S4S

As Cara pulls Ni off the back of Felicity, the boy’s hooded head limply rolls to the side. There is no resistance with his light body as his limbs hang loosely like those of a ragdoll, and Ni’s chest no longer shows a steady rise and fall nor the sound of gentle breathing. His skin had begun to grow cold. His heart was no longer beating. Ni was no longer alive.

Ni didn’t even realize that Cara had picked him up until he was already on top of Felicity. Limply straddled across the horse’s back, Ni could only catch glimpses of the world around him between the blinding white light. Felicity. Trees. Cara. Rain. Between these images, memories began to flash across Ni’s mind. A doctor. A door. A sister. A shack on a hill. Leaning forward with his head bowed, Ni inhaled slowly. “Wait for me…” Ni whispered.

Shuffling slowly in Cara’s footsteps, Ni’s boots scraped across the snow as he dragged his feet forward. Feeling a weight in every footstep, the boy’s body swayed from side to side as he sought to keep a rhythm of motion that propelled him onward. His breathing matched his stride, a methodical inhale and exhale breaking between every step. Like words lost beneath a strong wind, Ni thought he could hear Cara speaking. The ringing in his ears had gotten slightly louder now, but he felt the words were directed towards him. Not confident in what was being said though, Ni simply continued to nod, hoping that would acknowledge whatever Cara was saying to him well enough. Squinting his eyes, Ni tried to focus on the large tower in the clearing that was ahead of them. He couldn’t see the sky, but Ni wondered if the sun had finally broken through the storm. The world around him had slowly bloomed with a bright whiteness, and the freezing air had lost its sting. Straining his body forward, Ni continued one step after another with his eyes fixated on the Wizard’s Tower. The tower was safety; Ni just needed to get there.

Cara was saying something nearby, but Ni couldn’t quite make out what was being said. Letting out a quiet sigh, he simply nodded at the distant words. The tension in his body slowly faded like fog to the early morning sun, and he felt his muscles relax and ease their hold despite the freezing rain. Ni couldn’t feel his body shivering anymore, but his vision shook back and forth as the clearing in front of him pulsed between clarity and smudges like an oil painting. Ni knew this feeling. It was only a matter of time now. Gritting his teeth behind the covering over his head, Ni continued to give shallow nods as he followed Cara out from behind the tree.

Nearly jumping out of his boots in fright at the sudden voice beside him, Ni spun towards the sound that called his name. Trying to duck and turn to face the source of the noise though, Ni’s foot slipped out from under him. Falling away from the tree, Ni had nowhere to grab onto as he fell with a muffled grunt to the muddied earth. In a tarnished effort to achieve safety, Ni warily held out his hand in a gesture of warding as he scrambled away from the voice. Recognizing it was Cara though, Ni stopped. Making sure it actually was Cara, Ni shook his head and wiped the rainwater streaming across the eyeholes of his hood to see her more clearly. Dropping his arm back to his side, Ni tried to collect himself between trembling breaths. The pounding rain had masked Cara’s approach in both sight and sound, and Ni still felt disoriented and uneasy from the blast of lightning that had struck nearby. He could feel his hands and legs were still shaking from the combination of shock, cold, and danger he found himself in. Quickly sliding forward and using the nearby tree to pull himself from the mud, Ni flashed a shaking finger to his hood where his lips were before waving his hand forcefully downward in an effort to get Cara and her steed to stay low and out of sight.

Soaking wet from the torrential downpour, Ni tried to wipe away the freezing rain that dripped from his muddy hood, squinting through the trees towards the very same group of adventurers he had seen only minutes before. Having been driven onward by simple instinct, Ni had left the clearing before the unexpected thunderstorm had even begun. Pressing forward for a short while, Ni once again had found himself alone in the cold and frozen forest. Quiet and careful, he continued forward through snow and woodland. He had paid no heed to the first drops of rain as they fell; however, the sprinkle quickly became a storm, and Ni soon found himself slipping through dirt and slush with every step he took. But Ni kept moving onward, propelled by a single command; a single word. SURVIVE. It was only when a sudden strike of lightning crashed to the earth a dozen feet away that Ni deviated from his due course. The force of the impact threw Ni to the ground, and his vision went white and his ears rang as he slipped and fell into a pocket of snow and mud. Disoriented and dazed, Ni slowly rose to his unsteady feet as he wiped the cold mud from off his jacket and the sack over his head. Turning to his right, Ni thought he saw motion through his blurry vision. As he scanned the forest and his eyes began to clear, Ni was surprised when he saw the same group of travelers he had seen earlier at the Wizard’s Tower dashing through the forest, a sense of urgency seeming to push them forward as they rushed through the woods. Grabbing a nearby tree root to steady himself from slipping again, Ni pulled himself from the pit of mud as he wiped his dirtied sleeve across his hood once more in a futile effort to deter the continual stream of water trickling across his vision. Confused by their sudden appearance and still dazed by the lightning strike, Ni leaned against the side of the tree as he tried to get a better view of the other adventurers. From what he could see through the downpour of rain though, it appeared that the group had stopped. Something was standing in front of the other adventurers; a giant figure masked in an ethereal orange. With a sense of clarity flashing through his mind, Ni quickly pulled himself around the he had used as a support, hiding himself as he hesitantly watched the others from a distance. The giant figure looked down at the travelers, and a fire, one strong enough to split through the storm, radiated around the travelers. Aside from these, there seemed to be no immediate sign of danger; but Ni felt a tension in the air, and he knew something was wrong. Not wanting to draw attention to himself though if he suddenly ran, Ni stayed where he was. Silent in the freezing rain, Ni watched the group of adventurers and the eerie figure looming over them.

Sitting in the shadow of the Wizard’s Tower, Ni started blankly ahead as he sat in the wet snow. Leaning forwards with his lower back against the cold stone of the Tower wall, the small boy rested his head against his legs, his mouth pressing into his knees as he pulled them close to his body. Even with his clothes now soaked and cold from the melted snow he sat in, there was no discomfort in Ni’s position. Curled tightly into an upright ball, Ni remained silent and immovable, save for the steady rise and fall of his chest with each breath he took. Somewhere in the clearing on the other side of the Tower, there had been others who had gathered; gathered around a dragon that had been slain, with crystal blood that painted the snow grey. Did they see it? Ni hadn't just seen the corpse of a dragon slain; there was something more. Did they feel it? Ni could still feel the dragon’s blood on his fingers, but he felt more than that. Did they understand? "Oh, don't do that. That's gross." … Ni pulled himself tighter, a feeling of cold more piercing than the deepest of winters washing over him. … No… they would never… How could they understand what… what it… … A single ragged cough broke the silence, and Ni’s head violently twisted downward into the space between his knees and chest. With his head still lowered, Ni carefully took a deep breath. After a few moments of controlled breathing with his head bowed, the boy slowly moved to wipe the back of his hand across his hooded face where his mouth was hidden. As his arm began to sweep across the face of the burlap sack though, Ni suddenly grew very still. Tentatively, the boy lowered his arm, and his small hand closed into an uncertain fist. From beneath the hood that covered his face, the sigh of a fragile whimper escaped from the back of Ni’s throat. … It was time to go.

@Tesh

Ni gave a shallow nod, silently lowering his head as he looked away from the dragon’s wound towards the frozen ground.

Continuing to look at the dragon, Ni distractedly shook his head.

Visibly wincing at her words, Ni slowly turned to look at Cara. Even with the hood covering his face, the boy’s eyes that were hidden in shadow locked directly with Cara’s. In that one moment, there was a weight behind Ni’s actions; one far beyond that of dragons and innocence. Wordlessly, Ni turned away from Cara, and stepped back from the dragon. Moving out of the grey slush and snow, the small boy grabbed a small handful of clean white snow with his left hand, using it to wash away the dragon’s silver blood. Once his hand was cleaned, he dried both hands off on the front of his pants before placing his hands deep inside the pockets of his jacket. Ni then looked back towards the fallen dragon, standing as motionless and still as the slain creature that lay in front of him.

Ni stopped only inches away from the slain dragon’s corpse, staring blankly ahead at the scene before him. The large beast lay sprawled across the ground, frozen amid winter and death with its eyes glassed over like metallic spheres; the empty husk to a creature of legend. Having stopped near the beast's head, Ni glanced over to his right. Tilting his head slightly, the boy noticed a large gash across the dragon’s neck. A small trail of silvery blood still trickled from the deadly wound, reflecting light as though it were liquid glass. The single stream of the strange blood flowed steadily across the dragon’s torn scales towards the ground, soiling the snow beneath the creature's neck as it turned dark and faded with a strange grey coloring. Ni reached his hand towards the slain beast, slowly brushing his fingers inside the deep cut slashed across the dragon’s neck. Retracting his hand, the small boy silently inspected his bloodied fingertips. Dripping with crystalline liquid, Ni slowly rubbed his thumb across his fingers, further spreading the prismatic blood.

Ni listened with half an ear to the conversation between Cara and the “not-so-shadow” man. Even though the brief conversation had revolved around him, the boy’s attention had already been drawn away towards the large dragon that lay dead near the base of the tower. The “messy man” from earlier had mentioned there was a dragon outside, but this was Ni’s first time seeing it; the dragon had been on the other side of the tower from where he and Cara had first entered the building. Stepping away from Cara, Ni quietly moved towards the dragon.

Releasing the inhaled breath that he had been holding, Ni’s relief matched that of Cara’s. Quickly returning the chair that he had been sitting on to the wooden table behind him, Ni turned to follow Cara, ready to find what was apparently a very special kind of shadow. A shadow of what though, Ni had no idea.

Ni snapped his head up as he looked towards Cara, visibly startled by the speed of her return and the suddenness of her heavy question. It took him a moment to process, but Ni quickly hopped off his wooden chair before pointing towards the ground with both hands. However, realizing the possible intrusion that he might be at requesting to stay, the gesture was immediately followed up with Ni placing his hands behind his back with an air of slight embarrassment as the boy looked towards the floor.

Placing the small notebook back in the inside pocket on his jacket, Ni let out a muted sigh that resonated both relief and dread. Although the emotions were conflicting, the boy’s mind was not; Ni already knew what he had to do. Alone in the tarnished kitchen, Ni waited to see if Cara would come back at all. Swinging his legs back and forth as he sat on the wooden chair, the small boy leaned forward in his seat slightly, resting his elbows gently on his knees.

As though waking from a dream, Ni shivered slightly on his wooden chair as he focused his attention towards the door. Appearing slightly dazed and distracted, the hooded boy glanced around the room briefly before looking towards Valzwyn and another new person, Veila. With a soft exhale, Ni waved at the two of them.

At Valzwyn’s question, Ni slowly lowered his extended arm back down onto his lap, clasping his hands together loosely as he became very still. The boy lowered his head slightly, looking straight ahead as though he were gazing straight through Valzwyn towards something unseen. After many, many seconds of silent thought, Ni simply raised a finger to his lips in response.

Taking a moment to reorienting himself from his descent down the tower, Ni swayed his arm back and forth slightly as he pointed toward one of the walls, gesturing once again somewhere to the Northeast.

Lifting both hands in front of his face, Ni showed nine fingers.

Realizing he wasn’t about to be given a lecture, Ni sat up straight in his chair, giving a swift nod and the most professional handshake a nine year old could give.

Ni nodded a couple of times, sliding to his left as he picked up the chair he had knocked over nearby the table before quietly sitting on it.