|Continued from here || @longhaunted
The child was beyond reason. He growled at Eclipsa, refusing to listen.
“Maybe you can’t get it to work because you don’t need him as much as I do!” Toffee snapped at her, wrapping his claws tighter around the wand-sword, which glowed even brighter, was practically burning in his hands now, but any physical pain over that hadn’t registered in his furious and distraught mind yet.
He shook his head, glaring. “I. Don’t. Care! I don’t! I–” The child’s voice cracked, and his eyes began to tear up, the glare in them dropping and becoming more haunted, filling up with absolute grief. “–I want Dad back, I need him, we need him! I–”
It had been some months now since Dad had been killed. Toffee’s first birthday without him had come and gone. Mom had tried her best to give him a good one, but there was nothing she could do to distract from the overwhelming hole Toffee saw, the empty place where his father should have been.
That gaping hole, it hurt, and his mother’s despair, it–the child couldn’t stand it longer, there had to be a way–there was magic, magic had to fix this, it had to fix what it broke, it had to give back what it took, it had to–
Toffee had sneaked to the Butterfly spell book and tried asking the old man about what he could do, he had tried to ask for specifics, but Glossayrck had been unhelpful. But there was still the wand, and to the child’s understanding, the wand seemed flexible, ask of it what you will and it had to grant it–it had to grant what he desperately wished, it just had to–
“–I don’t care, you’re not stopping me!” The glare returned to Toffee’s eyes. Eclipsa’s warning meant nothing to the young half-monster. “Just–just stay away, go away, you–”
His mother was still a little groggy, but she was bigger and stronger and would try to physically stop him–and it would work, Toffee was sure of this. He had to keep her from doing that, he had to act before she could.
An attempt at a spell came to mind before he could try saying the words, something made up on the spot. Cloudy Smokescreen!
With a loud pop and sudden force that made him crash backward to the floor, a large dark stormy cloud emerged from the wand-sword. Still holding tight to the Butterfly heirloom, Toffee gaped up at the writhing mass of dark cloud that continued to grow and fill the room.
And then there was a flash of jagged splintering light, a terrible crack of sound, and a thunderbolt hit the floor, scorching the surface. That made Toffee flinch and drop the wand. It clattered to the floor and rolled underneath the dark cloud mass.
Toffee, still gaping at the conjured storm cloud, failed to notice this.
The child recoiled as more lightning bolts shot down and struck the floor, though they were away from him, as long as he stayed on this side of the room near the doorway, it looked like they couldn’t reach him–
Toffee snapped up with alarm as the thought shrieked in his head. He realized the spell had done what he originally intended–hid him from her sight, and vice versa. But he did not want her out of sight when magic lightning bolts were randomly attacking!
Ohgods what had he done–if she got hurt or worse–
“Mom! Mom, where are you!?” Toffee screamed, darting forward. He instinctively stumbled back in fear when a lightning bolt struck too close. The child shook himself angrily, told himself to get a grip; this was his fault, he had to–
The wand. Where was–ohgods he’d dropped it. He dropped it, how could he be so stupid–
Toffee sprang forward under the dark cloud and raced between the lightning bolts, searching for Eclipsa and the wand. Still he called out for his mother.
“Mom! Mom, please–I can’t find you, where are you–?!”
¦♠¦ “Maybe you can’t get it to work because you don’t need him as much as I do!”
It felt like a stake went right through her heart at those words. and Eclipsa couldn’t keep the pain it caused from off her face. “Of course I need him, Toffee! You don’t think that his death has hurt me as well?” She bit her tongue, she can’t afford to get emotional now. That was for later, when her son is safely tucked away in bed and not holding an ever increasingly dangerous wand.
A wand that he could use, and might end up killing him. Eclipsa was not going to loose another person she loved, it would destroy her completely. “Give me the wand Toffee...” She walked towards him, arm still outstretched as she steeled herself to snatch the wand from her son.
And then there was a huge bang, and everything turned black.
Eclipsa was launched away from her child, her trajectory interrupted by a wall. She slumped down, grabbing the back of her head as she tried to make sense of things. At first she thought the thunder and darkness was from bumping her head, but no, somehow Toffee must have casted a nonverbal spell. He had summoned an actual storm into being, and had the circumstances been more favorably she would have expressed pride. A nonverbal spell, at his age!
But all those thoughts and concerns about her own well-being were violently shoved aside in favor of concern for her son. “TOFFEE!” Eclipsa slowly stood up, shouting uselessly into the wind. She was deaf to the cries of her child, a beautiful smokescreen in every sense of the word. “TOFFEE WHERE ARE YOU?!” And then the lightning started striking at random, she was barely able to dodge as one narrowly missed her.
This was getting more and more dangerous by the second, and she had no idea where Toffee was. As much as she didn’t feel like it, she had to dip down enough to counter the wand’s spell.
Inhale, exhale... the spade marks on her cheeks started glowing as she dipped down.The storm raged on, but it slowly disappated, being drawn towards a single point. Slowly a figure was revealed, one with magnificent moth-like wings and glowing eyes. Eclipsa’s focus was on a single point between all three pairs of arms that the storm was drawn into. The lightning continued to strike, the thunder raging angrily in defiance as it disappeared.
And then it was gone, leaving an exhaused mother, her son, and a now revealed wand. For a brief moment, Eclipsa was revealed fully in her mewberty form, before she fell onto her hands and knees, her otherwordly features disappearing as she did so. Dipping down was difficult, hence why most queens and queens-to-be weren’t taught until they were full grown. She, however, was a magical prodigy and taught at age fourteen. And yet, even for her, it had been difficult due to the circumstances.
