16"For a Mage it is nothing, agreed. But for a little mortal, like you have so pointedly pointed out - No you are right Mages and mortals do not couple. It was my mistake, I am sorry, you should not be." He smiled warmly but it was a sad smile and my insides cringed at the thought of hurting A'den.
Chapter 4 part 1
A'den took me back to the Academy after we ate. It was turning dark by the time we got to the gates. Seeing them made me fear about what L'arvan was going to do with his run away new apprentice. I knew he could not turn me away, for there were not many new Mages being born, but he might reject me when it came down to our life together. He might even reject me from being his personal student. I hugged A'den goodbye and walked into the gates. The guards nodded to me as I passed, one, however, did something when he had seen me.
I warily walked into the Academy and was about to walk up the back staircase so I would not be out where other mages could see the 'run away apprentice', when I heard someone say my name. At hearing my name I ran up the steps and through the hall. I opened my door and stepped quickly inside; I locked the door so no one could come in and turned around. There sitting on the floor was L'arvan. He was obviously unaware that I had come in and locked the door. He had his head in his hands and was cursing himself for loosing his temper and making 'her' run away.
I guessed that 'her' meant me. I wanted to comfort him but I was still somewhat mad that he had acted so childish about the staff and sword. I scolded myself for still being mad at him; it made my heart melt that I could have hurt him so by running away. "It is not all of your fault, L'arvan," I said quietly. He looked up startled. His face was red from crying tears were still streaming down his face. I do not think he really distinguished who was standing in front of him, because he lowered his head into his hands again.
"Go away, and go back to your quarters," he said bitterly. I had to smile at that; I was in my own quarters.
"But Sir, I am in my quarters," I replied. Abruptly he looked up again and this time saw me. I rushed over to his side and hugged him. I did not realize how much I missed him till now. He hugged me even closer to himself.
"Anya! Forgive me - oh please forgive me," he cried into my hair. "I was just jealous that you were the one that inherited Canclaph's artifacts. I'm so - so sorry, do me one favor thought." I smiled but hugged him tighter and reassuringly.
"Anything," I replied. He pulled apart from me and held me a little ways away from himself, fresh tears running down his beautiful face. He looked me up and down then caught my eyes and held them.
"Never, ever, leave me again." I shook my head not able to answer, tears were slowly streaming down my own face. He pulled us together again and kissed me. I kissed him back realizing even though it had felt right with A'den, kissing L'arvan was something totally different. It was as thought both of our powers mixed and surrounded our loving figures.
I woke up later on to find L'arvan holding me protectively. I turned in his arm to look at his sleeping face. He looked like an angel when he slept. I kissed him and then shut my eyes again. I woke up again later on; I HAD to relieve myself. Quietly slipping our of L'arvan's grasp I relieved myself and then got a blanket from my bed and covered L'arvan and myself and tried to go back to sleep, but my mind kept returning to the past. and I wondered if L'arvan had never found me. what would my life had turned out to be? Would I have even survived much longer? As thoughts were drifting in and out of my head, I slowly fell asleep.
I felt something brush my face and I moaned sleepily. Hearing L'arvan laugh I opened my eyes. He was lying next to me but we were not on the floor anymore, we were on my bed. He was stroking my hair lovingly as I looked up at him. I smiled and snuggled closer to his warm muscular body. He rolled to his side and bent over and kissed me. I could feel my body arouse to his touch and willingly let him lead.
The next morning I was the first one awake and washed. I was just pulling on my mage-dress when I heard moaning from the bed. Turning around I saw L'arvan stretching. I went back to getting ready and started to hum, making it up as I went. I felt refreshed and excited to finally start my classes. 'Today I really will start,' I thought gloomily and grimaced.
I heard the water running in the bathing room and knew that anytime now a servant would be here to drop off new clothes for L'arvan. That morning I had woken up a little after dawn and had asked for our clothes to be washed and for some of L'arvan's every day clothes to be brought to the room. I was beginning to think that they had forgotten when there was a knock at the door. I opened it to a little lass that could not have been more than 12 years of age. 'Oh I do hope she is treated better than I was,' I thought. I thanked her and sent her to ask the cook to send up some food; with a smile and another "thank you" I closed the door. Placing the clothes by the door of the bathing room I walked over to the chest and picked out the staff to look at it (I had put them away when I was waiting for L'arvan to wake up). Sitting on the center couch I pondered over the symbols that ran down the sides of the staff. The staff had no appealing look to it other than the power that I could sense inside of it.
I started humming again but this time I could feel the powers in the staff strengthen, it made no sense. 'Why does the staff's power feel more vibrant when I hum? I thought only magic could do that? And surly singing or humming is no sort of magic. or is it?' I mused. Crashing and cursing from within the bathing room made me loose my concentration. I looked up too see what was the matter when L'arvan opened the door.
"How can you live with a raised bathing basin?" He asked. I could not understand what he meant. It was the most splendid thing I had ever had. I could actually wash myself, all of me.
"What do you mean? It's the first time I've ever even had something to bathe in."
"What you never got to bathe when you were a slave? Even the servants here have a bathing room." He shivered with the thought, I only smiled and nodded. I truly did not want to be reminded about the awful childhood that I had. I turned back to the staff and only remembered about his clean clothes when he said that he couldn't find his other dirty ones.
"I had a servant get clean ones for you and to clean you others." I said, "if you had even looked you would have noticed that they were right next to the bathing room door." I laughed at him and once again tried to turn my thoughts back to the staff.
I started humming the tune I had been humming before but this time I was a little louder than I had anticipated. I was looking at the symbols and thinking that the power of the staff's magic was getting stronger when suddenly the thing blazed and out of shock I dropped it.
"Shit!" Came a voice near me. I shook my head and looked back at the staff that was now its normal color. "Why didn't you tell me you had voice magic?" I looked up at L'arvan completely disoriented.
"What do you mean 'voice magic'?" I asked still really confused. He looked blankly at me and then seemed to realize what I had said.
"You have Voice magic. Your singing is magic." He said slowly still trying to understand what had happened him self. "It's really rare to have singing magic, I think the last mage who had it lived about 12,000 years ago." I gaped at him, 'surly he must be mistaken! I'm nobody.'
"Sure-surly you must be mistaken," I stammered.
"Are you calling the Archmage a liar?" He replied in mock defense. I could see his lips twitch as he tried to hide his smile. I could have laughed at him if I had not been so utterly confused. I shook my head no and picked up the staff. "Now I understand why you were the chosen one; you have a special power that has not been found for 12,000 years." He grinned foolishly as sat down next to me. "Do know what this means? It means that you'll be famous!"
I groaned the last thing I wanted was to be famous, maybe it would have been better to have stayed with A'den. At the thought of my godfather I turned my head away from L'arvan's grinning face.
I wondered if my parents had known what would happen to me. 'No,' I thought, 'they would not have put me through such misery, or would have they?' Now I was really confused. I sighed. 'Would my life ever be normal?' Shutting my eyes restored my confidence and my confusion.
"Come on it won't be as bad as being Archmage!" L'arvan said reassuringly; I tried to smile at him to tell him I was all right but I could not and it came out more as a grimace. "If you don't cheer up you will not be able to start your lessons and now that I know that you specialize in Wind and Voice and most probably Earth it will be easier for me and you."
So we began my first lesson, Healing. He described how to fix broken bones and then made me try to do it on a chicken bone that we got from our meal that had interrupted us before we could start. It took me many tries but I finally mastered the technique, then he broke his own finger by bending it back and made me fix it. I could not understand why he decided to do that but I fixed it. Then he taught me how to stop the flow of blood that came out of a cut and how to repair the cut skin.
"You might think that this is something that someone else should teach you. However, I don't think I could stand letting D'alad (he is the Healer in the Academy) teach you how to check if you are pregnant or how to get rid of the sperm before two weeks have passed since it entered the womb." I blushed at the thought of why he would tell me this. Our romance last night had not been worth being pregnant. He taught me how to look inside my body to check to see if it was there, unfortunately I did see something and when he taught me how to I quickly got rid of it. I did not tell him about it and got on with my training. 'I will have to be more careful,' I thought. He taught me how to make it so when I did make love that I would not have to worry about it.
He went on and on about little techniques for healing and then a little about how to light a fire. It was obvious that I was NOT a Fire-mage. I could have sworn it took me at least a thousand tries to finally master making a fire but it made me really tired when I did. I knew that L'arvan was only keeping his patients with me because it was me, if it had been anyone else I think he would have exploded with impatience. He made me try it over and over again to make sure I did it right but it took so much out of my already tired body that I almost fell asleep trying.
When he realized this he began to get worried that I would over due myself. He made me stop and carried me to my bed saying that I had done really well for one day but now I must sleep. I tried to tell him I could walk and undress myself but he objected saying I had already out done myself with his stupidity at not seeing how tired I was. He undressed me and as he put the blankets over me I fell into a deep sleep.
I opened my eyes and looked out the window to see what time of day it was. The sun was just going down 'or was it coming up?' I thought. I got up and went into the bathing room. I was still somewhat tired but nothing I could not handle. I washed my face and got dressed. Wondering what I was supposed to do I walked out of the room (which I locked) and down the corridor up a stair case and down another corridor to L'arvan's quarters.
"L'arvan are you awake?" I asked mentally. I did not want to make and noise so I would not disturb anyone that might be working. I reached his door and knock lightly. I could hear someone cursing as something crashed against the wood. I grimaced at the colorful language, I never did know many curse words, because of the language difference in Sundar.
"Aye, I'm awake, awake and hurting. Is that you at the door?" He replied questionably. I giggled at his way of saying it.
"Yes," I replied to his question. Right then the door opened and his strong arms pulled me inside. He hugged me and shut the door with his foot at the same time. He seemed rather pleased to see me 'but it was only yesterday that we were together. or at least I think it was yesterday.' I thought as he swung me around as if he had not seen me forever.
"You're awake!" He stated as he set me down on my feet. I could not understand what he meant by that. So often he made me confused, it really was one of his talents. He hugged me again but this time with a kiss. I playfully pushed him away from me. He did not let go of me but settled down.
"Of course I'm awake why would I not be?" I asked smiling. He led me to his couch and made me sit down. He looked serious now but still happy.
"You've been asleep for 4 days." I stopped smiling now at looked blankly at him. "I really did over due you for the first day of training. I have never had to teach before so I did not realize how worn out you were till you practically fainted with weariness." He stopped to take a breath and I took that moment to interrupt him.
"It is not your fault. I should have told you how tired I was and anyway you -" He put his fingers over my lips to silence me. His fingers trailed up to my high cheekbone and then down to me neck. He bent over and caressed my neck wit his lips and then my face. I pushed him away from me and moved farther away from him. "L'arvan stop. We need to get on with my lessons and that does not include do that!" I said sternly.
"How can you possibly think about restarting your lessons right after waking up. No you need to rest today. I am you instructor, I know what is best for you right now." He said it so kingly that I had to laugh. He had been proposing to make love two minutes before (which would be just the same as learning magic) and was now was saying I needed rest; would he ever make up his mind?
"What?" he said questionably. I stood up and to prove to him that I was better; I made fire leap out of my fingers and onto a candle that had not been lit. Then from the candle I moved a spark into the fireplace. In a second the fire was blazing and crackling merrily. I grinned foolishly with my success. I turned to look at L'arvan who was gapping with amazement. I then proved to him with one of the healing techniques but this time I went out of my body. My inner self walked up to L'arvan and I mentally was saying,
"See I told you I could. I'm not really sure how I got out of my body but I think I can go back in." I blew him a kiss and walked back into my body. As my senses came back to me I realized how much strength that took and gratefully sat down next to L'arvan with a sigh. I looked at him and saw that he was getting over his shock. I turned to look around his kingly furnished sitting room. I suddenly stood up and walked over to his bathing room and looked inside. There inside he had a millpond looking bathing basin (if one could even call it a basin).
It was filled with water with steam rising off the top so I guessed that it was pretty hot. I walked over and dipped my finger in it. It was scaling hot! 'Wow, this is what he meant,' I thought. 'This would be nice to bath in. I wonder how deep it is.' Suddenly I was pushed in. I came up sputtering, needing air. It was fairly deep, a little under my neckline. Wiping my amber hair away from my eyes I glared at the laughing Archmage. The skirts of my dress were floating around my body and it was practically impossible to move. The material finally became water logged and did not float as much but it was still difficult to move.
*Oh my gosh! I am SOOO sorry everyone! Heh, iv been busy lately. and I also kinda forgot about this story. *blushes* sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooo sorry. But oh well, Im updating now, no? but once again forgive my. tardiness. Well hope you liked this new part of chapter 4. there is still more to go for this chapter, so I hope you dun fret too much.^_^.*-
- Lady of Knight- thnx for reviewing! And once again im sorry for not updating sooner. oh by the way I like the new way of your story! Cant wait to read more of it!
Thank you everyone that reviewed *looks at reviews* ok. so maybe one person that reviewed. ^_^. I guess that's wat I get for not reviewing. Heh.