The Gifting
Chapter 3

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	What a long night this was proving to be, with the rich faaswood of
the desk nearly completely obscured by various papers and the
unforgiving white glare of the lamp at my elbow.  Who would have guessed
that things would be in such a state?  Sure, it'd been eight years since
Great-aunt Ausabetta had died, but that's what the Interim Council had
been for.  My thoughts swept back to that first day of investiture and
caught on the hostility I'd seen on the faces of some.  I stood abruptly
and walked to the tall casement window, staring into the depth of the
starlit clarity of the night.

A shadow flitted at the edge of my awareness.  A brief
enshrouding, then disappearing like a wisped bit of smoke from the last
dying gasp of an ember.  I had felt this before, this almost, but not
quite, presence.  Somehow it didn't feel threatening though, just...
watchful.  As it faded, I flashed a brilliant smile into the trees. I
never had been afraid of the dark.

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A tree... just a tree.  Leaves that rustle in the dappling shadows of the
forest.  Rough black-brown enshadowing columns.  Nothing more than a whispering
sigh of a lonely breeze through branches.  Desperately, he blended himself into
the tree.  This was going to be harder than he'd thought.

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	Perhaps, for some, my return was neither expected nor hoped for.  Much as I
would rather not think of it, it was idyllic vanity to suppose that everyone
would welcome me back and love me as much as they had their little golden girl
who'd left those years before.  Too bad life isn't about happily-ever-afters. 
Too bad that 'the burden of responsibility lies in the hand of the Gifted.' 
Myriide had certainly drilled that one into me enough.  I could just hear her
now.  'What, silly girl, you thought you would just skippity-hop back home and
back into your old life?  How long will it take you to realize that that life,
that girl, is dead?  You accepted your Gifts, you made your choice.  Now get to
work and *use* them, girl.'  I shook my head wryly.  It certainly must be
getting late if I was hearing Myriide in my head.  

	Where was my tea?  I'd sent Jasper off for a pot quite awhile ago and
in my distraction had only just realized it was not yet here.  Opening
the door to my study, I stepped out into the hallway and listened to the
stillness of the sleeping household.

	Was that a sound just now?  Almost like... the whisper of a foot
sliding softly against the oiled grain of the floor.

	"Jasper?  Is that you with the tea?"

	The quiet somehow seems oppressive instead of the peaceful warmth it
was a moment ago.

	"Jasper?"

	Perhaps it was foolish of me to step around the corner in curious
pursuit of the sound I had heard.  Perhaps it was foolish of me to
expect that my childhood home would be the same, filled with the
enshrined safety and comfort that every child wants to believe in. 
Perhaps, it was.

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	Darkness.  Thick, scratchy, oppressive darkness gradually melting painfully
into the twisted red shades of the reverse of my eyelids.  Blinking against the
discomfort, I roused myself with lips tightened.  When, exactly, was I going to
stop behaving like a naive child?  Myriide laughed harshly in my head, a sharp,
bitter sound.  Perhaps when I stopped being one.  The harsh laugh bit into my
ears again.  I suppose it wasn't Myriide afterall.  Extending my senses past my
bindings, past the stinging of my wakened muscles, I came across... nothing.



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