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[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Set last Thursday, before the events of the weekend. Alison and Kylun meet for the first time and talk by the lake, on the school grounds.

Stranger in a strange land...

It was quiet and pleasant as Alison walked down the jogging path, the early morning sun streaming down through the trees as dust motes danced lazily about. She wasn't up to jogging yet with the brace, but at least she could walk now and not limp about anymore. It had surprised her how quickly doing nothing had started to drive her up the walls - normally between concerts and tours, she had relished the rare weeks of inactivity she could indulge in.

A sound caught her attention and she stopped, cocking her head to the side and listening carefully. The song was coming from the lake, and Alison didn't even consider walking away. Soon she was close enough to hear the words, the cadence was slow and measured as the unseen signer went on, seemingly unaware of her presence as of yet.

It was a woman's voice, warm and joyful, and the words of the song were in no language Alison recognized, rising in an exultant crescendo as the sun began to lift over the horizon.

As she drew close enough to identify the singer, however, she got a surprise--it was Kylun, perched on a boulder at the lake's edge, eyes closed and a wistful expression on his face as the song poured incongruously from his throat.

She stopped moving instantly, watching and wondering how he was doing that, the realization that it must be part of his mutant power an easy conclusion to read. The notion that she'd stumbled into something intensely personal and private was the second thing to come to mind after a moment of pure fascination. Carefully she started stepping backwards, despite wanting to stay and keep listening.

The song ended, and Kylun came out of his reverie; he cocked his head alertly, then pivoted on the rock, in perfect balance, to face Alison with a friendly smile. "Ah, good morning--Alison, is it not? Lorna's friend? I am sorry if I disturbed you." His voice was back to its normal timbre.

The whirling motion as he turned around caused Alison to pause, knees bending slightly - she straightened up a bit sheepishly at his open expression, her hands open at her sides. "Lorna's already talked about me?" She grinned crookedly, considering going with the 'anything said about me is a lie unless it's good then it's true' line but decided to keep that for some other time instead. "I should be the one apologizing." After a pause, she continued, casually. "That was a beautiful song."

"We had some time to talk during our travels." Kylun shook his head wonderingly. "Not very much time, to cover so great a distance, but some. And no apology is necessary. It is . . . a thing I do." He looked slightly embarrassed. "A little thing, compared to some others I have seen here--those who can fly, or command the winds, or see into the minds and hearts of those around them--but it helps me to remember." He smiled again, wistfully. "That was Sa'tneen's voice--my wife, as she sang our greeting to the sun one morning, shortly after we were married."

Augh. Alison sighed a bit and closed the distance between them, plopping down in the grass unceremoniously, giving only token care to her leg now that the brace was there to help. Even the faintly grumpy bleep of warning ("That one means you're being sloppy, m'dear!") from it didn't really get her attention and instead she looked up at Kylun calmly. "It's not what it does but what you do with it, that counts." She smiled a bit, the sunlight still warm on her shoulders and legs. "It's a beautiful song."

He nodded. "As she was beautiful. I wish she could have seen this place--she would have liked it very much, I think."

"You keep a part of the people you love in your heart, even when they're not present anymore." Alison smiled a bit, looking up at the sun contemplatively. "Maybe she is seeing this place."

"That is wise." Kylun sighed. "Still, I wish she were seeing it with her own eyes, rather than through mine." He shook his head, grief and incomprehension flickering in his eyes. "She held on for so long, alone against overwhelming evil . . . and it was Zz'ria's power, in my swords, that vanquished that evil, not any skill of mine--why was _I_ the one chosen to survive?" He blinked, then bowed respectfully. "Your pardon, please--I should not subject you to my grief on so short
an acquaintance."

Alison, who has since fallen back in the grass, resting her head in her hands, slid him a pensive look. "Why?" She sighed a bit, wrinkling her nose as the wind bent a dandelion in her face for a moment. "I don't mind. You need to talk. Lorna mentioned you'd been alone for a while - it's normal to reach out to people after that sort of thing." And it was refreshing, so very much, to see someone who would on his own. "And she had a beautiful voice. You can still share that with others... hardly a small thing." Paige would be beaming in approval at this, she knew - no power was a small thing, in her eyes.

I still remember the first time I saw her." Kylun smiled, remembering. "I was . . . very frightened, when I was first brought to the monastery. Surrounded by strangers, in an unfamiliar place--I had lost everything then, too, my parents, my home--and there she was, almost the first person I saw when we arrived. She told me it was all right to be sad, that I was safe, and I could stay with them. We were four. We were inseparable, after that. Different training, to be sure, but every other moment we could spend together . . . it was no surprise to anyone when we wed. I was never happier than in those days; I had love, and a purpose, I knew who I was and was doing what I was meant to do." He raised an empty hand, a helpless gesture. "And then in one senseless instant everyone I knew in the world save the two I loved best were slain . . . and those two lived only long enough for me to see their life run out with my own eyes. Everything I was, is gone."

Brushing away at tears, Alison took a slow breath, mind skittering away frantically over how she might feel if something of the sort happened Miles. Or - she shook her head a bit, letting out a slow, steadying breath.

"But you're still alive. And you're here now." She bit her lip, considering. "If everything was gone, would you have called for the Professor to bring you here?"

"It was the last wish of the man I loved as a father that I do so." Kylun cocked his head, smiling slightly. "Even in death he thought of others. It was his way. But it is very strange here--good, for the most part, but strange--and it will take time before I understand why he sent me."

"To find yourself again?" she suggested. It made sense of course - and well, that was what all the wise old men on top of mountains did, right? Send off people on quests to help others and
find themselves in the process.

Kylun laughed. "Perhaps. And no doubt it was a joke of his to send me on such a _long_ journey."

"The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." Alison smiled at both his laughter and the memories invoked by the quote. "And the first step is always the hardest." The wind changed again, grass shifting along with it, leaves rustling in the trees.

"Lao-Tzu." Kylun smiled. "Rinpoche was fond of that one as well. I seem to have begun with the journey of a thousand miles, however." The smile broadened to a grin. "I am a backward student, I fear."

A low chuckle greeted that and Alison flopped back in the grass again. "Well, you'll fit right in, then." She winked at him to show no ill will. "How has the settling in process gone, so far?"

Kylun slid easily down off the rock and stretched out on the grass himself. "Fairly well, I think, for a beginning. I think I am getting used to the lightswitch." He smiled lazily, revealing the sharp teeth he usually tried to keep hidden. "And Rahne very kindly showed me where the roast beef for sandwiches is kept. Meat every day is something I am growing used to very quickly indeed."

Her own smile widened at the sight of the fangs - nothing new, after Hank and Kurt, after all and something Alison herself found endearing more than anything else. Of course, that likely was because the two people she knew with fangs tended to be utterly charming around her. "Well, the kitchens are usually pretty well stocked, here." She made a mental note to talk to Lorna about something special for Kylun, if her roommate felt like cooking something extravagant at one point.

He nodded. "I have noticed. No one went hungry at the monastery, of course, but we did not have such variety." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "That seems true of many things, when I
compare the two."

Alison pondered, looking up at the sun again, pensively. "People from all sorts of backgrounds and different ways of life." Now that was an understatement if ever. She grinned a bit, unable to resist. "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations."

"I like that. It fits this place very well, I think." Kylun smiled ruefully. "Although that is one of the overwhelming parts, too, coming from a place that had been guided by one man almost since the beginning of recorded history."

"If people overwhelm you, finding a quiet spot," she gestured at the rock he'd been occupying earlier, "is pretty much considered the norm, 'round here. That or hanging a sign on your door. 'Busy, please invade or blow up room next week. Thank you'." She snickered as raised her hands, shaping the square shape of said sign in the air with her fingertips.

"We also did not have to worry about the room being blown up," Kylun said dryly. "But I will take your advice to heart. Thank you." He smiled again, speculatively. "You have been very patient with me, listening to my troubles, offering good advice. May I do something for you? In return for your kindness, and because I think you will enjoy it?"

Alison remembered the last time someone had offered that - Manuel, and that moment of perfection. She pondered his offer seriously, then simply nodded. One could not wall oneself off, or stop risking something just because the results might be scary. Or not what you expected. "All right." She smiled a bit, waiting to see what he had in mind.

"Sa'tneen's was not the only performance of the greeting to the sun that I remember," he explained, before opening his mouth again--and this time, although Sa'tneen's voice was still recognizable in the song, it was accompanied by a full choir, with drums, flutes, and various string instruments.

Alison smiled slowly, eyes drifting shut as she listened. The sun was warming her skin pleasantly and the music drifted over her, faint echoes coming from the lake side, as Kylun 'sang'. She
wondered idly if he could reproduce Askani songs should he hear them in his mind in a similar way, but then the music demanded her full attention, and that was that.