But You're Afraid to Laugh

Is growing mold on bread considered plant-shaping or healing, Silariel wondered to herself, as she poked through the small supply of food she and Etnamael kept in their quarters. Usually this was Etnamael's area, and he kept it up. She raised it, killed, cleaned it and tanned the appropriate parts; he cooked it. It was a good trade. But it had gotten quite rank lately, and that meant he was occupied with something else at the moment. Something that wasn't archive related, or she'd have heard about it. So that meant it was silly. She sighed and began braking the hardened crust off one that wasn't growing. His silliness was private. Etnamael was very private and she felt honored to be let inside at all. When his urge for silliness had passed, he'd share it with her. Probably very gleefully.

She was chewing daintily on a piece of the bread when the door burst open and he literally flew in and slammed the door behind him. He leaned against it, panting, giggling and looking around in near hysteria. She reached toward him with her healing, felt his heart beating like a rabbits, adrenaline making him shake, and calmed his body. His eyes clamped on hers, "guess who I got?!"

"Enyiel," she said confidently. The only other time she'd ever seen him react like this was when he'd 'accidentally' caught their son in one of his 'mousetraps'. Enyiel was the only other person, beside the two of them who know about his little hobby. His vengeance had been terrible. It'd taken months to get the smell of rotting fish out of the Chamber of Memory.

"No," he shook his head violently, grinning, "worse, much worse!"

Silariel paused, the bread raised to take another nibble, then tossed it over her shoulder as she realized who it had to have been. "Wooh."

"Yeah," he agreed.

"Does she know-did she catch you?!"

"Of course not!" he brushed the thought away with a gesture.

"Well…" she sighed, "statistically, it was bound to happen."

Etnamael stepped forward and took her face in his hands, bringing his forehead to her, he sent deeply into her mind. It was the only way they ever sent of his silly little hobby, since the first time Etnamael had accidentally overheard someone else's locksend and realized other strong senders might do the same. And you-know-who was a very strong sender.

Images of the corridor beside the throne room flooded Silariel's mind. The one with mural of the Frozen Mountains in the winter. A balcony. A small sculpture on a wobbly pedestal. A large tail feather half out of the vase it was decorating, A container of paint for retouching the wall mural, A sheet haphazardly pinned across the corridor to shield the floor from drips, with the paint setting partly on it. And all waiting a little vibration to set it off.

"And, gee, I wonder how that mural got chipped?" Silariel inquired sweetly

"It's harder to hit a floating target. I think I deserve extra points for hitting the airborne, what do you think?"

"I think you're insane."

He chuckled and shook his head, "It was her color: white."

Silariel stepped back and looked at him, flushed pink and still giddy form the residual adrenaline. He looked younger than he had 10,000 years ago in the Frozen Mountains, when they had been children. Her heart went out to him, but she forced herself into a scolding mode, this was serious and potentially dangerous. "Medhei is," she paused, searching for words to explain their Mistress.

"I know," he said.

"I know, you know," she had shared her assessment of Medhei with him and him alone. "But apparently you don't understand. She could… She's capable of…"

"I know," he repeated.

"No, apparently not," her normally soft voice rose, "or you wouldn't take such a stupid risk with your life! That was just stupid! If you need an adrenaline rush, come find me-" he leered at her and she took a smack at him, missing by a at least an arm's length, "-oh, I'll give you an adrenaline rush! But she's… She's… " She stopped, typically her anger had been furious but ridiculously brief , and she slumped against him. "She could kill you."

He stroked her hair quietly, knowing she wasn't done yet. 10,000 years is a long time to live with another and he's seen her storms often enough. They averaged two of these a year. First she got intensely angry, then resignedly subdued. The first stage was short, the second long and sometimes filled with black depressions.

"I know Medhei," she finally said. "She knows what I did… to Deroyen… and didn't… disapprove. Did nothing. I don't know exactly why not, but…"

"I know," he said, when she seemed to be done. "It was funny-"accidental", of course, but funny--and everyone was afraid to laugh. Until they got away, then a good many that were giggling about it. And maybe I reduced her power a bit. I don't know. That wasn't my intention."

"You knew what you were doing. Setting it up so close to the throne room."

"Yes," he conceded, " I knew there was a chance I'd hit her, but I didn't plan it out that carefully. But she could use being taken down a few notches." He paused, "we were all afraid to laugh! What does that say about us, here in this haven?! We're afraid of Medhei. Were we ever afraid of Jylekk?"

"Of his decisions, maybe," Silariel pushed away and sat down. "Who could say what he'd decide next? He was too influenced by others. You never could predict him! Not unless you know whom his advisers had been. Medhei at least isn't influenced by anyone but Medhei. Her will is strong as brightmetal. And she doesn't care who she offends. She'll tell people 'no'."

"Jylekk wasn't a bad leader." Ever able to see all sides, Etnamael sat down opposite her. "It takes a different set of skills to lead here than it did in the Frozen Mountains. Then, there was no time for debate, so he HAD t o make decisions fast. And rarely had a chance to second-guess himself, but here, with too much time, he could think too much and develop self-doubts."

Etnamael's sending was strong enough to overhear locksends, and that bothered him because it invaded other's privacy, but at times, he could sense Silariel's thoughts without any send at all, and that filled him with warmth, since it was a token of their closeness and of course she know all about it. He know her thoughts where on Jylekk's death. They glanced at each other, and knew each other's mind. His thoughts flew on to those of Deroyen, while her mind, ever wondering on how things worked, suggested that this "subsending" was some kind of erosion of soulnames.

"Too much time in each other's minds," he smiled wanly.

"I know she had something to do with it."

He nodded, "but we all excepted it, didn't we?"

"He was a leader for the snows, not the skies. "

"But he brought us here, and we couldn't tell him…" what? That they didn't want his leadership anymore? He shrugged it off. "We didn't find her an objectionable leader. Only the way she became leader."

"Yes."

"Is she worse now?" he asked, "Or is it just that our consciences can't take it anymore?"

She know that this was his version of her wondering how everything worked, so it a moment of thought, "I think it's like the marsh cats in the menagerie. You fog their minds, I control their bodies, but either of them could kill us with a single swipe of those claws if handled wrong."

"Medhei's no marsh cat!" he shook his head. "No one 'handles' her, no one controls her! That is

the one thing she has over Jylekk! Her mind is her own!"

"Not the only thing. She has other good points."

"Yes," he conceded. "I think thats what kept us from objecting. Now I wonder if we can?"

"She's a fair judge. Cold, but just... Horrid temper, but that doesn't make most of her decisions. Remember when S'ai freed the menagerie?" she scowled, even after all these millennia, "'But, Lord Jylekk, the poor animals were just sitting there, not living or anything!'" she mimicked, her eyes wide and vacant "'They deserve to go free! To run Wild and Free and Be Happy! All the World should be Happy Happy! La la lalala!' She destroyed years of my work-maliciously--and he just told her not to do it again!"

"Medhei keeps us all in line, "Etnamael agreed. "She polices us. And the same rules do apply to all of us now. S'ai was his pet, but Medhei doesn't play favorites. And as much backstabbing as goes on, at least Medhei forces it to be kept under cover. What would some of us have turned into by now if our fear of Medhei hadn't kept us in check?"

"It's a trade," Silarial agreed. She held up one hand, "She keeps our potential for worse accesses in check," she held up the other hand and looked at it, "but your afraid to laugh.