Helaine managed to successfully avoid the boys for the next two days, sleeping late, eating alone, and wandering the fields of Dondar deep into the night. On the third day, she padded gently into the kitchen at the usual breakfast hour, surprising Score, Pixel, and to a lesser extent, Crow. “I saw my father again.” She stated simply, sitting down opposite Pixel. “He remarried. I have a half-brother.” Helaine wrinkled her nose. “Except not quite, since I’m not technically related to my father.”
Score and Pixel exchanged a look that clearly conveyed their confusion. Helaine launched into an abbreviated version of her journey, skipping over her excursion with Mardren, for Score’s sake, and the sordid details of Ekeln-An, for her own. The boys were predictably discomfited at the news of Gunther’s death, and eager to hear about her family. Finished, she shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“And that’s all there is to it.” She announced, rather glumly, tugging at the loose end of her bandage. Pixel noticed the gesture.
“Score and I discussed it, Helaine, and we think we can heal your hand instantly, and prevent the formation of scar tissue.” It would be a complicated spell, though not nearly so straining as healing Destiny. “All we have to do is—”
“No.” Helaine interrupted. Pixel and Score simultaneously turned to her, shocked. “No, I want my scars.”
“But—” Pixel started.
“No.” She insisted again, firmly. “These are for me to keep.”
Score moved behind her and reached for her wrapped hand, hovering slightly. “Helaine, be reasonable. If you allow the tissue to harden you will loose the flexibility and nimbleness you once had. You won’t be the fighter you were.” Softly, he allowed his fingers to rest briefly on hers.
A feisty current far wilder than static electricity sparked between their fingers, so vivid Helaine thought she could almost see it, bright blue flames. Her tongue was suddenly fat in her mouth and her ears rang with a galloping pulse she scarcely recognized as her own.
Score withdrew his hand with mercurial speed. His insides were quivering in a most unusual manner. Shaken, he continued with his original subject. “Let Pixel and I fix your hand. You can keep the semblance of the scar, but what is deeper needs mending.”
Helaine lolled internally. Score was right. What was deeper did need mending. But it went beyond muscle tissue. And Score was exactly the wrong person to try to help.
“Fine.” She muttered.
“The sooner we attempt the spell, the better our chances of repairing you properly.” Pixel took command, with the authoritative tone he assumed when it came to these sorts of things. “Score, I need a basin of hot water, clean towels, and the green tome on healing next to my bed.” The Earth boy, with surprising and uncharacteristic alacrity, leapt out of the room. “Crow,” Pixel continued, turning to the silent observer, “I need you to gather leaves from the large purple tree by the lake. Do you know what I’m talking about?” A nod. “I’ll need at least a dozen.” With slightly less enthusiasm, Crow trotted out into the sunlit corridor.
“What will purple leaves do for me?” Helaine croaked.
“Nothing. But they’ll keep Crow out of the way for a long time. It’s a good twenty minute walk to the lake.” Pixel hesitated. “The procedure, according to the book, is going to be...at times...excruciating. And rather messy. I don’t want her here.”
Helaine almost grinned. “Don’t worry about pain.” She snorted, a hint of her former arrogance on the rebound. “I can handle more than either of you lily-livered boys.” Pixel just smiled.
“But listen,” he began, in a more serious tone. “I sent Score out of the room for a reason.” Helaine glanced up at Pixel. “I can tell that something has changed. More happened to you on your trip than you confessed.”
Helaine shoved away from the table restlessly and paced across to the other end of the room. Pixel knew everything, didn’t he?
“Is there anything... anything at all you want to get off your chest?”
She turned. It was clear on his face what he meant, but there was no point in giving him the satisfaction of knowing he was right. If she didn’t have to admit it, she could still feign ignorance. Finally, smiling condescendingly, Helaine shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re imagining things, Pixel.”
Score chose that moment to burst back into the room, tub of water in his hands, and book clenched between his teeth. “You could have levitated it behind you.” Pixel said with some dismay as he gingerly picked his precious textbook on healing out of Score’s mouth and wiped saliva off it.
“Sorry,” Score managed to look a little sheepish. “I was in a hurry.”
“So I see.” Helaine retorted dryly, “You forgot towels.”
Score made a motion to run off again, but Pixel waved him down. “Never mind that.” He muttered something and a large pile of recently folded white towels cluttered the table. “First things first. Helaine, you sit here, and put your arm on the table.” She obeyed Pixel, and he began undoing the bandages he’d fiercely wrapped some four days earlier. After unrolling two or so layers, it became quite clear that something was not right, and after the bandage was totally removed, the infected palm came into light.
“Oh, gross.” Score complained.
“Shut up,” Helaine snapped, feeling queasy as well. The burn, undressed and unattended to, except for the first wrapping, was festering in a most putrid manner. A combination of blood and pus and some dirty-looking green goo stained the bandage, which Score hastily disposed of.
“I was afraid of this.” Pixel sighed. “Now, before we can heal the burn, we have to remove the rotting bits.”
“Rotting bits?” Score made a face. “Good job keeping that wound clean, Helaine. Don’t they teach you these things in warrior school?”
Helaine rolled her eyes and ignored Score, alternately fascinated and repulsed by the vile sight of her hand. Had she really been so occupied with...other matters...that she’d neglected the most basic of her field training? Yes.
Pixel, meanwhile, was sterilizing a razor blade. “This is going to hurt enormously.” He cautioned her. “Are you sure you want to do this now?” Helaine cast a wavering eye at the glinting steel, then gritted her teeth together.
“It’s not going to get any easier. Hack away.”
Instead of plunging into her with the tiny knife as she expected him to, Pixel dipped one of the towels into the hot water and began scrubbing gently. Immediately Helaine grunted in response to the tenderness of her raw hand.
“Hey hey hey wait a minute!” Score yelped. “You’re just going to root around with a knife without any anesthesia?” Helaine looked blank. Right, the meaning of anesthesia would definitely be lost on her. But Pixel should know better.
“The book says magical pain deadeners are to be strongly cautioned against, because if the body cannot feel the results of the magic, then it will not respond, and the healing will be undone in an instant.” Pixel informed Score patiently.
“Yeah, but... come on! Can’t we give her a drug or something? Anything?” Score demanded.
Helaine smiled inwardly, touched that Score bothered about her pain tolerance. What she said, though, was “Don’t worry about me. I can take it.”
She nodded at Pixel, inviting him to continue, but she gasped involuntarily when the towel touched her again. Suddenly, she felt dreamy, sleepy. Her eyes rolled around a little before settling on Score. He had an apologetic look on his face, hands spread, as if saying “I did what I had to.” Helaine puzzled fuzzily. Then she realized: Knockout gas! He was putting her under! How dare he take...take...how dare...he...
Helaine’s head thudded against the heavy wood of the table and Score winced. “I hate to do that do her, but she never would have agreed to be put under voluntarily. Her ego is way too swollen.” He moved closer to her slumped form and sat her upright, holding her head erect with a tender hand under her proud chin. “But I hate even more to see her in pain like that, not letting herself scream.”
Silent for a moment, Pixel scrubbed with vigor. Then he said, as he was wringing the towel into the basin. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“You saw how much it hurt her! Hell, I would have been screaming. She—”
“She needs her autonomy more than ever now. Think about it Score. Didn’t you say that it was her own helplessness that scared her? More than...than... well, the actual act?”
“Yeah,” Score muttered. He looked down at Helaine. She was frowning ever so slightly in her jaunt across her treacherous unconscious. Score had been there, once. And while he wasn’t too anxious for a return trip, Zarathan had explained a lot about Helaine to him.
“Score, when she wakes up, she will be just as torn and rent as she was before. Only this,” Pixel pointed to Helaine’s hand, “will be fixed. She’s spiritually hurt, and there is nothing we can do for that.”
Score looked away, biting his bottom lip. Nothing?
“Nothing except be her friends.” There was silence for awhile.
“She...” Score stuttered finally, “She is... I want the old Helaine back. You don’t understand, Pixel, she needs to be herself again, because I need...” Score stopped himself abruptly. He looked at Pixel and the other boy locked eyes with him. Flustered, Score groped about for an explanation. “I need... both of you two to support me. Triad reborn and ...stuff,” he finished lamely.
Pixel returned to his work quietly. It disturbed him to no end to be slicing Helaine’s flesh like this, but he kept his nausea under control. A short while later, he mentioned in an off-hand tone. “I’ll kill you if you hurt her.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You’re like a brother to me, Score, but I promise I’ll kill you if you hurt her.”
Score blinked. “Are you saying...”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t mind if...”
“No.”
“Do you think...do you think there’s something there? Or am I just stupid?” Score managed a full sentence.
Pixel was quiet for awhile. “Yes. To both. Now get ready, because this is what you have to do.”
Helaine sat on the windy, sepia plain of Elysia of her unconscious. She hadn’t been here in awhile. She did dream, but her dreams never took her here. This was the field of lucid dreaming, where she had full control and choice. It was something people on her world achieved rarely, but something Helaine was quite proficient at. The sacrificed God, the priests said, had been the One to open the fields of Elysia to the people of Ordin, so they could look upon the faces of their ancestors and remember their stories of courage, fighting in His name. Helaine didn’t know how much of it she bought into, but lucid dreaming was rather enjoyable.
It was funny. The last time she’d been in Elysia was on Zarathan, asking her soul for guidance. She’d walked across the plain and seen the hall of the Elfking, the Erlkonig, and known how to find Pixel. The spell asking for guidance for the soul did nothing except deposit her in Elysia, but that was enough.
Usually, she quite enjoyed her moments on the plain, but she was angry with Score, for knocking her unconscious. Unbidden, his figure appeared on the plain. So it was in Elysia. Thoughts became real, things to interact with. It was rather useful in working her way around problems.
Well, Helaine thought to herself, I may as well enjoy my time while I’m here. She cleared her mind utterly, and then opened the floodgates. A million thoughts jostled for supremacy, but one won out, and Helaine opened her eyes.
She was in the forest of Ordin again, kissing Mardren. She smiled, closed her eyes again, and instead of leaving it at a single kiss, moved in closer for more. No need to worry about his feelings in Elysia. She felt pleasantly warm and satisfied.
Suddenly, though, she was seized by uncontrollable desire to be as close to him as possible, and the kisses turned aggressive. Teeth nicked her lips, but it was exhilarating, rather than painful. She was aware that she was crushing herself into him, and suddenly she was on her back in the leaves, electricity and energy dashing along her veins, and it was all very lovely until she opened her eyes for a peek and saw...
Score?
“Yi!” Helaine yelped, tugging down her shirt while scuttling away from him, kicking up leaves. “What are YOU doing here?”
He didn’t respond, of course, because he was merely a shadow created by her imagination. It was disturbing. People did not change faces in Elysia unless you wanted them to. Helaine willed herself back to the plains, and she was alone. What she needed was a good, hard run. She thought back to her hours as a unicorn, and then galloped as rapidly as she could across the never-ending fields. As long as she was running, no thoughts could bother her.
*****
Happy Post-Thanksgiving!
I hope this chapter cleared up a few things: Erlkonig comes from Goethe's poem, in which the elf king represents death. I thought this tied in nicely with Mr. Peel's hint that the realm of the elves is where the dead go.
Second, although there were references to it in a previous chapter (15, maybe?), this chapter confirms Helaine's muddled version of Christianity. Surprisingly, I've found a lot of hostility towards Christians (and other monotheistic religions, for that matter) on ff.net, which saddens me. I don't want to make this story my personal tirade about religion, but I would rather you didn't review with nasty comments about how childish Christianity is or whatever. If you think you have a valid argument against it, or a valid argument for Wicca or atheism, then by all means, email me at bluelemonrising@yahoo.com, and I would be more than happy to engage in a theological debate. That is ALL I'm going to say on this subject, except to add that Helaine's monotheism (and reference to a sacrificed God) are going to be very important in later chapters.
Third, I know this story doesn't jive with my other fluffy fic, but I decided I need Elysia (which hails from Greek mythology) to carry out my purpose.
Finally, Confidential (well, not really) to Silver Spider: I'm swamped right now, and I couldn't bear to start a story I couldn't devote my attention to. However...if YOU (or anybody else) would like to "adopt" the mature, grown-up Mardren, and set him and Helaine in some sort of AU, be my guest! I'll beta, muse, or plot bunny, if necessary, but I don't want to start something I don't have the energy to finish.
I hope everyone had a lovely holiday, and thank God (or your prefered deity) for our US soldiers (my cousin is one).
Aroo!
Chapter 1. Morning
Chapter 2. Changes
Chapter 3. Last Night
Chapter 4. White Monkey
Chapter 5. Searching
Chapter 6. Child
Chapter 7. One Candle
Chapter 8. Crow
Chapter 9. Dorian
Chapter 10. Ordin
Chapter 11. Votrins
Chapter 12. Gone
Chapter 13. Mother
Chapter 14. Mardren
Chapter 15. Scars
Chapter 16. Tears
Chapter 17. Mend
Chapter 18. Summons
Chapter 19. Council
