Ok, I don't know if this top bit is fourth year but I'll check... later.
“Ah, Mikael, I had thought that you had decided to take this summer break to go back and visit your home for a time. No matter, since you’re here now, there is something that I’d been meaning to ask you…”
By now, Mikael’s facial expression was that of annoyance bordering on impatience. Romald finally becoming aware of this, cut himself off half sentence to ask, with quiet seriousness, “Mikael, what’s wrong?”
“Master, please tell me, if you would be so kind, what level in mage crafts have you got me down for at the present moment?” Mikael asked, in a deadly calm tone of voice.
Unsure of the situation, for Master Romald had never yet seen his student acting in such a manner, answered with all the honesty he could muster, “You are still only on the most basic of mage crafts at the moment, Mikael, although with the way in which you are advancing in your studies, you may soon be considered worthy of second level magery in times to come. However, there is still plenty of time to advance. You are much stronger than many other students here your age…”
“But what I want to know is would a second level mage have the ability to cast invisibility over himself without the intent or summoning of magic to do so?” Mikael asked, his eyes burning now into his master’s.
“That depends, yet, on many things,” the master replied in no small amount of confusion. “In some ways, yes, it would be easier for the mage to cast invisibility without intent, for without intent is to be without doubts of one’s own abilities. Now Mikael, what is this all about?”
“And precognitive talents?” Mikael asked, ignoring his master’s own question, as the momentum of his own questions grew to be more intense, “At what level should they be resting at right about now? Should I be able to tell that something is going to happen at home which will require me there, from here, weeks before it happens?”
“I don’t know, Mikael.” Romald’s voice was now quite soft, as though he’d realised the extent of the seriousness of these questions, and very possibly, just where they were leading to. “Every student is different. Every one with different abilities, strengths and weaknesses. It is the same as with a normal warrior, near impossible to judge. Now I say, Mikael, once again what is the reason for all of these questions? What has happened?”
“My mother is dead,” Mikael said, and heedless his master’s shocked intake of breath, continued his words in the same unemotional, almost mechanical vein. “She died at my father’s hand, not a deed that I in all honesty could never have seen coming. It is because of her that I have been able to study here, and it is because of me that she now lies dead. I went home, this summer break, for the first time since I have been a scholar here, as you well know. I went home with a sense of need and purpose. I failed in that purpose, for once there, in those crucial moments when I may finally have been some use to my mother, I became invisible to her pleas, transparent to her defence, and utterly useless in a way that I have never felt before in my life. I have acted out of fear before, waiting behind closed doors and biding my time, but never before have I been made to feel so strongly a coward. If this is the gift that I am to receive through my studies of magery, then it is truly one that I wish to no longer have any part in. Good day, Master. I wish you well.”
Mikael turned his back to his master and proceeded down the hall in the direction that he had first come, all thoughts of the book he had sought to find, now forgotten. He never caught the shattered look that passed over Romald’s face, nor did he bother to pass a thought towards how the impact of these words, that he had so brutally let loose, might so harshly affect another.
... is this the Lothan person and scene you wanted?
“If we were to go out there right now, we could tear down each and every one of their mistaken theological beliefs to the ground in seconds!” a young and eager magic user spoke up within the hovel located within Middle Tsumara.
Lothan gave him a quelling glare, and the young magic user stepped down.
“When we go out, it is not with the intention of placing ourselves in such a blinding spotlight,” Lothan said, facing the young magic user, although it was clear that his words were to be taken note of by all assembled there. “We have already seen the effect that our overt presence stirs among the general populus. If at all possible, that is exactly what we wish to avoid wholeheartedly! Our plans at this stage only include the downfall of the clergy. Let them take the spotlight of shame for the time being. After then, it shall be easy to move into their place as those who brought those frauds out into the light. Remember, we have the magical backing to ‘prove’ to those simpletons that we bring the will of the Gods to them.”
Many smiles and nods of agreement followed this valiant speech. Lothan stepped back so that others may have their say. This ensured that his group felt that they all did indeed hold equal standing overall.
As he stood back, A’shir came up behind him and clapped him on the back with familiarity.
“Well spoken, my friend,” he congratulated. “I can almost taste our freedom through the cracks of this barbaric time.”
“It is you and yours who have lead us,” Lothan reminded. “So the thanks should be yours. Have you had any further contact with those Old Ones over the seas?”
“As far as I hear thus far, the plans to overthrow your Regent remain in tact. However, a new development takes place this morn.” A’shir looked at Lothan straight on to make sure that he had his entire attention “Troops of your uniform were spotted within the boundaries of the Third House. Those in the Second House have reported no such event as of yet towards their own boundaries. We shall be contacted the moment that either situation changes.”
Lothan nodded sagely.
“This is a greatly informative gift that you share with your brethren,” he commented. “With the confusion after the Regent’s downfall, I can see for myself that it will be a very changed time for our people. We shall finally be granted the due we deserve.”
“Aye, that you will,” A’shir conceded, turning his attention to the talks going on between his own and Lothan’s people.
Days later, many of those who had visited family for the holiday came back, although the day till the start of the new term was still three days away. Most wanted the chance to get their items in order and get re-acquainted with the grounds before starting again. Mikael stood in the courtyard, sword in hand, fighting off an imaginary opponent with vengeance. His head was lowered, eyes determined and deadly, blows swift and merciless. His anger grew with every mistake he made, every foot wrong he berated himself for, every slow reaction he punished with harder training of himself.
It was only Brydn, having been one of those who came back early, walking past the courtyard and seeing Mikael standing there, still for once, his eyes closed, sword in front of his face, head tilted proudly, in a sort of wholly focused meditation state. Worried about him, after hearing Eshú’s account of their mutual friend, Brydn had set out to look for him, and upon finding him, had made his way towards him.
Mikael knew within himself that he had trained himself to far that morning. It was just that he found it so damned frustrating, so many hours spent on these same exercises, and still he could get them so wrong! Having noticed, however, his level of ire rising to such a level that it would highly affect his judgement in said exercises, Mikael had put into practice a meditation technique taught to them by their weapons master, a process centered on finding and bringing out your inner peace, adapting that into your fighting style and becoming wholly in tune with everything around you.
As his breathing left his body, and another slow, full breath entered, Brydn came into the sunlit ground that wasn’t shaded by the surrounding buildings, and about six feet away from Mikael. Mikael spun around, thrust out his sword as he had in practice so many times before, and opened his eyes to take in Brydn, who was now in front of him.
“What do you want?” Mikael asked coldly, not lowering his sword.
Brydn looked down warily at the sword, aimed with such deadly accuracy at his throat. His chin lifted, but he didn’t step back, or in any other way give way an inch.
“I was worried about you,” Brydn said defiantly, “Eshú says you’ve been spending all your time here training since you got ba…”
“Eshú has a big mouth,” Mikael murmured, spinning around and taking the sword in his other hand to test the blade carelessly. “I assume you’ll be going now…?”
Mikael looked him in the eye over his shoulder to make sure that the smaller redhead would comply with his wish. Again Brydn’s chin lifted at the unspoken challenge, and he continued to stand his ground.
“Mikael, whatever happened back at home, you can’t let it effect your life here. We’ve all got to…”
“To what?” Mikael asked, turning on him, “None of you have any idea what happened at home and none of you have the right to judge me back here. Now leave me alone. I wasn’t interrupting your work so kindly return the favor!”
Breathing heavily, Mikael stood there to stand the shorter boy down with his intimidating glare. Brydn didn’t make to leave, but neither did he attempt to speak any further words. Finally, with a disgusted scoff, Mikael turned away from him, and stalked off, out of the courtyard and towards the nearby archery fields, making it clear that he was not to be followed, not by Brydn, not by anybody.
Brydn lowered his eyes down to his shoes and heaved a heavy outward sigh. Hearing the ground shift behind him, Brydn turned around to see who else may have witnessed the exchance between him and Mikael. Eshú just stood there, looking silently in the direction which Mikael had taken, his face set in his usual blank mask.
Mikael's and Perons fight.
Eshú sat alone testing the weight of a newly crafted dagger that he had just recently acquired in the dormitory that night, well after the hours of dark and suppertime. Warning him of their arrival by the amount of noise they were making in the hallway, Meldrew and Peron barged into the dorm that was, by some unfortunate accidence, theirs too. Eshú neglected to even raise his head as they entered, both of them, in his mind, not worthy of even that small acknowledgment from him.
However, upon noticing his presence in the room, Meldrew didn’t hesitate in purposely sauntering over to him, headless of his wishes in the matter. Only when Meldrew stood directly in front of him did Eshú, slowly twisting the knife around in his hands, see fit to raise his head a fraction and look at him out of the corner of his eyes, eye brows raised.
“I suppose you want something then?” Eshú said in his bored tone of voice.
Meldrew’s lips lifted in that mean smile of his. “Oh, nothing at all, except the small pleasure of a conversation with you. It’s so sad that, living in the same room as we do, we have so few of these moments.”
Shaking his head slowly in wonderment, Eshú merely replied softly, “Too many, if you ask me.”
Emitting a small scoff, Meldrew broke eye contact and began working his jaw. An insincere sorrow came into his eyes as he said, without looking up again, “Reconsidering, I think that perhaps the saddest thing is that your friend is cracking up, as he is. You do know everybody’s talking about it, most of all about how he just up and left tonight! Most just think he’s attention seeking, with all those ‘come help me, I’m suicidal’ vibes that he’s throwing out to everyone.”
Meldrew paused on a sigh, then looked up to Eshú to find his expression changed not at all.
“It is such a shame, really,” Meldrew continued, “To think of what great potential he may have one day reached, and now, have it all shattered…” Meldrew’s eyes narrowed as this tirade continued to go unanswered by Eshú. “I don’t suppose you even care at all, do you? You with your uncaring gaze and unemotional stances, I’ll bet you care for no one bar yourself!”
“Wrong,” Eshú said, looking into Meldrew’s heat with his own cool calmness, “It’s merely that I don’t care to hear anything of you. Now, if you’ll just excuse me…”
“Maybe it was just that he was nothing but a pretty boy from the start,” Peron said with a small shrug, speaking up for the first time since entering the room. “I mean, I know I never saw anything that special about his so called fighting skills.”
Eshú turned lazy eyes fit to kill towards Peron, and would have then spoken up for Mikael, had not he been interrupted at that precise moment.
“Well then, I couldn’t bear to disappoint anyone else! Why don’t we just come outside so that I may show you some of those ‘so called fighting skills’ of mine?”
Eshú, like Meldrew and Peron, turned his head at that moment to see Mikael filling the doorframe, staring hard at Peron.
“Mikael, good to see you’re back. I had heard that people were starting to comment on your absence,” Eshú commented mildly.
Meldrew flashed a look between Eshú and back to Mikael, before he drew himself up and walked up boldly to Mikael, saying persuasively, “Mikael, think about this. I hardly think you’re in the right physical shape to…”
“Shut up, Meldrew. Peron, what do you say? Me against you, out in the courtyard. Five minutes. Then we’ll be able to tell who has the better fighting skills. What do you say? Wouldn’t wanna be caught backing down from someone who has nothing special about his fighting skills, would you?”
“Of course not!” Peron said hotly, on false bravado, “I’ll be there.”
“Good,” Mikael said shortly, and with a single nod, he was gone again.
Eshú followed after him, looking briefly at both Meldrew and Peron, a slight smile tugging at the edges of his lips, the first sign of emotion either had ever seen come from him.
Once alone in the dorm, Meldrew pushed Peron hard, so that he fell back a step, having not expected the attack.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’ve seen him training, you’ll never beat him!”
“He ain’t that good!” Peron insisted, “You just need to know his weak spots.”
“Oh yeah, like you do, I’m sure!” Meldrew said, sarcastically, still smarting from the face they were sure to lose now.
“Of course. He’s just come back from home, wounded and sore. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it was something to do with family while he was back there, and all’s I have to do is play on that while we’re fighting, and he’ll be raging so much that he’ll never be able to keep good judgement.”
The night was clear. Looking up at the sky from the courtyard, one could well see the stars high above without at thick cloud cover to hide them. Mikael came through the twin doors, out into the night air, a purposeful expression filling his face and Eshú not far behind him.
As Mikael paced back and forth, stopping to throw his sword from hand to hand, cracking his neck and preparing for the fight to come, Eshú came up behind him, putting a light hand on his shoulder. Mikael spun around to look at him expectantly.
“Look, I know you can do this, I just…” Eshú stopped, not quite knowing how to go on. “Just good luck, okay?”
Mikael gave a short, sharp nod in reply, and turned to move off again. Only Eshú’s hand, insistent on his arm once again, stopped him from moving. Mikael raised his eye brows at his friend.
Eshú rolled his eyes, then said, looking Mikael straight in the eye, “Try hard to keep your cool. You know he’ll try to make you lose it. That’s the only chance he’s got now.”
Eshú dropped his hand from Mikael’s arm at the same time as he sighed and dropped his gaze, stepping back from him. Then Peron and Meldrew came outside to join them, and there was no more time for talk.
“You ready, Mikael?” Peron asked with a crude tone. “You sure you don’t want mummy to hold your hand?”
Mikael lifted his chin at the jibe, but flashed a glance towards Eshú, who still stood slightly to the side, and let the comment pass.
“Let’s just get this over with, Peron. I think we both know who’s gonna win this.”
“Yeah, me!” Peron stated, lunging towards him, sword outstretched, and the fight was begun.
At first, caught of guard, Mikael remained on the defensive. He blocked Peron’s advances and throwing him off his own sword using his body weight against him, all the time keeping the eye out for Peron to make a mistake, just the smallest little error that would, in turn, give Mikael the upper hand.
Mikael faked a thrust in Peron’s direction, forcing Peron to jump back a step to dodge the attack he expected, which never came. Using this to his advantage, Mikael lunged forward when Peron did not expect it, and hence gained an advantage over him.
A flicker of fear danced across Peron’s eyes, before he regained his senses and said daringly, “Only a coward would feint like that. Something you learnt from your father, no doubt?”
“Only a coward would recognise the trait in someone else,” Mikael snarled, before putting strength behind the sword he was bracing down against Peron’s, pushing him back in his anger, exactly what Peron had wished for him to do.
“Does that mean you admit to it then?” Peron asked, with a cocksure expression on his face.
“No, not really, it was just a fancy way of saying ‘what you say is what you are’,” Mikael said, striving for flippancy, too late remembering Eshú’s advice, after realising what his own mistake had cost him.
Peron scoffed, starting to make use of his advantage. They began fighting in earnest, the clang of swords must have echoed well throughout the dark empty halls of the facility. Other students came out to see what the noise was all about and ended up standing there, taking in the sight of these two boys from the same dorm fighting against each other, shuffling back when the two’s movements took them close by.
“You know, everybody that’s here is seeing you and wondering what it was that made you snap. Everybody’s noticed that you’re different from when you left. Makes a person wonder what went on while you were gone, it does,” Peron baited as they fought.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to mind your own business?” Mikael asked through clenched teeth.
“Well yeah, sure, but she’s just a woman. Oh wait, I forgot, you loved your mummy. A real mother’s boy, were you?”
“Might wanna get that curiosity of yours checked, Peron, or one day, it might just get you killed!” Mikael lunged again on that last word, taking the advantage once again, and putting Peron back on the defensive.
Mikael didn’t give Peron time to get out any further words of jibes during the next minutes, working hard to keep him occupied and solely focused on his own defence tactics. Determined to the very end, Peron did not give, although it was slowly becoming apparent that this was beginning to tax him.
Trapping Peron’s sword behind his own, Mikael moved close to him to ask, “Give?”
“Why?” Peron asked, softly panting. “Is that the only way you could ever win against your father? Or are you just like him? Like father like son, is that it?”
“Fine, have it your own way!” Mikael said savagely, making a shallow cut down Peron’s shoulder. Peron looked down at it in amazement as Mikael stood back a step, before lifting up his sword against him once again.
“Hit a sore spot, did I then?” Peron asked tauntingly, “You and daddy never get along so well, is that it? Yeah well, I had guessed that you must be a disappointment to him.”
Mikael’s sword clashed hard against Peron’s, jolting his arm hard with the force behind the blow, before Peron shifted his hold on the sword and braced himself against Mikael’s coming blows.
“Watch your mouth, Peron, or I might have to watch it for you!” Mikael said threateningly.
“Into threats now too, are we?” Peron asked, sweat breaking out on his hairline. “Like intimidating your opponent? I guess, if that’s the only thing that helps you win…”
Peron watched for Mikael’s reaction to these words, then caught his mistake by flipping his own sword under Mikael’s and throwing him off balance, before making his own shallow cut along Mikael’s jaw line. Mikael turned his head off to the side to avoid the main part of the injury, but Peron’s thrust still drew blood.
Without giving Mikael time to attack, and thereby gaining the advantage once again, Peron threw himself once more into the offensive against him, forcing Mikael back a few steps. Although in the better position, Peron was aware that he was in no way to hold it indefinably, and so attempted to put Mikael off again.
“What is it, Mikael, a little worried at the sight of your own blood? But I’m sure that you’ve seen a lot of it in your childhood. Such a disappointment to his own father couldn’t have gotten by without several beatings to his own person. What do you say, Mikael? Am I right?”
Something changed in Mikael with those words. The anger that Peron had expected never came. At least, not in any of the forms that he would have so expected it. A deadly calmness washed over Mikael as years of torment flashed by his eyes. He no longer saw the annoying youth Peron in front of him, but the overbearing figure of his own father, an opponent who he aimed to battle and defeat with calm and deliberate precision and accuracy.
Somehow, seemingly without effort, Mikael turned the tables on Peron without a word having to be said. Suddenly it was Mikael on the offensive, Peron desperately trying to defend from him, the clangs of their swords against each other now seeming, for Mikael, to be heard from a place very far away. He was deaf to any further taunts made by Peron, oblivious to any attempt to overthrow him once more. The last moments of the battle between them were coming about, and it seemed quite obvious by now who was going to come out on top.
For the last time, Mikael cornered Peron, effectively cutting off any escape or defence that he could have made against him. Peron’s sword stayed raised, his eyes remained proud. Mikael looked at him in disgust and contempt, taking one step forward. Peron took an answering step forward, but misplacing his foot, he soon found himself fallen on the ground at Mikael’s very feet.
“Get up,” Mikael said, looking down at him, lip curled. He poked him once with his sword, not sharp enough to seriously injure, but enough to sharply puncture the skin. “Get up, I say, else die there. I will not tolerate anymore from you now that everyone here knows you for what you truly are!”
“Mikeal, it’s enough. You have made your point,” Eshú spoke softly, having just come up behind him. Mikael just lifted his chin a mere fraction, not taking his eyes of Peron for an instant, although nor did Peron to him.
“Eshú’s right man,” Brydn said, also having come to stand by, sounding slightly nervous, looking around at the crowd they already had standing by them. “Someone’s sure to come out and see what’s gone on soon!”
“Leave me!” Mikael commanded. Brydn looked to Eshú with uncertainty over how now to act with him. Eshú nodded once, indicating that they give him space. Mikael now adopted a deadly calm tone when he next demanded of Peron, “Now, get up.”
Grounding his teeth, and looking at Mikael with loathing, Peron drew himself up to his feet. The two boys continued to stare at one another in hatred of everything the other represented, heedless to the muffled whispers starting up around them, followed not too distantly by the sounds of swiftly shuffling feets. Before long, there was a clear opening from the courtyard doors to where Mikael and Peron stood in stalemate. A clear voice rung out through the courtyard, carrying with it a definite authoritative tone.
“Everyone, inside now, and not out again until first class tomorrow! Mikael, Peron, to me.”
The ring of authority in Shìran’s voice stung with the sound of retribution that was sure to come. Many surrounded boys’ eyes widened and shoulders hunched, as they made their way as unobtrusively back through the courtyard doors and inside, sure to attract as little attention to themselves as possible. Of the boys, Eshu was among the last of those to leave, hanging behind, hoping to catch one glance from Mikael in his direction that would suggest that this, whatever it was, had been seen to its logical end, and they could go on as though nothing had changed. No such look did Eshu receive, and so, with a slight slump to his shoulders, Eshu joined the others in the quick shuffle back to their own dorms.
Once assured that all boys were back on their ways, Shìran turned her stern glare back to the two boys in question here, noticing with disgust, as she looked them up and down, the obvious stains of blood covering their clothing.
“Follow me,” she said curtly, turning on her heel in the way that the other boys before them had gone, not turning back once to see if they were following. With one last glare, Mikael moved ahead, expressing louder than words to Peron, how little a threat he saw him to be. With a sullen glare directed at the ground below him, Peron followed on in behind the other two, sulking at where this challenge had landed him.
Both Peron and Mikael followed Shìran through the halls of the school, brushing past the downcast boys who hurried along back to their own dormitories, making a careful point to avoid eye contact with the irate female master at all costs. The unlikely trio walked along to the stairs which took them up to the next floor, and then to the next. On the third floor, Shìran lead the other two a quarter of the way up the hall, before stopping in front of a door on the right that was already open, and waited with an impatient, expectant expression for the boys to walk in there.
As they did, Shìran instructed them coldly, “Remain here standing until I come back for you. I will not have my chairs stained due to your own blatant acts of stupidity!” On the end of this order, Shìran reached out for the door handle, and pulled the door shut behind her, locking it from the outside.
Pacing the length of the room, Mikael refused to rise to the bait of striking up eye contact with the other boy with him in the room, although he could keenly feel Peron’s glares burning into the back of him. Although it would have pleased Mikael to no end to again attack the mutinous looking boy behind him, he restrained this urge. He knew that there was no further now that he could stretch the boundaries before they were sure to break on him, resulting in nothing bar to laying siege to his carefully laid out plans for the future. Plans that must be kept and followed no matter the cost.
Minutes later, Shìran returned, bringing with her Master Romald. Looking over Peron and straight across to Mikael, Mikael knew that the master was thinking back to their abrupt conversation days earlier with questions that Mikael refused to respond to.
“It is as I told you, these two boys, foolish enough to thoughtlessly injure each other with a blatant disregard over who else may have soon been affected,” Shiran reported with an obvious show of anger at the pointlessness of the situation.
Again, Master Romald asked questions of Mikael with his eyes, with this time Mikael averting his own to outside of the window, with a stubborn set to his jaw.
“What have you both to say for yourselves?” Shìran asked with complete incomprehension at their stupidity and disregard for moral status. “I mean, to hold a fight, in the middle of the night, without the proper padding, or supervision, with so many bystanders who may also have been injured…You are both lucky that these are the most serious wounds that you each sustained!” Shìran jabbed out a finger to poke at a wet spot on each of their clothing. “Just what is the meaning of this?”
Mikael lifted his chin with a resolved sniff, deliberately avoiding looking Peron’s way. “Why don’t you ask him?” he said darkly. “He’s the one who proffered the first challenge of a fight this night.”
Peron’s eyes widened, then narrowed with a hatred aimed at the back of Mikael’s neck, as he realised that all blame had now been shifted to him, and all eyes were focused on him. All eyes bar Mikael’s.
“Aye, this is indeed interesting,” Romald spoke for the first time, slowly having taken his gaze from Mikael to settle on the other boy in the room. His tone, however, stated that he spoke more contemplating towards himself than at any particular person. “What could possibly move you towards committing such an action?”
Now it was Peron’s turn to obstinately look away. Shiran expressed an intelligible sound at the attitudes of both young men’s irresponsibility, and turned away momentarily, only to turn back again to face them once more. “As neither of you appear to have another word to say in your defences of this situation, it would appear that it would be right to assume that neither of you can now be trusted in housing among your peers,” she said coldly. “It is quite infrequent that this mode of action be taken, however your actions tonight have proven that we are beyond other choices this time. Of course, both of your parents will be informed…”
Peron expressed only a slight choking sound upon this information. Romald again, silently, turned his attention towards Mikael to see how he would take this news. A snort, accompanied by a glance of utter disdain was the extent of what Romald witnessed.
“Go ahead,” he muttered softly, “There’s nobody there who will care now.”
Again, Romald’s eyes softened at the utter dejection and desolation in the young boy’s voice. Shiran, having also heard this sentence, shook her head to rid herself of the instant pity which had instantly sprung up in the face of such a piteous plaint, and focused instead upon Peron, who continued in his attempt to put up a brave front in the face of the thought of a complaint from this school reaching his father.
“Come on, let’s get moving. It appears we’re done here,” Shiran said shortly, indicating the door, and raising her eyebrows to those still behind her.
“We’ll catch up,” Romald said softly, indicating himself and Mikael, thinking perhaps from his former comment, that he may be closer to opening up now. Shiran merely shrugged, then centred her whole attention on removing Peron from any further trouble he could make this night.
“He’ll be in Cabin 2,” Shiran informed Romald as she left.
Alone with Master Romald, Mikael forced himself to take deep breaths as he continued his vigil on the outside world, knowing full well what was about to come. He should have known better than to utter even those few words, he berated himself. But for those few small words, and he too would be on his way to a ‘Cabin’, wherever that was, and with a free escape from uncomfortable questions which he had no intention of answering.
Knowing that Mikael was not going to make this easy for him, Romald stood a while in silent regard of the student in front of him, debating over which would be the better way to take this situation on. Whether to remain where he was now and talk at him or to ensure that he had his attention, or at least his eyes on him, by walking over to stand in front of him, Romald decided not to push too far. He decided that perhaps speaking from just where he was now might achieve the best result.
“You know, Mikael, what happened to you back at your home was a dreadful thing, but you don’t have to hide from it like you have been. In fact, I truly believe that is the worst possible thing you could do in a situation like this. I have seen you around the other boys, even Eshú, with whom you used to be especially close. He could help you. I can see that he would be quite willing to, if you would just let him.”
Romald paused, hoping for a response in some shape or form from the immobile form in front of him. Nothing. Romald heaved a soft but heartfelt sigh, his shoulders slumping slightly, before he looked up again, resolute to try once more, and then again, and again, until he got through to the boy. He had to understand that these kinds of actions were sorely self-destructive!
“Mikael, I know that this is hard for you, harder than even I can express, or hope to understand, but you have to realise that you just cannot give up everything you hold here because of it. I remember, you told me that it was because of your mother that you were here. Do you think so little of her memory that you would give up all that she stood for just to…”
“Don’t proclaim to know things about which you know nothing about, old man,” Mikael spoke slowly and darkly.
“I beg your pardon?” Romald asked, quite stunned and not quite believing what he had just heard.
“My mother was everything to me,” Mikael continued, although still yet with his back to the master, speaking out to the heartless heavens, “Understand that, if nothing else. I will stand back from many things, but (something about speaking bad of his mother) and I will not be so lenient.” Mikael turned now, to face Master Romald squarely. “It would do well for people like Peron to remember this, on the future. Now, you are to take me to a Cabin of some sort?”
It was not only the knowledge that he would not get through that shrunk Romald’s frame right then. Nor was it the words that had been spoken with such disregard for any authority. Nay, the very thing that shook Romald to the soul was the knowledge that Mikael would not be gotten to on an emotional level. Not now, and not for a very long time in the distant future.
* * * * *
Mikael opened his eyes to greet the now familiar ceiling and side windows of the isolation cabin. He lay there, his back on the bed, for the following few moments, content in the knowledge that there would be no one in here to disturb him for at least another half of an hour, or at least so the outside darkness of early morning informed him.
He had grown quite used to this cabin apart from the rest of the school dormitories in the months that he had been here. Peron had been moved back to the larger house long ago now, while Mikael had made the special request that he be allowed to continue his time here.
Faced with the most unusual situation, the elders of the school had gotten together to decide that indeed there had been a marked improvement in the young boy’s morale from having that time alone, and if it was his wish to remain so, who were they to deny him? Mikael secretly thought that they had decided also that it was an infinitely more appealing option than rooming him with Peron once again, but he had never said anything on the subject to anyone else on the grounds.
His contact group nowadays only consisted of those he shared classes with and the teachers, none of whom he permitted overly much contact with, and very few of whom wished for any contact with him, regardless of how they still remembered him to be in times past.
Mikael sighed as he rolled over on his bed in his plain room which housed nothing more than a built in closet, bed side tables and a lamp in addition to the bed. Any extras were here because he had brought them here, his swords, clothing, personal trinkets, some of which had once belonged to his mother.
He was getting bored here. Although he knew that he must stay here if he ever hoped to achieve what had to be done, Mikael grew more and more restless with each passing day. With his sole minded dedication towards his studies, without any thought to social times, Mikael was miles ahead, in all of his classes, than all of the other boys. He often felt as though they were holding him back, so chafed did he feel by the restrictions placed on him by their inadequacies. All the same, there did seem nothing that he could do about it.
Mikael knew that he would not get any further sleep this night, and didn’t particularly want to, as he knew that this would only make it harder to get up again later. Mindful of this, he pushed the blankets away from his body, and stood up, picking his sword up on the way to begin his morning exercises.