Finished Hijacked Love Circuits PV

As Valentin watched, a shifting curtain of pale gold and white emerged from the lake. At first the shape of a head and two legs made him think the figure was human, entangled with strands of lake vegetation. Yet, as it came into full view and approached Valentin on the shore of the lake, the creature’s features came into focus. Like a pale male horse with reedy hair of a dusty golden blonde and a cream-colored coat, the specimen resembled a palomino – a variety that only a quiet watcher of the scene might know by name. It seemed to be some kind of acquatic beast rather than a simple horse, and out of respect, Valentin tipped his head. Though coming closer, it did not attack nor make any hostile moves. Rather, it simply knelt with two hooved legs bending at its front while the rest of its torso disappeared into a serpentine trunk still submerged in the smoky dark green water. If this was the answer to his wishes, Valentin was not about to deny “Alexander” based on appearances. He himself was not entirely human and wasn’t about to judge the other for being what he assumed to be a shapeshifter.

The creature knelt patiently as Valentin took it all in. It smelt of earth and waterlogged plant material, and at no point did it look him in the eye. As a pureblood heir Val was proficient at horsemanship, having several steeds at home both in service of his family carriages as well as for navigating the backcountry of the Schnell Wildlands.

“Alexander… So this is why you couldn’t reunite with me. Still, why didn’t you meet me at the ball? I waited at the water’s edge, searched for you, even. Was it the grindylows that frightened you away?” Taking two steps closer, Valentin extended his hand. The creature made no reaction, keeping its head bowed as it lay kneeling on the shore. “It’s no wonder my owls never made it to you. Of course, this is why the investigators couldn’t find you. I’m sorry, I just didn’t understand.”

In the distance, it was a different white watcher that truly understood. Valentin himself was too transfixed to notice a figure running towards them from a far perimeter of the Great Lake. In truth, the oblivious seeker was falling right into the trap of an XXXX classification dangerous beast. Yet, the entity’s genteel air reminded him of Alexander when they met here, on this very spot.

“Do you still love me?” Valentin didn’t expect a verbal response, per se. Perhaps any reaction was a lot to hope for. Yet, the creature did not shrink away as he passed his hand through its tangled blonde mane.

“Are you lonely out here, confined to this lake? Did you ever think of me…?” The beast’s hair was thicker, coarser than he remembered, but if this was his shapeshifted form, then there was no fairness in comparing it to Alexander’s soft mane before.

“I think you are inviting me to go away with you. Very well, then. Show me your world. I hope you will forgive me for misunderstanding you for so very long.”

Sliding onto the beast’s horselike back, Valentin leaned forward and wrapped one arm around its neck as his right hand clutched a clump of mane in its fist. The being felt large compared to what he had come to think of Alexander being before, but this too Valentin would accept. Two hooves pushed off from the surface and Val had only a second to place the gillyweed back in his mouth before they plunged back into the darkness of the lake.

Underwater, the creature was remarkably fast. At least, that was how the currents made Valentin feel as they descended deeper and deeper into the obscurity of pitch black. Holding on with the wish to never lose Alexander again, Valya eventually closed his eyes, which were stinging and increasingly useless with the lack of light.

Minutes later, Valentin had lost track of how far they had gone or where they might even be anymore. Yet, he did want to see the world that “Alexander” was taking him to. Just as he was reaching for his wand to cast a lighting charm, however, the body beneath him twisted around below. Valentin couldn’t really see what was happening, but suddenly he felt the bite of incisors tearing across his neck.

Gasping through the gillyweed, Valentin reflexively reached for his wound with his right hand, confused. This opened him up for a second searing pain across his midsection, however, and his left hand began to grasp around in front of him with the need to sense his environment. He was not yet ambidextrous enough to rely on either hand for casting, but the sharp edge of a hoof cleaved through the flesh of three of his off hand’s fingers. The immediate loss of warmth let him know that he was bleeding now at three locations, and with his right hand the captain reached for his wand again, only to be knocked away by another slashing hooved attack.

A mass of flesh bashed against him as Valentin felt the creature pushing him into the squishy lake bottom. It was gooey and slick, but soon the thing had wrapped around his legs and pinned him down as its toothy maw made another attempt at his stomach. In a desperate grab, Valentin thrust his left hand up but was only able to pull out strands of the monster’s mane. With his right hand he finally grasped his wand, but before he could attempt to mouth a spell, a hoove stepped down into its palm, shattering the bones in his hand and forcing his grip loose. The next several moments passed with the beast whipping the boy’s body around in a ravenous frenzy, eventually slicing through the band that kept the broom tied to his back. It sank to the lake bottom, but its loss was the least of Valentin’s problems now.

Deprived of both the Silver Arrow and his wand in utter darkness, Valentin realized that he would surely die. The boy twisted around and tried to find his wand by touch alone, grasping through the viscous silt of the lake bottom, but no familiar wooden texture came to him. Maybe this wasn’t Alexander after all. Maybe it was, and this was his true nature. Regardless, had Valentin not made a terrible mistake? If he didn’t survive this, then he might never find out…

Permission for creature use was granted by Sabine Blumenthal

To be continued...

0:01 January 1st, 2024

Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood was rarely seen outside of Hogwarts’s wildest lands except in class or duelling. Practically a resident of the Great Lakes, the wix had long established relations with merfolk who inhabited the lake and attained fluency in the Mermish language. Seeing and knowing what fellow albino Valentin Schnell was getting himself into, Aida did the only thing that could possibly help the foreigner in time. Submersing into the lake long enough to call out in mermish, Aida asked their underwater friends to save him – save the stupid boy who couldn’t tell a kelpie from a farmhouse foal.

Luckily, the white wix of the woods had done enough for inhabitants of the Great Lake before that human favors could be repaid today, when a favorite Durmstrang athlete decided to throw himself at a ravenous beast on Aida’s own birthday. It was the usual pattern, really. It started on the first year of Valentin’s “Christmas Curse” when forces beyond his control stole his parents away. Thereafter it became almost a tradition for Valentin to come bemoaning his fate to Aida on the Ravenclaw’s New Year’s birthday, just like it was tradition for him afterwards to say he never wanted to impose in such a way again. Yet, nothing could seem to halt the annual tragedies that befell him and whomever he called family.

As native creatures of the lake, it was the merpeople who were the first to arrive at the scene. Seven feet long each, two male and two female merfolk with various shades of green hair began to swim towards Valentin from the opposite side of Black Lake. Meanwhile, Aida took the long run around the shore’s perimeter. Though the duellist was now dripping and cold, minor discomfort could hardly compare with the urgency of saving the life of a friend.

By the time Aida was close enough to jump into the water, a great deal of commotion was sending bubbles to the surface. It took a couple of minutes to dive down to Valentin’s level, but Aida was not in need of an illumination spell due to Blindvision. No, just as Valentin was attuned to the slightest change of weather in the sky, Aida’s natural domain was the world of water. Each current and ripple broadcast the scene to the wix as clearly as echolocation to a bat.

Valentin lay at the bottom of the lake, crushed down by a flaxen-haired kelpie’s grasp of his lower half. Despite the protests of the merpeople, however, the beast had no particular reason to give up his dinner. Feasting upon the flesh of the foolish human who had dared to mount its back, the kelpie was simply following the lifestyle it had always known. The water tasted of blood through Aida’s own gillyweed, further sending cues about the severity of the boy’s condition. Based on the amount of thrashing, he was probably still alive. For now.

The warped underwater sound of thrown coils came next as the merpeople attempted to lasso the writhing beast with cordage woven from benthic vegetation. Yet, such a task was not simple even for native folk. The kelpie unwrapped itself from the boy’s legs and ducked, grasping a chunk of Valentin's body with its teeth as it hastily began to swim away. How rude it was to interfere! Just wanting to finish its meal in peace, the kelpie ignored the attempts to subdue it. Too strong, though, were the friendships Aida built over years of advocating for the merfolk’s local interests. They would not give up easily.

The darkest skinned of the mermen had flowing lime-green hair and, despite failing his lasso several times, was the most ardent of the group’s possible saviors. Just before the kelpie could vanish from range with the ruined seeker in tow between its teeth, this merman’s lasso landed true. Once one loop coiled around the beast’s neck it was simpler for others to follow, binding around the creature’s razor-sharp serrated hooves.

With the kelpie now held in place by all four merpeople, Aida was able to complete the necessary sequence. The wix took a leather bridle from the pouch hanging at their side, for this was not their first rodeo. No, not only was Aida an expert at above-ground horsemanship, but they were also an aspiring magizoologist. This was not the Ravenclaw’s first kelpie, nor would it be the last.

Carefully making sure to not get bitten, Aida secured the bridle around the nose of the kelpie and secured it with a clean tug of a trailing lead. Still, it was not Aida’s way to coerce magical beasts. If anything, the wix’s wild heart rejected such methods on a fundamental level. Pulling the creature’s head to the side, the Ravenclaw simply pried Valentin from its bite before handing the lead off to one of the mermaids.

Valentin limply began to sink, barely conscious, and yet his arms reached upwards as if seeking the touch of what was now departing. To him, there remained either death in the frigid void or a few more moments serving the voracity of the living… and he would rather be consumed than die alone.

To be continued...

Within the darkness, deep inside the lake’s most bone-chilling depths, Valentin could still feel. He wasn’t dead, and in fact, someone – or something – still needed him. Alexander still had use for him. In his vicious way, “Alex” even loved him after all this time. Certainly Val felt like nothing more than a physical tool, a tightly bound sack of flesh, a lean morsel to satisfy one animalic hunger, and yet Val was still wanted. Alexander hadn’t abandoned him after all. Even after the loss of Val’s parents and each romantic prospect one after the other, he was not alone, not yet. He still had something to give and the creature was more than happy to take from him.

Being devoured alive was, naturally, excruciatingly painful. Even the hag slugs inside Valentin froze in terror, unwilling to risk exposing themselves to a hostile environment. It wasn’t that the boy didn’t want to live, though. Certainly he did, but at this point he was trying to strategize how best to use his final moments before his last breath was taken away against his will.

Not knowing how much of his own body still existed within the pitch black, Valentin reached out with what he thought were still his hands. He could grasp and feel the creature’s mane shifting about as it fed upon him, but he did not have enough strength to stop it. All he could think to do was wriggle in a pathetic attempt to slip away. Ironically, it wasn’t that Val didn’t want to give of himself to this being that hungered for him. Yet, this was not all that he was – an attractive slab of meat. This was not all he could be, apparently tasty but lasting only for as long as he could serve this thing’s appetite. Even if Alexander was some kind of water horse, there was surely a higher good Valentin could fulfill for him instead of dying now.

There was some sort of movement nearby, but the seeker couldn’t see any of it. All he knew was that he began to be jerked around. Left and right and then upwards, Val’s body left the lakebed as the kelpie’s teeth dragged him along. A moment later he was falling and then, after a few seconds of sinking, he hit the bottom once more as if waited down by stones within.

Screaming unintelligibly through the gillyweed, Valentin protested this fate. He did not want to die here in the lake-bottom muck, discarded, especially not without being consumed to his very last inch. If he was to perish for such a basic need then he at least refused for any part of himself to go to waste. Delirious and entering shock while physiologically lacking the ability to swim away, the most Valentin could do was allow his arms to drift upwards towards the beast that had at least had held him in the embrace of its tail and jaws. The boy wanted to cry, but what good were tears down here anyway? Valentin’s final attempts to scream, however, would become his undoing.

The gillyweed that once held fast with water tension against Valentin’s lips slipped down and fell, disappearing into the all-consuming darkness. Managing to hold his breath for less than a minute under his weakened state, the champion began to feel his consciousness slipping away with waves of lightheadedness pulling him away like a tide. Knowing this could be his final moment, Valentin thought back on what his death would leave behind. The face of a delightful boy on the edge of Durmstrang’s lake came to mind. Val was supposed to adopt him – darling Nikolai was supposed to join him at the Estate and become a part of his family. Yes, and back at Durmstrang there was still Romeo, as a friend, and his team, and… they would never have a drop more of Valentin if he up and died here, sacrificed to the basest needs of aquatic wildlife. No, it didn’t seem fair for Alexander to deprive the world of the greater good Valentin could provide. Maybe Sergei was right after all. Maybe that gods-damned butler was right all along. Yet, it was too late. The brackish taste of icy water began to fill Valentin up through the crack of his mouth as his spasming lungs sucked it in with the uncontrollable urge to expand. As much as Valentin wanted to swim, he could no longer get his limbs to move. The blood loss proved too severe, and only the thrill of clinging to the last threads of life was holding him to consciousness.

Suddenly, two arms wrapped around Valentin, causing him to gasp. With the force of a rocket something pulled him out of the silty mud and began to swim away with him. Its power was incredible. There were arms, yes, moderately muscular, but they didn’t feel human. Slick, finned, and even springier than human flesh, some other creature had apparently adopted him. If he could sigh, Valentin would have exhaled with relief. Perhaps he would die now, but he had some purpose again. He wasn’t alone anymore. Finally slipping into unconsciousness, Valentin stopped breathing.

--

It wasn’t the shock of being thrust onto the shore that opened Val’s amethyst eyes. Rather, it was the feeling of a mouth on his that made him come around. Light began to seep in through his eyelids as they cracked open to reveal some dark-skinned merman in the process of sucking the water out of Valentin’s lungs. With a flashback to years ago when it had been a wolf, no, Romeo in a similar but reverse position, Valya felt his heart collapse in on itself. Yet, he was alive. Inhaling with a rattling gasp, Valentin blinked over and over again. Who was this, even?

Beginning to breathe again more or less normally, Valentin didn’t have the strength to do anything more than stare back up at the figure blotting out a silhouette-shaped set of stars from the sky. The chill of the 1 AM air bit at his wounds with sickeningly sweet, sharp pain, but he was happy to feel it. The sensation meant that he was alive, at least for a moment more. Perhaps he would bleed out now, but he was facing the heavens again. The merman smiled coyly before pressing himself up and away, disappearing back into the lake as if he had stolen something.

Like a conspiracy to save him, someone else came next. Aida. The long-haired wix emerged from the lake like a spirit and descended upon Valya’s gravest wounds, pressing wand and healing plants to each one until his bleeding was finally contained. Blinking was as much as the white-eyelashed boy could manage in response. He thought he should have been grateful, but the last of his feelings had already vanished. Perhaps that was what the merman had taken away.

“You’re a’right, Val. I’ve git ye now.” The Scot’s accent only ever seemed to come out during the difficult times, Val observed. As fragile and naked as a babe again, the champion lay there defenseless. Aida cast a hot air charm and began wrapping the boy up in a Ravenclaw wool cardigan, sighing and shaking their head. His dry, clean clothes lay on the opposite side of the lake where he’d left them, less his trunks that had not survived the attack. “Silly laddie. Didn’t someone ever tell ye about kelpies? If nae them, then th’ rusalka, th’ nixies, the… och bah, don’t worry about it now. Rest yersel’.”

Accepting the words, Valentin closed his violet eyes. There was pain. There was so much pain, and yet, something had ended. Yes, the year had ended. A new one was upon them. He didn’t have the presence of mind to remember that it was Aida’s birthday. All he could feel was looming unseen forces waiting for him to dare reopening his eyes. He had no ‘thank you’ and no more tears. Only days ago on the shore of Durmstrang’s greatest lake, he’d met another blonde boy. He’d welcomed him, too, opening his arms and his home and his heart without question. Would Nikolai be the next to shatter him? Would the young Vol’kov be the one to finally succeed at ending the colddrake’s tale and slay the last of the monsters’ line?

Maybe, or maybe he would just leave him alone after all. There was an undeniable pattern here. Just as Val had offered himself to Romeo only to find heartbreak time and again, just as Ginyami discarded him, just as Alexander could not even be bothered to finish him off, the seeker never seemed to learn his lesson. Shivering against the bone-chilling wind, Valentin tried to find a justification to favor his own life above all. Yet, reliving the memory of warmth in his arms, of kisses upon his skin, he just couldn’t do it. The weight of the world burdened the rise and fall of his chest, and yet, he still loved the torment of it all.

In a wordless prayer, Valentin wished for someone to finally grant his own heart’s desire. High above, a shooting star streaked across the glittering dome of the black sky. It was gone even quicker than the life of an insect. Yet, there was a magic to it. Valentin sent his dream away with the dissolving meteorite, hoping that Stribog would cast it into a favorable wind. Then, exhausted, the boy finally succumbed to the nothingness of dreamless sleep. At least now he could stop looking for Alexander.

To be continued...

7:01 October 19th, 2024

It was an early October morning, almost a year since Valentin had last gathered the conviction to visit Black Lake. A lot had happened, most recently including an attack that killed off Durmstrang’s headmistress and many others from several wizarding schools. Valya barely dared leave Nikolai’s side, but he knew that if he didn’t go now then he wouldn’t have the strength to attend the ball later that evening. Laying a kiss to the boy’s head before slipping out the door of their cabin, Valentin took to his Oakshaft 79 and sped away. Soaring through the pre-dawn fog up to the most haunting crag of the Great Lake’s rim, Valentin dismounted and began looking around for the albino he was supposed to meet there.

It took only a minute before Aida poked out from the treeline to greet the boy. For as cheerful as the wix was trying to be, however, Valentin returned their indigo gaze with a stare heavy with strain and despair. The thin Ravenclaw was substantially shorter than Val, but Aida’s hugs were always sincere. Holding him there for a lingering moment and resting a cheek against his shoulder, the enby sighed. Pulling away only to press a satchel filled with food into the boy’s hands, Aida gave Val “the Look.” Nodding, Valentin didn’t need to hear the lecture. He had come here, after all, for the usual rations he’d come to depend on. Never eating the food at Hogwarts after receiving Aida’s warning, the seeker primarily ate whatever the wix supplied at the beginning of a visit. He had been a few days late following the events at Hogsmeade, but still he came, even despite the location.

“Thank you,” the champion said, but his words felt as hollowed out as a dead tree full of woodpecker holes.

“Yeah!” Such minimal discourse was typical for the pair, as if they could already feel what lay unspoken behind only a handful of syllables.

Valentin turned to face the lake, taking a deep breath as he recalled the time he had almost died here from the seduction of a kelpie. Aida simply nodded. After it was all over, the wix went to lengths to smooth things over further with the merpeople who ultimately agreed to relocate that particular colt to another loch.

“I’m still waiting to hear your wish, you know.”

“One day.”

Aida too began to watch the surface of the lake and, before Valentin could understand why, the Ravenclaw turned to approach the water’s edge. Then, with the subtle sound of an underwater wave, Valentin noticed movement. Something dimly silver emerged a few meters away from the shore, thin and covered in red and green aquatic vegetation. A dark webbed hand held it up in the air – Valentin’s old Silver Arrow.

Blushing, everything came rushing back to the seeker’s memory. The broom’s handle dripped from long tendrils of plants that, upon closer observation, had small white flowers. Aida recognized them as similar to the exotic Barclaya longifolia, but all Valentin knew was that it was strange to see what were apparently flowers from underwater.

“Well, go on then,” encouraged Aida, a bit chiding. Valentin looked between his friend and the broom, stalling as his instincts warned him not to go back into the water. His trauma, heightened by recent events in Hogsmeade, screamed for him not to go. No broom was worth dying for when Nikolai still needed him, even one as sentimental as this.

“Ugh, just take this, okay?!” Pressing a new sprig of gillyweed into Valentin’s hand, Aida rolled their sea-lavender eyes. “It’s fine.”

Wincing, the seeker knew he would come to hate himself if he didn’t face his fear. Nodding once as he convinced himself to go, he undid his leather boots and kicked them off before wading into the obsidian-textured waters of green and black. He slipped the gillyweed into his mouth just before going so far that he would have to swim to keep his head above water. The broom was still out of reach, however, and so he ducked his head just below the surface to look around.

Filling with water, Valentin’s ears began to hurt from the sudden cold, and yet the pain fell from his awareness once he heard an otherworldly melody greeting him in a language he couldn’t understand. It was almost like a dirge, like a song of keening, and yet it had an almost optimistic feel. Unlike anything he’d heard before, he could not even compare it to the songs of his ancestors.

The seeker’s eyes finally adjusted to the dim of their new environment and he began to make out the shape of the merman before him who was singing. Certainly the lake’s domain was not Valentin’s, but rather, the strongsuit of one such as this creature. Should he approach, the seeker could easily be killed for his greed. Hadn’t he learned his lesson? Hadn’t he? As the mysterious singing shifted into a new key, Valentin felt his heart ache. This individual had kept the broom for all this time and remembered. Now the merman lowered the Silver Arrow under the water and extended it out towards its original owner. Considering how long it had been underwater, the broom still looked like it had been kept with dignity. It was even wrapped with strange-but-lovely garlands. While Valentin was in no position to speak, he wouldn’t have found the words anyway. A twist in his heart swelled with a feeling braver than respect, deeper than gratitude, and more innocent than wonder. There was a whole society down here while surface-dwellers went about their chaotic lives. He couldn’t even begin to fathom what kinds of thoughts this merman was capable of, let alone how to properly thank him and his people.

Pushing off the submerged bank, Valentin swam forward, no longer caring about the danger. The song changed to another one, a happier one, even though the captain couldn’t understand a word. Once he was less than a meter away, Valentin reached out with both hands and bowed his head. Perhaps he would not be understood, he thought. Maybe nodding was similar to how the kelpie had bowed its head before it took him away for a watery grave. Yet, despite the tension in Valya’s heart, the person in front of him did not draw the spear from his back. Peacefully transferring the broom back into Val’s hands, the merman even seemed to be smiling, in a way. Far from beautiful by human standards, or perhaps even repulsive to an expectant eye, the creature’s face still had a peace about it that set Valentin at ease. In his own bizarre way, decorated with vegetation and snail shells, the merman was stunning.

Valentin lowered the broom to his left side as he slowly trod water to stay in position. Eventually the song ended and the murky silence of the lake resumed with an unnerving resemblance to the day the boy had almost died here. Even Misha had almost died here. Yet, this was not simply a cursed lake. There was so much more to this place than Val could expect to ever understand. Putting his hand over his chest in an attempt to signal his gratitude, Valentin nodded once more. Every second under water felt like tempting Death to try again, and although something inside him revelled in the thrill of this, a nagging voice at the back of his head demanded that he pull away and return to Nikolai’s side. Val hadn’t even left a note. He thought he was just going to pick up rations from Aida, and now, here he was staring into the dark eyes of a mysterious merman who could surely kill him if Val simply made the wrong move.

The seeker began to swim away then, only for his eyes to shoot open wider when the merman grasped him by his right arm, preventing him from leaving. Should he resist? Should he freeze? Cursing himself for the depths of his ignorance, Valentin wished he had been trained on how to properly interact with merfolk. The very dark bluish grey marbling of the man’s webbed hand squeezed, then pulled Valentin closer – close enough to grab the seeker’s empty right hand. Before he knew it, the albino’s palm was filled with something new, no, old – a wand, his previous wand, which he’d lost during his struggle against the kelpie. The merman’s hand lingered as he pressed the seeker’s delicate fingers into a better grip. An indescribable look passed across the merman’s shadowy face, communicating some kind of pain, but even one as intuitive as the captain could not understand why. Then, with a flick of his tail, the man darted away as quick as a swordfish. In only two seconds he completely disappeared from view, obscured by the columns of dim cloudy light from early morning trickling in from above.

Valentin swam back to the surface and found Aida waiting with their own wand at the ready. Drying him immediately with a gust of hot air, the wix was smirking like a jackal that knew far too much. The mischief was positively wafting off the Ravenclaw, which only served to irritate the Durmstrang boy.

“What??”

“…. Sae did ye winch him?”

“Huh?” Although Valentin’s English was quite strong, his grasp of the Scottish dialect was far from perfect.

“DID YOU KISS HIM?!” Hands on each hip, the pouting white wix stared at the champion expectantly.

“Wha – huh? No, why? What are you talking about??” Blushing and alarmed, Valentin looked over the items he’d retrieved with suspicion. “Why would I … do that?”

“Are ye blind, seeker? He’s in love wi’ ye!”

Dropping both the broom and the wand to the ground, Valentin’s mouth dropped open.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“UGH, you dinnae even deserve what ye’v got.” Aida shook their head with disgust as Val shook his head back in disbelief. “He’s always asking how you are. I have to keep telling him ye live far away and I just don’t know.”

“What did I ever do? I fall for some water horse’s trap like a damned fool and almost die, and this is somehow…? On what planet…”

“No, from before that even. When you played music on the edge of the lake. He loved you ever since. Didn’t you hear his songs? He wanted to impress you, too. He’s worried, ye know, after I explained about the bombing.” As disappointment overshadowed Aida’s initial excitement, the accent fell from the wix’s voice. “Anyway, don’t worry about it. I’ll talk with him. It’s about time for you to eat breakfast. You know. Eating.”

Valentin shook his head, grimacing. This was not how he thought this day was going to go. Looking back over the unmarred plane of the water, as still as the sheen of a mirror, the seeker sighed.

“Look, I… I’m already feeling bad that I don’t know how to pay him back, all of them, for what they did for me. What do I do? I don’t even understand their culture.”

Aida stooped to pick up the wand from where it fell at Valentin’s feet.

“Let him keep this.”

“Can he even use that? Can they cast magic…?”

“No, but that’s exactly what makes your wand – and you – cool. You can even fly. They can’t do that. If you really want to pay them back, come back and play them some music, alright? It’s the universal language.”

Sheepishly nodding, Valentin compelled himself to accept the unexpected responsibility. He was already uncomfortable returning to the place where he’d almost been devoured, where he’d met Alexander, where he still had nightmares of losing Misha. Yet, the White Niffler never left a debt unpaid. If anything, he would like to repay such a selfless favor several times over.

“Alright, take it. Thanks… Er… Yeah, thanks. Just don’t give that guy the wrong impression, okay?”

Aida’s eyes narrowed to slits that curled up at their corners as their smile almost seemed to laugh like a silent hyena. Sighing, Valentin knew to expect the worst. For today, at least, he could go back to the comfort of Nikolai and the cabin. With a pain like aching for home, Val picked up the lightning-scarred Silver Arrow and gripped it tightly within a fist.

“Until next time, Рыбка Russian: little fish. I’ll be waiting for that owl where you finally ask me for something, too.”

“Don’t be a stranger.”

With a scoffing laugh, Aida kicked Valentin in the butt to get him moving along. The whole day was ahead of them yet.

End of Thread

Mentioning: @Matthew Campbell as Nikolai Vol'ka