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Date Posted: 02:00:10 01/14/02 Mon
Author: Tristan
Subject: Yep, I should get a metal, huh?
In reply to: Corum & Valhorek 's message, "Way to go Tris" on 17:26:18 01/13/02 Sun

Tristan was having one of the craziest dreams he’d ever had in his whole life.

He was walking slowly through the Nerombian deserts, nothing but miles and miles of sand in every direction. The sun was as big and burnt yellow as usual, but the air was as cool as the mountain air against his face. Marz walked beside him, holding his hand. Neither of them was speaking, just walking, and it felt odd and good at the same time.

Suddenly, Jeremy was there, smirking over at him in his usual manner. Tristan scowled back, and was about to backhand the little punk for ruining the peaceful moment, when suddenly Jeremy pointed at something in the sky. “That’s a car,” he said cheerfully, referring to a big metal beast floating mystically through the clouds. “We have those on my planet.” The boy grinned, looking quite smug. Tristan tried to pretend he wasn’t impressed, but the thing was pretty cool to watch.

After a few seconds of staring up into the sky, it eventually occurred to him how much taller Marz had become. He stared at the big hand holding his, feeling only slightly confused. When Marz turned and beamed down at him, Tristan smiled shyly back, as if he were a little kid again. He was a kid, and he knew he was supposed to be afraid of people, especially grownups, but for some reason he wasn’t afraid of this man at all.

Marz knelt down in the sand, holding his arms out as if to hug him, because he loved children so much. Tristan was about to step forward, but Marz’s face suddenly twisted into the form of a pair of glaring dark eyes behind a black mask. He lurched back, fear washing over him as he stared at the sword still sticking out of the man’s chest. Although he was so afraid he was almost shaking, he couldn’t so much as open his mouth to scream.

“Tristan!”

He turned, stumbled, and ran toward the sound of that familiar voice, running as fast as his legs could carry him until he fell into his father’s embrace. He listened to the sounds of the wizard’s soothing words for a few seconds, pleased at the sudden attention he was finally getting. After a while, his father pushed him back and stared at him—only it wasn’t his father’s face, anymore. It was the face of a bearded man with quiet eyes, who was like a father to the man who had been holding his hand earlier—not the second man, but the first one, the nice one.

“If you really love him, you’ll do what’s best for him,” the man said, giving him a stern look. Tristan nodded and wiped at his eyes. (He didn’t know when he’d started crying. Probably when the bad man had appeared.) The man sighed and hugged him again, but suddenly his arms began to tighten almost painfully, as if he were trying to crush the little boy in his embrace. He gave off a foul odor and exuded an almost sickly presence.

No matter how much Tristan struggled, he couldn’t free himself from the man’s arms. Instinctively, he knew this man was bad, bad like the assassin, maybe worse, because he had done bad things to that first kind man who held his hand. The most awful part was that Tristan knew he had to kill this bad man, even though he was afraid for his own life. But the more and more he thought about it, the more scared he got, and soon he was screaming and kicking like crazy, all to no avail, for the man was slowly crushing him to death….

Tristan’s eyes snapped open, and stared in utter confusion at the stars winking above him for a few seconds. Eventually, he realized he must have passed out for some reason or other. Thankfully, he knew he’d killed that assassin, unless the bastard had managed to live with a sword thrust through the heart and a slit throat. For the moment, Tristan was quite proud of himself for presumably coming through at just the right moment and saving everybody’s asses in a stunningly impressive move.

Then he remembered where he was: not out in the forest by the stream, but back in the camp, by a fire. That could only mean he’d been unconscious, and that could only mean….

“Shit,” he said rather thickly, trying to raise himself up on his elbows, “Fainted again! That damn snake…” The few who were present turned at the sound of his voice, with Valhorek wearing the most comical expression of surprise Tristan had ever seen. Apparently, the healer’s prognosis had involved his not waking up for several hours—but once again, being a dragon tended to wreck havoc on the intentions of both medicines and poisons suited for humans and their related ilk.

He winced as he put his weight on the arm which had gotten sliced by the assassin’s dagger. Immediately, Val got over his shock and began pulling out the necessary items needed for stitching up the wound. Tristan eyed him mournfully, thinking of how lovely those needles were going to feel pricking into his flesh again.

“Maybe if you halved the dosage you’d give the others…” He let the suggestion trail off, since he didn’t really want to reveal that he would like some sort of pain medication. But he’d really been through too many field operations lately to be too bashful about it. In any case, Valhorek agreed, mixing the herbs with some water before letting him drink it down.

He could feel it take immediate affect, for when he set the cup down and glanced around to see if Marz were nearby, everything dipped and jerked a little, as if he were dizzy. Still, he was so far in complete possession of his senses, even if he did feel a bit tipsy. Plus, he could barely feel the healer’s gentle touch as he swiftly and methodically stitched up the wound in his arm.

“There you are,” Tristan said, sitting up fully and shaking his head, which was still spinning somewhat. He rubbed at his new bandage and stared disapprovingly at the ugly, and likely extremely painful, burn marks on his lover’s skin.

“I knew something like this was going to happen,” he went on, shaking his head. “When are you going to stop thinking you’re invincible, huh?” His frown deepened, but try as he might, he couldn’t make himself sound angry. He only came off sounding a touch panicked. “One of these days, you’re going to get yourself killed for doing stupid things like this, you and your friend both. I know you’re way too tough to worry about a stupid thing like dying, but maybe you could stop and think about the people you’d be leaving behind for once!”

He shot an equally disapproving glare at Corum, who was half way turned, as if he were still in the process of walking off. Tristan tried to get up, but when everything started to sway a little too much for comfort, decided to sit back down and wait it out for a bit more. This was probably what most mortals felt like after taking a couple glasses of wine or something, so he was sure it’d wear off soon enough.

“Oh,” he added, a little more meekly, “Sorry about the fainting thing again. This time, there was this huge snake and it…” He stopped in mid-sentence, not wanting to go on. Barry had been a lot of help, but why couldn’t he have some other way to be of aid besides that? Tristan was still fully under the impression that he’d fainted, too, since the last few moments before passing out were scarcely more than a dim haze in his memory.

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