The Lost Moonlark (KOTLC fanfic) (SOPHITZ)

Chapter Seven

Unedited.

"It was her! Who else could it be?!" Fitz asked, as his temper flared. How could his father not believe him?

"That was nearly two months ago, and you haven't heard a word from her since." Alden said calmly. "Dad, she's alive. I know she is." Fitz declared. Alden gave a weary sigh, the dark circles under his eyes were looking like bags. "I want to believe she's alive. I really do Fitzroy, but Sophie has been missing for nearly four and a half months, the Black Swan has withdrawn all contact and we know next to nothing, Grady and Edaline are barely holding themselves together, right now...all we can do is hope, hope and believe that she's alive, we need to have faith in her-"

"She needs our help." Fitz pleaded. "How?" Alden closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "We don't know where she is at, we don't know what...or who we are facing. Another matter is, that the Neverseen and ogres are an even bigger threat, war is pressing down closer and closer...it's only a matter of time."

"Are you saying Sophie is less importan-"

"I would never!" Alden said her eyes snapping open to his distressed second son. "What I'm trying to say...is that we need to focus on what we can do, we need to make sure there is a home for Sophie to come back to."

"Sophie-"

"Sophie can take care of herself." Alden cut Fitz off. "She has before, she can do it again. We need to start training. No matter how much I despise and hate violence, this war will bring out the worse in us all." Alden looked at his son. "We need to train for battle."

Angry, frustrated and overcome with worry Fitz stormed out of Alden's office and to his room. Slamming the door, he heard a picture fall off his wall and break, but he didn't care. What he cared about was Sophie. Sophie could be hurt, even dea- No! Fitz refused to believe she was dead. He would know because then the bond between them would snap. No matter how thin, how stretched, how weak, and how fragile their bond was it was still there. He could feel it, he could feel Sophie hanging onto the other end, but no matter how loud he projected his voice couldn't reach her, he could tell it hurt for her to try and transmit to him, but nevertheless she still tried, every single day.

Fitz could tell she was still alive. He could feel her life at the end of that bond, slowly becoming weaker and weaker. He could feel her strength dwindling, her will bending, her soul...cracking.

To angry to even think any more, Fitz slammed his fist into the pale blue walls. His fist slammed through the wall, leaving a hole. He ripped his fist out, why couldn't he reach her?! She felt so close in his mind, but she was so far away, it was tormenting him, playing with his sanity. It was like dangling a string in front of a cat, and jerking it away just in time for it to slip out of the cat's claws. It was the feeling of having something precious and dear taken from him, and broken right before his very own eyes. Heartbreaking, heart aching, it felt like a puppeteer was tugging on every sting of his heart and mind.

No matter how many times he reached for Sophie, she was pulled away, just out of his reach, she was breaking right in front of him, and he could do nothing.

Fitz hadn't realized the burning tears searing down his face until he punched the mirror on his wall. Cracks splintered and webbed across the face of the mirror, distorting his face, yet it was still recognizable, though the tears were completely foreign to him. Sophie's mind was cracking just like the mirror, with every punch the Neverseen had given her. Her mind was splintering into fragments of memories.

Then Fitz's mind slapped itself so hard with an idea his mind was wheeling and spinning. Scrubbing away his tears, Fitz took a deep breath and calmed himself. He might not be able to talk to her, that didn't mean he couldn't give her some of his energy, some of his strength. Fitz mustered every bit of strength he had, every ounce of courage that ran through his veins, every minuscule of energy in his body, gathering it together he shoved it onto the fragile bond. Hoping the thread wouldn't snap under the weight, he shoved it with a brain push across the bond.