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The stone halls of the residence were cold, but not as cold as the memory currently strangling Agott’s consciousness.
She was ten, standing in the center of a room filled with stern, judging eyes. She had poured her heart into her latest spell. An intricate, shimmering display of light she had practiced for weeks, only to be met with tight-lipped scowls and whispered condemnations of “childishness” and “plagiarism”.
In the nightmare, their voices were deafening, distorted echoes that pressed against her skull.
“Wait, that's it?” one questioned.
“Why would she think this is impressive?” one voice hissed.
“It’s derivative. A failure,” another added.
“Is this magic even hers?”
“This... Is merely children's magic.”
“How strange. Her mother is so talented, and yet...”
“And I thought we had another prodigy in this family.”
“Such a shame.”
Questions continue to pile one another. Agott had tried to explain, her voice small and trembling, but her magic flickered and died in her hands, leaving her surrounded by a suffocating, absolute darkness.
And then, her mother's voice spoke.
“You'll be no apprentice of mine. We've no need for such dull children in this family.”
She jolted awake, a strangled gasp escaping her throat. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird, and her lungs refused to draw in enough air. The room was deathly quiet, the moonlight casting long shadows across the floor.
She clutched her nightdress, her knuckles white, shaking violently as the sensation of those judging eyes lingered on her skin. She couldn't breathe. Every inhale was jagged, a desperate attempt to ground herself in reality while the remnants of the humiliation still stung like a fresh wound.
She was alone. The silence of the tower felt heavy and accusing, pressing in on her, reminding her of the distance that had grown between her and her mother ever since that day.
She needed her. She needed the soft reassurance that she hadn't been forgotten, that she wasn't the failure they had labeled her as.
With trembling legs, Agott slid out of bed, her bare feet making no sound on the cold floor, and began to navigate the dark, winding corridors of the tower.
The hallways of the residence felt endless, a labyrinth of stone and shadow that seemed to stretch further with every desperate step Agott took.
She moved like a ghost, her heart still stuttering in her chest, the lingering panic turning into a hollow ache in her gut. She just needed to see her mother; she needed the sight of her to wash away the stinging echoes of that nightmare.
“Mom...” she whispered, the name barely escaping her lips, a small plea lost in the vastness of the corridor. The formality of 'Mother' was lost, replaced by a name of vulnerability.
“Mom... Where are you...?”
She reached the familiar door of her mother's private quarters, her hand hovering over the wood. She was about to knock, to beg for entry, when a voice from within stopped her cold.
It was her mother, Adina Arklaum. One of The Four Chief Librarians. Mother of Agott. But the tone was not the warmth Agott was desperately searching for. It was laced with a weary disappointment that cut sharper than any blade Agott had seen.
“I don't know what to do with her anymore,” Adina muttered to the empty room, her voice carrying through the heavy door. “It was a mistake. Bringing her into this line of work... she simply doesn't have the aptitude. It's nothing but a constant source of embarrassment now.”
The words hit Agott with the force of a physical blow. The air rushed out of her lungs, and her vision blurred at the edges.
A mistake.
The weight of those two words pressed down on her, shattering the fragile hope she had been clinging to.
The panic returned, but this time as a suffocating wave of numbness that made her knees buckle. She stood frozen, paralyzed by the realization that her mother’s affection had not just faded, but had been replaced by a quiet, calculating disdain.
She couldn't stay. If she stayed, she might shatter entirely. With a silent, choked sob, Agott turned and ran. She fled back through the dark, winding halls, her footsteps echoing like rapid heartbeats against the stone, desperate to hide away before her mother ever knew she had been there.
She stumbled into her room and slammed the door, throwing the latch with trembling fingers before sliding down against the wood. The room was dark, suffocatingly quiet, and she felt like she was drowning in the vastness of the silence.
She reached blindly into the corner, her fingers brushing against the familiar, soft fabric of the stuffed owlcat plush. She hauled it into her chest, burying her face into its fur as if it could shield her from the words she had just heard.
“Am I...?” she whispered into the darkness, her voice cracking under the weight of the realization. “Am I really just a mistake?”
She clutched the toy tighter, her breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. “I tried,” she sobbed to the unmoving creature. “I tried mom- I-I... tried to be good... I tried to do it right... W-Why am I such a d-disappointment?”
Agott sniffled, her wrist moving to her teary eyes to try and wipe them away, but the more she does the more she looks pathetic.
“I don't want... I don't want you to leave me...” She begged to no one in particular, her voice small for a girl that used to beam and hold her chin up in pride.
“I... I don't want...”
The questions echoed in the small space, unanswered and heavy with the bitterness of her mother’s voice still ringing in her ears.
The plush was a relic of a time that felt like a lifetime ago. As she held it, the memories clawed their way to the surface, a sharp, stinging contrast to the cold reality she currently occupied.
She remembered the warmth of her mother’s arms, the way Adina used to pull her into a gentle, genuine embrace that made the world feel safe. She could almost feel the touch of her mother stroking her long dark hair, hear the soft, loving tone in her voice as she had handed the owlcat to her, back when she actually acted like her mother.
Back then, the tower hadn't felt like a cage. Back then, she hadn't been terrified of her own shadow.
She remembered the softness and warmth in her voice when she called her “daughter”.
“My pride of Arklaum.”
The floodgates finally broke when she remembered. The contrast between the mother who once held her and the woman who had just dismissed her existence as a “mistake” tore her apart from the inside out.
She wept harder, her body shaking with the force of her grief, clinging to the owlcat like a drowning person to a piece of driftwood.
“Mama...” She sobbed. A part of her hoped that her mother had gone out to the corridors to walk and had heard her own daughter cry against the door.
She had hoped that her mother rushed inside and open the door to see her daughter crying because of the hurt she had caused.
She hoped.
But she never came. Her mother never opened the door. Her mother never scooped her up in her arms. Her mother never apologized to her.
She never went in.
The owlcat was the only tangible remnant of a love that no longer existed, a cruel comfort that only served to highlight how utterly alone she was in the dark.
She cried until her throat was raw and her eyes stung, eventually drifting into a fitful, exhausted sleep, her small hands still locked tightly around the toy, the only thing that didn't judge her for being there.