#captured light

[burtontracks]

Alternate Life – 231129ad

This black column has captured light! Look at the top, then base, repeat and you will see light emerge from the ends…

[trixclibrarian]

[banishingtheshadows]

On the Trail

((Part 3 in the Captured Light series.))

Leaves rustle in the wind and voices carry through the air as Caiaphas stops for a breather. The man tilts his head to watch a small caravan pass him, the children racing ahead, colouring the air with their joy. After a moment’s rest Caiaphas adjusts the straps on his pack and continues onwards, gravel crunching under his feet. His gaze flicks left and right as he walks, taking in scenery and sights in one fell swoop. There’s not really much to see beyond a road that is well-travelled, dotted with campsites for caravans and other travellers that needed to stop for the night. 

He knows he has been unlucky in his hunt - the last two points of Noxian activity had turned into dead ends. What had made it worse was that the man had known that he had been running on borrowed time - Noxian patrols rotated on a regular basis, making it all the more imperative that he track down Lux before any potential sources returned to Noxus.

It had been as he was scanning his surroundings a final time that he’d spotted the sign to the next town - and, more importantly, the flashing corner it had. It had shone in a way that most passersby would put down to a trick in the light or the angle of the sun, but Caiaphas had known better. A closer inspection had revealed that it wasn’t as natural as it seemed, and he had also recognised it as magic - Lux’s magic, to be more precise.

Lux had been leaving a trail.

The sign itself had pointed to the town he now enters, hours later, his ears pricked for any gossip on recent travelling parties. Unlike his last few failures, he doesn’t even have to ask around this time - two maids at the town well are discussing a Noxian caravan that passed through a few days prior to his arrival. He wanders over to the well to catch more of their conversation, and is thus rewarded with complaints of how the Noxians, on their way home, didn’t even stop to say hi or flirt like they often do - something about the prisoner in the cart they were escorting being very important. “Must’ve been prettier than you Mildred,” one of the pair jests.

Caiaphas considers interjecting with the affirmation that yes, the Noxian prisoner (assuming it was who he thought it was) was and is indeed prettier than Mildred, but it is mostly musings of his bored mind. His listening done, the warlock fills his flask and departs just as quietly as he had arrived, his boots throwing up even more dust on his travelling cloak. He waits until he was outside the town before considering his next move.

The Noxian patrol was escorting a caravan containing something or someone important - so important that they were in too much of a hurry to stop at a town they’d just passed through. Important enough to be a prisoner, perhaps even important enough to be the person he was looking for? 

Caiaphas exhales and starts walking again, scattering rocks - including one in particular that flashes with a light rather similar to the one that had tagged the street sign. It is automatic to bend over, pick the rock up in his fingers, and inspect it in the sunlight.

Lux has been here.

He slips the magically-tagged pebble into his pocket, his gaze turning to the path ahead. 

Caiaphas knows there’s only one main road from here on to the Noxian borders, and he remembers enough about Noxus military patrols to discern their possible movements. A moment’s calculation on the map he conjures in his memory gives him a potential position of where they’d stop for the night -if they did, that is. His resolve rising, the warlock begins to walk yet again, this time steeling himself for whatever he might find.

He finally had a target.

His luck, he supposed, had just changed.

[banishingtheshadows]

Stuck

((Here it is, the next drabble in the series Captured Light.

I don’t know shit about the constellations or anything in Valoran, I made that constellation name up.))

Lux’s favourite constellation is the Stallion. She can see it, in fact - it is, after all, a cloudless night. She had always liked the way it seemed to toss its mane as it was galloping, its path streaking across the sky each night, free as the wind.

As free as she is not right now.

Brought rudely back to earth, she shakes her head free of her fantasies and withdraws further into her patch of shadow in the corner. Ironic, the mage of light, hiding in the shadows of the cart she was imprisoned in.

Stupid. She should’ve been more careful. She’d never thought that the Noxians would take to precautions after her countless missions - never considered that they’d finally act to prevent her very activities of reconnaissance and espionage. But they had, and now she is stuck.

So stupid.

Her recriminations serve no further purpose than to intensify the leaden weight in her gut. The girl swallows, peering again through the bars of the cage, catching a glimpse of the Stallion before someone shouts an order. Lux jumps, huddling even deeper into the corner. 

She knows she is lucky that they haven’t recognised her - if they had been prepared for magical interference, she’d at least become more proficient in disguise. Her magical illusion, for one thing, had yet to be detected, solely due to its intricacies being more advanced than the sole Noxian mage in the party could detect.

She’d have to thank Caiaphas for that, if she ever got out of here.

Caiaphas. Even the thought of him has her hastily stifling a whimper before it escapes. She knows he worried every time she disappeared on one of her missions. She also knows that she has been gone for far longer than she’d ever been before, knows he’d be out of his mind. It is instinct to scramble out of the shadows and press her face to the bars, instinct to stare a silent apology at the silent starscape. Her gaze flicks from the sky to the ground, taking in the rising activity, the movement. They’re leaving. Odd. Normally they would stop for the night - unless something had happened that had changed that.

Orders to return home, maybe.

Lux swallows again. She thrusts her hands back into the sleeves of the cloak they’d ensconced her in the first night - no point if their prisoner froze to death on the way, after all. She knows that once she is in Noxian territory, it would be all the harder to escape. She is aware of one of the soldiers looking over as she fights her shaky breathing - she can’t go to Noxus like this. She’d be recognised the moment she got anywhere near a halfway-competent mage.

Breathe. Patience.

The feeling of warmth of arms, the smell of the couch in her sitting room as she is curled up on Caiaphas, her head on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his body as he laughed at something she said...

She’d feel that again.

And so, as the carriage rumbles into action, she uncurls a hand that is previously hidden in her sleeve. After a moment to check that nobody is looking, she thrusts her fingers through the bars and lets something fall.

Nobody notices the rock bounce to a stop - after all, there are so many on this path anyway, and Lux also knows she was good enough to hide the tiniest bit of magic she’d tagged it with.

It is both an acceptable risk and all she can do - and so, as she withdraws her hand and sinks back into the shadows, she prays that somebody would recognise it. Already her mind is doing calculations, making rough estimates - and it is then she realises that she’d reach Noxian borders in the next day or two. Suddenly the window of escape seems much smaller, the stakes higher-

No.

Another swallow, another head shake. Lux steels herself as she shut her eyes, peering inwards to magically inspect herself. Not top shape, but it would do.

Tomorrow night. She had until then to formulate a plan of escape. Until and after then, she is and would be on her own - but then, hadn’t she always been, on these missions?

She reaches out without answering her own question, trying to gather her magic to her as stealthily as possible without alerting the Noxian magician. He may not be as good as her, but complacency is what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

Her gaze slowly lifts back to the sky.

“I’m sorry I worry you.” Her arms around him tightly.

“Eh. Can’t do much about it, right?”

“Maybe- Oh!”

“Hm?”

“...The sky. If you look at the stars when I do, it will be like looking at them together, right?”

“...You should put less sugar in your meals, with the amount you’re spilling.”

She glares at him for his comment but his hold only tightens on her, and she knows he’s thanking her for trying.

The cart jolts over a particularly bad patch of rubble. Lux hears someone snigger as she topples over with a yelp. She scrambles upright again, making her way cautiously to the bars, and this time looks upwards to take in the night.

 I wonder what his favourite star is...

Maybe he’ll tell me, when all this is over.

Somehow, somewhere, she knows he’s watching.

I’ll come back, Caiaphas.

I promise.

[banishingtheshadows]

Missing Light

((The following is me deciding to try and get back into the writing groove with a “What if Lux got herself into trouble and Caiaphas went to rescue her” scenario. Oh, also because ship stuff. I regret nothing.

Anyway, it will probably end up being 2 or 3 drabbles, under the tag Captured Light.

Credit goes to @demaciangrandwarlock for letting me borrow Caiaphas and for his help!))

--

Caiaphas stops in the middle of the street, his eyes shooting up to the small building that Lux called home. His gaze takes in the shadows of the curtains in the window, the solemn white stone of the walls, the simple tiling of the roof.

They are things he’d seen on his occasional visits, and they’d never changed. In fact, the only thing that had changed was the lack of activity.

Never had she left the door unanswered so long.

Something is wrong.

A mission, she’d said. He knew she couldn’t give more, clandestine as her assignment was - but he knew it had something to do with Noxus, their rival nation having been active in skirmishes in various neighbouring villages as of late.

Maybe he is overthinking things, but he can’t help it - every time she’d left, he’d worried until she got back. It was something that they’d managed between the pair of them.

Until now, that is.

He’s sure that she should’ve been back by now.

He turns and walks away, sliding between two people to access a small alleyway. It is only when he is out of sight that he calls on his magic, teleporting from the area. Several minutes of discrete travelling, careful packing, and some walking later, he stands at the entrance (or exit, as some would see it) to Demacia with nothing but a traveller’s pack and a hooded cloak, the better to hide his face so nobody would recognise him leaving.

Caiaphas tilts his head to inspect the archway for a moment, admiring the beautiful stone. Lux had called this place home, he knew, but she had not been here to study it for weeks. The knowledge only served to add to the weight in his gut, the certainty that she was in danger. The moment gone, the warlock turns again to the path before him, contemplating his next move.

Caiaphas didn’t know where she’d be, but he knew that Noxus had recently begun testing the eastern region between their empire and Demacia. He would start there. Decision made, the warlock strides forward with all the certainty in his body, his footsteps leaving dust in his wake.

Somewhere, out there, Lux was lost or worse.

Somewhere, out there, he’d find her.

[quaintobsessions]

flying

[bfad]

[phonographable]

The Amazing :: Captured Light