By Oak, Ash and Thorn

I feel him start to loose his balance under my hand "Liv!" Start just a moment before he starts to fall, i am glad for my hand on his neck it helps keep his head from bouncing on the floor. last thing we need a wordsmith with a concussion. I lightly tap his cheek not a slap just a tap of the fingers "wake up now is not the time to be fainting. I and pull out my flask of Valhalla Venom uncapping it i let the smell of the pungent alcohol under his nose. after last time he tasted the stuff he should wake up real quick

"Bring him in here." Lihnahn Sidhe says, holding open the door to her chambers. Between us, we manage to hoist Djhuety onto her low soft bed. Lihnahn Sidhe lays a cloth in a basin, wrings it out with her graceful hands, and runs it over his brow.
"Benedict." she says softly, "Benedict, wake."
"You call him Benedict." I say quietly, "Is that-"
"The spoken name he was born with." his caretaker says softly. She runs a hand over his brow. Then she leans over, and kisses his brow. A frisson, a spark jumps between them. His eyes flutter open. Lihnahn smiles.
"There. Better?"

The world slowly falls back into place; I sit up and look around the room. No on the bed, nothing to obstruct the view of the room. The vapors of Valhalla Venom in my nose cause me to sneeze. Shaking my head, "Wha... What happened?"

"I'm afraid you emotions got the better of you." Lihnahn says, smiling, "And your power tried to remove you from the pain of the moment. It will happen. A weakness, but not a great one." She sits, looking him over, a smile on her lips and something like wonder in her eyes. "My, but you've grown strong in a few years. Your power burns bright."

"Not so bright now... I feel burnt out if I forget to center to often." I reach into a pocket and pull out the flask of water that we got from the Weird's Well and take a pull... The power is ebbing from it, but it still refreshes and clears my head all the more.

Linhahn Sidhe watches him. When he finally meets her green eyes, she smiles. "I have been waiting for this day a long time."

"Didn't have to wait... I would have taken to you a lot earlier" the tone belays that my grudge is not completely forgotten

For the first time, a little more of that sadness rises to the surface in Linhahn's eyes.She nods, taking his anger quietly. “I would have liked to be there for you, my boy. But I made an oath I could not break, even for you. An oath to your parents.”

"Oaths tend to end upon the death of one of the parties." I gaze into her eyes, green facing storm grey. "What bound you after they died?"

Slowly, Lihnahn shakes her head. "Oaths are as binding to the dead as to the living, among us. When you give your word, you keep it. And I kept mine. I have regretted it most often, but I gave my oath on my name." She looks into his eyes. "Can you understand, Benedict?"

"No," The word is sharp, but lacks the cut of before, "Because I never knew of your world."

"but you know of Honor Dejhuty" I say slowly "it still applies"

"Honor." the red-haired woman says, very quietly. She sighs, lowering her head, and for a moment she looks older. "No. You didn't know our world. For that, for all my sins, was my oath." She raises her head, taking a breath as if she were about to recite "When you were born, I gave my word to let you live a life without interference until you were a man. Your mother, my little Ailain, she wanted you to have the chance to choose magic of your own free will, not because it was forced on you. And even after they died…” she shrugs. “I had given my word, and I couldn’t take that back. I did what I could, my boy. But what I could was very little. Until you were a man.”

"The honorable thing is normally the right thing. I was raised without family when one was available; where is the honer in that?" I round from Liam to Linhahn. "And as to magic, I was born with it so ingrained in my blood, I was forced to control it all my life with no instruction."

"Dejhut" I snap for a moment "I am the Wrong person to go 'poor me' too." i start slowly again "yes it is in your blood and i don't claim to understand that, But it sounds to me like she took care of you the only way she could" I shake my head "I understand oaths. my word to protect home technically ended with my death. But I was still able to so I did." I look at the Lady. "sounds similar to me. death is no excuse for dishonor and her actions show a torment about it.

"I simply state that her oath was void the moment I first changed my world." I dig in stubbornly.

Lihnahn nods, calmly acknowledging her grandson's anger, accepting responsibility for it. "I hated holding to that oath.But I had promised that you would live in the world of Men until you were of age. Twenty. That was the age Ailin set." She looks up, and her eyes, too, are full of pain. "I did try. When harm came by you, I sought vengeance on it. When threat came to you, I brought you from one part of the world to another. I did all that I could from the distance my oath held me at. I feared your magic might begin early. And I should have known it would. With your blood, magic of yours would be greater than most. When two become one, there is the greatest magic And every time you feared or hurt, my heart bled for your heart's cries." She reaches out, taking his hands. "I am so sorry, Benedict. So very, very sorry."
Then, impulsively, she reaches out, hugging him in one swift motion before drawing away. There are tears glimmering in her eyes.

I sigh, untensing from the sudden contact. "That's the second time you've alluded to my blood line... I'm a half breed; how would that make me more powerful then a purebred?"

She smiles indulgently for a moment, like a mother explaining something to a child. “Two lineages, Benedict. I thought your young lady would explain it to you.” She says, nodding towards Liv. “She has the same strength.”

"how does that saying go? thrice said and done?" I ask Liv nodding to Dejhuty? or are you both just being thick?"

Liv and I speak indignantly almost as one; "She is not my lady!" I feel myself flush at the implication. "Besides, she says that she is weaker then her kin and is constantly hiding her heritage due to that mixing of blood."

Her eyes widen in surprise, and she looks from the young man to the young woman. “But I thought….how strange and foolish that you would not know. The blood-mixing prejudices have spread further than I would have thought... They have forgotten the power inherent in two bloodlines. Human and Kindred blood together in one being is stronger than either alone. Kindred magic with all its beauty, and human strength of aspiration to shape and drive it. Those forces, bound together, are far stronger than either alone. It is what gives your gifts such strength, for ones so young.” She looks between them. "Oh, surely you have found your gifts stronger than those of your peers?"
She turns to look down at the dark-haired girl. “Do you not find that your power is often greater than that of those your age?”
I swallow hard. “At times, my Lady, but…my magic is…warped. It has never worked as it should.”
“In what way?” the Sidhe woman asks, looking from her grandson to me with a peaceful, quiet curiosity.
“My mother’s people work a song by planting the emotions in the listener’s head. I…well, I can’t do that. What I have to do is take what I am feeling, call up things within myself and give them to my listeners.”
To my surprise, Linhahn Sidhe smiles. “And what’s the crime in that? You take everything within you, you put it into your music. That is greater than any trick of the mind, that strength. It was what I saw in you when I named you Bard.”
I open my mouth to protest that I’m not strong at all…but then all the times that my voice did more than I could have believed run through my head, all those times that my power acted far beyond what I had expected. The Siren, and how many other times? Even as a child, my music was far stronger than any child my age had any right to. It had always been my strength. Lihnahn turns to her grandson. "And do you not find that when you want something badly enough, it happens all the more emphatically?"

"I always have to fight my magics to prevent them from warping to far from my intent though; surly that isn't counted as strength." I think back on all the changes I've wrought unintentionally... then those that occur almost as by coincidence.

The lady shakes her bright maned head, chuckling. "Ah me. You sound so much like your grandsire. Always questioning, always disagreeing. But think back: has your power ever gone wrong when you used it when you were calm, not angry, not afraid, not over-excited?"

I stop... "Not in my living memory." I look up at her. "What now?"