Chapter Text
Adaine looked at the mist that formed below her finger tips. It wobbled and shook as mist formed into little clouds and those clouds took material form. It had small legs and a round body, with a collar wrapped around it.
Her familiar.
She reached within herself, feeling the magic swirl once again. When she had cast Find Familiar last night, she had felt something was missing. Though the spell was mostly complete last night, there was one final piece it needed once the time had passed: a name.
Her familiar was a little frog. Her little froggy. Without even thinking properly, she finished out a name sign for the spell. A clenched fist aimed downward, then open hands moving in a circular motion, and finally her fist once again clenched but moving her middle and pointer finger twice. Bog. Fog. Frog.
Boggy the Froggy.
Adaine smiled as the frog sat happily in her hands. He breathed quiet and content and in a steady rhythm, steady enough that it made Adaine follow along herself. He was but a minute old, and yet already so comforting to Adaine.
The choice to have a familiar had been one Adaine had toyed with for a long while. Most of the other wizards in her class had one. Even her father had had one when she was younger, a menacing hawk that perched on his shoulder. She had watched on as the other kids summoned and unsummoned cats and lizards and weasels in class, helping them hone in on their spellcrafting. They were incredibly helpful for sparring and duels to those who had them, but familiars also came with an additional skill: a wizard could subdue their own vision and hearing in order to see and hear through their familiar.
And that thought terrified Adaine.
There had been tales of blind wizards being able to see through their familiar’s eyes, though they did not possess the ability themselves. Logic would stand to reason, the same could be said for hearing. If it were true, would she be forced to use her familiar to communicate? Would she have what little accessibility she had been given stripped from her at school and home? It had been enough to bring about a panic attack when she had thought too hard about it before.
But Jawbone had assured her: whether she chose to have a familiar or not, it would not take away the accommodations they had worked so hard for her together. She still had extra time between classes to cast Comprehend Languages. She still would get the extra time needed to translate spells somatic components. She would not be expected to use her familiar to hear.
Only tool, Sunny. Jawbone had reassured her in his hug. Not required.
Once that had been settled, she had taken the time she needed at school and transcribed the spell. She could have her familiar just like all the other kids. And having a small friend that she was able to carry around would do a number for her anxiety.
And now he was here with her. Her perfectly round familiar. His collar proudly displayed his name in Common on one side and a small graphic of his name sign in SSL on the other.
He truly was a fantastic frog.
This quest for the Nightmare King’s crown was not going to plan. Adaine supposed that was a part of questing in its own right, but it was annoying and frustrating and scary. Fig had been possessed. Riz had been captured. One of Fig’s dads was trapped in a gem. The other had died . Not to mention they were following leads to find her sister of all people, hoping there to be a lead to conspiracy and the crown.
And she still had reading to do for class.
While Adaine knew all the different adventuring classes had their own workloads on top of their core classes, but wizarding seemed to have the most when it came to tasks of reading and writing and papers. She had a lighter load considering it was spring break, but a chapter’s worth of reading was still a chapter’s worth of reading.
It was nice to be under the stars while she did it at least. She and Sandra Lynn were less likely to be subject to the Nightmare King’s effects as they didn’t need sleep proper. Gilear technically didn’t either, but no one put it past an Eldtrich horror to find a way to torture the poor man. So the two of them had set up camp outside, ready to trance.
Sandra Lynn had tucked her in softly to her sleeping bag with Boggy and her book and a gentle kiss to the forehead. It made her feel warm and safe, even in the midst of this crazy adventure.
When Sandra Lynn and Jawbone had started dating more seriously, Fig's mom had turned into all their moms, even more so than she already was, Adaine especially. She had started taking SSL classes through her ranger center, an act that made Adaine cry the first time she had shakily finger spelled to ask what she wanted to order for dinner. And while she didn't have the same amount of time to dedicate to learning it, Adaine had seen Jawbone teaching her signs a time or two in their bedroom when Adaine had walked by in the middle of the night. Her own mother hadn't even taken the time to do that with limitless time.
It was good to have a mom who cared.
She had slipped into trance easily, the textbook dull and dry and her blanket warm and secure even on hard ground. It was normal enough starting out, her eyes were shut and vision slipped into the mellow yellow and blue hues of a healing meditation. But soon enough the hues were twinged with gray and darkness, a figure she couldn't quite see signing at her. Their face was covered, but Adaine couldn’t help feeling like if she were to look at them closer, something bad would happen.
“Who you? Why you here?” she asked not looking at the figure’s face, focused on their hands.
The figure disappeared, fading into the gray of her vision. Adaine’s eyes flashed open, shaken out of trance. The figure was so real, so close, so scary. She needed help.
“Hello? Sandra Lynn? Anyone?” Talking hurt and felt unnatural in her chest, but it was ultimately better than trying to make noise that might be misinterpreted.
“Adaine?” Sandra Lynn was down from the roof within a second and gingerly kneeled in front of her. “ You okay?”
Adaine’s hands twitched. How could explain what she had seen with the little vocabulary Sandra Lynn had in her language? She tried to get ahold of her breath and her thoughts before casting a quick Message . “I saw something.” She explained what she could, but everything was so confusing.
They talked back and forth with the cantrip for a while, getting the bigger point. Spells had been cast, but there was no person nearby. There was nothing happening. How could she be so stupid? “I’m sorry,” Adaine spoke- one of the few phrases she had said often enough it had a vague familiarity that others didn’t.
“Adaine, no,” she signed. “This scary. Afraid okay. Promise.” She wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug. A motherly embrace. “ Afraid okay... ” Adaine nodded slowly, choking back tears.
This was going to be a long adventure.
Leviathan was loud.
It wasn’t loud the same way that The Black Pit or one of Cig Figs concerns were. There was noise certainly- plenty of pirates of all varieties shouted enough to reverberate on the walls and buildings around her. It was loud with energy and activity that she had only ever heard about. It was a fun loud. Her friends were drinking and having fun and in all honesty it was a fun galavant for all the scary things that had happened prior. Adaine had even had a sip of Gorgug’s beer.
But then things had gotten scary again. Fabian had left for a while and was not the same when he returned. Gorgug had been so sad about Zelda. Ragh’s mom was in danger, and they had no way of calling home.
The proprietor of the Gold Gardens had set them up with a contact: Miss Ayda Augefort of the Compass Points Library. She had the Sending spell they so desperately needed to contact home. And with that, the loudness of the city had been replaced with the calm and serenity of a library.
The Compass Points Library was incredible . Adaine had never seen so many books in her life. She wished that she wasn’t here on a quest in order so she could wander the library and just browse, but alas, she had her next six hours spoken for; she was the only one of their friend group willing to sit long enough to learn the spell.
Ayda Augefort was friendly enough in her own regard. It had taken a while of her friends speaking and explaining that Adaine’s signing was not some kind of somatic spell component to a curse she was laying on the library. Through a quick Comprehend Languages , she could understand quickly what was going on around her.
That had certainly caught her attention.
“That spellcraft. It is exquisite. What are you doing?”
A quick Message in Common back. “Making it so I can read what you’re saying.”
Ayda’s eyes opened wide in shock and amazement. “I have never seen something like this before. Adapting a spell to make it fit your own needs. Marvelous. You may be one of the greatest wizards of our time.”
Adaine blushed slightly. She had worked so hard to make her spells accessible. It was neat, nice even, that someone could recognize her spellcraft. Instinctively she signed back “Thank you!”
“I must learn to sign. I always wish to communicate with wizards in their native language. Magic is always most powerful in one’s native tongue.” Adaine smiled at that. Ayda had barely known Adaine the few minutes and she already had seen something in her worth putting effort in for.
She spent hours over the scroll for Sending carefully copying it into her spellbook. Adaine had half expected Ayda to leave her be, never speak to her again sans perhaps a goodbye when they left. They were only here for the afternoon after all (and while Adaine couldn’t hear it, she knew well enough that her friends were causing some kind of trouble in a pirate library). But by the time she had finished, Ayda had reapproached, sitting near her.
“ Hello A-D-A-I-N-E,” Ayda signed clumsily. “The spell working?”
Adaine beamed. Had Ayda actually been working on basic Sign while she had worked on her own spell? “ Yes!” she replied. “Spell good!” Adaine thought for a second. Anyone who had taken the time to try and learn Sign for her certainly needed a name sign. “ You past learn how spell your name?”
Ayda nodded excitedly, the most expression she had displayed in their time together. “ A-Y-D-A .” Her fingers moved slowly, but Adaine could understand easily.
Adaine smiled and shook her head. “No. Your name A-clever.”
Ayda gave her a confused look, speaking as she signed. “No? My name A-Y-D-A. I know my name.”
“You learn past Sign. A-Clever your name sign.” She had given name signs to her friends before, but something felt particularly special. Like they had a lasting bond.
Ayda tilted her head, feathers ruffled just slightly. “Name sign?”
Adaine nodded again. “Only for friends. You friend.” She could see the tears of fire prickle at the corner of Ayda’s eyes, and a frown grew on Adaine’s lips. “Oh no. I upset you?”
“No! No!” Ayda stiffened up, wiping at her eyes. “Never past have friend.”
Adaine felt her heart tug. She too had been like Ayda before, no friends and truly so alone. But then she had met Kristen and Fig and Riz and Fabian and Gorgug and her entire life had changed. She couldn’t be happier to be Ayda’s friend.
“ You present have friend.”
This could not have been going more badly. Their mission to avenge Fabian’s honor and Fabian’s father had brought them to the Row and the Ruction. And while the physical fighting prowess was not the easiest, in fact Adaine quite enjoyed getting some of her frustrations out, the sudden appearance of her father and the other elves of Fallinel turned the battle out of her favor.
Her friends were hurt. They were going to kill all of them if she didn’t go with them. What else could she do but go with them? It was better she went into their captivity rather than all of her friends die. No matter how much it cost her.
Her father and Kier had tried interrogating her in the courtyard. And while she could read everything they were saying, she did not respond. She had been jailed in an orb, nothing more than a prisoner to them.
For as much as she hated what was happening to her, something else tugged on her heart. Or rather someone else. In a small corridor just across from her room, Aelwyn crawled on hands and knees endlessly as her orb spun.
She had never seen her sister like this. Her barely open eyes were completely shadowed by bags; her knees were bruised and her hands were bleeding. Aelwyn had been horrendous to her, but was it worth literally torturing her? Had she been like this all this time? It had been almost a year since Adaine had last seen her sister, surely they couldn’t have been holding her like this all that time.
There was a brief second as Adaine was being placed in her own orb that their eyes met. She could see the desperate look in her sister's demeanor. But beyond that, Aelwyn’s hands moved in a familiar gesture. “A-Sister.”
When she was growing up, Adaine didn’t have a name sign. She knew she had a name- she could read it for as long as she could remember on papers and books, and there was a very distinct way Mother and Father’s lips moved when they were referring to her. But even without the name granted by her short lived Deaf tutor at Hudol’s lower school, Aelwyn had always referred to her with the sign for “sister” with her first initial as long as she could remember.
Through the years, Adaine had associated this name with the cruelty her sister often afflicted. Aelwyn had used it when she wanted to get Adaine’s attention, to show she was truly understanding her, even if it would inevitably turn into needless cruelty.
But here it didn’t have the same connotation. Aelwyn was hurt. She was grasping at straws. Only she didn’t know that Adaine wasn’t here to save her, but rather stuck in the same circumstance.
Her father entered the room again, and Adaine’s breath caught. She should have been over being afraid of her father. He shouldn’t have any impact on her. And yet here he was, keeping her locked up in the same way her sister was. There was plenty of reasons to be afraid.
Her father’s voice reverberated against the orb, but she couldn’t tell what he was saying to her. She saw “ Adaine, I want... ” as her Comprehend Languages sizzled out. She was left in the dark, uncertain what was happening around her. Adaine closed her eyes. If she couldn’t read his lips or see her subtitles then it was like nothing was happening at all.
“You will listen to me when I speak to you!”
Pain seared into her head. This wasn’t the normal sensation of a Message or Sending spell. The sides of her head ached with pressure. She grunted, covering up her ears. Another weird sensation. What was happening? She pounded against the magical orb. A different magical sensation.
Boggy’s breath made his stomach bulge as it always and that too made a weird sensation. Was this hearing? How had her father forced this upon her? And why did it hurt so much?
“Yes you are listening to my voice, dear daughter. Now please cut it with the dramatics. You are going to tell me what your friends are up to with the Nightmare King and you are going to do it with your voice like a proper elf. None of your ‘gestures’.”
“ No!” Adaine signed defiantly. No matter what happened, she refused to give him the satisfaction of using her physical voice. He never bothered to listen to what she had to say before, why should she say anything in his native tongue?
The sound associated with the eye roll that Adaine had so frequently seen as a child was annoying to her. She’d have to ask Fig what it was if she ever made it out of here. If her friends were even alive. That thought rose to another panic.
She couldn’t think about that now. They had to be okay. Adaine had gone with them. They promised to leave her friends alone.
“Very well then, daughter.” Another heave of his chest with that annoying sound. “Then we’ll simply glean this another way.”
A shiver crawled down her back as Detect Thoughts spread across her mind. The sounds were still coming towards her, asking questions and prompting thoughts that she couldn’t prevent. As she held onto Boggy, she had never felt more lonely, afraid, or defeated. She just hoped it would be over soon.
Her friends would find her. They were going to. She knew that much to be true.
Adaine almost missed it the first time. The captioning of Message, Comprehend Languages, and Sending often changed size to indicate the speaker’s volume. Adaine had been quite proud of that before, giving herself whatever context that Hearing people received without a second thought. But here, the message had been so small, just on the edge of her vision, that she could barely see it.
“ Hello? Is there anyone there?”
Adaine felt the breath catch in her throat. It wasn’t a panic attack- she’d already had that earlier. Her sister was desperate. That’s all.
But unlike their father, Adaine wasn’t cruel.
“Aelwyn.”
“Who’s there?”
“It's Adaine.”
“My sister?”
Just what had happened to Aelwyn that she couldn't even remember her?
“Yes,” she projected simply. Adaine stilled her hands quickly as she used Message. If the guards caught her using Sign, they would figure she was talking to someone. They might try to bind her hands like that cop had done her freshman year.
“You’re here? In the tower? Adaine?”
Her heart broke as the subtitles wobbled. Her sister was out of breath or crying or perhaps both. For everything bad their parents had done to her, to see it taken out on Aelwyn hurt in a way she hadn’t quite expected. Aelwyn was their golden child, their girl who could do no wrong. And yet, she very well had done wrong.
But nothing was wrong enough to deserve this.
“Yes, Aelwyn. I’m here. What can you tell me about the tower?"
"There's a vault on the first floor..."