The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (21 page)

In the moment when Alilia tried to call for help psionicly, Valentia struck out against the crushing pressure with Force and Fire.  Alilia’s call became a psionic scream that jolted everyone in the settlement wide-awake in an instant.

Mark and Talia Translocated into the room without thinking about it, a second later the twins ran in, and a second after that Yazadril, Nemia, Hilsith, and Yzell appeared.

They found Alilia screaming and writhing in the rocking chair, and every bit of her prodigious power was being used by her inherent Healing ability.  Her hands were clasped on her stomach, which writhed like a wildcat was trying to tear its way out from inside her.  Two or three times every second one of the Force bolts erupted through her skin in a spray of blood, or a small Fireball burned its way out from within with a huge puff of stinking smoke, and each time Alilia’s body Healed the wound in a fraction of a second.  It was a testament to the power of her maternal instinct that she didn’t strike back at her daughter.  Seven small fires were already burning in the room, and it was quickly filling with smoke.

It took all of those arriving a moment to overcome their shock and horror at the scene and decide on action.  It was difficult to even think over Alilia’s continuing psionic scream.

“Help me Mark!” Hilsith cried as she Linked with him, and she guided him as he cast spells around the baby that cut her off from the fields of magic power, and vented her spells high in the sky above the house.  Then Hilsith began treating Alilia.

Reggie and Helemia Linked with Valentia and did their best to calm the panicked baby girl.

Yazadril extinguished the fires and vented the smoke.

Talia and Nemia did their best to calm and comfort Alilia.

And Yzell Examined the baby while assisting the twins’ effort to calm her by casting a Tranquility on her, then treated her pain and self-inflicted burns, which were already mostly Healed by her own inherent Healing ability.  As soon as the baby stopped thrashing and stilled for a fraction of a moment, Yzell delivered her by Translocation.

Fifteen seconds after Alilia started screaming, the crisis was over and her daughter was born.  It took a while after that for everyone to get their racing hearts and panicked breathing under control.  Hilsith continued to treat Alilia for the next fourteen minutes, as her body was still undergoing abnormal and painful contractions, though her daughter was no longer in her womb.

Yzell continued treating Valentia, even as she washed the baby and wrapped her in a soft blanket.  She stood close, holding the babe until Hilsith was finished and was satisfied with the health of both mother and child.

Finally, at Hilsith’s direction, Mark gently picked Alilia up from the ruined rocking chair with Levitation, and Translocated to the bedroom with her, Yzell, and Valentia.  Alilia was gently bedded down and her daughter placed at her breast.

“Thank you.” she whispered in exhausted joy as she caressed her baby.  “All of you, thank you.”

In another ten minutes they were both asleep, but everyone else was far too wound-up from the excitement to want to go back to bed.

At Hilsith’s request, Mark sent a quick Speaking to the awakened community, announcing Valentia’s birth, but asking all but the closest family to postpone visiting until further notice, due to the delicate condition of mother and child after a difficult delivery.

Hilsith and Yzell remained at the bedside, monitoring their patients.  Talia, Nemia, and Helemia make tea and snacks, while Mark, Yazadril and Reggie cleaned and Restored the living room.  Shortly Dalia and Bezedil arrived with sparkling wine for the congratulatory toasts.  Only then did it truly strike home in Mark’s emotions that he had a new daughter, he was a father again, and now he had three children. 

Reggie and Helemia fell asleep in their parents’ arms an hour later, but the rest stayed up and waited to meet the new baby when she and Alilia woke.

That happened an hour before noon, and a few minutes later Hilsith and Yzell said it was fine for small groups to visit in the bedroom, if they were calm and quiet.

Valentia was born weighing two and a half kilograms with entirely elven-looking features.  Her delicate hair was already ten centimeters long, and most of it was the same white-blond as Alilia’s, but there were black streaks almost three centimeters wide from her temples and over her ears that curved down in back, and almost met at the base of her skull.  Her eyes were wide open and focused, and were the same deep dark violet as Helemia’s.

Mark, Talia, Reggie, and Helemia were the first to come in for a visit.  They all climbed onto the huge bed, and for a minute it was a gentle chaos of hugs and kisses, congratulations and greetings, love and pride and laughter.  Then Mark and Talia spent a minute giving Alilia more serious kisses, while Reggie and Helemia gave the newborn girl the energy she needed for her psionics, and spent a while getting to know their new sister.

“Her hair is amazing.” Mark murmured with a grin a few minutes later as he watched his children interacting.  “Mostly your color, with some of mine.”

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Alilia agreed with a loving smile.  “What’s most peculiar is that this white isn’t my natural hair color, this came upon me gradually when I was about thirty-two hundred years old.  Before that my hair was medium brown, like most of my people.  Almost exactly the same color as Bezedil’s, actually.”

“Could you kids show me what you do to spark Valentia’s psionics?” Mark asked.

“Sure, here.”
Reggie replied as he Linked and passed the information. 
“And then you have to do this to initiate a Link with her.  Wow, you got that right away!”

“Your father might not have Povon’s psionic strength, but when it comes to fine control work, he’s second to none.” Talia proudly proclaimed.  “Why don’t you let him do it?”

“Okay.”
Helemia nodded.  She and Reggie let Mark gradually assume what they were doing with Valentia as they carefully withdrew. 
“That was sure smoothly done, Father.”

“Thanks.” Mark chuckled, then gave his tiny new daughter his full attention as he picked her up and cradled her in his arms.  “Hello Valentia, I love you very much.”

A minute later Alilia asked; “May I?” and Mark brought her into the link.

After a while Talia told Mark; “Alilia and Valentia need some time with you.”

She gave him a quick kiss, gave another to Alilia, and climbed off the bed.  “Come on kids, let’s go make lunch.”

“Thank you.” Alilia told her with deep gratitude and affection.

“You’re welcome.” Talia smiled as she backed out the door and closed it behind her.

“No disturbing them for at least an hour.” she told all the guests with a firm smile.  “Wife’s orders!

“Meanwhile, I’ll share my Reading of the last few minutes, so you can see Valentia second hand, at least.”

About forty minutes later they heard exclamations and laughter from the bedroom.  Fifteen minutes after that, Mark came out and closed the door behind him.

“Wow.” he grinned as he accepted a huge plate of lunch from Talia.  “Valentia may not have the psionics that the twins have, but she’s sure a handful when it comes to magic!  I took her in the girls’ closet to check her glow, and she’s a bit brighter than either of the twins in both wizard’s and warlock’s power.  And her use of both kinds of magic is as intuitive as Alilia’s use of wizardry!  A few minutes ago she got uncomfortable and tried to sit up, found that she couldn’t, and took off out of the bed with self-Movement!  She was tumbling every which way and got scared for a second before I could catch her, and she almost hit the ceiling.  So then we had to teach her how to fly properly with Levitation to hold the weight, and she got it down in about seven minutes!  I mean, she can’t even think in words yet, and her sense of magic is fully ready to go!  You show her something, and she gets it almost right away!  I think she only had trouble with lifting herself steadily at first because she was using both kinds of power without thinking about it, and it wasn’t… working our even, I guess you’d say.  But then she got it balanced, and about three minutes after that she wasn’t even thinking about it anymore.

“It’s weird.  I checked what she was doing, to see whether her spell style is more like wizardry or magecraft, and it’s like neither.  She just wants to do it and it happens.  It’s like her will acts on her power directly.  The closest thing to it I’ve ever seen is the way dragons use Levitation and Movement to assist their wings in flight without even realizing they’re doing it most of the time.  They just decide to fly the way we decide to walk, and they do.  Same with Valentia.  Alilia probably did the same thing at that age, and I guess she still does, sort of, but she also knows all the formal spells for what she does since she has an incredible magical education, and that affects how she casts a lot.

“Anyway, Alilia’s Shielding Valentia’s power and running her through all the basic safety lessons right now.  She just shows a dangerous spell, and then casts a convincing Illusion of the consequences of it going wrong, then shows how to do it right.  Valentia gets it right away.

“Alilia says they’ll come out for lunch in an hour or so, once she’s gone through the most important stuff.”

“She’s gonna be fun to play with!”
Helemia declared. 
“We love her a lot already!  Wow, if she’d have been with us when those Sylvan tried to get us, they’d sure have got a big surprise!”

“I think they got enough big surprises as it was.” Talia chuckled.

“Yup!  We got a pretty good feel for ‘em that day, and none of ‘em have ever come back to this island since then, or even flown over it!”

“They don’t fish in the channels within thirty kilometers from here either!”
Reggie laughed. 
“Anyway, I’m done my soup, can I have some pie?”

An hour later Alilia opened the bedroom door wide, and Valentia slowly floated out about a meter and a half above the floor, giggling all the way.  Alilia slowly walked just behind her, grinning proudly and watching carefully.  Valentia floated close to Mark and laughed at his expression as she stopped in mid-air and started rocking back and forth and side to side.

“She’s not having trouble holding still, she just thinks it’s fun.”
Helemia informed everyone.

“If you hold your arms out to her like this, she’ll come over for a hug.” Mark said, and caught her as she floated over.  “She likes hugs, don’t you Valentia?  Yes you do!”

A third of a minute later he felt her pulling away and let her go.  Dalia held her arms out for a hug with a big grin, and Valentia floated over to her.

“I can hardly control my urge to grab her before she falls.” Nemia said with a shake of her head.  “It’s hard to believe that’s safe.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have her if she falls more that a finger length.” Alilia smiled between bites of salad and flatbread with jam.  “And you’re ready to catch her if I don’t, aren’t you?  And so is every adult in this room.  Nine pre-cast Levitations, all just waiting to catch her at a moments notice.  I can almost feel them all!”

“Father, can you cast Flight on me and let me show you where I want to go like I was doing it myself?”
Reggie eagerly asked.

“Sure Son, it’ll be good training too.” Mark chuckled.  “I’ll do my best to show you exactly how it would feel if you were doing it yourself.  Just set a Command Link like this, and then you’re basically casting a draw spell on my power.”

“Oh Father, you’re so wonderful!”
Reggie marveled as he slowly rose off the floor.

“Mother, me too?!”
Helemia begged as she bounced in her seat and clapped in eager anticipation.

“Of course Dear.” Talia smiled, and soon there were three babes floating around the room and laughing themselves silly, and it was so contagious that all the adults soon had tears of laughter rolling down their cheeks as well.

Valentia just floated around in a semi-fetal position, and never let herself get tipped over more than halfway in any direction, since she didn’t like having her head lower than her body.  The twins were soon holding their arms out and swooping around like they were Scout.

Then Reggie and Helemia started chasing each other around the room and playing tag, and their parents put a stop to it.

“Just work on your control while Alilia finishes eating, and we can all go flying together outside.” Talia told them.

“Oh wow, thanks!”
Helemia shouted as she flew over for a hug. 
“You’re the best parents ever!”

“I can’t believe we never thought of this before!”
Reggie exclaimed as he slowly turned somersaults in the air. 
“We could’ve been using magic for a long time!”

“I suppose you could’ve.” Mark admitted.  “But you fill so much of your time with learning and training already, and you’re so amazingly far ahead of where we thought you’d be at your ages, we never thought to offer!  And you’re amazing me yet again!  You’ve got the Flight spell down already, even if you can’t access your own power yet!”

“You show it to us real good so it’s easy to understand.  Everything else is psionic, and we’re getting pretty good at that.”
Helemia claimed with a smug smile.

Things seemed to be going well for the next five days, but then Yzell dropped by late in the evening, when Mark, Talia, and Alilia were just getting ready for bed.

“Welcome, Yzell.” Alilia said as she answered the door.  “What brings you by so late?”

“I waited until the children were asleep, both mine and yours.” Yzell explained as she came in and was seated in the kitchen.  “I have concerns, and I think your children shouldn’t hear them until you’ve discussed the issues.

She turned to Alilia.  “Before Valentia was born, she kicked and squirmed as much as any pre-birth baby, and was developing well, physically.  Since she was born and discovered her magical abilities, she almost never moves.  She uses Flight for all her motion and Movement to bring her anything she wants, and uses Levitation even when she’s sleeping because it’s more comfortable.”