Aaravos has rarely been at a loss for words. Indeed, throughout his admittedly long lifetime, there has only been about four such occasions. But now, staring at this young mage, he revises that count.
"Sihr," the name slips from Aaravos's lips without his permission and Callum twitches. "Callum," Aaravos corrects himself, "Come, sit," and he beckons the child to sit beside him.
"What am I?" Callum rasps, dropping to his knees next to Aaravos. There is the gleam of a chain around his neck, dipping below the red scarf Callum has worn every time he's appeared in the tower. Aaravos cannot see the pendant itself, but guesses that it's the one Callum had mentioned before, the only thing Callum has left of his mother.
"You are a being this world has not seen before now," Aaravos says, "A half-elf."
And unbidden, a memory springs to mind, his own voice soft and nearly unfamiliar,"There has not been a half-elf child that has walked this world before. They will something new, something bright and beautiful..."
It is a warm memory, half-lit in the soft light of a morning's dawn, the sensation of silken cloth beneath his fingertips and a rush of joy unlike anything he's ever known swelling in his heart...and a desperate determination flaring to life beneath that joy.
And Callum is more than just a half-elf...he's half startouch elf.
Aaravos can see that now, another piece of the puzzle that is Callum's heritage clicking into place. Aaravos could almost laugh at the strangeness of fate's weave. That a child of human and startouch elf heritage would find him, the so called greatest traitor in their people's history, and become a pupil of magic to him…
But there's something else, something else that Aaravos cannot yet grasp, something so terribly simple, that lies just within his grasp and somehow just outside it, and the chains that have become threaded so insidiously within his own magic, that bind his memories, tighten as he considers Callum, sending agony through his skull like a lance.
"My dad was an elf," Callum says quietly, almost dazedly as Aaravos bites back a hiss of pain. "No wonder Mom didn't talk about him."
"Your mother no doubt feared for your safety," Aaravos says, "Elves are not looked kindly upon by humans and vice versa. Perhaps she thought you were safer in your ignorance."
"Well," Callum says, and there are tears in the boy's eyes, "I know now."
Aaravos reaches out, pulling Callum into a hug, tucking the boy's head under his chin, an embrace that feels almost instinctual, as natural as the movement of stars about the night sky.
In his arms, Callum is crying quietly, from grief or worry, Aavaros cannot tell, so he offers comfort as best he can, patting his back gently, murmuring soft words of assurance.
"Callum," Aaravos says softly some time after Callum's managed to stop crying.
His father was an elf.
It's a revelation that has turned his world on its edge, Callum thinks he's allowed a little time to cry over the loss of a father he'd never even got to know.
"What?" he asks, and his voice is a rasp.
"Would you like me to tell you about your markings?" Aaravos asks.
"Why do I have them?" Callum asks, twisting in Aaravos's embrace to look at the elf, "I haven't had them before."
"Your markings are...reactions to magic," Aaravos says, "You haven't used magic so frequently before now, yes?"
Callum nods slowly. "I only just started using it about...a month ago, I think."
"Elves are made of magic, and this," Aaravos explains, and his hands come up, tilting Callum's face, brushing over the markings with his thumbs,"is a gift from your father. A Startouch elf, like myself, for only we shine so beneath the moon and stars, reflecting the magic that we were born with."
Callum sniffs, wiping away tears. "Really?"
It makes him feel a bit better about them, frightening as it was to see his own face reflected back at him with such alien markings. Another link to his birth father.
"Really," Aaravos says and his hands drop away. "I wouldn't be surprised if they began to glow whenever you cast after this."
Callum can feel the blood drain from his face. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit."
"What is it?"
"No one else knows that I'm half-elf," Callum says, "Not Ez, not Rayla, no one."
Aaravos makes a soft hum.
"Do you think they will reject you for such heritage?"
"Well, Ez can talk to animals and he knows I can cast magic. We don't have the same father but Ez is my little brother...I...he wouldn't reject me..." Callum says, hoping, praying that he is right, "and Rayla is an elf, so..."
"It is rather unlikely then," Aaravos says, "But if you wish to hide them, you may use a spell of concealment, and tie it to something you wear to keep the markings hidden."
"Could I layer spells?" Callum asks, "I've already enchanted this," he fishes out the pendant and the silver clasped horn gleams in the moonlight that drifts down through one of the many high windows that adorn the tower's walls.
Aaravos makes a sound that could be a gasp, and pale, sparkling fingers reach out towards the horn but do not touch it.
"It is possible," Aaravos murmurs. "That is your mother's pendant, yes?"
"Yeah," Callum says, wondering at the gentle tone in the elf's voice.
"Your father truly loved your mother," Aaravos says softly, "Elves do not wear rings as you humans do, but take a piece of their own horns and fashion it into a pendant to give to their beloved. You carry your father's horn with you, Callum. It is blessed with protective magic, I can sense that much."
Callum stares at the horn. His father's horn.
"What kind of protective magic?" Callum asks, curious.
"A simple blessing," Aaravos says, "May I examine it?"
He gestures towards the horn.
Callum settles the horn into the elf's palm.
Aaravos smiles. "Thank you," he murmurs, before closing his eyes and going completely still.
If Callum couldn't see him breathing, he would have thought Aaravos a statute.
Callum carefully tilts his head to look at Aaravos's horns while the other mage is busy. He hasn't had too much time to study them before, and he'd thought it might be rude to stare at them.
The horns on Aaravos's head are different from Rayla's, branching in a few places. One horn has a thin dark line across it, something that reminds Callum of a scar. Could horns scar? Would it be rude to ask about it?
Aaravos hums softly and Callum quickly returns his gaze to the pendant.
"A blessing of well-being," Aaravos says quietly, opening his eyes. "Given in faith and love, a promise of days to come."
He returns the pendant to Callum's hand, folding his fingers about it. "The spell you will need, if you wish to hide your markings when you cast is this. Celare hereditatem meam."
Callum repeats the words, memorizing them.
"It is a spell of the Moon, and is strongest when first cast beneath the full moon," Aaravos says.
"Can you teach me a spell for the other Sources too?" Callum asks, tucking the pendant back beneath his scarf and carefully extracting himself from Aaravos's embrace to sit on the floor in front of the elf.
Aaravos seems to consider the request, tilting his head, "In time, yes. One must understand each source in turn, before attempting their respective spells. Else disaster will ensue. Knowledge is to be tempered with reason, little najima."
"You sound like Mom," Callum says, because Mom always had said that you must think before you act.
"Do I?" Aaravos asks. "How so?"
"Mom always said that I should think about what I wanted to do and if it would affect other people before doing it. Like if I went and stole jelly tarts from the kitchen or rearranged the books on the library shelves to annoy Lord Viren," Callum says. "To be fair, he wasn't always a colossal jerk...at least I don't think he was. I could be remembering that wrong..."
Aaravos chuckles. "She sounds like a smart woman, your mother."
"Yeah," Callum says, grinning. "She was."
When Callum smiles, it is a mirror to his mother's own smile, bright and cheerful.
Aaravos remembers that now, remembers Sarai's warm laugh and mischievous energy that she brought with her...and a memory crashes through his mind like a tidal wave-
"And you are alone no longer, my love," Sarai murmurs and in the memory her eyes are soft and bright, a quiet joy shining bright within them.
"No," Aaravos says, and the contentment that he feels seems almost alien, the words warm and sweet on his lips, like honey, "I have you."
"You always will," Sarai says. "No matter the time and worlds between us."-
Something must show on Aaravos's face, because the next thing he knows, Callum is before him, waving a hand in front of his eyes.
"Aaravos?" he asks, "you okay?"
"I...don't know," Aaravos says, blinking. He and Sarai...were...lovers? No, that's...he reaches out again, seeking truth from the stars, praying that this time he can find it, firm and solid as the earth below.
And finds it, unhindered by pain.
They had been lovers, and so devoted to one another that the agony of her death seems redoubled now, shaking him to his shattered core. He remembers, there is a silver torc imbued with the same magics as Sarai's pendant, made by her own hands and set about his neck by her slender fingers. What had happened to it?
And then there is Callum...Aaravos inhales sharply, could the child be…but sickening, stabbing pain overwhelms him, vision blurring and he lurches sideways, barely managing to catch himself before he can topple to the floor.
"Um, okay," Callum's worried voice says, "Um, just breathe. I'm… I'm going to try something."
Aaravos wants to say something against it, that the pain will pass in time; he doesn't want Callum to attempt a spell beyond his ken, beyond his skills, but he can't get the words out from behind the pain that is attempting to strangle him.
Callum is muttering and then there is icy cold that spreads from his hands, pressed against Aaravos's temples, flooding up to reach even his horns.
Aaravos tries to speak, realizing too late just what Callum has managed to do, but there is nothing, no words that escape his lips.
Callum's mouth is moving but Aaravos can't hear him.
He is Silenced.