Ties to the Wanderer: Part Five

Part Five: Cure

The door slammed open. The Wocky ran in, practically flying up the stairs.

     Akirinia and Lyco entered a bit more slowly, hurrying up as well.

     They lined up beside her bed, for it was a sobering sight.

     She lay as though in sleep, her breathing shallow. She did not move, only lay there, in the sleep not-sleep.

     "Think this'll do it?" Will asked, even though he didn't even know what the 'cure' was. Still, he'd stay to make sure she was alright. Even though he wasn't exactly much help.

     "It has to." Akirinia handed a scroll to Wanndiasan. "This should be the counterspell."

     The Wocky stared. "No wonder we could not break it before," she muttered. "This is almost unbelievably complicated!"

     The siblings shifted to encircle Keladra, Dia muttering something under her breath.

     After a while, Keladra opened her eyes.

     She sat up, her sister quieting, muttering something herself.

     She blinked once, then said, "So you did it. You brought my soul back."

     Wanndiasan hugged her tightly. "Oh, Kel!"

     Kel squeezed her sister back. "I missed you, you know."

     "Of course I know. But that doesn't stop me!"

     "Indeed. And now, it will not have to."

     They all laughed, then Kel and Dia said, in unison, "How about we go have lunch?"

     Laughing still, Keladra went off to make some.

     "It's been a while since I heard that," Lyco remarked.

     "Aye," Aki agreed. "It's good to hear her laugh again."

     "Well, this is heartwarming," Will laughed, placing his hands in his pockets. "Lunch does sound good, though, right?" He glanced at Lyco and Aki, grinning a bit. Weird, how all this came from somebody talking to another.

     "Aye. I hardly thought about eating, the last few days," Akirinia remarked. "Shall we head downstairs?"

     "I'm there!" Wanndiasan replied, for, indeed, she was.

     "Downstairs, upstairs, doesn't matter to me." Will laughed, already heading toward the steps. "Oh, right. Ladies first, of course." He stood aside, allowing Akirinia to pass first.

     The Acara went down and joined her sister, their brother diving through the spiral stairs and landing neatly at the bottom of the steps.

     "One of these days," Akirinia remarked as they entered the living room and sat down, "you're going to scare me to death, doing that."

     "Aye," the Shoyru replied, grinning mischievously, "and then I won't have to listen to you scold me!"

     "And I'll scold you three times as much to make up for it," the Wocky retorted.

     Lyco rolled his eyes. "I'll never escape!" he moaned dramatically, his sisters laughing gaily.

     Even Keladra could be heard laughing from the kitchen as the pots and pans clanked almost musically.

     Akirinia's gaze fell upon a piano in the corner of the room, instrument cases lying about it. Noting that, Wanndiasan said quietly, "Aye, I think she shall. It's about time she did again."

     "I hope so," their brother replied. "It would be so good to hear it; it's been so long."

     "That it has," the Acara agreed.

     The Wocky laughed suddenly. "Remember the time I almost broke it?"

     "You tripped over my drum," Lyco said, enjoying the tale, "and crashed right into Kel. She fell forward into the piano. Fyora help us, that sound was awful! I've never seen her more upset than that; she was so afraid it was broken."

     "And then," Akirinia added, trying hard not to laugh, "to top it all off, you tripped over Dia's tail and landed on top of me-"

     "-and almost broke the flute!" Dia went on. "It went flying and landed right on my head. That hurt so much I can still feel it sometimes! And we were laughing so hard it took forever to get untangled; we had to stop playing because we couldn't play for laughing!"

     He was pretty much rolling with laughter at their story. Sometimes, he sort of wished he'd had some sort of humorous memory with his ragtag bunch he called a family. Well, maybe there was.

     "That sort of reminds me of a time when Ashley, a friend of mine, had decided to take up piano for some reason. We never really understood why, she just did. Anyway, once she'd actually found a place to take lessons, Diego ended up accidentally falling onto the piano while carrying a Baby Fireball. Still don't know why he was carrying that, either. Except the piano caught on fire, and the place had to be evacuated." He laughed a bit, before adding a quick, "We were banned from the place."

     Lyco and Wanndiasan chuckled, but Akirinia merely stared in horrified fascination.

     Wanndiasan rolled her eyes at her prim-and-proper sister, sending her brother into even greater waves of laughter.

     Suddenly the Wocky cocked her head.

     "Listen," she said. "Do you hear that?"

     Her siblings quieted, and there it was: a sort of humming sound.

     "What is it?" he muttered, listening closely to the hum. Somehow he figured, since life is just that way, that it would mean something bad was about to happen. "You don't think it's... her... do you?"

     "I think just that," Wanndiasan replied. "It's Kel."

     Akirinia smiled. "She's singing!"

     And the words of an old tune floated in just then, a sound that had not been heard in a long while:

     "I went from my home to a land not far,

     A land not so far away,

     And I took for the journey but a single jar,

     But I vowed to return one day.

          Oh, the road is long, and longer grows,

     The end is nowhere near.

     The one whom I love so much never knows,

     And for so much I fear.

          I went from that land, from that land not far,

     To a land so far away,

     That once I was there, I had only my jar,

     But the jar had much to say.

          Oh, the road is long, and longer grows,

     The end is nowhere near.

     The one whom I love so much never knows,

     And for so much I fear... "

     He sighed with relief, glad that it was Kel and not what's-her-face. Thank goodness it wasn't! "She's a pretty good singer," he admitted, listening for any more of the song.

     "Aye," Wanndiasan agreed. "Now to convince her of that... "

     Akirinia smiled.

     And Keladra went on singing, unaware that they listened.

     "And there in that land, in that land so far,

     They heard what I had to say.

     And I put another memory into my jar,

     And then went on my way.

     Oh, the road is long, and longer grows,

     The end is nowhere near.

     The one whom I love so much never knows,

     And for so much I fear... "

     As he listened for any more of the song, he sighed a bit. He was quite surprised at what all had happened! Even though he was quite the wanderer, he'd never been on anything such as this. Well, he had yet to see the results of his wandering, but this proved that things might just go well after all.

     "So, how are we gonna celebrate?" he asked.

     "Well," remarked Keladra from the doorway where she had appeared, "I suggest we start by having lunch."

     "Sounds good to me," Will laughed as he stood. "Where's the dining room again? I sorta forgot," he muttered, grinning nervously. Typical of him.

     Amid the general laughter, Wanndiasan managed to say, "I thought the spell wore off?" which sent them into even greater waves.

     They crossed the house and sat down, still laughing as they began.

     "Remember," Lyco began, "how I got my name?"

     Shaking her head, Akirinia muttered, "Seriously. No one in all of Neopia has a more idiotic name than your official one."

     "What about Ignico?" Lyco replied.

     "Very well. You do realize your name is based on his?"

     Wanndiasan just rolled her eyes.

     "I thought his name was based on Lyco's," Kel countered.

     "You're getting nicknames and official names mixed up again, sister," said the Wocky.

     "This is making me wish I had a name other than mine," he muttered, laughing a bit. "Will? You can't get anything from that, unless you're trying to get me to write one." He smirked, recalling a joke someone had pulled on him.

     "I though Will was your nickname," Kel said innocently.

     Lyco nodded agreement.

     "If you ask this one old guy, 'Frazzle Snazzle' is my nickname," he muttered, an embarrassed look on his face.

     Wanndiasan laughed, hearing that.

     Smiling, she asked, "So, if you're a wanderer like me, Will, where have you been to?"

     "Where have I been to? Well, Brightvale, Meridell, Terror Mountain, Mystery Island, I've been around."

     "I went to Mystery Island once. It was much too humid for my liking."

     "Which," Lyco muttered, "didn't stop you from exploring every inch of that jungle."

     "I kind of forgot what I was there for," he muttered, scratching his head a bit. "I guess it was a sort of break, but I'm not totally sure. I heard it's a great vacation spot, so I went there the second I could."

     "We just went there because we hadn't been before."

     Kel, who had been listening all this time, asked quietly, "So, what happened after you left to look for Wanndiasan?"

     "Well," Wanndiasan said, "almost as soon as Lyco left, I got caught. I don't care to revisit those details I do remember."

     Lyco looked at Will.

     "Well, he went off to check her tent, I think," Will said. "And while I searched the city, the same thing happened to me. I guess I should've learned not to trust things like that."

     "I thought she was still there," Lyco went on. "It took me three days to find a letter she'd written. Then I went to the Glade to seek Illusen's help, because that's what the letter said."

     "Kel," Akirinia interjected, "woke up shortly after you left, but didn't get up. Not much later, she started screaming about Dia. Then she fell into the Sleep stage. Three days later, the same day you found that letter, apparently, she woke up again. She... showed me some things about myself. And then she said, 'Watch. Wait. Be ready.' So when I found out what had happened - Lyco stopped to tell me, since Meridell is so close - I went with him to help."

     "Meanwhile," Wanndiasan resumed, "Will and I had a good bit of... discussion. At one point I tried the stone-crumbling spell, but she found out and stopped it; she warded the walls after that."

     "Then," Lyco went on, "we went to Faerieland, because we knew what had happened at that point. Of course, when we got there it was fierce, but luckily we had a secret weapon..."

     Akirinia snickered. "Who would guess Jhudora is afraid of Cheery Plants?"

     Lyco chuckled at the memory. "You should have seen her; she looked like she couldn't retreat fast enough!"

     Wanndiasan laughed, and even Keladra smiled.

     He had to laugh a bit. "Actually, I wouldn't think she'd so much as be afraid of that Darkest Faerie I've heard so much about. I'd overestimated her, it seems." Will smirked, trying to think of something. "I remember a time when we had given Diego - keep in mind, he's the one who fights - a little 'present'. When he opened it, a Spyder crawled out and he was up a tree in five seconds."

     Wanndiasan shrugged. "Aki used to be terribly afraid of Spyders."

     Akirinia shuddered.

     Lyco, returning to seriousness, remarked, "When the Drifting got cast, we had no idea who'd cast it. But it seems Dia found out..."

     "It was her," said Wanndiasan. "Apparently, Kel bumped into her on her way back from the bookstore."

     "She was scary," Kel added quietly. "I dropped half the books. She obliterated all of them and a good bit of cloud, then went off. I thought I would never see her again, and it would be too soon."

     "But apparently, she didn't forget," the Wocky went on. "She was just waiting for a more opportune time, or something..."

     "Anyway, that was when Kel stopped coming with us," Lyco continued. "Aki stopped too, partly to keep Kel company..."

     "... and partly because I don't much like traveling," Akirinia finished.

     "And whenever you went off again, Dia," Kel said, still quietly, "it felt like part of me was missing. And I would stop caring about the world around me. I would close myself off, to stop the pain..."

     "And that's what the Drifting is," said Akirinia, who had seen the most of Keladra at those times. "She drifts away from the world, slowly, so slowly. That's why we called it that."

     He had no reply to that.

     Kel, oddly enough, was the one who rescued them from the silence that fell.

     "Say," she said, addressing Will directly, "would you like to hear that piano after lunch? I... I am not especially good at it," she stammered, casting her eyes down suddenly, "but I fancy I can play well enough."

     "Kel," Wanndiasan said, exasperated - they had clearly had this argument before - "you're a wonderful player, and you know it-"

     "But that is exactly the problem," Kel said, turning to her sister. "I do not know any such thing."

     Turning back to Will, she asked, "Well?"

     "Sure," he replied, leaning back in the chair. "Sounds pretty good to me, I haven't heard piano since I was young. It'd be pretty good to hear someone decent play it again." Will laughed, referring to the one who had taken piano lessons and all that stuff that got them banned from the place.

     She smiled.

     Arising, Akirinia said, "That was delicious, Kel."

     "Thank you, sister," Kel murmured quietly.

     "Now," said Lyco cheerfully, "to the piano! My, but some usage will do those old instruments good. I bet they're getting lazy!"

     The five crossed the hall accompanied by the sisters' laughter over the ridiculousness of lazy instruments.

     "It was delicious." Will nodded, following them across the hall. "Lazy instruments? It can happen, believe it or not! Have you ever seen a piano that hasn't been played in years? It sounds like something a Screal would sound like!" He laughed.

     Entering the room, the instruments were quickly moved out from under the piano.

     "Let's sing that song you heard, Dia, what was it called..." Lyco suggested.

     "The Roving Song?" she replied.

     "Yes, that's it."

     "Do you remember the music, Kel?" Dia asked.

     "Of course."

     "I learned it from a gypsy who passed through here a while back," the Wocky told Will. "It's meant to evoke marching, in a sense, but not as an army marches. As... well, as the roving gypsies march."

     The siblings chose instruments.

     Akirinia took a violin, Lyco a drum.

     And Kel took a flute.

     Dia took nothing.

     They began.

     Will took a seat, since he didn't really have anything to offer or know the song they were playing. Might as well be entertained. Leaning back in his seat, he began to enjoy the music, quite surprised with what he heard. It was some of the best he'd heard in a while, and it had only just now started. Well, truth be told, he hadn't really heard any music in a while, but still.

     First there was only the sound of Wanndiasan singing the melody, her low voice suiting the song.

     "Ah, ah ah aaah, ah ah-ah ah ah aaa-aaah..."

     The notes drifted up and down, repeating that same pattern over and over again.

     On the second repetition, Kel took up the notes, soaring above them with her flute; the same notes, an octave higher.

     Then Akirinia began the same pattern on her violin.

     Lyco beat the drum with his tail, hovering above it; the same pattern, resounding through the room.

     The song had no words, or at least, none that could be found in any dictionary.

     It did, indeed, somehow evoke marching, ordered, but not like an army.

     As Wanndiasan had said, it sounded like the marching of roving gypsies.

     Will felt as if he were being entertained for some reason. What did he deserve this for? He wouldn't deny they had great talent, and wouldn't say they couldn't play or sing, but he would indeed question the reason they found it appropriate for now. This was more a celebration for them, and their family. What was he doing there?

     When they finished the song, Kel turned about to look at Will, her head tilted to one side.

     "Did you like it?" she asked, her eyes full of an unreadable emotion.

     "I did." He nodded, feeling somewhat relaxed by the music. "You guys really have the stuff to get in the concert hall one day, if you ask me." Will grinned, yawning a bit. "Sort of therapeutic."

     The sisters giggled. Lyco just smiled.

     Glancing slightly at the sun through the windows, he noticed how late it was getting. Darn, the gang would be wondering where he'd been! "I hate to run in all of this," he said, sort of disappointed. "But I've got someone to meet. If I don't get there, things will go real bad real fast." Will sort of didn't want to go back just yet. He knew he'd have to eventually, but for the moment he wanted to stay.

     Wanndiasan understood. Nodding, she said, "Off you go then, I suppose. By the way, if you ever meet that gypsy, tell her the Drifter has been cured and all is well. She's a Faerie Xweetok, and that combined with her odd manner of dressing and her status as a gypsy should make her easily recognizable. And then there's that song. Only her band of gypsies sings it."

     "Farewell," Kel whispered. "I shall miss you."

     "Aye," agreed Lyco. "Safe journey, Will."

     "Good-bye, Will," Akirinia added.

     "Much as I hate to," he said, trying to find the door. Figures. He'd gotten slightly lost in the house. "If I do see her, I'll tell her that straight away. May the time pass easy and the moments go slow," he called, once he'd found the door. He sort of regretted leaving. Oh well, what's done is done, what must be done must be... well... you get it. He left the house, continuing on the journey he'd been on.

The End