The Plight of Sallow

Chapter 5: Can I Help You

MC POV

MC shut the door on Sebastian. she lead against it after she ensured the lock clicked. She could hear the scoff that escaped Sebastian. Clearly not the reunion he was expecting. Nor was she.

How...how can he be here. It's been over five years. Hell, it's been seven. This shouldn't be a huge deal. This shouldn't affect her. It wasn't a big deal. It was just the boy, returning as a fully grown man. She supposed she aged to. Merlin, this was confusing. Why....no, she wasn't going to let this affect her. It's just Sebastian Sallow...just, Sebastian.

Mc stepped off into the adjacent bathing room, the bath water already waiting for her. She loved magic sometimes. Stripping out of her day wear, she stepped into the bath, praying her mind would stop racing with the events at unfolded from the mid-day. Her mind didn't relent.

Why was this even affecting her? Probably because of the feeling of damnation loomed upon her since the morning light crested the land this morning. The fear of imprisonment. Her increasing inability to kept a grip on the magic she took that day in the repository, in part because of the man she couldn't withstand being near. Despite prison, Sebastian seemed to age spectacularly well. Was 

MC's magic failing to control itself? Was her heart racing? She'd been telling herself for seven years, that she would be unfazed the day Sebastian reappeared, if he ever even did to begin with. Yet, now? As a professor no less? Living a hall away? Merlin.

Hopping out of the now icy water bath, MC wrapped herself in a towel and stepped back into the main living area. The room was adequate in size. A fireplace crawled up the back wall, that depicted a tree reaching to the sky. The walls were a burnt amber color, with raven wainscoting. The floors followed the raven coloring in stones swirling lines leading to tree in the center circle.  Her stationary sat to the right with a high back chair. The wall behind the stationary was adored with framed landscapes she once captured early in her sixth year. Some of the highland mountains, the south shore, and others of secret beauties' her happened a crossed while deep in the forbidden forest. Memories of the freedom she once had. Some were taken by Herself, other by Ominis, Anne, or Poppy while they explored together.

The one she stared at, was closer to her bedchamber door. It was one Ominis had taken the last time everyone was together in Feldcroft, near the shoreline by the southern edge. It was one of the smaller framed pieces in her collections. It one of herself and Sallow seating  by the waters edge. Just their backsides leading on one another. 

MC remembered the conversation they had that day, discussing his sister, Anne. The discussion was getting darker the more Sebastian spoke, so MC brought up how Ominis seem to be smitten with his sister. They ended up fighting, wet, and laughing at each other. Her heart ached at the thought. Cursing to herself,  she shook the memory away. 

MC sat down at her desk, letting her hair out of the towel it been in and combing through the blonde locks; letting her air air dry, as she grabbed her quill and began to write. A quick, but stern letter discussing the need to talk before the day was through. After a short time, the letter was completed, she used an multiplying charm for three copies. Addressed them to Ominis, Anna, and Poppy. MC called her owl, Ember and attached the letters to her, "You know what to do." Mc told Ember. 

Watching Ember fly off, she knew it would only take a short time become everyone got her message, "meet me in the undercroft, after dinner." There was more to it but that was the important part. She needed to know if they knew, which she had a feeling they did. Cheeky moon-minds.

Her magic flared, a flame shot out her figure tip. MC checked her reflection in the mirror, her eyes had already gone to a sapphire blue with hints ruby red veining throughout. Her scar heightened in topaz. "Fuck," MC  gaped, grabbing her robes, throwing it around herself, before pulling the hood over her head. She was going to erupted, and she didn't have much time. She needed to somehow make it through the castle to the undercroft before letting the pressure that was building out.