Chasing Magic

[TaLi63372]

“Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.”

"It is too hard!", the child silently protested, her voice screaming aloud her frustration. Tears fell like rain as she roared with fists clenched to the ever-present loneliness. She grabbed her satchel and hurled it at the nearby wall with another cry before collapsing in sobs on the cold floor. Her fists pounded the floor, her tiny hands bruised and bleeding from previous episodes. She tried to scream again and all that came out were sobs and gasps as her right hand pounded once more on the floor. She curled up on the floor around the spellbook, tiny arms hugging the engraved image to her chest. A hourglass with a sword through it.

"Soon as you have mastered the spell, you may leave." Bishop's rule burned in her mind as she cried. She loathed his voice in her head as it repeated it, denying her blissful ignorance and release. As desperate as she was, it never came to her mind to simply leave.

She had been at it for two days. She had eaten barely anything and worse yet, she was near the point of dangerous exhaustion. She had never been taught where to pull the mana from to perform magic. She never learned that some mana sources were finite, especially little girls. Where Rotep got his power was something he probably rarely concerned himself with.

Like Father. Like Daughter.

 

[TaLi63372]

She slept for half the day on the floor in the curled embrace of the vollem. Gradually, hunger woke the sleeping girl and roused her from her restless slumber. Her hands were swollen, bruised and bloodied from her tantrums. She reached up the sleeve of the oversized blue robe and pulled out an apple, a blueberry muffin and not a bowl, but a handful of loose peas. It had probably been months since the girl had stashed them in that non-dimensional space. It was her favorite thing in the world. A hoarder's paradise, a pocket dimension where nothing aged. She quietly ate the food as she stared at the wall, still protectively coiled in the vollem's embrace.

Thus began day three of her training. It came and went much in the same way as the previous two. Gobs of blood, sweat and tears. It was just a couple hours after midnight when the child finally could do what Bishop had asked of her without failing on a consistent basis. She hoped it was good enough to get the old rules.

She was too exhausted to celebrate. She went to the cabinets and gathered the items she kept with her. She didn't really have a very strong sense of possessions, to have possessions meant entitlement. She simply accepted the truth that if someone gave them to you, you should keep them until someone else took them away. So it was these things she packed into the sleeves of her magic robe as well as a small backpack. The child went downstairs, Fluffy in quick pursuit of his charge's odd behavior. She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a pair of blueberry muffins, a gingerbread cookie and a piece of paper with a pen. She wrote Gabrielle a note and left it on the coffee table. Her hand up the sleeve to leave the pen and pull out the rune Bishop had given engraved with the word, "Faeryl's" She held the rune in her hand and whispered hoarsely, "Kal Ort Por."

She felt her stomach lurch as she was pulled to the location. A moment later and she stood on the beach with Fluffy at her side looking just as bewildered as she was. The waves crashed loudly on the shore as the stars stood their silent vigil. She could see no sign of the golden city in the dark night. She could make out the light emanating from the city's lanterns and lampposts, but she couldn't make out that familiar gold color this far away. There was a small house with green lanterns that stood a short distance away.

The child frowned at the situation as she shivered slightly from the wind coming off the ocean. Bishop had given her this rune and had said the old rules applied. The old rules told her to stay inside the sandstone walls. There were no sandstone walls around her, no sandstone cobblestone at her feet. There was only sand, the lonely ocean and ever-present night.

Surely Bishop knew she would come here when he had given her the rune. Had she performed the spell wrong and gone somewhere else? Had he tricked her to get her in trouble? She had only been gone a minute from her prison and she had already managed to break the old rules by not staying inside the walls.. She was going to be in trouble and be sent back to nothingness. She'd rather be back with the rings, the doctor and the others experiments than be alone again.

She began to cry quietly as she plopped down in the sand. She was too dehydrated to summon more tears, even the wind in her eyes didn't conjure any. She was too tired to think and too tired to move. She curled around the spellbook, one of her tiny bloodied hands clutching the marked rune. Despite the discomfort, she quickly cried herself fast asleep. Fluffy coiled around her, laying down in the cool sand as it shielded the girl from the worst of the cold. The vollem stretched its wing over its tiny charge before tucking its head inside to wait out the cold night.

 

[Faeryl]

A lone figure exited the small cabin into the pre-dawn light; the cool winter air blowing in off the sea would be enough to chill most, but the elf that now stood barefoot in the damp sand was unphased. She had gotten into a habit of rising early to watch the sunrise over the sea; the small silhouettes of grand ships coming and going painted a soothing image against the brilliant backdrop of colour that accompanied the start of a new day.

This particular morning, however, brought a new surprise to this little routine. For there in the damp sand, barely visible in the dim light, was a fairly large, furry form. Faeryl took a few cautious steps towards the form, her keen eyes picking out details in the dark to help her identify the creature, for it certainly wasn't one of those who typically called Barrier Island home.

A vollem? How odd. Vollems weren't creatures one would typically find roaming the lands without their master. Drawing a bit closer, Faeryl could finally make out a blue bundle wrapped in the vollem's protective form; a form that she knew well to be that of the child she affectionately referred to as Little One.

"Fluffy?" She called softly. The vollem lifted its head and, turning its gaze in her direction, watched intently as the elf came closer. Once she had reached the pair, Faeryl knelt down in the cool sand to examine the child. She was shivering from the cold night, and her hands appeared bloody, but she didn't seem to have a fever or look to be ill. With a soft sigh, Faeryl picked the sleeping child up from the sand and began to take her towards the cabin, stopping only long enough to ensure the child's vollem made it inside as well.

Once the door was secured against the frigid wind, the elf gently placed the child back into the care of Fluffy, who had settled down next to the warm embers of the darkened fireplace. When she was certain that the Little One was nestled comfortably in the fur of her companion, Faeryl set about relighting the fire, before ligtly cleaning and bandaging the hands of her newly arrived house guest.

On this particular morning, as the sun rose and painted the sky with a myriad of colours, Faeryl set about cooking a warm breakfast for when the Little One finally woke up. A new habit, she felt, she could get used to.