Tale of the fireborn

The lesson learned is only as good as the teachers understanding.

I woke up Tara still sleeping next to me. A view on the clock. Half past five. Almost four hours of sleep. Amazing. I got up. Grabbed my training pants, my personal maroon leather jacket which might have been my mothers at some point. The blouse I choose was just a tiny bit flowy but extremely elegant. A must for me around here looking elegant but still enough soldier like for my people to feel comfortable around me. Morning formation would start at half past seven. The Academy students would all be eating breakfast in an hour. I had some time left to get a head start of the day.

After pinning up my hair properly in a sort of up do. I gave it a glimpse of a second but chose not to put up the runes again. I got used to my white hair. My deep green eyes wit amber speck. The prominent scars on my chest. I roamed over them from time to time. Feeling them got me back into reality once in a while. I closed the door as quiet as possible behind me. I left for the kitchen and how could it be different, Mrs Carlyle already had a coffee mug ready for me. „You are amazing, very good morning Carlyle", I greeted her sitting down right there in the kitchen.  The private kitchen of the family and personal staff of the family. They had been carefully chosen. The Carlyles had been here since before my mother was born. Trained by my great grandparents  and kept on since then. She stayed on as head cook even parallel runs the Academy's kitchen sometimes and manages most of the female Family staff. He manages the household and the male staff and not to forget he ensures etiquette at bigger dinners we have to occasionally give.

„Good morning Dear", she answered putting down a plate in front of me. Pancakes with fruit and some meat aside. I gladly started eating. Nothing we get at the fake front I had been stationed lately. Tasty and good for my soul as a start into a very full day. I took a sip of coffee and started telling her: „My parents came by yesterday. Hallucinating after a bad bite." „Both of them?", Carlyle asked concerned. I nodded: „Oh yes. I put them back together. They should be on their way in a few hours. Willow will see them off after checking them out." „Ahh, you are a very good daughter you know", Carlyle reminded me. She always had the right words, reminders or the right food or drink to make me feel better about whatever. I muffled my plate empty and thanked her: „I missed you very much." „Me or my food?", she jokingly asked to brighten my mood. My reply was nothing she expected: „Only the coffee."

I stood up and got going. Back up the stairs in the lounge. So quiet. No one sitting around talking, laughing, joking. I miss that. The last tie I really had that was in my own academy days with my friends all in one place. I walked past the stairs over to the healers wing. Students studying especially in that wing lived above the recovery wing. I passed recovery and walked the steps down to where the action lived in this particular wing. Healers and Physicians busy working on Labor and delivery patients. „Attention!!", a young student shouted through the ward. Every single pair of eyes turned to me. I nodded and said firm: „Keep going. Thank you Cai, be so kind and see me to whomever is in charge this night shift?" „Of course Ma'am, follow me", he started walking past a few beds and stopped. Metis.

„Professor Metis", I greeted her, my half aunt. Metis smiled at me: „Nice to see you in one piece back here."  „I missed Temzarr quiet much. Can you get me up to speed around here in a few minutes?", I asked and Metis started running down all the patients. Just a few farming accidents that went worse than anticipated but no bad emergency's. A lot of Labor and delivery the past week."  Not unsual around here since the trainees got trained a lot harder than a normal midwife or physician outside the castle walls. Everyone always had a chance to be trained here not many use it tough. „We have had a few close delivery's. Children were checked out properly and observed for a few days. Two deaths under and one before birth", Metis ended her run through the patients. No hug no nothing. We weren't that close. I wasn't even that close with my other half aunt Kyora. I never had asked if they have any contact at all with my mother. My grandfather was quiet the gigolo. But I had to find all these things out by myself. Instead of leaving I asked her carefully choosing my words: „Have you seen Maura lately or Oleander?" Calling my parents by their first name is weird especially when I had seen them this close to it. She shrugged with a bit of sadness in her voice: „ I haven't seen Maura in almost fifteen years." „Mmhh, I was wondering if they might have been here before they stopped by...", I shrugged back and since we had done our briefing I kept going.