Subject: The Talisman 5/7

From: [email-masked] (Monture & Wicks)
Date: 05 Dec 1994 01:31:30 GMT

This is my first posting in this forum ... I hope everyone likes my story.  It
contains shamanism, shape-shifting, pseudo-science, and a lot of speculation.
 I  started writing it after Scully disappeared, and this represents the way
I would have like to  have seen the plot develop, but alas ... and because I
like Mulder, he is the central focus of this story.

Also please note that the Mohawk words used are phonetic representations,
rendered as much as possible in an English format.  I have included a
phonetic key at the end of the story.   There are also aspects of this story
that are not (and I repeat not) in keeping with traditional Native American
practices, so don't for one minute think that it represents any of those
sacred ceremonies and rites.  I have ultimately created my own intepretation
of what may or may not happen, but among my people, there are still those who
practice the craft of the "wadayoneras".  I hope I have treated the idea of
their art with the respect and reverence that it deserves. 

This story is based on the characters and situations created by Chris Carter,
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Company.  No infringement
of copyright is intended.

			The Talisman ... An X-Files Tale (5 of 7 parts)

Chapter 4

	Her head was throbbing as she came slowly awake, aware of a heavy limb
thrown over her stomach.  She gingerly moved it aside and sat up, looking
down at the sleeping Mulder.  He was sprawled on his back, limbs splayed
outward.  In sleep, he looked younger and not nearly as sad as he did in his
waking hours.  There was a row of scratches around his shoulders and a bite
mark on his collarbone, looking a deep red against the bone-white pallor of
his skin.
	Daisy felt bruised and battered herself, but it was a good thing, this
feeling of boneless torpor.   She shivered and looked for her clothes.  The
fire had probably gone out two hours before, and it was freezing in the late
October dawn.  The sun must be up; she could see light streaming in through
cracks in the sweatlodge's mud-and-bark wall.
	She was pulling the rumpled red velvet dress over her head when Mulder
stirred, opening his eyes slowly to focus on her.  "Morning," he said
sleepily.  "Come back here--I'm freezing."
	She smiled at him, suddenly shy with him where she had not been so before. 
"I'm cold too," she said.
	"Then come here," he ordered, opening his arms for her.  She went to him and
huddled with him, tucking her head under his chin.  
	"I ache everywhere," he said.  He was still for a moment; she could feel him
remember the events of the evening past.  "I guess flying really does take a
lot out of you."
	"I guess so," she agreed.  He turned his head so that his forest green eyes,
sleepy lidded in the dim light, looked deep into hers.
	"Did it really happen?" he asked softly.
	"It was as real as this," she told him, and brushed a finger across his
lips.  This strange FBI agent, she thought, was definitely a fine
distraction.  
	"How did you learn to do that, to shapeshift?"he asked, snuggling his face
deep into her wild hair.
	She shrugged.  "It takes practice, and vision, and patience, and more
practice," she said measuredly.  "It also takes a great deal of help from the
spirits."
	"They talk to you, like they do to Tehonig?"
	She mused.  "Not in the same way, but it does happen.  There is one spirit,
Degasaheh -- it is a teaching spirit, and often it --" she sat bolt upright,
shrugging off Mulder's embrace.  The place where Tehonig had been, where he
lived in her spirit and in her heart, was suddenly empty.  She realized with
a start that she had not felt his presence for some time, but had ignored it.
	"What is it?" asked Mulder, concern in his voice.  She had gone a chalky
white colour, like all vitality had suddenly drained out of her.
	"Something's wrong," she whispered.  "Tehonig --" she threw on the rest of
her clothes.  Mulder was struggling with his as she practically leapt out of
the sweatlodge, fear suddenly choking her throat closed.
	She crashed through the brush, hearing only her heart beating wildly and
feeling stark terror grip its fingers around her.   She flew to the steps of
the moonlodge and pushed open the door, yelling, "Tehonig!?"
	The room was empty.  Mulder crashed in behind her.  He ran to his pack that
he had left on a sleeping platform and was now lying on the floor, the
contents stewn carelessly about.  The table had been turned over and it
looked as if a struggle had taken place.   Daisy could only stand in the
centre of the room, feeling as though she had been flash-frozen.   She stared
down at the corpse of Iatseh, her proud coat of fur stiff and cold, blood
pooling beneath her body.  She had been shot at least four times.  Daisy's
mind cast about frantically for Tehonig, could feel not even the lingering
traces of his presence.
	Mulder looked solemn as he came to stand before her, a comforting hand on
her shoulder.  "They've taken my gun," he said.  "Do you have any kind of
weapon?"
	She started to giggle madly, and clapped a hand over her mouth.  Taking a
deep breath, she whispered a prayer to the Thunderers to restore her
calmness.  "A wadayoneras has no need of conventional weapons," she told him.
	He glanced sharply at her, and she did not miss the cynical cast to his
eyes.  "We should look for him back at your house," he said.
	She nodded.  She remembered Iatseh,  could even now picture her running to
her across the yard, but she knew this was only the memory of her dog's
presence.  She pushed it away.  She would have to grieve for her pet later. 
Mulder took her hand and grasped it firmly, and a strange warming electricity
flowed up her arm, giving her strength.  They went outside and Daisy led the
way back to her house, forgetting her fear and even her aching muscles in the
fast trek down the hillside.
	Her house was standing quiet in the morning mist.  She called for Sowahs,
who came limping towards her, favouring his right hind leg.  A quick
examination of him revealed a bullet wound in his hindquarter and inwardly
she raged at the cowards who would shoot her dogs rather than deal with her. 
Mulder raced up the stair to the house, the door standing open.   She knew
that while she had been in the spirit world, those presences which guarded
her home had no power.  She followed Mulder blindly, signalling for Sowahs to
follow her.  She could feel no presence of the Retrievers, knew they too had
been killed.
	She stood quietly inside the kitchen.  Her home was wrecked.  Drawers had
been pulled open and the contents spilled to the floor, her fetishes and the
rows of braided corn torn off the walls and ceiling.   She leaned against the
counter, feeling only numbness.  She could tell her entire house was a
shambles and at this moment did not care.  Mulder came back into the room,
his expression narrow and angry.
	"He's not here," she said, voicing the obvious.  He caught her eyes and held
them, warmly intimate.  
	"I'm so sorry, Daisy," he said.  "I led them to you.  If they find about
Tehonig's powers, they'll never let him go."
	She looked at him, seeing deep into his heart.  He was sincerely sorry, and
the self-doubt and chastisement that he felt cut into her.  "Who are they?"
she asked softly.
	He started to speak, then shook his head.  "I really don't know."
	She touched him on the shoulder.  "Then you must promise me you will find
him," she said.  
	He nodded.  "I'll do it," he promised.  "I will find him, Daisy.  You can
trust me."   He put his hand in his pocket, like he was searching for
something.  He came up with an object in his hand and stared at it, like a
man seeing a ghost.  He looked up at her, and then opened his palm.
	Laying in the centre of his hand was the strange object that he had, in the
spirit world, pulled from the paw of the mountain lion that represented his
partner.   It gleamed a dull grey in the morning light from the window,
looking weirdly malevolent.  "What is this?" he whispered.
	She went to him and closed his hand around it.  "It is your talisman," she
said, holding her own hand over his.  "It is your protection and your
guarantee in the journey you are undertaking.  It is your amulet against
disaster.  You have earned the right to carry it with you, and now its power
is yours.  The ceremony is completed."
	He stared at his closed fist.  "I -- I don't understand."
	She hugged him.  "You will."  She could feel his uncertainty and smiled at
him, then took his face and pulled his mouth to hers, kissing him fiercely,
knowing this was for the last time.  She released him then.  "Come on, we
should be getting you back to Albany."
	"Wait -- just like that -- what are you going to do?" he stuttered as she
grabbed up her car keys from the floor and stepped back onto the porch.  He
grasped her arm.  
	"Wait, Daisy, I want to help," he said.
	She smiled at him and he took a step back from her, and she knew her smile
was a terrible thing, but ignored its effect on him.  "It's beyond your
abilities, Tasitsho," she said firmly.  "Everything will be fine.  The spirit
world always finds its own balance."
	He shook his head at her.  "I can't understand you when you start talking
like that."
	"It's okay, Mr FBI, some things aren't meant to have the bright light of
logic or science shone upon them."  She walked to the truck, whistling for
Sowahs, who came limply faithfully behind her and jumped into the back.  She
started the Pathfinder and waited patiently for him.  Mulder came slowly and
got into the passenger seat, his brows narrowed and his blue-shadowed jaw
clamped so tightly that a muscle jumped in his cheek.
	"You don't mind if I send your stuff back to you," she asked.
	He glared at her.  "No, of course not."
	She put the truck in gear and went down the hillside.  Her mind was empty,
but she knew what she had to do.