To Save the World

CHAPTER 4

David blinked, staring up owlishly at Sue. His mind trying to make sense out of the fragments he remembered. He wondered how she had gotten his room.

He struggled to keep silent as a searing pain that felt like someone shoved an icepick through his eye. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head, banging his cheek into the pavement. Swallowing hard, to keep his breakfast from coming back up, he slowly sat up as the pain in his head began to subside.

Sue reached toward him with a rag, her hand trembling. "Your nose is bleeding," she said, gently wiping David's upper lip. "Does this always happen when you have a vision?"

David took the rag from Sue's hand. Gently cradling her hand in his, David looked her in the eye and lied. "I think the bloody nose is because I slammed my face into the pavement." Blushing just a bit, he added, "I, uh, thought we were in bed together." Swallowing again, as another wave of nausea clawed at his throat, David attempted to look at Sue hopefully.

Sue was, indeed, sidetracked. "You're nauseous aren't you? I suppose you were going to tell me that's because you banged your head, too?"

David shook his head, immediately regretting it, as the world began to spin. Bracing his head against one hand, and placing the other on the floor, he turned his head, and promptly decorated the Guild Master's shoes with his breakfast.

"Young lady, fetch a medic, immediately. This boy needs attention, even if he is to addlebrained to realize it himself." Scorese Thielst was an imposing man when you were standing. He towered over David and Sue studying them intently.

Sue gasped and shuttered, looking up at the man. Nodding, she quickly jumped to her feet and ran toward the main muster area.

David opened his eyes a crack. "Guild Master Thielst?" David groped for more words, barely holding in a scream of frustration, as the words skittered just out of reach in his mind's eye.

The guild master knelt beside David, laying one hand on his forehead, and the other on his back. Scorese's straw blond hair stood on end as arcane energies swirled around his head. His softly booming voice seemed to wash over David, soothing the raging fire in his head, and calming the churning sea of stomach acid trying to claw its way up his throat.

David felt the guild master's hands pull away from him. He struggled to keep a yearning sigh from escaping, but in the end he simply couldn't keep it in. "Thank you, Guild Master." David's voice cracked as longing for the man's touch turned to a pain of its own.

"That is the drawback to using magic to heal your body," said the Guild Master, shaking his head. Stroking David's cheek with a hand, he continued, "What you are feeling is your heart breaking. It is the cost of how badly you were injured."

David felt himself being lifted up, not by magic, but in someone's arms. He pondered this until it finally clicked in his mind that he was in the guild master's arms. Giving in to the aching pain in his chest, David turned his head into the man's shoulder and cried himself to exhaustion. David barely noticed when he was layed gently on something comfortable. He started to say something, but was asleep before he could form the words.

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David jerked awake but still dazed. His muddled brain couldn't quite grasp why he couldn't move, and yet, it felt like he was moving. Looking around, he was determined to puzzle it out. There were drawers and cabinets lining either side of him, with a small walkway so that someone could get all the way to the back of the... his mind scrambled to find the right word, but the only one that came to mind was, van? He knew that wasn't the right word, but continued craning his neck back, He could see a man, by the look of the buzzed head, driving, and a woman sat in the passenger seat.

David felt a hand rest on his shoulder, and he shrank back from it. Where the hand had been felt like a brand had been placed. Looking up, he inhaled sharply, taking in the musk of a man he should not have feelings for, his Guild Master.

David followed the hand up his arm, until he looked the man in his blue eyes. "I, I'm sorry, sir," he whispered.

Scorese leaned in, too close. "You have nothing to apologize for. If anyone it is I that should apologize to you. You are the one to bear the burden of my healing." Scorese's lips barely grazed David's cheek causing him to inhale deeply.

David let out a shuttering breath, closing his eyes. "It is, awkward, for me." It felt like each word had to be wrung from his mind, his tongue so thick it wouldn't respond.

Scorese again whispered in his ear, "I am here, if your need becomes unbearable."

It felt like someone dropped a stick of dynamite on his chest. David's mind gave up trying to process anything and shutdown as he slid, gratefully, in to unconsciousness.

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