¤ Battle of Words and Wits

And again. Back to awareness, again.

This time, however, the transition was not smooth; she was pushed, shoved and dragged out of the cocoon of oblivion and thrust into a howling maelstrom of ghostly voices, like some sacrificial offering to a bloodthirsty host. Part of her had resisted every inch of the way, yet another screamed with joy upon joining with the insane chorus.

It frightened her, how the voices battled for dominance in her hearing, just as the jumbled thoughts in her head fought to take centerstage; there could be no harmony between any of them. She felt herself being tugged to and fro random opinions, ideas and emotions like a small raft in the midst of an ocean. In one moment, she was being lectured of the properties of Dark Crystal with regards to the Arts of Life, and in another, she was thinking furiously about someone called Ferra and how he might ruin all of her- no, not her, his!, plans.

Was this what that phrase she remembered meant? ‘Losing your mind’? Because it truly felt like a losing battle, this struggle for control over her own mind. She could feel her own grip on her newly-formed awareness slip, as some foreign force attempted to pry it away from her, to wash her away with wave upon overwhelming wave of thought.

One of the windows flared up again, but she refused to move over lest in doing so, she would be submitting to the control of the warring invaders. But the resistance she put up was not enough and in the end, she was compelled to drag her insubstantial self over to the rectangle of light.

What she saw next heightened the torturing torrent of thoughts so much that all she could do was to press herself as far back as she could from the window and cover her face. Yet her traitorous hands left gaps between her fingers and forced her to watch, whimpering soundlessly throughout the ordeal…

A moonlit night, with the lunar body hanging once again in the dark sky, round and bloated with silver light, outside one of the many windows of the cold stone Tower.

A short girl ghosts by this window, her fingers brushing the cold stone walls of the walkway. With every slow, heavy step, spectres of the past seem to reach out from the grey stone-

–Dash!, run!, cannot fly! Damned corridor too narrow for wings, must tell Kranz, El Nath, invaded how soon?, oh heavens, a dead end. Oh heavens!… And to see that cold callous face, pale with hard emerald eyes that could pin you down like a butterfly on a corkboard –

– to entangle her in their possessive grasps. The past that, ironically, would give her this chance to return to it after she was banished from it, eons of a year ago.

She hears soft footfalls that do not match hers. Swiftly, the slight girl spins around, hand out automatically in a defensive spell gesture, only to sense the rigid clamping force of a stun spell trap her limbs in solid air-

–Stunned, stuck, cannot move! Do not think about the height behind…. Oh heavens! He is coming closer, closer. Cannot move away, scramble to recall the counterspell as that pale, pale murderer comes ever closer towards her–

– ‘Why is a candidate for the Advisor seat in our King’s court out wandering the corridors in the middle of the night? And on the night before her final trials too.’ A drawl with careless undertones running under every syllable cuts through the silence of the corridor, so familiar to her ears.

”What a pity, though. A pretty creature like you…”

She could only stare as that very same face from her past emerges once again from the shadows outside the pool of moonlight, unchanged (of course!) ever since that year or so ago.

‘What, can you offer no explanation?’ Verchiel raises an eyebrow, then laughs a perfectly cultivated laugh of utmost apology. ‘Oh, I forgot. The stun spell silences as well.’ He waves a counterspell and Aurora feels the magical grip fall away from her to dump her unceremoniously onto the floor.

Scrambling to her feet and forcing herself to regain composure quickly, she sketches a swift bow. ‘Begging your pardon, Lord Headmaster, I couldn’t sleep.’

Verchiel walks towards her, one deliberate step at a time. ‘So well spoken. One could almost take you for a fellow courtier of Orbis. I trust that you have been learning all you can of fairy court graces.’

‘Indeed, Lord.’ Aurora gives a stony reply.

‘A miracle, then, for a mere mortal to learn in such a short time what a fairy can only accomplish after centuries of work. If I did not know better, I would have thought that you had almost that same time to do so.’ Verchiel’s back is now to her as he passes, but Aurora does not dare to look up. Does he know then? Does he suspect?

‘We mortals, Lord, have such fleeting lifespans that we are forced to learn but the most superficial elements of everything in the shortest time possible.’ It took every ounce of discipline in her, but Aurora managed to keep her voice even. ‘That is the only way we can survive. We can scarcely afford to explore every intricate detail as the esteemed fairies do, Lord.’

‘Good.’ Verchiel half-turns, the moonlight throwing his pale face into sharp profile. ‘So you still remember your place, mortal. Let your Headmaster give you some advice. You must know that things are difficult in the fairy court. There is little any courtier, even fairy ones, can do without certain connections.’

‘So my Lord, do you mean…’

He laughs, and turns around fully, a mocking smile on his lips. ‘Your studies of the fairy court, however superficial, should tell you exactly what I mean.’ His mild voice goes even softer, if it was possible. ‘You do know that you bear an uncanny resemblance to a colleague of mine from the past.’

‘Lord, such rumors cannot be taken seriously.’

‘Indeed we should discard them, if they have no basis in truth. But still, I must pry.’ Verchiel regards her with a light curiosity that seemed almost genuine. ‘Have you allowed such flippant whispering to encourage your bold application for the Advisor’s position?’

‘No, Lord, I assure you that it is not the case. I only wish to serve the King-‘

‘Of course, of course.’ Verchiel interrupts her with a flick of his long slender fingers. ‘Such noble aspirations are admirable, no doubt.’

Then, he is right next to her, the same fingers gripping her hard by the shoulder, forcing her to look up into his hard emerald eyes. ‘Know this, mortal girl. Do not think that resemblance would help your case. If you heard truly, then you would know that your predecessor came to no good end. And all because of her obstinate unwillingness to compromise!’ His warning comes as a harsh sharp whisper.

‘I hear you, Lord.’ Aurora murmurs, transfixed by his stare and unsure of what to say. She is only aware of a little voice inside her, urging her to cast a spell to maim this murderer! standing before her, with his smooth-tongued words that still continue to make her frightened after all this while.

‘Heed your predecessor’s lesson, in the slim chance that you should succeed in your trials, and do not repeat her mistake. I am sure that I speak for the Academy when I say that I do not wish to lose an outstanding student as yourself.’ The grip of his fingers loosens. ‘You will accomplish great things, if you will cooperate.’

‘Thank you, Lord, for your advice.’ She finally manages to break away from his gaze and curtsies again, keeping her gaze low, thankful for the excuse to hide her face. It will not do to let her mask slip now.

‘A good night to you then, mortal, and good fortune for your trials in the morn.’ With that, Verchiel turns and leaves, his golden wings shimmering pale light as he stalks away.

Silver opened her eyes and immediately thought it strange to see it dark so early.

Then she realised that the scene before her did not belong to the Ellinia Library. The stone walls lining a deserted corridor awashed with moonlight was not familiar to her. Her vision was captured immediately by the two figures standing before a window, a tall, golden-winged figure holding a short girl by one shoulder, mouth close to her face as if in tender embrace.

But the words he spoke echoed strangely down the corridor to Silver, and she heard every word clearly, the threat and warning in them veiled by so much earnest and urgent concern.

As the winged figure turned away and drew its shadow away as well, the shorter girl’s face was thrown into sharp relief in the moonlight and Silver almost gasped in recognition, only remembering to stifle her shock just in time.

This is a dream, she told herself. Nothing but a dream. She was merely a silent spectator watching this battle of words and wits between Aurora and Verchiel, just like how she had personally witnessed Hedwig’s attempted sabotage of Aurora’s Academy trials.

Staring after the leaving Verchiel with fists clenched so hard at her side that the fingernails dug half-moons into the flesh of her palm, Aurora was a trembling figure of rage. Silver could feel the thoughts echo furiously in Aurora’s head, and she felt like holding out her arms and crying, ‘I know! I understand!’

Because how dare these arrogant men! How dare they to assume that we would even think of betraying ourselves again and let them control us once more!

Unknown to Silver, with this realisation of kinship, the surroundings had sharpened with a quality that seemed to make everything more opaque. Yet, just out of the corner of her eyes, a strange translucency appeared, as if the veil between dimensions had dissolved and there, a small figure appeared, huddled in some dark corner of a room. A stark spotlight shone on it, making it ethereal and otherworldly. Pale fingers covered a shadowed face that peered through the gaps in them… in horror, or in disbelief? It was too dark for Silver to tell.

Without warning, the darkness in the corner spread, greedily swallowing the entire scene, moonlight and all, forcing the beam of the strange spotlight to recede. Yet the fingers of glaring light only reluctantly withdrew from the huddled figure, stubbornly still outlining its stiff shoulders and meekly curved backbone.

Finally, like some strange Cheshire simile, the figure disappeared at last, dissolving rapidly into the darkness, still peering, still frightened.

Then, Silver opened her eyes again, and woke up.

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Links to previous chapters:
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There be your Verchiel chappie, Descane. 😀 I hope I did him justice.

The last part of this is weird, I know. I just needed to do something weird, so I did, YARLY.

*throws cookies* Now I’m off to bed. My eyelids feel like they’ve got tonnes attached to them. *yawns*

[edit] It’s a bit too late, this little note, but I did a double-chapter post this time. So. *points to link *