What should and shouldn't be.

So my kids from an alternate timeline, Kitsune and Lessa decided that the best way to handle me be stuck with the Elemental Flu, it's an illness that's like the chicken pox in that everyone gets it as a child, and its dangerous for adults, You get it as your powers sort of adjust themselves to the world, was to regress me into a child.

I was seven years old. Again. For the second time in about four months. I hate being a kid. However when I was seven my empathic abilites showed up for the first time. And I was a mess when it happened. I was a mess again when it happened this time.

People's solution? Send me to Valadmare, or how ever you damn well spell it, to get training to learn how to control my empathy. Not a bad idea. Except for one problem. The Companions.

One of them latched onto me. Chose me. And it was wonderful. It was like Impressing a dragon. I had Impressed a dragon once. A bronze dragon. Funny, you wouldn't expect me to impress a bronze dragon, being bisexual and all. But I was a Stu. And Stus only get the best. His name was Halith. I was a Harper, staying at the weyr for the hatching. And I Impressed from the stands. I was a dragon rider. I was complete and happy and taken care off. I had a companion that was always there for me. Emotionally and pyhsically. But I couldn't stay there. I didn't age. Not very well at least. And people would notice. And I couldn't bring a dragon with me.

So... I ...

I...

I... had to kill him.

I had to kill a large bit of my soul. In Threadfall. We flew into a heavy clump....

And then there was the Companion. A beautiful, wonderful Mare. With all the same adoration and devotion to me as Halith. And I was seven. My memories were jumbled. Her name was Halia. She was going to take care of me. She said so. I knew my mother was gone, I didn't know why though, and she was offering to take care of me. Completely.

Just like Halith.

And then she left me.

She had to. I understand now. As a seven year old I didn't. I just knew that she was gone. She had promised to take care of me, to never leave me, and she did. Then I grew up. Fast.

The ache hasn't left me though. The despair of a promise broken.

I was whole again for a while.

And it was wonderful.