Soulstrings

1. The Fearless Fool

I'm not afraid of the Spirits! I'm not afraid of anything!

Padge Nyle leaped onto the window ledge. His feet landed nimbly on the rim, careful not to make a single noise. He winced as the wood groaned. He turned around, giving himself a well rounded look of the room behind him.

Dim candlelight barely illuminated the room from a bedside cupboard. Vara rolled in her bed, pulling the blankets over her shoulder. The noise didn't seem to bother her. Padge redirected his gaze to Iden. The tall boy was much more threatening than Vara, but he simply huffed as he flipped over on his mattress. His face, even though relaxed and in a sleeping position, still seemed scrunched up. Padge could have sworn that Iden was always angry about something, even in his dreams.

Padge breathed a small sigh of relief as he peered over the ledge. The tips of his feet were visible as he eyed the tiled roof of the verandah below. The two meter drop didn't seem intimidating to him at all. The sound of his feet crashing onto it was. Padge's fingers plucked one of the vials sitting in the pockets of his belt, his thumb flicking the lid open.

He hovered his palm over the mouth of the vial, pulling out a stream of dark purple droplets. Padge pulled his arm back, and the Fragments followed his movements. His feet pushed off the ledge, propelling him into the cool night air. He found himself suppressing a laugh of joy. It was great to be free.

In a second, Padge pushed the purple droplets downwards, shooting towards the roof like a spear. The Surcon crashed without a sound, hurriedly crawling across the tiles into a circular mark.

Weight crashed into Padge's ankles as he landed silently on the roof, right in the center of his target, only a soft whisper of wind giving the indication of his presence. The tips of his fingers tapped the tiles as he fell into a squat. The boy quickly straightened himself. His ears picked up the cheering and hollering of the inn's tavern.

He remembered how much he had anticipated the day where he could venture on out his own Search, and felt the emotion intensely. He pulled out another vial. Fragments of bright orange fused together into a small piece of tangerine glass. Lifting it up to the bridge of his nose, Padge eyed the distance. The silhouette of a pair of hills was barely visible. They seemed so dark and mysterious, much more beckoning than the safe confines of Petina's Inn. With a ghost of a grin brightening his face, Padge pulled his orange Fragments back together, and the purple mark on the roof disappeared, turning into indigo mist. He raced towards the edge of the roof. He pushed off again, completely ignoring the flight of stairs that led up to the inn's entrance, and curved the Surcon back into its vial.

Just as he capped the lid closed, his feet rustled the grass beside the Path. Moments later, Padge took off, running into the night.

***

A mere minute passed since Padge's departure from the room in Petina's Inn. The candles continued to glow with their pale light.

Vara popped an eye open, eying the back of the figure sleeping on the bed across from her. She propped herself onto her elbows, gaze wandering to the window for a moment. "Um... Iden?"

Iden groaned. "Let me guess: Padge snuck out again?"

"Aren't you going to go after him?" Vara asked.

The boy scoffed. "Ha! Why would I go after him?"

Vara smirked. "Because you do it every single time he jets off in the middle of the night just to make sure he doesn't get himself mauled by Spirits."

Iden lazily pulled the blankets over his head. "Nope. Not this time," he replied, voice muffled. "He needs to learn his lesson."

"And you yours." Vara sighed. "Otherwise, I would take that you are going to enjoy explaining it to Jerilyn when she mistakes Padge's exploration trip to be him running away from her. Again."