(MC goes by Esorin)
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There's a rhythmic knock on my room's door. Portia's voice hums from the other side.
"Esorin? May I come in?"
Instead of answering, I shuffle over, straightening my robes to ensure I'm covered. My hand turns the knob and pulls the door open.
Portia smiles softly up at me, a twinkle in her round blue eyes. "Just got out of bed, huh?" She gestures to my loose sleeping robes.
A flush of heat surfaces in my cheeks, and she laughs.
"I'm only teasing. Milady wishes for you to join her for breakfast downstairs in the dining hall in an hour. You have time to change and wipe the sleep from your eyes. I hear some of her sisters will be attending."
My gut twists.
Nadia's sisters?
...Nahara?
I try to hide the shock on my face, but Portia sees right through my weak facade. Her eyes dance with curiosity. I can feel the tips of my ears turn red, the heat creeping down the back of my neck.
Whatever questions are brewing in her mind, she leaves unasked. She gives a small smile. "I'll see you down there, Esorin." Portia turns and walks down the hall towards the stairs, a cheerful bounce in her step as she goes.
I silently close the door when she turns the corner, turning and leaning back against it, exhaling a breath I didn't know I was holding.
If Portia's right, and Nadia's sisters will be there...
I push myself to my feet. My knees are unusually weak. I manage to stumble over to the small, makeshift desk shoved into the corner of the room, plopping down into the chair pushed in front of it.
Even though Portia is long gone, there's still a hint of heat behind my cheeks, and in the tips of my ears. I take slow, deep breaths, trying to ease my nerves as I sift through the clutter of the desk.
Papers and books are strewn about haphazardly, littered with ink and water stains. Most of them are from the library—the doctor's desk, specifically—but some are notes I've jotted down, ideas I don't want to forget.
The sharp clatter of a tome hitting the floor makes me jump, scattering my thoughts even more, until my fingers brush against a worn leather cover. My mind clears just from the light touch, before I'm overwhelmed with warring emotions. I can feel a headache coming on from the sudden change, but I push through the pain, pulling the journal out from under a messy stack of wrinkled pages.
The feeling subsides as I brush my fingers lightly over the ornate designs etched into the cover. I take a deep, shaky breath, closing my eyes and basking in the familiar, calming magic that fills my mind. Asra's magic.
This journal belonged to him, once. He carried it with him everywhere he went, scribbling down his ideas, his discoveries. Asra gifted it to me not long after I began apprenticing with him, told me that it would serve me well to write down my thoughts and feelings. I've been writing ever since—he and I have had to add more and more pages to it time and time again. The cover is so stuffed full of paper that the leather is warped and the thread is stretched and falling out.
I gingerly turn over the front cover, the first few pages moving along with it. I recognize Asra's delicate handwriting, brushing my fingertips across the dried ink. A surge of his magic fills me, and I sigh softly, flipping until the writing changes to my own.
The first few entries are decently short--only a few paragraphs. But as I thumb further into the journal, the entries get longer until they're two pages long, sometimes three.
I use writing as a way to voice the thoughts I don't trust anyone enough to share with. Asra's my best friend, but he's never around to listen. I only just met Portia and Nadia, and I think it's in my best interest to keep my distance from the doctor, at least for now. There's only one person, other than Asra, that I trust enough to open up to, and I hate myself for it.
It takes a long moment to reach my latest entries. My fingers slide under the next page, about to turn, until I notice the date on the top right corner of the parchment.
The date, written in spindly cursive, was three days ago. The day Nadia tasked me with showing her twin sisters around Vesuvia.
I stare at the writing for a long time. My eyes flicker over the writing, until they land on a name.
Nahara.
The name itself makes my head spin, my hands tremble. Reluctantly, I brush a few shaking fingers across the script, and shudder at the pure emotion that grabs ahold of me, like hands reaching up out of the paper.
It's an emotion I've never felt before, at least not before I wrote these words. It hits me like a tidal wave, the impact leaving me breathless and shaking even more now.
When I recover, I take a deep breath, scanning the swirls of ink for a moment before gently closing the journal and pushing back from the desk. I wobble on my feet for a moment after standing. It takes a moment for my legs to stabilize, and then I shuffle over to the wardrobe opposite the room from the bed.
I brush my fingers over the polished hardwood, finding the handle and turning it, pulling open the double doors.
Silken robes provided to me by the Countess take up most of the space, but I sift through the folds of fabric until I find something simpler.
YOU ARE READING
The Arcana Tidbits
FanfictionJust some tidbits with my apprentices and the characters from the visual novel by Nix Hydra. The only characters I created in these works are the apprentices to use to play the game. All other characters were created by Nix Hydra.
