#if something with a gentle vibration pattern were lodged in my insides

[whentherewerebicycles]

[thetimelesscycle]

Tales of Arcadia Wizards Fanfiction: Hope Dies Last - Chapter 3

A moppet in distress.

A/N: I have unexpectedly received three days off work (in a good way), so we are celebrating with an early chapter. Enjoy. :-)

Chapter 3

Keep Calm and Panic

The next time he awoke he was lying on his back, resting on something far softer than the stone floor. There was a pillow beneath his head and a thick blanket that had been tucked around his shoulders; He could feel the warmth against his skin even as his body shivered helplessly, caught in the sensation of ice lodged beneath his ribs. There was a weight on his chest, a comforting heaviness that vibrated slightly and eased the fierce ache that still lingered there, and a hand that rested sometimes against his forehead or trailed in idle patterns through his hair. He must have opened his eyes at some point — someone asked if he was awake — but he couldn’t see anything that made sense and let them drift closed again.

Snatches of conversation came to him, broken and disjointed, as if he were walking in and out of a room in the middle of a debate. It seemed like an argument, mostly; Two, sometimes three, voices bouncing one off the other. Other times it was softer, just one voice speaking to him as that gentle rumble rolled on and on. 

Another sensation came and went. A touch that was not physical, warmth that briefly eased the ice in his veins before receding and taking that comfort with it. He both wanted it to stay and did not; Grateful for the gentleness but fearful of what lingered behind it.

He woke up. The rumble was gone and he was still cold. Quiet voices drifted back and forth somewhere not too distant from where he’d been placed. The pain had receded to something more manageable, though he still felt awful, his limbs leaden weights he couldn’t bring himself to move just yet. Not until he figured out what had happened.

His head was pounding like a drum, which didn’t exactly facilitate clear thinking. He tried anyway, uncomfortably aware of how wrong he felt in his own skin. It was like his own body didn’t quite fit him anymore; An inch short of his expectations, the bracelet on his wrist not the comforting weight it should have been, the magic at his fingertips a stronger force than he knew how to control. He felt stitched together, stiff in a way that had nothing to do with the physical, and underneath all of that was the overwhelming, irrational need to run.

Summoning his willpower in the place of any actual strength, he threw back the covers of what he belatedly realised was his master’s bed. That small act took nearly all the energy he had — he certainly wasn’t going to be running anywhere in the immediate future — but he did manage to lever himself upright, freezing when he caught sight of his reflection in the full length mirror on the opposite wall.

He’d never exactly been a picture of health; Pale and with ample bags under his eyes to speak of too many sleepless nights. Right now, there was no colour in his face at all. The slight roundness his cheeks had gained with the advent of regularly available meals was gone, the gauntness that replaced it making him look almost skeletal. The shadows under his eyes could have been bruises, though he had a feeling it would have hurt less if someone had actually punched him in the face. There was a strip of linen tied about his head, stained red where it rested against a wound he did not remember getting, and the tips of his hair appeared to have turned blue.

He touched the coloured edges just to be certain he wasn’t seeing things, the sight strangely familiar and yet utterly foreign, then grimaced at his reflection as his chest throbbed. He raised a hand to press against it as he struggled to remember why it hurt at all. He had a vague recollection of ice encasing his hands, pinning him in place as a glowing red stone was pressed to his chest, flooding him with furious, malevolent magic. He remembered pain, worse than anything he had felt in all his life, and then an awful wrenching sensation as a cooler, softer touch ripped him away from imminent death, leaving pieces behind as he was torn free.

None of it made sense. Not the memory, not the pain, and not the creeping sense that he wasn’t safe here. He couldn’t think clearly around the nonsensical thoughts bouncing back and forth within his skull. He stood up because he felt like he should, then wavered as the room revolted against its stationary existence. Gripping the wall for balance, he waited out the slow rotation of the floor beneath his feet, letting go only once his knees locked and his vision stopped swimming in sickening circles. He made it all of two steps and then lost his balance again, flailing wildly, taking an entire shelf of potions to the floor with him.

The crash was horrendous, and predictably cut whatever conversation was happening in the next room short. He heard and felt the approaching footsteps, blessedly numb to the pain of his own impact, and did nothing to escape them. It was habit that drove the slurred words he uttered when a hand gripped his shoulder and turned him over.

“S—sorry, Master. I’ll clean it up. I—”

“Hisirdoux, I could not care less about the state of my floor right now. Are you alright?”

He blinked stupidly, upright with Merlin’s hands gripping his shoulders, Archie hovering in fretful silence behind the Master Wizard.

“Uh...” That was definitely not intelligible. He raised a hand to touch his head, to try and order his thoughts. It came away damp, a fact that seemed inconsequential in the face of the unknown danger that was making his heart race and his wobbling legs itch to move. But Merlin had asked a question, and it was an answer, even if it was not the right one. “I think I’m bleeding again.”

Merlin made an odd noise in the back of his throat. Hisirdoux couldn’t tell if it was anger or frustration, and wasn’t given much time to think about it. The Master Wizard tugged him to his feet and set him on the edge of the bed before the room could start spinning again. Archie immediately settled in his lap, the familiar not even trying to hide the fact it was to keep him in place. He needn’t have bothered; Douxie wasn’t planning on getting up again any time soon.

It was still so hard to think, and he felt as if he was forgetting something. Something important. His attempts to grab at his skittish thoughts only made his head pound more fiercely, and he was pitching forward before he knew what direction that was, resting his burning forehead against the comfortable coolness of Merlin’s shoulder plates.

“Hisirdoux...”

For once, his master sounded more perturbed than irritated. Irrationally, that realisation had him swallowing around a lump in his throat, desperately trying to still the tremors overtaking him again. He couldn’t really hope to hide it; Merlin was holding him in place, Archie kneading quietly in his lap. He tried anyway.

“Hisirdoux, I need you to focus.” Merlin didn’t try to shift him, letting him stay where he was despite how awkward it must have made seeing to his injury. “I need to know what happened before Morgana found you. Did you go anywhere, touch anything, see anyone?”

“I’ve already told you,” Archie snapped irritably. “We were in your study all day, and I was in the room with him when he woke up. Nothing happened that would cause this!”

“And I’ve already told you that can’t be right. An injury like this doesn’t happen by accident. Someone caused this. You must have missed them.”

“My eyesight may be bad, but I can assure you I would have noticed someone attacking my own familiar!”

Torn black wings and frosted fur. His own voice cracking as grief blinded him for the bare second his adversaries needed to render him helpless.

“We told you you would die for this.”

Ice and fire

Red and blue.

“You should have run when you had the chance.”

Pain. Excruciating, inescapable pain.

He back-pedalled so fast he dislodged Archie right onto the floor, freezing when his back hit the wall and feeling his breath stutter in his chest as his eyes darted frantically about the room, trying to find the danger. It took a long time for the ringing in his ears to quiet enough for him to realise he was being spoken to; Longer still for the words to start making sense.

“Back with us, Hisirdoux?”

Merlin waited until his gaze focussed, then released the frantic dragon he’d been holding in check. Archie approached cautiously, pouncing when Douxie opened his arms in invitation. Holding his familiar close, he buried his face in Archie’s reassuring warmth. He didn’t make a sound when the first sob escaped him. He didn’t need to; Archie always knew.

“Oh, Douxie.”

He could feel Merlin’s weighted gaze on them, though the Master Wizard remained silent, giving them a few moments of precious peace. When he did speak it was with an awkward gentleness that was more rusted than Galahad’s old set of plate.

“You are safe here.” His teacher had made a similar promise, he recalled, that first terrifying night in a castle surrounded by Arthur’s knights. It hadn’t sounded any more reassuring back then. “The tower is warded against hostile magic, and Morgana and I have made sure no one but the three of us can safely get inside.”

“Four,”’Archie chipped in, only slightly muffled by Douxie unintentionally crushing him. “Merlin is right, Doux. No one is going to hurt you.”

“I—I don’t.” His breaths still didn’t seem large enough to fill his lungs, making it difficult to get the words out. “I don’t remember what... what happened.”

“At all?”

It could have been alarm or disbelief colouring Merlin’s words. He didn’t dare look to see, shaking his head by way of an answer. Merlin inhaled sharply, but kept his words calm when he spoke.

“Hisirdoux, I need to examine the wound again.”

Archie hissed at the intrusion. Douxie lifted his head just enough to peer at his master through his messy fringe, the shock of colour there distracting him momentarily before he refocused. Merlin took the fleeting eye contact as an invitation to continue.

“There is dark magic at work here. I need to make sure you aren’t getting any worse.” He offered his hand, movements as steady as ever, and uncharacteristically made another promise. “If it makes you feel better, you can watch what I’m doing. It won’t hurt.”

It had last time. He took Merlin’s hand anyway, forcing himself to sit a little straighter as he closed his eyes, becoming aware of the brush of his master’s magic against his own. The touch was careful, encasing him slowly, Merlin’s bright aura a stark contrast to his own paled, disrupted magic. He felt no danger, no ill intent, just the same gentle pull Merlin had used to guide him through countless other exercises. He found himself tensing regardless, breath catching in his throat as his master’s focus began to drag them both deeper.

“Easy...” Archie’s reassurance sounded right beside his ear. Unconsciously, he tightened his one-armed embrace around the small dragon. “You’re safe, Douxie. I’m not going to let anyone harm you.”

If only he’d been able to return that favour. If only his newfound confidence hadn’t been ripped out from under his feet so quickly he hadn’t had time to realise just how badly wrong things had gone until he was about to be wiped from the face of existence. Stray thoughts, and terrifying ones, because the memories attached to them continued to elude him with the determined agility of a feral gnome.

He would have to sit down and figure this all out later. Once Merlin was finished and he’d rested some more. For the time being, he followed in the Master Wizard’s metaphorical footsteps, slowly taking notice of the various physical sensations he had been doing his best to ignore.

He ached all over, though it had dulled somewhat since his awakening. There was a headache brewing behind his eyes that he supposed was to be expected after whatever hard surface he had introduced his skull to the first time. The knot in his chest was still there, winding itself tighter with every breath. Beneath all of that, beneath every pain vying for his attention, his magic was unsettled, stronger than he remembered it being even as it lay in latent disquiet; A calm lake awaiting the pebble that would shatter its serene face .

That pebble, as it turned out, was his first glimpse at the damage that had been done to him.

He was missing pieces.

He was missing pieces of himself.

What had been a strange sense of displacement was now a crystal clear realisation that he was not whole, dark shadows overtaking his spirit the way a troll’s flesh turned to stone in sunlight. He bolted upright in a surge of pure panic, fingers finding and grasping a vicelike hold of his master’s arms. His chest was hurting again, his lungs fighting for air as panic overtook him. Merlin’s hands closed about his forearms in a mirror of his own position, his master’s lips moving without sound.

The world faded out to a grey vista. For a dreadful few moments, that was all he could see. Sounds began to trickle back in first, his name being repeated over and over in forcefully calm tones that didn’t quite drown out the awful, wheezing noise that was his breathing. Colours followed, blurry and indistinct, slowly gaining clarity until he could look into Merlin’s eyes and see the vestiges of his own panic lingering there.

“That’s better,” Merlin spoke the moment Douxie made eye contact. “You need to stay calm.”

“Calm?” He shook his head, trembling, his magic sparking at his fingertips, seeking an enemy that didn’t exist. “I’m... there’s... What’s wrong with me?”

It came out as a cracked whisper. Merlin surprised him with the vehemence of his response. “Nothing is wrong with you,” he asserted firmly. “Someone did this, but there is no need to panic just yet. I am confident I can find a way to fix it.”

“What if you can’t?” He had to ask, even though he didn’t want to. “What if you can’t fix it? I’m...” Broken. He was broken. Cracked and incomplete. He couldn’t stop shaking; It was a wonder Merlin’s armour wasn’t rattling beneath his grip.

“Then we will find someone who can.” Merlin said it so matter-of-factly it was almost comforting. Archie’s determined rubbing against his side was more so, and he peeled his clenched fingers away from Merlin’s arms to attach them to Archie instead as the Master Wizard continued, “Are you in any pain?”

He answered automatically, “My chest hurts.”

Merlin frowned, bringing his glowing hand to hover over the affected area. Douxie caught himself shying away from the motion on instinct, his breath catching in his throat.

“I mean, it’s fine! I’m fine, no need to—”

“Hisirdoux.”

He cringed, though a strange corner of his mind railed against the reaction. Maybe his chest wasn’t the problem at all; It felt like his skull was trying to split in two.

“He knows what he’s doing, Douxie,”’Archie offered his own encouragement. “Probably.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Archibald.”

“You did set him off... twice.”

“That was the work of whatever nefarious hand caused this, not my doing.”

“I’m fairly certain your bumbling didn’t help.”

“Bumbling? You ungrateful—!”

Laughter bubbled up his throat like scalding acid and emerged as another cracked sob. The conversation cut off abruptly as he tried to muffle the sound behind his hand, before deciding he was too tired, sore, and confused to pretend he wasn’t terrified out of his wits right now. Archie immediately pressed himself closer, purring in that impossibly loud way he did when he was trying to drown out his familiar’s upset. Merlin was a lot slower, sitting frozen, then stiffly slipping an arm about his apprentice’s shoulders.

It wasn’t enough, and Douxie risked rejection to turn and tuck himself closer against his mentor’s side, ignoring the hard edges of the wizard’s armour as he clutched Archie in his arms. Merlin exhaled softly, then brought his other hand up to pat Douxie awkwardly between the shoulder blades.

The warmth of his magic withdrew with the physical touch.

Douxie was still cold.

Headcanon A/N: I am a subscriber to the belief that Douxie's hair colour is due to his magic, particularly as certain scenes where the light shines off the darker parts there is a blue tint to what otherwise appears to be black. (Fanfiction research, everyone. XD)