Tales of Arcadia: Mordred's Curse

Part 11

She didn't know what time it was. Frankly, she hadn't really been keeping track. She'd helped get all the guys home after the last of them went, and till this day she wasn't sure on how she had the strength to do so.

Irene finally went up to check on Cara sometime around midnight.

The late silence was almost loud enough to make Irene break right there and then as she closed the door behind her, sitting by her sister.

Her gasps were shallower now, weaker, like she wasn't fighting as hard to keep breathing.

Irene's posture tightened as she sat there, her shaking heart trying to decide if it was okay for her to cry or not. She'd been trying for weeks to no end. Trying to smile or at least keep her obvious tired out of the way. Her parents were always at work, and when they came home, they could barely pass trips up to Cara's room without tearing up. Aiden had been the most confused about it all out of them. He didn't understand why he or anyone else couldn't just heal her, and he'd gotten into fights over the fact we didn't try harder. Irene had even resorted to those points a few times during late nights, trying to convince herself of different ways to go about this in-between coughs from Cara in the next room. She hadn't been to her own house in a few weeks either, and the last time she'd seen her friends was when Amy came by with a get-well caKe. They seemed to understand why she wasn't meeting up with them, and she knew it, too.

Despite not wanting to think about it, Cara was laying right there. She'd rarely even heard of cases of this actually happening, and the fact nothing seemed to work, even after Krel went up there, made a part of Irene want to scream, but the rest of her literally couldn't bring itself to anything over a soft voice without tearing up.

"W..." Irene finally tried to speak, only hoping there was a chance Cara could still hear her.

She closed her eyes and pressed her weak hands her legs, almost to a hurting point to sing quietly, "Flowers fade, the fruits of summer fade, they have their season so do we..." Her heart finally decided to let her go. For the first time, it let her be the one to cry when she lost something, but now that it was happening, it wasn't anything she'd hoped to feel ever again.

"But please promise me that sometimes... P-please just..." Irene whimpered quietly as she put a hand over her mouth and leaned over herself.

"You will think-" Irene said quietly after what felt like an eternity of physically aching sobs," ... Of me."

Hours could have passed at this point, but even when Irene's body felt like it couldn't bring itself to move away at all, she was still shaking with frantic nervous cries.

She took Cara's hand at some point.

She'd reached for Cara's arm a few times, before this day, the number of spells she'd been trying to counter the effects with no luck was insidious.

Finally, her haze was broken by a movement- Cara's fingers twitching, and then very weakly closing around her hand.

She'd heard her breathing going quieter, but as Irene jerked her head up, she realized it had gotten smoother, too.

Irene couldn't even try to heal Cara at this moment, her overuse of spells from the past weeks taking a deep effect. Even with her desperate attempts of healing her days before, it couldn't do more than maybe make her voice less sore. The fact Cara was finally breathing normally wasn't some super sense of her magic messing with her, it was actually happening.

And believe it or not, even with these circumstances, Irene was composed enough to know her head and she knew she was just going and imaging this either.

"Ohmyhex," Irene fell into a strange mix of harsh laughter and crying, which finally caused a much too close to waiting by Cara's door Sofia and Jordan to come in.

And then Cara took a deep breath, clean and clear and calm.

"She's breathing," Irene said quietly in Aquan as she rested her elbows on her thighs and her face in her hands.

"Irene?" Cara said hoarsely.

She cleared her throat. "It feels like someone shoved sandpaper down my throat."

Sofia gasped, and Irene didn't have to see to hear Jordan's confusion and overjoy.

Irene just laughed with a tired weight seeming to lift from her," What about a pound of flowers?"

"Oh, yeah, that'd do it," Cara noted, laughing a little. "Hey, I can laugh-"

"How is it working?" Jordan spoke up, going on his knees next to Irene, "I mean- it's been hours, everyone has left?"

"My lungs were full of roots," Cara pointed out. "Didja think those'd just vanish...?"

"Cara, do you remember anything?" Sofia asked quietly as she went to sit by Cara's legs on the bed.

"Yeah..." Cara flushed a bit and smiled to herself, hugging her knees. "He sang to me."

"Half of those guys were in theatre," Sofia muttered quietly.

"Mom, it's Krel," Cara said flatly.

Sofia gasped again and finally went over to tackle hug Cara. It was unclear on if she actually processed what Cara had said or not. But I guess we don't ask those sorts of questions.

Jordan sighed. "Really? But the hair..."

"I like it, it looks fluffy," Cara said, patting Sofia's back.

"You haven't touched it? It's really soft," Irene said. She paused, "To clarify, He asked me if his hair looked okay once when he was waiting for you before school one time... It was really cute."

"Guys can be sensitive about their hair, I didn't wanna bother him," Cara mumbled.

"Ey, that's a good thing. If you respect his personal space he's more likely to respect yours," Sofia said as Irene got a teasing look.

"Bold of you to assume he could invade my personal space without getting decked."

Sofia chuckled. "He wouldn't know what hit him."

"Oh, he'd know exactly what hit him- the fist of a beautiful girl, that's what hit him," Cara mumbled. "But it wouldn't matter, because he's not the type to invade my personal space anyway."

"... does this mean we have to let him back in the house?" Jordan griped.

Cara stopped suddenly and grinned. "Wait. I can go to SCHOOL again."

Then she looked horrified. "Oh, great Gaylen, did I actually sound excited about that?"

"You can go today if you really want to, but ONLY today, you need to rest after that," Sofia said.

"... Mom, I've missed two months of school," Cara said.

"Okay, nevermind, you're going to school," Sofia muttered, "But you have to get some sleep if that's happening."

"Yes ma'am."