A Fickle Fingered Fate
Chapter 15
Blank Slate
Toffee practically flew as he sprinted full speed down the halls, the echo of his wife's screams growing louder with every step. He rushed into the open library door, following the sounds of agony and fear until he found his sister kneeling beside his queen as she writhed upon the floor, clawing at her head as if she meant to tear her skull apart. Renata whirled around, trying to pry Mia's clawing fingers off her head to prevent her from harming herself. "Toffee!" she pleaded. "Do something!"
He nudged her out of the way as he knelt, burying his fingers into those silky pink curls, ignoring her nails scratching and digging into his skin. Magic swelled in his fingertips, pooling on her scalp and seeping deeper into her. The shrieks lessened, becoming harsh sobs as he carefully shifted her up to lean against his knee. Tears fell like twin rivers down her ashen cheek, her face pale and almost sickly, yet the periwinkle crescents seemed even brighter and more vivid than usual.
"Mia? Mia, open your eyes," he coaxed, fighting to keep his voice calm and soothing as his heart hammered like a caged bird in his chest. Her grip upon his hands didn't relent even as they began to shake from the sheer force of their hold, but she managed to slowly force her eyes open, if just barely. Pure glowing whiteness stared up at him, powerful magic burning behind her eyelids.
"P...lease..." The breathless plea stabbed through him like a sword, and it felt like it was twisted about as he lifted her up to whisper a spell into her ear. She gave a choked gasp, and went limp in his arms.
For a moment Toffee held his breath, shifting his thumb down to her neck, pressing it against her pulse. It fluttered out of rhythm, almost dangerously erratic, but for the moment, she seemed stable enough.
"W-what did you do?" Renata asked hesitantly.
"Blocked her mind's ability to sense pain as best I could, but it wasn't enough. I put a sleep spell on her so she can't hurt herself and won't suffer for now." The King gathered his wife in his arms, holding her almost lifeless form with great care. "Send the doctor to our room and send for Lekmet."
O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
"I'm sorry, My Lord, but I can't find anything physically wrong." The fish-like monsters helplessly spread his webbed hands. "There's no injuries-not so much as a bruise on her. Whatever ails her is beyond my knowledge."
Toffee dismissed him with a wave of his hand as he turned to Lekmet, his other hand never leaving Mia's head as it lay upon his lap. Despite having put her to sleep, he'd kept steadily pouring his healing spell into her, needing to do something to aid his wife. "I saw her eyes," he stated as the doors closed behind the exiting doctor. "It was clearly magic, whatever it was."
The goat leaned over the slumbering queen, his hoof hovering over her prone form, never touching, yet still feeling her. "Her energy feels mostly as before, if a bit weaker than normal. Almost like she cast a spell, but even if that is what happened, she's hardly drained enough to cause such side effects. Do you feel anything with your spell?"
The septarian's frown deepened, his fingers caressing the soft locks. "I'd liken it to a storm, like lightning and thunder inside her head. I can push through it, but it feels like I'm barely getting through." He gently brushed a finger across the mark on her cheek. "It's a spell of some kind, just not like any I've encountered before. Could it be a curse?"
"In her head you say?" Lekmet pressed his hoof to her forehead, humming curiously. "Ah, I see. It seems to be her talent magic. That would explain the slight drain in the rest of her. It appears our queen holds most of her magic in her forehead."
Toffee arched a brow in confusion. "What does that have to do with any of this?"
"You are aware that each person tends to have magic that pools in key places upon the body-you yourself carry most of your magic in your hands, while mine is in my horns. My Lady doesn't have much magic in the normal sense, but what she possesses is mostly pooled in her head, if I'm correct." Keeping his hoof on her forehead, he took her limp hand with the other, seeing the unseen as he inspected it. "Her mewberty magic is weak as there is not much to utilize for magical purposes. But if her talent magic is strong enough, then whatever purpose it serves could potentially be overwhelming."
"Yet that doesn't help if we don't know what her magic even does," said Toffee, his fingers tightening their grip on his wife's hair. "It could be killing her for all we know-she was in intense pain, Lekmet. Whatever it's doing needs to be stopped, now."
"In order to do that we'd need to know just what caused it to happen. Trying to reverse or interrupt the magic without knowing what it's doing could do irreparable damage," Lekmet warned. "Has she ever spoke of her abilities?"
Toffee searched his thoughts, trying to remember anything that would give them a clue. Yet nothing he could recall so much as hinted to the true nature of Mia's magic. She never really spoke about magic, and aside from showing him the wand she'd brought with her, she hadn't mentioned knowing anything about magic. In fact, he couldn't even remember seeing her light a magic lantern.
But an idea leaped out at him. "Her mother might know." As careful as if she were glass, Toffee slipped out from under Mia, tucking a pillow beneath her head. He reluctantly withdrew his magic, tensing as he half expected her to suddenly show signs of pain, yet she didn't so much as breathe out of rhythm.
He marched across the room, throwing back the curtains that covered the magic mirror he had rarely used, but now he could think of no better tool to aid him. "Mirror, Mirror, upon the wall-call Queen Rosetta Apis." The king's jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed slightly-daring that mirror to defy his wishes and not conjure the mewnian queen's image.
It rang-once, twice. On the third ring he felt ready to snap something in half in frustration. The fourth ring was cut off by a somewhat familiar face-Angie, if he recalled, the queen's handmaiden. "Oh, King Arigor!" she greeted, dipping in a quick curtsy. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your call?"
"I must speak with Queen Rosetta at once. It's most urgent."
"I'm afraid My Lady is currently preparing for a social event this evening and isn't presentable," she explained, somehow sounding sincerely sweet and apologetic. "But I will gladly take a message for her."
"This cannot wait," he stated, his tone urgent and forceful. "Her daughter's wellbeing is at stake-possibly her life. Now put her on!"
The maid's green eyes went wide just before she dashed out of sight. "ROSY!"
"Rosy...?" Lekmet muttered, earning a slight glare from his king.
The septarian's eyes snapped back to the mirror as someone lunged in front of it. Queen Rosetta wore nothing but a silk dressing robe, one side of her head covered in curlers while the other half of her hair hung loose and wild. She had no makeup or jewelry, but her eyes were bright and sharp as ever. "Where's my daughter?" she demanded. "Is she hurt?!"
"We don't know."
"What do you mean 'you don't know'?! Where is my baby?!"
"Currently unconscious due to a spell after I arrived to find her screaming in pain," he bit out. "There are no injuries on her, yet my magical advisor believes this may be the work of her own magic. I know nothing of her abilities aside from her apparent lack of them, so I'm not in a position to do anything without risking her safety."
"Mia doesn't have magic capabilities-she cannot dip down!" Rosetta stated impatiently. "Clearly something else is-!" She froze, Toffee could practically see a thought slamming into the front of her mind at the last moment. "What was she doing-right as it happened-what was she doing?"
"Fetching books in the library with my sister, my servant claims my sister fell from the ladder and they ended up on the floor." He didn't like the way the queen suddenly went pale, how she became so stiff. "You know what it is."
"How many books?" she demanded, her voice unsteady. "How many books did she touch?"
The question threw him off. What did books have to do with any of this? "Five or so were on the floor, but I can't say if she actually handled them. Queen Rosetta-"
"If it was what I believe it was, then there isn't likely to be any permanent damage..."
"Yet you don't sound at ease."
The queen's lips pressed into a firm line. "Are you alone?"
"No, my magic advisor is present, tending to Mia. I trust him with whatever knowledge you plan to divulge."
"Very well, but I insist this does not go beyond us," she replied. "Mia has never had any skills for magic, not even with a proper wand to channel her magic. But she isn't without her...talent. She's what's known as an Insatiabilem Famem Scientiam-one with an insatiable hunger for knowledge. In the simplest terms, all she need do is touch any written source of information, and the knowledge instantly becomes her own."
The reptilian stared at the mewnian, the gears in his head turning as he tried to digest this new information. He'd never heard of such a thing before, and it almost seemed unreal. A magical ability to learn everything written down by merely touching it?
He glanced back at his wife, where she lay in magically induced sleep, locked away from the world as well as her suffering. Frowning in confusion, he turned back to the queen. "Then if all she did was learn the contents of a few books, why is she in pain?"
"After a few...mishaps when she was a child, we learned that she can't handle the strain of more than a single large book at a time. If she tries, it causes her great discomfort," she stated, brushing stray locks behind her ear. "Her mind can also only hold so much information-after she absorbs three books, she suddenly can't recall the first book she touched."
A sense of unease began to form within the king. "And if she absorbed that many?"
Rosetta briefly closed her eyes, as if recalling the event was unpleasant. "She was six, and she didn't want to take her lessons, so she tried to absorb eight books all at once." She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "She...she forgot everything. Even her own name, for nearly a year, she couldn't recall anything about herself. Eventually her memories returned, and it didn't leave any permanent blanks. But it was only the one time..."
"So there's no telling what might happen this time," Toffee murmured. "What can we do to stop the pain? My healing spell doesn't seem to be very effective against the onslaught."
"You said she was in magic sleep, correct? That's about all we could do as well. The sheer intensity of the magic burning the information into her mind is difficult to overcome, but it should calm down soon after the initial outburst." The queen glanced away from the mirror, seemingly listening to someone out of Toffee's sight. "Yes, I know-I'll be right there." Turning back to the mirror, Rosetta looked at a loss. "I'm afraid there's not much else I can do from here. All I can say is to be gentle with her for a time. If this is anything like the first time..."
The reptilian nodded. "Of course, dear queen. I shall take utmost care of her, you need not worry. Farewell."
She bid him good day, and the mirror faded to reveal his own reflection. He flicked his wrist as he moved back over to the bed, the curtains falling over the mirror once more. "The ability to instantly gain the knowledge of any book one touches," Lekmet murmured. "A fascinating power-one I'd like to learn more about. Yet my current query is why it was never mentioned. I don't see why she never revealed it before."
"It doesn't matter for now," Toffee murmured as he placed his fingers upon Mia's brow, sensing that the raging storm was slowly beginning to dissipate. "We'll focus on making sure she recovers. Everything else can wait."
"What about the issue at hand? You know we cannot ignore the attempt on your life."
"No, but we'll discuss the matter later," the king stated. "For now I want to make sure my wife will be able to recover from this before I go picking a fight."
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A low rumble sounded in the dark, a muffled howling of wind, the pitter-patter of raindrops upon glass, the soft crackles of a fire. The storm had continued to rage on throughout the day and into the night, lightning flashing in the dark. Yet through the natural chaos, the monster queen slept peacefully.
Having removed the sleep spell once the burn of magic had faded, Toffee now waited for his wife to awaken on her own. But the minutes ticking by without any sign of her arousing was beginning to make him anxious. He'd paced restlessly, reading documents and signing papers as he tried to pass the time. Yet when the clock struck midnight, the tired king admitted defeat and climbed into bed.
His eyes hadn't been closed for more than a few minutes when he felt Mia shift, and moments later his wife suddenly rolled over, tossing her arm over him. Toffee's eyes snapped open in surprise, and turned his head to look down at his wife. Her arm lay across his chest, her knee resting against his thigh. She pressed her face to his shoulder, snuggling into him with a soft moan.
A slight smile curved his lips. He reached over, brushing her soft curls behind her ear. His fingers lingered, his thumb caressing the shell of her ear, claws skimming through her silky locks.
As the storm raged on outside, the king drifted off beside his queen. Tomorrow there would be many things to deal with, but for the night, the two could at least rest in peace.
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Fingers gently combed through Toffee's hair, a soft sigh teasing at his ear. His eyes fluttered open, blinking the fog of sleep away. He had rolled onto his side, his arm loosely wrapped around his wife's waist, her head tucked beneath his chin.
He lifted his head, glancing at the clock and found it wasn't even dawn yet. The fingers in his hair stilled as a yawn parted his wife's lips, her eyes drowsily opening. "Mia?" he asked softly, waiting for her reaction.
The queen looked up as if she'd just noticed he existed, her sleepy gaze studying his face in the gloom. "Good morning," she murmured, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Toffee slowly sat up, studying her closely as she did the same. She looked about the room, her expression slightly confused. "Do you know where you are?"
She frowned, and he could see her mentally searching for the answer. "I...I don't think so," she replied, then looked to him with worry. "Am I in the wrong place? Should I be somewhere else?"
He swore silently. "No, this is our room. Do you know who I am?"
Her mouth instantly opened, but she froze, as if the answer was on the top of her tongue. "I-I do-I know I do..." She stared down at her lap, looking utterly lost. "I swear I know..."
"Do you know who you are?" Her eyes went wide, her hands slowly raising to cradle her head, a panicked look falling over her face. He slowly slid his arm around her shoulders. "Your name is Miakoda-Alindas Arigor, you're my wife. There was an accident yesterday, you've lost your memories. They'll return over time, you don't need to be afraid."
"My memories...? An accident...?" she murmured, her eyes turned to him, a wordless plea in her gaze. "My husband...?"
He nodded, taking her left hand to draw attention to the ring on her finger. "Your husband," he confirmed. "My name is Toffee."
She frowned in thought, slowly shifting her hand to hold his, seemingly studying it like it held all the secrets of the universe. "Toffee...that sounds right...I think." She looked up to him. "I don't know what to do."
His hand slid up to her messy curls, soothingly stroking down her back. "We move on, as best we can. Everything will come back to you in time. We'll just take it one step at a time."
"But where do I start?" she asked. "What do I do right now?"
Toffee glanced out the window, finding it still dark. "It's too early to do much just yet," he replied. "I doubt the kitchen staff is even up at this hour. It might be best to try to get back to sleep for now. I can fill in your memory as much as I can in the morning."
She slowly nodded, and shifted to lay back down, but paused. "Toffee?" she asked. "Do you love me?"
The king froze for a few seconds, but it was enough to answer without having to say a word. Her shoulders slumped, the slight glimmer of hope dying in her eyes. He couldn't lie to her, yet he didn't like seeing that defeated expression on her face. "We married in the name of peace, Mia," he stated, choosing his words carefully. "I don't dislike you, in fact I've enjoyed having you here. Perhaps there is no romantic feelings between us, but I'd gladly call you my friend."
The queen slowly nodded, and wordlessly rolled over, turning her back to him. His hand reached out, yet stopped before reaching her. What would he even say? He had spoken truthfully, to say anything else would be false. Yet he still wanted to say something, offer words to ease her clearly troubled mind.
But with no way to do so, he rested his head upon his pillow, and tried to ignore cold place at his side, and the faint tremble vibrating through the mattress from the other side of the bed.