#OWWAWT

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Writemas event by @agirlandherquill - join in, if you like; it's an open invite! 😊

My chosen prompt: A throne room

Ivah's hand is cold where it holds her face, thumb pressed to her jaw, fingers curled under her chin, tilting her head back. Her grip isn't hard enough to bruise, just hard enough to keep her from looking away. To keep her attention, hold eye contact.

"Repeat what I just said back to me."

It's not a foolproof method.

When Lark just looks at her blankly, Ivah drops her face with a huff, one long fingernail catching slightly as she turns away.

"As we seem to have reached the end of your attention span this morning, you are dismissed."

Lark is out of the training room almost before Ivah has completed the sentence.

Breakfast was hours ago. She knows where she'll find her father at this time of day.

Fleetfooted, and with just a touch of subtlety magic, she makes her way to the throne room.

No one turns around when she walks in, and the only person who seems to notice her entrance is the one she wants to see her.

King Sorin Alires -- he makes eye contact with her briefly before returning his full attention to the person talking to him.

She finds a spot in the back and makes herself comfortable.

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remembering I have a nephew only a little older than the characters I've been fixating on lately is incredibly helpful in figuring out wtf they're thinking. XD

'what the shit does this 13.5-year-old think he and his friends are gonna be able to do to help these grown-ass adults?'

think like nephew, think like nephew ... xP

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Writemas days 6, 15, & 16! :D

My chosen prompts: a forest, the silence of nature/He whistled to the darkness, and for the first time in his life, the unknown whistled back/the stirring of darkness.

Thorn has never walked in a forest so silent.

It's unnerving, wrong.

Silence means predator, means danger.

He ducks into the hollow of a tree, hopes that the plant life growing around the roots will hide him a bit. Instinctively, he starts to hold his breath, but makes himself breathe quietly, so quietly, through his mouth instead.

Now that he's all but silent himself, he hears what he hadn't before: footsteps.

Something brushing through branches and across tree trunks. Something else swishing through the ground cover.

He almost starts holding his breath again when a dragon trods into his line of sight.

It's not as big as he'd always expected one to be. Its tail is about as long as its neck and body combined, and it's kind of ... leafy looking. Verdant green, with wings that look like they're meant to spread at least as wide as it is long.

It's pretty.

***

Jade doesn't remember how or why they all got separated.

All she knows is that she's alone, in a dark, cold, damp cave, and she has no idea where her friends are.

She whistles into the darkness, an exercise in keeping her breath steady and calm.

For the first time in her short life, the darkness whistles back.

She stops walking, hardly daring to breathe for a long minute. Then, she whistles. Two notes: high, then low.

Two notes back: low, then high.

She sounds four notes, this time: high-low, low-high.

Low-high, high-low.

Jade steps forward again, cautiously. "Hello?"

Something in the darkness stirs, and she can't make out anything except big, and spikes, as if the cave itself is moving.

She takes a deep breath, forces herself to plant her feet. Whatever this is may be bigger than her, but she will not let herself be cowed. It obviously has some level of higher thought processes, to communicate with her through whistling like that. It can take a second and decide not to eat her.

How ... Interesting.

She looks up -

And up -

A dragon, black as night and flecked with luminescent spots that look like stars.

What is a human doing in my lair?

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... Of Warlocks, Wyrms, and Willow Trees?

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Late writemas days 13 & 14! :D

My chosen prompts: "On your knees. You will bow to me, you will kiss my boot, or I shall find reason not to spare you." (okay I didn't really use this one, but it did inspire like. half of this fill. xD), a dinner, the burn of poison/He wished looks would kill. It would save him the effort of a slaughter, and he was not in the mood for dirtying his sleeves with blood, not when he had someone to see.

It's a quiet meal. Just the two of them, with Lark sequestered in her room with a migraine.

Tense.

He knows, but he doesn't know what he knows. He knows there's something different about Lark, might be able to sense her magic on the girl.

He doesn't know -- can't know -- what magic she cast.

Despite having trained him, having all but raised him, really, she's not sure what his reaction would look like if he did know.

She'd like him to be grateful, or at least recognize that the intent behind it is not malicious. That it's for the girl's own good.

Memory magic isn't difficult, per se, but it is complex.

They make eye contact over the meal. She takes a sip of her wine. He sets his fork down beside his plate.

Waiting. And not subtle about it.

"What's in my drink, Sorin?"

One side of his mouth raises in a small smirk. "Give it a moment. You'll see."

She does.

Her throat burns, the roof of her mouth. The tips of her fingers.

She should recognize this. She's probably used this on someone else before. But what ... ?

~*~

He almost wishes looks could kill. It would save a lot of time and effort. Would probably break whatever spell Ivah had cast on his kid, too.

He would much rather be with Lark right now, in the quiet darkness of her bedroom. Spending time with his newly returned daughter, before matters of state and country drew him away again.

Instead, he's here, confronting his advisor -- his teacher.

"I have the antidote. Just undo whatever you did to my kid, and find yourself a new place of employment."

Ivah stares at him. Her voice rasps when she speaks. "Such a tempting offer."

"The alternative is that I kill you here. Let the poison finish you off, or take one of these knives and cut your throat." He shrugs, as if the idea doesn't bother him. "The knife would be faster, but I don't want Lark to see me with blood on my shirt."

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Writemas days 10-12! :^]

My chosen prompts: Everywhere she looked, there were reminders of what she had lost, every time she closed her eyes, she could feel the ghosts of the past haunting her./a nightmare/The emptiness in their eyes hurt, there was no recognition, no respect, nothing close to love. It was as though they saw a stranger., the hesitation of touch, the crushing of disappointment.

Whatever spell was cast, however it was broken ... its effects take some time to wear off.

At first, it's just dreams. Then nightmares.

Every time she closes her eyes; she can feel the ghosts of her past haunting her.

She goes to sleep, and then she's wandering the halls of her home with no real goal in mind.

Her home, but not. The hallways lead nowhere, the rooms are not rooms in the palace at all.

And everywhere she looks, there are reminders of what she's lost.

In one room, dozens of sketchbooks, filled to the brim with drawings and scribbled notes and silly doodles. In another, an abandoned pair of glasses, plants covering the windowsills, healthy and green.

Yet another, narrower than any room or closet that actually exists, bookshelves stuffed full to bursting with books, maps on the walls and scattered around the floor. And a fourth, with string lights shaped like stars and flowers hanging on the walls, a record player going softly in the corner.

There are no names to go with the rooms, no clear faces. Not at first.

Then, there are.

And, at first, she's so happy to see them. To see Kit's freckled face, Mac's warm brown eyes, Thorn's shaggy blond curls, and Jade's round cheeks. She rushes forward, crying out their names, reaching out to hug them.

She stumbles to a complete stop when the looks on their faces finally registers. When she remembers -- realizes -- what's happened.

The emptiness in their eyes hurts. There's no recognition, no respect, nothing close to the love that had been present just months ago. It's as if they're all looking at a stranger.

She feels the disappointment crushing something inside of her, can't quite keep herself from reaching out again. Just one hand, slowly, hesitantly. Just to touch an arm, a shoulder. "I - I'm sorry."

Her voice cracks.

The others step back, not quite as one, just out of step.

She wakes up, and curls into herself, and weeps.

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Writemas day 5!!! (I know it's late, shhhhhh xP I will get back on track with these at some point, maybe lol)

My chosen prompt: "...What have you done?"

It takes him far too long to realize that something is wrong.

But he has an entire country to run, and Lark has always been a bright, cheerful kid.

Paltry excuses in the face of his kid's wellbeing, but that's what he's got.

As long as it takes him to realize, though, he's not nearly so slow to confront the cause.

"What have you done to my daughter?"

Ivah pauses what she's doing to look up at him, one eyebrow arched. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Don't play your games with me, Ivah. What is wrong with Lark?"

She puts down her pen and folds her hands on top of whatever she'd been writing, tilting her head just slightly to the side. "There is no game here. Why do you think there's something wrong with her? She seems ... cheerful. Happier than she's been in a while."

And that's exactly the problem. She's just returned after having been abducted, taken from her home and brought to a foreign, potentially hostile land. The only thing that kept her from harsher treatment was her age.

Yet she doesn't seem to remember any of it. The abduction itself. How her time away from home was spent. How she got home. Anything at all.

Something here is terribly wrong, and he doesn't know how to fix any of it.

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Writemas days 7-9! xD

My chosen prompts: "Can we fix this?", an empty road, the dead of night/"Can you forgive me?", the cusp of dawn/the strength of a supporting hand (Just to be clear: I am Aware I don't need to go back & do days I've missed (though I am gonna go & do days 5 & 6 at some point), but it drives me up the wall to have skipped/missing days & my intention has been to figure out one particular WIP at least partially through this challenge, so I'm going to, at least, do my best lol)

The road is long, and dark, and empty. Thankfully.

Lark stumbles, nearly taking herself and Kit to the ground before regaining her balance. "Sorry, are you okay?" Voice just a bit too loud.

Kit hushes her, not quite harshly. After a moment, she says: "I'm good. Let's keep going."

The others are a way ahead of them. No one particularly wants her leading them anywhere. Especially not in the dark.

She can't find it within herself to blame them.

She adjusts her hold around Kit's waist, takes a deep breath, and starts walking again.

"Do you think you guys will be able to forgive me? Can I ... can I fix it?" She doesn't try to look at Kit's face as she asks.

They walk in silence, focusing on their feet. What they can see of the road in the light of the partial moon.

Eventually: "I don't know what the others think, but ... I don't know that you need to fix anything. You kept secrets for a long time, but ... everything that just happened wasn't on you."

Lark blinks. Almost stumbles again, caught between the instinct to pause and the knowledge that she can't. "I lied to all of you. I don't know what I told them." I still want to go home.

The arm Kit has over her shoulders flails a bit before it manages to shift, pat her shoulder, kind of. "You're thirteen, and they're the ones that raised you. She ... what did she do, actually? What kind of magic was that?"

"I don't ... I can guess, but ..." She hesitates. "It's not anything I'm really familiar with."

Vague. Shoddy. Shady. Not entirely dishonest, but far from truthful.

They should stop. Leave her behind. Go back to Floya without her. Tell Raz and Flynn that something went terribly wrong.

Tell them the truth.

"We'll just have to research, then." Kit sounds far too cheerful for someone who has to be in so much pain. "I know we're not as big on magic as Dascua is, but there've gotta be some resources. Mind magic, yeah?"

Lark sighs. "Yeah. Mind magic."

They walk until the horizon starts to turn pink, then move to find a place to rest.

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Writemas day 4!!! 🎉🎉 Little tiny bit late, but shhhhhh!!

(& a sneaky day 1 fill, too. xP)

My chosen prompts: a tower & 'The wind was her only friend, and the only thing to catch her as she fell.' (Day one's prompt: a frozen lake)

The dragon curled around the base of the tower refuses to speak to her.

Kit spends, admittedly, a slightly ridiculous amount of time standing there, staring as the dragon curls around the tower again.

With a huff - and maybe a stomp of a foot; she's frustrated, okay? - she paces away to consider another approach.

If just talking to it isn't going to work, just hanging around waiting for it to change its mind probably won't either ... she looks back at the tower.

This idea could backfire terribly. Invading a sleeping dragon's space, generally, is an awful idea.

She doesn't really care.

A bad reaction from the dragon will still be a reaction, after all.

Quietly, she makes her way back and goes back to staring. Takes a few minutes to figure out a way around the dragon.

Once she does, she begins to climb the exterior of the tower.

The dragon uncurls. Sits up. Watches her, she can feel its eyes on her back, assessing.

It still says nothing to her.

She's close to the top, just a couple hand- and foot-holds away, when something ...

The stone under her left hand cracks, slipping just a bit, and -

She falls.

Her friends aren't here; she was so sure, so insistent that this was something she had to do herself.

In this moment, the wind is her only friend, and the only thing to catch her as she falls.

The dragon moves, rising to meet her. To catch her on its back.

Stupid, even for a human.

The voice in her head is higher than she thought it would be. It doesn't rumble, isn't gritty, or raspy. It's light and airy, soft.

"Yeah," Kit says, winded, holding tightly to its back until it lands. "Yeah, you're not the first I've ever heard that from."

***

Lark is seven years old when she meets Iku.

She is walked to the middle of a frozen lake by the man who has taken her in -- by the king, the king of Dascua is walking her to the middle of a frozen lake in the middle of the woods behind the palace and oh gods she's overstepped somewhere somehow and he's sick of her and now --

Her spiraling thoughts stop, and she stares.

The dragon stares back.

It is huge, and terrifying, and beautiful. Something in her hindbrain wants to touch the fluff on its head. The rest of her wants to see her eighth birthday, so she keeps her hands to herself and tucks herself behind the king.

The dragon tilts its head a bit, eyes following her.

I'm not going to hurt you.

It doesn't lower itself at all, doesn't do anything to try and seem more friendly, more approachable.

Lark peeks around the king's leg, lets her hair fall to obscure her face at least a little bit.

There is no sense of deceit, here.

The dragon is terrifying, and capable of causing great harm, but has no intention to do so.

"You're here to do something, though."

Dragons don't nod, but it makes some motion of assent.

You are correct.

They both look at the king.

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Warlocks or wizards?

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Writemas day 3!!! 😁

My chosen prompts: His knuckles were bruised and bloody & a dungeon

They woke up slowly, one at a time, in a dark, dank room.

A cell.

No guard outside the bars keeping them in. The only windows too narrow and too high to see out of, let alone fit through. The light coming through is pathetically dim, sad and blue-grey.

Mac kicks at the bars before wrapping his hands around a couple of them. That's when he notices: his knuckles are bruised and bloody.

"Uh. Guys?" He lets go of the bars and turns around to face the others. "What exactly did we do before they threw us in here?"

Kit scoffs, folding her arms over her chest. "We tried to get Lark back. I have no idea what they did to hr, but she acted like she had no idea who we were!"

He holds his hands up to show off the state of them. "Who did I punch?"

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hmm...

how would living creatures, old & potentially immortal they may be, being the Source of magic actually work?