Her grandmother's hillfolk accent had a tendency to creep into her speech during stressful times, and Kay did NOT want for it to give her away. It would be far easier to avoid awkward questions if nobody found out her identity. For now, she was likeley safe, as she looked very little like the Terran woman that Mestru Merrick had seen only twice before
"It's my own fault for being such a damned fool as to take drink from the flask of a stranger", Kay continued, "if you would offer your help, then I must ask that you not speak of me or of any of this. I'm not asking you to lie for me, just to keep what you know to yourself unless I give you leave to do otherwise. I do NOT want for my brother (or my sisters) to know what a fool I've been. That would surely be almost as bad as if my parents ever found out. So either you must swear to hold your tongue or I must seek help elsewhere".
He gave her an odd look, as if puzzled by such a request. "Son, I have no interest in getting anyone in trouble. We all have made mistakes in our time. I may be able to help a bit with what ails you, but I am far from a trained healer. You have my word that I will breathe naught of this to another."
Kay let out a deep sigh of relief. Her instincts agreed that he was sincere in what he'd promised. Yet this complicated matters, for now some sort of explanation was owed. Her green-brown sparkled hopefully up at him as she declared "I am willing to bet that you are an honorable man, so I shall accept your word as your bond".
Trying to decide how best to explain things, Kay muttered a few more cusswords, but this time, too softly to be intelligble. "Even Durraman's donkey was less the fool than I", she continued, "Now that I think about it, I remember having tasted something vauguely similar once ... many years ago at a party. But that was an exotic cocktail that used just a small splash of some kind of herbal liqueur, and it made me sick for a week afterwards."
"At the time, our host bragged that one of the liqueur's ingredients was something he called golden-dust, though I don't know whether that's its proper name or not. He said he'd discovered one of our fellow Terran classmates using it for recreational purposes, and that they'd told him that it was a great non-addictive "party drug". And he warned us (after we tasted it), that it was also an illegal substance, so ALL of us would be expelled from the university together if ANY of us reported it -- all except him, because his family's money and political connections would protect him as usual". With this last admission of shared-guilt, Kay felt silent.
Ceroill stared at her in shocked amazement. Good heavens, that sounded for all the world like Kirian poisoning. In the headblind it was bad enough, but in someone with even a trace of laran it was horrible. Seldom actually deadly, though, unless a terrific quantity was imbibed, or an unpalatably strong ticture was used.
There was also something familiar about that voice, and he could swear that the lad's was not the only distress here. He came closer, and knelt down to lend an arm. "Let me get help get you somewhere to rest. You may need more than I can do, but I will assist as best I can."
The eerie cries of a bird of prey cut off any further comment. These humans were surely not deaf. He had called, and they had come. Just as he-who-had-died had once held him and been of one mind with him at his birth. When he'd touched the mind of the smaller human, the owl had felt his avian mind expand until he felt almost complete once more. But how could he make the larger one listen and understand ?
With a flurry of feathers, the white heart-faced owl swooped down in between Ceroill and Kay, flapping his wings with great agitation. Though he was both young and small, he would do his best to avoid losing what he'd claimed as HIS. He'd missed being able to touch one of the humans, and no being was ever going to take that away again.
*possessiveness* *need* *hunger* *frustration* The waves of emotion swept out from the owl with all of his new strength as he stared defiantly into the eyes of the man. The human cub was adequate enough as a point of contact, but it lacked the mass/musculature to support even his current young weight without being knocked over. What he wanted/needed/desired was the human man, who so far had not yet acknowledged him.
Feeling the mental touch of the bird was a shock to Ceroill. He mused briefly that it must have an unusually strong mind indeed. It was rare enough for even human agnies to reach him this strongly. What was stranger yet was that it felt as though there was perhaps a human mind behind it. It could be the lad's mind, and the kirian would factor into it of course, amplifying things past what would otherwise be normal limits. Was this fellow a MacAran, to merge so with a bird? He did have some of the mountain brogue. With a sigh, he attempted to help the boy to his feet.