Stardust and Snowflakes: A Sotam story

Chapter Thirteen

Try as they might, not Biana or Jensi, Dex or Fitz, Keefe or Marella, or even Linh could ease the pain of the Shade who had just lost his girlfriend- and a part of his sanity. Tam blamed himself for her death- and he refused to change his mind.

"If I hadn't kissed her," he explained with a thick voice, "She wouldn't have lost her concentration, and she wouldn't have died."

Even Grady argued that with him. He and Edaline were, if course, grief-stricken, but they knew what had happened had been an accident. And they knew how dangerous Tam's guilt could become. He and Linh were like a second son and daughter to them, and to lose another child, even one not directly related to them, they couldn't bear to think about.

But Tam wouldn't accept that it was an accident. In his mind, which was beginning to crack, it was all his fault.

The crack first started to form at her planting. He, as one of her closest friends and her boyfriend, was asked to say a few words. He walked up to the front of the crowd, staring out at an enormous sea of green. He opens his mouth and tried to speak, but what escaped him was only a sob. He hadn't cried in years, but now there he was, tears streaming down his face, in front of almost the entire Elvin population.

"This was my fault," he confessed between gasps for breath. Linh rushed up and gently lead him back into the crowd. She didn't want that kind of idea forming in his mind. But it already had. And as Tam watched the little tree poke up out of the ground, a tree of his own had been planted in his mind. One of guilt. And the roots were already forcing anything in their path away, leaving cracks throughout his mind.

Now it was two days after the planting, and Linh was eating breakfast, waiting for Tam to come down. She was planning on arranging a meeting with Quinlin today, just to make sure the guilt hadn't gotten to his mind. She wanted his input first. Little did she know, the time she took waiting for his input could've killed him.

Linh finished eating her breakfast, which consisted of a sweet tasting purple glop and dried gnomish fruit. She had taken her time eating, hoping Tam would come down and they could talk over breakfast, but she wasn't given that chance. Frowning, Linh went upstairs to his room. She wasn't sure what else he could be doing but sleeping, but she was relieved to find that he was laying on his left side like he always did when he slept. She smiled. He'd had a rough past few days. Might as well let him rest.

By lunch, Linh's nerves had built up again. Tam hadn't moved, but this time she was at least careful enough to check to make sure he was breathing. He was. Relax, Linh, she told herself. He's fine.

A few more hours passed, and Linh called Elwin. Better safe than sorry, she had decided. And when 'sorry' usually rendered to death, she would definitely rather have her brother safe.

Elwin couldn't find anything wrong. He flashed orb after orb of color around every inch of Tam's body, and he found nothing peculiar, but Tam never moved during the whole process.

"As far as I can see," Elwin said, "there's nothing wrong with him."

Linh breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short lived.

"But," he continued, "I know for a fact that something is very wrong. I don't need to see it."

"What should I do?" Linh asked, her worry hitting it's peak, maybe in her lifetime, if not, for the day.

Elwin glanced over at Tam, completing a mental checklist before meeting Linh's worried, but not wavering, gaze.

"Hail Fitz."

Why do they need Fitz? Why isn't Tam waking up? Was the incident with Sophie just a dream? Find out in the next chapter!