Lian woke up surrounded by warmth.
The position he was in was uncomfortable as all hell, but he was warm.
He shifted a bit, trying to find a position that would allow him to go back to sleep.
A whine echoed in the air around him and instantly Lian was awake, wide eyes looking around for Fenrir to see if the Guardian was hurt.
"Fenrir?"
"Lian!" Relief colored the call so brightly that Lian felt it too.
"Fen, are you okay?" He asked, his hands sinking into the fur of the wolf he was apparently leaning against. His back was pressed to Fenrir's side and half of Fenrir's body was curled on top of Lian's lower half.
And that's when he felt the pain.
"Shit!"
His arm looked like chewed goat meat.
Black and blue in places, crusted blood around the deep puncture wounds he knew were imprints of Fenrir's teeth.
"Shit, I really need to think before I act." Lian realized, assessing the damage to his dominant sword hand. It looked worse than it felt and for that he was surprised.
"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry." Fenrir's voice sounded so small in his head.
Lian turned to face the wolf, but Fenrir wasn't looking at him.
Blue eyes were closed in pain and the wolf couldn't even face him.
"It wasn't your fault." Lian said, pressing his back deeper into Fenrir's side. He managed a small smile when the wolf let out of whoosh of air from where Lian was pressing against his lungs.
"I lost control of myself. It was my fault." Fenrir insisted, not moving an inch. It was almost as if the wolf was afraid to move.
"You were protecting me. You would have done anything to protect me. It was me who decided the price you were willing to pay was too much." Lian shot back, relaxing into Fenrir's body. He hurt all over the place, but at least he was conscious. Pain he could deal with. He'd lived his life training to be a Warrior, pain wasn't new to him in any form. "What happened to you by the way?"
"I do not know." Fenrir replied, sounding strained now. "He threated you. Attacked you. I couldn't let him."
"I know that part, but I don't understand what actually happened. You swallowed up his flame like it was nothing. Then you were in my head talking about taking his magic. Fenrir...what's going on?" Lian wasn't sure he really wanted to know, but something told him that he had to push the issues. There has never been a history of Guardian's consuming the hearts of other Guardians and gaining their magic. If the implication of such a thing were true...a lot of bad things could happen.
"I don't know. It was an instinct. From one second to the next, I knew what I had to do to become more powerful so that I could stand between that Mage and my Purpose."
Lian still wasn't sure he'd understood what that was, but he let it go.
"At least you didn't kill her. That raven. Lybell's raven I guess."
Lian wasn't sure why he wasn't angrier about what had happened. Not at Lybell for attacking him or at Fenrir for taking things too far. He didn't feel much of anything really.
There was a sense of peace in the air that he wasn't used to. Wasn't expecting. Yet still, he bathed in the feeling. Not knowing when he'd feel it again.
"You're hurt."
The unexpected voice startled Lian, but even more troubling, it had also startled Fenrir. Instantly both of them were on their feet, both facing the intruder in the stables with them.
And that was the first time Lian noticed he and Fenrir were in the stables of all places.
"Who are you?" Lian asked, voice calm despite the jolt of panic he'd gotten. His tense body seemed to want to relax. The peace he'd felt before was now an unnatural presence trying to enclose around him like a blanket. He was being manipulated.
Fenrir growled, his instincts fighting each other as the weird magic pushed at them both.
"Don't worry. I won't hurt either of ye." The voice said again, the hooded cloak still carefully concealing the figure's face.
"You haven't answered my question."
"If ye want my name, then I can give ye something to call me by, but I'm not sure ye will understand it if I tell ye who I am."
Lian snorted, trying and failing to reach for the Newmoon Dagger at his side.
"Can you tell me what the hell you're doing to us?"
Lian was fighting to feel the anger he knew was turning in his stomach. This manipulative type of magic was wrong. There was nothing natural in it, not like his own magic usually felt.
"I'm keeping ye both from doing something idiotic." The figure replied. "Ye need me to heal ye, but for that I have to be close enough to touch ye. Fenrir wouldn't allow me that close without yer permission and so I waited for ye to awaken, but I cannot wait any longer."
Fluidly, in the same manor that water moved, the figure was standing from their slouch against the hay.
Lian's body tensed further, but it only made it harder to move. Even his chest was having trouble rising and falling. He couldn't get enough air into his lungs, they weren't expanding like they should.
"Please relax." The voice sounded gentler now, the cadence of the words singing in Lian's ears and trying to persuade his body to fulfil the soft request. Lian refused.
"Stop pulling whatever you're doing. Release me from your hold." Lian growled.
"Lian." Fenrir called in his head, but Lian was too focused on fighting the effect of whatever magic this stranger had, to give Fen his attention. "Lian, it is alright, you have to relax."
"Like hell I do." Lian thought back to his Guardian. "This bastard is manipulating you Fen, you do what he wants and he'll end us."
"He cannot harm you." Fenrir insisted.
Beside him, Lian felt the body of his Guardian relax against him. A show of support he wanted Lian to follow along with. But Lian would not.
"How can you be so sure of that?" He asked in a hiss. His gritted teeth made his jaw hurt and only seemed to get tenser as his body fought the instinct to give into the sense of peace trying to fall over him.
"If you relax you will see. Feel the energy around you. Recognize the power we face." Fenrir sounded so sure.
"Please Killian, ye must relax or ye will injure yerself further."
Lian had to give it to the figure, a man Lian was sure now. The stranger hadn't taken a single step closer. Just stood there, staring at them from under that hood.
"Pull off the hood, and I will listen to what you have to say." Lian insisted, allowing his teeth the freedom they needed to form the words.
"If ye see my face, ye'll not relax one bit, boyo." The hooded man said.
"That's not very comforting."
"It'd be the truth. The histories ye've read have not prepared ye for meeting with me. Gaia has decided that this'll be my test."
Gaia.
Where had Lian heard that before?
"Gaia is Mother. She is the earth beneath our feet, the wind that blows, the trees that grow, and the sky above. She is nature in all its forms." Fenrir explained.
Suddenly, he knew where he'd heard the name.
"The Mother of Magic." Lian breathed out, the surprise doing more to loosen his muscles than whatever magic this man had cast.
"Ai." The man admitted, and Lian could hear the smile floating on his words.
"You are not a Mage." It wasn't a question. By his use of Gaia's name, Lian knew this man wasn't a Mage, yet the magic he felt couldn't be denied.
"I am not." The stranger admitted. A pale hand came up from under the cloak and pressed itself against the figure's chest. "I cannot wield Gaia's powers."
"Then what are you? What is this magic?" He refrained from tensing, but he was on alert. Having allowed his body to relax, the ease of breathing returned. He didn't want to lose that so fast.
"I am...I am Sidhe." The melodic voice admitted.
Lian's brows furrowed. He'd never heard that term before.
"What is a 'Shee'?" He was curious now.
"Not 'Shee', Sidhe. I am Fae."
Lian's eyes widened, his fighting stance falling away as shock filtered through.
"Faery Folk? You're one of the Faery Folk?"
The cloaked figure stilled. An unnatural stillness that no normal living being possessed at any point other than death.
When moments passed and Lian didn't dart forward for an attack on the creature before him, the pale hands of the Fae reached up and the hood was brought down.
Lian's breath stuttered in his chest and his eyes widened to take in more of the beauty the creature before him held.
The face of the Fae wasn't natural. There was a delicate beauty to his features that Lian would never see in another human being. Pale flawless skin stretched over defined cheekbones, pale pink lips pulled up in a small, if self-conscious smile. Golden yellow hair framed his features perfectly, but the one thing that stood out to Lian above all the others, was the Fae's breathtaking violet eyes. It was almost as if they glowed despite the light of the rising sun that covered the stables.
"My name is Annia'Teitori. Ye may call me Tori, if ye like."
Seeing the face and hearing the voice all at once made Lian's heart stumble over itself.
Beauty had been forever redefined for him.
"What are you doing here, Tori?" Lian breathed out the name, he still couldn't reconcile the Fae's presence. "The Fae don't interfere with the life of mortals."
Annia'Teitori looked away from Lian, giving the boy the chance to breath a bit easier, before he gathered himself.
"Not usually, no. But I am afraid that in this, we've no choice."
"What do you mean?"
"I...We don't have time enough to explain. Ye're hurt."
Annia'Teitori's eyes flicked down to the black and blue skin of Lian's left arm.
Lian winced when he got a good look at it himself.
"If I do not heal it, ye'll likely lose the arm. I was not given permission to assist ye before, but Gaia does not want her Champion crippled so cruelly."
Lian closed his eyes tight, willing everything he was hearing to be a lie.
"What does he mean by 'Gaia's Champion'?" Fenrir asked.
Lian snapped his eyes to Fenrir as he hissed back. "Don't ask questions I don't want answers to."
"I think it is a question worth hearing the answer to. Or would you rather walk into a situation blind?" Fenrir shot back, glaring at Lian just as hard as Lian was glaring back.
Melodic laughter burst through the space around them, and both boy and beast turned their attention quickly on the amused Fae.
Annia'Teitori was beautiful standing still, but laughing was another matter entirely.
Something inside Lian's chest tightened as he stared at the Fae whose watery eyes closed in mirth as he laughed into his almost delicate hand.
"Is he laughing at us?" Fenrir huffed, not amused by the situation as the Fae was.
"I think he's laughing at you." Lian said with his own small smile. The mirth so clearly in the Fae's face was contagious.
"I be laughing at the both of ye." Annia'Teitori admitted, glowing eyes going from Fenrir to Lian and back again. "Gaia has made many pairs like ye. She has given many the ability to make use of the energy that runs deep within her, like the blood in a person's veins, yet never have we been blessed with a pair such as ye."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lian asked, mildly offended by the words and oddly hurt by them too.
Annia'Teitori must have seen it on his face, because the Fae's eyes widened and his hands came up in a placating gesture.
"Oh no, I don't mean it like that. Not meant as something bad, boyo."
"Then what does he mean?" Fenrir asked.
"I merely mean that the two of ye are well suited for each other. Gaia saw fit to bestow ye two, more than just a vessel and a Mage. Ye have learned to communicate and because of this, are able to portray yer emotions to Killian on a level many other Guardian's lack. Instead of gaining a sense of self, they became tools. Simple vessels for their Mages to use." Annia'Teitori's eyes were kind as he looked at both the boy and the wolf. "Sidhe like me value the gifts of Gaia. To see a bond like that of a Familiar bein' misused and dulled because a group of old and broken Mages fear what that bond could do, that goes against everythin' me and mine believe."
"So the way Fen and I are, this is the way the bond is supposed to be?" Lian asked, eyes flicking to the wolf standing next to him.
"It'd be more than that, boyo." Annia'Teitori smiled as he drew closer to Lian. "But that's not for me to be speaking of. Gaia has been waiting for one such as ye for a very long time. Let's not be lettin' her down, ai?"
Annia'Teitori reached for Lian's arm, but the boy pulled back, wincing in anticipation of the pain. Yet it didn't come. Annia'Teitori's hand wrapped around Lian's wrist and there was a sudden numbing cold climbing up the limb.
"What the hell?" Lian whispered in awe as his arm began to glow a faint white color, the brightest part of which was where Annia'Teitori's skin met his own.
"I'm not new at this, I promise ye. We may not interact with mortal matters, but there are mortals who pledge themselves to Gaia. We are allowed to step in for those individuals, so I be used to healin' humans." Annia'Teitori's focus was on Lian's arm, but the reassuring words had the right affect.
"Druids." Lian found himself saying. "Those people who make a pact with Gaia are called Druids. Very rarely do those with Magical blood make the pledge, so Druids are really just a weaker version of full blooded mages. The strongest Druid being about as strong as a mid-level novice mage."
Shocked violet eyes snapped up to meet Lian's and the boy found himself slightly embarrassed by his little lecture. He was so used to being schooled by his mother that he forgot that not everyone wanted the full explanation when a new topic was raised.
"Ye be a marvel, do ye know that?" Annia'Teitori breathed, seemingly as awestruck by Lian as Lian had been by him. "Me and mine be thinkin' we'd be needin' to teach ye what ye need to know, but somebody already beat us there, ai?"
"M-my mother." Lian answered, stumbling over the words as the press of reality made itself known. She was dead. He knew that in his mind but still his heart stuttered.
Annia'Teitori's eyes seemed to soften, and the pain inside his chest at the mere thought of his mother was suddenly pushed out by a calming cold.
"She be the heart in ye?"
"Yes. She the heart, my father the spine." Overwhelmed by the events of the night, Lian's strength faltered. His knees buckled under him.
Suddenly he felt the press of Fenrir at his side and the force of an arm wrapped around his waist holding him secure on his feet.
"I be thinkin' it be the reverse. The father be the Heart, the mother be the Spine. But there be time later for all that. Go to sleep, boyo. I've healed what I had to heal." Annia'Teitori smiled as he helped Lian return to the slouch against Fenrir's side. The position he'd woken up in.
"You won't be here in the morning, will you." Lian concluded, eyes falling closed despite himself.
"I be there when ye be needin' me, boyo. Ye've got my name, and to the Sidhe our names carry power. If ye be in need of me help, ye but call my name."
"Yeah." Lian whispered, the pressure of the darkness behind his eyelids seemingly invading his mind. "Thank you, Tori."
"Any time, boyo. Gaia gave ye to me, so I best be takin' care of ye, ai."
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