“You know how he gets,” Helia said to her daughter with a sigh. “Just let him be!”
Eione scowled in response to her mother’s firm urging. “It isn’t my fault he’s a big baby!” She replied, rolling her eyes, sinking into her chair, and easily hiding the twinge of guilt she felt. “I was just trying to help!”
Helia sat down at her desk, looking at her daughter, who sat on the other side. “Yes. I know that. But you must realize that which would make you feel better will not necessarily work for him. You two are very, very different, Eione.”
The young woman furrowed her brow and folded her arms across her chest, gazing into the desk pensively. “I understand the theory behind it. The science. It is just brain chemistry after all. But I just…” She trailed off and shook her head, throwing her hands up and letting them fall into her lap.
“You cannot fix it,” Helia said with a gentle smile of understanding. “We can support him, but we just cannot fix it. Not the way you wish you could.”
***
Atunis sat huddled in the large armchair in his father’s library as the older man flipped through papers at his desk, occasionally pausing to make a note. While Atunis appreciated that his father opted to do busy work at his desk so he could spend time with him, he knew that he almost certainly had better things to do. Atunis had trouble feeling either appreciation or guilt at the moment. The fear inside him pressed on the underside of his sternum, filling his body and leaving room for almost nothing else. He always thought it odd he never got used to the tight, panicked feeling in his chest despite the fact that once it started up like this, it could persist for hours.
He sluggishly thumbed through a large book filled with colorful illustrations of various bird species, with the names written below. He had tried to read one of his father’s folklore books, but had too much trouble focusing on the words. He swallowed, feeling slightly sick to his stomach. He hadn’t eaten since the slice of toast he had forced down that morning.
Eione had tried to reason with him earlier, as she had in the past — she tried to argue with logic.
She attempted to argue his mind out of the cycle he found it stuck in, but it just didn’t work that way. He might’ve appreciated the distractions if she hadn’t forced him to be so aware of his own emotions. He often had the thought that the only way to truly fix it was to stop feeling things altogether. Unfortunately, there are only so many ways to stop feeling one’s feelings.
Isra set the paper he had been working on aside and then turned to his son, who was staring into the picture book he held on his knees. “Why don’t you come down to the reliquary with me? It might make you feel better to do some work with your hands,” he suggested to Atunis with an encouraging smile.
Atunis let the book fall closed and sunk into the chair, finding it hard to will himself to move. Being afraid is exhausting and paralyzing. He nodded to his father and and pulled himself to his feet with a sigh and a closed, reluctant stance. Isra stepped forward and enveloped his son in a tight hug. Atunis swallowed, pushing down the tears he felt welling up behind his eyes. He took a deep breath and followed his father out of the library, accompanying the man down the hall and out beneath a vine-covered terrace, following the marble path to the reliquary.
***
Eione sighed and impatiently kicked a large stone out of her path as she wandered through the woods outside the monastery. The corner of a large tome bound in dark leather poked out of her satchel as she trekked through the sticks and leaves. She walked for a long time, knowing she must be quite deep by now. She knew she neared the edge of the woods, which was barricaded on the opposite side by the drop of a steep seacliff. She found the small clearing she had been searching for and set her satchel down on a familiar stump.
She circled the area, making sure she was alone. She knew that most of the students and clergy would be at their midday meal by now, though that didn’t mean that nobody could wander by, looking for a quiet spot to picnic after a long hike. She had set up a small ward that would alert her if anyone drew close enough from the direction she had come from. Confident there was nobody in the vicinity, she opened her satchel and pulled out the large, tattered tome inside.
***
Atunis did feel a slight difference in his mood as he allowed himself to become engrossed in his task. He wasn't happy, but keeping his mind engaged seemed to leave a little less room for despair or anxiety. Iris housed a decently sized repository of relics and other artifacts, chiefly maintained by Isra, who was a learned historian and archaeologist who had been a professor before he joined the Theian clergy. He had passed much of his knowledge to his children, and while Atunis greatly appreciates his father for this, he had always preferred tales of the fantastic over the study of fact and historical analysis. He eagerly consumed books of fairy takes and legends when he was young. Isra hardly minded this. His studies had endowed him with a wealth of exciting, fantastical tales from across Comalan, including many that were unknown by most, and he was glad to share them with his enthusiastic son.
Atunis turned over a small hand mirror he held in his hands, taking note of a few empty spaces in its mosaic underside and scribbling the comment down in the notebook beside him. He caught a glimpse of his own face for a moment as he turned it back over, but quickly looked away, trying to avoid the self awareness that came from looking at his own reflection. He set the mirror down and moved to the next cubby in the storeroom.
He opened the small door and peeked inside. He gingerly reached in and pulled out a small stone figurine resembling Lady Serenity's familiar, Amologra. It was in good condition, and felt perfectly smooth to the touch. He ran his fingers over its surface a few times before placing it back inside and moving on.
After a few cubbies containing similar mundane or artistic artifacts, Atunis had begun to feel his anxiety well up inside him again. He took a deep breath and opened the next door, trying to will the feeling away. He reached inside and pulled out something quite different than the other objects he had handled. The medallion was slightly warm to the touch. It was about five inches in diameter, and looked to be made of blue gold. Atunis wondered about this — it was far more common for artifacts made from valuable materials to be kept in a safe in the reliquary basement, not in the storeroom with the more common artifacts. He ran his fingers over the glyph that was engraved on one side and murmured, "Esia."
After he uttered the incantation, Atunis was able to perceive a strong glow emanating from the medallion. He blinked a few times before hurrying to the open storeroom door, knowing he needed to alert his father to the presence of magic in the artifact. As he crossed the threshold, however, he collided roughly with his sister, who seemed to have been lurking just outside the doorway.
"Ow!" the girl cried as she stumbled backwards, nearly falling on her backside, but catching herself first. "Watch out, you oaf!"
Atunis grunted in surprise as he bumped into the girl, his large frame hardly affected to the same degree. He furrowed his brow apologetically as he looked down at the girl. "Sorry, Eione. I wasn't looking where I was going."
Eione sighed and frowned with a hint of remorse. "It's fine!" She paused for a moment, looking over her shoulder and scanning the yard, as if making sure nobody else was present. She then put her hands on Atunis' shoulders and started pushing him back into the storeroom. She removed the doorstop and let the door fall closed behind her. "Is father in here?" she asked quietly, a serious expression on her face.
Atunis frowned and shook his head confusedly. "No. Why? What's the matter?"
Eione took a deep breath, looking more dejected than usual. "I...need help with something," she replied with what seemed to be great reluctance. She turned away from her brother as she spoke, clearly displeased with having to ask this of him.
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