taennyn | Wild Roses fic prompt 072 "Fixed"

Title: fix
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; second Ian
Prompt: 072 "Fixed"
Word Count: 544
Rating: all ages
Notes: follows previous, the next night or so. I still don't have a name for her.

" . . were you aware you'd blocked off something like eight parts in ten of what marks you as an active mage?"

"Vaguely?" His hair ruffled, raked back from his face with intent alone because he couldn't raise his hand to do it physically. "The more active I was, the more I hurt. So I stopped."

"I'm amazed you're not dead--I've never even heard of anyone getting this close to shutting down entirely and coming back from it."

He smiled up at her. "I've always been a bit lucky."

She snorted at him, but it was amused. "Get some sleep, sweetheart. We'll start getting food into you tomorrow."

*

" . . Ian?" demanded a woman's voice, and his stomach twisted, pulling him abruptly out of sleep.

"Nnh? What?" That wasn't Phoebe. Who was that?

The attendant paused, staring down at him through a haze of light, and he breathed out.

"Your name actually is Ian," she said flatly, not really a question but incredulous anyway.

He blinked. "--didn't my cousin tell you?"

"No, he didn't. I wouldn't have believed him if he had, though, so don't throw anything at him for it." She stretched her fingers, plucking at a few strands within the web hovering between them. "You're incredibly well named, by the by."

"Thank you, I think. What is that?"

"A few thousand years ago, one of the deshae-i noticed similarities among the synaptic pathways in people who'd learned and practiced the Trick--I'm assuming your namesake's Trick, considering you're all but dripping Sabaey, too." She finished whatever she was still doing to the pattern, then flicked her fingers, making rolling-up motions, and the web rolled up in response, eventually becoming a core of searingly bright light before it winked out. "Whenever we get a mage in, we try to get a look at the patterns, and record them. Notes are compiled as we cross paths. Someone started calling it 'the Ian project' a while ago."

"Any conclusions to be drawn yet?" he asked, curious despite himself.

"Some mages get along with the Trick better than others. You can barely tell where the Trick stops and their own pathways start. Then there's ones like your cousin." She shook her head, nearly laughing. "I had to toss his results the first two times, and I haven't tried since. He's . . chaotic. I had a half-second where he looked like you, and the next he was thinking in helixes and pools, with no sign whatsoever that he'd ever even learned the Trick. It was incredible to watch, until he woke up and threw his water pitcher at me."

Laughing at her expression made his sides hurt, but he couldn't really stop snickering. "Get that a lot, do you?"

"The water pitcher trick? Only sometimes. You're the best patient I've had in a while." Her eyes crinkled up at the corners as she smiled at him. "I'm sure that will change once you can actually move under your own power again."

"I protest! I'm very easy to get along with."

She snickered. "Most are, until you find the sticking points. Want to start? You look rather awake."

"Years of sleep will do that," he told her dryly, thinking, then nodded, as much as he could.