~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Risa awoke in a strange bed, the room smelling of bleach, and other harsh cleaning chemicals. As she opened her eyes, she realized she was in the hospital. she didn't remember being moved from her house, only the excruciating pain, the vision of ice forming around her, everything freezing; and most frighteningly, the woman with the axe.
A nurse edged through the curtain with his back to Risa. He edged around her bed, and picked up a blood pressure cuff, he turned around and noticed she was awake.
"Doctor Averghast! She is awake!" he shouted without loosing the motions of his job. A slightly older man pulled the curtain back, walked around the nurse, and began looking into her eyes, and then into her throat."
"Do you know what day it is?" he asked her, she nodded and was about to answer when her throat caught, it was sore, and barely a whisper came out. The doctor handed her a dry erase board and a marker, and she wrote: January 29th. and showed it to the doctor.
"Disassociated motor skills. Ben, get her in for a CT scan, we need to make sure this isn't permanent," the doctor said looking at the board.
Risa looked at him puzzled and then looked back at the board. when she saw nothing wrong, she erased the date and drew a question mark.
"Risa, its February 2nd, Groundhogs day. you have been unconscious for four days, we don't know why, and can't find a medical reason for it." he explained.
"May I have a pencil and a piece of paper to draw on?" she asked in a hoarse whisper. The doctor nodded, and a few minutes later, the nurse came back with it, left her bedside, closed the curtain again, and she started drawing the last thing she remembered seeing: the frozen woman's face, as the ice shrouding her cracked apart, the men and women coming through the gate, and the thick wall of ice forming behind them as they ran toward her. She was drawing the last villager when her mom pulled the curtain back slightly.
"Well good afternoon, sleepyhead!" her mom joked, trying to lighten her own mood. "What are you drawing?"
'The last thing I remember' she wrote on the board.
"Honey, what does this say?" her mom asked. She looked at the board again, as she had done with the doctor, and saw nothing wrong with it, but repeated it with her hoarse voice anyway. A questioning look from her mother told her that something was wrong with her writing, but she couldn't see anything wrong with it. Anne took the picture she had drawn, and Risa saw a quizzical look grow on her mom's face, as she studied the almost completed drawing
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"There is still no change in his condition, Princess Silene won't be pleased if we can't revive him. There is still rampant manna flowing through him, we need to get him awake so we can teach him how to control it." A man said, on the edge of Jeramiah's hearing.
"Lets try the Void Crystal, see if it can syphon off the excess escaping from his body? that might calm his internal systems down enough to wake him." another man said, clearer this time.
"I can hear you." he decided to say. Two men ran to his bed, one on each side. One, an elderly man, easily into his twilight years, but still full of life; the second one, obviously hasn't even broken the half a century mark yet, by his estimates. Of course he could only judge age based on those from Fellgrove, so he knew he could be off by quite a bit.
"Well, go tell the princess that her charge is awake." the elder of the two said, "and once you have done that, go tell her father as well!" he shouted after the younger one as he was leaving the room. "Well, do you remember what happened, young man?"
"Music, soothing music, and then pain." he answered.
"Music? What kind of music? Do you think you could hum some of it?" he asked, and Jeramiah shook his head no. He looked around the room and saw something he thought would work: the Pipe organ's keyboard. He went to move and realized he was tied to the bed. "Sorry about that lad, we didn't know when you would awake, and it would be bad if you decided to wander around without an escort." The man said as he undid the restraints.
Jeramiah sat down at the console, and felt the keys, he felt as though he knew exactly where to put his hands and fingers, even though he had never done it before. he tapped the first key, and knew it was out of tune, so he found the pipe that it went to, and readjusted its tuning slide on the small organ. after a few minutes, the single rank of pipes were tuned with the sounds he remembered from his run, and he sat back down.
He started playing the music he remembered, and felt as though he had played this music thousands upon thousands of times. and when he was done, he flipped the switch on the side to stop the flow of manna through the bellows fan. He stood, and turned around, then immediately kneeled, as the Princess was standing in front of him, with the King and Queen directly behind her.
"Please stand, Jeramiah," Princess Silene said. "It is I, who should be kneeled to you, I owe you a debt, I doubt I will ever be able to repay."
"Even if you say that princess, His and Her Majesties are directly behind you, and have not given their consent." he said.
"Rise, young Jeramiah. Welcome to your new home." The Queen said to him
"Rise, and never kneel to us in private again. I hate the formalities in the throne room, I'll be damned if I put up with them out of it." the King stated. At this, Jeramiah stood, but kept his head slumped. "Where did you learn to play the Organ?" the king asked.
"I didn't, Your highness, today was my first time seeing one, but I knew that It would work to allow this man to hear the music I heard during the attack."
"You heard music, that music, during the attack?" the princess asked, he simply nodded.
"It felt like it was coming from somewhere else, but inside me at the same time. I don't know how to explain it." he told them.
"Honey, we may learn more as we teach him to control his gift. Perhaps its how his magic works." the queen said.
None of our healing crystals could calm his manna streams while we were attempting to revive him. We were discussing whether or not we should attempt to use void crystals when he awoke." The elder man stated, the Princess paled.
"Please, tell me that there are no void crystals in the castle yet."
"None yet, had we decided to go forward, we would have moved him to the keep instead of bringing such dangerous crystals into the castle. His manna currents still haven't calmed down, and Greggor and myself were deliberating on the cause of that as well." he stated.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
"Alec, what would be the most common reason for the manna currents to not calm down, after such time has passed?" His Majesty asked.
"Sire, there are no records of someone's manna continuing to stay wild past twenty four hours of an awakening, even if the one they are bonded to awoke at the same time. it has been four days, he finally came out of his slumber, but the manna is still wild around him. That said, the only cause known for it to even last twenty four hours is if the mages in question have extraordinary manna pools, and awake simultaneously. " Alec responded.
"Bonded?" Jeramiah heard the word, and was curious. he knew the common knowledge about magic: a traumatic event caused the awakening of the gift, one with the gift had to seek out another to aid in controlling it, and that of the ten elements, a mage would be partial to five of them, and have one of those as an affinity, and there was usually one element the mage could not use.
"I'm sorry, Jeramiah," Alec started, "It's something that all mages know, but none of us discuss. All mages are bonded to another, their complement. if you find your bonded, all of your spells will be easier to cast, and your weaknesses are their strengths. For instance, your first spell was 'Frozen Wastes' so when we are able to test you for your alignments, you will most likely have the water school as your affinity, and be weak against fire, and may not even be able to use it. However, the person you are bonded to, should have fire as their affinity, and be weak against water. So the two of you together would be able to block almost every spell cast in your direction. Most mages never find their bonded, so its never really discussed, but there is enough evidence to show that the bonded one will awaken as well, if they haven't done so already." Alec finished.
Silene pulled a small murky grey orb out of a hidden pocket on her bodice. "Jeramiah, would you touch this for me? Its to see if you are my bonded one."
"I will," he said to her, as he touched the small stone that was the same size as the fingernail on his pinky. It glowed a soft blue, then turned a pale, almost clear, pink, when he did. The princess slumped slightly, showing her dissatisfaction, and put the stone back in the pocket. "Will I get one of those as well?" he asked
"You have to make it." Greggor answered as he walked back into the room, carrying an armload of clothes on wooden hangars. "its made from your own essence, so that your essence can recognize your bonded one. Blue means that everything matches for the bonded one, but its not the right person. Purple means they are a few similarities, but again, wrong person. Red means nothing in common with your bonded one, Pink means your bonded one is on a different plane of existence at the moment, silver means that you have met them, and finally black means they are deceased, or yet to be born, otherwise its clear." he laid the clothes down on the bed Jeramiah was tied to earlier. "Once you find your manna pool, usually people say they can feel it on top of their stomach when they start looking for it, then simply will a portion of that into your hand, and then will it to condense as fast as it can."
He did as he was told, and sure enough, at the base of his ribcage, he could sense his manna pool, so he decided to try it. He wasn't sure how much to use, so he pulled the smallest amount he could, and willed it to form in his hand. Then forced it to constrict as fast as it could.
When he thought the process was complete, he opened his hand, and there were two stones instead of one like he thought. both were about the size of his thumbnail, one was white, the other was a bright pink.
"Two bonded? and the size isn't too shabby. but one of them is not on this plane; and the other you have met already, that will make that one harder to find. Keep an eye on the pink one, and we will see if that one ever comes here."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"She said this was the last thing she remembered?" The doctor asked Anne, while looking at Risa's Drawing. "I'm sure your daughter just has an active imagination, besides, she still has trouble writing, I recognize these characters as ones she wrote on the dry erase board earlier. I'm assuming its the month 'January' being as it looks like its on a calendar, and I asked her the date earlier, and that set of symbols is what she wrote."
"Well she seems to be speaking at least now."
"Yeah, we had her gargle salt water about an hour ago, and its been easier for her to talk since."
The nurse that had found her awake was helping her back to her bed. she still appeared weak, even though all the medical tests, including the CT scan, came back completely normal, aside from slightly elevated brain activity, but nothing outside the ordinary for an eight year old girl.
"Uh oh." she whispered just as she set her hand on the bed, and the nurse behind her caught her as her body crumbled, however she was still awake and alert. "can I get something to eat?" she said, and the nurse looked toward the doctor, he walked over to her.
"Can you say that again, Risa?" the doctor asked
"Can I get something to eat? I'm starving." she said, and the doctor looked from her to her mother.
"What is it you want dear?" Anne asked.
"Chocolate."
"She is just hungry." Anne told the doctor.
"True, her collapse might have something to do with the fact that we haven't given her anything to eat, since she woke up, and she didn't eat for the four days she was out."
She grabbed the dry erase board and wrote on it. "I really, really, really, would like something chocolate." and showed it to her mom.
"Well, at least your writing has gone back to normal." Anne said.
................................................................................................................................................
A/N : for anyone who is confused about the scenes in this chapter with Risa: to her what she is writing is english, and she sees it as such, however she is writing in the method of Jeremiah's world, which is slightly different. in the last scene, when she collapses, the same thing happens to her language, and the written form goes back to normal.