Prompt# 98 - Cubic - Cold Air - Tekia - Orginal

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Cold Air
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Cubic
Warnings: none.
Rating: PG
Summary: Sindri dreams about his father and magic. Will be a later part of my story This Path

It was the silence that alerted him that something was wrong. Always did the old castle make sounds, creaking and groaning as it settled. There was nothing, not even the odd cricket outside. It had been raining earlier, the wind howling and rattling the windows. Now, even that had ceased.
Sindri didn’t notice the silence until he noticed the cold. The temperature had suddenly dropped and he had retreated to his room for a heavier top. The silence became overbearing then, and he couldn’t stand the thought of returning to his reading. Shivering, he headed back down the stairs in search of other living beings.
He knew there had to be at least two sources of magic within the castle that he should have been able to focus on. With his arms folded over his chest, he began searching the long halls, the stone making the air even more frigid.
He didn’t really want to be near them, but still, the silence was eerie and frightening. Perhaps if he was near other people it wouldn’t grate on his nerves so much.
They were nowhere to be found. His senses could find nothing within the stone structure. His brow furrowed as he focused his untamed magic, searching. A fluttering in his gut made him realize that he was starting to panic. He had never liked it when his father left him, and for some reason he now didn’t like it when those who were his gaolers left him be alone. He ignored the little voice in his head that told him that this would be the opportune time to escape.
He also knew that he had nowhere else to go.
Sindri ducked into another room, hoping for warmth, and found instead a bare room. The walls were stone and the floor was bare. He hissed and turned to go out the door. He stopped just short of slamming his nose into the wall. His eyes widened and the minute panic bloomed into an all out attack. He slammed his flat palms against the wall, calling out.
“Help. Let me out!”
The air grew even more freezing, making goose pimples raise on his arm. He screamed loudly, tears starting to form in his eyes. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know where everybody else was. He was afraid.
Sindri dropped to the floor, sweat beading his brow, wetting his hair. He started sobbing, deep gasping breaths and low moans. He felt the pressure in his inner body, his magical body. It was pounding down on him, pressing him to the floor. Overpowering him.
His panic grew, blocking out his rational thoughts. He feared being abandoned, he feared being used by magical means once again. His father was ruthless, his captor had proved to be just as stubborn, but he had never thought that they would just up and disappear on him. Leave him, just like his father had.
Soon his panic left him, his sobs stilled, and his tears dried. Curled into himself, he focused on breathing, his mind too delicate to concentrate on anything other than the most simplest of thoughts. Breathing, and breathing. He slept.
When he woke, he was still in the door less room. He stood, wiping at his eyes. It was still cold and he started to pace around the room, just to keep warm. His breath was now coming out in little clouds. Frowning, he made a turn, subconsciously counting the paces of the room.
He couldn’t get warm. Shivering, he firmly turned his mind away from his new prison. He’d been a prisoner in the castle this whole time, what was different now? Besides there being no door.
Then he pushed away the thought that he had had free roam of the castle and grounds. That he wasn’t forced into any manual labor, or punished for any misdeeds. He had begun to trust the sorcerer’s word.
Proved just how stupid he really was.
He bit his lips, resenting his situation. He should have learned his lesson with his father. All sorcerers were untrustworthy. If he ever got out of this room, he was going to run away as far as he possibly could.
Suddenly he stopped and looked around the room. It was dull, grey stone, window less, door less and drab. There was nothing in the room beside himself. He frowned as he focused his magic, trying to read the spell of the room. He’d been too panicked to try before, but now, he forced all his will into the magic. It was solid magic, well made and powerful. He also could taste something in the magic.
It felt familiar and strange.
Gulping, he brushed his hair over his shoulder, away from his suddenly sweaty face and tried to read the magic. It was stronger, and weaker that what he knew from before. The spell was better woven that he’d ever seen, before, and yet it was so much weaker. He could break the spell, if he learned what it was, but he couldn’t figure it out. He’d never been trained in magic, didn’t really understand the basics of it either, no matter how much he’d been reading.
He paced the room some more, thinking furiously. There was nothing he could think up of that would free him from this prison. He wished Nolyn was here.
Nolyn would know what to do. He was a sorcerer and powerful. He defeated his father once, could do it again. Even if his father was dead.
He groaned when he realized that that was all it took for him to do a complete turn about and want Nolyn, his gaoler, with him. Helping him.
He took a deep breath, putting his arms around himself once again. He paced the room.
Seventeen paces one way, seventeen paces the other, seventeen paces back. He followed his familiar path until the cold became too much and he crouched down, hugging himself, shivering.
Why was it so cold?
He woke when his head dropped to one side. He looked around the room, wondering what time of day it was. If anybody had missed him.
Was Nolyn doing anything to help him?
Why was he thinking that? Nolyn was his gaoler, but at the same time, he was his rescuer. His hero. He started to cry and he hated himself for it. He wanted Nolyn, like others wanted their mothers.
“Help me, Nolyn.”
He laid on the floor, pathetically crying.
Then he felt something gliding against his ankle. Startled, he jumped upright and stared around the room with wide eyes. He was still alone, trapped in the vile room.
The magic had spiked. He searched for the source, but could find nothing but air. He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.
His father was dead, but his magic lived on, tormenting him. His eyes slid closed as he felt acute pain in the region of his heart. What had he done to deserve this? Why did his father hate him so much that he would haunt him from beyond the veil of death?
When next he woke, he had a fever. His magic had repressed his hunger, but as it began to fight the illness, his hunger and thrust came at him like a brick, taking all his strength, leaving him prone on the cold floor, shivering as waves of pain wracked his lungs and throat.
He wondered how long he’d been here, hours, or days? He was tired, but that could be blamed on the magic at work all around him. He was starving of hunger and thirst, but that didn’t mean anything, he’d been eating as little as possible, in protest before this had happened. He’d slept, but who knows for how long.
He forced himself to stand, slamming his fists against the walls, knowing he was weak and it was useless, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“Help!” He screamed again and again, each time getting weaker and weaker. Then he was interrupted by coughs that wracked his whole body, once again bringing him to his knees. His throat was raw and he was coughing up yellow phlegm. He spat it out and groaned as he laid on his side, his heated brow pressed against the cold stones.
Just as he was beginning to feel the exhaustion coming over him, he again felt something brushing against his leg. Too tired to react properly, he merely opened his eyes to a slit and saw what had been there all along.
It was like looking at fog, living, intelligent, fog. It swirled about, hovering just above his feet. There was a hint of color, a touch of glowing. Sindri could feel the magic in it, powerful and, as always, familiar. He slowly sat up, light headed and filled with dread.
The only times he had seen his father see use magic was when the man was angered, or drunk with power. It usually meant pain for him. Nolyn had told him that the old man had been using Sindri’s magic as his own. Which made him far more powerful that he ever could have been on his own. And that’s when Sindri had learned that he had magic.
He sent his magic out to ‘feel’ the presence and flinched when he found that it was all true. It was his father. Dead.
Suddenly he was overwhelmed with all the hatred and pain from his youth. He bared his teeth and sent his magic out, thinking that he only wanted to hurt his father. The magic was beyond his control and it blast out of him in the form of wind. The air was sucked out of his lungs and he gasped, clutching his throat. At the same time the fog was dispelled and his father’s presence was gone.
The wind continued swirling around the room, gaining in strength, then just as suddenly stopped.
Sindri huddled on the floor, his face buried in his knees. He had used his magic, but failed to do anything productive with it. He still didn’t know why he was here and he still didn’t know how to escape. Giving up on feeling pathetic, he stood and began to pace the room.
Seventeen paces that way, seventeen that way, then seventeen back. He turned his eyes up and watched the stones of the ceiling as he passed under them. There had to be something he could do. Something productive. He continued to walk the square.
Figuring that he had nothing to lose, he let his magic out, not forcefully, but gently, a soft breeze. He ‘felt’ the walls and their solidness. He searched for an exit and there was none. If there was, he couldn’t find it.
He sat back down, and slept.
A hand on his shoulder woke him. He peered up into Nolyn’s concerned face under the black cloth of his blindfold.
“Are you all right?”
Without thinking, he threw himself into Nolyn’s arms and began to cry. Instantly Nolyn’s arms came around him, rubbing his back.
“Tell me what’s wrong?”
Rubbing his eyes, he pulled away from Nolyn and opened his mouth to speak, but then his eyes took in the room he was in. It was his bedroom, and the rain was still pouring down in heavy sheets. Sindri gaped around the room, his eyes avidly avoiding Nolyn.
“It . . . it was a dream?”
“What was a dream? Sindri,” Nolyn grasped his chin and pulled him around to face him. “What’s wrong?”
“My father came back. I was trapped. There was nothing I could do about it.”
Nolyn sat on the bed, still holding Sindri’s hand. Just as quickly a small dragon jumped onto the bed, large blue eyes staring up at him. Sindri tired not to smile, but it was compulsive whenever he saw Nolyn’s son in his dragon form. He reached out with shaking fingers and petted the soft down of his head and shoulders.
“My magic was useless and I was there for days. I got sick and panicky. I was, am, pathetic.”
Nolyn put his arm around his shoulders and rubbed. “You’ve time to learn magic. You’re young, inexperienced. Give yourself time before calling yourself pathetic.”
Sindri pushed his arm away and inched away from Nolyn. After all, the man did kill his father.
“I felt as if I was in that room for days. I could tell you the size and shape of every stone, even the color. It was cubic, a perfect square with no windows and no door. And I was alone except for when my father’s soul came for a visit. My magic exploded and attacked myself along with the walls. I’m hopeless with magic. I’m cursed by my father. Why can’t I call myself pathetic?”
Nolyn stood, his hand dusting invisible lint from his sleeve. “Do you know why I wear this blindfold?”
“Because you’re blind?”
“I’m not.”
“I know. No blind man could move like you do without help. You see through that blindfold.”
“I don’t.”
“Magic then.”
“In a way. I see the future.”
Sindri paused in tickling Tegid and looked up at Nolyn, who now had his back toward him. “Visionaries don’t exist.” Even he could hear how thin and faint his voice was.
“I know. But I see the future nonetheless. Always could. I’ve seen the great things you will do with your magic. Thus, you’re not pathetic, you’re young and inexperienced.”
With that he walked out of the room and Sindri made a face at his retreating back.. Tegid jumped up and nipped at his chin, drawing his attention to the dragon now in his lap.
Sindri smiled, thinking that perhaps he did like Nolyn just a bit.