About two hours later, Ryan came up the tower steps. It was still really early, but not so early that he thought the prince would mind. After all, he had to have had a good eight or nine hours sleep.

He knocked loudly on the door. Surely Drake would want to see him before he left? His carriage would be there soon.

 

Drake snarled a deep, primal growl as he woke up and glared at the door. Whoever had dared wake him up was going to pay!
“A blama! You prost smucitură! Se duce! You cretin! Blama!”

 

“You're awake then!” Ryan announced. “I was starting to wonder. I'm sure what you said was lovely, but answer the door already!”

 

“Ryan!? Ce curu' meu vrei?!” Drake shouted at the door.

 

“Well...uh... Chiggidy chidiggy to you too! Get up already!” Ryan yelled back. Drake had taught him a couple of words in that language, but he was bad at translation, so even if he could properly hear through the door, it was unlikely he could recognize a single word.

 

Drake got up and stomped over to the door; he pulled it open and glared at Ryan. “... Ce curu' meu vrei?” He snarled, too angry to even realize he wasn't speaking in a traditional Gaian language.

 

“No, that's okay. I don't have time for a drink. But thanks.” Ryan replied, though it was unclear if he really thought it had been what Drake asked, or if he had just made it up on the spot to annoy the Prince.

 

Drake was confused by that and showed it for a minute before he closed his eyes; realizing his mistake. “What the feck do you want, Ryan?”

 

“Thought you'd want me to say goodbye before I left!” The boy answered cheerfully. It was then that he noticed that Drake looked terrible. “Wow, you're...really not a morning person, are you?”

 

Drake snarled at the remark. “There is no such thing as a morning person— it is a clever lie created by people who insist on being awake at unreasonable hours.”

 

“Come on, Drake. It's nearly eight!” Ryan complained. He was usually up before now, himself. Yes. He was one of those unreasonable hour people, and proud of it.

 

Drake walked back into his room, yawning. He pulled his boots back on before walking into the hall. “I hate you, you know that?”

 

“I only half doubt that you mean that...” Ryan commented dryly as he waited.

 

Drake started down the stairs, muttering curses stating his disappointment at not being able to sleep in.

 

Ryan rolled his eyes and continued down. “Come on, it would be good to get an early start!” He tried to assure the Prince. “You don't have any plans, do you?”

 

“Josnic, dăunător vită…” Drake grumbled as they walked.

 

Ryan stopped dead. He was sure he had just been insulted, but had no idea what the words meant. It was quite annoying, really. You can't make a comeback if you don't even know the insult.

“Where did you learn all those weird words anyway?” He eventually asked. It was a question he had meant to ask for a while, but hadn't got around to. It was also the only response he could think of that didn't make him sounds stupid, or like he was backing down.

 

 

 

Drake was stalking a dragonfly that had gotten inside the tower. It was red, it was big, and it was something to keep him busy for a few hours. It started up the stairs and Drake silently followed. He wasn’t allowed outside without someone going with him, and then it was usually just to go to one of his lessons. A bug inside the tower was something new! Especially one this size! It hadn’t happened before, not that he could remember!

 

Ellipsis was heading down the tower stairs, completely unaware of the silent dragonfly, or the just as silent boy stalking it. He had his head in a book, which was probably asking for trouble, but he was so familiar with the layout of the tower now, that he could probably navigate it with his eyes closed.

 

The dragonfly landed on a step and sat there.
Drake was still around the corner, having been distracted by a Grand Dragon flying very close to a window.

 

Ellipsis continued down, slowly, with no real hurry to his pace, just the slow reassuring and echoing click as his feet landed on each stone step. Then, suddenly, there was a quiet crunch instead of a click. But Ellipsis didn't have time to notice this, as what he had expected to be a solid, rough and trustworthy stair, was actually slippery like ice and offered no traction whatsoever.

This meant that the leg that he had just put weight on, shot forward, and his other buckled, unprepared for the added weight. He fell backwards quickly, before he really knew what was happening, and landed hard on his backside just on the painful edge of one of the previously trusted stone steps.

To add insult to injury. His book had flown from his hand, and out an open window.

“la dracu! Căcat! Prost, fiu de curva! Căcat!” Ellipsis barked with his eyes still clenched shut in severe pain, as he rubbed his backside unceremoniously. He seemed to be trying to find out if anything was broken.

 

Drake had just rounded the corner at this event, and had seen the book go out the window, which to him was rather funny. However, what caught his attention the most was, “…What’s that mean?”

 

Ellipsis opened his eyes, which had gone blurry from tears that had come through sheer pain alone, but could just make out Drake. The voice was a dead giveaway, too. Only two other people on this continent besides Ellipsis with that accent and the voice he heard now was much too young to belong to Eclipse.

“What does what mean?” Ellipsis half snapped, half groaned.

 

“la dracu. Căcat, prost, fiu de curva… Căcat!” Drake repeated, doing his best to match the dialect as close as possible.

 

Ellipsis' eyes widened. This could get him in a lot of trouble… Eclipse could be a cruel bastard, but Ellipsis highly doubted he’d be fine with Drake knowing those words at this age, or any age, really… The King and Queen would notice for sure…, but with his posterior throbbing as it was, he couldn't think of a good explanation...

“Nothing. They mean nothing.” He answered dismissively, nodding and trying to get the young prince to believe him. If he’d had anything with cinnamon or sugar with him, he would have tried bribery.

 

“Really? Căcat, căcat, căcat … Okay.” Drake smile, then turned and headed down the stairs. “Ryan! Want to know a word that means absolutely nothing?”

 

“...Căcat.” Ellipsis muttered to himself as Drake sped off.

Ryan was at the bottom of the tower, playing with something that interested him, and Eclipse would yell at him for. Drake was boring sometimes, and had wandered off after a bug, but now he was calling him?

“What?!” He called behind him, not wanting to leave the cool objects he had 'discovered'.

 

Drake trotted over. “Want to know a word that means absolutely nothing?” He repeated.

 

“A word can't mean nothing; that's silly” Ryan argued, in a know-it-all fashion.

 

“Ellipsis said it meant nothing...” Drake replied. “He was yelling it, and I asked what it meant, and he said it meant nothing.”

 

“Then why was he yelling it?” Ryan asked. He was older than Drake and thus he’d long ago decided it meant he knew more! Even if Drake was in classes that were considered advanced for his age, which is how he was in the same classes as Ryan.

 

“I don’t kno—what’s that?” Drake asked, motioning toward the item Ryan was toying with.

 

“I don't know yet,” Ryan said shortly.

 

It was a dark wooden box. It was very thin and not very wide either, but fairly long. Long enough that you could keep pencils in it. The box was fairly undecorated, the hinges and catch were made in a cheap-looking silver metal, but was well polished. The design on the top of the box had flowers, and a dragonfly, decorated with different colors of some kind of odd glitter, which was very tiny and fine compared to most.

 

“Hm… Where did you find it?” Drake asked.

 

“...Around.” Ryan answered hesitantly and cryptically. He tapped it on the wall, but the clasp was still holding tight.

 

“Let me see it!” Drake requested.

 

“No, I found it!” Ryan objected, not wanting to give up the prize, and the satisfaction of knowing what was inside before Drake did.

 

“But you can't open it.” Drake pointed out, “Let me try!”

 

“No way!” Ryan confuted Drake's argument, while trying to get a fingernail underneath the clasp.

 

“I want to see!” Drake reached for the box.

 

Ryan pulled it away and turned around so it was out of Drake's reach again. “No!” The boy said stubbornly.

 

“That's mean!” Drake pouted, stomping his foot.

 

Ryan ignored the comment, and was back to trying to pry the box open. There wasn't a lock, why was it so hard!?

 

“Căcat!” Drake shouted

 

Ryan was distracted for a moment, trying to figure out what Drake had said. He hadn't really been paying too much attention to Drake, and had already half forgotten the word.

Drake grabbed the box while Ryan was distracted. “I like that word, now.”

 

“Hey! Give that back!” Ryan growled and lunged for it.

 

Drake jumped to the side and then ran up the stairs. “Căcat! Căcat! Căcat!”

 

“Stop saying that!” Ellipsis shouted as Drake passed him on the stairs. He was just getting to his feet at the time. He had a feeling that sitting down would be painful for a while, but he was reasonably sure nothing was broken.

Ryan dashed past him a moment later, almost knocking him over. “And stop running on the stairs!” Ellipsis added, shouting upwards. He was fairly sure he hated all of Drake’s ‘friends’…

 

“Why?” Drake called down the stairs. “You said it didn’t mean anything!” He did stop running and instead hid behind a chair while trying to get the box open.

 

Ryan didn't notice that one set of echoing footsteps had vanished, and continued on right past the chair, and up the next set of stairs.

 

Drake waited for Ryan to pass and then calmly walked back down the stairs.

 

“Just don’t.” Ellipsis said as Drake walked past him again.

 

Drake walked past, staring at a box. Ellipsis watched him go with a slightly puzzled and still slightly pained look… that box looked familiar and he had to hope it didn’t belong to who he thought it belonged to… Ryan's footsteps could easily still be heard getting further away.

 

Well, at least he isn't saying that word anymore… Ellipsis thought, and shrugged.

 

“Căcat!” Drake snickered and walked across the archway toward the palace.

 

Ellipsis sighed loudly. He had opened his mouth to shout again, but then realized there was little point. He was definitely going to hear about this...

A few minutes later, a very red in the face Ryan, half-ran past Ellipsis who was then on his way to his room with a slight limp. The tall boy was panting, and looked quite annoyed, having obviously gone all the way to the top of the tower and back down again.

 

Drake hid behind another chair and examined the glittery box… the, no longer quite as glittered glittery box.
He hoped whomever it belonged to wouldn’t be upset… but on an up side, the tower floor was sparkly.

 

Ryan jogged out of the tower. He could no longer keep up a full run. He stopped, and doubled over trying to catch his breath, before he looked up again and tried to spot Drake. He was nowhere in sight...

 

Drake saw Ryan pass and then he ran outside for a minute and then back inside the tower and started up the stairs.

 

It was fortuitous for Ryan that he glanced back at the tower just in time to see someone dash past one of the windows. No one but Drake would be moving that fast up those stairs for no reason! So the boy started running back towards the tower, again.

 

“Ellipsis! I got your book!” Drake stated.

 

Ellipsis's door was flung open a few seconds later. “What?” He asked, perhaps not having heard clearly. Ryan had just entered the tower at the bottom, and started up the stairs.

 

“I got your book...” Drake repeated, holding it up.

 

Ellipsis took the book that looked like it had, well, been dropped out of a window. It was covered in mud, and was slightly damp, as well as having one corner damaged which had obviously hit the ground first. The book looked like it would still be readable though.

“Thanks.” He said to Drake, patting him on the head, and started to close the door while brushing off some of the dirt.

 

With the door no longer blocking the view of the stairs, Ryan could be seen just rounding the corner.

 

Drake saw Ryan and ran back upstairs, hid behind the exact same chair again, and waited.

 

Ryan growled and ran back down. This time he paused in the main doorway. It was open, but he couldn't see Drake anywhere outside. That boy was damn fast, but not that fast.

 

Drake got up and hummed as he walked toward the main palace. He was supposed to go to dinner with his parents and was going to be late as it was, so he hurried there.

 

Ryan stayed behind, not noticing the prince leaving as he searched inside the tower. Drake had to have hidden in there somewhere!

Meanwhile, Eclipse was just leaving the library. So far, he had remained blissfully unaware of any of the morning's events.

 

Drake walked into the palace and was instantly ‘greeted’ by Chaucer.
“You’re late, Dracul.” He began, and then continued on a rant about how he was late more and more often.

Marina joined in as soon as she showed up and Drake wondered why he kept bothering to come down for dinner… they always just yelled at him now…

After a few minutes, he was tired of their constant ranting, so he figured he’d try the trick he’d used on Ryan with the word that meant nothing.
“Căcat…”

His parents had never shut up so fast in his entire life. They just stared, horrified.

“…What?”

 

Eclipse has just been passing the room, the arguing inside was as good as a clock. It was Drake being told off for being late yet again for dinner, and was almost comforting to Eclipse. Subtle proof that the stupid King and Queen were still as clueless as ever, and that Drake was still his predictable self. Without someone there to remind him, that boy was late for everything and, as far as Eclipse was considered, being six wasn’t a good enough excuse. He convinced the king and queen of the same thing…

 

It was just helping to keep Drake and his parents alienated from one another.

Of course, that was before the sudden silence. It was eerie, like when you are in a crowded room, and the conversations suddenly become muted and die for no reason. People stop talking to look why other people have stopped talking around them, and it becomes an unnerving chain reaction that leaves everyone confused.

Confused was indeed what Eclipse was, and he quickly backed up a few steps, and peered covertly through the door, which Drake had left open just a crack. He tried to tell himself he was more insouciant than he really was.

 

“Dracula!” Marina gasped.

“Dracula Dragomir! You don’t use that language like that!” Chaucer practically snarled.

“What?” Drake blinked, not understanding.

“Get to your room! No dinner for you!” Marina shouted.

Drake backed up, trying to get away from them and their confusing screams.

“Don’t you ever speak like that again!” Chaucer shouted.

“Like… what?” Drake looked at each of them, trying to see what the problem was.

“You think just because it’s in another language we won’t understand?” Marina put her hands on her hips.

“Yes! Do you think we’re stupid?” Chaucer asked.

“…You don’t want me to answer that,” Drake grumbled.

“You’ve never cursed before! Don’t start!” Marina insisted.

“… What?”

“Romanian! You think we wouldn’t know? Now get to your room!” Chaucer ordered.

Drake walked out of the room, not because he was obeying them, but because he wanted to get away from them.
… Romanian?

 

Romanian? Eclipse's mind echoed. He had managed to hide in the shadows before Drake had emerged from the room. The problem was that he was too distracted by hiding, and the rage in the King and Queen's minds to read them well enough to know what Drake had said. Just that he had and it had something to do with cursing? He didn't think Drake knew any Romanian curse words; that was the language of the Occultation village and very few people knew it. It was why representatives for that town were so valuable; they’d know the language and, for obvious reasons, very, very few outsiders were allowed anywhere near the town and those that were, were only permitted in certain areas.

 

Drake didn't go to his room, first he went to the public library and did, indeed, find a few books on languages. He also saw another book in the same 'culture' section about legends dealing with dragons.
Drake picked all the books with the words Ellipsis had used and went back to his room to read them.

And very quickly discovered why he was being punished.

“YOU SAID THAT WORD MEANT NOTHING! IT DOESN'T MEAN NOTHING, IT MEANS SHI–ow!” Drake yelped as his chair tipped over.

The glitter box he'd been holding fell out of his hands and opened when it hit the floor.

 

Ellipsis looked up at his ceiling. “… That’ll come back to haunt me.”

 

“Aha!” Cried Ryan, suddenly appearing. Apparently he had been searching the tower again and heard the crash and the yell. He soon spotted the open little box face down on the floor, its contents still hidden, and dived for it.

 

“Hey!” Drake yelped, surprised to see Ryan there. “Get out of my room!”

 

Ryan ignored him, and grabbed at the box. He pulled it towards him; it was still face down. All he knew so far was that it wasn't full of glitter.

 

Drake got up and stalked over, seeing that the box had opened. His mind raced on what could be inside, but if it were anything good, Ryan would get it now…he needed to make Ryan look away...and thought of a way.
He looked up past Ryan and widened his eyes as if he just knew he were in trouble.

 

“… Hi, Eclipse.”

Then he just waited.

 

Ryan's head whipped around. Eclipse had never really done anything to him, but he was still a very creepy guy. All of Drake's friends were afraid of him. So, when he turned to look, he wasn't fully expecting Eclipse to be coming at him with a knife, but, it didn't hurt to make sure.

 

Drake pushed Ryan’s hands away, grabbed what was being covered by the box, then he jumped over the box and ran out the door.
Only when he was running down the stairs did he look at what he actually had.

“… Scissors?”

 

Ryan was quickly in hot pursuit, angrier now that he had been tricked, yet again. In fact, he was so angry that he almost slipped several times. “What is it?! Give it to me!” He demanded, unable to decide which he wanted more.

 

Drake sped up, “It’s just scissors! Stop chasing me!”

 

“Scissors?!” Ryan asked, confused, and not really believing. He kept after Drake, his long legs making up slightly for Drake's speed.

At which point, they were just about to pass Eclipse's door. However, this time, they had chosen to mess around at a time that he was there, even though he had only arrived a few seconds ago, confused about all the screaming, and he didn't like that. His door flung open and he stepped out, right in front of the boys.

 

Drake was looking behind him, watching Ryan to see how fast he needed to go to keep ahead, but when the door opened, the sound snapped his attention back to where it should have been, watching where he was going.

Even if he had been, though, it wouldn’t have helped much. He’d been going very fast and Eclipse had stepped out rather suddenly.

Drake stomped down; trying to stop instantly, but the momentum and gravity were against him. He stumbled and tried to stop his fall, but to do that, he put his hands out in front of him… but one of his hands was holding a pair of sharp blades, and yes, the blades were put together, but that just made a sharp point.
A sharp point that went right into Eclipse’s thigh before Drake could regain his balance and back up a step.

 

The last echoes of the boys running faded away, slowly. Eclipse was as silent as the rest of the tower, and stood perfectly still, watching Drake and Ryan both regain their balance. Only then did he look down at his leg. The polished silver scissors that he had been missing all day were now embedded in his thigh, but that gruesome detail was obscured quite well by his thick robes.

Slowly, he reached down, grabbed the scissors, and slowly slid them out of his leg. He showed no sign at all that it was painful; his face was blank, and emotionless. His eyes were no longer on the scissors; they were staring straight into Drake's, coldly. Then he held the silver scissors out to Drake. The blood that coated the tip looked thick, and black, not reflecting much light at all. There was a thin wisp of smoke from the blood, as if a small flame had just been extinguished, and a drop of the black substance dripped silently onto the floor, and disappeared from sight.

He held the scissors closer to Drake, and the blood that was no longer smoking, shimmered slightly, as it moved. Or had it? If it had, it was only for a fraction of a second. Eclipse's face finally showed some emotion, a cryptic smirk.

 

Drake did not take the scissors. He just stared at them as if they had suddenly come alive. He backed up slowly, just wanting to stay away from the blood. He didn’t think it was blood, at first. He thought it was poison or tar.
It smoked and… it had moved, hadn’t it? It seemed to have crept forward on it’s own…
He’d seen some frightening things in his life, most of which were the reasons most of his friends wouldn’t step foot into the towers.
But this… topped them all—at least it toped anything he could remember, and he sure did hope it topped anything he would see later.

 

Ryan didn't seem to be reacting; he appeared to be in some kind of trance. A shocked expression etched into his frozen face. It was as if he was suddenly just an unblinking wax model.

Eclipse waited a moment, then his smile widened and he took the scissors back. His whole face said, “What? You don't want them? Okay.”
Then, just as wordlessly, he walked back into his room, and closed the door. A moment later, Ryan shook his head, looking a little confused.

 

“…Căcat.” Drake breathed, and then headed back up to his room.

 

 

“It was about ten years ago; but you don’t remember that day.” Drake stated, walking past Ryan and down the stairs. “It was a very interesting day…”

 

“Why?” Ryan asked, oblivious, as he followed Drake down the stairs.

 

“Why don’t you remember? Or why was it an interesting day? Actually, forget that. The answer to both is ‘Eclipse’.” Drake yawned, “Now why the hell did you wake me up?