Mogtober 2022

Day 6. - ›Something a wolf‹

I sat alone in the Shadow Hall, and a wolf clip crawled around me.
I sighed deeply and added another to the group. Each of them was one of my bad memories. Stories buried in the mind of one schoolboy who has more problems than he needs and their size is also not the best for the mind. If anything else was than just waiting for Squall to decide to visit his Little Crowling again was there to do.
I feel like everyone around me is doing something useful. At least Jupiter goes on expeditions, Morrigan learns to manage her powers, Kedgeree, Charlie, Martha, Chanda and Frank pretend that nothing has ever happened.
Unit 919 annoy literally anyone who knows or is willing to divulge something, and Morrigan is always nearby.
The Elders, the Stealth, and the League of Explorers are still alert and ready at any time, any day. I have a feeling, that even Fenestra is doing more. She goes on expeditions like Uncle Jove and keeps in alert.
And I?
All I have at work at the moment is that in a few weeks I will go with Morrigan to sign the description and percentage of Black Mail's effectiveness, because Tommy decided to patent it and then sell it to the Wundrous Society as a security tool.
Okay, I admit it. I may have permission to enter the Proudfoot House and the Elders' Hall, but what is valid for me if I have nothing to tell them?
What is valid for me being that I have a partial membership in the League of Explorers if I cannot help them?

Door has been opened. In the darkness, I recognized Morrigan's short figure and thick black hair, much longer, but still, so similar to my own. She saw wolves and my face too.
There was no point in hiding that something was bothering me. She walked over to me, sat down, and grabbed my shoulder. "Come on. What's going on?" she asked, and I wondered, if it wasn't weird when the Wundersmith asked the Witness what was going on.
I crossed my fingers, biting my lip and nodded.
I pointed to the wolves. "My memories. And problems. And unanswered questions."
"Say me then." she offered me and I told her everything. I felt like we were swapping roles. That's how I usually asked her, not the other way around.
I told her I felt unnecessary and useless. That everyone is doing something and only I feel like I'm sitting with my hands folded, what I actually do. That if it wasn't for the holidays, I wouldn't even come back from school, because I would feel like I'm doing something. That I really regret that I didn't at least try to pass the Trials so that we could really be on the same side. I mentioned almost everything that bothered me or made me sad.
As I told her all this, the wolves gradually disappeared. There is only one left. The biggest one.
Morrigan pointed at him without a word.
I sighed. "That's just one job Jupiter gave me. But no, it's nothing important or authoritative. Just information. But... what are you doing here? Did someone send you?"
Morrigan shook her head and smiled. Her hair fell to her face prettily and I had to calm the urge to stare.
"I was looking for my umbrella." she spoke in an amused voice. "Wait," she said and ran outside.
She brought an umbrella and I reached my hand to her. She handed it to me and I grabbed it in my hands. I stroked the waxed cloth and filigree handle. It was time to get rid of the last wolf.
I started making shadows. "So, I'll tell you a story.
Once upon a time, a man with a crazy dream of having a hotel, found the great ruin of a thirteen-story building. He bought her and started taking care of her. He hired staff and made salons, halls and dream-like rooms. The south wing was unfinished, so he closed it.
Well, he was still drawn to the West Wing. It was always the most in order and it didn't even need much repair. And especially the seventh floor. He went there once. He discovered a dark room without windows and a candle burning in the middle. He was surprised and wanted to put it out. He didn't want the hotel to catch fire by one candle.
But no matter how much he wanted, the candle was still burning.
He stood away from her, but his shadow remained kneeling. He was fascinated and spent a lot of time in the room.
He tried to create everything possible or impossible until, after a few hours, he ran out in terror. Only he knows what he saw there. On that day, he had the room closed with a black door with a filigree handle.
He hid the key in the most needed, most common, and most used thing in Nevermoor.
To the umbrella.
Into the umbrella made of black waxed cloth with a filigree handle.
Many years later, his sister and her husband died, and his nephew moved to the hotel.
The man loved him and, for his safety, told him about the room on the seventh floor of the West Wing. He renamed it the Shadow Hall.
He showed him an umbrella and said that the best thing to hide is when it's in everyone's sight.
He cared for the umbrella for a long time and said that one day he would give it to someone who would be more dangerous than anything, that could be created in that room.
Since then, his nephew had begun to fully develop his skills and progressed rapidly. He memorized dozens of characters and things that hid in the Gossamer. He wanted to be more powerful and dangerous than 'everything a shadow can create in that room.'
Jupiter smiled at the progress. He was glad the boy was learning.
He entered a good school and Jupiter respected his decision.
Everyone was happy.
Well, some time then, a girl came. He met her half a year after she came to the hotel. They weren't in love, but they were just tighteners. I mean... From the beginning.
But then the man's nephew saw girl's umbrella and got angry like never before.
He was angry at the umbrella. He was angry at the Shadow Hall, at Morrigan, at Uncle Jove.
But most of all, he was sad. He felt pushed aside by a new immigrant whom everyone loved and who had everything he had.
And even something more. That key.
Once he saw Morrigan and her friend running upstairs and squeezing the doorknobs, he watched them. He knew what was going to happen and he wanted to be prepared.
When he saw them use the umbrella, he hid and waited for them to run out.
It didn't take long. He just wanted to step out of the hiding place to laugh about them, when Morrigan started talking.
She told Hawthorne everything. That he doesn't have talent and doesn't know what he's doing there. About her birthday and how Jupiter came to the Manor.
Man's nephew realized, that his uncle had sacrificed everything to save Morrigan.
He decided to give her a lesson. A lesson, she didn't deserve. Luckily for that, a shadow wolf escaped from the hall. Jack didn't wait and ran to the kitchens.
As if by mistake he had heard from Morrigan that the shadow had run away.
He took the flashlights and sent them to look for him. He had a great time, but when Morrigan returned from the South, not the North Wing, where he had sent her, he was startled.
Fen would have killed him if she'd found out, but he knew Morrigan would keep it to herself. It would be worse if something happened to her.
She figured out how the shadows worked, and he didn't care. They killed whole for three hours with this.
Revenge has taken place.
When he saw her on the stairs a few months next into the night and found out what she was, he was very shaken, but he was no longer angry because he understood.
He understood why Jupiter had done all this, and he set out to fix all the bad things he had done that year over Christmas.
They have been friends ever since. I mean... At least he felt that way.
Jack was given the task of talking about it to Morrigan when he felt up to it.
He's telling her now and wants her to know that he's glad she got the umbrella."

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YOU ARE AMAZING.
YOU ARE IMPORTANT.
YOU ARE SPECIAL.
YOU ARE UNIQUE.
YOU ARE KIND.
YOU ARE PRECIOUS.
YOU ARE LOVED!
#BE YOU

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