Lauryn is at the College Esoterica on Caroban.
It's not going very well.
The campus looks a lot like the Asylum on Rephidim. The teachers wear robes and carry clipboards. They peer at her severely whenever she's around, and make notes on the clipboard. They try to teach her to cast spells, but no matter which Sphere she's supposed to be learning, every spell turns into a giant leech that glomps on her shoulder. It's there now, round mouth and sharp teeth jabbing into her upper bicep.
She's sitting in the student lounge, trying to ignore the monstrous miscast spell and study a text book. The words jump off the page and run around like little imps, so to read it she has to follow the running words with her eyes and try to remember what order they're supposed to be read in. Mage de Lis is seated in a chair nearby, but he's no help: he's dead, the right half of his head is caved in, gore and blood dripping down his neck and his left arm torn and twisted around backwards. The other students ignore Lauryn and de Lis both, except for the occasional disapproving look.
Lauryn irritably brushes at the leech on her shoulder, trying to push it away. She isn't even sure she should at this point -- it's just going to be replaced by another when she tries to cast something else. Besides that, she really has to focus on all these words that won't settle down. And, could the people here try any harder to make her comfortable? She doesn't think so. It's all very frusterating. She shifts in her seat, plopping her head down on a hand and staring as a sentence fragments and scatters.
"I hate this," she complains.
While she's trying to study, her half-brother walks through the door. He brushes away the jumping words like flies. Oh, hey, Lauryn. He sounds bored, like he usually does. He rattles a handful of dice in his right hand. Do you want to play a game?
The dead Mage de Lis intones in a sepulchural voice, Apprentice Egalantine Has No Time For Games. She Must Study."
"She must study," Lauryn repeats, almost like a drone. She reaches over and tries to drag a word in to place, but only ends up with the other words running from it, causing the whole sentence to read like jibberish. She sighs. Looking uo, she notes her step-brother is still here. Lord Leshay, as is his proper name, but she still likes to call him Nyles when his mother isn't there to correct her. He's an actual lord, what with his father having died in his mother's prior marriage. He once said she could be his maid when he came in to his majority, just like her mother. How she loathes him. "Perhaps you should go find your friends, Nyles."
"Naw. I came to see how you were doing, Laur." He brushes off more words: through understand. school cannot You they read, without meaning. "You like it here?"
"It has its advantages," Lauryn answers, thinking of the time when her step-brother isn't around. If she were perfectly honest, she likes it better than the Asylum, but less than home. At least at home she could hide away, nevermind the times when her nightmares scared her out again. Her gaze follows the letters as they run off again, ans she shakes her head. Will she ever understand magic? And why do monsters only haunt her? She brushes at the leech on her shoulder again, and sighs.
The leech stops gnawing on her shoulder and swallows her fingers instead. "You think so? Mom was talking about sending you back to the Asylum." Nyles rattles the dice and throws them on the table. They all come up Ships, and he cheers. A handful of words scatter away from the dice: a magic learn you.
Lauryn looks at the leech on her hand, and frowns. She needed her fingers. Now she'll have to find some more. She glances at her step-brother a moment, then smiles a little. "Here, I got your a present," she offers, then hands him the leech. "You can give it to your mother too."
Nyles takes the leech, which turns into a chocolate. He tosses it into the air and snaps his muzzles closed around it as it descends. "You Will Never Learn If You Do Not Study," the dead mage intones, chiding. Words buzz around him like flies: practice Only by.
Lauryn stares at where the leech was, mouth agape. Why you traitor! I let you eat my shoulder!// "Why is this so hard!?" She suddenly snaps the book closed, irregardless of the fleeing of letters. Glaring, she stares at her half-brother, then her tutor, then back again.
The dead man doesn't turn to her; his lifeless gaze is fixed on the wall, staved-in head lolling at an unnatural angle. "You're just too stupid for the College," Nyles tells her. "He's right. You'll never learn, Laur." He stands and reaches for her hand. "Let's go, I'm taking you back to the Asylum. You belong there."
"I am never going back to the Asylum. NEVER," shrieks Lauryn. She takes the book and hurls it at her brother, then rises to her feet. "I may be stupid, but I know enough about magic to make you suffer! Then YOU can be the one in the Asylum! You both can!" The swirling font of screaming magic calls to her, and she reaches for it. Who cares if it's dangerous, or if they said it could harm herself or others? I'm already hurt, let the others share it with me!
Another giant leech appears and latches onto Lauryn's shoulder, gnawing at the same tender spot the last one had. A new student comes in, a little tiptoeing fox. She stares around wide-eyed, then flees with a scream. Everyone else ignores her. Nyles grabs Lauryn's hand as orderlies from the Asylum boil out of a cauldron that appears at the center of the room. The orderlies grab Lauryn and Nyles both, and the purebred Gallee squeaks in protest. "Not me, you idiots! Just her!"
"Him too, him too! Come on brother, we can go mad together," Lauryn yells. Suffering in the Asylum wouldn't be so bad if he were there, she could enjoy his own unraveling and- ... Was that a fox? Loking around, Lauryn doesn't see the fox again. How strange, maybe she brought my fingers? Shaking her head, the Gallah resumes ranting at her brother.
The orderlies ignore Nyles's protests. Lauryn's not sure if they actually listening to her, but they're doing what she said and bringing him with them. They're upstairs at the Asylum now, in a room with two long, narrow beds. They strap Lauryn down to one and Nyles on the other, while the enormous leech swells and throbs on Lauryn's arm.
Lauryn, at leats, has been through this. She cab feel herself begin to shiver as a panic attack wells up, but she fights it as best she can. Having her step-brother here makes it somehow more bearable; watching the little lordling suffer makes her own suffering easier to look past. The leech, on the other hand, annoys her. "Why can't you be chocolate for me," she asks it.
The door to the room opens. A vulpine doctor steps inside, holding an upraised clipboard by one of the corners with his right hand. The orderlies look to him for instruction. He sweeps the clipboard at the nearest one, and decapitates him with the edge. The doctor looks directly at Lauryn and speaks in a commanding voice to her, in a language that's not Rephidim Standard.
The Gallah is struck by the novel use of the clipboard -- that's certainly interesting. She hopes he'll try that on Nyles, but can't help but wonder at the man's words. Are they gibberish? Will she have to find his words floating in the air and put them together? She frowns, staring at the doctor doubtfully, ears askew. "Have you come to kill Nyles with the clipboard? Please, would you?"
The remaining orderlies swarm to attack the doctor. He falls back to the doorway and sweeps at them with the clipboard, which they dodge. He shouts again to Lauryn, but she's still secured to the bed with long leather straps. So it Nyles, but her step-brother is squirming his way out of the straps.
Amidst a handful of nonsense syllables, Lauryn realizes the doctor is shouting her name, too.
After watching the slicing doctor a while, Lauryn notes her brother's escaping. "Oh no, no you don't." Not to be outdone or left here by him, she begins trying to escape as well. The shouts of the doctor haunter her, though. They seem increasingly familiar, somehow. Then, her name. She bites her lip even she as tries to get out. What does it all mean?
The doctor isn't actually shouting so much as speaking loudly and firmly. There's no anger or fear in his voice, and he's audible despite the multitude of orderlies mobbing between Lauryn and him. AS she concentrates on the words, they suddenly makes sense: "Ria Lauryn, WAKE UP."
"Oh." Lauryn suddenly stops struggling. "OH." She sits up, and blinks. Wake up -- of course.// It's the answer to the riddle she's been looking for, the right order to the words; it's what the leech wants to chew on!
"Okay."
Lauryn wakes up. She's on the low hard Laosian bed in her room at the Nothonys house. Her shoulder is twisted in the cord that usually holds the curtain around the bed up, but it's now askew and trapping her. Her shoulder hurts and her arm feels numb. Archon Skotonys is standing in the doorway with his sword drawn, watching her.
She's been staying at the Nothonys house for two days now, since the meeting with the afentis at the Astikos. It had been a quiet stay, mostly spent practicing her Laosian with the kits and Ren Durios. Ren Durios has been telling her about Laosian history and showing her how to tend his garden, which he's very proud of. There hadn't been any magical incidents ... until now.
At first, Lauryn squints, disoriented. "Ow," she says in Rephidim Standard, her eyes shifting to regard her arm. She tries to work her arm out, but between her trapped arm being nearly asleep and the rest of her rather trapped, it doesn't go very well. She looks around, and then spots the Archon. Seeing Archon Skotonys with his sword drawn snaps her in to full wakefulness, and illuminates her situation in her mind.
Laying her ears back, Lauryn asks, in Laosian, "It's happened again, hasn't it?"
The archon nods. She hears the pad of running feet behind him, and a woman's voice saying, "Amikitos! Are you well? What is happening?"
Skotonys looks back over his shoulder. "I am fine. Go back to sleep, Ameras."
Lauryn frowns, laying her ears back. She doesn't quite want to meet his gaze or the woman's just yet, so she returns to trying to untangle herself. She thought she had been making a great deal of improvment, but here its happened again. At least I seem to ahve some control when I'm awake,// she tries to assure herself, somewhat half-heartedly. Now, she worries if she'll be forced to leave this place. I knew this would happen.
Kyria Nothonys doesn't retreat; instead, she peers around her brother and into the room. She frowns at Lauryn's struggles. "Let me." She ducks under Skotonys's arm and moves to the bed, where she unsnaps the top of the bed post Lauryn didn't even know it came of -- and pulls out the end of the cord to unwind it from Lauryn's arm. She fusses at the short curtain, smoothing it out a little with her fingers, although it's hopeless wrinkled from Lauryn's earlier struggles with it.
After being freed, Lauryn sits back on the bed and watches Kyria smooth the curtain out with an expression of guilt wrinkling her own face. She glances at Archon Skotonys out of the corner of her eye, then says quietly, "I'm sorry." She puts her head to the matress, bowing. "I am so sorry -- I shouldn't be here.
Kyria Nothonys doesn't meet Lauryn's gaze. Mechanically, she replaces the cord in the post and snaps it shut again, hanging the wrinkled curtain back in place. She glances sidelong to the archon. "Archon Skotonys, this one wishes a moment to speak with you."
"It is late, Ameras. You should sleep." Skotonys sheathes his sword. He's wearing a robe over Laosian nightclothes, which for the foxes are similar to day-clothes but with lighter fabrics and no overvest or belt.
Lauryn nods to herself, having expected this outcome. She sits up again and folds her arms around her knees, hugging them to her chest as she stares off at a wall. I have only myself to blame, she considers. I should have protested more. I knew this would happen. Archon Skotonys was kind enough to let me stay, and I have let him down by not refusing him. her ears wilt again.
"This one would sleep better if this one might speak with Archon Skotonys now." The kyria is looking at the floor. Her speech sounds strange to Lauryn; she can't tell what the pattern or intonation on it is supposed to signify it.
The archon bows, just a little. "As you wish. Good night, Ria Lauryn. Rest well." He moves aside to let the kyria exit ahead of him.
Though unable to tell, Lauryn can certainly guess. "I wish her out of this house, Archon. The prodotis will scare the children and harm us all." Lauryn can't even argue with herself; she thinks she's quite accurate in her guess. Suddenly, she decides something. She meets the archon's well wishing with a somewhat stiff nod, not looking at him. When he leaves, she'll make her move.
The archon departs, sliding the thin paper door shut behind him.
With the two gone, Lauryn walks to her clothing and begins dressing. "Time to go," she whispers to herself. She isn't sure where she'll go, but she can at least wander until she finds somewhere to be. Somewhere outside, and far from here, where she won't disturb the Archon's familiy, won't make the kits cry. The idea of horrifying the kits makes her heart ache, and Kyria's unwillingness to look at her makes her want to cry. I won't cry. Dressed, she heads for the door and listens -- maybe she can sneak out while the two are distracted.
She can't hear them until she opens the door. Then she cna hear the low murmur of voices, too soft to make out, coming from Ren Durios's daytime sitting room at the end of the hall.
Using this chance, Lauryn hurries down the hall towards the stairs. All the times when she snuck through her own house helps guide her -- though she never expected she'd need to sneak out of someone else's home.
It's very dark inside the house, but she manages to make it to the first floor without tripping or bumping into anything. A single lamp is burning in the first floor sitting room, which is adjacent to the front door.
Creeping forward, Lauryn wonders at which she dreads worse: meeting someone else in here, or them finding her. If she meets them seh will have to explain herself, possibly even try and make her way out around them. But, if they find her, she may scare them -- and that scares her. It's a strange thing, she thinks, when one hides so that others can be safe from finding the hider. Edging forward, she eyes the lamp -- is that supposed to be lit? Having never been down here at night, she isn't sure. Thus, she edges forward, looking for signs of other people.
Ren Durios is sitting beside the lamp. He has a book in his lap, but he's not reading it. He's watching her peeking inside, instead. "Good evening, Ria Lauryn."
Lauryn blinks at the old man, who spotted her so easily. Of course. He is an Archon -- Archon Skotonys would never have missed me, either. Not sure exactly what to say, or how to explain herself, but set on going, she blurts out, "I'm leaving."
"So I see. Where is Ria Lauryn going?" the old fox asks.
"Somewhere," Lauryn answers, somewhat lamely. Remembering her manners, and how much she likes the old fox, she quickly adds, 'Ren Durios.' The whole situation makes her feel very akward, and she can only stare at the man, uncertain what next move to make.
"Ria Lauryn has planned carefully for this departure. Have you made your farewell to my son?" He looks ... a little amused, actually, with his whiskers spread around his muzzle.
Lauryn's left ear flicks. She peers at the man, and hus seeming amusement. "Archon Skotonys is upstairs having 'a talk,'" she pauses to the the words hang, for emphasis, " ... with Ria Kyria. About Ria Lauryn. About Ria Launryn's isityros." Another pause, this time so Lauryn can think a moment, then she adds, "Ria Lauryn has betrayed Archon Skotonys by staying here."
Ren Durios pricks his ears. "Has she? Has Ria Lauryn injured my grandchildren?" His words are stern and exacting. It's not the sort of question one wants to ssy 'yes' to. "Who in this house has been hurt?"
Lauryn shrinks back behind the doorframe, so that only her eyes glitter in the limited light. "Ria isn't sure," she answers, nervously. "Ria Lauryn woke up and was tangled in bed, and the Archon and Ria Kyria came. Ria Lauryn did not see any of the children, and does not want to again. That is why Ria Lauryn must leave. No one should be near Ria Lauryn."
"If Ria Lauryn had brought harm to my grandchildren, she would not here talking to me while my daughter spoke with my son." Ren Durios sets his book on the low table before him. "Is it a brave thing, among the prodotis, to run away from one's problems?"
"I am not ... Ria Lauryn is not running away," Lauryn insits, quite heatedly. Her vehemence causes her to lean foward, hand on hip. It lets more of the light fall upon her dark features, showing the strain in her face, the wrinkles of her frown, and the way the fur about her eyes glistens. "Ria Lauryn cannot control isityros when she sleeps, and the children do not listen to Ria Lauryn when she warns them away! What if a kit is harmed? How will Ria Lauryn live with that? Ria Lauryn will not leave the Tyr, but Ria Lauryn will heave this house for Archon Skotonys and his family." She takes another step forward, and raises her brows. "Is that not the ... the ... honorable choice? Maybe not brave, but best?" She watches the old man, as if defying him the argue the point.
"In Laos Enosi, honor does not sneak out of the door in the middle of the night, without speaking to its host." Ren Durios leans back in his low chair, hands folded on his lap and digitgrade legs stretched out before him. "Maybe it is best if you leave, and take your isityros and thirys with you. It is surely simplest. But it is not right."
Lauryn's ears twitch, her muzzle quirks, and then she just sags against the wall. Letting her head rest against the wood, she sighs and nods. "Ren Durios is right, of course." It surprises her how quickly her admittance came; in a way, she already knew this, and knew once she started talking to him she'd be forced to face it. Ren Durios sees too clearly. Were he her grampa, she think she would never have gotten a half-truth or poor plan past him. Ever. Now, left with her foolish plan and the old man's words, she feels even more akward. Glancing at the man, she adds, "Ria Lauryn is going upstairs now."
"That is well. Good night, Ria." The old fox gives her a small bow without rising, then reaches for his book.
"Ria Lauryn thinks Ren Durios must make for a most excellent grandfather," says the Gallah as she steps back. She bows low, then begins walking off, murmuring. "What lucky kits you all are."