Healing
Theron nevertheless did get a chance to hear Sylvia play her enchanted flute, and after had recovered some, and she untied the knots of his bonds – they could only be untied with the proper melody sung – he produced his own flute from his bag of carrying and played his own melodies counter to hers. Together they threaded their music together, and the musical lines were sometimes like a buck and roe flirting through the woods, or else like swift light birds dancing through the snow.
As Theron felt attracted to Sylvia, he attempted to seduce her with his music, but she was always a step ahead of him, and cut him off when she found her head nodding and hear breast heaving. She would announce abruptly that dinner needed to be cooked.
Dinner was a worthy interruption. For Sylvia could cook wonderfully. Feeding Theron proved no problem at all: he ate all that she put before him -- devoured it, really. She said he was healing, and so he was famished, but he knew that he was being fed by an excellent cook.
Feeding Gladdus was another matter. As Sylvia was a vegetarian, she did not cook meat for him. Theron was permitted to hunt small game, but he sensed this displeased Sylvia. Nevertheless, nature being what it is, and facts being facts, Gladdus was a carnivore and needed meat.
Nevertheless, it was long before the two wore out their welcome. They were long since healed, with special thanks to Sylvia’s herbs and magic, and though Theron felt a strong compulsion to stay and live with Sylvia – a compulsion that strangely enough was even stronger than it had been for Dewma – he knew this was impossible, and for two reasons.
First, he was pledged to find his true mother. Second, Sylvia had made her sexuality clear to him, she wished to remain a virgin, and usually for virgins that meant she didn’t even want to be tempted on the matter, and in all modesty, Theron knew he was a figure of temptation for her.
It was a full moon the day Theron announced to Sylvia that he must leave her. The deer surrounded the clear lake, which doubled the moon exquisitely, and further, the intimations of spring breezes gave the entire evening the omen of possibility.
Sylvia clearly felt crestfallen over Theron’s announcement, though as a matter of course it was inevitable, and in a sense, expected.
“Then let me show you something. Something sacred. Something you will never forget, no matter where you go, Theron, no matter who you meet or fall in love with.”
“Yes, I will see,” said Theron.
Sylvia sang an enchanting song that surpassed that of Dewma or even his mother Shara, and the moon seemed to glow twice as bright as he had ever seen it. The rays fell around Sylvia, and her warm dark hair took volume and raised as if she were under water.
She continued to sing as she walked not into the water, but upon it, over the bald face of the peaceful lake. At the center of the lake, she called out to Luciana, her Goddess, and prayed, “Please, my love, my Goddess, my All, give Noble Theron a blessing for his quest, some gift to help him upon his way. I earnestly beseech you give him a great boon worthy of him.”
The night fell utterly silent with the request. The wind stopped, the deer held perfectly still, the air felt pregnant with what was to happen. Then a beautiful sonorous voice, the voice of Luciana, spoke from every direction and no direction:
“Your prayer has been answered. I will give young Theron a gift for his quest. I will give him what is mine to give, and what is best of my possessions, for such is my love of his mother, and for such is my love of you, Sylvia. I give him as travelling companion, guide, and aid, and partner you, my devotee, my own Sylvia. You will join him in his quest. Thus is my will. Vivoce!”
There was another moment of silence, and after it had passed, the wind picked up and shifted the trees, the deer stirred and made small sounds on the water, and Sylvia, who still poised miraculously standing over the water, gasped, “What!” before splashing with a loud plop into the water.
\ ~@M@~ /
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