A Song for Larissa

Chapter One

"You're an irrepressible busy body! One of these days, your curiosity is going to
get the best of you, and I for one, am going to laugh 'til I fall off my perch!"

With that said, the great owl Balin lowered his brows (if in fact, an owl actually has eyebrows) in his best scornful look, shook his head and flew up to a ceiling beam, where he was sure he had seen a tasty moth fluttering about.

"Where did that thing go anyway?" he muttered to himself, looking about the rafters. "I really could do for a mid-afternoon snack. "

Balin was still muttering to himself when the object of his scorn, a scrawny black leopard cub with bedraggled fur and a crook at the end of his tail, jumped over an assortment of jars and beakers and slid on a piece of parchment, sailing head-first into a sack of yellowish-white powder. Thud. Poof !

" Let me be the first to say I told you so." said Balin, chuckling to himself while the young feline stood and shook himself off, sneezing and snuffling, the fine powder yellowing his face and whiskers.

" Well" he said, still shaking his head "In case you care... " Trick paused to shake his whole body, creating a small dust cloud. "I'm...just fine." He stopped shaking and looked up at Balin. "And I'm still fine even if you don't care!" He pounced off to find something new and exciting to get into.

"And THAT Trick, is precisely what I'm talking about! One of these days, it could be your downfall." said Balin, who promptly went back to eye-balling new morsels for his snack. "Perhaps a bat...." he muttered quietly to himself.

Meanwhile, neither of the two had noticed that among the broken jars and beakers, something had started to bubble and boil and whatever that something was, it was beginning to smoke quite heavily.

Balin cocked his head. "What in blazes name....?" He flew down to Trick, picked him up by the scruff of his neck and swooshed him out the window in one motion.
Trick, who had been happily investigating a small mouse hole he'd discovered only a day before, began to squirm and wriggle. "Hey! Put me down!! Couldn't you see I was busy? Balin, are you listening to me?" he stopped wiggling. " Hey, Wow, I'm flying! Balin, can we fly over town? I'm sure if you just..." but before he had a chance to finish, Balin promptly deposited Trick feet first in the grass.*

“Hush fool . I knew something like this would happen sooner or later. Can’t you be content just napping in the sun like the normal lot of your fellow brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and so on and so forth? Must you ALWAYS cause a stir? I’m sure you’ll need all nine of your over-ambitious lives and then some ”

Balin was still reading Trick the riot act when an old man with long gray hair and an obviously aged, but dignified face (now a very startled face) came running and screaming at the top of his lungs. “MY HOUSE!! MY LAB!! MY BOOKS!! What in the name of the gods is happening here? ?”

Green-gray smoke billowed out from the windows and chimney. The old man opened the door and looked cautiously inside. A boiling green ooze had grown to cover most of the tables and was about to reach a large, black, leather-bound book, when the old man raised his hands, muttered a few words and the green ooze stopped bubbling in its tracks.

“Sarion, are you ok? It wasn’t my fault! It was an accident! ” Balin and Trick fluttered and bounced around Sarion, belting out excuses for fear of what punishment the old man could be considering.

Sarion peered around the house and sighed. Everywhere he looked, the place was in shambles. Smoke still hung heavily in the rafters as it seeped slowly out of the door and windows.

Dozens of glass jars and beakers that housed only Sarion knew what, were strewn across the table and floor in shards and gobs and glops of this and that, some of the gobs and glops still squirming, as if trying to slip quietly away unnoticed. Books and maps, scraps of parchment, and several interesting-looking items (one could only assume them to be some type of unusual arcane tools or an imaginative child’s antique toys) lay scattered in every direction, some covered in ooze, some in a mess of powder and debris.

Sarion sighed and scratched his head, shook his head again as if in slight disbelief and turned to glare at the two creatures. Balin and Trick had scarcely dared to enter the door, and when they caught the penetrating stare of their master, were considering a quick and quiet retreat, when Sarion spoke in a deep and somber voice.

“No need to back out so soon. I do believe an explanation is in order from the both of you ”

Balin and Trick simultaneously began an incessant chattering of ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘wells’ when the old man spoke again.

“Balin, my old friend, I thought I had left you responsibly in charge while I was out attending to more serious matters. How could you let this happen? What were you doing? Sleeping on the job? You know, you may be an old friend, but you’re getting a little too old. Maybe I should lessen your responsibilities, find a younger, more suitable fellow to fill your place and let you retire with some small amount of dignity before my entire HOUSE falls to pieces? ?”

Balin look at Sarion with large sad eyes (which is easy for an old owl) and tried to bury his head as far as he could possibly bury it into his breast down, when a weak little voice spoke up.

“It wasn’t Balin’s fault sir.” Trick mewed. “He tried to warn me and I wouldn’t listen, as usual. I did it all.” He lowered his eyes, then his head and, sniffling, mewed out a weak “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise.” in his best pathetic innocent tone, this being fairly simple as he was still merely a kitten.

Sarion had spared him from a rather cold, wet and uncomfortable night in a dark, rainy alley near an inn on the north side of town only a few weeks before and Trick had become instantly “attached” to the old man. Sarion pitied him and took him in, rather unable to get rid of him anyway. Trick had later earned his name. After watching Sarion do a few small, rather insignificant spells for his youngest students, Trick had jumped out of his hiding place beneath a desk, squealing “Wow What a neat trick Show us another one please? Can we see another one please? I wanna see a trick I wanna see another trick Please, please, please????”
Whereas Sarion promptly turned the cub into a rather harmless and quiet statuette til the end of his Wizarding 101 class. This, of course, caused many a giggle and snicker from the younger students, one of whom being slightly braver than the others, let slip a “Neat trick ”, which prompted the entire class to giggle and laugh with the humor of it all.

From that moment on, the precocious little character adopted the name Trick.

Sarion looked at the both of them quite severely, then his features softened as he smiled slightly. “Balin, my friend, I do apologize. I should know by now that you wouldn’t knowingly let me down. I do wonder though, Would you have let me continue and still have covered for the blatant guilt of that little fur-ball? I thought that was below you? Cats, I mean. I don’t recall you being too appreciative when I first saved him from the rain As a matter of fact, I seem to remember you hoping he’d sneeze himself into another dimension... the abyss, I believe it was?

Balin cocked his head, pretending not to notice Trick’s sad questioning eyes gazing up at him. “Maybe” He said, a slight attitude revealed in his voice. “The little irritant kind of grows on you after awhile.... a bit like a fungus.”

Balin turned to glare at Trick again. “Next time, maybe you’ll pay more notice to what this old fool has to say? If we’re both lucky enough to LIVE through the next time. I don’t have nine lives and I’m getting far too old to be flying your little carcass out of trouble all the time. ”

He looked around, shook his feathers, then said with a huff, “Now if you don’t mind, I think I shall take a much-deserved nap and rest my nearly-retirable eyes Hmmph ”

Sarion smiled and tried to contain his laughter.

“Go ahead, Balin, and rest easy. I have no intention of getting rid of you or retiring you. Please accept my apology.” he said softly.

“Very well.” the owl replied, and flew back to his place in the rafters, the smoke having thinned out some by now.

Trick bounced up and down playfully. “You DO like me! Oh Balin, I like you too. ”
He grinned and looked up at the owl.

Balin opened one eye slowly, cocked his head and glared ominously down at the little cub.

“Don’t press your luck ” he said sternly and closed his eye again, attempting to nap.

Sarion smiled to himself, then feigning to still be cross with Trick, turned to him and picked him up. He held him in front of his face and looked directly into his eyes.

“Behave Or you may very well get the chance to explore another dimension Or maybe...” he moved Trick closer to his face, glaring ominously at him “you’d like to go back to the alley and try to make friends with Borga? ”

Trick shuddered, his little body trembling at the thought of Borga’s massive jaws wrapped around his head. Borga was the innkeeper’s hound, and a rather formidable hound at that. He guarded the inn fiercely and no one questioned his authority.

“I’ll try to be good. Really, I will You’re not going to turn me into stone again, are you Sarion?” Trick asked nervously. “I mean, well, I really would understand if you did. It was just that I was, well... I was bored stiff. And I really don’t think I’d like it very much if you did that again. Least not for very long.”

“No, Trick. I will not turn you into a statue.” Sarion’s look softened and he ruffled the fur on the top of Trick’s head and set him down gently. “But please, try to stay out of any further mischief? At least for today ”

“I will.” Trick said apologetically. “Thank you.” said Trick, as he pounced out through the front door and went chasing after a butterfly who happened to chance by.

Sarion shook his head and turned back to the disaster. The next few hours were spent cleaning, arranging, rearranging, repairing numerous things, and retrieving the ‘gops and globs’ that had actually tried to leave and had merely succeeded in gathering together fearfully in a few crevices and corners. Sarion could easily have “swooshed” everything back into place with the proper words, a swish of his hand and a bit of magic, but Sarion was tired and magic took a lot out of him these days. He wanted to conserve every little bit of energy he had left. Besides, he needed to think, and keeping busy seemed to make that easier. So Sarion clean, and thought, and when all was clean and back in its intended place, he went to building a cozy fire in the small fireplace.

Mixing together various herbs and making them into a nice aromatic tea, he sat down in his favorite chair, a large overstuffed red chair that was tattered and worn and not quite as overstuffed anymore, as the stuffing seemed to be disappearing through a hole in the seat that never managed to stay mended for very long. He sipped his tea and relaxed into his chair, thinking.

Despite the exciting events of the day, he felt relatively at peace but an eerie feeling continued to tug at his nerves that he couldn’t quite identify. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

He sat back in his chair and soon fell asleep, exhausted from the day’s cleaning, but his mind did not rest easily.