Alison and Terry in the music room

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

Monday morning, Terry goes to face the music for taking making Alex lose his hearing. She sings Alison a song of powers and training and how she made a mistake. It fails to strike a chord with Alison who prefers to blame Alex. Terry will still have to sing for her supper but first a trip to check out the pipes is in order.



Terry slunk into the music room and set her bag down as quietly as she was able, hoping it wouldn’t attract Alison’s attention. Usually Terry looked forward to her voice lessons but her throat was a bit tender from all her screaming the night before. Also, she was fairly certain that her teacher was not going to be pleased that she’d accidentally deafened another student. Even if it had been his idea and at least she hadn’t killed him.

Alison didn't even look up from her desk, the back of her neck prickling slightly as Terry entered the room silently and put the bag down. "You. Are going to explain to me what happened last night." She hadn't even looked up from her desk, her pen idly ticking a note - perhaps a little bit too hard. It was good to add a bit of effect to things that way. "Sit."

Terry sat. “It was an accident.” It was the first thing that came to mind and was out of her mouth before she’d thought about it. “I told Alex it was a bad idea. But we didn’t have any other way of stopping the demon.” She gripped the arms of the chair, wondering exactly how angry Alison was.

"No other way? There's always another way." Alison was unreasonable irked with Alex for potentially setting back Terry's training - hurting others was what had been such a huge stumbling block for her student all along and they'd finally broken through that... "Tell me what happened."

Terry flushed at the irritation in Alison’s voice and nodded meekly. “We were at the club and this demon showed up. It was after Amanda for some reason. So some of us from school started to get the crowd out and the rest of us tried to keep the demon busy. Alex found me and we tried to block the demon in but…he can’t control his powers!” Terry was indignant until she remembered that at least /he/ hadn’t hurt anyone. She went a little more red and continued, “He was able to take down some lights and a balcony but he wanted me to keep the demon busy. I tried to focus but we’ve done more work on intensity than direction. That first scream hurt Alex’s ears, I could tell.” Terry stopped, knowing she should have given up then.

Maybe she could get away with throwing things at Alex. Her student. Hers. If he'd set Terry back on nearly a year of hard work just to keep some stupid demon busy, Alison was going to get his head on a pike. Gah. She finally looked up at Terry, still somehow not breaking the pen in her hands. "How do you feel about last night?"

Terry had been thinking about it since she had realised Alex couldn’t hear a word she was saying. She’d tried to figure out a different way to have stopped the demon and couldn’t. Putting her chin up stubbornly, she met Alison’s eyes squarely, “I’d do it again if I had to. We had to stop it or people would have gotten hurt.” Her accent sharpened, as it always did went she was particularly emotional, “I’m sorry I hurt Alex. I tried my best.”

Oh good. Thank God too. She wouldn't have to kill Alex and deal with a very vengeful Lorna. "Good." She got up and went around the desk, pulling Terry up - only to wrap her in a very fervent hug. "Damn. I was so worried this might set you back."

She wasn’t mad at her? “You’re not mad at me?” Terry blurted, though she returned the hug.

"Oh no." Alison wasn't letting go just yet, because there was a world of relief there. "I'm going to train you to death in focus now as well as intensity, but I'm not angry." She laughed quietly, suspecting that might not be entirely to Terry's taste.

Terry made a face but really how much could she complain about getting to spend more time with Alison? She pulled back out of Alison’s grip so she could look at her, “I really did try to not hurt him. I thought…well, I don’t hurt myself so I covered his ears with my hands. I guess that didn’t work either.” She frowned, “I told him to tell me if I was hurting him though. He never said a word.”

"Alex is a doofus." There wasn't much fondness in her voice as she said this. "And it worked, in a way. You only deafened temporarily." Dead was not mentioned. Dead Alison was steering very far away from for now. The temporary deafness thing alone was a very good point, she thought.

Temporary? “He’ll get his hearing back?” Terry asked. She gripped Alison’s arms, certain that she wouldn’t lie to her but needing the reassurance just the same, “Promise? I didn’t…he’ll be okay?”

Oh good grief, Terry hadn't known. "Yes! Gah!" Another hug ensued this time, Alison shaking her head in mock despair. "Horrible moppet that you are, what am I going to do with you, huh?" A pause. "Oh yeah! Train you silly!"

Terry grinned her relief and hugged Alison back fiercely, “I wasn’t sure. We had this class in Biology on the inner ear and some things can’t be fixed if you damage them and loud noise is one of the things that will cause it. It’s why people who go to a lot of rock concerts have tinnitus so often.” She was babbling. That needed to stop.

"I have been training you a little, you know." Alison finally let her go, firmly setting the girl back in the chair. "Now I'll just have to push up the vocal training a lot, that's all." There was an acute relief in knowing that this particular power training she could take care of, nearly entirely at that. "I'll need to work out a progress scale," she grinned at the pun, "but we should start oh… now."

Terry blushed again, “Now? Um…that is the other problem. I may have stretched things a little too far last night.” She ran quickly through a scale and it was immediately obvious that all that powered screaming—rather than properly controlled singing—had done a number on her throat. She coughed as she finished. “It won’t sound good to sing like this.”

Strained vocal cords. Alison smiled vaguely, a dozen different ways to kill Alex springing to mind all at once, each one more appealing than the other. "Medlab. Now. Up and at 'em, kiddo." And maybe Alex would there and obligingly let himself be made dead a lot.

Terry made a face, “I’m okay. I just need to rest a bit.” Terry didn’t believe in bothering the doctors for nothing. Which made her just like 90% of the other mansion residents. Her definition of nothing was a touch more realistic than most but apparently not realistic enough for Alison.

Whap! That definitely earned her student a light and affectionate swat upside the head, followed by her being pointed at the door rather firmly. "Downstairs. Now. Voice strain is bad for singers and people whose abilities depend on their vocal cords." Maybe she'd let Alex die slowly. Maybe. "Any more arguments from you and it's a spanking for you, young lady."

Terry eeped and scrambled from the chair, grumbling all the while. “It’s just a sore throat. I only need a bit of rest and I’ll be fi…eep!” Alison’s swat on the rear was just as stinging as the one to the head. “I’m going!”