Three Days After

Taking in a sharp breath as she heard his voice, she quickly responded with a tear-choked, "I'll...I'll be fine..." though it was obvious she wasn't at that moment, impatiently wiping away her tears and trying to bring herself back together before he noticed. However, a fresh wave of tears hit her, and it was all she could do not to begin sobbing as the tears poured from her eyes like blood from a vein.

After a second, she couldn't hold it in anymore, and began sobbing audibly now, her shoulders shaking and her hands clamped shut, fingernails digging into her palms, as the tears stained her clothes.
 
He could hear clearly that she wasn't okay. But again, he could only hear and the fact he couldn't se a thing was getting him nervous. He took a deep breath and muttered. "Mansues lumen." His words where barely audible, but a tiny point of light grew stronger on his hands, illuminating everything surrounding him, but not being intense enough to bother anybody. Kestreel got up, and the point of light playfully danced around him, like if it had life of its own. Then he sat next to Aurelia. "Don't worry, is harmless." He put his hand in front of her, and the point of light danced towards his palm. Once there it looked at Aurelia. It looked like if it was smiling at her, saying 'hi there stranger!'
 
She gave him a weak smile as he approached her, trying to tell him that she was fine when she obviously wasn't. When he reassured her that the light he had conjured was harmless, she relaxed slightly, but tears still fell from her face even as she wiped them away. She hated that he had found her like this, so weak, so needing for someone to hold her again like when she was small. Without warning, she wrapped her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder.
 
"O... Okay..." He didn't really knew what to do. He looked at the light as it did circles in front of him. Ah, of course... Then he hugged her too, trying to make her feel better. "Hey..." Muttered him. "If you don't tell me what happen I can't help you." He separated a little bit form her and looked at her eyes. "Remember? I promised you I would help in anything I could. And he smiled, letting her know that he was there to help her, even if they only knew each other for less than a day.
 
"I'm just worried about my father," she said, her voice catching in her throat, wiping away the remainder of the tears. Embracing him had calmed her down some, and she was able to talk without being impaired too badly. "I'm so scared he won't be able to fight the illness and he'll die." Now it seemed that every fear and insecurity she'd had was coming out, about how she might not be able to work if Ardovini decided that he didn't appreciate her work anymore, how either she or her mother might catch it, and how she was terrified of life after he died. She hadn't told these things to anyone, not even her own mother, and this was a stretch for her to tell him.
 
Kestreel stood silent as he listened to her. "Well, I'm no doctor... But I know some..." He wanted to say magic, spell maybe, but sure that would just scare her. "Some things about how to treat illnesses and injuries." In his studies, he spent many time with the healer of the academy. As the healer used to say: Fire and flames would never heal injuries caused by sticks and stones. And he was damn right. "I can examine him, if you want, of course."
 
"You would do that for me?" Aurelia asks, hope blooming inside of her for the first time in what must have been forever. She wasted no time in going to her father's room, leading him along by the hand, elated that there might be something to help her father. Pushing open the door, she stepped inside, lighting the candles in the room so that he could see her father.'

"Papa," she said softly, kneeling next to the bed, gently stirring him from his sleep. He looked worse than when she had left earlier that day. However, his eyes seemed clearer than they had in a long while, and it seemed like he was actually seeing her for the first time in years and years. He touched her cheek with his hand lovingly, the barest shadows of a smile upon his face. "I brought someone...Kestreel...and he might be able to help you."
 
He looked from the distance to the man, as Aurelia spoke to him. He looked pretty weak and ill, he didn't thought he could do anything for him, but he was going to try the best he could. Then he got close to the man. "Please, step aside." Said him to Aurelia as he looked at her. Then he looked at the man. "Sir, close your eyes." Kestreel arms rose, palms down, above the weak man. "Dea, quae viatori vos curam. Hic me sentire dolorem, ego faxo ut labore iuvaret..."


Kestrel flinched in pain, as he endured the suffering of that man for several seconds. Then, exhausted, he fell to the floor. He not only took all the pain of her father for several seconds, he also had to keep the channel between them open, and that required great concentration. But in the end, his father was still ill, and Kestreel dizzy. "Your father... His body.. His blood... Is not normal." He took a deep breath and looked at Aurelia. "His body is refusing itself. I've seen that before..." He put his hands on her head, and hat to grab Aurelia not to fall again. "Take me to the sofa, please, I need to lay for a moment."
 
At his instructions, Aurelia stood up, backing away from her father's bedside, watching as he told him to close his eyes. He complied, and Aurelia simply watched as the magician spoke, his hands raised above the ill man. She saw him flinch, and knelt by his side as he fell, wanting to help. She practically died inside when he told her that his body was rejecting itself. She instantly thought the worst, and had to fight against the tears as she stood up with him, and began leading him to the front room.

Once helping him down onto the couch, she sat in the chair he had until recently occupied, trying to sort out in her mind all that had happened.
 
He recovered his breath as he sat on the chair. "I was once in a village... Can't remember the name right now..." His mind was still spinning. "A family asked for our help... The mother of the family was dying. She had exactly the same illness." As he was recovering his voice become more clear. "We couldn't help her." He looked at her eyes. "Is supposed that there is no cure, but..." Once, the healer of the academy told him that there was, according to old manuscripts, a cure for that illness. Still, he hesitated in telling her, since nobody had achieved it before.
 
Aurelia was shaking by the time he had finished speaking. "So-so what, is my...is he going to die?" her voice quickly grew desperate. "Will my mother and I be left alone?" Fear quickly replaced the blood in her veins, mixed with grief and a chilling sense of dread. Her breath came in short, panicky gasps, her mind trying to comprehend what he'd told her. Her father was probably not going to live.

"Kestreel..." she whispered, holding back tears, "is there any way, any way, that I can help him? I just need him back..."
 
He looked at her. "Well, there is a way..." He sighed. "Your father suffers from what the old books say is 'Carcinodes'. It is said that that illness is not curable, but the tales and old manuscripts say that, the ancient elders, found once a moribund traveler, who said to come from the highest mountain. He who had cross the largest desert, and descended into the abyss of the great constructions that were built in there." He was reciting the words as he had been taught. "The wanderer of the oceans, the one who had seen white sands and transparent seas." he kept looking at her. "The traveler that found the cure to all, and every illness in this world."


He took a deep breath, feeling better. "If we analyze those manuscripts, it says that the dying traveler was found carrying three items. Thee items of such power that they were able, not only to cure illnesses, it says they were also able to grant eternal life." Then he looked away. "But that's all it say. It didn't say where to find such items, what are those items or neither how to use them." He chuckled. "It's probably, just a tale for kids. Sorry."
 
He's going to die if we don't do something, thought Aurelia as he spoke, the realization not helping her any. "K-Kestreel..." her throat felt like it had closed up, tears threatening to spill over, "he's my father, I can't just give up on him. He'll die if I don't at least try, and maybe die if I do, but at least I wouldn't have given up..." She was visibly crying now, trying to, and failing, at imagining her life without him.
 
Kestreel sighed. "Do you realize that this could be only a tale, right?" And even if they decide to go find the cure... "And even if we try to find the cure... the journey could take months, even years." He looked at her. She was really minded to do wherever it took to help his father. "I don't know if I should..." Muttered him. "Okay, okay..." He took a deep breath, still not convinced at all. "Let me think about it tonight. Alright?"
 
Her heart felt like it was breaking again as he told her that it could take forever and a half to find something that might help her father. However, the cracks seemed to mend themselves when he said that he would have to think about it overnight. Unable to hold back, she wrapped her arms around him, crying tears of joy into his shoulder. To think that now there was a hope to make her father well again...it was unbelievably wonderful. Letting him go, she nodded, smiling a little.
 
He smiled. "Come on, now rest. A great journey awaits us tomorrow." He leaned back on the chair and slowly closed his eyes, thinking what to do next. There were too many things. Where to go next? Who to ask where? All the questions always found the same answer; the mage guild. But it was going to be damn hard to find it those days. And was also her father, he was not going to last more than a few months. Luckily for them, Kestreel had a solution for it too, but it required him to rest. He sighed and tried to sleep.
 
She smiled softly, lying back in the chair and closing her eyes. Sleep came easy to her this night, something that hadn't happened in months, and she was soon lost in a dreamless darkness, a light smile upon her face. It was late in the morning when she awoke, and her mother was already about. After changing in the other room, she helped her mother make a simple breakfast of what she had bought yesterday, and set it all on the table.
 
He waked up in the same position he got asleep, the noises of people walking from one side to another made him got up. He helped in all that he could, and when he had the chance of talking to Aurelia alone, he put his hand on her arm, making her stop for a second to talk to him. "Did you talked with your mother about what are you going to do? And what are they going to do while you are not here?" The journey was going to be long, really long, and Kestreel felt bad leaving her parents alone.
 
Aurelia looked away slightly shamefully. "I haven't yet. I...I'm not good with telling people what I'm doing..." After a second, she looked back up at him, and said, "I'll talk to her." She left him, going to her mother.

"Mama," she said, sitting down next to her on the couch, "I am leaving, possibly for a very long time, but when I get back, I might be able to make Papa better. I've got some money saved, it's with the bank, so you should be okay for a while," she gave her a weak smile, trying to help, but it was obvious her mother was in a shock of some sort. "I-I just have to do this..."
 
He stood quiet, looking at Aurelia giving to her mother the news. It should be really hard for both of them to get trough what they were going to have to. They were going to be separated for a very long time, there was even, the possibility of her never coming back. Kestreel stood silent the rest of the time, and when they where ready to go, he looked at them. "I need to see your father again before we part."
 
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