Present Day...
Dirt smudged her cheek as she lifted a hand to push her hair back from where it had fallen over her face. She drew a deep breath, holding it within her expanding lungs, and tipped forward to peer into the small cauldron, squinting against the gray smudges of smoke rising from the mixture. After a moment's inspection, she leaned back again, releasing her breath in a long puff.
"A failure," she murmured. Rubbing her nose - and thus smearing it, too, with traces of dirt - she turned towards her notebook. Quill in hand, she crossed out a few lines of hastily scrawled notes and wrote in new words beside them. She set the quill aside, wrapping her hand in a thick cloth before carefully removing the cauldron from the flames, setting it aside to cool.
"I'm exhausted..." Wiping her hands off on the towel, she tilted herself backwards until her shoulders hit the grass, allowing her tired eyes to drift shut. She had set up a makeshift workshop in the corner of the tent, commandeering a smaller cauldron for her more delicate work. Discovering the properties of unfamiliar fauna was, more than anything, a process of trial and error. Her failures today would, with luck, lead to successes tomorrow.
A tingling in her spine alerted her to the presence of the cat long before his rumbling purr sounded in her ears. She lifted an arm over her forehead, cloudy gray eyes reluctantly opening. Sleek black fur slipped past her, padding on delicate and eeriely silent feet, tipped with dark claws. Globe-like eyes turned her way. Yellow. Pupilless.
"Dorin." She greeted her familiar with a wane smile, slowly pushing herself up into a more dignified sitting position and attempting to brush dirt and dead leaves from her shirt and pants. Not that the creature hadn't seen her far worse off than this - that day years ago, in the woods where she had first summoned him, and many other days besides.
"You smell of new magic." The cat's lips pulled back in a fang-toothed grin, that purr rumbling up from deep within its throat. Those eyes seemed to catch even the faintest of light, reflecting it back ten-fold. Even after so many years, it was startling how easily his direct gaze could unnerve her.
"I've been busy." She averted her gaze, settling them on her lap as she slowly flexed her dirt-stained fingers. The uncomfortable pressure that had been building up over the last weeks had since dissipitated, leaving only a pleasurable tingle in her digits. She could feel it, unsettling as it was - a deep pool of magic yet untapped, resting somewhere deep within the confines of her body, her soul, just out of reach. How far did it go? How much could she grasp, if she reached for it? How much could she do, with that power?
The pleased purring of the cat drew her back from her thoughts, his tail flicking languidly from side to side as his gleaming gaze pierced to her core. She clenched her fingers into fists, a shiver running down her spine. Magic was a fierce thing, and those who carried it carried also the heavy burden of responsibility. Such power was far too easy to abuse. She wasn't certain she wished to delve to the depths of that pool. She wasn't certain what kind of person she would be, if she did.
The cat rose to its feet, padding in circles around her, its head held high with cattish dignity, maw curled up into a smug smile, tail trailing gracefully behind. Those moon-like eyes betrayed its true nature, marking it for what it was. He didn't have to speak. She knew what he was thinking, could feel it as easily as she felt her own emotions. It was disconcerting, at times, sorting and separating the two from one another. Where did she end and he begin? Were some of those dark-shaded emotions actually her own...?
"I've decided I'll apply to the Society of the Erudite," she stated abruptly, if only to change the flow of conversation and distract both herself and the cat from their silent communion. The creature paused its pacing, its eyes narrowing to slits as it flashed gleaming teeth in displeasure.
"Why?"
She hesitated. Why indeed? There were numerous reasons, some better than others, but they were hard to pin down into the solid black and white of words. Her fingers twined together in her lap, palms rubbing out of anxious habit.
"I want... to do something. I want to be something."
Because of Juste. Because of all he had accomplished in so short a period of time. Because she wished to be like Henri - so strong and so proud, so dedicated and fearless. Because she wanted to rise above herself. Because she wanted to say her name with pride and satisfaction. Because she wanted the power to help those who needed it. Because she wanted to have the strength to change something. Because she wanted to protect and aid those she held dear. Because she didn't want to die having accomplished nothing.
The cat was scowling still, its claws slowly kneeding the ground, leaving small furrows in the dirt. Its tail slid over the grass from left to right in slow, malicious rhythm.
"And what do you hope to accomplish
there, of all places?" The cat had made no secret of his disdain of book-learning, and had tried to draw her from it at every turn. She was no scholar - not in truth. As a peasant in Barovia it was hard to be anything but hungry and miserable. Yet she had a love of learning and a thirst for knowledge that had not managed to be stamped out in those years of poverty, and had only flourished as she pulled herself out of the slums coin by coin.
"I don't know," she whispered softly. "I don't know, Dorin. But it would give me a place in the city - a respectable position. And a chance to learn. A chance to listen." The only other option was giving herself over to the care of Juste, but that was something she was reluctant to do. She would forge her own path, if at all possible. She wouldn't be a burden - not this time.
The cat's maw twitched, his narrowed eyes widening again. He had followed the winding trail of her thoughts to its inevitable conclusion.
"...this again."
She buried her face in her dirty hands, drawing a slow, deep breath. She remembered. She remembered still, the aftermath of those horrid battles. She remembered the blood, the smoking rubble, the crushed bodies. And she knew, from her last months in the city, the bitterness of the impoverished. The hatred and hopelessness in their hearts.
Silence settled over them, broken long moments later by purred words.
"Very well. Do as you wish. But you won't neglect your powers." It was a statement, not a command, not a question. He was grinning his fanged grin again, though she could not see it past her hands.
"I have to do
something, Dorin..."
But when she lifted her head from her hands, the cat was gone, leaving her alone with her troubled thoughts and the strange, ever-present tingling in her fingertips. A constant reminder of the magic available to her, lying just beneath her skin, waiting to be called.