Shoved Upon the Steps

[codemarshank]

The young boy, robed in black, stood, trembling, outside the academy, facing the opposite direction. Hoofbeats could be heard receeding into the distance. With one hand, he tightly gripped his staff. His other hand danced in random patterns as a woman stepped from behind a bush. The boy had seen the woman many times before. "Mommy!" He cried out. "Take me home mommy! I don\'t want to be here!" But he knew it was in vain. The woman smiled at him as she approached. Her arms spread wide, she moved to embrace him. But she moved right through him. A tear rolled down his cheek as his hand went still at his side. The illusion dissapeared behind him. For years, he had comforted himself with this magick he\'d taught himself to do. For years, he\'d found peace. But now, not even this imaginary figure of his mother he\'d never met, the mother who had abandoned him, not even this gave him any comfort as he found himself abandoned once again, by his closest friend.

He had thought she, yes, at least she loved him. But no, not even Nina. Nina, who had protected him from the older boys, who had made sure he got fed, who had taught him more magick, secretly in the night. Now she too had abandoned him, left him on the doorstep of this place without so much as introducing him to someone. The tear on his cheek was joined by another, and a third. But they stoped there, stopped at three. He was ten now, too old to cry. He had to be a big boy, had to make it through. Turning to face the academy, he raised his hand to knock, but couldn\'t bring himself to. He collapsed on the steps, crying and suddenly not caring. He was all alone, lost in a world that didn\'t love him. Why? Why had fate, destiny, God, whatever they called it, why had it abandoned him, left him like this?

[Malkavian Riddler]

He was on the grounds, an old man dressed in a loose fitting dark red shirt and tailored black pants, with boots designed for walking. Dressed as he was, he was lost in the camoflage of rose bushes that wended their way along the crooked path to one side of the Academy building. He received a light burning/prickling upon his chest and it was this sensation that told him that someone was using a form of magicks. Disliking the fact that it was being practised at a time undesignated and caught by surprise by it, Graille moved cautiously to a place where he could peer in the direction where instinct told him a person stood. Perhaps it was the light shuffle of footsteps on stone carried by the wind, or a smell that didn\'t blend in, whatever it was he\'d mastered the ability to read the air and listen to abnormal sounds enough to know when a body was close by. He was already on his way before the sobbing began.

This body happened to be a child deposited on the stairs. A not so common occurence considering the Academy was upon the island, but a great deal more happenstance than most Grand Masters would\'ve liked - such as himself, of the House Cruori. A boy, a frail, petite little boy with potential, depending on what his inherent nature was. Considering the child was weeping, it was already against his favour for joining the House of Cruori. Only the strong-willed had the honour of such.

There would be no patrolling security to see this child and take him in for a good hour or so, since the perimeter was often the most checked and this child was at the doors without weapons or malintent. Such things could be sensed by the other Masters, of impending danger, for what good was an Academy of Assassins that couldn\'t protect its own self?

He moved silently until he was close to the weeping child, looking sternly down at the withering boy at his feet before prodding him with the toe of his boot, upon his thigh.

"Get up boy and wipe your eyes," he ordered with a low growl to his voice, watching the child with a hardened expression, guaging where best to deposit the boy. He would prefer not to strengthen the House of Veneficus, show of magicks or not, because he mistrusted those that mistrusted him. Another House then, but who would want a withering child? Purificio, Erudito or Confuto were possible, but not Libramen, not if this child could cast magicks - he had to be properly trained, by a House that would know what to do with him.