Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!chnews!ornews.intel.com!ibeam!hutch From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [AU] [HouseStorming] Following Trails Message-ID: Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon References: <1993Jul14.180410.9807@data-io.com> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 17:17:57 GMT Lines: 415 [ADMIN] This is a group post. I've lost track of who all wrote it, though. Oh well. It follows after the "Jake Pitzar" post where he sends back the article on Unicorn Hunters to the Examiner. o--o When Andrea opened her eyes, it was to hear the crackling of the fire, and also the popping and hissing of something frying. "Good morning!" Jay called back, seeing her waking up. "I'm just fixing breakfast." Andrea yawned, and got to her feet. Her leg was feeling much better now. In fact, as she looked back to check, she noticed the bandage was gone, and the wound had healed completely, leaving naught behind but a small pink spot where the skin showed through. Must have been that salve he put on, Andrea thought. Either that, or 'corns are naturally fast healers. Or maybe both. "So, how are you feeling today?" Jay asked. "I noticed your leg is better." "I feel GREAT!" Andrea nickered, knowing that Jay wouldn't understand the words but hoping that the tone would convey her message for her. "Good." Jay grinned. "I wonder what your name is..." "It's Andrea," Andrea nickered. She wished he'd understand THAT, at least. She CERTAINLY hoped he wasn't going to make up some stupid name for her and call her that. "Ah, well...let me get your your breakfast and I'll eat mine." He stood up, set aside the skillet he was frying eggs in, and went over to the feed trough. He dumped some oats into it, and then went back to the fire and his own breakfast. Andrea gratefully began to eat the grain. This was very good...now she would certainly have a better idea of what Sheryl liked to eat...Then Andrea nearly choked on her food as she remembered. Sheryl! Was she all right? Had she found Jake? Andrea tossed her head. She had to find her! Andrea bolted the rest of the oats, and moved toward the door. Jay put down the skillet. "What's the matter? You need to go somewhere?" Then, noticing the way her blue eyes were shining and blazing, he said, "I guess you do." He walked up to her, hugged her around the neck. "It's been fun." Andrea could see he was holding back tears. Oh, hell, she thought. I can't leave him here. He's just a kid, and after what he did for me... Andrea walked to the door, turned back, nickered, "Hey, get your things together and come on! You're coming with me!" Jay didn't speak Unicorn, so it took him a minute or so to understand. "You want ME to come with YOU?" he asked, putting his right hand on his chest. Andrea nodded. "All RIGHT!!! Hold on a minute while I get my things together!" Jay ran back into the other stall and came out with the duffle bag slung on his shoulder. "There. I'm ready." Andrea pushed her way out through the bushy facade over the cave, and Jay followed. She stood still so he could climb on...but he couldn't quite make it. Andrea snorted, and looked around for a stump or a large rock. When Jay was finally able to get on, Andrea paused for a moment to look around, then trotted down the riverbank to the ford. She splashed across the river, then up on the far side, and then, making sure that Jay was holding on tight, began to gallop! Jay held on tight to the unicorn's mane as she raced over the ground. He was amazed--she was galloping, and yet he hardly felt it. The ride was as smooth as if he was standing still. They ran through forest and field, past mountains and valleys. Andrea was running back along the river, toward where she had fallen in, but she guessed it was a pretty long way that she had been carried. She really didn't recognize any of the terrain, and after a while she began to tire. Finally, she realized that all this running around was getting her nowhere, and stopped to rest and graze. She felt that Sheryl, who had more experience at being a unicorn, would have gotten to Jake by now, and would be better able to find her than she them. So Andrea spent the day grazing in a field, and Jay sort of sat there watching her, fixing himself lunch when he got hungry. As she stood there placidly eating, Jay pulled out a sketch pad from his knapsack. This dog-eared pad held some of Jay's best drawings in it. Though he didn't think of himself as a professional by any means, he did have a knack for arranging lines to capture reality on paper. Now he started to sketch Andrea. Throughout the day, Andrea continued trying to revert to human form. Even though she sometimes felt CLOSE, it never happened. It was, she reflected wryly, like trying to attend to a natural function while you knew there was someone watching you--no matter how hard you tried, you could ALMOST, but not quite, manage to do anything. As the evening fell, she began to feel restless, nervous. She didn't know why, but she felt she should go. So she trotted over to Jay, who put his sketchbook up and managed to climb onto Andrea's back once more, with the aid of a handy stump. Then Andrea turned and trotted off. She headed along a small forest trail, knowing, somehow, that she had to go there. Part of her (the entirely human part) was quite annoyed that she should have to be guided by instinct all the time. The other part, however, saw nothing unusual or wrong with it, and so it went. At last Andrea sensed the end was near. Right around this next bend, in fact. She galloped up, around the bend, and right into a small clearing... ---000--- The sun was just barely rising, when 'Raf woke Jake by waving a cup of hot black coffee under his nose. The centaur kid was stumbling sleepily around the camp table, making up a big pot of oat mash for him and Sheryl. Jake blinked and took the coffee. "Time to shine, dude. I wanna get looking for the trail again before it gets too old and cold." 'Raf grinned and padded over to where his mate was combing her hair. Today she just seemed to be the one with dark red hair. She took a cup of coffee from him and added contaminants from a bottle of cream and sugar. Kardia inhaled the fragrance deeply and her eyes brightened. She also took cream in her coffee. The smell of freshly caught brook trout frying along with bacon, onions, and hash browns filled the clearing. Sheryl snorted in disgust at the sight of perfectly good potatoes being fried with meat oil. Jake was still muttering to himself in a language that only vaguely resembled Generican, liberally sprinkled with epithets and long swallows of coffee. After breakfast, 'Raf >flickflicked< into an older woman wearing a nun's habit, with a younger woman standing slightly behind her. As 'Raf growled something at the wet wood and it went >fwump< and blazed up, the older woman looked to the sky, half-curtseying on one knee, and prayed: <> An overwhelming peacefulness descended upon the clearing. Andrea blinked tiredly as ar'Elya >flicked< back to the way she was before. I must be more tired than I thought, Andrea thought, resolving someday to ask ar'Elya or 'Raf how exactly they did that. She'd met many mages in her search for a cure for Sheryl, but not any who changed bodies more than most people changed clothes. Andrea got her bedroll out of her backpack, wondering in the random way peoples' minds tend to wander when they're about to fall asleep exactly where it was that her clothes and backpack went when she turned into a unicorn. As Andrea removed her shoes and armor, she said, "ar'Elya?" "Yes?" Andrea yawned again. "Could you sort of keep an eye on me, make sure I don't turn into a unicorn and run off in my sleep or something? I would be rather embarrassed if that were to happen..." ar'Elya smiled. "Don't worry about a thing." "Thanks." Andrea dozed off, a faint blue glow occasionally visible under her closed eyelids. Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!chnews!ornews.intel.com!ibeam!hutch From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [AU] [HouseStorming] Shepherd Moon and Morning Hymn Message-ID: Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon References: <1993Jul14.180410.9807@data-io.com> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 19:24:38 GMT Lines: 486 [ADMIN] Because people want to get on with things, I'm posting this in short succession to the prior post, Following Trails. This is a group concoction by the people named at bottom. The sky darkened, the moon rose high, and the forest came alive with a variety of noises; nocturnal creatures were using this time for their own purposes. The night went by calmly, peacefully. Thanks to ar'Elya's wards, nothing evil came near the party. However, something else did... <> Andrea woke. The sky was dark, the familiar constellations shining crisp and clear overhead. Why did I wake up? Andrea wondered. She sat up, looked around. No one else was awake--all were sleeping. What was going on? And when she saw what was at the far end of the clearing, she entirely forgot to wonder. At first Andrea thought they were mist, risen off the ground and floating into camp. Then she made out their shapes, the snowy-white forms of four unicorns standing at the opposite end of the encampment. They seemed to be peering at Sheryl and Jay. The leader snorted, and turned his head back to his companions. "What are these humans doing in our forest?" he nickered. Though the sound carried clearly across to Andrea, none of the others in the party even stirred. "And with one of the Breed in their company?" "Perhaps they captured her?" the second unicorn, a mare only slightly shorter than the leader, suggested. "Then why would this clearing be warded AGAINST evil?" asked the third, a stallion whose voice carried the same youthful overtones that a human teenager's might. "It doesn't make sense." "Perhaps she chose to be with them willingly?" the fourth, a filly perhaps the same age as the third 'corn suggested. The leader snorted. "Ridiculous. I have not heard of one of the Breed taking a human companion in many years." "None of the Breed has gone near human settlements in many years," the third 'corn reminded him. "You do remember the legends..." "How human virgins supposedly have the ability to charm us. Bah. I would say that as many humans were charmed by the Breed as it was the other way around." "I've always discounted the old virgin myths myself," the older mare agreed. "Very sensible of you," the leader replied drily, though she wasn't finished yet. "As *I* see it," she said, "it has more to do with the personality of the human and the Breed-born. If something in both is mutually compatible, then..." "It is a rather pointless discussion," the leader interrupted, "as none of the Breed has been with a human for many, many years. But here we seem to have an exception." He tossed his head amusedly at Jay and Sheryl. The pair were cuddled up against each other, and Jay had one of his arms around Sheryl's neck. A blissfully peaceful expression was on Jay's face. "Indeed," the mare replied drily. "What do you suggest we do about it?" The older stallion tossed his head and snorted. "Report it to the herd, of course. What else CAN we do?" The younger stallion had wandered over to where Jake was dozing, and was sniffing at him. He nuzzled him, to no effect. "Your sleeping spell worked," he reported. "Not even touching him wakes him up." "They are all asleep for the rest of the night," the older mare said. "But that was a most incautious way of testing it." The younger stallion tossed his head. "It's always worked in the past, no reason why it should fail now." The older stallion snorted something derogatory about the younger generation that Andrea wasn't quite able to catch, then said, "It is close to dawn. We should return to the herd." "Agreed," the older mare replied. The stallion reared, wheeled, and galloped out of the clearing, trumpeting a clarion call as the other three followed close behind. As the sound of their hoofbeats faded, Andrea watched bemusedly. She briefly considered following them, but shook her head. She'd just gotten together with some of her friends; she was not going to go running out into the unknown once again. Not even for a whole HERD of unicorns. And she wasn't sure she could control the change in the presence of more 'corns. Andrea chuckled, realizing that many young maidens would give their right arms for what she had just seen in the last five minutes. It would be considered the high point of their lives, and they would talk about it, and it would grow in the telling, for as long as they lived. Perhaps that was how the virgin legends had been started in the first place. There was a dim rosy color in the eastern sky, which was already beginning to lighten with the false dawn, in preparation for the real thing. Andrea stood, stretched. She wasn't sleepy in the least, so she guessed she might as well make herself useful rather than sitting around bored. It didn't look as though anyone else would be waking up for a while--even 'Raf and ar'Elya seemed to be asleep, though she strongly suspected they were faking it. They seemed powerful enough not to be overcome by even unicorn magic. As Andrea's gaze fell on 'Raf, he emitted a loud snore, and opened his eyes long enough to wink. Or did he? It was so difficult to tell in this light. ar'Elya, without opening her eyes, placed an elbow neatly in 'Raf's midsection, he OOFed without opening his eyes, and Andrea giggled. "Okay, okay, you win," Andrea said, shaking her head. She got up, rolled up her bedroll, and walked to the center of the clearing where the dying embers of the fire remained. She poked a stick in, stirred them around. Hmm, the fire had gone completely out; there were no coals left. She gathered some more wood and dropped it on the ashes. As she turned to get her flint and steel from her backpack, she heard a FWUMP! sound. She turned back, and saw that the fire had apparently ignited itself behind her back. Andrea glanced at 'Raf, who was the perfect epitome of innocently sleeping. She could almost see a halo above his head. She snorted, and looked around. She realized that if she wanted coffee, she would probably have to make it herself, since 'Raf hadn't left a pot out. It was no problem, she had her own pot. However, it was pretty small, and if anyone else wanted coffee, he would have to make his own. She went to get it... ...and when she came back, there was a large, shiny coffeepot sitting on the fire. Andrea looked at 'Raf. He hadn't moved. "Very funny, 'Raf," she said. She sat down by the fire. "Guess I'll just wait 'til the other folks wake up." The first to "wake up" was, of course, 'Raf. He came over, checked the fire. "Coffee smells great," he remarked, grinning. Andrea smiled. "Yes, it does, doesn't it?" She looked over at the sunrise. "Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day today," she remarked. 'Raf nodded. "There's definitely magic in the air." Andrea looked at him, but his face was perfectly serious. She shook her head. ar'Elya was the next up. She yawned, stretched, and walked over to the fire, sat down next to 'Raf. She was her blonde mage-self this morning, and the cries of her dragonets echoed faintly in the distance as they launched themselves into the sky, anticipating the thermal updrafts that would form as the rising sun began to heat the land. "Nice day for the trip home," she said to Andrea. Andrea fidgeted. "I don't know...I'm not really sure that I'm ready to go back to...to town yet. Something inside of me feels...hmm, insecure at the prospect of returning to a busy city, with lots of people, and houses so close together...I need the open plains, I need...space." ar'Elya nodded. "It's perfectly all right...We understand. It's merely a side-effect of the spell, it should disappear as the control-spell merges naturally into your aura." "I'll have to thank Enn Piecy for that ring the next time I see him," Andrea said. "I wonder where he got it?" 'Raf shrugged. "Probably some artificer-mage. It's funny, though...that ring would have to be specifically crafted to work, not only with the specific curse cast, but with the person the curse was cast upon as well. Whoever created it had to know, in advance, a great deal about both you AND the effects of the curse." "That is odd," Andrea agreed. "It makes the question of who gave him that ring even stranger." She shrugged. "Oh, well. I'm rather curious as to what your scan of me last night revealed." "Come to think of it, so am I. Let me check..." 'Raf pulled out the amber amulet that was the only item that the satyrlion appeared to carry in common with 'Raelf-who-Andrea-recalled. He muttered for a few minutes, the language unfamiliar but the meaning somehow clear: <> A fog formed in the air in front of them, the holographic illusion from 'Raelf's mage-deck, but in miniature. He growled at it, and muttered again <> and it grew larger. The image exactly resembled the one that Andrea had seen over a week and a half ago, in the Dragon's Inn. It showed a web of green light embedded in the faint grey of the illusion, following the shape of a human woman, outlining her body in a branching that resembled the lines of blood vessels or maybe nerves. The point of view shifted, panning and zooming in an impossible direction into the head, where there was suddenly the same network of lines and cloudy masses that 'Raelf had identified as being "personal image" when he showed the curse on Sheryl. There was a strange structure, a sort of overlay of unicorn on top of the human, with tattered fragments of black that disappeared even as they watched. The overlay gradually focussed over the course of a few moments, into a second image, a perfect Unicorn to match the human. It connected to the green fire web at the same place, and there was a silvery construction there, a ring spinning slowly. Blue fire went from a pool that fed into the ring, and was directed into the human shape, with only very small amounts being directed to the Unicorn. "That's it. Control mechanism." 'Raf pointed. "The scan shows what happened to your image over the last three-four days. Couldn't go further back, there's too much temporal noise. Anyway it looks like you have a nice little switch here, lets you be a human or a Unicorn at whim. I'd be careful about trying to be both at the same time, it might mess up the controls some." Ar'Elya gestured, making parts of the image come closer to her view from her vantage point. Somehow this didn't mess with what the rest of them saw. She nodded, calling a dragonet over to her. "That's pretty much what we thought. Strange, though, the ring will be fully integrated into your body in just a few hours. You should have no trouble controlling the urge to hide in the woods. Unless..." She zoomed in on the Unicorn. "Ah. Yes. It's closer to the Nexus archetype than the one Sheryl's carrying. That could be inconvenient, but since there's still time, we could adjust it for you. Afterwards you're stuck with it, and I doubt that there's time for Kardia to make a web to get you out of the spell before it sets in." "You mean, I'll always be turning into a unicorn when I least expect?" Andrea growled, thinking about how dangerous it would be to change in the middle of a high-wire approach to a merchant's treasure trove. "No, you should have absolute control. It's just that local Unicorns have some instincts that aren't really helpful." "So Kardia won't be able to undo the spell for me?" "She won't be able to undo it painlessly," 'Raf interjected. He had shut down the display, and the amulet was now just a yellow crystalline bauble hanging in the fur on his chest. "Oh," Andrea blinked. "What's required, then? How can I keep from running off to the woods every time I happen to turn into a Unicorn?" "Well," ar'Elya smiled, and held up three dragonets, "My little ones here, can eat excess magic. If we do the right things, we ought to be able to remove those unwanted additions now, before they set." Andrea looked suspicious. "What will it cost me?" "Not much," ar'Elya said, still smiling, but the smile was beginning to have a slightly greedy cast. "Just some investigative work for a friend of mine." "Investigative?" "Oh, nothing difficult. Someone's been making some _ugly_ toys and she wants them found, and stopped." The blonde sorceress teased one of the dragonets with a strand of her hair. Andrea shrugged. "I suspect there's more to this, but I'll agree for now." She remembered the words of her old friend and classmate Carson: "First of all, a professional thief must be a professional information collector." She had been doing just that for the last ten years, so she didn't doubt her own abilities. "Good. Now, you just sit there, and close your eyes, and let yourself think about going into Generica." The sorceress began making a slow, sinuous gesture with her left hand, and Andrea let her eyes drift shut. There was a wisp of wind blowing against her face, and she was tempted to open her eyes, but she knew there would be a dragonet there, and she'd flinch, so she just tried to envision going into the city ... The image came up, sharper even than dreaming. Illusion, she thought. Well, don't waste it, girl. There's the walls around the city. First walk up to the (flinch, flinch, rising panic) gates... No. No panic, how strange. Then into the noise and bustle (flinch, run) of the entry square... the urge to run faded away. Wow. Sneaking along the tops of the houses, moving lightly from building to building, to steal (WRONGwrong?) to take away that which she needed and they did not... Hm. Still felt somewhat wrong. How annoying. She considered being a unicorn in the city, and slid down off the roof on all fours, landing with unnatural quiet on the cobbles below. The smell was horrible, the water fouled and the ambience of sickness and malaise was all around, but she didn't feel any kind of compulsion to flee. She imagined seeing a virgin, like Jay, or maybe one of the children in the city. The sensation of purity, of something ritually unspoiled, was pleasant but not overwhelming. She felt no urge to go cuddle the virgin, no need to sacrifice her safety. "OK," she thought to herself, "This I can handle." She opened electric blue eyes to find three small dragons perched on her horn, crooning a song at her. Panic almost took her again, but she remembered the feeling of changing, and willed herself to be human again. Nothing happened. "Don't try so hard," 'Raf said in the speech of the Unicorns, and she gave him a startled look--he was still a satyrlion, but he'd grown a single horn in his forehead. It vanished, and he sagged a bit, as if that had been something difficult to do. Don't try so hard. She sighed, and remembered wistfully having fingers and standing on her hind legs. The horn vanished, and the three dragonets made a startled flurry in the air as they returned to their mistress. She had done it. She was human once more. As Andrea, 'Raf, and ar'Elya sat around the fire talking about Andrea's condition and then doing something about it, the rosy dawn crept higher above the horizon, just beginning to dilute into that pale color that heralds the rise of the sun itself and the start of a new day. In the large domed tent-like structure that 'Raf had referred to as a yurt, most of the rest of the unlikely party lay sleeping. Kardia lay curled up on her left side. It was an unnatural sleeping posture for her, but one she had to get used to. Lying any other way caused her ribs to hurt so that she woke up. Jake was curled up under a tree. The unicorns' sleep spell had hit him the hardest, since he was the closest to where they had been standing. He might not wake up for hours. Clyde was, like Kardia, sleeping on his side. It was kind of hard for the young centaur--if his horse part was lying down, his human body was still upright. How could he get to sleep like that? So he was trying sleeping on his side, and it was a bit uncomfortable. Being as heavy as he now was, he couldn't just turn over in his sleep if he wanted to--he had to get to his feet to change his position much at all. He didn't believe 'Raf's assurances that he could sleep standing up if he wanted to. Sleep standing up?! Did 'Raf think he'd been born yesterday or something? The last two members of the party were not in the yurt but were instead sleeping quietly in a secluced little niche, separated from the rest of the clearing by a few waist-high bushes and shrubs (Jay had been a little scared of the tent, and he was no stranger to sleeping outdoors). Jay and Sheryl were gently dozing, Jay lying on his back, Sheryl on her side next to him. There was a sudden rustling sound off in the underbrush; perhaps it was a fox in pursuit of a rabbit, or a quail taking off from its nest. Whatever it was, it caused Jay to jerk awake in the way that really light sleepers commonly do. He didn't just move; his whole body spasmed. In Jay's half-awake mind, he was back in his father's house, and his father had just come into the room, whip in hand, and perhaps made some small noise that startled Jay awake. That was why Jay had become such a light sleeper--his father took some sort of sadistic pleasure (or so it seemed) in catching him asleep. "Get up, you lazy lout!" he would yell, lashing Jay with the whip between words. "What'm I feedin' ya for, anyways? There's WORK to be done!!!" "Coming, father, coming..." Jay mumbled, half-raising his arms to ward off the blows he knew were soon to land. "Don't hit me..." Then he opened his eyes, and found the concerned eyes of a young unicorn filly peering into his. "Oh," Jay said, remembering where he was. She nickered softly, and blinked. "Oh..." Jay said again, peering into the young 'corn's eyes. There was nothing else he COULD say. He was absolutely enthralled by those eyes. They were so beautiful, so warm, so haunting...To his astonishment, Jay felt himself filled by a feeling he couldn't remember feeling before. It took him a moment to realize that this was happiness, TRUE happiness. It was as if his entire life up to now had been a scattered jigsaw puzzle, and the last piece had just now fallen into place. Not even when he had been in his secret cavern hiding place, away from all the abuse and all the shame, had he felt this kind of joy. Nothing in his meager 14-year existance had even come close to this. And gazing up into the eyes of the young unicorn filly looking down at him, he knew that she was feeling the same thing. They were soulmates, this Jay knew. And he also knew that they would always be together. Jay pushed himself up on his elbows, sat up, never taking his eyes off of Sheryl's. Then he couldn't help himself. Tears formed in his eyes, and he reached out and embraced her neck tightly, softly sobbing. Joy and sadness are but opposite sides of the same coin, so it is not uncommon for extreme feelings of the one to provoke responses normally reserved for the other. And thus it was that Jay muffled his sobs of joy in Sheryl's soft mane, and Sheryl seemed a bit misty-eyed herself. They both knew that they would never be alone again. Later that morning, the sun was a bit higher in the sky and it looked like it was going to be a perfect day. The clearing was brightly lit, birdsong of all descriptions wafted from the trees...the idyllic kind of day that is perfect for outdoors activities like picnics, swimming, or simply lying on the ground looking up at the sky. Jay and Sheryl were playing tag around the clearing, ducking and dodging around trees, rocks, Jake Pitzar (who was still under the unicorns' sleep spell), and anyone else who happened to be in the way. Andrea was leaning against a tree by the side of the clearing, still a little confused and emotionally drained from what ar'Elya had just done for her. She was watching expressionless as the two of them frolicked together. Andrea sighed. "I guess I knew all along I'd have to lose her one day..." "But you haven't lost her," ar'Elya, in her blond mage form, said from her right side. Andrea nearly jumped a foot in the air, but managed to control her reaction. How had ar'Elya DONE that?! Not even Fujiko could move that silently! "You haven't lost her," ar'Elya repeated, stroking the neck of a bronze dragonet that perched on her right forearm. It crooned happily. "She's still your sister, no matter what form she may have or who she befriends." She thrust her arm upward, launching the dragonet into the sky. It soared upward, catching the thermal updraft from the clearing and drifting amid the clouds. "Yes, but--" Andrea began. "Just look at them." Kardia came up on Andrea's other side. "See how happy they are?" Andrea sighed. "Yes. That's EXACTLY what I see." Her eyes shimmered between their natural color and the unicorn's electric blue. "She's found her virgin." She smiled mirthlessly. "And *I* was the one who found him for her." Kardia saw what Andrea was thinking. "Oh, no," she said, "Surely you can't believe that!" Andrea shook her head. "I've been having trouble deciding WHAT to believe lately. First I believed for ten years that everything somehow be all right if I could just get Sheryl changed back into a human again. Then I found that it was impossible, and wasn't what she wanted anyway. Then I believed that we finally had the curse behind us, and that son-of-a-lich wizard showed up and put it on ME. Only I think I'm beginning to like it too. And then I was nearly killed, and rescued by Jay, and now HE'S the one--" A single gasping sob escaped her. "--he's the one she's chosen over me." "Listen to me, Andrea." Kardia waited until Andrea focussed on her. "She has not chosen him over you. She was your sister, she is your sister, she will always be your sister. Nothing can change that. Nothing is changing that. Even though she's found him, she still needs you. They both need you. Be supportive, help them out, don't push them away because of jealousy. Be as much a friend to Jay as you have been to Sheryl. Nothing has changed except you." Andrea stared blankly at Kardia, "I--I didn't see it that way," she said. "You're right. I'm just being stupid." Kardia shook her head, "No, not stupid," she grinned, "you're being human. I am the one that should apologize, I'm just tired of dealing with angst and you looked like you could use a bit of debunking." "It's all right," Andrea said. "I once had to render someone a similar favor." She remembered her short friendship with the mage Jiriku Goldeies, and with his companion, Kyhra. Where were they now? she wondered. Dead? Lost? It didn't really matter at the moment. In silence, they watched once more as Jay and Sheryl ran around until they finally collapsed, exhausted, into a little equine and adolescent heap. "Look at them," Kardia said again. "Somehow, I just think that they're RIGHT for each other. It's almost as if they were FATED to meet." She mused, "I wonder if all virgin-unicorn pairings are this way?" Andrea nodded. "I think I'm beginning to see what you mean." Sheryl looked happier than she'd been in ages. How could she begrudge her that happiness? "That boy, Jay," Kardia was saying, "shows all the signs of serious abuse." Her furtive glance at her left leg was not lost on Andrea or ar'Elya. "Yes," ar'Elya said, slowly. "I could see it in his eyes when I spoke with him for a few moments at breakfast. He's been beaten regularly by a man, it was his father, I think. The boy's mother was a fragile woman, and she died in labor, having him. The man he saw as his father, held his mother's death against the lad all his life. He spent much of his life with the shame of having caused his mother's death. Even though he remembered the priest in town telling him it wasn't his fault, he also remembered his father striking him, cursing him for taking her from him. And the constant beatings... he would be beaten while being told he was a worthless burden, then set to working while his father stood over him and whipped him when he made any mistakes, when he slowed down to rest..." "His back is a network of scars," Andrea said, not even bothering to wonder how ar'Elya could know such things. "I saw that when he...rescued me. And some recent wounds, too, but I healed them. Or my unicorn-self did, somehow..." "I don't think anything could heal the internal scars," Kardia said, speaking with the voice of experience. "Anything except time, or Sheryl. I think that she'll be very good for him." "Perhaps he for her, as well," ar'Elya said. Andrea nodded. "Yes...there never is anyone around for her to play with, and she does like to play. I guess that Jay will make a pretty good playmate for her." "Not to mention an apprentice-thief for you," Kardia said. Andrea started. "That's right," Kardia remarked. "After all, he does seem to want to be a thief--you said that yourself last night. And if you're going to be taking care of them anyway, you might as well teach him..." As Andrea pondered this new idea, Kardia said, "I think I'll go up and talk to him." Kardia yawned, stretched, and walked out toward the twosome. Andrea and ar'Elya watched her go. A thought struck Andrea, it worried her. She asked ar'Elya, "Is it possible that--that *I* might--" "--become attached to some virgin?" ar'Elya shook her head. "No. For one thing, you're a mature unicorn mare, unlike Sheryl. Also, you're part human. And humans, as a rule, don't form that kind of attachment to other humans." Andrea chuckled. "Part human," she said, smiling. "A half-elven thief said something to me once: 'To the humans, I'm half-elven. To the elves, I'm half-human.'" ar'Elya nodded. "Sad, but true. Most beings do not look beyond appearances to see the true person inside." She turned away, then turned back around, as if to say one more thing. >Flick< and she was darker-haired, dressed differently, poured into a silk kimono and holding a long-stemmed ivory pipe in one hand, with which she gestured languidly. A heady floral perfume filled the air -- mimosa, Andrea realized. "But I would be careful of handsome unicorn stallions, were I you," the black-haired woman said, a rogueish grin on her lips. "Huh? What do you mean?" Andrea asked. "Oh, I think you know..." >Flick< and she was back to her travelling self, red-haired and holding an alpenstock. And still with the rogueish grin. This is getting weirder and weirder, Andrea thought. -- Steve Hutchison -- 'Raf, Clyde, hutch@ibeam.ht.intel.com Penny Hutchison -- ar'Elya in all her facets, penny@agora.rain.com Chris Meadows -- Andrea and Sheryl, CHM173S@VMA.SMSU.EDU or CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU Liralen Li -- Kardia Xvaramene, li@inigo.data-io.com Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!noc.near.net!uunet!mnemosyne.cs.du.edu!nyx!cmeadows From: cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu (Chris Meadows) Subject: [AU] [HouseStorming] You Can't Keep an Evil Man Down Message-ID: <1993Jul20.172841.7576@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> Sender: usenet@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu (netnews admin account) Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept. Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 17:28:41 GMT Lines: 102 It was dark in the small room. The only illumination came from a small green sphere, and this illumination was partially blocked by the three or four thin projections that reached up around it. These projections were, in fact, fingers, and the hand they belonged to lifted the sphere shakily up to a face. The face was that of Raykor, the (self-proclaimed) Arch-Mage who was Andrea and Sheryl's nemesis. He looked forty years older, dry and shrivelled and almost dead. His hands trembled as he gazed into the sphere. Raykor had been dealt a serious blow when he'd tried to cast that curse on Andrea. The spell, the most powerful he had ever cast with the possible exception of that first one long ago, fueled by rage, had been turned back upon him by Andrea and her sister-turned-unicorn Sheryl, the result of that first rage-fueled curse so many years ago. How had the restraining magicks of his original curse been removed? By all rights, she should not have been able to use her magical abilities to such a great extent, for the remaining aspects of his curse, the magic weavings that enabled him to see where she was and that bound up most of her powers, should have prevented it. Yet, they had been dissolved only moments before Raykor tried to ensorcell Andrea. And Raykor had even FELT that dissolution, but had taken it to be a side-effect of entering the weakened anti-violence magical field in the Inn. However that curse had been destroyed, it would be worth looking into. Raykor shuddered to remember what it had felt like, in the aftermath of the failed casting (and it took a great deal to make Raykor shudder). He had almost DIED. The spell was a curse, that would have, had it taken hold, transformed Andrea so completely into a unicorn that NOTHING, not the removal of the curse, not ANYTHING AT ALL, would restore her memory and personality. Now, curses such as this, as a rule, had to be custom-tailored to the individual victim. Cast on anyone else, they would have some other effect, or no effect at all. The curse itself had not affected Raykor. But when it had been turned back upon its caster, the sheer amount of magical energy contained within it had overloaded Raykor himself, all but destroying him. Raykor had expected no resistance, and so, like a fool, had not bothered to ground himself so that any magic backwash would pass harmlessly through him instead of causing him physical damage. Raykor had barely managed to teleport back to his hiding place before the overload had taken its full effect. Even then, he would have died had it not been for a most fortuitous accident. An unwary astral traveller had wandered into the house that ight. Her name had been Blaze, and she had been doing a preliminary recon of the house for when she would help Andrea come through and clean it out later. Raykor had reached out and trapped her spirit inside of his own mind, as he had done many times before with other souls to fuel his magic. He had drawn her in and enveloped her, trying to steal her life-force away to empower himself. Blaze, apparently an experienced astral traveller, had taken advantage of his weakened state to escape before he could dissolve her entirely, but still, he had managed to leech some of her strength away, and it was just enough to restructure his body so that the last of the harmful magic overload could leave him, and he managed to stay alive. Raykor gripped his green sphere tightly in his claw-like hand, struggling to sit upright, to climb out of bed. He felt weak . . . tired. But he knew he had to do this. If he stayed like this much longer, he risked being caught unready. He needed to heal himself, check all his traps, and wait for Andrea to come to him. Perhaps the next time he would not fail so easily. When he was at last on his feet, Raykor slowly made his way out of the room, down a darkened corridor. Such a nice hideaway this mansion made. All those traps to prevent any but the most determined from making their entrance through mundane means, and his own abilities more than enough to ensure that he was not magically surprised. He had to stop and rest twice on the way, leaning against the wall until the tremors passed. But at last he made it to the end of the dark passage, and pressed a hidden switch hidden within an ornamental carving to open a secret door. Through this door was the room where Raykor kept one of his greatest magical treasures. It had been taken at a great danger to himself, but it had helped him immensely in the weaving of the curse on Andrea. He entered the room, reaching out for it. It was a twisted spire, perhaps a foot and a half long, of what looked like gleaming silver, and then like ivory when the light shifted. It stood on a small table, within a frame that held it upright. Indeed it was a unicorn's horn, severed from the head that it had previously graced. As Raykor grasped it, it glowed brightly. Not the friendly bluish glow of a unicorn's healing touch, but a more diseased and corrupted greenish light. But Raykor drew on this power, pulled the magic into himself, healing, youthening, driving away the last vestiges of the curdled, twisted curse that had been thrown back upon him. When he at last released the horn, he looked younger, revitalized, stronger. "Yes!" Raykor said aloud. "When you return, Andrea, it will be to your doom. I may not be able to recast the curse I tried to visit upon you, but I will do something equally . . . interesting, you can be sure." He ended the speech with a maniacal laugh that echoed down the twisting corridors beneath the house for a long time. -- Chris Meadows | Robotech/RIFTS/Palladium fanfic author/editor CHM173S@SMSVMA | They Might Be Giants about Star Trek aliens: CHM173S@VMA.SMSU.EDU | "Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | on their real heads!"