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Out in the forested edges of the northern Shaftlands, light pollution does not drown out the stars. They’re not as bright as the ones in the Sunset Savannah, but definitely brighter than the inner parts of the Shaftlands and the Queendom of Roses as a whole. The air is cold, the breeze hints and whispers that of frost coming their way.
It’s September, and Cater Diamond is moving.
Again.
But not to a ritzy new house, or something that can barely classify as an apartment high, high in the sky. But to a castle. Something with high, spiraling towers that are framed by flashes of lighting and booming thunder, their tips spearing the clouds. A place with magic and filled with more people his age than he could ever imagine.
That’s what he wishes he could say– not the castle part, the pictures online really do show that the place he’s going to next is a bona-fide castle. But the populace. He’s seen more faces and talked to more voices than all of those students combined.
It’s September, and Cater Diamond, as the only mage in his family, is moving to Night Raven College.
So here he sits on the porch steps of his latest house– not home, he always argues that the definition of home is different than house– with a bag packed, a father scrambling to get off of work to see him off, a sister crying so hard she’s made herself ill, a sister comforting her, and a mother comforting her as well.
His phone is in his hand, shut off completely for the first time in weeks. He makes sure to never let it die.
There are no bitter feelings in the pit of his stomach, poisoning the acid and bringing it up to his tongue. He’s left those sentiments long behind him, in another house. He appreciates the quiet more than he’ll ever let on.
Because of the cold, no crickets fill the air. Pity, because he’s always loved the sounds of crickets, all the houses he’s moved around in lately are around the northern Shaftlands. Half of the time, not wearing a sweater was a ‘warm day’ around these parts.
It’s just him, the stars and the smirking white vapor coming out every time he breathes. His heartbeat is there, somewhere, beating to a non-existent tune.
He pulls his jacket a little tighter as another breeze sweeps by, strong enough to rustle the leaves on trees and bend the grass. It’s a nice jacket, around four hundred thaumarks. He’d be a little peeved if it wasn’t a good jacket, but higher-end stuff was just like that, sometimes. He’d know, because every time they moved, his father would take them all shopping to more and more expensive locations as an apology for uprooting them yet again.
And none of them ever said anything against it.
A customized BMX, mountaineering gear, a camera, a new phone, art lessons, photography classes, more more more. They’d tested the limits, once, he and his sisters. Cater got a green, green room with enough bean bags that you could barely walk through it. It didn’t matter in the end, because most of the stuff they bought would end up left behind. His sisters– and himself, by extension– were fickle like that, gaining an interest, basing themselves entirely off it, then dropping it once they moved again. It was like they were some sort of furnishing business, one of them joked. He couldn't remember who, anymore. It was made in the car, he thinks.
The mode of transportation was interesting, at least. He was used to sitting in cars for hours, his seat dictated by whatever mood his sisters were in, a bag usually packed in between his legs, one in his lap, when one of them wanted more space to herself. Sometimes it was a head of curly ginger hair and a bow tying it up, other times it was hair with ginger roots, but not always ginger, propped on his shoulder. Sometimes it was the passenger’s seat squeezing on his knees.
Sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, it was his head on a much older lap or shoulder, a hand stroking through his curly-only-at-the-ends locks.
His back is swallowed by yellow light. The softest of creaks smashing the symphony of nothing to bits and pieces.
“Cater.”
He turns, eyes fluttering, trying to take in the silhouette. He doesn’t have to for long, when the silhouette takes a seat beside him on the porch steps.
“Mom,”
She smiles, her green eyes almost a match for his own, but angled upwards, like his sisters’. His are downturned, like his father’s. Her soft smile follows the angle of her eyes.
“All packed and ready?”
Cater looks back to the stars. “I always am.”
The symphony of silence begins anew, two hearts out of sync somewhere in there.
“How’s Abi?”
His mother extends her long legs out, the heels of her new slippers touching the gravel beyond the stairs. “Abigail is just fine. She wanted to say goodbye, but she threw up again just at the word.”
He sighs. He hates it when either of his sisters get upset at any matter. They have a magic of their own to spread the bad vibes and dissipating the chance of anyone having a good day in a certain vicinity.
It also fills him with a despairing, icky, feeling in his chest. But…
“I’m sorry, Cater.”
Cater whirls his head to look back to his mother, who is looking beyond the trees instead of the stars. On instinct, he laughs. Unconsciously, he brings a hand to pinch and twirl at a lock of his hair.
“What– haha, what are you apologizing for? Did you kill somebody and I’m going to have to watch you be led away in handcuffs from the Ebony Carriage?”
She chuckles at that, but it’s a sad, weary thing. Her own hand unconsciously runs through her scalp, the ginger curls that all three of her children have inherited. “Don’t be silly, of course not. I– I’m sorry for this. For doing this to you.”
He frowns, fidgeting with his hair more furiously now. “Doing… what? Making me a mage?”
“No. For making you go through this– being ‘always ready’ to leave any place at a moment’s notice, for giving you so much but so little at the same time.”
“Mom, it’s not a big deal– it– it was just a saying–”
Green eyes, much like his own but angled upwards, zero in on him. It makes him feel transparent, scared. Her expression is so wilted, years worth of stress aging her beyond her years.
“This is no lifestyle for a child. We never let you have pets because we thought it was cruel to subject them to this– and we turned around and did to you! Deidre was so, so sad, she was just like you when you were ten..”
Cater cringes, hearing her description. He wasn’t really all that, right? The realization that he wouldn’t get to be like the normal kids had begun to sink in at that age, all the moving becoming an exhausting chore instead of a fun vacation or exciting adventure, but he wasn’t such a downer. He swears by it, he would have realized.
“And that’s why there’s such a large age gap between you two and Deidre, because we thought she’d cheer up if she had a sibling. And then we had you, and you turned out to be a boy and I didn’t know how to raise a boy. I thought I could just do what I did with your sisters and you would turn out well–”
“Mom, mom! Chill out, I am fine–!”
“But you’re not! None of you are! I couldn’t play mother and father and keep up with all your interests at the same time and you never objected to anything! Abigail’s so upset you’re leaving that she’s sick, Deitre stopped leaving the house years ago, and you…”
She stops to sigh and Cater wonders if it was possible for her to wilt further.
The last thing he expects is a hug and a hand in his hair, smelling of orange blossoms and sugar.
“Oh, Cate…”
All of his muscles relax in his hold. It was like he was six, nine, ten again, resting against her chest where he can hear her heartbeat. In her hold, he feels like he doesn’t need the jacket anymore.
“I’m sorry, Cate. You’re only sixteen, and I wish I could say I understand what you’re going through, but I can’t. You have a big, big opportunity ahead of you, you know that?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry to make our mistakes, your mess to clean up, but I want you to make proper friends, all right? Lifelong friends.”
A wry laugh and the words ‘That’s not going to happen’ form on the tip of his tongue and the edges of his lips, but he refrains from letting them be known.
In the end, Night Raven College was only four years– worse, the fourth year was an internship and people came from everywhere– which meant that at the end of those four years, everyone he’d know there would go back to their homes, and he’d be… where?
On this metaphorical train his whole life, waving to the people through his open window, a quick hello, goodbye! and speeding by, the only other passengers being his family?
Could he really find a stop of his own and step off, settle down? Get a job? In what?
So all he said, resting against his mother’s chest, was “Mhm.”
“I’m serious, Cate. I’m your mother, and I know you better than you think.”
She was right, a bit, at least. She’d surprised him, alright.
“You just said you don’t know what I’m going through.”
She snorts, lighthearted and heavy at the same time. A buoyant object with a weight attached. “I know the first thing you’re gonna do is violate whatever cell phone policy they have there and post photos before even texting us. I know you’re going to scope out what talents of yours will attract the biggest crowd.”
“Hm.”
“I bet half of that bag of yours is your skateboard.”
“That’s obvious, mom. The other half is my photography stuff.”
She fakes a deeply dramatic gasp, and the hand in his hair moves to cover her mouth in mock surprise. “And your clothes?”
“They wear uniforms all the time.”
“And what are you going to sleep and lounge in? The first thing you ever do when you get home is change into a pair of shorts.”
He chuckles, glad for the lighter topic. “I bought a new robe. It’s got orange stripes– but they’ve got uniforms for lounging in at the dorms, too.”
“And what do you think about them?”
“Hmm~ there’s this dorm called Heartslabyul that’s got this casual suit thing going on, with checkers and painted roses and they paint card signs onto their faces. I don’t think it’ll suit me, to be honest. But I kinda hope I get into Diasomnia, they’ve got this armor-leather and spikes type thing–”
“Cater, Deidre already had this phase.”
“And I think it’d be super cool to incorporate it into my Magicam account. I could rebrand.”
“Oh… you and your MagicCam.”
“Magicam.”
“Right, right. MagicCam~”
“Stop, you're doing it on purpose now!”
Light bathes the two of them as a car turns the corner to their house. The man who steps out, rushed and with a wrinkled three piece suit, visibly relaxes when he sees his son and wife on the porch. He hasn’t missed his son’s big moment.
“Abi’s had, like, three accidents over the news so far.” Is the first thing Cater says to him as he approaches. His father, in response, places his hands on his hips and sighs Abigail’s name like a chant.
“Is Deidre with her?”
“Mhm! Mom says DeeDee’s got it covered.”
A good-natured chuckle. “You and your silly nicknames.” That small smile turns into a frown, and with a bent finger, he motions to Cater.
“Wait, c’mere for a second.”
So Cater gets up, descends two stairs and stands in front of his father. His father puts a heavy hand on his shoulders and stares at him with scrutinizing eyes.
“Look at you, you’re getting taller than me! I’m going to be the shortest man in the Diamond family soon!”
His mother brushes off invisible dust from his other shoulder. “Diamond men have always been short, dear.”
“Hey, hey~! Some guys wish they were five seven like you, daddy-o!”
“And Diamond women have always been tall. You’ll introduce us to a nice young lady above five seven soon, right, Cate?”
From where? Who could he keep in this unstoppable train, submit to this terrible lifestyle that his mother was just feeling guilty for?
“Mmm, I’m not sure about that. Maybe I’ll get myself a tall Diamond man to spite you all~”
“Absolutely not! I don’t approve of any foreign men above my height around my son.”
“Sheesh, save that for you daughters–”
Their banter is interrupted by a whinny and the clip-cloppings of horses. His jaw drops, try as he might, he couldn’t find any pictures of the carriage, but it was unbelievable. If only he hadn’t shut off his phone… or maybe there was a really, really strict cell phone policy?
Two parents give their goodbyes to their son and another tight hug between them, unexpected (totally expected) missing sisters a needed breath of fresh air.
As he steps into the carriage and into the coffin-shaped gate, he glimpses the stars one last time. They’d always been there, no matter what house he’s lived in, no matter if the light pollution wasn’t as weak as the Sunset Savannah’s, or as strong as the Queendom of Roses’. Unreachable, untouchable, but still there.
The gate door closes on him, and all he could think of was this would suck for claustrophobes. It’s also kind of cold.
The symphony of silence comes back with a vengeance one last time. With his arms crossed against his chest, Cater thinks his heart is finally starting to follow a rhythm. Said rhythm drifts away as the gate encourages him to sleep, the next time he awakes being his destination.
The first image he sends his mother is of the new diamond mark on his cheek and one of his roommates trying to cover his face with a hand. He’s camera shy.
So guess which dorm I got into!?