Meseal: Snowed-In (1)

Ah, that's right. I remember now. I remember when everything went to hell. It was just a few weeks ago I suppose, although things might have been in motion for much longer than that.

Snow fell relentlessly from the clouds above our village, landing on countless sloped roofs. For a while now, the area had been attacked with unfavourable weather conditions. Winter had been raging on for around a month and a half now, and snow never ceased falling to the ground. Winters here usually last for eight months, while the summer, fall, and spring take up the remaining four. But never before have we seen weather as bad as this. Many homes had been boxed in without outside help for days on end. Conditions as bad as this have never appeared here before. Even though we are the northern-most village in the kingdom, never before has it snowed this hard for this long.

Classes at the academy had been cancelled until further notice, due to the inconvenient weather conditions. Currently, all ten of us apprentices lounged around our homes, waiting for any news on the whereabouts of our masters, who had gone out on a mission recently, just a couple weeks prior.

A drip could be heard by a stone fireplace, as me and my sister Nane gathered around it in silence. It was a rare occurrence that the two of us didn't butt heads, so moments like these were savoured by us.

"We have another leak," Nane said tiredly as she laid on a dark green sofa by the fireplace, her head against the armrest, bouncing a ball of water she had conjured between her hands. Her long brown hair rested on her chest, just above her white and blue dress, with our families sigil; the wolf; embroidered in the center of her chest. The traditional uniform for all apprentices of the academy. "It's in the right corner by the bookshelf on lightning magic." She said again without looking up.

My grandfather was holding a wooden bucket and quickly rushed over, to place it beneath the leak. "Got it. Got it."

The fireplace was nestled in the stone wall of the house's living room. In front of it, was a circular carpet, alternating between black and blue colors, where I sat, reading a book in my collection on fire magic, other brooks sprawled all along the floor by me, with a few others stacked by the fireplace. One other book, was resting in my lap. The pages worn, written on, and annotated repeatedly. It was a book, that wasn't even in our written language, but a language of the ancients. Supposedly I picked it up from the library as a child, and since nobody else wanted it, they just gave it to me. I've had it since I was young.

From what I could gather, the book was nothing more than a diary, a journal of sorts, that detailed the ancient world. Our kingdom, thankfully, was nestled around a mountain range, with large towering walls, larger than even our kingdom's mightiest castles, surrounding them. Its been this way for thousands of years. This book, speaks of a time before the elder walls. When the beasts from beyond the walls roamed free, and when humanity laid in hiding.

Of course I could be wrong, I've studied the language written in the books with the help of my master, but truthfully I'm not confident in my translation.

The sofa Nane sat on, was placed to the left of the fireplace, and there was another dark green chair to the right, which was reserved by my grandfather. The corner of the room was lined with black bookshelves, filled with different books related to magic, and the history of the world.

Our grandfather took a seat on the chair as he wiped a cloth over his forehead.

"Are you sure you don't want us to help?" I asked as I scanned the books next to me, before standing up to exchange my current book for another on one of the bookshelves, also on fire magic.

My grandfather smiled, "No, no. It's fine, it's fine. I told you I have it under control. When somebody comes to dig us out, I'll have them fix the roof too."

That's right, we had been snowed in for two days now and despite our best efforts, neither my sister nor I could remove the snow from outside the door, and our grandfather had no magical affinity worth noting.

"Want me to try melting the snow again?" I asked sincerely. I had been reading through different grimoires and other books on fire magic, hoping to find a suitable technique to help rid us of our current situation.

Nane scoffed. "Remember you tried that already and failed? You almost set the house on fire!" Laughing now, she said, "Although, that is impressive for your abilities."

"I had it under control! It's your fault for nearly knocking me into the wall while I was concentrating." I shot back, rather annoyed. "Besides, in the books, I was reading, I think I found a spell that would be perfect for this situation."

"Like you could cast it properly anyway." Nane giggled slightly as she said this. "Gramps could probably do a better job than you, and he can't even cast magic!" The short cease-fire was finally broken as Nane and I broke into conflict again.

My grandfather ignored this and let it play out. He took a sip of his coffee that had been waiting for him on the armrests of the chair, where he left it previously. Finally, as Nane and I seemed to calm down a little, he asked, "When are you two going to grow out of this? You used to get along so well as children."

Nane scoffed. "I didn't realize he was so pitiful when we were younger!"

The elderly man rubbed his eyebrows once and then spoke before I had a chance to counter her. "Enough Nane. Apologize to your brother" my grandfather said in a calm voice.

"I don't even consider somebody as weak as him to be my brother." She said rather harshly. At times like this, I usually ignored her. But today, I guess the madness from being stuck inside with her for the last three days finally got to me.

"Fine by me," I said, finding my chance to speak. "Don't want to be related to her anyway."

A tear seemed to find its way into our grandfather's eyes, he wiped it and looked towards both me and Nane, the children he'd raised by himself. "Fine, Fine. I'm going to go upstairs for a bit." With that, he walked out the living room, and up the stairs, into his room.

The house went quiet for a short moment after that, but something between a cry and a yell could be heard from the second floor.

Nane rolled her eyes. "Look at what you did. Now he's going to be like this until we apologize."

"Me? What did I do?" I asked surprised. "It was you who said you don't consider me to be your brother!"

"What's wrong with that? I barely want to be seen in public with you! You're destroying my reputation!" She said again.

"You think I want to be compared to you for the rest of my life, just because we're related?" I yelled back.

I went quiet for a moment after that. So did Nane. "We should apologize." We said at the same time.

"Creepy," Nane said with a disgusted look on her face.

I rolled my eyes as I stood up again, and placed the book I was reading on a space of one of the bookshelves. Nane also stood up, throwing her ball of water in the air as it splashed into nothingness.

"Neat trick," I said slightly impressed.

"You couldn't replicate it if you tried," Nane smiled mockingly.

We moved towards the stairs, but just before we went up, a knock came at our door. And then a muffled voice. "Elder Graham?" A pause. "It's Litton, are you there?"