ღ Amalric

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ The Cobbler's Nephew ღ
[ Pt. I ]

“But I don’t want to go.” Amalric stood pouting before his aunt, stiffly postured as she pulled and plucked at his clothes, straightening them out until he looked ‘presentable’ by her standards — a word he was fairly sure she had made up entirely for the purpose of padding her arsenal of excuses for making him look and feel uncomfortable in over-buttoned clothing. “It’s far away, and even colder all times of the year, but especially in winter. What if I get sick? And they don’t like me? And I can’t get a letter back fast enough? And I die? And—”

“Tch.” His aunt Elayna clucked her tongue, plucking again at the collar of his shirt to silence him. “Must you complain about everything, child? You should feel blessed. Not all children are afforded these opportunities, many cannot begin to afford them at all. So much is provided for you that you’re blinded by it. You will not die.”

“You don’t know if I might—”

“Quiet.” Elayna’s lips pursed briefly, her cool blue eyes surveying him for a moment before she gave a stiff nod. “Not another word out of you, and off you go. When you speak with the school’s examiner, you will put your word in only when spoken to and asked of you, do you understand? You will be on your best behavior.”

At fourteen, Amalric was of average height for a boy his age, but sprouting quickly and at awkward angles in such a manner he could have sworn at points one leg would get ahead of the other and fumble him on purpose just to embarrass him in the process of simple tasks — like walking — and making his life unnecessarily difficult. Regardless, it all resulted in increasingly long and gangly limbs that he wanted little to do with and ever-awkwardly-fitted clothing. Still, it would have to do.

Besbin and Elayna Belwater lived in a two story, four bedroom home on the edge of Coeld, Zena. Accomplished cobblers who took pride in the quality of their work, they made use of the transit from Sauti, though Coeld, and to Zidel both to market their more basic wares to travelers as well as higher end, specialized products for the upper class and noble customers of the capitol. There Amalric lived with them — his aunt and uncle — and their three daughters, Eyme, Elyse, and Brinnah. Being the youngest, he shared attic space Brinnah as their combined ‘room.’

Or, he had.

Though the topic had been discussed in passing previously, it was only three weeks ago that his aunt and uncle informed him difinitively of their combined and final ‘decision’ to ship him away to Daurelts. Daurelts, Academy of Spellcraft and the Arts, handily located in Zena’s capital — so that all the ponciest of noble elite children born from wealth could attend at their convenience — catered to young minds ages twelve to eighteen, serving as a boarding school for some, and only academy for others who lived closer, with the subject matter taught spanning the full range of academics, but with a heavy and prestigious focus on the craft of spellwork and handling and honing magic. Their reasoning was and always had been that it was their gift to him. It was one of, if not the single best and most renowned school of magic which of course meant that, beyond the higher learning that went on there, tutelage in its halls came with bragging rights. And made one’s face and name known, to a certain extent. He ought to feel blessed, his aunt and uncle insisted.

To some degree perhaps he did.

Amalric adored magic, buried himself in books on the subject, and for no surprising reason: he was good at it. Naturally he was young still, and thus his skills lacked fine tuning or a professional guiding hand, but even from a young age he had showed promise of high wielding capacity for the art, and had taken to it with relish.

He simply did not wish to travel so far from home. He did not want to be separated from his only family for months or whole seasons at a time. He did not want to be uprooted to foreign spaces and be forced to adapt, and he did not want to be alone. While he was by nature fond of significant periods of privacy and solitude, that in itself was a very different thing from not having familiar persons available when he was ready to re-emerge from that solitude, and the thought of being so distant was anxiety inducing.

Beyond that, he was not foolish enough to be blind to his aunt and uncle’s other motives.

While he did love his magic and did want to indulge in it and hone the craft, there were places nearer and cheaper at which that could be accomplished and he felt confident he could flourish there. What they wanted, however, was more than that: representation, a namesake, a Belwater, a windling in predominantly iceling spaces making a showing for them. He was not their son, but he did carry the family name, and if he performed well, he might finally make something worthwhile out of his father’s legacy — and make all their hard work ‘worth’ it.

Amalric had no interest in family politics.

He had no interest in any politics. Not that of the nations or the races, not of the status gap, and not of any of those related things which his aunt and uncle put so much weight in: their ‘place’ in the world, and climbing that ladder. He rather prefered his books, quiet spaces, and reasonable people who could be reasoned with and engaged in long discussions — if such persons even existed. He had yet to be convinced, but he was young and held some hope.

In the meantime, however, everything he ate and wore, and all the walls that kept him safe from Zena’s winds and frosty winter snows were all made possible by the coin and grace of Aunt Elayna and Uncle Besbin. So, their will ruled, and so, after making his way down the steps from the second floor and out the front door his boots crunched on the thin spring ice outside their doorstep, his breath made white foggy puffs in the chill air, and he started his way down the path to the town road, and the building he was instructed to meet with the Daurelts Academy examiner for personal assessment of his skill and natural talent for purposes of placement and final acceptance.

As he started down the path, adjusting his cloak up closer around his ears for warmth and leaving small booted footprints in his wake, it occurred to him that if he truly did not want to go, he could attempt to make a terrible showing on purpose and underperform. It would keep him here, in Coeld, in all the spaces he knew and allow him to do what he pleased without being uprooted. But he knew that he wouldn’t. In the end, whatever his nerves, and whatever his irritation with his aunt and uncle’s personal reasons for wanting to send him, there was part of him, too, that wanted it. Not for the status or the name, but for the content the school offered, for the knowledge that its professors had to give — and for the libraries of the school, and of Zidel itself. For all his other upsets, Amalric wanted to succeed, to be good enough, and to impress anyone he watched.

So, when the opportunity came, he would throw everything he had to offer into it, and only hope that this would be enough.

Word Count: 1,326

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ The Cobbler's Nephew ღ
[ Pt. II ]

“Amalric!”

Amalric, halfway down the partly snowed over stone path leading into town proper, paused in his tracks at his cousin’s voice, gloved fingers moving to stuff into his pockets and conserve their heat as he turned to glance back at her. Eyme, the eldest of his aunt and uncle’s three daughters, was tall — as seemed to run in the Belwater side of the family, which Amalric had inherited from — but had taken after her father in terms of a more rounded face and general portliness. Her blue eyes were dark and her sandy-blonde hair straight and contained by a leather strap. At her side, she lead Yako, the ‘communal’ aldabuk which often passed hands between their family and two others in the area, who each kept between one and three females, but currently had no males of breeding age other than Yako, inspiring the current arrangement of a shared burden in interest.

Amalric thought that of all of them, Yako had far and away the best end of the deal.

“What is it?” he asked, puffing out a steamy breath and eyeing the beast — who did indeed look especially chipper despite the still-chilly weather, as though he knew what to expect from a change of hands during the springtime. “I’m on my way to the trading office by city hall to meet with Ms. Cordway from Daurelts, the examiner…I can’t take hi—”

“Mother said you ought,” Eyme interrupted, her cheeks flush with the chill as she strode further forward to his side and thrust out the hand holding Yako’s lead. “I have other things to do and it’s on your way anyway, it won’t take but a moment.”

Amalric frowned, and opened his mouth.

“It won’t take but a moment,” Eyme repeated, insistent. The furrow to her brow and sharp glint to her eyes let him know that his position was not about to be heard or improve, and her hand was pushing to his arm just beneath the shoulder, putting the lead to him. “Be quick about it too, you know, or his balls will grow cold and he won’t want to mate and the Firriths won’t be pleased.”

Amalric gave her a skeptical look, but was already pulling a gloved hand back from his pocket to take the lead, if only so that she quit pushing it against him. She shoved it into his hand the instant it became visible.

“I don’t want to…” he mumbled aloud as Yako trotted over to stand beside him and nose at a frosty pebble beside his boot, but the complaint lacked energy, as he knew his battle was lost. Privately he also assumed Yako would be very happy with his new lodgings and any opportunity to warm himself that came with it regardless of how long it took him to get there. But Amalric didn’t suppose that would be well-received either, so he kept it to himself.

“Don’t whine. Chin up,” Eyme quipped, her tone much more chipper now that her task had been successfully passed off. “And good luck, aye? Work your magic, sparkle fingers.”

A subtle heat warmed Amalric’s cheeks at the old nickname. He couldn’t have even said now when she and her sisters had come up with it or which of them had first — though it was probably Eyme, being the eldest — only that it had been said when he first showed signs of his magic affinity and interest, and somewhere along the line had stayed, and stuck.

Then, quick as she’d come, she was off again, giving a parting wave and trotting back down the path to handle whatever ‘other’ things she had to tend to. Amalric held his ground for a moment, his gaze turning to Yako at his side — who seemed all around unbothered by the little exchange — before puffing another sigh and giving a resigned tug.

“Come then,” he muttered to the beast, “you at least have something to look forward to. Chin up.”

As Eyme had promised and as Amalric had known to be true, despite not wanting the task, it did not take long, nor was it out of his way to drop the aldabuk off with with the Firrith family, and as soon as he had, Amalric kept on his way again, making it up to the trading office in short order afterward. It was a sturdy and practical building, old — on of the first in Coeld, if Amalric wasn’t mistaken — and taking its years well. It was not small either, though it often looked so as compared to the larger city hall beside it, and though it once may have had other purposes, it was now used primarily as a connection point for communications between the various trade routes and contracts made in the process of handling shipping through and between Zena and Sauti below, as well as a temporary store hold for funds on occasion for the non-permanent residents not looking to deal directly with the city bank.

It also had several ‘spare’ rooms which were adapted to the needs of the moment and occasionally lay empty. It was one such room that he was set to meet with the academy examiner in. Had it been he been a resident of an even smaller town, an examiner may have been sent personally on a house visit or — if the trek were too far or the family in question not prepared to pay for such a thing — it might have necessitated travel on behalf of the prospective student all the way to the capital to take the interview there themself.

Fortunately for Amalric, he was not alone, and Coeld had several prospective hopefuls this year. Thus, to accommodate them all efficiently, the examiner had a room for herself and a handful of students she would be interviewing each day for the three days she was there before returning. The entrance room was busy as it often was, not packed, but occupied by steady foot traffic with a scattering of verbal exchanges here and there, likely for business, always keeping it from being quiet.

After dusting his hands down over himself and his cloak to shake off the few gathered snowflakes and scuffing his boots at the entrance, he stepped in, and meandered. Hands in his pockets, he took his time — he wasn’t late — eyes wandering the place and taking in its current details as he maneuvered between the various comers and goers and made his way across the polished floorboards, out of the main hall, and down eventually towards the room he ought to be at. The door was shut, and two iceling boys stood outside, chittering away as he came down the hall. They quieted upon noticing him. And then began again, this time more hushed and with the occasional glance his way.

He paid them no mind and propped his weight to the wall, just beside the door.

He recognized both of them. Jares and Rhadner. Orlande and — Amalric squinted to himself — he couldn’t remember Rhadner’s surname, though he ought. Both were from wealthy local families who had made off very well on the trade routes and had connections to the capital. It was hard not to know, after enough years of having lived in the area.

“This room is for meeting with the academy examiner for Daurelts.”

Having directed his gaze elsewhere by then, Amalric wasn’t aware at first that the words were even meant for him, until one of them cleared his throat and spoke again.

“Aye, what’s your, ah…” Jares began, but then after a mumbled word from Rhadner, continued, “Malric?”

“Amalric,” Amalric said, glancing their way.

“Are you lost?”

“No.” Despite their looks, his expression remained the same, neutral. “I’m here for the examiner, too. Unless you’re not. Isn’t she in there with someone?” He’d assumed, since the door was shut, but supposed he could have been wrong.

They exchanged looks.

“She…is,” Jares said at length before eyeing him again. “But aren’t you a little…”

Amalric waited for it, holding the other boy’s stare in anticipation of knowing what it might be this time: poor? Blond? Outclassed? Pale? It wouldn’t be said in quite such a fashion as that, of course, because these were proper boys, trained to couch their words in more crafted phrases that said vile things but spun them politely, and he felt his own anticipatory anger like a familiar breeze or pinprick. Stirring just beneath his skin in its early stages. He folded it down, and kept his expression and posture unchanged.

“Old?” Jares finished the thought at last, and Amalric blinked.

It hadn’t been the ending he’d expected, and the prickle of his anger died down, his mind reminded in that moment of his aunt’s frequent cautionary words like a scolding from afar for something he hadn’t even done. You might save your temper for things which have occurred and words which have been spoken to you, boy, instead of spending your energy on imagining for yourself what others think of you and being cross at that. If it’s important enough to them that you know, they will speak them, and if they don’t, they are not worth your time. It was sound advice, but a piece which Amalric found particular difficulty turning into practice.

He shrugged. “Fourteen.”

“Enrollment starts in the twelfth year—”

The door opened, sparing Amalric for the moment from whatever else might have been said. The academy examiner was a tall, willowy iceling woman with a strict bun of the darkest shade he’d seen on them and pale, sharp yellow eyes that flit from the other two boys to him, and held there.

“Amalric Belwater.”

He took a step.

She notched her head, and he followed her in. At least, he consoled himself, even if nothing else went his way, he was free from Jares and Rhander’s stares.

Word Count: 1,678

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ The Cobbler's Nephew ღ
[ Pt. III ]

“You may go, Ayenna.”

The academy examiner held a small clipboard at her chest stacked with several loose leafs of parchment atop it and a separate book at the back, her eyes trained to whatever the top sheets were as she moved into the room. She did not look up with the dismissal, but the girl in the room — Ayenna, apparently — stood from her seat in front of the broad desk there and strode out.

Amalric watched her retreat, but followed after Ms. Cordway without comment of his own.

“Sit.”

He sat.

She moved around the large desk, setting her things down and appearing to fiddle for a moment, studying several different sheets before finally, her eyes lifted to examine him. “Amalric.”

He nodded.

“Your application papers were…different than most we get, and impressive, if unorthodox…but I hope you take no offense when I ask, you do realize writing samples sent to the school are meant to be a representation of your work wholly and entirely, yes?”

Amalric frowned. He took his time, weighing what had been said and not speaking again himself until she opened her mouth as though to add more. “I don’t know what Uncle Besbin sent you. They didn’t say they would be sending it anywhere. They took my journal, and I didn’t want anyone to read it, but they did and they didn’t tell me until after it was gone what it was for. So it isn’t my fault if you liked it or didn’t like it, they shouldn’t have just taken it at all.”

Whatever the woman had expected in answer, that clearly wasn’t it, for she blinked, looking openly surprised for several long seconds before a small frown furrowed her brow. “You didn’t mean to apply at all?”

“Uncle Besbin and Aunt Elayna did. They wanted me to, but they knew I didn’t want to go so far away, so they told me I ought to write for my teacher here, in Coeld, but then they took it and they sent in anyway.”

She eyed him for a moment, assessing, before eventually gathering together a small, familiar stack of sheets and sliding it around so that he might see. “But to be perfectly clear, this…did your aunt and uncle or anyone else write this for y—?”

“No, that’s mine.” Amalric’s eyes were on the parchment. His words. His handwriting. And it ought to have stayed private — he still thought so himself — but it was too late for that now, evidently. “I wrote it and then they took it and sent it to you. That’s all.”

“Mmm…” The woman shuffled through her stack, then reached into a drawer, pulling out a blank slip of parchment and an ink quill before turning and pushing both his way. “If you would, please write your name and a sentence or two on this. It can be anything you like, I would just like to see.”

Amalric stared. “You don’t believe me.”

He might have imagined the dotting of color on her blue cheeks at that. But he didn’t think so. “It is not—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, picking up the quill and taking the parchment before him, dipping the writing tip. “Because it is mine, and I can write you anything I like…” He scrawled his name as he spoke, a practiced, winding series of strokes to bring the letters to life before he started in on the ‘sentence or two’ she had requested. “But it doesn’t make it less rude.”

Once there were three hundred and seventy two aldabuks which would mate on the high cliffs over a fur traders’ village, and while they would, they brayed so loudly that not one villager could sleep in peace. Then a huntsman shot them, and all the villagers had fur coats, aldabuk soup, and a good night’s rest.

He turned and pushed the sheet back to her, watching as her yellow eyes skimmed it—and her lips pursed. But she said nothing. Or, nothing immediately about it, in any case, though her gaze did flick from it, to his other writing and back before she sighed and tucked it away.

“You are fourteen summers of age, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Daurelts Academy does accept students transferring in, but if you have not had formal education in the subjects covered, particularly in honing your magic, you may find yourself behind. Because of this and to assess where you ought to be placed…” The, ‘…if at all…’ seemed to go unspoken, “…I would like you to run through with me a few tests, simple gauges of where you are, if you will. First…have you accessed your magic personally or had a formal assessment of your magical capacity any time previously?”

Amalric eyed her, frowning as he swung his legs back to prop them on the toes of his boots beneath his chair. Was she asking if he had ever accessed his magic before now? Was there anyone who hadn’t by his age? And of any of those, were they applying to this school? Finally, he shrugged. “I’ve had magic since I was six. No one’s tested me. My Aunt Elayna thinks it’s a lot because…” He hesitated. Was it unfavorable to mention he didn’t always control it? Perhaps it didn’t matter, and it was true, so he said, “Sometimes it does things accidentally, that’s all.”

He couldn’t have said what exactly to make of her expression then, but it didn’t seem to matter much in the end. She carried forward as promised with a series of short tests of varying sorts, and while boring at first, they seemed to escalate in complication and difficulty as they went along, so that by the end, they felt far more engaging and — at the tail of it — frustrating, for lack of a better word, pushing the limits of what he knew how to do already. By the time she finished, he was no longer sure how he’d done—only that he wished he could have done better, his fingertips itching with unspent energy.

As she informed him then, all assessments would be made after she, the examiner, spoke with the relevant members of the school board handling admissions. The process could take weeks, but all hopefuls would hear back in time to know whether they would be enrolled in the coming school term. So he likely would not know the results for at least that long.

Still, despite all and the uncertain clump of restlessness in his gut as he walked out, he felt resigned, content, and in his own way, accomplished. He had done what he could, and it was to the tune of Jares and Rhader’s complaints of how long he’d taken that he walked out of the building, into the crisp air.

Gentle snowfall accompanied him for the brisk walk home.

Word Count: 1,177

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ Mysterious Wreckage ღ

PRP WE: Link
Result: Amalric encounters a townsperson who may be slightly shy of 'sane'.

Word Count: 901

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ Creepy Crawlers ღ

PRP WE: Link
Result: Ergon is unfond of windlings; Amalric is unfond of most things. It works out. Sort of.

Word Count: 1,253 || Post Count: 7

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ The Sorcerer and the Entertainment ღ

“You act like you take all of this seriously.” Luras Sentel was everything one might expect from an upper-middle-crust iceling boytoy. Postured. Polite. Seventeen and at least decently attractive. Well on his way to riding the society class train straight to a cushy but not-as-cushy-as-the-neighbor’s seat somewhere in a nice house with a nice wife and—he wound his arm around Amalric’s shoulder leaning with his weight to prop a chin there and peer down at the text in Amalric’s hands. “I am surprised you haven’t gone blind from reading so much.”

“I do take it seriously.”

They were seated, currently, in Amalric’s dorm quarters, upon his bed, Amalric with a textbook in his lap and Luras—well, so far as Amalric could tell, Luras’ entire present purpose was to distract and annoy. But he was patiently awaiting some signal otherwise.

“Your hair has gotten longer…” Luras’ fingers carded through it, lifting up several strands of pale blonde, and tickling Amalric’s scalp in the process. He batted a hand back, ushering Luras’ away. It had gotten longer, certainly since Amalric had begun at Daurelts, only fourteen then and with all of it cropped short about his ears.

But it didn’t seem a comment worth stopping what he was doing for.

“That’s what hair does,” he said instead. “It grows.” He turned a page.

“It’s nice this long,” Luras persisted. “It flatters you, I think. Better at least than that short, tufty look—”

“You didn’t know me when it was short.”

Luras scoffed. “I knew of you,” he said. “And I’d seen you. That was enough. Little…skinny stick of a scowling thing like all the world was already against you and—”

“Why would you remember.”

“You stuck out like the oddest little ball of blonde, and everyone had something to say about it. It wasn’t as though you could really have your eyes and ears open and not notice.”

“It’s a large school.”

“Look, Amalric—”

“Why are we dating?”

Luras paused behind him, still hovering, still holding, but for a moment not moving or speaking. Unfortunately, the silence passed quickly. “Now this is part of what I mean about taking everything too seriously—”

Amalric turned, finally lifting his gaze from the textbook in his lap up over his shoulder and to Luras. “If you’re bored, you can leave.”

Luras held his stare for all of seconds before huffing, and catching at Amalric’s chin. “But if I stay, you could help me not be bored. Isn’t that what ‘boyfriends’ are for, mm?”

Amalric opened his mouth. Luras kissed him. Amalric pursed his lips into the kiss, brow furrowing and—Luras’ fingers caught at the nape of his neck, tangling in the strands there. Amalric huffed. “Luras—”

“The book’ll still be there in an hour, I promise…”

“But I’m reading it now.”

“Really?”

“Real—”

“When do you think you’re going to use all this—” Luras made a vague, flippant hand-waving gesture at the text, “—stuff? Aren’t you a cobbler? What are you even intending to—”

“My aunt and uncle,” Amalric clipped, “are cobblers. I am a sorcerer…or going to be. And I ‘think’ I will use all this ‘stuff’ in the process of being that. Do you disagree?”

Luras eyed him. “A sorcerer,” he repeated. “A real one. Like for combat.”

“Not for combat.” Amalric hesitated. “Unless necessary, I suppose. But you know there’s a great lot to be done with magic that doesn’t involve fighting one another. I haven’t decided exactly all I intend to do yet, but I know I’m good at it, and—”

“Don’t you work in the library already? As a…what is it…” Luras waved his fingers again. “Scribe. Or what have you. A little ink boy.”

“I won’t do that forever,” Amalric said, frowning. “But yes. But only because I can write. I wouldn’t want to spend all my life writing down other people’s words for them in any case. And there’s more to do in the world than that.”

“If you insist, sorcerer.”

“I do,” Amalric said. “I do insist.”

This time when Luras kissed him, he let him. When Luras plucked lightly — but insistently — at his book, Amalric only mumbled a token objection before folding his book mark into it and allowing it to be taken from him. When Luras touched his lips to the back curve and ridge of Amalric’s ear, he shut his eyes.

“It’s a pity there isn’t even a bit of a point.”

Amalric scowled, and jutted his elbow back, notching it into Luras’ gut and earning himself immediate objection.

“Oi! I was teasing, it wasn’t an insult to them—”

“It was if I’m insulted,” Amalric snapped, squirming against Luras’ attempts to contain him and roll him down to the bed. “You don’t get to decide after if it is or not. If someone is offended, it’s offensive, that’s what the word means!”

“Well I am so sorry, then—are you offended?” Luras asked. Somehow, Amalric had wound up with his back to the bed, likely as intended, though his purse-lipped scowl was still in place despite Luras’ hovering.

“I am.”

“What if I make it up to you?”

“How.”

“By, ahh…” Luras trailed off only for a moment, but Amalric knew the moment he saw the teeth of Luras’ grin, the coming answer would not be anything he wanted to hear. “Letting you suck my co—? Aaack—!”

“Out, out—get out, get off—”

“That was the plan—”

“Luras.”

“Amalric.”

Amalric stared up at the boy over him, expression still pinched with thought. “You never answered my question.”

“Which of many unanswered questions of yours did I not attend to this time, oh mighty sorcerer?” Luras’ lips touched to his nose.

“Why,” Amalric repeated, impassive, “are we dating.”

“Because I bore easily,” Luras said, “and you need someone to pry your nose out of your books eventually and from time to time.”

Amalric stared. “Entertainment.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re telling me I’m the entertainment.”

“The sorcerer,” Luras said, and then grinned, tapping a finger lightly to Amalric’s nose, “and the entertainment.”

“You have terrible taste.”

“Fortunately, that is not for you to determine.”

Word Count: 1,063

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ Black Is The New Black ღ

“Actually, we met in a class.” Amalric’s statement—an interruption to his uncle’s ranting: about his inclinations in terms of being wed, his studies, and his lack of plans for either given ‘lewd distractions like that iceling you probably met in some shadowy underground pub of miscreants somewhere’—came as enough of a surprise to temporarily silence the dinner table. His uncle stared as though something truly alien had emerged from his mouth. Then, Elyse piped up.

“Which class was it?”

“Runes,” Amalric said. “They focussed primarily on translation and carving, though we also covered mirroring, powerment and spacing. He was struggling with early semester concepts, and our professor asked that I help him.”

“So he’s slow, is he?” Brinnah hopped in.

“That’s quite enough.” If his uncle Besbin had looked puffed and flustered before—well, he didn’t look any more or less so now, Amalric supposed, so at least the evening hadn’t gotten any worse.

Unfortunately, things continued to fail to improve as the meal went on, the conversation devolving first into prodding — at which Amalric insisted no, he had no current intention to permanently pursue ‘this boy’ — but afterward again to his aunt and uncle’s own interests. They ‘had a friend who had a daughter…’ and from there forward Amalric proceeded to pay as little attention to the whole tado as he could afford, ears fuller than he wanted them and mind busy with an attitude that begged private spaces, lest he say things the consequences of which he had no interest in dealing with.

He survived the evening.

He even survived the entire winter ‘break’ such as it was, though he found himself avoiding his aunt and uncle’s spaces as much as he could and instead picking up odd job tasks about the neighborhood where he found them: dispensing with snow, cleaning stables, milking beasts, and — when he spoke with the town hall trading center — identifying and categorizing marked packages and scribing invoices for stock traveling through. The work kept him busy, and added to his small but growing pile of savings, which had begun with his on-campus library work and now represented his ‘just in case’ fund.

In case of what, he wasn’t yet sure. But it felt reassuring just the same to have and call it his own.

He left his aunt and uncle’s home feeling weighed down. Heavy—as though he were wearing the last of a second skin that his family expected him to continue wearing indefinitely but which he simply hadn’t taken the time to explain yet to them that he wouldn’t be for much longer at all. When he made it to his dorm room in the student residence halls of Daurelts, an envelope waited for him, tucked in the crevice between door and wall just above the handle. He took it, and after unlocking his space and moving inside, unfolded and read it.

It became clear rather quickly that it was a politely worded ‘notice’ of severed relations. Luras had, apparently, other things more pressingly in need of his time, and they ‘both knew it would not last’ besides.

Amalric took his time processing the letter, eyeing the text and thumbing over the corner of the parchment before eventually—finally—folding it and tucking it back within the envelope it had come in. He meant to ignore it entirely. Set it aside, and carry on with his studies, ideally ignoring Luras’ existence. While there was a knot of upset there — Did he really have to do it by letter? He couldn’t have stood to have one in person conversation? — he hadn’t planned on anything overly long term with the other young man, and perhaps this made things simple. His final semester, his final year. He could leave with a clean slate.

That wasn’t, unfortunately, how it all came to pass.

“Ooii, look there—lookin’ good, fourth year blondie. Made it to the final stretches.”

It was a grand total of two days and four hours since Amalric’s return to campus for his last semester. He was seated in the courtyard adjacent to the east wing of classrooms with lunch and a book, and truly, nothing about the situation begged interruption. So, logically, if he just kept his eyes on the page and persistently ignored, eventually—

“Amalric.”

Amalric turned the page, gaze still forcibly held downcast because he didn’t want whatever it was that the person casting the shadow over his page did and he became more sure of that fact by the moment.

“Look, it doesn’t actually matter that much, you don’t have to bother him—”

“You said you left it in his dorm. If you don’t—”

Amalric’s gaze had snapped up at the, ‘Look, it doesn’t…’ locking on Luras at the sound of his voice, but promptly afterward shifting to dart from him, to the two friends flanking him. One — the initial speaker — in front, and a second lingering just behind him, looking bored with the situation. The courtyard was, while not packed, busy with a healthy gathering of students bustling about their business.

“What do you want.” Amalric folded his bookmark into its place, shutting the page after and folding his hands atop it, eyes on Luras.

“Ah…”

“He wants—” the first friend began. Rylen, if he remembered correctly.

“He has a tongue,” Amalric cut in. “And eighteen years of practice with it. He’s soon to be a graduate of a well-regarded academy and has written a number of academic essays on topics ranging from histories to world advances in the magic arts, many of which he has spoken about after. He also pens his own personal letters. Or so I assume. So unless the latter has become the only means of communicating with me left in his capacity due to some freak accident between now and the last time I saw him…if he wants something from me, he may ask for it himself.”

Luras looked vaguely purple-faced. Rylen was not a great deal better. “Look. He left a textbook in your room, and h—”

“There’s nothing of his in my room.” Amalric meant to leave it at that. He ought to have left it at that, and in retrospect it would only be more true. But. “If he would like an excuse to come by to see me, however, so that he can feed it back to you and his other friends in a way that feels less ‘suspicious’ in terms of his actual intentions, I know we came up with better ones than ‘forgotten textbook’ scenario. I suppose I can go along with it, though, for the occasion. What textbook am I pretending to mistakenly harbor this time, Luras?”

Luras met his stare, but his words when they came were stiff, and quieted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

Amalric waited.

“Forget it. If I’d known you were going to make such a big deal of it—”

“I’m the one making a deal?” It was — Amalric knew the instant the sentence began to leave his lips — his second mistake. But his tongue was already rolling. “I would have been content with a single conversation, Luras. I would have been content to resolve private matters in private and put them behind us like civilized adults. But, since I had to settle instead for a pandering, sanitized, self-affirming feel-good dismissal letter, I would have at least preferred it if afterward, you exercised the basic decency to stay out of my face and leave me be to continue my life without interruptions from the whole—” He made a loose wave gesture to indicate Luras’ company, “—parade of accomplices that you apparently require to even approach me-”

“Is that what you think this is…? Is that honestly—”

Whatever purpose Luras’ company had originally served, did at least seem to become irrelevant at around that point, and though there was still a part of Amalric well aware that he was beginning to make a scene himself, more overriding interests took center stage instead. Regardless, before truly thinking about it, he found himself upright, voice rising as Luras’ had.

“It is, yes, it is honestly, and I—”

“Well you’re wrong, first—and second, I did leave a text in your room, and third it is why I came over, and it wasn’t a front because I already have told them what I put up with you for for so long, it’s no secret, I just thought a note was easier and I didn’t think until after that I’d need to bother you at all, but once I did, I didn’t want to make a great spit about it so I thought—”

“So you just thought you would harass me while I eat like a—”

“I thought I would come somewhere you’d be less likely to throw a fit, and Rylen and Arrel were already with me—”

“A fit…”

“—but I should have known it wouldn’t matter to you, since some people don’t have any further to sink. I’ll be by your room later. Next time, it might help you to remember sometimes things are only a big deal to you, and you’ll make less of a fool of yourself if you don’t assume someone is out for you in every situation. Then maybe you’d have seen that I wasn’t avoiding you or afraid to talk to you. I just didn’t think it was that important and I was bored of dealing with someone whose temper fuse was as short as their c**k.”

Amalric would not have sworn under oath as to exactly what happened next.

“You punched me…”

Amalric sat just outside the office of the dean, head tipped back to the wall behind him, eyes shut, and finger nursing his bloodied lip before he shifted his posture back to a more upright — if still brooding — hunch, eyes fixated on the door across from him and refusing to move anywhere else. A considerable feat, given that Luras was seated some half a foot from said door, still moaning periodically about the after effects of their ‘disagreement.’

“I didn’t know you knew how to punch…”

Amalric failed, and looked. There was, admittedly, some small, private thread of satisfaction to be gleaned from surveying the results of a well-thrown and delivered comeuppance in the form of knuckles to the face. But. “Now you know.”

“There is a textbook of mine in your room…”

Amalric pursed his lips, then opened his mouth.

“Luras Eohnn?”

And so, as Luras stepped up and proceeded into the dean’s office to give his ‘reasons’ or explanation — or whatever it is that was wanted of them in the aftermath of what had culminated as an unfortunately public physical brawl in the school’s center courtyard — Amalric’s wait for his turn continued again. In silence. No amount of waiting would have prepared him for the final result.

“I’m what?”

“Expelled. Though the facts are of course still coming in, all of the students present at the time who have spoken so far — and you yourself admit — you were the aggressor here-”

“I was insulted,” Amalric began. Then, rethinking his strategy, he frowned. “It was only a minor dispute.”

“Mr. Eohnn suffered injuries-”

“He suffered my-” Again, Amalric bit his tongue. Breathed. And then answered. “With all due respect, ma’am…while I recognize that I initiated the physical portion of the altercation, the dispute as a whole involved fault on both our parts. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did, but neither of us are badly hurt.”

“You’re bleeding, Mr. Belwater,” the dean said.

“It’s only a little blood.”

“I realize this is a harsh result, but this is a learning institution of prestige, with a reputation to uphold. We simply cannot have it being said that matters so ridiculously out of hand as this are permitted to continue without restraint.”

“Then punish me if you need,” Amalric insisted. “But not this—this is my final semester here, I’ve outperformed most of my peers, any of my professors will tell you-” ‘…well, most of my professors…’ He cleared his throat. “I’ve been an excellent student, and my relatives only barely afforded to pay my way this far. Please…there must be something else I can do.”

“All of that is deeply regrettable, Mr. Belwater, and your case will be put before the full school board before a final call is made, but I am afraid these are all things you ought to have considered before attacking a student at our academy.”

“I’m a student at this academy-”

“You may see yourself out.”

“You can’t just—!”

“Do you need to be personally escorted?”

While all of it occurred with terrifying alacrity in the moment—something, Amalric thought, like an avalanche of events building upon one another and progressing to ever more unimaginable ends—it took time for the full weight of it to settle upon him. He was single. He was expelled. He had no degree, no official recognition of his years spent in the halls he walked and now, he never would have that. His aunt and uncle had spent coin they didn’t have on something Amalric had never wanted in that fashion as a means to an end he didn’t want to arrive at and now—

All of it was wasted.

And he was bleeding.

He stared at his reflection. Standing in the space of the tiny washroom shared by himself and the fifteen other dorm rooms in his particular block of hall, he studied his face in the mirror there: the split in his lip, the darkening spot around his eye, and his own expression—which was admittedly in that moment unpleasant to behold in and of itself. Over the holiday, he had made a market purchase on a whim in the aftermath of a particularly rousing dispute with his uncle about his ‘heritage’, his ‘culture’, and what he represented to the world simply by existing as who he was.

People can spit back and forth about how unique and different everyone is, but there’s one thing no one can run from, and that’s their own blood. You’re Sautian, wind before you’re anything else, and you have a duty to do proud by that.

Amalric washed his face. He washed, dried, and brushed his hair, cleaned himself up, and then, carefully, he applied his purchase to sections of his hair one at a time: black dye, simple, but purportedly permanent. He couldn’t have said how long it took, his mind adrift the whole while — vacillating between rippling anger just beneath the skin to the tune of injustice, ‘It’s not fair…’, ‘I don’t deserve this…’ to chilly resignation: he would start over from here.

Eventually, he owed his aunt and uncle answers, yes. But not here and not now. Not until he had answers to give.

Until then, he had some coin of his own earning, the knowledge and skill set imparted on him by the institution now turning away, and opportunity. Things would be different from this moment forward, but perhaps that was in part because they needed to be. He was grown enough now, surely, to begin making his own path.

And the world was apparently bound and determined to allow him no other choice.

So, he would.

Word Count: 2,642

Quote:

Amalric has always been fascinated with and had a certain knack for magic. Despite this, he had his reservations about his aunt and uncle investing what it took to send him to an esteemed academy for the magic arts (Daurelts) located in Zena's capitol, that they could barely afford, and that he did not fit in at (it was populated by a heavy majority upper class iceling student body). He felt that they were sending him for status reasons/bragging rights, and that it was his representation of windling success and their family name that mattered more to them than whether or not he was actually happy there. Due to his love of magic and lack of a compelling enough reason to break the pattern however, Amalric does attend Daurelts and performed well up until his final year, though he continued to have family issues, particularly when it came to relationship/marital matters. (His aunt and uncle wanted him to be making connections at this school and make a showing of himself, possibly find a promising wife - instead he spent his time reading more than he needed to and occasionally making out with boys.)

All of these issues, added to Amalric's ever-present (if sometimes more subtle than others) race tension - culminate in an unfortunate train of events involving family dispute, the dissolution of his relationship, and his expulsion from school in the final leg. Faced with the guilt of 'wasting' his aunt and uncle's money by being cast out at the end of his studies before completion (balanced against his own argument that he didn't ask or even want them to send him to this particular school in the first place) Amalric eventually concludes that it is time for him to find some answers of his own and stop settling for the paths set before him by others. He dyes his hair black to demonstrate stepping away from the box society has put him in ( "wind" "Sautian" ) and a rebellion from the expectations imposed on him by his aunt and uncle.

Additionally and finally, Amalric resolves to set out on his own completely independent here for the first time, whereas up until this point, despite being a loner, he has also tended to be reasonably dependent and even clingy, fearing unfamiliar territory.

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ Guide To Hidden Knowledge ღ

PRP: Link
Result: Amalric meets a pretty girl in Zidel's library.

Word Count: - || Post Count: 1

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ The Grand Market ღ

PRP WE: Link
Result: Amalric makes a new, strange acquaintance who is, for lack of a better word, odd.

Word Count: 1,710 || Post Count: 7

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ Technically Speaking ღ

PRP: Link
Result: Amalric is a fanboy and a nerd. Maritza doesn't seem to mind.

Word Count: - || Post Count: 10

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ Amalric v. Ergon ღ

PVP: Link
Result: Battle. Amalric and Ergon have a friendly chat. (Or not.)

Status: WIP

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ Room For Two ღ

PRP: Link
Result: The unfortunately packed nature of Sauti's villages in the grand market area leads to a begrudging truce and temporary roommates.

Word Count: - || Post Count: 20

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ The Low Hanging Fruit ღ

PRP: Link
Result: Amalric is book-browsing. Nyxamora is bored.

Word Count: - || Post Count: 1

 

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

ღ Amalric v. Damissan ღ

PVP: Link
Result: Amalric loses.

Status: COMPLETE