Solo


[2 of 5] And my tongue’s a sword when speaking gold.
Word Count: 2132
Occurs hours before Is it Better to be Feared?.

Scholomance demanded, and the day was nearly upon him.

The week passed in a dearth of parched nothingness, occasionally peppered with the lurid, vitriolic oases of anxiety. He felt it in the pit of his stomach on a near constant level, a darkness that even food loathed to touch, and thus Isaiah’s careful calorie count dropped to a dreadful low. He fainted once, in his store, and that day Vargas sent him home without room for argument; he spared no second thought for the health of the business when it called into question the health of his employer and friend. Isaiah was thankful for that, and simultaneously not.

For when he was home, drinking tea from a rattling glass, tasting but not tasting it, feeling the hot but unaware of the scald, he found himself amidst a jungle of thoughts. By the end of the glass, his tongue felt rough and scathed and he was reminded, just then, of a story about teenagers blasting away their critical thought processes with AEDs. Those who did lived picturesque lives with no capacity for the terrorizing atmosphere that Isaiah lived in nigh daily. And while he could not bear to ruin his mind with an automated external defibrillator, he knew of an alternate means to achieve the same result. He could use Sidney to nose it out for him.

And there lay a deep, deep problem.

Isaiah breathed a long sigh when he let his head touch the back of his chair. He stared toward the ceiling, and knew that beyond that lay his bed, and beyond that lay the ceiling, and beyond that lay Scholomance, bearing down in its unending ire. Carefully, he reminded himself of a promise made years ago. That care grew to steadfastness, and from there into a mantra that demanded action with equal fervor as Scholomance itself.

When I agreed to the program, I did so with the understanding that the key to being clean lay with everyone else, not myself. If I want to keep sobriety, then I’ll find it in others. Not rumpled scraps of tinfoil. Not nearly-melted straws. Not burnt fingertips from too many lighter mishaps.

If I want to stay sober, I have to reach out.

First he pulled his cell phone, and thumbed through the contacts group of those he met during each meeting. He considered Sasha, a beautiful bronze girl with a hole in her throat. He considered Dave, who copied his dead daughter’s addiction. But these people, while all highly potent in the pain they shared, could not discuss the potent terror that buried him now. They could not know of Saturn and its bleak curse, lest they assume he found addiction again. Lest they themselves be known as Negaverse agents, waiting for a moment like this.

He considered sending a message to Colin, but he emphasized the importance of keeping normal life separate from powered life. He could’ve likewise contacted Auguste, and while the boy was wonderful and apt to listen and often put others before himself, it seemed to Isaiah that reaching out meant doing Auguste a disservice - potentially taking away from the time that he needed to spend on himself, because Isaiah knew he wouldn’t do so unless forced to. He considered Methone, and Lorne, and he liked the pair terribly (most notably when separate), and he very nearly opened a group text window with them both.

There came a telling aversion alongside reaching out, whether born of pride or some insidious secondary fear, and even all these years later Isaiah wasn’t certain if he was more afraid of abject rejection in a time of need or acceptance, but that subversive component urged him to retire his phone.

So he did, and there it sat on the metal and glass coffee table before him, right next to the empty tea mug. Fingers latticed together. He felt the bulky ring on one hand that reminded him, momentarily, of the bone ring sold by Sarcowicz.

Finally Isaiah stood and raced for the display shelves that sat near the entryway. Crouching, he scoured the pen sets that decorated the bottom shelf, each gathering dust from a need for them to remain perfect, and plucked one from its penholder. Decorative stationery paper came with it, of a kind bone white with embossed lattice gates that emulated more closely the dia de Muertos skulls of flowers than the more traditional wedding petals. He liked it at the time for its mockery. It felt fitting, in a familiar recollection, but one he couldn’t quite place. He hurried with his expensive paper and half-carved myrtlewood pen back to the coffee table, where he set up for furious writing.

He sat, hunched and looming over the page, and opened its delicate gates to write.

kuropeco
To Thrymr:

This letter is not just for you - I want you to share it with Methone, Mont Blonc, and Aegir too. Share it with everyone of Saturn (but not with Rhea, for she is a child and will not understand these things), for they recognize the burdens of their station.

There is a pronounced pressure I’ve realized in becoming a knight of Scholomance. A pressure is the only way I can articulate it. It weighs on the chest at night, sometimes so heavily that I fear I won’t be able to breathe anymore and in a handful of occasions, that fear has been proven right. Scholomance is not a kind place - at least, not to me. And in gaining rank, that unkindness has increased twofold. I do not want to go back. But, I fear that I have to.

But it is not solely Scholomance that bothers me. Scholomance alongside many old ghosts that resurfaced now drive me. Do you remember when we spoke of it? ‘Normal’ is with them. For as much as I would like ‘normal’ to consist of cringing under Methone’s cold hands, or making off-color jokes at Aegir, or confirming to Mont Blonc’s face that he is, in fact, being a terrible person, these instances happen far more rarely than my haunts. My ex-fiancee has turned up. Scholomance demands. There are wants in me that I fear admitting to any of you.

These are only a few examples.

I planned to go to Scholomance tomorrow.


He paused there, hesitated before the pen touched paper to return to the crisp, lilting ballpoint letters. He did not add the upward-looking eye to the top of the page, as it would have been emblazoned there in ultrawhite bleached bone pigment, for he knew what sending it entailed. Someone would volunteer to accompany him, and he did not want to oblige that. Part of him wanted to say that his refusal was to protect his friends, but he knew that doing so only sheltered them. He knew that the true reason behind his preference to go alone was that Scholomance was a personal hell, assigned to him, the whip and the chain for him to do with as he pleased, his Wanda or his Severin. Scholomance was his slave or his despot, and no other’s. To share would be to violate that sanctity.

He discarded the note.

A second stationery letter was pulled from the pile and he began anew, this time to different recipients, both named at the top.

Shazari
To Babylon and Hvergelmir:

I am writing to you both because you have proven to be incredible fonts of knowledge. You have given insights about wonders, their potential motivations, histories of the knighthood, and immeasurable context into which I can place my experiences. You have given direction where there was none previously. For that, I am grateful.

But I must ask of you both a second time. I am going to Scholomance tomorrow, despite my increasing inhibitions about it. I need to know if I can keep in touch with both of you while I am there. It’s not an easy place to visit, but a necessary one - and I am certain that, with your collective experience of your wonders, you would be able to provide sound advice in any situation that I encounter. You have both faced and surmounted your own tribulations among your wonders, if anything can be told from your rank. Hvergelmir, you alone said to me that you chose a different path of thought for your knighthood, and from that, you wove your way to its pinnacle. Babylon, you proved your loyalty to your wonder and its needs when you explained Transcendence as a result of doing a service to your wonder.

I cannot say when these letters will come, but please keep sharp for them.


Isaiah stopped there, and realized his folly in asking. He sought answers to questions he hadn’t finished formulating, and he acted out of a social context that didn’t exist just yet. Babylon and Hvergelmir knew nothing of Isaiah Zähne, and Scholomance was only a fellow knight met once in passing. He discarded the note.

What was he looking for? Support, perhaps, but not too much support. Hvergelmir and Babylon were both important to him, but he knew too little of them to say that his needs overstepped the bounds of their friendship. As for Thrymr, Methone, Mont Blonc and Aegir, he knew their love for him to be wild and vibrant, too lurid and intoxicating to fit the situation. He needed to face Scholomance clearly. He needed someone to ask that wasn’t smothering, but knew him as Isaiah too.

So he started again. And this time, the letter ran a very different path.

Felyn
To Gehenna:

It has been some time since we spoke, and I am still sore about your affairs. You concealed you knighthood from me, and that I can understand as a defense measure. But you failed to explain anything about the broken blonde woman before we encountered her together - though you knew, unquestionably, that she was dangerous. You failed to tell me that regardless of any choices I settled on, my life was in danger. If knowledge renders you responsible for the well-being of another, then you are guilty of knowingly placing me in danger.

For this, you owe me a debt.

I am leaving for Scholomance tomorrow. It is a hard journey in ways that you may know, if your wonder is as disappointed in you as I am. I want you to write to me while I am there. I want you to write what you can of that woman we faced, how you know her, and why she was looking for you. Write to me about how your day passes and I will return with mine while on Saturn. Write to me anything, so long as it is true - and I will know when it isn’t, for it is in my very line of work to discern liars.

Sincerely,


Isaiah paused before signing his name, and asked himself if hostaged communication would provide suitable comforts on the trip. Is a ransomed support as sturdy as one borne of honesty and willingness? Isaiah couldn’t say.

He started to realize, then, that he wasn’t on the search for support at all. All these letters were addressed to perfectly capable individuals, all of whom would likely answer his queries without question, all of whom wishing well for him, and yet he sent none. Each remained on the coffee table, arranged haphazardly and unfinished. Each would find perfect compliance with his wants. Aegir was welcoming, Babylon was friendly, Gehenna was deeply relatable, Hvergelmir was incomparably warm, Methone was a delightful kind of distracting, Mont Blonc was appreciably honest, and Thrymr was accommodating.

And yet he sent none.

All these efforts were in search of positive reinforcement, yes, but reinforcement wasn’t something that he craved. He wanted an out, he wanted a reason to circumvent this trip to Scholomance, to abandon the lot of it for the hellhole that it was and banish the ghosts that haunted him relentlessly. He wanted to neglect the lot of it. He wanted to fail.

So he wrote again.

Noir Songbird
To Ashanite:

I need to meet with you tonight. Find me at the top of the Macy’s building on First and Hazelwood at midnight.

My purpose cannot be disclosed in writing.

Til then,
Scholomance


He stamped it in shimmering white ink, and the note vanished in an instant.

Syrie
Please search for kuropeco, as the note pertains to Aegir too

Pixie Nyxie
Please search for kuropeco, as the note pertains to Methone too

frayedflower
Please search for kuropeco, as the note pertains to Mont Blonc too

Silverah
Please search for Shazari, as the note pertains to Babylon too