“Sor, can you come down for a minute?”

The voice was nothing more than a hum heard beyond the veil of Sorin’s concentration. The words didn’t even register as he kept his focus honed on the bare hand extended into the air before his eyes. His lips moved fluidly as quietly spoken words came out in jagged syllables – an incantation in a foreign tongue his mouth couldn’t quite grasp. In his open palm, where his eyes were fixated, a fluctuating flood of light manifested and attempted to take shape. The warbling materialization swelled and shifted, straining to take a consistent shape under the direct direction of Sorin’s express words until it could finally bend no more and dissipated as quickly as it came into creation.

The boy huffed a sigh of exasperation. “That was close,” he thought. “I almost had it that time.” Immediately, the fair haired conjurer apprentice dove right back into another attempt. The muscles in his forearm visibly strained against his pale skin as he stretched his fingers wide to accommodate the conjuration he struggled to bring into formation. His brows furrowed and narrowed intensely as he fixed his emerald eyed gaze onto the small sphere of energy that formed out of the ether within his palm. His words came heatedly; his tongue seeming to move with an expertise it had never known before.

The conjuration – it was there! It was taking shape! The ethereal illusion ebbed and conformed to the small limitations Sorin was forcing upon it. A small handle formed with the impression wrapped leather – yes, exactly what he wanted! An appropriate blade guard, the beginnings of a blade; the imagined dagger was coming into being. He was so close!

“Sorin!” the voice from before boomed with unnatural strength.

Just like that – the conjured dagger exploded in a furious display of fizzling sparks as his concentration was shook. Sorin’s eyes widened in a moment of disbelief as he watched the rain of sizzled out energy pitter-patter onto the face of the messy desk he sat at before ultimately disseminating back into the world beyond worlds. As reality set in, so did a seething burst of anger that gnashed its gnarly teeth and sunk its fangs right into the immediately aggravated boy’s brain. All at once, the open tomes and scrolls that littered the topside of his desk were thrown aside with a wide, violent sweep of his arm, leaving the surface clear for him to repeatedly bang his clenched fists on as his ire came spontaneously screaming out of him.

He didn’t hear the heavy footsteps climbing the stairwell outside his room in the tower. He didn’t even hear the door to his dorm being thrown open and slamming against the stern opposite of the wall. However, by the time the door rebounded off of the cold stone, his tantrum had already run its course; Sorin’s head was buried in his arms on that desk he so relentlessly thrashed just moments ago.

“That close, then?” a gruff voice crooned. It was his father. Vaelorus’ hand stretched out and gave Sorin a firm, reassuring squeeze on the curve of his shoulder. Sorin nodded his head the best he could without bothering to lift it from the comfort of his arms. “Do you think you would have had it if I hadn’t interrupted you? Distractions are ever present in the world, Sorin; its better you learn to deal with them now rather than in a situation where it really counts.”

Another lesson, another test. These timely interruptions were becoming more and more frequent in the past couple of months and they were really starting to disturb Sorin on a fundamental level. How was he supposed to progress with his studies when, every time he came close to accomplishing something, his father would burst his bubble and leave him stranded back at square one? He knew the old man could sense when he was doing his practices and he knew that by constantly hounding him that he was trying to get a point across but hell if it wasn’t inexplicably frustrating.

“Ugh,” Sorin groaned into the scratched wood of his near-ancient desk. “Not this again.”

“Yes, this again,” Vaelorus chided. “There will come a time—“

“—a time when I’m not here to protect you. I know.” Sorin interjected with an annoyed tone. “This is Wintervale, father. There aren’t a whole lot of things to protect me against here – the cold, the snow, the boredom. I’m pretty sure I could fair well against any of those as it is.”

Vaelorus looked down upon the boy he called his son with a tender smile upon his face – but that wasn’t all, there was something more; something along the lines of sadness shadowed the few wrinkles that started within his features. He reaffirmed that squeeze upon Sorin’s shoulder before letting loose. Vaelorus backtracked a couple of steps, turned promptly on his heel and started to make his way back into the hallway exiting the room.

“Right, right, Mr. Know-it-all. Why don’t you get your gear on and go clear the traps? It’s almost time for dinner and we could use an extra bit of meat to give the stew that flavor you like.” Sorin’s father was already heading back down the steps by the time the end of his sentence reached his son.

“Yeah, sure,” Sorin responded sarcastically. “That day old squirrel flavor – real delicious.” A moment longer he would hang his head but eventually, like he always did, he would gather himself and do as Vaelorus asked of him. It helped that he didn’t mind clearing the traps; it allowed him to roam about the forest freely and enjoy the beautiful sights of untamed nature the northern reaches of Salvar was known for. It was in that seclusion, away from his studies, that he truly felt at peace.