FOREVER KNIGHTS: #6 Malevolent Attentions
RAESE - A Staff That Won't Appear

WhiteHall, Harridan Hamlet, Paladines

RAESE

Raese stood in his chamber clad only in breeches. He’d had the curtains drawn to let in the midday sun as he practiced stepping and twisting his wrist as he had in the dream when defending the TreeCutters in Feglen Forest. From Calisto. He stared at his empty hand perplexedly.

No magical green staff.

He tried again. Nothing.

He frowned at his empty palm. What the hell am I doing wrong?

It’d seemed so easy in the dream. Well-oiled. Practiced.

Not now! He was sweating. Agitation cooling when he felt the soothing touch caressing along the back of his neck and shoulders. He caught the wild forest scent of her and froze. Afraid any motion would make her disappear as was so often her wont.

“Hello Calisto.”

He heard a shrill crackling sound. But whatever she tried to say didn’t come through. He straightened his shoulders.

“I can feel you here.” His palm wandered up to press over his bared chest. Unconsciously moving over his heart as he said the words. “I wish you could tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

She moved to the front of him and he saw her hazy outline. Dark hair parting her face and one bleary blue eye trying to concentrate on him.

He was afraid to blink. Don’t disappear. Gaze riveted on the woman that’d once been so precious to him.

Still is. His mind corrected.

Two pale hands reached from the blurred haze. Palms lifting as she reached for him.

He stared in bewilderment. Looking from them to her face. “My hands will just pass through yours. I’ve tried so many times to touch you.”

She looked sad and lifted her hands as if to repeat herself.

Unsure what she wanted, he tentatively reached out his hands. Hovering them over hers in a plan to let them slowly descend. Hoping beyond hope he might get to hold her hand.

But his eyes lifted to her face and she shook her head slightly. Making him freeze.

“I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?”

She blinked quickly and looked at the floor, thinking. Putting a hand over her heart, she gestured with the palm of the other, out in a motion pushing toward him.

“You want me to push you?”

She shook her head.

He saw a pink flicker that may’ve been her licking her lips as she tried to think. But she was too blurry to be certain.

She moved a cupped palm from her gesture toward him in a giving gesture.

“You want me to give to you?”

She nodded. Tapping her chest again. Mouth moving rapidly only to sound like glass scraping.

He tried to block out the sound and focus on the message she desperately conveyed.

“Give you my heart?” He frowned. “I’m certain I did that a lifetime ago.”

She deflated. Gesturing faster from her heart in the ‘giving’ motion.

“Okay, okay. I will try to give you my heart.”

She lifted her pale hands in a flat motion under where his hands still hovered.

“Through…My hands…I guess.”

She gave him an urging look and he sighed. Shaking his head at his own insanity. Before trying to push all the emotion he felt for this woman out through his arms, through his hands and into the pale palms waiting so patiently beneath.

For a moment the room brightened, and her silhouette darkened to something that looked nearly human.

“Calisto!” He gasped.

She looked from one hand to the next and her eyes snapped to his. Her mouth open in shock. “You have to find it, Raese! The spear-you…have to…” And she was fading away again.

“No!” He shouted. His hands falling from above her before lifting again to try and catch her shoulders. Wanting more than anything to cling to her beautiful voice.

“Don’t go!” He cried. “I know you’re everything to me! I just need your help to find out how to get you back.”

She backed from him with a sorrowful stare. Edging into the shadowed corner of the room. Shoulders slumping, she suddenly looked very small. Face crumpling in pain.

“I have all this power.” He tightened his opened palms, staring at them. “I just don’t understand how it works. I need you!” He threw his head back in a frustrated snarl.

He approached the corner to try and talk. But there was a flash of gray light and she was gone.

“Dammit!” He swore at himself. “Raese you fool!”

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