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Ataya jerked his fingers back sharply as pain raced up his arm, skittering the path of his veins as though he’d lit a miniature fuse under his skin, and he grit his teeth. A distinct stream of curse words, one spilt ink bottle, and many lower mutterings later, the pain subsided, leaving him with nothing but a warm, dull ache through his muscles, a great lot of still-unhelpful paper, and no progress. He pursed his lips.

Ataya stood in the ‘basement’ — i.e. underground storage compartment area — of his house. Around him, a sea of various pieces of scattered parchment waited atop a makeshift desk, temporarily serving as his ‘study’ area. He had a quill and ink, and painfully little else to work with but his mind, trial, and error. The goal, of course, was to read. To find some means by which he could again take meaning off of ink on paper without his eyesight. The greatest difficulty, of course, was that without said eyesight or ability to discern text from flat paper, it was very difficult to research how one might go about solving such a dilemma.

His sister had been incredibly patient with him and useful in that regard, reading extensively in his stead, often aloud, in order that he might listen and attempt to take from it what he could. But there was only so much he could ask of her, and as the months dragged on, he took her help when she offered it and plodded forward on his own when she didn’t, ignoring most of both his parents’ and his sister’s insistences that he should do more things like ‘sleep’ and ‘eat’ instead of ‘burn yourself and wear your body dry over those stupid papers.’

He’d “perform better” they said, if he actually got proper rest, but Ataya did not want to rest, and he wasn’t hungry, and there had to be some way to accomplish this properly. So, the hours wore on, a platter of food remaining untouched, forgotten near the far end of his work table as he let his heavy eyelids droop shut — why did he really need them open, after all? — and continued to push the rest of his wearied body to attempt another configuration of a miniature spell rune to be drawn on his fingertips.

He may or may not have been entirely unconscious in a pile of parchment on the basement floor when the door to it opened. He stirred, shaking his head and gripping the table leg nearest to him.

“Sister? Or Mother…or—” He covered a yawn, huffing and shaking his head before pushing to stand again.

“Sister,” Ataya confirmed, more as a note to self spoken aloud than anything else. “Sickness is manageable, and apparently I was just resting, despite my better judgment. I ought to be ready for anything now. Like…” He yawned again, and then frowned, shaking his head as it subsided. “Keep track? What is this ‘keep track’ you speak of. Though…”

He reached, thumbing over the nearby leafs of paper before lifting one and gesturing to the top left corner. There, a small part had been faintly marked in upraised ice, like an etching.

“Uncle Casseth used to tell us stories, do you remember, of the adventure he and Lithian went on in Aisko…an ‘eternally frozen’ map, it was that they followed. They still had it, and I had played with the spellwork quite some time back…perhaps…two or three years ago? In any case, it’s a fairly simple spell so long as it’s cast for a small area. I can…” Another yawn, and a mumbled swear word cut in between the sentence. “I can mark the papers that way and read the ice. It keeps things more or less in order, though…” He ‘glanced’ around his mess, aware that each of his ice marks was another spread sheet of paper, “…it is in a bit of disarray at the moment.”

Ataya tilted his head down as food was placed there, the motion still instinctive despite the fact that he could not look at what he was holding. “Mm.” He could smell it, though, and his stomach rumbled, betraying him. He lifted it and bit, humming happily; the food was welcome, at least in this form. Most was generally a pain. “Progress,” he admitted after swallowing his mouthful, “is also elusive. How are you and your boyfriend getting on?”

“Mm…so you just casually allow any boy with a nice stomach who looks well as he dances to kiss you, then?” Ataya asked, his tone neutral, but still with an undercurrent of teasing. His expression soured, though, at the mention of the pit, nerves bristling up with disapproval and distaste as his lips curled back a fraction. “The latter front, though, I do agree with you on…I don’t see why you interact with a pureblood who would fight there. For that matter, I would doubt the sanity of a hybrid who fought there…how little do you have to value yourself before that becomes something you choose willingly to do?”

His brow was pinched in a tight furrow as he reached with his spare hand, fanning out his magic in a light pulse to ‘read’ the marks of his ice and begin gradually organizing the scattered sheets of paper. It did help some to keep things in neater piles and, if nothing else, made the process less energy intensive.

“Did you find anything in that last book on calligraphy?”

It had been a stretch, Ataya knew, to hope that anything would be in there, but when searching for spellwork related to ink and penmanship of all things, the range of ‘where to start’ and ‘where to go from there’ if one did not succeed, was discouragingly broad, undefined, and often unfruitful.

“Mm…that would require actually leaving the safety of the mountains again, heavens forbid,” Ataya muttered, though the idea lingered in the back of his mind, settling there for future consideration.

Such a spell could potentially be useful. Not likely as it was exactly, but perhaps with some components tweaked to allow him to locate and sense the ink, or feel it. His focus currently was finding something that he could translate to his hand or fingers that would allow him to get some sort of sensory reaction to ink. Hence the pain in failed attempts when things reacted improperly.

“Father hasn’t allowed a trip down since…” Ataya pursed his lips, frowning. “I know he doesn’t want me leaving.”