queasy. Head to toe, Muan looked before pulling his hands away and meeting Rel’s eyes.

Muan was concerned about Rel, he couldn’t understand why Rel had fainted when there was nothing wrong with Rel that hadn’t been wrong for years. There was no cause for his collapse, he was well fed and well rested and nothing broken could explain these things. Rel’s body couldn’t sustain another fast healing, it would be weeks before Muan could adjust things again and if Muan’s first adjustment caused the-

Rel shuddered and pulled himself closed, rolling on his side to put a physical barrier between himself and Muan’s thoughts. Ashun was on his other side and when her dark purple eyes met Rel’s, he knew that she knew. The young woman very carefully built a wall between the two of them as her eyebrows went up, almost meeting her hairline.

“You suddenly have access to your power. I will make you some of that purple tea, it’s supposed to calm you.”

“Mint,” Rel croaked, his head throbbing.

“No,” Ashun asserted sternly, “mint will calm your body but would only throw you out there. Honeyed flower tea will calm you, trust me on this, Rel, I’ve been where you are now. Except…my life depended on keeping it a secret.”

Rel winced and sat up, tensing when he felt Muan’s hand at the small of his back, steadying him. Ashun and Muan helped Rel stand and Ashun escorted Rel to the kitchen table as Raoh and Osht peeked out of the bathroom. Muan set the kettle on the stove to boil and went immediately to the plants, combing over the flowering ones and plucking a bud here, a bud there. What he dropped into the glass brewing pot he dug out of the cupboard, filled almost half of the little pot. Muan poured boiling water over top and set the brewing tea in front of Rel.

Muan moved about the kitchen, doing various things but avoided looking at Rel or getting too close to him. Rel sighed and set his head on the table, even as some part of his mind reached out and grazed over the surface of Muan’s mind. The Sidhe knew Rel was confused and didn’t want to press him to touch minds, no matter how tempting it was it was… wrong. Dark night had been stress enough on Rel’s existence.

Damn that had been good. Muan slid effortlessly into the memory of it and Rel consciously jerked his mind away from the erotic scene. Ashun was studying him with those dark eyes. Rel meaningfully searched for the answer to the change in her eye colour and easily found it, floating at the top of her existence. Ashun was so busy trying to hide everything else, she forgot to hide the natural facts.

“Stop that,” Rel growled at her, “I don’t want you inside my head,” he pushed at her mentally and she stumbled back a step, eyes wide and pale once more.

Ashun clenched her jaw tight for a moment before she said, “I wasn’t inside your mind. How did you do that?”

The world did a little spin, “I don’t think I should have done that… I feel woozy.”

Muan reached over the table and inspected the colour of the tea carefully. It had turned an odd red sort of colour. Seemingly satisfied, Muan made a sound at the back of his throat and tipped the teapot, pouring a full mug for Rel and the remainder he poured into a mug for himself. Muan sat beside Rel and picked up the tea pointedly, sipping it and setting it back on the table.

Rel did as Muan did, understanding just from Muan’s look that this was a healer telling an idiot how to take his medicine. Muan smacked his lips together and made a face as Ashun sat across from Muan at the table.

“I think it’s going to make things go numb, it smells like the stuff Essuan gave Mik for his broken jaw.”

“His broken what…?”

His tongue was buzzing. Rel smacked his lips together and worked his tongue over the inside of his mouth, trying to bring feeling back to it.

“His broken jaw, stuff happened, he upset Paw and stuff happened,” Ashun shrugged.

“Assoon,” Muan waggled a finger at Ashun, “no … speak… ahhhh….”

Ashun blinked at Muan, then looked at Rel, “ahhhh is like a people saying ehm. You and him aren’t allowed to touch each other with your minds, I forbid it, I will not permit such-” Muan began protesting in Sidhe and Ashun raised her voice, “brainwashing under my roof, I don’t care if you think it’s the only way to communicate, you will not do it. Always when minds touch, one is dominated and the other is destroyed. No. There is no level ground, that is why Ayato has power and Rava does not, because two minds can never meet on level ground and not have one of them be diminished by it. Not that way, anyhow.”

Muan said something. Ashun growled at him, “what was that?”

“I … think.. From tone alone,” Rel said at the evil look he got from Ashun, “that he just called you something like a bitch.”

“Well that’s too bad, as you count as my child and I say you aren’t doing it and thus you won’t and if you try, I will have Paw make one of those bracelets your people are so fond of and then you won’t have any power.”

“Can he make one anyway? I don’t like having power.”

“No. Rel, denying you have power is not the way to use it. Whether you acknowledge its existence or not, you still have power and the more you deny it, the more you use it without understanding the consequences of your actions, the more dangerous it is. Take all those people who were dying, left right and center for no reason. Do you really think that that was random? They were all connected to Muan’s past and now they’re all dead. Someone killed them and now people everywhere are asking questions like, what if the Sidhe turn that power on all of us?”

“You can’t kill someone with power. It’s just mental communication.”

“Right, and Muan can’t mend torn flesh with power, it’s just an illusion,” Ashun responded.

Muan made a sound at Rel and sipped his tea. Rel sighed and took another sip. He swore his throat was going numb.

“Power is not just mentally based. True, most powers are based on mental capabilities but there are those of us who…” Ashun glanced around the apartment, making certain that no one else was paying attention, before the teapot suddenly lifted off the table and moved to Ashun’s out held hand, “can influence the physical reality of the world.”

“Mn,” it almost sounded like Muan said Mwin, “sad so sad. Ahhh…” Muan looked frustrated then made an action like he was trying to hurt himself, but it deflected at the last moment, “s’ill dead.”

“As I said,” Ashun motioned to Muan while looking at Rel, “others have powers to influence the physical reality of the world. You have to learn to control it. For the sake of yourself and others. If for nothing else, to protect yourself from your father…”

Ashun trailed off, her eyes unfocused and her fingers did a waggle in the air. Rel blinked at Ashun and sipped the tea again. After a long moment, the young woman gave her head a shake and focused on Rel.

“What was I saying?”

“My father’s dying, I won’t ever see him again, thus I don’t need to protect myself.”

“Right,” Ashun said the word slowly, nodded and looked away before glancing back at Rel, “you are a follower of Illuva, yes? Which means you’re under De’s jurisdiction which means you shouldn’t say stuff like ‘my father is dying I don’t have to worry about him’ because that means De will come back and stick it to you like he likes doing when people think that things are set in stone. Don’t be stupid.

“You’ve probably been using power your entire life but have been completely unaware of it. Whatever you did to open yourself to Uhwan’s talents, work with that. Do you … know what you did?”

“I.” Rel didn’t share his worlds with other people, “I have an active imagination. And I have this place inside my head. A world. Where I have magic and the way I use magic there is how I…” Ashun was giving him a look and so Rel trailed off into silence.

“Magic? You could name it anything you want in the whole world and you call it magic?” Ashun huffed out, the young woman paused before she blinked at Rel, “do you have technology on your world, what’s the magic like, how green is it, how settled is it, are there Sidhe there, are there people there, can you fly without technology, I’d fly without technology? But I also think I’d have a spring that made chocolate milk at all times. That’d be fun.”

“I’m… sorry?” Rel didn’t understand.

“Will you…” Ashun was suddenly the one who looked uncertain, “will you tell me about your world?”


.