Partner

Paw wasn't sick but he was likely drugged up. He got to sleep beside Mik because he was Mik's partner.

I'm slightly surprised, and pleased, at the response to Souse being all motherly. As a healer, Essuan is rarely motherly. She can be sympathetic to someone who is in a real amount of pain, but then most times it's just a person's own stupidity. With the Sidhe not really being sick often, it's hard to see a proper healer in work.

What I love about the Sidhe is how they can be so obviously different. Souse has been a calm guy, the aggressive guy against possible enemies and very nurturing. He's the type of Sidhe that would rather be surrounded by tens of children who were not his own than to have one of his own to care for.

I've arranged a few things and I do apologise if the next few chapters seem a bit off in writing. They involve some stuff that I've never seen nor done nor read of in detail so it's new ground.

As per the last chapter having multiple mistakes, which you all were kind enough not to point out, I apologise. I was rushing. Like. Wrote it in five minutes rushing.

There might be another update tonight. Or it might be tomorrow morning. Dunno. My next couple of weeks are going to go strange for sleep and schedual like... which may or may not result in brain-deadness.

Boy I'm talkative! What happens when I stay by myself for four days.

Read, Review and Enjoy.




Mik dropped into the seat across from Koln’s desk and groaned. Koln pushed a plate of soda crackers across the desk.

“Almost three days out. You should eat something. It will help with the queasiness as well,” Koln murmured, “You wouldn’t hold still long enough for a sedative, but you cut yourself and we managed to get a blood sample.”

“Cut?” Mik held up his bandaged wrist, “On what, an attempt at suicide?”

“Ehm. No. It was our fault for leaving you alone with a sharp object, we were warned that that would not be good. Your fascination with shiny objects was beyond a druggy’s regular … what have you. You wouldn’t stand still long enough for us to bandage it even. Paw had to chase you down and do it while you were running around the room. The only time you sat still was when Lillow began chattering at you in Sidhe and then, an hour into the chattering, it sounded like you two were having a conversation. A conversation. Mik. And… you remember nothing of it?”

“Few lines. Blurry stuff that might or might not be dreams. How long was I…”

“Eight hours. Lillow slept the entire night through, which is abnormal for her, and then she napped on and off the next day and seemed spent.”

“I couldn’t have worn her out that much. Lillow is like a chipmunk on speed on sugar on caffeine,” Mik picked up a soda cracker delicately and nibbled on it.

“Would you like to see the tapes?”

“You’re moving too fast for me to be comfortable, let alone me watching myself on…”

“Speed on sugar on caffeine?” Koln murmured, “which, I must tell you is apparently, basically, what you were on.”

“Oh?”

“Mm. Essuan had never seen a people act like that and she thought it was hilariously amusing until Souse awoke and informed her that his parents, and he, had used that very herb to poison people’s water supplies and thusly kill the population. Luckily for us, our herbs are stunted, bastard herbs that are hardly worth the effort of a true healer picking them, least you would be dead.”

“Wait. Talking. Too fast. Why do you think our herbs are stunted bastard herbs… that no one would truly pick?”

“That’s what Essuan said as she beat Souse about the head. Paw, in between chasing you down for the cut,” a motion to Mik’s hand, “and attempting to get Lillow away from the food long enough to perhaps slow you down so that he could tie a proper knot, explained that that is how most Sidhe healers are. Crotchety.”

“Don’t insult their stuff, yeah?” Mik murmured, taking another cracker.

“Mm. Souse wants me to discuss with you about green things.”

“Higher Sidhe are getting irritable. Thought it was just me,” Koln muttered, “but then, upon asking about, I find out that the other Sidhe are always … droopy. One nurse says. Another was wondering if we gave the higher Sidhe a shot of perky before bringing them in.”

“Well. It could be a lot of things that do that. Why the fuck are we discussing this now?”

“I think it’s plants. If we take them outside… it just wouldn’t work. Luckily. There is a military base a few blocks away that has green fields. We’ll let them out for a few hours, then bring them back in. As for plants. What can we do? The program is mainly inside. There are a few rooms with windows but we’re hiding the Sidhe from the media. How can we do that if we have a room full of green things?”

“I dunno,” Mik shrugged, “UV lights? Sun lights, that’s what they’re called. Zote, zote.”

“…” Koln gave Mik a look.

“What?”

“Zote, zote?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Of… course you didn’t,” Koln flipped over a page, “We’ve handed the tapes over to a few smart people and they might just figure out how to speak Sidhe.”

“Doubt it,” Mik muttered, “they’ll miss something or overlook something. That’s what happens.”

“Right. Well gaps can be filled in later. But. Some of what we’ve gotten so far seems hugely double meaning.”

“Like?”

“How often have you heard Paw say something that seemed to mean one thing, but really meant another?”

Don’t come again.

Don’t know what?

“Of course.”

“How about Jay’s comment about in nine months?” Koln murmured, “in nine months we could review the program and perhaps then we can expand. Not before. Why nine months? Essuan wasn’t showing at the time.”

“Slip of the tongue,” Mik murmured, “I wouldn’t doubt that Sidhe can tell when a woman is pregnant, perhaps before our sciences can tell.”

“I thought of that. But she was already nearly a month along.”

“So it’s not about the kid. It’s another deadline.”

“But what? What eventuality should we be prepared for? If the babe lives past a month then and only then we might be allowed to expand, having proven that we can care enough for the Sidhe to allow them to repopulate?”

“No.” Mik sighed as a nagging thought came back to him, “Paw said that Whisper is dieing.”

“There’s no way Mik could know how long-”

“He’s going back to his old time tree, his home tree.”

“So.”

“He’s going to make it to his tree,” Mik muttered, surprised at the sudden strength he found in his own voice, “he’s Whisper, he’ll live long enough to get there.”

“Sidhe can travel a good deal of ground, I’m not questioning that he’d make it in time. But if that were true why would it take nine months?”

“It’s his last time through. The tribes will want him to stop, he is Whisper after all. And he’ll spend a few days here, a few days there, a week somewhere else as he gets sicker. He’ll travel slower. Unless he’s contagious.”

“Contagious?”

“Yes. Paw didn’t really specify what he had, peeling skin, wasting organs, not exactly a description of any disease I know of. But if Whisper is contagious it would take even longer. He would skirt the tribes, work slowly and carefully so that he didn’t come in contact with anyone else, he would work his way around a territory and if he runs into a new territory, a newly established tribe, he would have to work his way back the way he came and find another route.”

“While avoiding people.”

“While avoiding people.”

“The sightings of Whisper, once you know how unique his look is amongst the Sidhe, go back years. His pattern has definitely altered in the past few months. But we thought that was because of the poaching or us, or the sudden violence amongst the Sidhe.”

“Sudden violence could be caused by Whisper dieing. If he’s not strong enough to help himself then he’s not strong enough to reach all of the people, everywhere, that he needs to reach to keep them from attacking people. Whisper doesn’t want blood, the older leaders of the tribe don’t want blood shed. The new one that I saw… his only reason for taking leadership was because the previous leader did not condone bloodshed.”

“What does Paw say on the blood shed?”

“That is hardly-”

“I am simply asking. I know that amongst the others, from Lillow, and from Souse’s growling at them, that the other males are getting testy. They don’t want to be here, they don’t want to work with us and every time one of us does something stupid, like poison our Sidhe, it adds one more tick to the list. They don’t keep track of the good.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” Mik muttered, “Then. What we have to do. Is make it very clear to them that they don’t want to leave. Is Souse is no longer the leader. What happens?”

“… difficulty?” Koln murmured.

“If one of those who want bloodshed come to power, we’re dead. All of the partners and probably the higher Sidhe. Paw would go with them. Along with any chance that we will ever have of being involved with the Sidhe.”

“Talk with Souse about it.”

“He’ll likely say that he’ll think about interacting with you if you think about getting him plants,” Mik responded.

“I don’t give a shit. Talk to him about it. If he says that, then and only then will I try something else. Get the hell out of my sight. And shower or something because three days of growth do not look flattering on you.”


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