It lives! In a way! For those of you who caught the horror that was this story originally (titled "Complicated Steps"), expect scrambling of plot, timeline, and possibly character personalities. Cilem actually sort of has a soul in this version - you just have to squint to find it. Try to forget how awful my writing was on the original version of this.

...Also, it shouldn't be an uphill battle to punctuate mindspeech. I'm looking at you, ffdotnet. Maybe this was why I got frustrated with these stories in the first place. I'll be using - speaking - instead of : speaking : until someone informs me how the hell I can keep my punctuation.

I don't lay any claim to Mercedes Lackey's universe or background ideas; this is for fun and completely devoid of profit.

Konitsu

•••

His name was Shane Draiver, and he was not, to his mind, an alcoholic. He was, in the simplest and most brutal of ways, very desperate. Life had become a disconcerting mishmash of the day-to-day tasks of remembering to breathe and keeping himself sane, and the alcohol helped. Shane suspected that cutting out bits of his brain might help even more, but wasn’t yet drunk enough to think he’d survive the process.

Fire and blood and fire, the dead and the laughing and those that were both. Bloody fingers, the fear-deep hiss of true pain.

Sometimes, Shane woke up screaming; most of the time, he was too busy vomiting. No one in his family understood, and knowing this he never told them. Mother, Father and six siblings could only say that he was acting a little odd – and he’d always been just slightly askew.

Shane was not, traditionally, the type of person envisioned when one thought of a Herald. There was a goodness in him, though, and a soul tearing need. For once in his life, the gods took pity.

•••

Vala stopped mid-conversation, threw her head back, and looked as surprised as her horse shape would allow. Nik, obviously torn between happiness that her insults had been interrupted and worry for his sister, whickered in concern.

- There is a most unpleasant buzzing in my skull, - Vala told him, saddling her ears. - If I ignore it, it will go away. -

After all, that strategy worked on most things.

- Your call! - Nick exclaimed, brightening visibly. - You can’t just ignore that! -

Vala thought otherwise. She’d been quite content without a Chosen mucking about in her mind, and was perfectly happy to remain that way for a good long while, thank you very much. This ‘job’ hadn’t been her first choice of afterlife, and damned if she’d make it easier on anyone except herself. No one allowed in her brain, no sir.

- Your Chosen needs you. -

If the current batch of Trainees were anything to go by, her Chosen would be a hyperactive lunatic who only ‘needed’ her for a daily administration of violent common sense. They’d find him strung up in the stable rafters within a week. How Vala would manage such without opposable thumbs was not the issue.

- Do you want the belled tack? - Nik asked, sternly ignoring Vala’s perpetual bad mood.

That decided it. She could go Choose with her dignity intact if she left now. If she hung about any longer she ran the risk of being noticed and forced into a jingling monstrosity. Vala didn’t even want to go through with this, damned if she’d do it with bells on.

•••

A helpful kitchen girl opened the house gate, knowing better than to deny a Companion. Vala hoped that she was bound to one of the servants and not a noble. The upper-class was so insufferably…upper-class.

The boy tucked into a garden corner came as something of a surprise. His clothing was finely made, but in her experience nobles generally didn’t go venture into the slightly grubby outdoors just to have a good cry. What sort of teenager worth his salt had crying fits, anyway?

But something in her said –

No. Oh hells no, Vala commanded herself, backing up a few steps on the soft moss. She was not going to join the angst brigade in their special weepy day parade, she was not. She’d seen what came of that, and it was generally ‘over stressed Companion’. It had obviously driven her brother right off the deep end, after all.

The boy looked up and uncurled somewhat from his ball, revealed that he wasn’t so much a child. His brown hair was cut almost unfashionably short, his watery, wary eyes a painfully unattractive shade of green-gray, and he obviously had one growth spurt to go until he stopped being on the wrong side of awkward. Not a heartbreaker, obviously not hyperactive, and right now…

The most important damn human this world had to cough up.

I’m getting mushy, Vala reflected, but she no longer had the urge to flee back to the castle and say she’d been sadly mistaken about the Choosing thing.

She stepped forward regally – as she was supposed to, being a Companion and what not – and made eye contact with him. She wasn’t prepared for the snap in her soul, as if a new piece had clicked irrefutably into place; she didn’t want new pieces, was perfectly fine with the pieces she currently had in their not at all objectionable arrangements, thank you very much. But…there was so much pain and confusion in him, like a lost, battered kitten…

As an only slightly less disgruntled human, Vala had always had a soft spot for kittens.

I dub thee Fluffy! She declared grandly (and sarcastically) to herself as she waited for her soul, both of their souls, to settle.

- Shane. - No use wondering how she knew his name, how she knew everything about him. - You are my Chosen. -

He stared at her, blank and uncomprehending. A moment ago she would have feared she’d managed to Choose the first simple minded Herald in existence, but now she knew very well she hadn’t. Not quite an open book, not yet, but she still knew damn well he was fully functioning in there. For the most part.

…wait. Fully functional -

Oh for the love of…

Vala saddled her ears. - You’re drunk, aren’t you, Fluffy? It’s noon. -

She felt like biting him, and he’d only been her Herald for a good two minutes; demeaning nicknames were definitely called for. Shane was obviously that stupid, runty kitten who ran into walls at every available opportunity and needed to be hand fed. Coddling was not Vala’s forte, and there were plenty of more motherly Companions open for Choosing. Obviously, this was an open invitation from the All Mighty Above to be a bit of a bully.

Tough love for Fluffy.

She stalked forward as best she could, and then grabbed the back of his collar in her teeth. Ignoring the startled, indignant yelp, she yanked him around and began marching him bodily from the garden and the estate. Never mind that their progress was a bit wobbly and his parents would probably think he’d been kidnapped.

The peanut gallery was going to have a field day with this one.

•••

“Don’t I keep you around to fend off these people?” Cil muttered to his Companion, wondering if it were too late to find a dark hole to hide in.

He’d only wanted a nice, relaxing stroll out of doors to work out the kinks in his back that came from sitting around reading for four marks. Peace, however, was something well beyond Herald Cilem.

- I fend off the nobles, - Nik said primly, - but I’ve been informed I’m not allowed to bite the Heralds anymore. Not even at your prompting. -

Which probably took a great deal of amusement out of Nikedes’s life; act innocent as he may, he enjoyed a good bit of violence just as much as Vala did.

Cil squinted at the two white blobs on the horizon – dutifully ignoring Nik’s remark about needing glasses – and was not at all amused to identify them. Nobody but Cory had hair that shade of red, and the shortest Herald in the Collegium just happened to be Selevin. Cil didn’t particularly dislike them, would even admit a sort of affection if pressed to it, but they were loud and chaotic and so many levels of what he did not need right now.

- Because they’re interrupting so much. I’ll tell them they need to reschedule outside your brooding time. - Nik paused, expression suggesting that he was painstakingly perusing a mental calendar. - Which is a whole lot of nev – Ow! -

Having long since become inured to threats of ‘harming a Companion is a hanging offence!’ Cil had no qualms about yanking on Nik’s mane to shut him up. The Companion was just lucky Cil didn’t have anything suitably hard to whack him with.

“Do you know what they want?” Cil asked, poised to flee if necessary.

- Has anyone ever mentioned to you that you’re socially avoidant? - Nik questioned rhetorically. - And I don’t know. Niari hasn’t mentioned anything, in between bouts of stalking me. -

“He’s not stalking you,” Cil corrected, mostly out of habit.

- Is so. -

“And even if he were, he’s allowed. Grove Born.” There were very few things Cil could fire back at Nik in retaliation for all the teasing, so he used what he had mercilessly.

- Inexplicably psychotic Grove Born, - Nik muttered, but his tone was mostly good natured.

“Cil!”

Selevin, despite being half a foot shorter and more than forty pounds lighter than Cil, nearly knocked him over when she latched onto him. Cil, mostly out of deference to the fact that she was a Firestarter and could very easily crispy fry him, let her stay attached for a good long moment before he pushed her off. That almost counted as a hug, from him. Cory, for once in his life, respected the personal space bubble.

Cil scowled at them. “Why?”

“Your conversational skills are shining, as always.” Cory grinned at him, arms folded over his chest, smile too broad for Cil’s continued comfort. “Dean Kari, despairing of ever getting you to listen to her, has asked us to stage an intervention.”

“A what?”

“You keep making Trainees cry,” Selevin explained, bouncing upon and down on her heels. “It’s not good for them. I always have to convince them you don’t hate them and want them dead.”

It seemed little matter that, a good amount of the time, Cil did want them dead.

“You play mind healer, not me,” he reminded her, then rounded on Cory. “And I don’t even see what this has to do with you.”

The King’s Own shrugged. “Kari knows you probably won’t murder anyone while I’m around. You’re a sweetheart like that.”

- Cory prevents murder, but I don’t? - Nik asked.

- You can’t get me hanged for it. -

The Companion snorted. - As if he would. -

Cil held up a hand, halting conversations both vocal and mental. “It’s nobody’s business how I teach my class. If they don’t like it, they can stop coming.”

“You’re the only Herald who knows languages well enough to teach them!” Selevin objected, rather more loudly than she had to.

“That’s hardly my –“ He looked up suddenly, startled because Nik was.

Selevin peered at him curiously. “What is it?”

“Vala’s back from her Choosing.”

“Already?” Cory cocked his head to one side. “That was quick, she only left this morning.”

- I think…- Nik stated carefully, - We do need to stage an intervention. -

Shane was not the first Trainee to come to the palace tear stained and still hiccupping with residual sobs, but he was the first one Cil had seen come in drunk. Selevin ‘rescued’ the boy from Vala, making soothing, motherly noises and trying to guide his faltering steps. Cory just looked very thoughtful, sort of far away; it was the look he got when elementals no one else could see were whispering in his ears. What vrondi or salamanders might have to say about drunken new Trainees, Cil couldn’t even begin to fathom.

“Well,” Cil said, dusting off his hands, “as entertaining as this promises to turn out, I have essays on the history of Karse to mark.”

“Oh no, you don’t.” Cory slipped an arm through his and started leading Cil after Selevin and the Trainee. “You’ll only fail them all anyway, with the mood you’re in.”

It was Cil’s not-so-humble opinion that Cory had no room to speak about ‘mood’s, seeing as the King’s Own had a tendency to traumatize important people. To make matters worse, Cory had that ‘I see something you don’t see’ smirk on his face. Danger was, perhaps, unavoidable.

“What are you thinking?” Cil demanded. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“It does if I say it does,” Cory said, his voice gaining a touch of More Mystical Than Thou. Stupid King’s Own and his chatty, semi-omniscient Companion.

“What are you not telling me?” Cil asked, suddenly feeling queasy. He knew a lot of Valdemaran legends that started with cryptic remarks, and…

“You’re not bonded to anyone, if that’s what you mean.” Cory knew him far too well. “And, as far as I know, there’s no Great Destiny in store. But, with my deep caches of knowledge that you are not privy to, I think you’ll get along with him.

Herald Cilem did not get along with people. He tolerated them to a certain extent; some more than others. He felt not the barest speck of tolerance or ‘getting along’ for the Trainee Selevin was nattering at.

- His name is Shane, - Vala’s thoughts invaded his own. - Don’t eat him. -

Technically, he wasn’t supposed to mindspeak Companions other than Nikedes, but he did anyway. When he’d first come to Valdemar – with a frighteningly strong Gift for thoughtspeech and no grasp of the spoken tongue – the Companions had been his only contact and anchor in the chaos. Generally, he liked the Companions more than most people he met. There was some quality about Mystical Talking Horse that made them disconnected from human problems, and thus easier to deal with.

- Have I yet developed cannibalistic tendencies? - he shot back.

- There have been rumors, - Nik chimed in.

Then again, sometimes having all those people in his head got a little annoying. Not to mention cluttered.

“Don’t you have anything official to be doing?” He asked Cory, finding that, sometimes, the best response to Nik and Vala was to ignore them.

“The Council doesn’t have any sense of humor. Amy is taking my place there until they find it in their hearts to forgive me.”

Occasionally, a Monarch’s Own was Chosen for their great diplomatic skill and deft debating abilities. Cory was in the position to keep Zaldrin and Amyvalia sane, balanced, and not stressed out of their minds; self-censure had not been included in the package.

“Besides,” he continued, “Selevin says you haven’t been socializing much lately.”

Note to self, kill Selevin.

“Do I ever?” Cil asked plainly.

“You have your moments.” Cory put on his Serious Face and Cilem wondered if it was too late now to flee. “But these past few months – years, really – you’ve been so melancholy. We’re worried about you.”

Somehow, ‘melancholy’ must have meant ‘bitchy’.

“We’re? You and Selevin, you mean.” They’d stopped walking, and now faced each other. “And how can I be in this ‘horrible mood’ for years and it’s only mentioned now?”

“I’ve forbidden Selevin from saying anything that might set you off.” Diplomatic Cory might not have been, but he was a master at the individual, if they were someone close to his heart. “I meant to bring it up sooner, but I’ve been…busy.”

There’d been a drought in Valdemar, the Queen’s miscarriage and new pregnancy, saying nothing of Cory’s strong lifebond to Zaldrin that urged him to do anything, everything he could. Busy was an understatement; leave it to Cory to find guilt in himself for doing his job, instead of babying grumpy friends.

“How are things?”

Cory smiled. “Beautiful. The rain is regular, no one’s singing predictions of disaster, the Healers say Amy’s going to keep this child, and Zal hasn’t worked himself into a pretzel. So I have time to baby-sit you again. I think a new friendship would be good for you, Syren.”

Of all the Heralds, only Cory could manage a perfectly accurate pronunciation of Cil’s real name, and he only used it when he really meant something.

“A friendship with a drunken wreck of a Trainee?”

It figured he was only good to hang out with dysfunctional teenagers – he’d never really stopped being one, even well into his twenties.

“He’s got Foresight, powerful. It puts things in his head that shouldn’t be there.”

That was exactly how Cil had desperately described his thoughtspeech Gift, years ago.

“Button pusher,” he accused.

“Yes,” Cory admitted, knowing he’d won. “Come on, before Vin talks his ear off!”

The customary beaming smile was back in place as he grabbed Cil’s hand and dragged him toward the Collegium.

•••

Shane couldn’t decide if he had a headache or not. The alcohol hadn’t quite worn off, so he couldn’t have a hangover, but this woman would not shut up. That was an overly rude thought, but Shane was disoriented and not altogether cheerful or charitable.

“It takes some a few weeks to adjust, but since you come from the city, you should be okay.” At least her chatter was semi-helpful. “Mostly, it’s getting used to the Companion in your head.”

Companion. Heralds. They wanted him to be a Herald…how? Why? He wasn’t very good at much of anything, and couldn’t imagine what he’d contribute to the Heralds. Maybe this was all a drunken hallucination – it wouldn’t be the first time something like that had happened. He just didn’t think he’d consumed near enough wine yet.

They’d walked into a building, past some people, up some stairs; Shane’s vision was sort of fuzzing together, making it hard to pick up on details and hold them in his mind. The disorientation was almost enough to get him to swear that he’d never drink in the morning again, but he knew he wouldn’t hold himself to that. Long since past was the time for making futile personal promises.

The Herald – she’d mentioned her name at one point, he really should remember it – rapped sharply on the door in front of them, still smiling and talking about something or other. There was a muffled call of ‘come in!’ from the other side of the door, and the Herald pushed it open into a cozily cluttered office with sunlight streaming in through the wide, glass paned windows. Shane shut his eyes as his head expressed its dislike for light of any kind.

“Hello, Selevin.” Ah, that was the Herald’s name. “What have we got here?”

“New Trainee,” Selevin chirped, still disturbingly cheerful despite the fact that Shane just knew he looked about two seconds from vomiting. “Vala’s.”

“Ah.” A million things that ‘ah’ could mean, and Shane didn’t want to dwell on any of them. “Have a seat.”

He opened his eyes just long enough to find and chair and collapse into it. He’d probably be mortified about all this later, when he was sober and healthy enough to worry about. Then again, a year of extremely steady drinking had given him enough time to adjust to people seeing him intoxicated.

A year of drinking…a year of the dreams.

If the death and fire he saw behind his closed eyes concerned the Heralds, why had the waited so long? Was there a mental suffering quota you had to meet before the talking horse actually got around to Choosing you?

Thoughts he’d never voice, of course.

He wondered, briefly, where the others had gone. When Vala had led him to the green, grassy grounds of the palace, they’d been greeted by Selevin, a tall man, and a redhead. They’d probably wandered off to inform…whoever it was they informed, that there’d been some horrible mistake. Hopefully they’d be nice enough to take him back home, as he wasn’t altogether sure he could find his way himself.

“What’s the Gift?”

Language was not processing quite as quickly as it should, at it took Shane’s mind a moment to catch up. Evidently, a moment was far too long for Selevin, because she answered for him.

“Foresight, mild mindspeech, as well. I don’t think Vala can reach him now, though. I’d ask Eleni, but I can’t reach her, either.”

Well, it was a better explanation than he could have given, anyway. In any case, it seemed a damn fool thing to call what was in his head a Gift. He didn’t want it, hadn’t wanted it since the bad things had started showing up in his dreams like grisly phantasms come to haunt him and him alone. Shane had never spoken of it to a soul; Selevin must have known through Vala, or one of the other Companions.

“The foresight is powerful?”

Shane wasn’t sure if he should be offended that they were talking about him like he wasn’t there; maybe they thought he’d passed out, which wouldn’t be an altogether unfounded assumption. Still, it was bad manners, at the very least.

“Eleni says that Vala thinks so. Extremely.”

“Poor thing,” the woman murmured, sounding honestly concerned about it.

Shane chanced opening his eyes to look at someone who wasn’t staring at him like he was a lunatic, or clucking disapprovingly. She was old, refined, and positively reeked of ‘grandmother’. When she saw that he was still in the land of the waking, she smiled warmly at him.

“I’m Herald Kari, Dean of the Herald Collegium here at the palace,” she told him, tone still soft and inviting.

“Shane Draiver,” he replied automatically, though she probably already knew his name. The ‘nice to meet you’ tacked on afterwards was also sheer force of habit, one he didn’t even need to think about.

Herald Kari tilted her head inquisitively. “Son of the Lord Draiver?”

Shane squirmed uncomfortably in his seat; his parents didn’t often like being associated with their listless, drunk son. “Yes.”

“Told you he was a noble,” Selevin piped up. “Most of the ones we have here now are Blues, not Heralds or Bards.”

“Nothing wrong with being a Blue,” Kari said, and something in her tone suggested that this was a well worn reminder. “Most of them are exceptionally intelligent.”

“’Most’ being the operative word.” A male voice, someone new coming into the room.

Shane shook off his vertigo and confusion to lean around the back of his chair and see who had come into the room. It was the tall one and the redhead, probably come to tell him they were taking him home now.

Dean Kari chuckled. “Someday, Cil, you will say something nice about someone, and I shall die of a heart attack.”

“Then I’ll avoid it,” he said. “I’d hate to kill you.”

“What are you boys doing here?” Selevin asked. “I figured you’d run off at the first opening.”

“Cory is the master of the guilt trip.”

The redhead snickered. “You besmirch my honorable name!”

Shane felt lost amidst all the friendly banter of the adults. These people were obviously friends, well settled into each other’s personalities and habits. It was like standing outside a glass room, pressed against the transparent wall watching something that would never be his.

Being drunk before noon obviously made him maudlin.

“This is Herald Cilem and Herald Corindee,” Selevin told him, noticing his gaze on the two men. “Cil teaches Karsite language and culture here, and Cory is the King’s Own.”

Shane couldn’t help it – he gawked. The King’s Own was nearly at the top of the list of Very Important People, and Shane was sitting in front of him, drunk and nauseous and incapable of saying one single coherent word. His mother would kill him when she found out. The King’s Own just smiled, though, and laughed a little at his thunderstruck expression.

“Don’t let your eyes pop out,” he teased. “Vala would take me to task for it.”

Quite sure that he was blushing an embarrassing shade of magenta, Shane turned back around in his chair and tried to block out the world. This was becoming far too much to handle.

“What does bring you two here?” Dean Kari prodded.

“Well,” Herald Corindee said brightly. “Cil has agreed to be a sort of sponsor to Shane.”

“I don’t remember saying that.”

“Yes, you did!”

Far, far too much to handle. Shane’s hands trembled.

•••

She was a pretty girl, in a porcelain doll sort of way. Her dress was too perfect, her hair too glossy and well brushed, her eyes too flat, to achieve any beauty that wasn’t…oddly haunting. Staring at her too long was like staring at the mannequin mockery of a real person, propped up in the window of a dress shop, unblinking.

Eight years old and gone away in her head.

Lucien brushed a lock of hair back away from her forehead, humming softly to himself to break the terrible, stagnant silence of his daughter’s room. There was really nothing to panic about; she just got this way sometimes, and always woke up from it feeling better than when she’d left. He almost envied her that private little vacation spot, always ready and open for her to escape to.

The mysteries of childhood; the mysteries of a Gift.

He’d never trusted the Heralds, not since the death of his wife. The fact that a child, his child, could suffer this unnoticed had only cemented his resentment in chilling reality. Lucien had no idea what the standards for this so-called Choosing were, but he hated them even so. They took the ones they had no business with and left the needy behind.

Elizabeth had been dreaming, lately, so loud and so terrible. She couldn’t even sort the images out, not that she usually could, but sometimes things came to her so clearly, useful things. All of this fire and death in her head was hurting her, gnawing away at her from the inside, taking up everything she had. It hurt him to see her like this, pained him to the very core of his soul.

But he wouldn’t go to the Heralds for help with his own daughter, he couldn’t. A cure would be found or forced out of them; Lucien Kostenth was a noble, and went crawling on his knees to no one. Especially not to them.

Lucien kissed the top of his daughter’s head and then stood up, closing the door to her room softly behind him as he left. Something had to be done, and it had to be done quickly. He had planning to do, so much planning.