Narad, who, upon finding his voice, could utilize it better than Gala- her eyes were still quite a bit too large and her lips slightly parted-rose cautiously and walked back to the fence. Promptly required to flail out in order to prevent a minor sway from leading to a fall, the boy blinked once to rid a tree of its still-golden leaves before turning his attention to Kavador, who was watching his antics with pricked ears and an expression of mild interest.
"So-Kavador-can you...explain...well, what happened? And why you can suddenly talk?"
Gala, following Narad's lead, aproached the fence also, though her coordination had not been adversely affected and she walked with considerably more grace.
The stallion shifted his dark-gold form with a little snort. "Of course I can," he assured them pompously. "And I'm not really talking the way you know it. If you were perceptive you'd note that my mouth does not...wiggle, like yours does when you talk. It's just that now you can understand me. Actually," he continued, arching his proud crest and giving it a little shake that spilled the white-gold mane in little riplets across his muscled neck, "The girl-Gala-should not be able to understand me at all, but since she was so near and heard the Word herself, she too was given a few select...powers."
Gala's brows drew together in concentrated confusion as she brushed back her flyaway brown hair and straddled the fence despite her voluminous petticoats and silken overskirt. "The Word?" she questioned, one brow quirking upward. "He was just thinking of some names...wasn't he?" But she doubted her tentative words, for even now the perfect cadence of the Word lilted through her memory, the excellent syllables that slipped so easily off the tongue and had such an effect on, well, everything. "And that doesn't explain what happened when he spoke the...Word."
Kavador beamed her a condescending tilt of his head and swivelled one ear to tune into her words. "Don't be silly, child. It's quite clear what happened when the Word was spoken, isn't it?"
Narad sighed with tried patience. "Actually, no, it's not. Care to explain?" Again that tinge of power and authority lined the boyish pitch of his voice, just beginning to plummet handsomely with some sentences and phrases.
Kavador lifted his head and let his long-lashed eyes close halfway with a definitely smug expression. "The world around us temporarily altered their natural Creator-given hues in favor of new and terrifying ones in the midst of a windless hurricane of disturbing noise and proportions."
Two large sets of eyes blinked at him and suddenly Gala laughed, the pent-up hysteria released at last as she laughed until tears squeezed through her tightly shut eyes and she pitched forward to cling to the fence. Narad, fighting back a grin by biting his lip, shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Yes, Kavador, that much was I'm asking is what does it mean?"
Kavador jigged in annoyance at Gala's shrieks of laughter, poking her with an offended muzzle accompanied by ears that twitched backward with a bruised ego. "Well," he huffed, "You might have specified. And anyhow, I can't answer that. I have very little idea what it means, I only know, as do all other intelligent animals who actually properly pass information down from generation to generation, that before all the magic was forgotten the most powerful Mage, the First Mage of Old Times, trapped all the magic within one Word of Power that it might be recalled someday by the proper being." The dappled stud turned an admonishing eye on Narad, "It was never meant to be spoken by accident, least of all by a mere boy-child. Had the human scholars properly recorded the syllabic cadences of the Word, it could have been used by someone worthy to recall the magic. The First Mage of Old Times had, so it is said, wired the spellwork to ensure that the Word was spoken only by the worthy one, who would become the First Mage of Now. It seems that his plans went awry, however, for now, o Narad-Mage, you are the Holder-Mage, the First Mage."
Narad swallowed, his face strangely white under his tanned complexion. "What do I do? I haven't a clue as to what sort of thing I've done...or how to use it. Doesn't...anyone...know how to help me?"
Gala's laughter had subsided at this grave discussion, and one look at Narad's pallid features quelled the remainder that threatened to bubble over again. Suddenly, she spoke up, causing Kavador's head to swing in her direction with pricked ears of surprise. "I think I may know."
Kavador lifted a still-offended maw and tipped his head arrogantly from her direction with half-back ears. "Well I see Miss Laugh-a-Mania has at last gathered her wits again," he replied, ignoring the weight of her statement.
Narad, however, did not disregard it. He perked up at once, seafoam eyes turning hopefully upon her soft brown ones. "Ye gods, Gala, speak! What do you know?" Hope blossomed suddenly, for though Narad was naught but the Head of Horse's youngest son of nine children, Gala was the eldest daughter of a Noble, a Scholar to be precise. Of course he'd know something!
"My father speaks very scornfully of a certain scholar who devotes his time to the legends of old, of dragons and unicorns and magic and other mythical things. It seems he, this other scholar, might have studied the Word as well. I suppose I could ask father a bit about him.."
Kavador's mind left his wounded vanity to tune in to Gala's discourse and he bobbed his head and danced his forefeet with eager approval. "Oh excellent! We shall have to visit this Master Scholar and gain the necessary information for young Narad here. I will carry the boy."
Gala eyed him reproachfully. "And what about me, Mister Kavador? Who will carry me?"
Narad, seeing the mulish glint in Kavador's dark eye, quickly intervened, "Ah, you can ride Laria. She's awfully good. But I don't know if we can even visit this we can't find him?"
Gala glanced at Kavador again with a little scowl and then turned to Narad. " man is not a Master Scholar. He's actually," she grimaced, "not even a true scholar. He flunked out of college for questioning his teachers and getting into too many debates and refusing to acknowledge that what he studies is mythology." She made a valiant attempt at a smile, but it wilted at Narad's crestfallen face.
"Never mind," the boy sighed, running agitated fingers through his ruffled blonde hair. "I need to see him anyway, if it's possible." His troubled eyes turned to Kavador, who wore a very silly, half-dazed expression on his face. Narad frowned, not enjoying the comical daydreaming in the midst of his dilemma. "Kavador, what are you doing?"
Kavador turned a worldly eye on the boy, nearly classified as a young man. "Do you know what I'm here for, technically?"
"Erm, to be trained?"
Kavador stamped an impatient hoof and threw his head, "No no. I'm here to cover mares. The mare you call 's that white mare, right?"
Narad nodded suspiciously, though comprehension had dawned and turned his ears an entertaining shade of rouge.
"Well her name is Rakshema, and she's my first, uh, client."