A Witch And Her Kin Pt 02

"Sister, sister look!" a young voice said. Franka stopped reading the book in her right hand letting it slowly lower from her face. In front of her was a smiling silver-haired boy no less than thirteen who was playfully tapping her leg.

Franka noticed there was an object in the boy's left hand. In his hand was, well it was something of a mess really. Different yarn and colors in some weird amalgamation. "What is that in your hands,_____?", Franka asked the boy in front of her calmly, with a hint of a smile in her voice.

"It's a hat sis!Look!" The silver-haired boy exclaimed - putting the "thing" in his hands on his head, constantly adjusting it even though it did not fit.

The boy in front of her in defeat slowly took the thing he called a "hat" off of his head. "Well it was supposed to be..." The young boy said, looking in his downtrodden eyes Franka saw a mixture of sadness and shame reflected in his blue irises.

Franka gently took the hat from the boy's hands and held her glasses as if she was an elf scholar meticulously checking each detail in an art piece, "Hey, you know what I think?" She said to the boy in front of her, his face showing slight curiosity. "I think it looks great!. _____ - " She continued "you should keep trying to make hats."

Franka noticed her younger brother was now smiling, that wide, child-like grin of his - with what could only be described as wonder and admiration now in his blue eyes. "Really Sis?" he said to her with uncertainty.

"Of course," Franka said " ____, I know you can make better hats, keep practicing and you will surely make something better than this in no time!" she exclaimed.

Smiling to her brother in front of her, Franka gave her brother back his "hat". Smiling, he ran to some hallway or through some door, she could not remember. Franka watched her brother's figure appear again in her room's doorway, with a triumphant smile in his eyes, he simply said to her "I will keep trying until I make something better than this sis, just you wait!'', before scampering off and disappearing again.

Franka awoke with a start, sitting up and pulling her hands from inside her sleeping bag she groped aimlessly around her trying to find her half-framed glasses. Finding them and putting them on, her blue eyes quickly scanned the now dimly-lit room she was in. "Right the library-" she thought "and the...". Wide-eyed Franka turned to the boy, still there, only a few feet in front of her. Still asleep near the fireplace's crackling hearth, his body in some weird lying crouched position on the floor.

"Had she left him like that?" Franka could not remember as she quietly maneuvered out of her sleeping bag. Tip-toeing to the sleeping boy, his face turned away from her. She checked his pulse on his neck, then his forehead temperature and wolf-kin ears. Realizing to herself once again how small and thin he was lying wrapped in her green cloak - "His green cloak...." Shaking herself from her thoughts she adjusted the cloak chuckling to herself she thought "not that it needed much" due in part to the wolf-kin's small size and after checking for any signs of fever one more time, she tip-toed to the fire in the now re-sealed fireplace.

Choosing to add another piece of the broken bench to the flames and shuffling the embers with a nearby poker. Satisfied, she resigned herself to sitting in her sleeping bag once again.

It was still thundering outside, the rain had come slowly, a light pattering on the library's roof before transferring to a heavy downpour that must have continued well into the night Franka grasped. Reaching for her leather satchel, Franka pulled out the two letters. Ruminating while staring at the letter addressed to the boy sleeping in front of her.

Thinking back, now comfortably in her sleeping bag - Franka remembered pulling the lever in that little alcove. Having activated some mechanism that slowly, groaning all the way - slid the boy's sealed portion of the stonewall to the side, and out of the way. Entering the stone room containing the boys chamber she realized It was much smaller than the one his parents were in. His chamber in the far back wall was the first thing she noticed when she entered the hidden room.

After a minute of staring, Franka realized that even with the illumination from the glowing bronze and glass purple chamber, that the boy's room was incredibly dark being bathed in shadows, except from the soft glow of the boy's chamber. Re-casting her light magic, Franka decided to observe the boy's now illuminated room firstly.

It was cleaner than the previous room she had come from, with two tables with stacks of written parchment on either side of the room, a lone chalkboard and the boys' chamber in the far back receding near the back wall. On one of the tables Franka saw another sealed letter with the words on this one "To Tom", in neat calligraphy. Knowing it would be important she placed it carefully in her satchel.

Next she walked to the chalkboard, on one side of the room. In neat elvish handwriting she saw different complex arcane and math-based formulas,schematics and shockingly a calendar with the date five/eleven/Aprillago circled. It was only then did Franka look at the sleeping figure of the boy, "Tom" in stasis.

Wide-eyed, "He's been asleep for over-twenty years' ' she exclaimed. Walking to the boy's glowing chamber, Franka repositioned her three lights floating above her, Franka after a decisive moment looked at the boy's sleeping face floating in the glowing purple liquid. He had his fathers black ears and tail, his hair though a lighter black in color was slightly more straight and unkempt than the short kind of his fathers.

Even while floating in the purple liquid, he possessed the soft facial features of his mother, more feminine looking with his eyes closed than those of his fathers stone-cut features. His body, unlike both his parents' well toned and lithe ones, was small in comparison - having a much thinner frame and build.

"He must have to at least be a head shorter than herself'' Franka thought. Noticing after closer examination nothing like the slightly sagging flesh and skin of his parents. "No -", Franka thought, shaking her head "what's more important is..." then she heard it, his heartbeat, looking wide eyed at his chest - she heard a faint and slow unmistakable beating of a heart. She smiled, saying to herself quietly, "Thankfully he is alive."

Exhaling, with relief, Franka stared up at the young wolf-kin's face again. She noticed he looked almost too peaceful floating in that glowing purple liquid, Franka recalled the boy's parents, Philip and Laera had said they had to force the boy into this bronze and glass prison. And yet here he was, peacefully asleep as if he would wake at any moment.

"What awful method had they used to place him in here without his consent?" she thought, reaching out and touching the glass window in front of her. After a brief moment realizing she needed to find a way to get him out of his chamber.

Franka tried to think back, she had only heard about these contraptions after all but had never seen one like this before. Now turning to the tables for any solutions she walked up and down them attempting to glean any method or solution to her approaching problem. Then as if a lightbulb went off in her mind she looked at the chalkboard, "Of course the wife's schematics!' ' she exclaimed.

The husband, Philip, had said the boy's chamber had been purposely modified by his wife. Looking at the black boards detailed drawings she saw that there was in elven script a lever system that indicated how to open and close the chamber, following the plans indicated it should be next to the rightmost wall of the bronze and glass sarcophagus. Adjusting her half-rimmed glasses, Franka then found the lever on the right side, walked over to it and slowly with much effort pulled it down...

There was a smell, one that had not registered to her in many months but something she knew from memory alone. Re-righting herself on the tree branch she had just been sleeping on and opening her eyes. She began to sniff hungrily, trying to find the smell's origin - then yellow eyes flickering, she saw it - a faint silvery purple twisting path that extended through the forest's horizon.

"Well ladies-" speaking to three moving figures below her, "It looks like there is fresh meat out there -" Continuing, "why don't we go and pay them a visit hmmmm?".

Now looking down at her pack the high ranked succubus finished addressing her party. Eliciting cheers from all three of them. Satisfied with her lower ranking subordinates' response the Succubus looked at the faint gossamer- purple trail once again eyes flickering, discerning its origin. Smiling, she fanned out her reddish - pink wings and jumped off the tree, taking flight. Following her - her subordinates extended their own wings, taking flight and trailing after her, laughing amongst themselves. In the distance thunder rolled as dark clouds gathered blocking out the once sunny sky..

The pulling of the lever had elicited purple steam to spew out of both sides of the bronze chamber "not scalding hot, more cold than anything." Franka thought to herself, soon after re-adjusting her posture. She watched in awkward fascination as the purple liquid that had once filled the chamber enveloping the boy, was now slowly being drained out into small openings near the bottom of the inside bronze floor plates, slowly the entombed boy was lowered until the purple liquid had drained completely.

Still confused as to how the she was going to get the boy out of his chamber, Franka noticed the bronze back of the chamber hissed, pushing the boy slowly forward as this happened the rounded glass that once kept the subject and the purple liquid back, now began to slide at the same pace as its brother bronze-panel behind it. The curved glass slowly disappeared in an opening built on the inside of a bronze plated bottom. Franka realized that the subject would need to be picked up from the bronze bed once it stopped its mechanical journey.

Bracing for someone heavy, the elf readied herself to catch the sleeping boy as he slowly fell out of the empty bronze chamber. But Franka was more shocked to catch someone that barely weighed the size of six-stacked textbooks. The boy's head, which was supposed to end up resting near the top of her clavicle allowing her to lower him to the floor safely, instead fell in between her armpit and left bosom.

Sighing after realizing that once again the boy was a head shorter than her, Franka adjusted his sleeping body. Choosing to now rest the boy's head on her shoulder, supporting his back with her left hand. Realizing that the wolf-kins skin and large wolf-ears felt wet and cold to the touch upon closer inspection. After quick adjustment to her three magic light sources with her right hand, she noticed his complexion was fairly pale "due to lack of proper blood circulation in that liquid for so long." Franka thought.

Taking her satchel she crouched carefully, lowering the sleeping boy until she could with him resting on her chest, unclasp the leather bag near her hip- positioning it some inches behind her, then moving carefully she attempted to gently lower the boy's head on her bag. After 5 minutes Franka managed to get him in the now resting position. Standing up she unclasped her knitted green cloak realizing that at this very moment the boy clearly needed it more than she did. With careful use of gravity, moving the sleeping boy's torso upright by pulling on his arms, she carefully maneuvered the sleeping boy's head through the opening of her cloak, before pulling it to cover his front and back.

Finally after looking at her work Franka stretched, picking up and reclasping her satchel's leather straps before repositioning it on her back and with a little effort picked up the boy in an awkward princess carry, his head continuously rolling off her arm. "His head just keeps hanging off my arm" Franka thought, it will only be a few minutes "I just need to get you to the library floor again" she said aloud, looking at the sleeping face of the boy in her arms, then the long stone walkway in front of her.

Walking through the boy's hidden room past his dead parents' chambers was disheartening for Franka. She could not imagine the sorrow his parents would feel knowing their son had survived the worst of a plague, a calamity - only to now never see their son alive again. Franka swore to herself she would bury the two in a marked grave before she and the boy would leave the manor.

As she began her slow ascent up the stone steps she heard the heavy pattering of rain on the ceiling of the library, as she climbed higher - a thunderbolt illuminated the empty library room for only a second. Once she got to the library's wooden floor, she gently lowered the boy near the opening of the foyer before turning around and finding the hidden book lever, watching as the stone back of the grand fireplace groaned back into place. Franka quickly went to work finding broken bits of wood and kindling, dragging and dumping them in the now closed stone hearth she started a small fire with arcane magic.

With a roaring fire, illuminating and warming the now darkening library. Taking a travel ration out of her bag, Franka sat eating while contemplating and watching the wolf-kins breathing patterns in front of her, his soft exhales the rising and falling of his chest, "when he wakes he will be hungry" she thought to herself.

Franka, stared at the small body wrapped in her green cloak rising and falling, visually soothing as a melody, getting up she decided on checking the boy's temperature, noticing some color had started to seep back in his face. Franka began trying to remember if continued time in a stasis chamber had any determined amount of hours or days once before the subject would awake. Not being able to come to an answer she walked back to her ration silently eating and after much effort pulled out a rolled up sleeping bag from her leather satchel, unfurling it and watched the boy's body rise and fall, the rain outside and thunder causing her to drift off to sleep herself.

The smell had not dissipated, in fact slowly getting stronger the more Jahi, high-ranked succubus followed. However at some point the rain came and with it the silvery purple trail that the pack was using to hunt started to fade but the smell was still there, always pestering her.

With exasperation - brushing her long blonde hair from her yellow eyes she, and the succubi of her pack then saw it. A thunderflash illuminating the sky above and through the heavy rain, A large white building, overtaken by trees and moss growing through the roof and outside cracked walls - but more importantly there was the smell of smoke. Motioning to her subordinates with her left hand, Jahi - a high ranking succubus guided them down to the forest roofed floor just near the manor.

"What are your orders, ma'am?" a brown-haired succubus - Maena asked her pack's leader.

Jahi looked at her calmly, then to the two short and long - black haired twins.

Addressing the two-twin succubi in front of her Jahi gave out her orders "Teke, Ala - you two will split up, go fly left and right. Fly up to the roof there" she pointed to the building's black tiled decrepit roof through the rain "There are multiple holes and vantage points we can take advantage of to cut off our prey should he escape." Jahi continued "Wait for my or Maena's signal but cut off our prey's escape if they manage to flee."

looking at the twins Jahi finished by saying "We will all meet up if one of us finds them first".

Then turning to the young brown-haired succubus before her "Maena, you and I will hunt our prey on the ground, we will block off any broken windows or doors-" Lastly Jahi finished by saying "Remember, If you find the mensh whistle as I taught you, we will overpower them and then we will enjoy a feast."

Looking at their leader the three Succubi nodded in agreement, now that the succubi had a plan of action - they each flew off to play their own part. Tonight they would make sure to eat a meal they had not tasted in a long time. Above the ruined manor the rain still fell heavily, thunder rumbling and flashing all the while in the darkened night sky.