VII. Friends
You are eleven when you get the first birthday present you can remember. You're sitting at a window watching the lake and the birds in the sky. You close your eyes, dreaming of sunlight on your skin and it's just like that that you can feel the warmth as if it was real. The low noise of someone purring makes you open your eyes – and it isn't the sun that keeps you warm. Instead there's a little cat curled against you and you just know he feels the same like you looking out of the window. You sit there for what feels like hours and when the bell rings you don't want to leave to go into your cold bed. When you go he follows you but with the first templar arriving in the hallway he's gone.
Later, when you lie in the darkness of the dorm you wonder where he came from. You never saw another animal in the tower. But you will never know, so you try to sleep but the sudden coldness that doesn't leave your body keeps you awake. So you notice his little paws searching for the right spot to sleep next to you in the middle of the night. You hear his purring and feel his warmth. He doesn't leave until the morning comes and the templars with their rules and watching eyes. He comes again the next night and the one after that. Suddenly it doesn't matter where he comes from or where he goes. He's there. With you. And you know you've just found your first friend.
VIII. Sneaking around
The next year is almost peaceful. You know you have to become stronger to fight off the templars, to survive outside the tower. Mr. Wiggums has to know a way out. He sometimes leaves for a day or a week and when he comes back he doesn't look with the same burning longing at the world behind the windows as you, at least for a while. Once he even brought a mouse and you're pretty sure it wasn't one of those they keep in the labs. You tried to follow him but he's always too fast and more often than not you're caught by the templars. Still those little adventures are more useful than your classes. You learn how to sneak through the shades, unnoticed and unseen, you learn how to get invisible and you get to know every hallway and every room in the tower. In your head you build yourself a detailed plan, knowing it will be useful when the right time comes.
And for once you try to stay in line. Then even if you're only twelve you know it's true what folk says. To get out of your prison, it isn't enough to know your enemy. You have to think like one.
tbc