Nonsense

Lynx bounced into my house with that unlimited, joyous, bright energy she always seemed to possess.  I had to smile as she smiled at me.  Her energy was infectious, and I had to enjoy her company.  Children had that magic to them, a different magic that the Empire despised.  Theirs was a real magic that made them so…uniquely and wonderfully different from adults.  Children had that innocence, that laugh, that way that they were sure the world was good even when staring into the face of evil.  Lynx had that naïve belief in the world, and I would not be the one to tell her otherwise.  We all wanted her to see the warmth to the world, not the cold.

She released Tempus's hand and darted over to me, scurrying under the desk I was leaning on and popping up right in front of me.  I chuckled as she threw her twiggy little arms around my neck and tried to climb into my lap.  After living alone for so long Lynx was always so incredibly desperate for physical affection.  I pat a hand to the center of her back, always unsure if I should boldly hug her in return or if that would be inappropriate.

"Hello Lynxie."

I missed you!

It had been two days since she last saw me.  To Lynx, that was almost a lifetime.  She was still having difficulty transitioning from the muddy swamp we found her in to a home and a developing town.

"I missed you too," because I actually did.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tempus smiling like the cat that ate the canary.  He was having so much fun watching this, wasn't he?  In a few minutes he would be commenting on how I tried so hard to be tough, but in reality I was just a big kitten.  Maybe I was, but not all the time, and not with every child.  Lynxie was special.  She needed extra care, and it felt like the entire island was pitching in to take care of her.  It takes a village…

Does your head really hurt?

"Yes," I said shutting my eyes.

There was a powerful migraine sitting behind my left eye.  It felt like a white-hot poker constantly stabbing into my head, taunting me with a few seconds of freedom before stabbing me for foolishly thinking I was free for even a moment.  Headaches and migraines were nothing new to me.  In fact, if they ever disappeared completely I would go to the doctor straight away.  I've always had headaches and migraines; to live without them would mean that something was wrong.  That didn't mean I liked them, I simply knew how to live with them.

Lynxie chewed her lip and repositioned herself on the arm of my chair, her feet on my thigh.  She didn't really understand personal space, and we were afraid she likely never would.  I sighed as I looked down at my pants, now decorated with her dirty footprints.  It seemed I was doomed to be either dirty or soaking wet today.

"And where is Nonsense?" I decided to ask instead of informing Lynx of the new footprints on my pants.

Lynxie smiled widely and touched her scarf.  In the background I saw Tempus tilt his head.

"Nonsense?"  He echoed, his eyes scanning Lynx a few times.

Perhaps he couldn't sense Nonsense?  He looked positively confused, which meant I had the advantage for the first time in a while.  Now, I was fully aware that I could have easily told Tempus what Nonsense was, but that would be too simple.  Especially since this was the man who scared me into the river, nearly broke into my mind, and then sent me into shock by pulling me into space.

So instead of taking the easy route, I smiled thinly at little Lynx.  If there was one thing Lynxie understood, it was games.  She grinned right back at me and hopped off the chair.  She rushed under the table, to Tempus, and then held out her arms.  Tempus looked confused for a moment, and then there was a glass-shattering screech.  The traveler barked and held his ears, completely unprepared for the call of a sheredara.

I barked out a laugh that made my migraine hurt even more as Tempus jumped.  Something like purple and black sand seeped out of Lynxie's scarf, wrapping around her arms and taking a blobby, almost snake-like form.  A pale of bright yellow eyes appeared in the blob, and a crooked, jagged smile opened on the developing face.  Another glass-shattering screech, like that of some monster atop a lonely mountain, came from the sand and it jumped at Tempus.  The traveler shouted but the shadowy figure swirled around him, and then reformed holding onto his shoulders.  He twisted his head slightly to take a look at it.

Nonsense had finally made himself tangible again.  He was a fat snake with wide wing-arms and very opposable joints.  Whatever this neutral form was he always favored, and I had never really figured out what it was.  Maybe all sheredara's looked like that, maybe they didn't.  There were too few accounts of them and very few pictures and photos.  Sheredara's liked their pranks to be seen, not them.  I watched as Tempus took in a careful breath and held out a hand to Nonsense.  Bright yellow eyes caught the slow movement and Nonsense stuck out a very long, very flexible tongue, wrapping it around Tempus's hand and holding onto it that way.  Tempus didn't look amused.

"…How…lovely…" he staggered out.

"Isn't he just?"  I couldn't help but chuckle.

Nonsense pulled Tempus's hand towards his maw and gummed on the appendage.  Tempus still wasn't enjoying Lynxie's favorite best friend in the whole wide world, her words not mine.

"Lynx…how did you get Nonsense?"  Tempus asked.

She giggled and swayed in place.  Apparently she wasn't going to tell the story so I took that role.

"Lynx has explained on a number of occasions Nonsense found her when she was lost in the swamp."

Tempus raised an eyebrow at the words 'lost in the swamp'.  I made a mental note to explain Lynx's…unique circumstances once she was gone.  Now that Nonsense had been introduced Lynx bounced back to me and caught my hand.

Is your head too bad for a lesson?

I considered her inquiry and tried to reach for my magic.  The migraine that had been starting to wane instantly flared and I hissed under my breath.  Lynxie frowned and suddenly was hugging me again.  It was very hard to keep track of her when she could move (a) incredibly quickly and (b) was inhumanely flexible.  Lynx could fit herself into the oddest of places.  Gregorian had told me of how he kept finding her squished between the edge of his couch and the wall.

"What would you be teaching?"  Tempus asked with a smile.

Now that he was free of Lynx's sheredara he was able to smile.  Nonsense had moved from clinging to the traveler to sitting on a pile of books and singing like a sparrow.  Sheredara's were so odd.

*********

"Oh no," Warren instantly frowned at me.  "Nothing that I'd permit you to teach."

I could hear it as Lynx started assaulting Warren's mind with a million questions.  Most of them revolved around why, can he teach me, does he have magic too, and so and so forth.  A little bit of a smirk moved over my lips as I watched Warren twitch and shut those glowing eyes.  All those questions in his head must have been aggravating that migraine.

Really, I had the right to take a little bit of pleasure in his pain.  My hand had been slobbered on by a…shapeshifting…singing…screeching…thing.  It's not as though I wasn't used to weird creatures on different worlds, but most of the time I could sense them coming.  Whatever Nonsense was, it was able to become completely imperceptible.  When he was hiding he was putting out so little energy that I honestly had to try to sense him.  Of course now that he revealed himself I could find thousands of others of his specie, but that didn't change the fact that they were incredibly difficult things to find in the first place.

"I have psychic ability too.  Let me help," I offered politely.

"No."

Why not?

"Because."

Because why?

"Yes, because why?"  I frowned.

"I don't need to explain myself!  I'm the teacher, I say no!"

That's not fair!

"No it is not.  Lynx, tell me what he's teaching you and I can help while Mr. Warren—"

DeSeppes.  She corrected.

"—Mr. DeSeppes nurses his migraine."

"Lynxie—"  Warren attempted.

But he was too late, I had already stolen her attention.  Bright green eyes looked so happily to me.  Lynx didn't understand pride, or the fact that Warren had an immense feeling of responsibility to this girl.  She just knew that another person was trying to help her, and that was enough for the child.  Another reason why I loved children: there were such sweet and trusting things.  They were always so precious.

He's trying to teach me to do what you're doing.  Read minds without having to touch someone.

"Oh that'll be easy," I said with just a little flavor of arrogance.

"Oh, what, and I can't teach now?"  Snapped Warren as I wounded his pride.

I grinned and Lynx mimicked the expression.  She scrambled away from Warren and caught my hand.

We usually work outside.

I nodded and then waved to Warren.  He was clawing at the arms of his chair, leaving marks in the wood.  A little chuckle escaped me as Lynx dragged me outside.  Sometimes it felt just too good to best someone.