Lucky Rabbit

By the time Pandy managed to get out of the pond – it turned out that undead rabbits could swim as well as they had when alive, and Pandy had always been a dog-paddler – she was soaked and muddy, but no longer covered in blood. Thaniel had started into the water after her, but was held back by Geraldine, who reminded him rather loudly that the chancellor had specifically said not to go swimming. Brook dipped a furry brown toe into the water as well, then stopped, gave the floundering Pandy a rather disgusted look, and wandered off to nap in some sunshine.

One Minor Heal was sufficient to bring Pandy back up to zero LF, but also brought her Mana down to twelve out of eighty-two, a fact which confused her as she went under for the fifth time, and finally decided to just stay under this time. It was surprisingly easy to do math while frantically paddling through muddy water, since she didn’t actually need to breathe anyway, and the water muffled the sounds of Winston’s barking and Thaniel’s cries.

Minor Heal used up to ten Mana. Hop didn’t use any. One Verdant Surge had failed. Which meant that between them, a single use each of Verdant Surge and Wings of Glory had taken sixty Mana. That…was a lot. Pandy had just been starting to feel confident about her Mana levels, and now it turned out that at least some of her other spells were even more Mana-hungry than Minor Heal.

She must have looked like the Swamp Thing as she waddled up and out of the water, but once again, Geraldine had to hold Thaniel back as he tried to get to Pandy. Pandy, for her part, gave Thaniel an apologetic glance, then ducked back down into the water as she tried to rinse off the worst of the mud and water weeds. Then fabric fell around her as someone snatched her out of the water and began to awkwardly rub her fur.

“It’s hers!” she heard Thaniel say as the first cloth fell away, and another one surrounded her. There were some protests, mainly from the girls, but Thaniel was at his most stubborn and ignored them. He only stopped when Pandy felt like a blow-dried Pomeranian, and he lifted her out of the fabric, which fell to the ground in a sodden heap.

As Thaniel raised her to eye level so he could make sure he’d gotten her thoroughly dry, Pandy dared a glance down, wincing slightly as she realized that the boy had used Ms. Wellington’s discarded clothing to clean her off. The dress, which had been slightly damp but salvageable, was now a muddy, soaked mess, covered in dirty white fur and bits of broken vegetation.

“Are you okay, Bunny?” Thaniel asked anxiously, turning her this way and that. Pandy was, in fact, fully recovered, so she nodded, and Thaniel’s face broke into a grin. “That was amazing!” he said. “I thought I imagined it when you did that before, but you really can fly!”

This comment, of course, brought questions about what had happened the first time, and as Thaniel regaled the others with his version of Pandy’s ‘daring rescue’ of Miss Cupcakes, some of the suspicion that had returned to Isidor’s face faded again. Miss Cupcakes, on the other hand, turned her back on Pandy and began pointedly licking her thigh, so she obviously didn’t want to be reminded of the experience.

That did make Pandy wonder, though. If the cat was actually an elemental, what would have happened if her body died? The kitten had been badly injured in the Battle of the Library, and Pandy would have sworn that she was about to die before Pandy healed her. Again, when she fell from the balcony, Pandy would have sworn the cat was genuinely terrified as they plummeted toward the ground. Tempest, on the other hand, hadn’t seemed at all concerned when Isidor chucked her into the middle of a fire elemental. So could elementals die, or not?

When Thaniel’s story finally ran down, the children talked for a while longer, but eventually, Eleanor timidly suggested they return to the stable. Everyone else agreed, and five children – or four children, one world-weary teen, four elementals, and Pandy – went to feed apples to Eleanor’s pony, Misty. For the moment, at least, they all seemed to have forgotten that Pandy was something other than what she looked like, possibly because none of them except for Thaniel and Geraldine had been surprised by the revelation at all.

Lunch came and went. The dining hall was set up as a buffet, rather than for a sit-down meal, and all of the students were encouraged to make sandwiches and go outside to eat. There were a few tables available for those who just didn’t want to go, but almost everyone did, and even the teachers took food and left. Mosquitos seemed not to be a thing in this world, and as far as Pandy was concerned, that alone made it better than her first life.

The children ate at the bench where Isidor had snatched Pandy from the air, beneath the still-open window of Ms. Wellington’s room. From here, Pandy could see that her first guess that that window was about twenty feet up was correct, and every time she happened to look in that direction, she felt her ears grow hot with embarrassment.

After lunch, Eleanor went to her room and got the book she’d checked out from the library. It was the very first book in the Pirate Pete series, and she read the first five chapters without stopping. She was an excellent reader, and even Isidor looked like he was only pretending not to listen.

Eventually, however, her voice gave out, and Thaniel took over. He wasn’t nearly as good a reader, having to stop and sound out words on a fairly regular basis, but he did all the voices, and sometimes acted scenes out, as well. He even had his favorite passages memorized, at least until he stopped dead, halfway through the scene where Nettle Nell was talking to Pirate Pete after he saved her from Really Evil Pirate Drake. Thaniel stood, his finger touching the words in the book, and his blue eyes dark.

Seeing that something had happened, Eleanor said, “Thaniel? What’s wrong?”

Thaniel shook his head, apparently unable to speak. He managed to clear his throat, and continued reading in a subdued tone. “‘I can’t, Pete,’ Nell said. ‘I got a life of my own. But don’t worry. We’ll always be under the same stars.’” Thaniel swallowed hard, almost whispering as he finished. “And if you need me, I’ll be right…here.”

He pressed his hand to his chest, over his heart, and tears began to drip down his face. Eleanor barely managed to save the book before it was stained with salt and sorrow, and Geraldine wrapped her arms around her friend. Pandy had been sitting nearby, out of the way of editorial lunges and the occasional leap for an escaping villain. Now, she pressed against Thaniel’s leg, and the boy leaned down to pick her up, pressing his face into her fur as he sobbed.

+2 Corruption Point for Bathing in the Tears of the Innocent

+2 Corruption Point for Bathing in the Tears of the Innocent

…

“Wa’swrong?” she heard Abbington asking, but no one knew. Well, Pandy thought she might, but she couldn’t tell them. Or rather, she could, but she thought Thaniel needed to do it himself, even though all Pandy wanted to do was take human shape and hug him. Geraldine and Eleanor were doing that, though, and the tears were already beginning to slow to sniffles.

At last, Thaniel pointed at the book and said, “My mom…said that. Every night.” The words were damp, but understandable, and the other children exchanged glances before the girls tightened their arms around their friend. He gave a quiet, “Oof,” then giggled, in that way that children had of going from sorrow to humor in the space between moments.

Dragging the back of his hand over his eyes, Thaniel gave a final stuffy sniff and said, “I guess she musta gotten it from this book. After she-” He broke off, and a few more tears squeezed out before being wiped away. “The rest of her books were in her room, but not this one. She read it lots, an’ I remembered, but this is the first time…”

Pandy leaned against him, licking his tears away. The taste had become far too familiar, and it didn’t even bother her anymore. Thaniel gave her a watery smile in return, and seemed to be recovering just when Geraldine finally released the tears she’d been holding back. This, in turn, started Thaniel off again, and he hugged Geraldine until, shockingly, Abbington, too, began to sniffle, before two large tears welled up and ran down his cheeks.

Eleanor looked from one of them to the next, and then her tears began as well. She seemed rather confused about this even as delicate crystalline drops hung from the end of her nose. She might not look like herself, but she still cried like a princess, in slow, perfect tears.

The four children held each other and sobbed until even Isidor gave in and attempted to pat the nearest back. It wasn’t exactly comforting, but Pandy was beginning to get the feeling that he hadn’t had a particularly comforting upbringing, so a pat on the back was probably quite a concession, coming from him. In any case, it seemed to be enough, because Geraldine – whose back it was – reached out and pulled him into the damp, wailing group hug, though Isidor looked like a drowning man sinking beneath the waves for the last time.

Pandy couldn’t count the number of Corruption Points flickering across her vision in a constant stream, and she didn’t even try, because she was more focused on trying to comfort the children. Well, at least as focused. More CP was always good. Except when it was bad, because it came from other people’s pain and suffering.

Eventually, however, all four of the criers managed to stop at once. They’d tried this in fits and starts, but so long as one of them was still crying, they inevitably set the others off again. But now all of them looked wrung out and exhausted, with puffy, tear-stained faces and red-rimmed eyes.

“I miss my mom,” Geraldine hiccupped.

“Ahmissth’Valley,” Abbington choked out.

“I wanna go home,” Thaniel said miserably, and Pandy was sure he didn’t mean the lonely, slightly creepy estate as she’d known it, but the lively, happy one that only existed in his memories.

Eleanor just nodded, but she didn’t actually seem convinced. She had cried the least, with quiet tears and few sobs, as if she was used to making certain that her sorrow didn’t inconvenience anyone. Isidor, of course, said nothing, and his eyes looked a little wild as he edged toward the outside of the huddle.

Footsteps announced the arrival of someone new, and Professor Beeswick came down the path toward them. The children watched, teary-eyed, as the dragon sat down on the bench next to theirs, gazing up through the branches overhead. Curious eyes finally dried as they stared at him, quiet settling over them all until they jumped when he finally spoke, still not looking in their direction.

“Missing your home is perfectly natural,” he said softly, as if speaking to himself. “It simply means you have a place – and people – you really love. But that home will always be there, whether in heart or hoard.” He finally turned, looking at them, tiny scales glimmering like tears on his cheeks. “Time flies faster even than I, and soon enough this place, too, will seem a little bit like home. And when you return to your place and people, you’ll have a thousand new stories to tell.”

He stood gracefully, striding over to pick up the book that had fallen, unnoticed, to the ground beside the bench. He brushed it off, then, rather than taking it, settled it gently back into Eleanor’s hands. “And one of them will be of the time you spent a week helping a dragon in the library,” he said to her, raising one brow. “The rest of your group was already assigned to the library tomorrow, and now you may join them. In fact, you may join Thaniel for the rest of the week as well.”

The dragon patted the book with a tenderness usually reserved for newborns and fallen flower petals. “Consider this your one and only warning,” he said, but there was no heat in his voice, only gentle understanding, and he turned and walked back the way he’d come, vanishing as he rounded the trunk of a particularly large oak tree.

“Oh,” Eleanor murmured, clutching the book to her chest. “I didn’t even realize-”

“It’s all right, Ellie,” Thaniel said, giving her a smile that was only slightly watery. “He didn’t take your book, so you must be okay.” Geraldine and Abbington nodded as well, and there was a chorus of sniffles as all of the children gathered themselves.

Isidor glanced rather pointedly up at the sky. “We should probably go get cleaned up for dinner.”

“The bell hasn’t rung yet,” Thaniel said.

The older boy shrugged. “It must be close. Besides, you’re all-” he gestured at Thaniel’s face, and Thaniel scrubbed at his nose one more time, adding another layer of ick to what was already on his sleeve. Seeming to realize the problem, Thaniel gave a little giggle, then waved the gooey sleeve at his roommate, who danced back, looking disgusted.

“Booger monster!” Thaniel cried, and, tucking Pandy beneath his other arm, began to chase Isidor, who actually deigned to smile slightly as he easily stayed out of reach. Easily, that is, until Geraldine stepped into his path, and Thaniel pounced, leading to a laughing, only mildly disgusting pile of children who eventually did, indeed, go inside to clean up for dinner.