Talentless // Fitz Vacker

// thirty five //

"Hey Alden!" Adora was tuning her guitar, surrounded by the tulips she kept reverting back to healthiest. The girls had been brought back to Havenfield and in their room. Sophie was still sleeping. "Uh—who's that?"

Alden creeped through the door, an enormous gray beast casually followed behind. He looked like an alien and an armadillo had a giant love child. "Adora, this is Sandor."

"Hi Sandor! I'm Adora Green!" She smiled. "How are you?"

An ironic squeaky voice emitted from the armadillo-alien. "I'm good, Adora."

Adora didn't know whether to feel intimidated by the seven foot tall beast or laugh at his voice. She decided neither. She also debated on asking what Sandor was but Alden beat her to it.

"Sandor's a goblin."

Adora nodded.

Sophie started to twitch and whimper in her sleep. The goblin walked over to her bed in a protective way.

Sophie's eyes shot open. Sophie screamed as dark swirls of fear encapsulated Sandor. Sandor writhed in pain.

"Sophie, calm down!" Adora jumped up. "You're hurting him!"

Alden began to shake her shoulders and the darkness swiveled away. Sandor continued to twist in pain on the floor.

"Sandor won't hurt you." Alden promised. "The Council assigned you a goblin bodyguard to keep you safe. It's not a good idea to inflict pain on him."

Sophie's jaw was on the floor. "Inflict?"

Alden nodded. "It seems you're an inflictor. A melder causes temporary paralysis so Dex was semi-conscious during your escape. Both him and Adora told me you made everyone collapse in pain. Seeing as you just inflicted on Sandor, it appears you are."

Sophie's eyes widened and she turned to the barely conscious goblin on the floor. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean—"

"He'll be okay in a minute," Alden promised. "Goblins are tough."

"But Sophie's already a telepath." Adora jumped in. "She can have two abilities?"

"It is possible to have more than one. Rare. But considering how special you are, I wouldn't be surprised if you still have more abilities that you haven't discovered." Alden confirmed.

"What, I'll just wake up and suddenly be able to walk through walls?" Sophie was salty. She wasn't a huge fan of being special.

"Not quite. Most abilities stay dormant until they're activated—that's why we have ability detecting. It seems like the trauma of the kidnapping activated some of your latent talents. That's why you can inflict, why your concentration is stronger now—and Dex said you're a Polyglot."

"A what?"

"Is that why you can speak french?" Adora turned to Sophie. "Okay, okay, so basically you instinctively know any language just by hearing it. I've heard it's very rare?" She looked over at Alden who nodded. She grabbed a water bottle.

"You'll be glad to have it when you advance in multispeciesial studies." Alden added.

"I guess." She wasn't sure she would ever be excited about having more weird talents.

"We'll run some tests when you're stronger. See if we can find out what else you can do."

Sophie shivered.

Sandor heaved himself to his feet and moved back to his post in the shadows. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"It's all right." He squeaked. Adora handed him a bottle of water, which he accepted graciously. "It's nice to know one of my charges can defend herself if I fail her."