Novice & Teacher

Brandon woke up with a small grunt and a yelp as pure agony cut over his core and limbs yanking him from sleep in a vicious fashion that felt almost violent. He screamed as he clutched at his body and hollow sobs tumbled up and out of him. He felt utterly wretched and yet he had no clue as to why. There were vague impressions on his soul, heart and mind.

“Brandon!′ Called a familiar voice, before Ann came running into view. The back of her was illuminated by war fires glow, but Brandon was in such a state of panic an too freaked out to notice much else as he threw his hands over his eyes and he wailed in to his palms.

Brandons hands were pulled firmly, but gently from his face and Brandon shuddered another wail, as a soft cold cloth was drawn across his hot face and wet tear tracks. “Hey Brandon! Hey look at me....you much calm down....” Ann instructed him, she hung over him, and she cleaned his face with a few soft strokes, the cold cloth making his wild panic ebb into simply gripping sorrow.

Brandon shook as he cried deep and open and like someone had harmed him deep within.

“Brandon whats going on!?” Ann called to him, she tried to catch his eyes, but he just closed his. “Please tell me whats going on? Are you in pain? Is it the Druids hunger...or the Acris? What can I do?”

Brandon heard her concern and worry growing as he fought to think past the debilitating sensation of harm he felt...it was like something inside of him or a part of his own soul had been injured but he just couldn’t truly grasp why or how. Ann touched his face again and Brandon felt his spiraling mind recoil.

“Ann....” Brandon moaned and tried to turn from her hand as she wiped at his tear strained face with a gentle care that he didn’t really know how to deal with.

“Ann stop, you don’t have to. I just...” Brandon swallowed thick and shocked out another sob. “I just had a really horrible dream I think.”

Ann ignored his attempts to get away from her tending, and she just put the wet cloth in her hand against his cheek to force him to look at her. She captured his eyes and she said. “What dream, what happened in it that’s got you so upset? Was it the Bane again?”

Brandon hicked and just shook his head back and forth in terrible agitation and dread. “I don’t know. I don’t know! But I fell like I’m dying!”

Ann touched his crown and she swiped at his hair, plastered there by a sheen of cold sweat. “Shhh....just clam your breathing and let yourself relax before you choke...”

Brandon shuddered through his teeth as he tried to fight off the wounded feeling in his chest. “Ann...you don’t have to help me. Ill be fine...”

Ann rolled her eyes, and she wiped at his tears a little more intently, then she touched his forehead again. “Brandon you are my Novice, by edict of the Creed of the Brotherhood I am to do all I can for you...it is my duty.”

“Du..ty?” Brandon tried to ask, but his voice was choked and he felt more tears roll down his face.

Ann just wiped them away and she said. “Please just rest. Calm your breathing...good...now go back to sleep...

***

Many hours seemed to pass before Brandon came back to the world, but perhaps this wasn’t exactly true because when Brandon came awake again I was to the same warm glimmer of fire light around him, and to a dark night sky above him.

Why did I feel so much sorrow...and pain before? Was it dream...and yet the dream felt like it didn’t belong to me at all...I don’t understand it. I felt so much and half of it I don’t remember

Worry danced over his mind, but Brandon pushed it aside as his min turned towards the one things he never could put away from long. The strange hollow pain inside made him ache and his eyes burn as he mentally tried to calm himself.

Ezkeiel...I wish I was with you. Waking up in your arms...

He thought, his tight chest softening for a fraction of a second as he thought of his Reaver...and with sheer longing he felt warm arms wrap over him and he shuddered at the memory. For the briefs of seconds Brandon let his mind wander to his love. He imagined Ezekiel’s blue eyes staring down at him...he dreamed of the feather of his lips on the wind pressing close. Brandon almost imagined the Shifter touching his face, fingertips at his pulse....

Brandon blinked and opened his eyes and drew in a cleansing breath that he refused to turn into more sobs. His throat was thick, his chest was ragged, breaths hurt to pull in making him away of how utterly he had unraveled, and his eyes were itch and dry and swollen. All of this was in conjunction to the utterly debilitating sensation of the cutting hunger roiling over his heart, and deep in his soul.

Druid hunger sent chills over his empty skin, while waves of soft pain lanced up and over his organs and into the base of his skill. It was all and all a pretty normal situation for Brandon, aside from the swollen eyes, so he just pushed his awareness of the agony to the side and tried to focus on getting up.

He felt noticeably dizzy as he leveraged up off the thick wool blanket under him. The first thing he saw was Ann, she was sitting on the other end of the fire, tending it with a stick, her eyes turned to her work. Brandon felt relief and with mild interest he slowly took in his surroundings. He was lying a few confer table feet to the far left of a small crackling flame. IT was a modest bonfire that had been built into the small divot of the stone ledge that Brandon realized was protruding out of the side of a rocky plateau.

Were in the far reaches of that forest we were bordering. I remembering sing these kind of large high rock plateaus out on the horizon...Jesus, how far did Ann carry me!

Almost as if in response to his thoughts Ann glanced up and she called out. “Your awake!”

Brandon shook his dizzy head. “Ann Im...Im sorry about all this I didn’t mean to pass out like that!”

Ann stood up, she walked over to him, and as she approached she reached into one of the large pockets sewed into her garments.

The Healers dress had three pockets in the inner folds of its white material as well as a single large pocket sewn into the let hip. Ann bowed to her knees beside him, a she pulled a long fat waterskin out of the hip pocket and held it out to him.

“Here drink this fast. Your voice is almost gone...and your probably seriously dehydrated after losing so much fluid.”

“Ah...oaky. Thank you Ann.” Brandon called as the Mana User stood up and just walked back to her spot by the fire.

She didn’t respond and Brandon took that time to put the water to his lips and far beyond his control he just drank deeply, until he emptied the entire canteen, the cool water soothing him all the way to his burning belly.

With a sharp groan Brandon sat up on to his hips, sighed and he called out. “Ann you had to carry me all the way up here didn’t you?”

To his question Ann glanced at him, then cocked her head. “Well its not like you were in any shape to do it. Your fever got so high you were trembling and having trashing nightmares by time we settled down. I knew we couldn’t stay too close to edge of the wood so...”

“So you carried me what 10 or 15 miles and then helped me when I woke up freaking out like a crazy fool?” Brandon bit his lip....he felt both bereft and also uncommonly unbalanced by the seeming loyalty and sacrifice that Ann was showing towards him. Its not that he and she were not on good terms and perhaps even willing to trust each other with their lives...but he wasn’t sure he wanted her feeling like she had to do more than help him or that she owed him more then simple companionship at this point.

Ann stared at him, and she just said. “I did my duty. Is that a problem?”

Her words niggled him and Brandon shook his head and sighed. “Duty? As in its not a big deal and you felt like you had to do it for me...” Brandon raised his eye browns and leaned in. “But you didn’t have to. I never said you had to wait on me or do anything you don’t want to do!”

Ann cast him a roll of her eyes and just shrugged. “I don’t do anything I don’t WANT to do. But I also need you to just accept that some of what I do is by virtue of my responsibility. My duty to you as your teacher.”

“What?” Brandon frowned and he sat back. ” Wait...Earlier you said you had a duty to me...because Im your novice. What duty?”

Ann shrugged as she poked at the fire with the thick branch in her left hand. Then she sighed, glanced around into the night sky and answered him. “To those who follow the creed of the Brotherhood, to be a teacher is a scared duty. A powerful undertaking. It is my understanding that when one takes on a Novice for training, the contract between the teacher and Novice is one that cannot be easily forsaken or taken on lightly.”

Brandon cut in. “But you are not in the brotherhood anymore! You don’t have to follow that stuff! You don’t have to feel obligated to take care of me. That’s not why I asked you to teach me, just so you would feel obligated to help me. I asked you to teach me because I had no other choice. This arraignment is more about convenience than anything else and im not asking you to put yourself out for me okay?” Brandon stood up, and he started to walk over to her so he could hand her the deflated water skin. His legs shook but he ignored their weakness as Ann took the item he offered to her and she looked up into his eyes from her seat.

Ann just cast him a look of pure cold refusal. “It is a serious thing the Duty that I speak of, even if you don’t understand it. In the historic annals of the Brotherhood when one Mana User takes on a Novice that connection becomes like...and oath. An oath of eternal support and shared knowledge.”

Brandon bit his lip and he tried to speak to his discomfort. “Ann there is no oath here. Unless you don’t believe me about the Bane and the Dragons working together, and the only reason you helped me and the reason you came with me is because of some antiquated oath? I don’t get it? Your saying your doing all of this for a stupid tradition?”

Ann smiled. “So says Brandon Great. Grandson to Merlin The Great one of the single most powerful and deeply traditional Grand Masters who ever lived. And his son sees it as ‘stupid’. ”

Brandon quirked his eyebrow at her but let her continue.

“You see Brandon, Merlin the Great was the one who integrated the practice of Novice teaching so long ago, and back in his time the taking and training of a novice was seen as a great honor for both pupil and teacher.”

“An honor? Tell me why that is exactly?” Brandon scratched his head and glanced at Ann, before he shrugged, walked back over to his bed roll, and started putting on his shoes and socks that were sitting by the side of his blanket.

He knew he was still weak, but he knew he had to go out and start looking for something to feed on. His guts felt hollow, and yet there was a sharp pain of fiery agony lashing him that he knew wouldn’t stop until he caught and killed something...or a whole lot of somethings. He knew if he wasn’t careful Ann could easily become a target of his voracious needs and he refused to let harm come to her.

Ann responded to his inquiry with another soft smirk as she poked the fire before her, the soft cascade of golden orange embers broke off in the winds and dies into the darkness as she spoke.

“Novice training was seen as a honorable venture Druid, only men and women who could touch and manipulate Mana were even considered as potential students and initiates into the Brotherhood by other Mana Users. So being chosen was of course seen as a right of prestige and power long before the Brotherhood because the shadow organization it later grew to be.”

Brandon laughed as he finished tying on his shoe’s, stood back up, tapped the toes of his feet on the stone to make sure they were nice and tight before he looked at Ann and said. “So what I’m getting form this little history story is that I should be very humbled and grateful that you took me on as a Novice?”

Ann tilted her head and she slightly frowned. “Why do you sound so dismissive? I’m not. I am grateful and humbled that I have taken you on as my Novice...and just as in the old days I promise to support and share knowledge if I am asked too.” she confessed her words sincere, soft and so surprising that they struck Brandon wordless seeing as he had been about to make a joke or play off the seriousness of what she had been telling him until that very moment.

Stuck for a second in uncertainty Brandon soon cleared his throat and slightly bowed his head to Ann before he respectfully replied. “I...I am grateful too Ann.”

Brandon brought his head up, as a soft curing hiss broke free and Brandon clutched his chest as a lash of pure infuriated desire to feed nearly made him black out again. He felt his legs try to buckle, but he locked his knees and held steady “Shit! Ann...Ill be...back soon. I can sense a small burrow of foxes and snakes to the west, it should be easy to catch some and loop back this way.”

Ann nodded and said. “You are weakening fast between the feedings its clear you are going to get sicker if you go for longer then this. Go, but be weary. The more you use your powers, the more easily the Bane, Ghouls and other Mana Users will start to pin point our locations. In fact I wouldnt be surprised if we dont start running into enemies soon...”

Brandon hid a chill at the dire warning, smirked and turned away. “Ill bring back fire wood.”

He offered over his shoulder as he stalked off into the darkness beyond the warm fires glow of their makeshift camp.