Xilanada - Unforsakable Birthright/Part 14

The 23rd Day of Resplendent Wood, 766 in the Year of Our Empress.

Dreams of an army dying in a green flash gave way at last and Xilanada woke from a life best forgotten.

It took her several long minutes to get her bearings. Her head pounded and sweat streaked her face. The nightgown she wore clung to her body uncomfortably and, tangled in it, she felt momentarily trapped.

But inch by inch, the memories of a murderous Sorcerer diminished and reason returned. This soft, curvy body with its breasts and hips became hers again, not that angular, flat body with its neatly trimmed beard. And Xilanada was who she was, and not that Final Starry Night who slew so many.

Her breath calmed and she brushed the curly locks out of her face. She still wasn't used to having hair so long, even though she'd had this life for several months now. Xilanada pushed the thick blonde hair to the side and off her shoulders as well so that it hung down the right side of her neck to the bed; one long silken mass.

A new day dawned through the window, the curtains drawn back so she could see the light of the Sun when He rose. She looked out now and sighed, wondering once more what He was to her now. Was He still her Father? Would He look upon her as He once did? Or did He regret choosing Final Starry Night, a man who had sworn off his destiny?

She pushed the blankets off of her and wiped her forehead again. The room was dizzyingly hot. Or perhaps it was just that fever still.

Xilanada set her feet on the cool wooden floor and pushed away at the waves of dizziness. But it didn't work. Darkness continued to crowd the edges of her vision, kept back only by her force of will. Yet that will wasn't strong enough to banish the darkness itself.

She tugged at her nightgown, pulling the heavy cotton away from her flushed skin and fanned herself, trying to cool the heat that poured out of her skin.

"Not feeling well, are you?"

Xilanada gasped in surprise, embarrassing herself with the sound. It made her sound helpless, which she didn't like. So, she contented herself with stifling off that gasp and grabbing the small hand mirror she kept on the nightstand next to her bed, brandishing it as a weapon.

How the mighty had fallen, she thought wryly. It had been decades ago when she'd discovered the old teaching automatons in Denandsor. And for decades, she had tempered endless hours of reading with some necessary physical training. Once she'd realized what she had become, the necessity of mastering a weapon had been plain and she'd applied herself to it with every bit as much diligence as the grand Sorceries.

By the time she had set the Library aside and walked into the world to make something of her ambition, she had been accredited an excellent fighter according to the old rankings. What's more, she'd swiftly discovered that the rest of the world hadn't kept pace. Final Starry Night had never been bested with a sword and none had ever defeated his Unfettered Tide of Mortality technique. In the end, it was his own nature that bested him.

And now, Xilanada found herself with all the fighting skill of a First Age warrior...and a hand mirror to use it with.

"You might as well put that down." A well-dressed man snickered at her as he lounged in the chair she kept next to her dresser. He was certainly amused with the spectacle, maybe rightfully so.

His auburn hair was stylishly short and well-combed, in keeping with the tightly fitted tunic and breeches he wore, both artistically embroidered with various sigils and designs of the House Tepet. He was very handsome, fully as appealing as Final Starry Night had been, maybe more. That didn't prevent her from waving her hand mirror about at him, while demanding "What are you doing in my room!"

"You're this high-strung when you're feeling like this? I hate to see what you're like when you're healthy. Of course, your condition might have something to do with your moodiness there."

"Excuse me...my...my moodiness? Because I don't react well when strange men who STILL haven't told me who they are just happen to be in my room?"

The man only smiled and looked at her more closely. Xilanada glanced down and realized that her nightgown was still sticking to her skin, from the nightsweats that had troubled her again, as they had every night since she'd become herself. She seized the blanket off her bed and wrapped it tightly about herself and regarded the man in the chair with indignant irritation.

"I don't suppose you thought about how unwise it is to invade the room of a teacher at a school of magic, have you? If you had, you wouldn't be sitting there and none of this would have happened. Give me a good reason not to reduce you to ash this moment."

"Because...I don't think you can," the man said with a light tone. "But that's a bit beside the point. Do you realize you aren't actually sick?"

"I'm not? Strange, since I still feel terrible. If anything, more terrible with each day that goes by but what business is that of yours? Unless its poison and you're the one who poisoned me."

"Oh, you poisoned yourself," he laughed and shook his head. "In a manner of speaking."

"Are you truly so far removed from dignity that you can't be plain with a woman who just woke up, isn't feeling well, and is wearing far too little clothing to be talking to a man in her bedroom like this?" Xilanada for some reason couldn't muster up anything more than complete irritation. Either he was too charming for genuine anger or for some reason she didn't really think he was a threat. Certainly, if his intentions had been malicious, he would have acted already.

"Very well. Out of respect, then," he said grandly. "You, my humble professor, are suffering from withdrawal."

Xilanada could only stand there and look at him blankly, while her mind tried to make sense of what he said.

"You're telling me that I'm a drug addict of some kind? That everything I've been feeling is from not taking a drug?"

"Heh. I'd say more like about 5 or 6 of them."

"Do you really think I'm the sort to use drugs, whoever you are?" Xilanada couldn't repress the inner turmoil she felt, at the thought that he might be right. When she had become Xilanada, she had left her old life behind and began a new one. But she hardly had any idea what kind of a life that was. Passion had already brought up the possibility, maybe probability, that she had been a whore. A drug addict on top of that wouldn't be entirely impossible, and yet the very thought was depressing, to say the least.

"That's what I find interesting about you, Xilanada. No. I don't think you are the sort to use drugs. Looking at you, I'd say you had never touched a drop, a powder or a smoke. But I've seen enough use to recognize the signs. It took me a while, to place it."

He rose from his chair and leisurely paced the room, keeping his distance from her. Either he was trying to set her at ease or he wasn't stupid enough to get close to her, as annoyed as she was. But either way, she appreciated his distance. It let her concentrate on his words and their meaning, as she mulled over what he said.

"You see, you don't have the clear cut symptoms of withdrawing from any one drug. The fever? That could be from a Tanner's Mushroom, or Laros' root. Maybe Sune Dust. The dizziness could also be from those or a couple of others, though Laros' root wouldn't make you dizzy. But then there's the simple persistence of it. Heroin and opium could both be making you feel as bad as you obviously do but the effects don't last much beyond a couple of weeks. You've had a fever for far longer now, dizziness too. And those things have worsened, not lessened, haven't they?"

"How do you know these things?" she asked, somewhat scared at his words and what they implied. Not just his obvious experience and knowledge of drugs, but that he had been watching her closely enough for an apparently long time.

"Then I realized what was clouding up the picture. You weren't withdrawing from one drug, but from several at once. The key to the puzzle, you see, is Bright Morning. When you use Bright Morning with other drugs, the effects can stack. That's why a lot of people like to powder the berries and flowers and mix it into wine instead of just smoking it. The problem if you withdraw, though, is the effects of withdrawal stack as well."

He looked at her with evident interest and only the fact that she was wreathed in a blanket kept her from flushing. Even as she stood there, listening to him, she hated having to wear it as it seemed to concentrate the furnace of her skin. She could feel a trickle of sweat down her cheek, down her neck, down between her breasts where it itched. By the Sun, that was rapidly becoming her least favorite part of being a woman. Beyond dealing with her moon flows which, praise Luna, were finally done for this month.

"What's happening, Xilanada, is that you are suffering withdrawal from Bright Morning along with a number of other drugs. I would guess cocaine, either Sune or Chiaroscuro Dust, along with heroin. Maybe opium too. I'm frankly stunned you haven't killed yourself through drug interactions yet."

"How do you know about all these drugs? And why do you think I'm...withdrawing?"

"I've been around enough drug use to pretty much know it all," he said, dismissively. "The thing of it was, you've been sick like this...but when Seya healed you yesterday, she didn't even notice any trace of illness on you. And she would have. Poison too. But not drug withdrawal."

"Look...and for the love of the Sun, can you just tell me your name, first of all?" she demanded, exasperated.

"Heh. The Sun? That's an unusual God to swear by these days. Either you're really into First Age Lore, or you're a heretic. Not that I much care, either way." Xilanada highly doubted that, given that the Unconquered Sun was the God of the Solar, the very same Anathema that the Dragon-Blooded overthrew 1000 years ago. To this day, the Sun was the God of the Enemy, according to the tenets of the Immaculate Faith. Someone professing belief in Him could get a reaction ranging from admonition from a monk outside the Realm to execution if you were inside the Realm.

"Your name!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot, which brought another flush to her already hot face. Stamping? Where did that come from?

"My name is Tepet Ajalat Sen," he smiled, dipping into a graceful bow. "At your service. But please, call me Sen."

"S-Sen..." she stuttered, realizing that this man was clearly related to the Master and the Headmistress of the School of the Six Poses of Lightning. Either he was a patrician, as Final Starry Night had been before his Exaltation, or he was a Terrestrial too. And either way, his authority very likely outstripped hers by a big margin.

Not that it excused his breaking into her room and invading her privacy.

"Sen," she said firmly. "I want to know why you found it necessary to sneak into my room and surprise me, rather than introduce yourself like every other person here has."

"Please don't tell me you're going to be dull about the rules, are you?" He sounded a little put upon. It was hard to say how old he was, since all the Dragon-Blooded stopped aging around 18 years of age, right up until the last few years of their life. But she had the feeling that this one wasn't very old. He was probably younger than she was.

"Look, Xilanada," he sighed as he took his seat in the chair once more. "I have rather wide-ranging duties, working for my Father. They often take me away from the School, but they can include it. And those duties are...whatever my Father wants of me. I'm also a substitute Professor here, when things are slow for me and teachers want a vacation. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm perfectly within my rights to enter your room or any one else's room in this whole School, if I feel it's necessary."

"So, why was it necessary, Sen?" she asked, sitting down on the corner of her bed, this frustrating conversation mingling with her fatigue and illness.

"Because it's my responsibility to make certain nothing bad enters this School and threatens its students or its teachers. That means when I find something out of place, I look closely at what it is, to see if it's something I need to take care of. Right now, that mostly means you."

"And my history of drug use, real or fictional, is what concerns you?"

"No, that you know so much of the First Age while being without any magical power yourself is what chiefly concerns me. The drug use is just the first thing I've been able to figure out about you."

He grinned at her and Xilanada found herself smiling back, despite the circumstances. He was like a child, eager and excited at having solved a puzzling problem, even if that puzzle happened to be who she was now and who she had been. Xilanada knew intuitively that this man wouldn't harm her, though she was hard pressed to explain why she felt that way.

At least she knew he wasn't using any kind of a Charm on her to influence her feelings of him. The Dragon-Blooded did have some Charms that could affect feelings, but they lacked any that would make them more likeable. She had perfect confidence in her ability to resist what weak powers the Terrestrial had in influencing people.

"Well, I can honestly say that I have never used drugs, Sen," Xilanada said. "You can ask a Spirit to confirm what I said, if you want, though you can probably do that yourself. I'm not sure what the cause is, but it can't be drugs."

"Maybe, maybe not," Sen shrugged cheerfully. "The truth will tell, in time. If it is what I think it is, you're going to be sick for months. That's plenty of time for me to figure it out."

"In the meantime, would you mind getting out of my room so I can get dressed?" Xilanada smiled at him. She might as well be polite, even if he was lingering.

"In the meantime, would you care to join me for dinner tonight?" he replied quickly. "I'll be happy to leave you for the rest of the day, if I know I will see you tonight."

"If you're a Professor, don't you eat at the table with the Headmistress?" Xilanada asked hurriedly, feeling another flush coming on and mentally cursing her pale skin that made her blushes so obvious. At least she was feverish enough that hopefully he wouldn't be able to tell.

What was he after? This Tepet Sen had to have been spying on her, he knew too much for any other possibility. And yet he wanted to spend time with her? What was he after?

"Sometimes I do," Sen said. "When I'm here. But I was thinking of somewhere better than a School's kitchens. Perhaps a restaurant out in the city? I know of several excellent establishments that would be honored to have a lady of your quality dining with them."

"Sen...I...wait, you think I'm a drug user. How is that possibly mean I'm a lady of quality?"

"Because quality comes from who you are, inside and out. Not just your choice of recreation. Even if you take that recreation farther than I would." He chuckled and Xilanada found herself smiling again in spite of herself. "Dinner. Please."

"...alright," she said at last, not knowing how to politely say no.

His smile widened in delight and he practically danced his way out her door. It was only after he shut it and Xilanada was alone at last that she realized how tense she was.

She knew he couldn't have been using a Charm on her. Not only did the Terrestrial lack that particular power, but she was well protected against mental influence. And yet...

And yet. That was as far as the thought went. He had invaded her privacy and, with him gone, she remembered her ire at it. Despite that rough start, she had found herself warming to him within minutes, though.

He reminded her of Sesus Mikal, Final Starry Night's best friend while growing up. Where was Mikal now, she wondered? He had Exalted as a Dragon-Blooded...it must have been, what, 70 years ago now or so? Very likely Mikal was just beginning to reach a position of power. The House Sesus were ever an ambitious one, and Mikal was as ambitious as any.

Did he even remember his childhood friend? The life Xilanada had left behind her? Though of course Final Starry Night hadn't Exalted as a Solar until he reached Denandsor, and everyone else had fled before then. There was every reason to expect that Mikal probably thought of that friend as long ago dead from old age, a mortal patrician who had either met his fate out in the East or had met mortality years later.

Strange was Sen. Xilanada blinked as she suddenly realized that the explanation was both simpler and more disturbing than she had thought. And the realization frightened her in way she didn't understand.

Xilanada found him attractive.

His smile and the light in his eyes, his mischievous laugh and how he was able to make her blush over and over again, brought her heat. It was all beginning to make sense. But...what did that mean? She might be Xilanada now...but did that mean she was going to find more men attractive? She had always liked women. That was fundamental, a taken-for-granted feeling that she had always trusted in. She never expected it to betray her.

Only it seemed that it had. She thought about it, about the women she'd already met. Ava was a very pretty woman, strikingly so with those elemental aspect markings. But looking at her hadn't stirred any feeling. Xilanada realized that, for the first time she could ever recall, she had been interacting with another woman her age and hadn't been aware of her as a woman.

Well, she had recognized Ava as a woman, enough like her to be her sister. But that's how far her notice had gone. The affection she already had for the blonde Funerist was sisterly, not romantic at all.

What about Seya?

It was in thinking about her that Xilanada realized that this wasn't as simple as she might have hoped for. For when she thought about the dark features of the Headmistress, her stomach fluttered and she felt even more feverish than she already did.

And that was a surprise, in and of itself. She hadn't realized she found Tepet Seya attractive until this very moment. But now that she thought about it, it seemed obvious.

Was the life Xilanada had traded for one who loved both men and women? For that matter, was that really what attraction was all about, a feeling rooted in your body, not in your mind?

She pushed the blanket off her shoulders and stripped out of the sweaty nightgown. She needed a bath and a friendly ear to help her sort out her confusion. The second wouldn't happen, couldn't happen without exposing the truth of who she had been. So she would settle for the first and hope it would at least soothe the growing furnace of her skin.