puresilverpaws | Kitten in a Box - Locked to grimholdkeeper

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Kitten in a Box - Locked to grimholdkeeper

It was warm, quiet and dark. He wasn't sure where he was at first, as his senses began to awaken. He felt a soft blanket underneath him. Slowly moving, he sat up, his head gently nudging up the flap of the large cardboard box.

...A fireplace? This wasn't his room. Sure, he made a lot of forts, so being in a box wasn't unusual.

"Myieeeu..." It had an interesting smell about it, and, nervously, he ducked back down into the warm box, curling up within the confines once more, and pawed at a corner of it, his claws lightly scratching it. Maybe if he stayed hidden, he could figure things out better? Were he really aware of his real self, he might have boggled at the fact that first the hotel aged him up, and now it had aged him down to ten.

At least the hotel had put him in Balthazar's room? Furthermore, the box was very large, as if made for one of those older, heavier TVs. But anything smaller would not hold him.

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The sudden surge of warmth almost startles him, and he holds down the impulse. If that's a sign, he doesn't want to let his surprise do anything bad.

"It's... warm. It was a bit weird. I wasn't expecting that. Is it supposed to do that?" Roi's ears tilt to the sides as he regards the ring.

"It's a good sign." He smiles and takes Roi's hand. "I'm going to direct some energy through you, first, to make sure it's working well for you. Just try to relax, okay?"

The gem on Balthazar's ring glows, light gathering in the facets. After a moment, he reroutes the energy into Roi through the hand-to-hand contact, carefully. Suddenly, both rings are lit up like Christmas trees.

The feeling of foreign energy unnerves him, and the fur on Roi's tail stands on end, as well as a few shorter strands of hair on his head.

Even so, he holds perfectly still and holds down his urge to be skittish of the foreign sensations. Balthazar told him not to transform, and so he won't.

"That's a good sign," he says softly after a moment, watching the rings glow. "You have some ability."

He eases off on the power flow, and his ring goes dim, but Roi's continues glowing faintly. Balthazar smiles, thoughtful but pleased. He looks around the room a moment, then points at the bed. "Let's try something. Look at the way the blankets lie on the bed. Even that way, there's air between them and the mattress. Try to imagine filling up that space with more and more air, until the blankets start to fluff up and lift away. Can you do that?"

"...Maybe?" Roi's not confident. Is this like telepathy? Wait, his phrasing. Move the air so that the blankets move? He decided to try that.

Pulling his focus as best he can, he looks to the bed and points the ring at it.

Move. He wants the air to move under the blankets (for starters.) He believes in magic, but it's hard to believe, for him, that he has this sort.

"Believe in yourself, dear heart," he smiles reassuringly. "I've had over a hundred fifty students. If I see potential in you, it's there."

He watches the blanket patiently as Roi makes the attempt. With most of his students, it took a few minutes of effort to get so much as a twitch, and they wore out quickly, but given Roi's from a different world, and a different type of being, he's not sure how it will all work.

((I'll let you decide how the magic attempt works out, unless you want me to.))

Roi tends to be stubborn when it feels that it matters the most. He does not expect anything to happen for awhile, though Balthazar talking to him briefly takes his concentration away. He pauses, looking to him at the 'dear heart' comment, and his face turns a little bit pink in embarrassment.

He turns back to try again, imagining the air moving under the topmost blanket that he can see. It soon begins to feel like an hour, but it's really only a few minutes, when the corner of the blanket flutters outward just a bit, and then goes limp again.

The movement itself distracts him, his instincts overtaking his concentration in an instant. He makes a feline chirping noise at it, and has to hold at bay the urge to see the bed as prey.

He looks apologetic at the blush, but doesn't say anything else for the moment, just watching the child in action. When the blanket flutters, he inhales softly, then beams. "Ah! Well done. See, I told you you had it in you."

He ruffles Roi's hair again. "You don't look too worn out, either. That's a good sign."

Outwardly, he's calm, but his heart is going fast all of a sudden. The implications are huge. Even if Roi's not the Prime Merlinian--and he's held the ring to no reaction, so that seems to be the case--he's a potential sorcerer. One with a good heart and a number of physical advantages. He could be a remarkable, even pivotal, Merlinian.

Balthazar hasn't had a student in a while, and part of him is reminding him of the danger his teachings could put Roi in. But he wants to teach him. He wants to bad.

He takes a deep breath. Probably he should start the stew and give them both time to mull this development over.

Roi makes a noise in his throat as his hair is ruffled.

Since the ring isn't taken away, Roi looks down at it, and then back up to Balthazar. "Do you.. want me to keep trying?" He has energy to spare, and he wants to, but if it's unwise to continue for now, he'll take Balthazar's say-so to heart.

Speaking of, his senses can very faintly pick up the rapid sound at such close proximity.

"...You seem to be... excited?"

"I think I'll start cooking, but if you want to keep working on it, by all means, go ahead." He's pleased by the boy's determination and willingness to work.

He looks embarrassed by the observation, though. "I'm...conflicted. I'm very happy to find you have magical talent, and it...gives me an excuse to spend time with you. Not that I really needed an additional excuse, but it's nice. On the other hand, if I were to teach you long term, it could be dangerous for you."

((I meant to start a new thread before but I kept forgetting. But these journal formats are kind of a pain in the tail when threads get long. XD ))

Roi smiles sheepishly at him. "Sorry. I kinda... heard your heart going a mile a minute."

He continues to listen, ears perking and twitching. He decides to take a slight break. "Dangerous, how?"

{S'okay. And yeah. ^^;}}

"Your hearing's very good. I guess that's to be expected." He smiles and begins the process of cooking, putting butter and a little celery in a pan. "In a sense, I'm a soldier in a very long-running war, Roi," he says. "I have enemies, and some of them have attacked my students in the past."

Roi pays attention, focusing on Balthazar.

"...I see. So I'd become another soldier if I learned under you."

That is a bit of a scary thought. But if the war was going on for so long, then...?

...Huh.

"As for my hearing, I am a cat, all the way down to how my body works. And I can hear some noise pitches that humans can't."

He stirs the melting butter over the fire, then gets out a large jar of oysters. "Yes. There are different ways to fight, of course. I've trained healers, poets, craftsmen...but you would almost certainly be attacked, and you would have to defend yourself."

It takes a moment to get the jar open, and the smell of the shellfish is pleasantly fresh.

Roi puffs up his chest in response to the words, though he's mildly distracted by the smell of oysters.

"I could do it!" He puts on his best "I can do anything" smile. "I mean, I don't like to hurt people, but if they try to hurt me, then.... Well, earlier this year, some moron stepped on and broke my tail, then laughed about it saying that he meant to break it higher up. So I kicked him in the knee. He limped for two days!"

His ears lower. "But I got in trouble for 'picking on him.'"

Balthazar blinks at him distractedly, pouring the oysters into the pan slowly. "...I hadn't heard that part of that story, just that you had your tail broken. I don't normally encourage violent retaliation, but it sounds like you were justified, there. Well done."

He's struggling not to smile, truth be told. Little Roi has moxie!

Roi smiles happily at the praise, his tail wagging. He was in too much pain to feel proud of himself for kicking the moron then, but hearing his actions openly commended makes him feel better about that choice he made.

"I don't usually hurt people even if they hurt me. But that was when I expected the teachers to get him in trouble for hurting me." Roi sulks at the thought, but it doesn't last long, and he's smiling again. Balthazar is the best human he's ever met!

"Sometimes you have to act to protect yourself and the ones you love. Adults discourage children from fighting because they don't have the experience to know when it's necessary and when a problem can be resolved another way. But if the adults aren't protecting you, either, you have every right to do what you have to do." He shrugs and stirs the contents of the pot. "Could you hand me the milk, please?"

Already the stew is starting to smell good, between butter and oysters.

At the request, Roi moves in order to pick up and hand Balthazar the milk.

"I guess. It's like... everyone with a tail isn't even second best. And if something goes wrong, it's our fault." He frowns a bit. "Other cats seem to like me. It's just the humans that don't." A beat, and he worries his lip, and then looks up at Balthazar.

"Well, except for you."

"Well, that's unfair." He accepts the milk and reaches out with his other hand to stroke his face gently. "But sometimes people are like that. Humans aren't always good to each other, either. I think mostly it's fear."

"And I do like you. You have a good heart." He pours milk into the pot and stirs a little, then offers to let Roi take the spoon and do some of the stirring. "Try and keep the oysters from settling at the bottom too long and burning, okay? I'll slice bread and get out bowls."

The touch to his face makes Roi blush a little bit, but he leans against his hand. His hand feels nice. He almost doesn't hear him until he's offered the spoon.

Although worried about Balthazar's choice in letting him stir, Roi nods and attempts to match the same stirring speed that he saw Balthazar use. His ears pin back a little in worry and concentration..

"Well... bad things tend to happen when some cats are around, just because they act dumb or have no self control. And when they lash out, they can really hurt people if they don't be careful. Because our bodies are, mostly, stronger than that of humans'."

"That makes sense. But there's a difference between teaching appropriate restraint and forcing submission by means of guilt." He's focused on fixing dinner now and mercifully oblivious to the blush and the subsequent look of worry.

"I guess it's a little like sorcery that way, though. It's very hard to harm a sorcerer if he sees you coming, and even low level spells can seriously injure people. My master taught me to be very cautious with my power, and to serve in any way I could." He trails off with a little frown, because there really is a fine line between the mentality Merlin impressed upon him and, as he said, forcing submission by guilt and by duty.

Roi continues to stir, his mind slowly relaxing and ears eventually standing upright again.

"That's... kinda how I see myself. Not so much the serving part. Compared to a human, I'm stronger than them, and if I'm not careful, I can easily do more harm to them than they can do harm to me. And then there are the wild cats. They easily hold double my strength, and sometimes more."

..Ah, one of the oysters stuck, so he carefully adjusted how he stirred. Great, not even five minutes and he was screwing up. His ears fold back again, slightly.

"S-so, this war... If you teach me, what... what are our odds of winning, do you think?"

"You feel responsible?" He gives him a thoughtful look, shaken out of his ruminations about Merlin. "That's impressive for such a young person."

He's finished slicing the bread, and goes to set it and the butter out on the table, pulling out a chair for Roi. He then returns to the fireplace to take over the stirring, in time to catch the hesitant question. "Our odds...? Well, we're thoroughly outnumbered, but my master was a powerful clairvoyant. He saw the end of the fight, and he felt we have a good chance. I trust his vision." After 1400 years, he has no other choice but to trust his vision. "I'm searching for the heir to his power. Only he, or she, can end the war decisively. But even if we fail, we can do a lot of good in the world before the end."

Outnumbered. It rides on one person or it fails.

Roi is grateful not to stir the meal anymore, and he fidgets.

"...I think, I want to help you. If I can." His hands, which are curled on his jacket, tighten their grip.

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Kitten in a Box - Locked to grimholdkeeper

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Starting a new thread.

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