The Mountain Lion
Blog entry

Background note: This story takes place at a time when I had just re-established contact with Sarna after my long "hiatus". While I was gone, Torlinque decided he'd rather patrol the perimeter of the village than be a Temple Guard as there were too many reminders of me there. Tolirion had moved back to his parents' village after the Gating, and had only recently come back to Sarna when Torlinque sent word to him that he had re-established contact with me. Also at this time, we hadn't quite got the time-synching correct yet.

1/20/2005

Every morning, Tolirion is out the door early to hook up with the landscaping crew. They are currently rebuilding the terraced gardens by the hot springs. Sometimes Torlinque eats breakfast with him in the Hall. Most of the time though, Torlinque would rather not get up that early, and Tolirion brings him something after he's eaten and leaves it on the desk by the door.

Torlinque is usually moving by about 9 am though. He does his knife practice/workout in the meeting/ballroom at the front of the house. It's usually empty that time of day, and is the perfect size for his needs. Then he comes back to his room and showers. After that, he usually comes looking for me in the links.

Every day except Monday, his day off, Torlinque goes on patrol around the perimeter of the village. This is several miles out from the main portion of the village though. There are 2 different loops - inner and outer. Before his battalion left for their trip to the North country for the week he was gone, he had been on the outer loop, about a 7 hour circuit by horse. (Yes, they have horses now in the remnant pocket world. Since the Gating and destruction of the original Selar, Unicorn are too few to use as transportation.) Since his battalion's been back, Torlinque has been assigned to the inner loop, which takes just under 5 hours.

When I was incarnate on Selar, Torlinque was a Temple Guard, one of "my" squad of 8. Now he'd rather patrol the village perimeter alone than have to watch over the Maidens. I understand. Being cooped up in the Temple or the house all the time without me there would drive him insane, reminders of me everywhere.

So, he leaves the village every day around 2 pm, rides his circuit, and is usually back in time to get dinner in the Hall.

Tolirion is usually finished his workday around 3. It's a tossup as to whether or not he soaks at the hot spring or comes back to Torlinque's room and uses the shower. When he comes back to the house, I can usually pick up on it, and we often spend time alone together in the afternoons.

On Torlinque's days off, Tolirion usually takes the day off too, or joins up with the landscaping team later than usual. We spend time all together then. The 3 of us have the evenings most days too.

Sometimes, the synchronization of how I perceive time there and here is not the same. It's never off by more than a few hours though. Sometimes, when I've just put the kids to bed, say 9 pm here, I'll go there and they'll both be sound asleep, and it's nearly 2am there. Other times, it'll be 3 am here and dawn there. Most of the time things synch up pretty well though.

Yesterday, it was about 3:30 pm here, but about 5 there. All of a sudden, the link opened up with Torlinque. I didn't get anything but emotion at first - stress, a little fear - then the request, "[Soul name]! Help!" He would never call to me for help like that unless it was an emergency. So I quickly cranked open the links to find Torlinque trying desperately to push a hungry Mountain Lion off himself.

Torlinque is no weakling, and he was holding it off at arms' length so it couldn't reach his throat, but he didn't have enough leverage to get out from under it. I read in his mind that he had been riding along as usual, when it had leapt on him from out of a tree and unhorsed him. It hadn't made much sound before it leapt and he'd only had time to half-react before it was on him.

He didn't want to kill it, it was only a hungry creature in its natural habitat, but he did very much want to stop it from trying to kill him, hence the request for my help. Also, it had dug into his left thigh with the claws on one of its hind legs. One of the claws had ripped his pants and made about an 8 inch long gash in his leg. Because of the pain this was causing him, he really didn't want to have to wrestle with it any longer than absolutely necessary.

So, I stunned it with a beam of Kholi'ani fire. At first, I thought I killed it, but I checked and it was breathing.

Torlinque wrapped his leg with a clean rag from his bag, got back up on his horse somehow and then took a sharp left and headed straight home. I "went" to the Hall, found Tolirion and told him what happened, that Torlinque would need a Healer and help with his horse. I also told him Torlinque had lost a lot of blood. The gash was deep, going into the muscle.

I started healing work on him even as he was riding to staunch the flow of blood and reduce the pain he was in.

When he got to the house, Tolirion and another Elf helped him off his horse and into his room. Tolirion helped him off with his clothes and got him into bed. His uniform wasn't salvageable. Fortunately, he has others.

I am no true Healer, but I do have some skill in that area from battlefield experience. The Healer hadn't arrived yet, so I started healing work on him through the links, closing the wound, speeding up the cell mitosis to repair the damaged tissue.

Speed healing like that hurts the patient. There's rather a burning sensation. I didn't want Torlinque to lose any more blood, so I did it anyway, gambling on his Adrastai training to pull him through it. He said, "Argh!" and tried to sit all the way up, so I increased the pain dim and he relaxed again. Also, through the link, I was able to use heartstar magick to help the healing along. That's what impressed the Healer I think.

When she finally arrived, she was astounded by how quickly the wound was healing. "How are you doing that?" she asked Tolirion. "Ssh! It is the 'Lesia." he said. I took a slight bit of energy away from what I was doing and shifted so that she could see me faintly. The Healer just stood there with wide eyes.

When I'd gotten the wound closed all the way, and there was no more danger of Torlinque's bleeding to death, I took a break. There was still an angry looking red purple mark on his leg. He was far from whole.

He was sitting up with his head propped on the wall, eyes closed and breathing hard. He is strong, my Adrastai, but even he can only take so much. When he felt me stop, he opened his eyes a slit and looked at me. His color was very pale, and he looked awful.
 
Tolirion shooed the Healer out of the room.

Then, since he is half Kholi'ani himself, I was able to perform one of our clan's rituals the Teachers gave us to restore him a bit further.

When we finished that, his color was much better. I lay down next to him and "looked" inside his leg at the wound site to see what was still wrong with it, why there was still such an angry mark. When I did, Torlinque let out a yelp and sat straight up. The muscle had spasmed. It hurt him a lot. He was tensing all up and breathing through his teeth. I immediately ran energy through it to try to short-circuit the spasm and ramped up the pain dim at the same time.

I saw inside the wound the memory of the claw that had created it. It was almost as if there was a claw made of purple energy lodged there, but it was just the memory of the trauma in the tissue. I reached in and pulled it out, and the spasm stopped. Torlinque lay down again.

I looked at him and he was breathing hard again, his forehead was beaded with sweat. The mark on his leg looked a lot better though, not nearly as angry.

After a couple of minutes, he calmed down and said, "Oh! That feels so much better!" I told him to be careful with it. I told him he needed to drink plenty of water that evening, no wine, and that was an order.

Tolirion came back in with a tray of food for Torlinque's dinner.

Torlinque stood up, testing weight on his leg. "It doesn't hurt at all now." he said. I told him that until that mark fades completely that he is still technically wounded. He stretched his leg, then did a couple of kicks to test its strength. I told him that was enough and he was to get back into the bed.

On the tray of food was a vase with a flower. Torlinque told Tolirion that the flower was a very sweet thing to do. Tolirion looked down, blushed, and said softly, "I like flowers."

*giggle* That's an understatement. Tolirion is too cute for me.

I left them then, because I had to finish up my work for the day on the physical plane and get my physical body to the gym. I tried to bi-locate a bit though to keep an eye on them. After he ate, I ran my finger over the mark on Torlinque's leg trying to diminish it. Now it's just a silvery line and will fade completely within a few days.

Torlinque went out on patrol the next day as if nothing had happened.

"Duty above all else..."