"I'm fine." He said, but the lie tasted like ashes in his mouth.
“Hey Abs, look what I did.” Another late night in Silvermoon City with Samiel and Absolain.
This wonderful piece was done by Alteya on Deviantart who I can’t recommend enough. I have no words for how wonderful this picture is. It’s amazing to rp the stories out but seeing them brought to life so skillfully makes me so happy.
With a patience that was almost absurd Tyleril leaned over the metal blade he was polishing. Each inch of the blade had been overseen by his Pop and now it waited for its owner to claim it- a farstrider, Samiel had guessed. The blade was made in an older style, vines and flowers of iron holding the sharp blade to the hilt. The blade glowed with a dark light at the edges of his peripheral vision and Samiel wondered what enchantment had been applied to the weapon. It was a beautiful blade, a sign of Pop’s skill and Samiel felt his chest swell with pride. Pop was the best, out of all of them.
“-Ask no questions and hear no lies, turn the cheek and blind the eye, let it gooooo…” Tyleril’s words were soft and the song unfamiliar. It sounded old. “…and your already sold your soul. It’s blasphemy, but your words don’t make sense anymore. What would your family say? When you’ve lied to them all?…”
Samiel sat atop the highest crate. Pop’s songs were interesting, but they didn’t distract him from what went on in his mind. Trying to understand and to figure out this new puzzle.
“Some things you won’t understand without age or experience.” Tyleril knelt in front of him, still tall enough to block Samiel’s sunlight. He took a moment to study his Pop closely. Pop’s eyes were gold, a sign of how deeply and often he called upon the Light. But beneath that Samiel knew they were a solid grey the color of cobblestone. The v neck of his robes were cut low- a attempt to make them last longer by cutting and sewing new hems. Surgeon’s stitches kept the new hem nice, not hiding the curl of chest hair peeking out that was the same dark brown shade of his hair. His skin was white but working in the sun had given it a light brown tan to it. The halo over Pop’s head was to unique for words.
Pop was to nice. He always was. Samiel had learned that from a young age. Pop didn’t see it when people were rude to him and lied. He didn’t like anger or conflict, shying away from arguments. But if Pop thought it was for Samiel he would speak when silence would be wiser. He wore his heart on his sleeve, trying to be nice to everyone. Samiel knew that people were bad. He’d chased off enough and been bullied to much to forget how cruel people could be.
In Pop’s hands was a wicked looking knife. It was simple enough, but Samiel saw the runes engraved on the edges and could read them. They were a prayer for death, a fanatic’s words from a book that had been forbidden to Samiel. But he’d read it anyway.
“Why do you even have that? It’s not like you could use it.”
“I always have a w-weapon on me S….s-samiel.”
“Why.” It was meant to be a question but Samiel had never liked or agreed with Tyleril’s Altruist vows.
“If I need to then I will. You might be old enough to understand it-”
Samiel nodded. he wanted to be.
“I’ll die for you. To protect you. To keep you safe.” The intensity in Pop’s gaze was uncomfortable but he stared back, unwilling to look away.
Now he sat, watching Pop sing softly as he worked. Pop’s face was serene and calm. Absorbed by his work.
Some things you can’t understand until you’re older.
His mind worked at this puzzle, picking at it, thinking and running it through his mind. It wouldn’t be until Thallus came to visit the forges that his mind would stop and he would eagerly go to greet the Blood Knight.
“I have my mother’s temper and my father’s dreams. To talented for my own good, Mother said. Be careful, Father urged. You shine brightly and there are things that want to snuff out that light.”
Picking Samiel because it’s been ages since I’ve done a Sam-related ask.
Samiel likes to practice magic or draw. His favorite right now is to do flashy magic- illusion, lights. Detailed things to focus on and ignore the rest of the world. When he draws he likes to do backgrounds, particularly trees and weed patches because he thinks that those images in his mind are some of the most beautiful things he sees in the woods.
Sometimes he’s very successful, and others he’s not. If he’s particularly strewed he focuses solely on spell casting. It’s exhausting and after a while, like it or not, he’ll get tired. Art is wonderful but sometimes his frustration at certain pieces or his limitations will reduce the effectiveness of its destressing.
Samiel eagerly opens the parcel, expecting mail. The statue he pulls out gives him pause. He doesn’t say anything as he examines the carving of Buttons. He couldn’t read Shalassian but that other fat Whelps would Astrelline have met on her travels?
Samiel’s room was the smallest bedroom in Tyleril’s apartment. A corner was set aside for his and Razail’s tent-bed. Books sat crammed onto the space of a handmade desk and stolen notes from other apprentices were carefully hidden beneath it. A mage light kept the room bright even as the sun outside the window began to lower in the sky. Silence reigned in the apartment now with Pop and the other residents of the apartment busy and away.
And in his room Samiel stared at the carving. His mind mulled over the last few times he’d seen Absolain and Astrelline.
‘Dangerous’, was what Pop had said Abs had called her. Abs had called Pop a holy imbecile. Tyleril had tried to hide that from him but Samiel had overheard his father as Tyleril had anxiously paced. Unaware of the meeting between Tyleril, Aestus, and Thanelor Samiel was left to wonder what else had happened. What else had made Pop’s anxiety spike so high again? What else was unsaid that he wasn’t hearing? Irritation made his lips tug into a scowl. To much was missing he didn’t know. To many pieces he wasn’t aware of. “It’s complicated.” He mocks Absolain’s words, doing his best to imitate the same tone the words had been delivered to him. The words echoed in the room long after they left his lips.His fingers tapped against the statue. Stop, Pop had said. But didn’t Pop take a vow to protect everyone? On the battlefield and off. He said to leave Absolain alone. Abs was angry, Pop said.
Samiel resisted the childishly angry impulse to burn the wood, though he felt his fingers warm up.
“I ‘spose…"
He begins slowly. He couldn’t go beyond the safe places Pop had limited him to. Thane and Mother wouldn’t help him find Astrelline either. Absolain was angry. Pop was anxious and the way his hands shook made Samiel suspect something was very wrong. "Not dead then. ” Astrelline was alive.
But what was he supposed to do? To young to leave home without an adult but not old enough to be treated like and adult. Gears turned and he ran his mind over spells, homework, lectures, and stories. There was a answer to be found, a way to do something. Anything.
Left to his own devices Samiel set the carving on his desk and grabbed a sheet of paper. He grasped at books to browse through them as he began to sketch. He was silent. But anger stirred in his chest, encouraging Samiel as the child began to focus.
“I’ll find something. I’m a kid or I’m an adult. But I’m always a kid when it’s convenient.” The last word held the stirrings of anger. “I’ll show everyone.” Somehow.
Though he refused to leave the statue alone for long. It would have a new traveling home on Samiel’s bag.
Blood was potent, Mother had told him once. To often, she had said, people discarded pieces of themselves. You could locate someone with their hair, blood droplets, or personal items. Mother said she was a monster and shouldn’t a monster be able to hunt it’s quarry? He hadn’t questioned her words. Like many things his mother had said and done it just…fit. Mother was a puzzle with missing pieces Samiel could not figure out. But she was a puzzle he knew. Mother was the monster under the bed, the thing in the closest, the who when you called out “Who’s there?”, and other things better left alone in the dark.
So Samiel let the missing pieces of Mother’s puzzle stay missing. She was brutally honest to him and it was a brutal honesty he appreciated best after much thought and silence.
Pop had dropped him off at Celtrois’s one story mansion home. His hand had trembled less today and when Samiel asked him what was wrong Pop had smiled and promised everything was fine.
But he lied.
Samiel could see the lie on Pop’s face before it was spoken aloud. Ghosts of leftover emotion lingering in his fathers fel-tinted golden eyes. Fine. If Pop was going to lie then Samiel was going to figure out his own answers to problems. “To young to be an adult. But an adult when it’s convenient.”
Celtrois’s home was richly furnished and kept meticulously clean through magic. It didn’t scream decadence but the furnishings oozed nobility in a way that only the oldest and most dignified noble houses seemed to manage. Everything looked costly. Samiel had apprenticed under Celtrois for a year now and knew the secret was not that the items were expensive- it was that they were old. Age was, in its own way, something that gave the items more. He might have been wrong but Samiel was certain that seemed right. Outside of Celtrois’s home there were grounds that Samiel considered large. Large enough to keep him hidden from his Uncle’s sharp eyes as he kneeled down on the ground.
There were few spells Samiel had been taught that he was allowed to use without asking for permission. After the dragonfire incident with Reynllin Celtrois and Pop and limited what Samiel was allowed to practice outside of Celtrois’s watchful eye. “Technically, I’m following the letter of the law and not the spirit.” He said aloud, reassuring himself.
A map of Quel’thalas lay on the ground, held down by one hand. “A bit of hair, a memory, and a droplet of blood.” Mother could do her spells with no regents, he registered and this knowledge brought annoyance with it. He pricked his finger with the tip of his knife and waited for a small droplet of blood to well up and fall onto the map. “One blood drop.” A few scales, painfully stolen from a dragonhawk, set atop the mirror. “And for the memory…” He remembered what Astrelline smelled like, the feeling of her hands when she touched him and how it felt for his magic to be made null. Seeing her smile and say Buttons name wrong. _Button._
He didn’t need to _find_ Astrelline exactly. Just the disturbance she made. He began to whisper aloud his memories of Astrelline, focusing his magic on the map. The scales seem to burn away with the blood droplet and the paper beneath them was gone. He should have used a proper scrying mirror.
Find the disturbance. Charm a monster. Send a letter. It seemed so simple. But as the map under his hands began to grow warm he had a moment of doubt that it would work at all.
The book started out in an attempt to be simple. The language barrier was the hardest thing to overcome. But his magic had failed him, the adults in his life were either tight lipped.
It’s complicated.
Or they wouldn’t get involved.
If we force her to s-stay she’ll hate us. It’ll grow in her heart like a seed from the love that was there.
His location spell, in Samiel’s opinion, had been a complete failure. She was in Quel’thalas, in the Ghostlands. But exactly where his spell had failed him.
He reread Adrianal’s book once more, studying the artistic stylings and hints in there, trying to find something, some great way to convey things to Astrelline. One sentence in particular stuck in his mind. Colors are a great way to draw attention and create emotion.
The idea was planted and he spent days bending over a desk. It hadn’t been hard to tell Pop he wanted to stay with Thanelor or Reynllin- both were inclined to let Samiel have space when he wanted it. By the time he finished his fingers were aching, stiff, and stained with paint and inks. But the booklets that he’d finished was done.
He packed it with some jerky and a handful of candy for Astrelline.
A button is glued to the surface of the book, colored in black, white, and grey. The cover bears Buttons and Samiel’s faces.
But as the book was picked up and flipped through it held a dark, sad tone. Samiel and Buttons sitting in Silvermoon and EVersong all alone. A broken heart started out small but as the book was flipped through became more and more apparent. The last page showed Samiel alone with only the broken heart for company.
The second booklet had been attempted to staple onto the first. It started where the first ended. But where the first ended in lonlieness and heartbreak this one showed Astrelline returning and as she returned, color came with with her. The colors vibrant as the booklet has her hugging Samiel at the end, broken heart restored.
It was the best he could do and as Samiel watched Doves trot away on the horse he couldn’t help but wonder-
“S-samiel.”
Samiel’s head turns. “You weren’t at Reynllin or Thanelor’s apartments.” Tyleril had found out he’d slipped from his curfew. Samiel drew in a deep breath as all six feet and three inches of his father came closer. “We’re heading home- right now. You’re grounded S-samiel.”
Samiel didn’t argue. But as Tyleril lead him away, scolding him lightly. He looked the way Doves had gone.
Please come back.
@ocarina-of-what @teamdoodledork For brief mentions!
Tyleril Silversword 
You must be logged in to post a comment.