Time. It was always time that ticked in her mind since the loss off her sight. Time that was never read from the face of a clock, measured by the creeping shadow of a sun dial, nor heard by the rhythmic tick of gears. It was time that pulsed, throbbed and flowed in her mind with a cascade of colors radiating from the ley lines that wove together and made up every facet of life around her.

For days she would watch this variation of time and never wonder whether it was day or night outside. Perhaps she could have listened for the creatures that inhabit night or day to have an inkling. Or perhaps a sniff of morning dew on the air or the feel of cool night moisture. These things she did not do for the ever living weft and warp of the living world had her attention.

Before her the weave stretched unlimited, daunting and somedays menacing like a vast ocean of strangling threads. She began to wonder during this times of smallness, times of reflection on the greater weave of things, as to whether she had an effect on the weave anymore. Could one blind witch do anything of note" Could she actually reach out and help people when she often couldn't feel for a glass or a wand" Could she actually matter at all in this world of sight and seeing?

These questions followed her like the darkness she was pressed into, always echoing in her mind like the joyous conversations she could hear wafting from the academy. No matter how hard she pondered the questions answers always slipped away from her fingers like fine sand.

Until today.

She was standing in the flower gardens baosting sweet roses, heady lavenders and spicy pungent tiger lillies by the scent. It was here that she saw, litteraly a way to make a difference in life. To make a mark and take back some of the karma she had lost in earlier times. For in the garden, she could actually see the ley lines weave and gatther into the simple shapes of the plants and flowers.

She could not see the actual color of the petals, or the varities of green the stems could hold, but her mind still remembered what the colors should be just by the shape of the plants pulsing with ley lines. And this was her bridge. A pathway from darkness to the world of the seeing. She reached down and plucked a tiger lilly to sniff it more, her hand moving to it as if she had sight.

"This....this is how I will make a difference. I may not be a spell slinger. I may be blind. But by all that is merciful and all that is not, I will show I exist and matter. I'll let the flowers and plants of the coven show my love and care. I will grace people with flowers. I will matter, I will exist and I'll leave my hallmarks." she said to the empty garden.

The plants listened. They always do. Twirling the tiger lilly in one hand, she walked back to the coven admiring her new sight of all the flora the grounds had to offer. A simple, blind witch, feeling her way with staff and hand through a land of beauty and charm.

Lahan was feeling the stems and leaves of a wonderful blue rose bush. Yes, a real blue rose bush, well blue to the seeing. Her vision saw the tangles and weaves of energy in the bush not as chaos but an ordered purpose. An ordered purpose with a tangle and snarl within it. A black spot in the weave of energy had drawn her attention today on her walk.

Something had damaged the bush. By feel she found that someone had gotten too ambitious in the pruning and nicked a few of the main feeder stems. They were nearly dead. Smiling softly she left her fingers dance and twirl as she reached out with her mind and found a ley line of green energy humming vibrantly under the garden as it should.

With a few simple thoughts, a said word the energy spooled within in her mind like a big spinning wheel. Gently she started weaving energy back into the damaged stems of the bush, coaxing health and life back to the dark black spot in her vision.

Lahan had heard Arthour even when he had paused to watch her. Those ears of hers were very keen these days. A small smile touched her face as the sound of him came closer.

"I am doing well Master of Mage House. Found a rose bush in need of tending while I was walking . . ." she said.

Fingers kept twisting and moving as if she were weaving real thread around the cut rose stems. To the seeing eye a green spark danced along the dead and dry pith of the stems and sap was begining to flow again. Green was returning to the brown stems as her weaving restored life to the bush.

"It's a tricky thing you know . . ." she said. Her hands felt the stems once her weaving was done. They slid over smooth stems and were nicked by sharp thorns. Putting her pricked fingers to her mouth for a moment to suck on them she continued her thought aloud.

"Whether its repairing a life, mending a heart or just fixing a broken thing nothing is ever done without a sacrifice. How are you today Master of Mage House" Do you find my ley line weaving a fascination?"

"Ah, forgive the formalities Art. I have been some what recluse the last few months, adjustments and all." With care she picked a blue rose bud off the stem and offered it to Art.

"A gift to the new head of Mage House, may you lead us well Art. As to my weaving of magic, it is not surprising it is new to you or many. Weaving of ley line magic is known to so few these days. I was once tasked by my old coven to investigate ley magic. An investigation that has proven very fruitful to this day." Lahan said.

She began to smile. "Tell me Art, what is your knowledge so far on ley magic and ley lines?"

Hearing what he knew of ley lines and that he was interested, Lahan leaned on her mithril staff.

"Lay lines are ancient, geomantic conduits for any realms background energy. Some say nature magic, some say elemental magic, some say Feng-Sue or primal magic. Regardless of the label or the methodology for describing these conduits, it is simply the gathering lines or channels of all magical energy.

Energy bled from spells cast, bled from spells lost, bled from breathing, eating, sleeping, birth, life, death and work. Everything bleeds energy out into the environment and ley lines gather that energy. When I first studied them as a child of 9 in my coven, the Holy Grail of thought was that ley lines all had the same, raw collection of energy running in them.

But they do not. I was gifted with a unique talent. I see the magical spectrum of energy very clearly. My head sister called it ley line sight. It came on about my 13th birthday and I was soon the scorn and consternation of all classes held at my coven. Not a single theory was left untouched by me or left alone." she said.

Lifting her staff she began to walk the path of the garden. Moving helped her thoughts stay in motion.

"Picture ley lines like power lines if you will of something electrical. I am no modern girl, but I did ask the repair man in our village about the guts of our old radio he was fixing. He told me each wire was coated in plastic of a different color for a reason, they all held different quantities of power. The same is true with ley lines. Each one actually has it's own unique color, its own unique properties when you tap it." She said.

"I am not sure if I am capable of teaching Art." Lahan said.

She stopped under a tree and leaned against it. Fingers traced the vine patterns carved into the staff.

"I can pass on information, talk and lecture I suppose, but if someone can't see ley lines. Can't feel them, then it's a moot point. If you had students that had an inkling of sensitivity to ley magic then I may consider . . ."

Do I dare put myself near anyone else ready for teaching or learning" I still have the knowledge and craft of something deadly. Something demonic. Could teaching erase the names I had written in that damn book"

"A seat and some tea in the shade does sound wonderful." She said.

Lahan would let Art guide her to a bench under a shadey spot of his choosing. Once she sat, she leaned her staff against one shoulder, it never left her side.

"Art, if you realy wish for me to actually teach anything I know, you must be made aware of some things that could put students of any age in danger. For my knowledge with ley lines have crossed paths with another area of research I have done. Bear in mind that research I have done, what I know from it, only Miranda knows of. Are you willing to hear me out and keep it to yourself?" she asked.

Her sightless eyes fell on him in an eerie way, as if she saw him, but not exactly him. What exactly did she see"

She felt the cup in her hand and took it. With a slow sip she let the warm tea chase away the coldness deep in her now. Oh, if it were only interesting to her, the skill she knew.

"Art. What I know is beyond the simple act of getting careless with a spell. Singing yourself with fire, even killing yourself by accident when magic goes wrong is an occupational hazzard all in the arcane know of. What I can do, I learned as a young child from a demon, a demon I finally banished, but the skill and talents remain locked in me for me to command and pass on."

She sipped at her tea some more.

"With a persons name and their face in my mind or even a picture of them, I can kill them without breaking a sweat Art, using ley magic."

"I would love some cake Art."

She took a sip of tea and listened to some birds singing in the trees by them.

"The talent I have, death writing, has been been restrained though, in with my hands at least. The demon saw to that when I banished him."

Sightless, pale mahogany eyes looked about.

"What I wonder at is this Art. Am I qualified to teach' Qualified to be around the young" I've killed people for reasons . . . mirky and misguided. My consciense weighs heavy on being around students, a murdering blind woman. Does that make any sense?"

Taking the cake and trying some the sweetness brought a smile and a light note to her dark topic.

"I suppose mentoring to ward off the dangers the future brings is one way of making penance for . . . what I did. Though I fear I could die a thousand times and not repay the debt of writing the names of my Coven sisters in that horrid book, no matter how merciful a death it was."

She was quiet for a long moment before speaking. "I may consider guiding someone in what I know Art, but not before a class. I fear ridicule, mockery for being blind and teaching something that is visual. If you find a student or two that is, as you say new to all of this and needing a guide, I would tend to them like any flower in this garden."

Another sip of tea as she listened to him. Her face angled away a bit for hearing him.

"I suppose trying and doing are the options I have left. My past is not a path I have open to go back to. I do like the sound of mentoring better than teaching. It's more familiar with how my old coven taught us. A few at a time with individual Sisters of a certain talent or strength."

A wan smile touched her face recalling the lighter memories of her old coven before the smoke and fire. Head tilted back to feel the sun on it, how long did she keep herself inside the Coven buildings these days"

"Perhaps this meeting of you and I on a path of flowers is a twining of thread into a cloth fit for a future garment of fine wear" Mentoring and gardening . . . both would get me out of my room more. I must look pale." she said and laughed lightly.

"I will do well here Art. Many plants and flowers still need tending so does the gardening staff. They seem to enjoy my help." She said.

Setting down the empty tea cup, Lahan stood and leaned on her staff.

"Do take care Art. May your affairs go well. And if you run into Miranda anytime, tell her I have some special flowers she may enjoy growing in the green house I wish to show her."

As Art left, Lahan wandered the many paths of the Coven gardens, both of Mage house and the other houses as well. All of the grounds staff knew her by now and welcomed the Ley witch and what she could do to help the plants they tended. She happened to be on the grounds of the Alchelmy house helping with the planting of lavender. Well it smelled like lavender, and the gardeners told her it was lavender.

So she enjoyed her time with fingers feeling the earth beneath them installing life into it.