Part 10
“And, though we don’t want to make our apology seem in any way insincere, and we don’t want to seem like we’re making excuses, but we think it’s only fair to point out that we were being supervised. Quewanak was watching us. We didn’t even have to ask, because Quewanak is always watching us. And we’re pretty sure if anything had gone wrong, he’d have had Hilsith here and alert a moment later. He would have had a perfect psionic record of what we’d done, and she’d have it by the time he got her here. And besides that, all of you really are great teachers. There wasn’t really any danger, because we really weren’t working beyond our training and abilities. We knew what we were doing, and Hilsith’s evaluation confirms this. We were just making us more like Valentia, which seems perfectly safe, unless we’d completely bungled the whole thing. And we’d have noticed something going wrong long before it got that bad. We took it really slow, and did each tiniest possible step one by one, and checked that it was good before we did the next one.”
“I understand, son, but emotions aren’t logical.” Mark told him, and looked to Helemia to include her in what he was saying. “As far as the state of Alilia’s spirit is concerned, her only other child died just a short while ago. We brought him back, but that was four days later, long enough to have hurt Alilia so badly that her soul may bear the wound for centuries. She’s understandably terrified that she’s going to lose him or one of you again. So you scared her even more than you did me and Talia.”
He paused, and some of his own anger and irritation became apparent. “And you managed to do the one thing, the one thing that could scare us like that! We can save you if you got blasted into nothing but scattered dust and mist, we can save you from almost anything, but a whole bunch of extremely tiny brain injuries? Who knows? You wouldn’t be injured enough for the Resurrection to work on you, you might not even be injured enough to affect you in any way, but I’ve already learned enough about Healing to know that even the tiniest brain injuries can have a huge effect, from insanity to a lifetime of seizures and convulsions, or complete personality change, or loss of specific mental abilities, or loss of control of part of your body, or internal organ failure. Even your innate magic Healing won’t work if you’ve messed up any of the parts of your brain that make it work. Considering what you were working on, a permanent impairment of your ability to use magic would have been the most likely side-effect, which would have been heartbreaking enough. And with the injuries being as small and as many as there would have been if you’d really screwed up, there’s a good chance that no Healer in the world could completely fix you again. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we wouldn’t have been as scared if you’d cut all three of your heads clean off!
“And on top of all of that, avoiding mistakes caused by unexpected events is largely a product of experience, and at less than two years old, you still have almost none of that! I’m sure you think you checked for every possible problem, but I can guarantee that in twenty years, you’ll have thought of at least five things you could have done better and safer in your operations tonight.”
“Please, don’t argue about it.” Alilia said as she wiped her eyes and tried to pull herself together. She took a deep breath and stepped back from Talia, holding Valentia, and faced the twins.
“Look, I really am very proud of what you’ve accomplished. Awakening Valentia’s psionics and your magics are both amazing acts of brilliance from all three of you.
“But please, just promise me that you won’t do anything more to physically alter your brains, at least until Hilsith declares you to be fully qualified as professional Healers. And even then, please give me a bit of time to prepare myself for it! I’m just too damn old to take that kind of an emotional shock again!”
her own tears, just
“We promise, Alilia.”
meant to cause any problems, and we never thought we would.” Helemia added. “But Father’s right. Not really thinking about how it
your apology.” Alilia said, took a deep breath, and
that is; Happy birthday Valentia! You are
you Mother, I love you very much too!” Valentia giggled
she went around to everyone else and gave them hugs and kisses
to her breakfast. She and the twins ate for almost an hour before they were finished, then they begged off on the picnic lunch trip their parents
made it plain that she didn’t want a huge birthday party in the gathering hall like the one the twins had arranged for themselves, but the guests at her party were
had been given in every way, and since she hadn’t asked anyone to not give her presents,
to almost-exploding. Sometimes it seemed almost random, sometimes it formed beautiful and abstract symmetrical patterns in the
to call out psionicly; “Enough, my darlings! It’s very beautiful and
the children finished up with an incredible