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Shamaness Indeed	By : miladygrimm Category: Anita Blake > FemmeSlash Views: 1777 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Anita Blake, nor any of the characters aside from Taini Shadowhawk. All other characters are property of Laurell K. Hamilton. I do not profit from this fanfic in any way

Chapter List
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Taini wished she had not said anything. They were all looking at her as if she was crazy. Even Micah who had kept his face as bland and open as possible had a look of disbelief. However, she did not really have time for worrying, not right this moment. She moved between Merle and Micah who were blocking her way. Nathaniel had Caleb cradled in his lap, Caleb tried to push away but Nathaniel’s cool hand pressed him back as gently as he could.
“What are you going to do?” The blonde nudist asked.
“I’m going to heal him.”
“I thought you had never been around lycanthropes before.” Micah asked.
“What do lycanthropes have to do with anything? I’m a shaman.”
Anita seemed to be the only one who understood what she had said. “And your people kicked you out?” She said her voice full of surprised disbelief.
“They hated the fact I was a lycan more than they accepted I was a shaman.”
The man with blue tinted hair blinked in confusion. “Does someone want to explain what she’s talking about?”
Taini was not going to back off. She had to help. She knelt beside Nathaniel, delicately transferring Caleb’s head from his lap to hers. She placed her hands on his temples and waited for her eyes to stop seeing, so her mind could See. She had tried before to explain what she did to others. Her friends, her teachers, some of the community had all wondered just how she was able to do the things she did. It simply was not easy to explain. How do you explain color to the blind? She leaned over him until their foreheads touched. Caleb whimpered. She shushed him gently. She pressed her hands to his chest in a move that would have been sensual if there was anything but professionalism to it. She let her eyes flutter closed…and then she Saw.
It was like looking at a body through a sheet. You could see the outline, the basic shape, you could tell whether it was male or female but it did not really matter. What mattered were the Threads. You could call them Lifelines, spiritual cords, the outlines of a soul. It did not matter. The few who could see them knew how to weave them. A Shaman knew what they meant. In a person who was comfortable with themselves, happy, healthy, content with their life the Threads looked like perfect spirals. The Thread weaved itself along the body in a circular path, moving slowly inward until it connected to their core. These happy people were rare.
Most people had a few breaks, a few knots, and some overlapping threads in their bodies. Symbols of physical or emotional pain that were not dealt with Caleb was who her Sight was focusing on now, and he was a mess. There were breaks in his cord everywhere, and his spiral was broken. It was as if some great cat had come along and decided to play with a bit of yarn till it was knotted and broken. She took a deep breath. She could not heal everything. It was far beyond her power. Instead, she focused on the breaks in his head. She saw the fresh rips in his skull.
She could heal them. She was certain.
Her spirit rose up. There had been a time when it was just a projection of herself. Now that she was a lycanthrope, it was different. The leopard was connected to her spirit, it was as if the two had combined somewhere along the way. She let her spirit hands/paws move across the broken lines, pushing and weaving them together. Caleb twitched beneath her. Before her accident they would never twitch. They used to be at ease. Nevertheless, her paw-like hands were not nearly as delicate as they should be.
“Shh Caleb….Shh…I’m nearly done.” She whispered. The Leopardess flowed into him, wrapping around his wounded spirit like a blanket. It left just her hands to do the work. Caleb settled instantly in her grasp and she smiled. This was a good bit of news. She continued, working the threads together, healing, mending, doing what the Spirits had granted her the ability to do.
When the last thread was back in place, she pulled very slowly away. She did not want to pull away suddenly; the spirit could not handle that. She had heard stories of Shamans, and Medicine men, and Healers who had never recovered from cutting away from a patient. She called her leopard back, let it pour into her, let her own astral self take it’s place within and sighed. She sat slowly up; her forehead was sticky with sweat for being against his. It did not matter. What mattered was the look of awe on Caleb’s face.
“What…was that?” He asked, not yet moving.
“I healed you.”
“But, you were like…” He fumbled for a word. “Connected.”
She nodded, feeling her eyes flutter. Her head felt a little light, but that was mostly normal after a healing session.
“Well now. That was impressive.”
Taini turned to the unfamiliar voice. A middle-aged woman stood there, her eyes were shinning with intelligence. Taini did not need to see her life cords to know that she would have a near perfect spiral. This was a woman who was comfortable with who she was in every aspect.
“How is Sylvie?” The naked blonde-haired woman asked.
“She’s…not doing well Cherry. “ At last, the nudist had a name. Sure, it was a fruit. At least it was a name besides a state of nudity! The eyes of the middle-aged woman (who could only be Dr. Lillian) locked unto Taini with a steady gaze. Taini felt for a moment she was looking into her grandmother’s eyes. “How often can you do that?”
“It depends. Caleb only had a small wound in the skull. It was easy enough to fix, but every healing is tiring. It takes a little something out of you. The longer I have to weave them back together…the longer I’ll have to sleep.”
Lillian sighed and looked around. “Sylvie is refusing to heal. She is hurting. It is not just physically. I wish I had a better answer, but I don’t.”
Taini stood expecting someone to stop her…Anita stepped up to the plate. “I don’t trust this.”
Micah frowned. “Why not? You saw what she just did to Caleb.”
“Whoopee…that doesn’t mean I’m going to jump on the lets trust her with Sylvie train. What do we know about her?”
Taini was confused. She hadn’t hurt Caleb. So why was this woman so suspicious. “Has your life been so hard that you would see darkness in help?” The woman in black stormed up to her Taini got the feeling she was supposed to be intimidated. She wasn’t. Taini could feel the power flowing off of her in scalding waves. Heat was nothing. Her people had made a living off of the heat and the sand. The line from which she descended turned fire into something beautiful. She had a choice to make. She opened her arms and let the heat wash over her, she soaked it into her skin and used it like a shield. She could have pushed it back. But that would have been seen as a battle. She did not want to do that. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. I’m looking for a home. Let me help…please.” Maybe it was the please. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t really fought back. Or maybe it was the sudden cry of pain from the guest bedroom.
~~~
Anita was first to the bedroom. Taini was close behind. The person she saw looked pitiful. The woman wore a business casual shirt, pale blue and buttoned down, a small scarf around her neck, dark navy dress slacks that looked like they were only pulled half on. It looked as if she had tried to dress and fallen over, probably not that far from the truth. It wasn’t surprising either. The woman was beaten bloody. Fists had pounded her about the face, she could see bruises on her hips, and she could tell by the shallow ragged breaths that ribs were broken. She couldn’t hear what Anita was saying to this poor woman but it didn’t seem to matter. Words were useless. The woman wasn’t listening. She was crying. It was not traditional crying with tears and sobs, but shallow hopeless dry tears. Taini moved towards the bed, ignoring Anita’s protests. Anita did not understand, and Taini could not make her…she could only show her.
She took Anita’s hand and placed it on her shoulder, “Watch.”
Taini had done this before, but only with her grandmother. It had been a gift then. For Anita it was simply proof. She heard Anita’s questioning tone, assumed she was asking the were-leopard what the hell she was doing, but the hand did not move from Taini’s shoulder. Taini moved down to the ground, kneeling next to the tearlessly sobbing woman.
“Go away…” Sylvia muttered hoarsely.
Taini shook her head, but the woman was still turned from her. “I cannot do that.”
Sylvie looked this time. Was it the tone? Perhaps it was the fact that Taini was unfamiliar. Taini felt her heart break at the face of the short haired brunette. The woman looked so broken. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here to help you.” Taini said softly placing a hand gently on the bruised cheek. Sylvie jerked away, which only made her cry out in pain. “Please…don’t fight me, I only want to help.”
“She’s gone…”
Taini had learned that long ago, people wanted to talk when they were hurt. It was something she did not understand, but it helped. They seemed to need to distract themselves from the physical by talking about a memory, a hope, a dream…anything. She pressed a cool hand to Sylvie’s shoulder, “Tell me…”
Sylvie looked at her with soft brow eyes, rimmed red with tears. Taini just held her gaze for a moment. Something there must have made Sylvie trust her because she relaxed a little and began to talk.
“Gwen and I have been arguing lately. She doesn’t like the Pack, the way it’s going, the unease, or everything I’ve had to do to help keep order. She used to be proud of me. She used to tell me I was her warrior wolf. I think it’ll be okay, I think it just needs more time. I can’t just leave. They’d slaughter Richard. I made a promise, and oath. “ Sylvie went quiet. She was speaking in the half explanations of shock victims. But it was all Taini needed. She angled herself till she was knelling at Sylvie’s head, She did not have her head in her lap like Caleb’s had been, But this would work just as well.
Taini opened her mind to Sylvie’s. She felt Anita behind her, but didn’t look. Honestly she didn’t want to know what Anita’s lifelines looked like. It wasn’t her place. She was only showing Anita what she did. She was sure there would be questions later. But She seemed to understand that she wasn’t hurting anything. Sylvie however was a little messed up. There were hurts that ran deep that Taini couldn’t heal. Sylvie must do those on her own, but she could help the physical pain. That would have to do for now. “Keep going.” Taini said softly.
“She didn’t understand. She seemed to take it as me choosing Richard over her. I thought she would get it. She’s a psychologist, my oath means a great deal to me” Sylvie sighed as Taini went to work. She fixed the strain in her jaw first. She’d taken a good punch to the mouth. It would make the talking easier. “I love her, I love her so much, but I can’t just leave. I have a home here, a pack I have been with all of my lycan existence. I believe in what Richard is trying to do. I stand by him, why wont she stand by me? We argued, she called another clan in Maryland. She wants to go there, her brother has a practice up there she could join. I yelled, I told her to go, I got mad. I didn’t want to hurt her, so I told her to just leave. I regretted it. I took a moment to calm down, I found out where she’d gone…and she got mad at me. Then Caleb interfered.” She sighed. Taini didn’t need to know more. “Richard found out what happened. He got so mad, started screaming about me crossing lines, disobeying orders. I wasn’t there to challenge anyone. I just I wanted to talk to Gwen. He thought I had gone looking for a fight. He wouldn’t listen to reason. He had made up his mind, he was angry and he needed something to hit. He choose me.”
Taini brushed her hands over the strong shoulders of the woman. She wished beyond wishes she could take away the pain of this little woman. “Then what happened?”
“I woke up here, I tried calling Gwen, but she wont answer. I left messages everywhere I knew…but she isn’t letting me through. I thought if I could just get up, if I could just go find her….but she doesn’t want to see me. She doesn’t want me anymore.” The tears had started again. Now that the eyes weren’t nearly as swollen she began to cry.
Taini didn’t know what to do about that. She, instead, concentrated on her work. She knitted and wove together the strings, fixing what she could. It was an arduous task, there was so much to knit. Whoever this Richard was, he had done a thorough job hurting her. When Taini got to Sylvie’s rib she sighed. “Don’t move.” She whispered. She felt Anita’s hand clench on her shoulders, “She’s got wounds on her ribs that scrap all the way into the bone. They aren’t just cracked,” Taini explained, “They are in pieces.”
She saw Sylvie looking up at her, “How are you doing this?”
Typically Taini wouldn’t have answered, but the woman at her knee and the woman holding her shoulder both seemed to need to understand, so she tried to explain. Besides, maybe if she talked through the process, it would help her concentrate on the process itself.
“Some of my people believe in lifelines. Not just connections with a certain person or place, but a cord that flows all through us, circling inward to your core. When you are hurt, this cord is broken, If I can fix the cords the healing will take place on it’s own.”
Sylvie nodded, and Taini gave her a smile that she couldn’t see. “It’s like yarn, when you pull to hard on it, it can break, unravel, or tear. I weave them back together. It lets the energy within you continue to flow. There will always be scars, if not visible then on the cords themselves.”
Another voice asked, “Is it just body wounds?”
“No, it’s not. When something hurts you, truly hurts you there will be breaks. Heartbreak isn’t just a sad word. It’s real. The cord flows everywhere in the body, from the crown of your head…all the way down to your toes,” She smiled, “It flows all the way to your center.”
“Center?” Taini recognized the rumbling voice of Merle. She wondered suddenly who was watching what she was doing.
“Your core, your center, It’s not an exact location, it’s your place. I can’t explain it.”
Anita chuckled at that one, “Not easy trying to explain magic to others is it?”
“No it’s not.”
“So, you’re saying you can fix heartache?” This from Cherry.
Taini shook her head slowly. “No. Not really. I can tell you were it is. I can tell when someone has problems with intimacy, or if someone isn’t right in the head…and I can urge to cords to align themselves…but the person has to be willing. They have to want to let go of whatever it is that’s keeping the spirit from flowing like it should. Like therapy, if the patient isn’t willing to let the healing take place…it wont.”
Taini took a slow deep breath. The cords over the ribs were shredded, there wasn’t enough of them to knit them together like this. The wound could leave Sylvie with a permanent breathing problem. “Sylvie?”
“Hmm?” Sylvie asked blinking up into Taini’s too close eyes.
“I need you permission for something.”
“What?” Sylvie and Anita chorused.
She forced them both to see the wound through her eyes. Anita already could because of the connection. However, Taini usually blocked the person she was working on from seeing what she was doing, it had a disorienting effect on people who weren’t prepared. It looked at first like a well tenderized steak with bones still embedded in the meat. They could see Sylvie’s cords now, they shimmered in the flesh like a long strand of flexible opal. But over the wound it was like a broken necklace. Bits of cords where everywhere, there was no way it was going back together. “If I do not fix the wound, even with her healing it could mend badly, she would not be able to breath properly again.”
“Meaning?” Anita asked.
“No more running, she could not fight without getting winded, even walking up and down several flights of stairs would hurt.”
“What are you suggesting?” Sylvie asked, her soft amber brown eyes serious.
“I’m suggesting to mend the cord with a bit of my own.”
Lillian spoke up now, “Can you do that?”
Taini nodded, “I can…but…there will be a connection. In part I’m using my soul to save hers.”
Anita shook her head, “I am not for mingling souls. Why not let Micah call flesh?”
Micah shook his head, “Sylvie is not overly fond of my touch, my healing is sensual.”
Sylvie shook her head, “No offense, Micah.”
Micah shrugged, completely unperturbed, “None taken.”
Sylvie looked back at Taini, “Will it hurt you?”
Taini smiled, “You worry if you will hurt me, that speaks well of your honor. No, it will not hurt me. I will be tired for some time, but it will not hurt me.”
Sylvie nodded and brought one hand up to cover Taini’s it did not shake. It was warm and confident. “Do it.”
Taini asked no more, She closed her eyes, and opened herself even more. The beast poured out, sliding into Sylvie’s body before Taini could stop it. Her leopardess seemed curious of this obviously strong werewolf. The wolf inside Sylvie sniffed and growled. Taini got the sense that it wasn’t personal, it was leopards in general. Her leopard lay on it’s side, exposing it’s soft underbelly in an international (least in the animal kingdom) sign of peace. The wolf sniffed once more, pushing against the leopardess. The leopardess Stayed still, not submissive, but not aggressive either. The wolf finally gave in and relaxed, the leopardess wrapped around her and waited.
Taini reached into herself. She took a bit of her own cord, from the chest, right where Sylvies wound was and began to thread it in. For a moment the thread between the two of them stayed connected, she felt Sylvie’s pain. Not just the pain of the fights, but the pain of loosing Gwen. She saw into her heart for a moment. Long enough to see that Sylvie knew she’d been loosing Gwen for a long time. That she was almost thankful that Gwen was leaving, finding a place where she belonged. Taini shook her head, that was none of her business. She slid the cords into place firmly. Willing them to unite, to bind…and like magic they did. Her cord disconnected from Taini and melded seamlessly into Sylvie. Taini sighed. “I can do no more today.”
She pulled back slowly, unfurling her beast from around Sylvie’s wolf, sliding back into herself till they were no longer connected. Anita took her hand away, Taini sat slowly up, kissing Sylvie’s forehead. Sylvie’s hand still held hers, tears decorated her cheeks. Taini resisted her impulse to lick them away, to comfort and nuzzle. It was harder to resist than usual. Must be because she was so very tired. She teetered a moment.
Sylvie frowned, “She’s cold.”
Taini shivered, “I don’t…feel so good.”
With a soundless ‘whoosh’ the world seemed to disappear into blackness.
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Shamaness Indeed