In reply to Brighid Spenser (msg # 725):

"It's all my fault." Yehudit said. "I made him fall over, I hit him."

Difyr wanted to sit down and watch Aalyssa work on Aron, but she did not have time for that. Too many patients. Too few supplies. She looked through what Questa had brought her yet again, still not finding what she wanted. She sighed and got Yehudit a glass of water, hoping Brighid would be comfort enough for the girl.

In reply to Yehudit Buckley (msg # 728):

"I am sure you didn't mean for it to happen. You need to send positive thoughts to him, send your love and your strength to him. If he can't fight for himself, you need to fight for him. It was all I could do Uncle Shawn when Jeremy hurt him so badly. Your father needs you to fight for him."

"I never deserved him for a father." Yehudit said, hating herself. Everything would have been better if she had never been born.

"Nonsense. Your father has loved you beyond reason since the day you became a family."

"Loving me has been beyond reason... Accepting me was beyond reason. I'm not his daughter, you know what I came from." Yehudit fretted. "I don't look like Mama, I've always must've taken after him... Now Papa's hurt and won't wake up and it's my fault."

Brie sighed. "Now listen to me. Anyone can father a child but not everyone can be a father. Aron loves you from the very depths of his heart. It was an accident and he knows you didn't mean to harm him." She decided to try a different tact. "Do you think Shawn loves Sileas any less than he does his own children? That he doesn't know in his heart that he is her father despite having not been the one to create her?"

"Papa can't know anything- he hasn't woke up!" Yehudit was panicky. "How Uncle Shawn thinks about Sileas, or Papa about me doesn't change what I am.

"You are you. You are no one else. You are not whoever fathered you, you are not your mother, you are not anyone but yourself. And what you make of yourself is entirely up to you." Brie rubbed Yehudit's back as she spoke to her. She wished she had some of Sileas's tea.

"I'm the one who stabbed a man to death." Yehudit said, referring to the slaver from the mines. "And I'm the one who hurt Papa so he can't wake up." Yehudit was afraid she had killed Papa too.

Difyr wished she had that tea too, but she was unable to grab any when they fled the village and it looked that Questa did not bring any from her stores when she scouted with the others. The calming tea was just one of several things Difyr really missed.

"Sometimes we have to do things we don't like to protect those we love. You were protecting your sister and cousin. And your father...he's strong, he'll wake up."

"What if he doesn't wake up?" Yehudit asked. He was so still.

"You can't give up. He's strong, he's a fighter. Some injuries, it just takes a while."

Aalyssa was growing paler as she sent strength and healing to Aron. Just as she was nearly white as a cloud, he moaned.

Yehudit shook her head. "I killed him, or nearly killed him." She couldn't look.

Aron's fingers twitched and he moved his head slightly. The movement elicited another groan.

"Are you all right?" Difyr asked Aalyssa, she could not afford to lose the other healer. She pried open one of Aron's eyes. "Mr Buckley, can you hear me?"

"Mmmm," was all Aron could say.

"I...I just need rest. I've never...expended that much magic and healing before," Aalyssa said weakly.

"Lay down." Difyr urged. WHatever Aalyssa had done, it looked like Aron was going to make it. Difyr glared at the knights who helped bring Aron in, they were standing around looking and not being of any use. "Go get Mrs Buckley, she will want to see her husband."

The two knights hurried from the room, wishing the young healer would make up her mind. Get Mrs. Buckley, wait on Mrs. Buckley and now acting like they hadn't bothered.


----to the Buckley room

Aalyssa nodded and got to her feet. She shook and rocked then slowly made her way to an empty pallet.

Liadan burst into the room.
"What happened? What happened?" She demanded.

Aron moaned again.