"Strip off those robes, young man," she said, and for a moment, Raistlin just stared at her, pale blue eyes wide over the wet cloth he was holding over his nose and mouth. She gave herself a moment to enjoy his discomfiture.

Then the eyes narrowed, and behind them, she could see thousands of defensive walls spring up. He looked through her with those eyes, and she saw, once again, why they all called him "sly."

She scoffed. "Don't be a dolt. Look at yourself," she said, pointing to the collar of his white robes. "You're covered in soot and ash; you'll cough up your lungs if you don't change. Not to mention there's puke on your sleeve."

Raistlin looked down at his trailing sleeve and saw that she was right. One of his patients must have had bad aim this evening, she guessed.

"Wear these," she said, tossing a handful of clothes at him. They had belonged to her husband, a great many years ago (she doubted anyone in Solace would have known of him,) and would be much too big for Raistlin, but they were clean, at least. "I'll get those robes of yours clean. I'll turn my back, and I promise I won't peek. You keep wearing what you've got on, you'll catch sick, too," she added.

"Mmm-hmm," he said through the cloth, though she knew he didn't fully understand or even believe her. The young man had the temerity to patronize her.

But she liked him in spite of it, or maybe because of it. Meggin--or "Weird Meggin" as she was known to everyone in town except for young Raistlin--turned and walked into the kitchen. She would fry some eggs for him, and he would push them around his plate until he thought it polite to go back to his reading and writing.

From her small window, she could still see smoke rising up through the trees of Solace. She had advised the family of the deceased to burn the sheets and clothing of their sick, and they had done so, the moment after she'd said it. (These days, people listened to Weird Meggin and her sly helper.) The clothes and sheets had gone up in flames immediately, no doubt helped by the dwarf spirits the family had doused them with. The fire soon raged, and she and her young helper were forced to walk through the smoke and ash to get away, as neighbors rushed to help smother the flames.

Meantime, it had nearly smothered her helper. Raistlin had started coughing almost immediately, a dry, rasping sound that ended in a wheeze. She'd gotten him back to her home and soaked a clean cloth in water, added some chamomile, mullein and mint oil, and told him to cover his nose and mouth with it. He did so. He didn't laugh or question her when she spoke of herbs.

Meggin began frying eggs, adding spices that she knew he liked in an attempt to get him to eat a bit more than he normally might. He was in her sitting room, and she heard him shuffling out of his filthy robes. Here she would have to be cautious. Raistlin could be many things, including proud, sharp, (and she had also noted a slight sadistic tendency in him,) but he was also pathologically shy, though he would never admit it. If she looked at him too long, or seemed to coddle him, she could lose her helper forever. Worse, she could lose her friend, for she did count him as a friend, and her only one aside from her faithful wolf.

His shyness held him back, and he took refuge in sarcasm. He was twenty, and she reckoned he had never even kissed a girl, though she knew for a fact that he had looked at one or two of them. That they looked back at him as if looking at something strange or unheard of, or didn't look back at him at all, was, she guessed, their own loss. The boy couldn't hold a sword, but he could hold a conversation, and that, she thought, was worth worlds more.

She heard him cough a few times more, residually, but he could draw breath easily again. He ambled back into the kitchen, bundled ridiculously in her late husband's clothes, which fell open at his neck. "I can wash these," he said, holding onto his once-white robes.

"Nonsense," she said.

"I'm fine--"

"Of course you are. But you get back to your notes, and I'll soak these so that the contagion is gone. I can dry them over the fire.."

"Thank you," he said, and sat down at her table.

Now in front of his book, and heedless of her, he took up his quill and looked thoughtful. She saw his lips move as he mentally--and with a worrisome distance that she didn't miss--recounted the gruesome things he had seen today. He set about taking notes, and the shirt slid down over one bony shoulder.

Meggin dragged over a bucket she had already filled with water and thought, no, those skinny arms will never lift a bale of hay or wield a sword. And sadly, they may never lift a bride over the threshold, or brace themselves on either side of some young maiden's head--more was the pity--but if she heard the word "frail" spoken of him once more, she thought she might like to hit the one who said it. Even if it was the great bear of a boy who was his twin.

This "frail" young man had been bearing the town of Solace across his shoulders since the plague had struck. For a month, Raistlin Majere had sat by the town's bedside for hours at a time, held its hair while it puked, wiped its chin when it was finished. He'd seen weeks of blood and human waste and filth and death. The hale and healthy witnessed these things and lost their lunches over them. Raistlin washed his hands, dusted his white robes, and went to the next house of sickness.

Meggin didn't fool herself that he lived to help those in need or that his heart was in it for pure, altruistic reasons, but he had helped them nonetheless. If his reward was his own satisfaction, or some strange idea he had of power, that didn't lessen its worth.

Sighing, she plunged his robes into the water. It sloshed onto the floor and Raistlin glanced up from his notes, distracted. Meggin went to her apothecary drawer and rummaged around for disinfectant herbs. Lemon was always good, as was one pungent, earthy, and precious oil she saved only for dire need. Disinfecting the young mage's clothes so that she didn't find herself at his bedside, holding his hair while he puked his life away, was a dire need.

She added the dried herbs and the one oil, then she pulled her chair around to the other side of the tub to wash the robes, so that she could better converse with him if he had any questions. Also, she liked to watch him as he wrote out his notes in his small yet oddly bold lettering.

He negligently lit the lantern on the table beside him, and Meggin suddenly found that she was looking at a different Raistlin than the one she'd known before the plague. At first, she thought that her eyes were fooling her, but on longer inspection, she was sure: there were sun streaks in his brown hair. His brother's curly hair was always sun-dyed in streaks of light, golden brown, but now Raistlin's was, too. Winter had been mild, and the sun had shone a few days. Not strongly, but apparently enough to cast highlights in his long hair. And--wonder of wonders--there was color in his cheeks, too. Dark shadows under his eyes, but not from illness; those were hard-earned shadows. He came back from his school of magic, and went right to work caring for the stricken town. At the end of the night he went home with his brother. He had mentioned to her that he studied at home, and she believed that he did, most likely until he fell asleep over his books. The next morning, he started the whole thing again.

The twins had never looked exactly alike, but just now, Raistlin looked more like his twin than he ever had. To be sure, they had the same straight, narrow nose and proud chin, but the lines of Raistlin's face were sharper. Plainer, some would say, if what they liked was Caramon's big grin and square jaw. Raistlin was all angles. His eyes were cunning, but his mouth was still that of a child.

With a pang to her heart, Meggin wondered if her son might have grown to look like him.

Raistlin looked up from his writing, with a question on his lips. The question died when he caught her staring at him.

"What?" he said.

Meggin shrugged and went back to washing. "You're too quiet," she said. "Usually you're full of questions about lividity after death and bodily fluids...."

"Well actually," he said, his suspicion forgotten in a more interesting line of thought, "I was just about to ask you something."

"Go on."

"When the Widow Winnie vomited, there was blood. It was thick, black blood, unlike some of the others. Usually it's fresh, almost pink. It also had the strong smell of iron."

"You noticed," Meggin commented.

"I did. I noticed it wasn't frothy, as from her lungs."

"You're too right. Unpleasant, wasn't it?" She almost hoped that he would agree with her.

He didn't. With a wave of his hand, he went on. "I think she must have swallowed and begun to digest it. It must have been a lot. That was my first thought."

"Your second thought was...?"

"My second thought was both unlikely and unimportant."

"You thought poison," Meggin said. Sometimes she could read his suspicious, almost paranoid mind. She guessed that he would like a mystery.

"Fleetingly," he said.

Meggin shrugged again, and lifted his wet robes out of the tub of water. She wrung them out in her hands and looked them over. "Your first thought was correct; there was no poison involved. Mistress Winnie was in late stages of the illness," she said. "She'd held on a good, long time, I suspect. She'd bled, and swallowed the blood." Meggin stood up and stretched her legs. "When the end came, it came quickly, didn't it?"

"It certainly did," Raistlin mused. He sat back in the chair, tapping the quill a few times to his bottom lip, thoughtfully. "She went livid quickly, too. And rigid."

"Sometimes it's like that. I have hypothesized that the difference might have something to do with the person's diet, or lifestyle, perhaps. The age of the deceased, the time of the year, the duration and nature of the illness."

"How so?"

"I don't quite know," Meggin admitted. "But it's something to think about." She shook his robes out over the tub and went to the sitting room to hang them up in front of the fire. When she returned, Raistlin was still leaning back in the chair, thinking. Meggin grabbed hold of the tub of water and began dragging it to her door.

Raistlin watched her for a moment with a faraway look in his eyes. Then, suddenly, he stood up. "Please, let me do that," he said.

"I do it everyday of my life," she said, as she waved him away. "It keeps me young."

He held out his hand to take one end of the tub. "But Mistress Meggin..."

She slapped his hand away. "Shoo," she said. "If you treat me like a weakling, I'll become one." She didn't look at him as she said it, but she felt sure she'd made her point. "Get back to work," she said, before he could get it in his head that she had, in some way, insulted him.

Meggin dragged the tub of water outside and poured it down the hill. The water ran dark gray. A bird called from one of the trees. Meggin called back to it. It was getting dark fast, and it was still early. She liked the look of the overcast sky in the winter twilight. It was soothing.

Her thoughts went back to Raistlin, and what she had said to him. "If you treat me like a weakling, I'll become one." She believed that, but hadn't quite planned on saying it to him. Raistlin had been labeled "frail" since birth. He'd been told, time and again, by everyone whose opinion mattered and everyone whose didn't, that Caramon was strong where Raistlin was weak. That Raistlin was sharp where Caramon dull. That Caramon was honest where Raistlin was...not. It had been assumed since their birth that Caramon would be Raistlin's muscles; that the two boys were halves of the same whole, instead of two separate people.

Unfair to both of them, she thought. Without those opinions forced on them, who knew but that Caramon might have done some thinking on his own, and that Raistlin might have done some fighting on his own.

It was no wonder the boy couldn't breathe, Meggin thought. This town had smothered him. It had crushed him under his brother's weight. She shook her head. Separation might do them good, but she wouldn't be the one to decide that.

She was distracted by a snuffling sound coming from behind her juniper bush. She walked over to inspect it, and wasn't surprised to find her pet wolf pawing at something on the ground.

"What've you got?" she asked. He perked his ears at her and looked up, then graciously stepped aside for her to have her share first.

A dead tabby cat lay under the bushes. It looked freshly dead, and her wolf hadn't harmed it. Meggin smiled. She and Raistlin now had plans for the evening.

She walked through the door with renewed energy, holding the cat in her arm. Raistlin sat upright in the chair when he saw her.

"What's that?" he asked, since he couldn't see the head yet.

"A dead cat," she said.

His eyes widened in interest. "Is it fresh?"

"Still limp," she said, grinning at him.

"What killed it?"

"That's for us to find out. I'll get a few more lanterns and some more oil. We're bound to run out, and I don't like to strain my eyes."

Raistlin stood up and stretched. She handed the cat to him. He cradled it in one arm and took a preliminary look at it. "Blood around its mouth," he murmured, as he walked into the back room. "Internal bleeding, perhaps."

Meggin smiled and shook her head. He could be such a chilly little bastard. Sighing, she knelt down and reached under her cupboard for more oil. She had just laid her hands on a bottle of it when she heard her wolf give his warning bark.

"Mistress Meggin," came a tentative voice from outside.

"Damn," she muttered. If it was another illness, then she and Raistlin would have to go back out. She was tired. She knew Raistlin was tired, and worse, they would have to put off their dissection and put the cat on ice, and that might skew their results.

"Mistress Meggin!"

"Keep your breeches on," she muttered as she went to the window. Peering out, she was surprised to see Caramon Majere, once again, standing in the rain in front of her door, looking fearfully at her wolf. She nearly scowled at him. But then she remembered that the last time she had seen him like this, he had come to her for help in saving Raistlin's life. Caramon had been a trembling, worried wreck. Remembering how he'd looked, she wondered which twin truly relied on the other.

She crossed the room and opened the door. "Hello, Caramon," she said.

He made a graceless bow to her. "Hello, Mistress," he said. "Is my brother here? I can't find him, and, see, it's going to rain."

Meggin looked up at the sky. "So it is. And? Do you hold him accountable for the weather?" she teased.

"No, Mistress," he said, the joke lost on him. "Raist can't walk home in the rain. He'll catch his d-- He'll get really sick."

Meggin looked into his open, earnest face. It wasn't her place to separate twins, she reminded herself. Then she looked at his broad chest and strong arms. She had a flash image of Caramon enfolding Raistlin in those huge arms, holding him close, and lovingly crushing the last breath of life out of his thin chest.

"Raistlin's busy," she said.

Caramon was plainly surprised, and not sure how to answer her. He wasn't sure if she was sending him away or not. For that matter, Meggin wasn't sure, either. But Raistlin was clearly the one issue on which Caramon wouldn't budge.

"Mistress, I can't let him walk home alone, especially after dark, and especially in the..."

"Young man, Raistlin walks home in the dark nearly every night, after tending the sick people of this town."

"I know!" Caramon said, now fidgeting nervously with the bottom of his shirt. "And if he walks home in the rain, he'll definitely get sick! Please, Mistress Meggin, just tell him I'm here."

Meggin thought of the gold highlights in Raistlin's hair, the color in his cheeks, and the brightness of his eyes. She wondered if Caramon would see these things, too. "Why don't you come in, Caramon Majere, and tell Raistlin yourself to come home."

He hesitated, clearly afraid to enter. "I, uhh... Can't you just..." When she didn't answer, he steeled himself. She could see him reminding himself that what he did, he did for Raistlin, and if that included walking into her lair, then so be it. "Yes," he said, finally. "I will. Thank you."

With a nod, she moved aside and allowed him to enter. She turned her back on him, expecting him to follow, and feeling his eyes roving all over her small house, at the various things she kept there. She knew that he wouldn't understand those things, and for a moment, she was sorry for him. There was no reason for him to so superstitious. His superstition was born of ignorance, which, she was convinced, was born of his being told that he wasn't as smart as his brother. As Raistlin had never bothered to try to be physically strong, Caramon had never tried to think on his own.

She led him to the back room, and was pleased to find that Raistlin had already begun the dissection. He was entirely involved in his work, but he did see her shadow fall across him.

"Meggin," he said, in a low, excited voice. He plucked a dark, shining thing out of the cat and held it up for inspection. "I've found..." He looked up, holding what looked like the cat's spleen between his fingers, and saw Caramon next to her in the doorway. He froze mid-sentence, open-mouthed, cat innards dangling from his hand, blood on the gray shirt she had lent him.

"Raist?" Caramon whispered, in a small, shocked voice.

Raistlin looked trapped for a moment. It was unlike him to look guilty, especially over something seemingly sinister; she suspected he rather liked being mysterious. No, Meggin guessed he looked trapped and guilty because he had been caught being himself.

After a brief moment, Raistlin's look of shock turned to one of scorn, the likes of which she had never seen on his face before. Yet even as his eyes narrowed and his lip curled in a sneer, his shoulders slumped and he looked smaller, defeated.

"Caramon," he said, "what are you doing here?"

It took Caramon a moment to find his voice as he took in the entire scene. Even Meggin had to admit to herself, it wasn't what she'd had in mind for Caramon to see when she'd invited him in. Instead of her bright, interested student, Raistlin looked almost ghastly as he bent over the dead animal, up-cast shadows from the lantern playing across his face. Just then, he looked every inch the mad wizard.

"I've, uhh," Caramon murmured, "I've come to walk you home."

Raistlin let his hand fall slowly, laying the spleen on the cloth over the work table. He shook his head slightly, as if to clear it, then went back to peering into the dead cat. "I'm more than capable of finding my own way home, Caramon," he snapped.

Caramon blinked at the tone of his voice, as if Raistlin had slapped him lightly on the cheek. "I know. It's just that, it's going to rain."

Raistlin glanced up briefly, a derisive smile tugging the corner of his petulant mouth. "I won't melt," he said. "That's just superstition."

"I know you won't melt," Caramon said. "I just didn't want you to...to get sick, like the last t--"

"That'll do, Caramon," Raistlin said. "I'm fine where I am. I'll be home in the morning." He didn't bother looking up, but waved his hand dismissively.

Meggin suddenly felt badly for Caramon, and was sorry she had invited him in. She'd known that Raistlin could be sharp, but it couldn't have been pleasant to be on the receiving end of his cutting tone of voice.

Caramon, though, took it with good grace. "If you're sure?"

Raistlin sighed, at the end of his patience. "I'm always sure."

"Well...Sure, Raist. As long as you're all right here." He looked at Meggin, and she saw trepidation (and sadness?) in his eyes.

Meggin took Caramon by the arm and led him out of the room. She waited until they were out her front door, well out of earshot, before speaking to him. She gave him a kind smile. "Raistlin's fine, I assure you," she said.

Caramon looked down at the ground, chastened.

"It's obvious you care about him," she said. "He can get somewhat, uhh... moody sometimes, can he?"

Caramon shrugged. "Not much more than other people, I guess," he said. "Mistress, what was Raistlin...I mean, what was it he had...?"

"He's dissecting a cat," she said. "Not for bad purposes, of course, and not even for magic. He wants to learn about it."

"Why?" His voice was worried, almost plaintive.

Because he's curious! she wanted to say. She wanted to shake this large young man and make him understand. Because he wants to do things on his own, further his knowledge! But she refrained, because Raistlin's sharp tongue had done enough damage.

"If we understand why something dies," she said to Caramon, "we have a better chance of understanding how to prevent death. Looking inside of something, we can learn how the body works. A cat has some similarities to humans. They have hearts, and stomachs, and livers, just like we do. So this helps Raistlin to learn anatomy. You see?"

"But how is cutting something open...I mean, can't he catch a sickness from something like that? Isn't it dirty inside a dead thing?"

Meggin shrugged, but not dismissively. "Sometimes," she said, "but Raistlin's very careful and quite skilled."

Caramon nodded as the idea worked its way into his head. It must have seemed to him a lot less sinister than it had when he'd walked in on his brother.

"You're aware, aren't you, boy, of the great deeds your brother is doing throughout this town?"

Caramon smiled, practically beamed. "You bet I am," he said. "Raist was the first one to know when I got sick. There are a few people who owe their lives to him. And to you, too, of course," he said, with another small bow.

Meggin suddenly liked him a lot better than she had when he'd first come to her door tonight. "Then let him do this," she said gently. Let him breathe, she added mentally.

"If--if you're sure it's okay if he stays..."

"I'm sure," she said, though she was surprised by the fact that Raistlin had even suggested it in the first place.

"I could wait till morning. I mean, I could sleep out here, I wouldn't be a bother...."

She shook her head. Name of the Abyss, he could be dense! "Caramon, go on home and get some rest," she said. "You have the house to yourself. Get a good night's sleep, and don't worry about your brother. I assure you he is fine."

Caramon nodded, and reluctantly turned to leave. Before he cleared the juniper bushes, he turned and walked back, striding quickly. Meggin rolled her eyes. "Caramon, I promise you..."

"I know," he said hurriedly, holding his hands out in placation. "I know. Raist can stay here tonight, no problem. It's just that, you should know, sometimes he...Sometimes at night, he..."

Meggin waited, somewhat impatient, and now a bit wary. He what? Walked in his sleep? Practiced magic? Lit the house on fire?

Caramon tugged fitfully at the bottom of his shirt again, struggling with what to say. He seemed about to reveal something that he felt might betray his brother's trust. He decided that it was important enough. "He has these nightmares," he said. "It's not like our mother used to have, I mean, he doesn't go into a trance or see the future, or become insane...Not that our mother was insane, I didn't mean that at all, just..."

On impulse, Meggin reached out and tousled his curly hair. "Everyone has nightmares once in a while," she said.

"But I mean..."

"Perhaps tonight he won't," she said, and at the time, she fully believed it.

Caramon looked dubious, but he nodded. He was agreeing, she knew, not on her word, but because Raistlin had sent him away. "All right, then," he said, and started to walk away again, his head bowed.

"Caramon," Meggin called to him, quietly, so that Raistlin wouldn't hear this. Caramon turned back hopefully. "Raistlin doesn't need you because he's frail." Seeing the boy's eyes widen in something like panic, she quickly finished her thought. "He needs you because he loves you. He just can't say it, that's all."

Caramon took a moment to process this, then his mouth spread in a wide grin. "He doesn't have to," he said. And with a nod this time instead of a bow, he walked out of her yard.

Meggin sighed, somehow drained by all of this, and went back inside. She found Raistlin in the workroom, his chin propped up in one hand, halfheartedly poking under the cat's intestines with a knife. He, too, now looked drained.

"What've you found?" she asked, as she pulled up a chair and sat next to him.

Raistlin shrugged. "Internal bleeding, as I'd suspected." He moved the opened stomach aside. It was filled with coagulated blood.

"What's your conclusion?"

"No bruising," he said, in a tired voice. "No obvious trauma. He bled out. I suspect poison."

"I think that this time you'd be right," she said, glancing at his profile. From the side, he resembled his brother a bit more. They had the same arched brows and high cheekbones. The eyes and the mouth, that was where they were most different.

Raistlin sat back and tiredly rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes. "Why would anyone want to poison a cat?" he asked, not out of intelligent curiosity, but with the disappointed tone of a child who has learned that people could be cruel. Raistlin, though, had known that from youth. It was his inability to get past it that kept him isolated.

"Perhaps it wasn't intentional," Meggin offered. "He got into something on accident."

Raistlin snorted. "Unlikely," he said, and just then, Meggin learned something valuable about him: he wanted to believe that the cat had been murdered. It would justify his feelings towards people in general. It would make it easier for him to understand why he was shunned.

He was wrong, but she decided not to argue the point. Instead, she patted his arm and said, "You look done in. It's been a long day."

"Yes," he said quietly. Then he sat upright. "Mistress Meggin," he said, "I'm so sorry; I didn't ask permission to stay this late, or to stay at all. I'll get my book and..."

"And go home?" she asked. "You told your brother you would stay here."

Raistlin scowled at her. "I don't answer to him," he said. Then he must have thought better of what she had said. He must have imagined himself walking through his front door, seeing his brother's relieved face, and possibly being scolded for walking home alone, in the rain. It would be defeat for him. "I can stay with..."

"You can stay here," she said.

"Are you sure? I don't mean to impose."

"I've got extra bedding."

"I can sleep on the floor."

"You can sleep on extra bedding, with a quilt and clean clothes."

Raistlin looked down at his blood-stained shirt. His robes wouldn't be dry yet. He gave her a small smile. "Thank you."

In the small hours before dawn, Meggin stirred restively in her own bed. It was difficult for her to sleep heavily with the knowledge that there was someone else in her house. It wasn't that she didn't trust him, but having lived alone for so long, she'd gotten used to the sounds of her empty house. But tonight, every hour or so, there would be a cough, a murmur, or a shuffle of bed clothes from her living room. The floor got chilled at night, so she had let the fire burn low, and every once in a while it would crackle or hiss.

But it was a loud clatter that made her sit upright in her bed, alarmed. Silence followed it, but it was an eerie silence, one that Meggin knew was somehow wrong. Raistlin had knocked one of the fire implements over, that was all, surely...and yet she hadn't heard him put it back in its place. Or at least that was all the excuse Meggin needed to get out of her bed in a hurry and walk to the living room.

She saw him sitting upright on the bed-roll, his head bent forward.

"Raistlin?" she called softly. He didn't answer.

His back was to her, but she quickly walked to his side. As she did so, he threw his head back, and Meggin saw that his mouth was open in silent terror, one hand clutching spasmodically at his chest. Meggin felt her own heart jump into her throat. What if he dies? she thought frantically. Caramon was right!

But Meggin wasn't one to let panic get the best of her. She knelt beside him, and now his eyes had rolled back and started to close. By the firelight, she could see clearly that his lips were blue. Meggin cast about looking for something to help him, even the cloth with mullein, mint and chamomile on it, but nothing was at hand. Raistlin continued to struggle to breathe, heedless of her presence. Fleetingly, Meggin wondered if his lungs had entirely closed up.

His left hand shot out to the side, and he clawed at the air, trying to close his fingers around something that wasn't there. She put her hand into his. He batted her hand away, impatient even in his desperation. Meggin slid her arm around his back and turned him slightly to face her. "Raistlin," she said, still speaking softly. She knew that the sound of her own panicking voice would never help matters. "Raistlin, breathe."

It was the only thing she could think of to say, but apparently it worked, because he finally dragged in a long, ragged breath. His head rolled back, and she began to ease him back down. But suddenly he sat up again, so quickly that he almost knocked her over.

"No!" he rasped, his hand once more going to his chest. "Never! You will never have me! You will never have me!"

These were not nightmares, as Caramon had thought; they were night terrors, for Raistlin wasn't entirely asleep. Meggin knew them well. Her heart broke as she thought of her own son, how she had held him when he was a child.

Raistlin made the same gesture he had before: one hand clawing at his chest, the other, reaching out towards his side, trying to grasp something.

"Shush," Meggin said. "You're fine. Just don't stop breathing again. You gave me a scare." She smoothed his fine hair, not certain if he even knew who she was. In the glow from the fire, his pale skin looked golden.

"Where is my--where is my...?"

"Your what, pet?"

He let his hands drop, and looked around blankly, frantically. "It won't be so," he said. "I am my own! I am my own!"

"But of course you are," Meggin said. She had the unnerving feeling that this night terror was much more meaningful than she had first thought. She remembered Raistlin's mother, the trances she would go into as she saw distant events, and perhaps even the future. Looking at the son of the tormented Seer, Meggin shuddered.

"Where are you?" Raistlin asked, but before Meggin could answer, he answered himself. "Right here," he said. Then, "Keep them away. Guard my sleep. Guard my sleep." He began to lie back down. "I will," he answered himself. "I'll stay awake. Raist, look! On the wall!"

With that, he sank back down to the bed, peacefully asleep.

Meggin stared at him for a moment, open-mouthed and still nervous. Too afraid to go back to bed, lest her charge should die in the night, Meggin decided to sit by him until sunrise and guard his sleep.This she did, watching him carefully, stopping herself from nodding off every hour or so. Just before the sun rose, she crept back into her bed. She knew that his pride could not bear her mothering him, and the knowledge that she had done so would drive him away.

Soon she heard him get up, though he was as quiet as a spider. She heard him wash up, and then slip back into his clean robes. She waited a few minutes more, not only for his sake, but for hers, for she felt exhausted, and then she got up as well. By the time she had washed up and dressed, Raistlin was already in her kitchen, frying eggs.

"Good morning, Mistress Meggin," he said, his back still turned.

"Morning," she said. "You didn't have to cook."

"I like to cook," he said. "I'm good at it. Caramon..." He shrugged his thin shoulders in a blithe, dismissive manner. "How do you like your eggs?"

"I've not heard that question at dawn from a man's lips in many a year," she teased.

To Meggin's surprise and pleasure, he looked over his shoulder and smiled. More of a smirk, but she knew that cheerful grins were not in his nature.

"These eggs are incredibly fresh," he commented. "I like fresh eggs; I cannot stomach food that has lain around for days. All the spices in Krynn could not cover the flavor of eggs gone off." He skillfully flipped the eggs, then put the skillet on the table.

Meggin arched an eyebrow. "Nicely done," she said.

He inclined his head in a small, noble nod, then sat down across from her. Throughout their breakfast, Raistlin prattled on about food, which led him to spices, which led him to herb lore. He was arrogant and humble both at once, one moment convinced he knew everything, the next moment, pondering curiosities he had yet to figure out. Meggin listened, enchanted by his youth.

Finally he glanced out the window and looked at the sky. "The sun is climbing," he said, with a note of regret in his voice. "I suppose I should leave. I will be late."

Sighing, Meggin stood up on her creaking joints and cleared the table. "Well, Raistlin," she said, "I'm very glad we're working together."

"I am, too," he said. 'I've learned much from you. Though I suppose that soon I will have to go out tending patients on my own."

"Indeed," she said, "the plague is spreading rapidly. We'll branch off soon."

He wiped the table clean and turned to her. Suddenly he looked lonely. "But I would like to continue studying with you. You know so much more than my master at school!"

She smiled coyly. "Study with Weird Meggin? You'll get a bad reputation."

"To the Abyss with everyone else," he said, with sudden and surprising scorn. The change in his face was drastic. His eyes narrowed, and burned with thinly suppressed rage. "People are idiots. They know nothing; they judge by appearances, and even then they only see what they want to see. Someday they will..."

Just as suddenly, the hard lines in his face softened. He must have sensed her shock, though she'd tried to hide it. The fire in his eyes simmered to warmth. He smiled, and it was a brilliant, winning smile. "You are much maligned, Mistress Meggin," he said.

She shrugged, trying to offset her astonishment. "But still happy," she replied.

"I am glad," he said, with a sincerity that Meggin was certain few people ever heard. Raistlin collected his books and quill from her countertop and tucked them under his arm. "I can't thank you enough for allowing me to stay. I slept better than I ever have." (Meggin's eyes widened at this, but she said nothing.) "Send for me if you find any more dead things," Raistlin said.

Meggin laughed, the cackle that had earned her hard stares from the townspeople. Raistlin laughed, too, and then he was sweeping past her to her front door.

"Take care, young man," she said.

"I will. You do the same," he replied, turning to wave when he reached the juniper bushes.

Meggin watched him leave. He walked briskly, looked up at the sky, and seemed glad to be outdoors again. Meggin could hear voices of villagers in the distance, and Raistlin must have heard them, too, because just before he vanished from her sight, she saw his shoulders take on their characteristic slump. He dropped his head forward and hid his face behind his long hair.

Meggin sighed and closed the door. Leaning back against it, she found herself thinking about the box under her bed. It was a precious box, beautifully crafted and decorated, and heavy with the scent of magic. In it were the pristine, white robes of her son, his spellbook, and the letter of condolence from the Head of the Conclave.

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Meggin didn't have the Sight--certainly nothing like the tormented Rosamun Majere's Sight--but she did have strong intuition. This time it told her that she, and everyone else, would lose Raistlin to magic, too.

Most people would probably never fathom their loss, or even care enough to try. But Meggin had seen him with sun-streaked hair. Nimble hands, just strong enough to hold a colicky baby. Slender arms, but with just enough strength to ease an ailing mother back to her bed. A coy smile over his shoulder at a lady as he cooked breakfast for her. Warmth and curiosity in calm, blue eyes. Meggin's unfailing intuition told her that she would lose him to magic, but it told her something else, too, something that made the loss so much harder to bear: In her kitchen, by the light of sunrise, she had been privileged to see the man that Raistlin Majere would never become.