16: Blub-blub-blub
"Making yourself sick is not going to help Teagan, I mean honestly - what if I wasn't the one who found you huh? What if it was Scarrow or someone qually undesirable? Really the talke around this place is getting worse and you passing out outside in the rain will not be doing you any favors so If you could- Teagan are you even listening to me? Teagan?!" Lila glares at the silent girl who's laying stomach down on her bed,limp and pale as a sheet as she watches the potion brew.
It's been a few days since the bubbling has started.
It's turned from green to a strange murky grey.
Teagan wonders if it's suppose to do that. Chrys doesn't know.
The bubbles blurb up slowly. It's maddening - blub - blub- blum . . . bluuub.
She's feels the soft sound draw her in, her mind fades into the hypnotic bubbles as they slowly boil to the top of the sealed bottle.
Blub.... blub blub... every little bubble, slow. She fources her breathing to follow it. She calms. Her senses tingle.
It's a nice sound.
Blub.
Blub.
Blub.
Like a song. A song telling her time was running out. Lila still talking. Teagan's not listening.
A song that says, you'll die soon. Tick tock.
Blub.
Tick.
Blub.
Tock.
Blub.
"Teagan!!" Lila's voice smashes her reverie.
"Shut up!" Teagan burst out suddenly, whipping around so fast Lila gasps and stumbles backwards at the fire in Teagan's eyes.
It's a second before Teagan realizes what just happened and she deflates. "Sorry Lila - I - I don't know what that was."
Lila sighs. "A bout of insanity maybe.'
"Probably." Teagan agrees misrably.
"Maybe we should - "
"Headmistress probably already had my aura checked. If something's wrong with it she didn't say. She knows something Lila - and she won't say." Teagan says, her arms sagging over the bed limply.
"Maybe you should say something instead - "
Teagan can't help the pinch of betrayal she feels at Lila's words. "No." She can't trust Headmistress right now.
She doesn't know the exact reason anymore but she just can't .
She won't.
Lila doesn't say anything more after that.
The potion fills the silence again.
Blub - blub - blub - each bubble seems to feel like its measuring the amount of sanity Teagan has left.
~~~~~~~~~~
Teagan bumps into a bony chest. She looks up,her eyes blinking slowly as Scarrow sneers down at her from above, she despises the height difference.
She doesn't register it's him until though, until he opens his mouth - she hasn't seen him in quite some time.
But then - today was results day and she'd gotten an abysmally low grade in almost all her classes. She feels sick to her stomach when he starts to talk.
"Where ar enough going Mon- hey!" He exclaims suddenly cutting off and jumps away when she bends over his feet and dry heaves, clutching her stomch. "What are you doing Monicroff!" He sounds disgusted and terrified at the same time.
Teagan tires to catch her breath, but her stomach keeps convulsing and nothing is rising up, she shudders at the awful sensation that racks her body as she stumbles dizzily forward. Something snatches her by the back of her shirt and yanks her backwards so she stumbles against a wall.
"Seriously Monicroff - go to the nurses office. You're pale face is an insult to society." Scarrow snaps at her.
Teagan shakes her head vehemently and holds up a finger at him. She means to snap back. But she fears to open her mouth. She closes her eyes to fight her blurring vision. She begs herself silenlty to not give in to the probable vision that trying to harass her. Not in front of Scarrow - although her dignity is all but gone in front of him anyway.
But she fights.
Suddenly, something cold is pressed into her hand and she dares to open her eyes.
Scarrow is gone, in her hand is a glass of water.
She looks around the hall of shuffling students - nobody pays the crazy Monicroff girl any mind. Teagan cradles the water to her chest, her breathing irregular as she looks left and right again. It doesn't hit her until later that it could have been Scarrow that gave her the water -
But that thought is too absurd to entertain for long.
~~~~~
"What do you plan to do if you find the dragon head?" Chrys asks suddnely at dinner as Lila tries to get Teagan to eat something.
Teagan refuses the potato stew Lila was trying to get her to swallow. "Open the door and destroy whatever is behind it." Teagan says firmly, completely not believing her words for a moment.
Chrys nods and slurps at this strange green soup she has. "And what if it kills you instead?" She says good naturdly as usual.
Teagan smiles ruefully at her. "I hope you all can prepare for that."
Lila smacks her shoulder. "Don't talk like that Tea - I - you're not going to die . . .maybe you'll be maimed, but you won't die." She looks ready to cry at the thought.
Teagan tries to comfort her before her imagination goes wild at all the ways Teagan could die and she decided to tell someone else about this.
"Well, if you do - I have a lovely eulogy ready for your funeral." Chrys says calmly slurping her soupy concoction.
Teagan can't help but let out a slighty unhinged giggle. "That's nice of you - don't forget the daffodils for my grave - '
"Stop it, stop it both of you - this isn't funny Teagan." Lila hisses venomously at the two of them. She clearly doesn't get the joke.
Teagan gives her a side hug and nods. "Fine then - let's hope it doesn't come to that."
Chrys nods in agreement and gives Teagan a side glance. "Doesn't hurt to be prepared though."
Lila throws a bread roll at her for her troubles.
~~~~~~~'
Teagan walks in the dark. She follows the faint golden light like she always does - it's leading her further down the path. Her feet are bare and cold and she feels the blood run from the gashes as she steps unfeelingly on the stones underneath them.
She knows where this path will lead her.
She follows it anyway.
Almost there - almost - there -
She teeters at an edge suddenly and Teagan stares into the dark pit beneath her nose. Maybe the dragon head is down there? Maybe she should jump -maybe she should just -
She dangles one foot dangerously over the bare edge, teeters and waits for the fall.
Something grabs her by the arms, painfully tight and wrenches her away from the edge with bone bending force.
Teagan gasps and falls backwards, clutching desperately at air and falls backwards.
She shoots awake -sweating and hot. The room is dark except for Lila's soft snoring and the potions bubbling under the desk.
Blub - blub- blub - timing her demise - blub - blub - blub -
Teagan suddenly wishes she stepped off that cliff.
-------
Winter solstice. First half year of Darkness
The elders and I have united. Winter brings with it the cold and bitterness that suits the dark reality we live in.
I have not seen any familiar face for many moons as I have spent it with the four elders in secret, creating the means to end this war. Four keystone with the the essence of elders blood, a sacrifice they are willing to make for the greater future.
We will lift a veil up and divide our worlds. Stop the raging of the naturals and magicals.
Then comes the ultimate test to my charecter. I know, though they do not say, but I know, I must face the dark king I have unleashed, I must face my greatest failure and I fear, I fear so much that I will waver and fail yet again.
I will look into his eyes and fail, fail to my heart, fail because of the humane nature that is to love ones own memories.
He plans on it. He plans my demise.
I must not faultur in planning his. Brutally, as he has murmured so many of our own. So many of the naturals. There isn't a soul here who would not want this to end, but so driven by grief are they that they can not see an end. Unless it is death.
We will place the keystones in the four sacred lands, we will end the naturals suffering and hopefully return our own kind to their former greatness.
My name means nothing now, my bloodline is worthless, and I find myself thinking yet again That Scarrow was right after all.
We should have fought from the beginning.
But then I would be loosing the one part of myself I have managed to keep. My humanity.
I only wish it would not be my downfall as well.
I have a long journey ahead of me.
I must rest.
Magnus Monicroff