Nothing Sacred - Rp Retelling

[ChainedDragons 1374]

Spoiler

 

OOC: it's about time I had some forum stuff for Nickolai; but I digress. This is some rp that went down in the Callaghan house hold and I wanted to put my creative spin on Nickolai's perspective. Full perms have been given for the dialogue and please, ensure no META. This was written for entertainment purposes. Enjoy.

 

Nothing Sacred

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Nickolai had returned from his search with Roran to his room. They were going to work on making more placards of his emblem.. that was till something out of place caught the teens eye. Or rather something missing. The cursed child stared at the empty place on the shelf, noting his books were out of order. Tentative hands reached up into the space to put books back in their place only to find the most important one... missing.

Where was his song book?

"W...what?"

Nickolai's clawed fingers pulled all the books out again, inspecting their binds to find their titles. Surely it was still here. It had to be! It couldn't be...

"Where is it? W-where is eam song book?"

Roran steps further into the bedroom a frown on his face.

"Yer song book?"

"It was on the shelf. I...It's niet there!"

His world was beginning to fracture more and more. First the dis-ownment.. the letter...now this. One of, if not the most, prized possession of his was now gone. As if it never existed in the first place. As his father began to search the room for more signs of theft or disruption, the teen stumbles about, looking for any sign - any reasonable explanation as to why the book was taken. Nickolai kicks his desk in frustration as Roran slips back into the room.

"No luck on the book?"

“Nyie..”

He spats bitterly, angry tears running down his face.

“..Literally.. Years…years of eam lifes work.. Gone”

Roran watched the cursed child beginning to ruin his room, throwing papers of meaning into the fireplace and shoving furniture around with the distress of being unable to find his book.

“My boy…I know this is hard.”

He stepped forward and took Nickolai by the shoulder with one hand while the other cupped the teens' cheek.

“My boy, we will figure this out. Deep breaths and let's think about this.”

“This was on purpose! Why only take that book? Why niet the valuables? Why niet the screowls?”

He snarls but it dies into an anguished whimpering as he tried to breath. Roran nodded slowly, doing his own best to keep calm. The fact that someone entered into his home.... His home where not only Nickolai but his newborns sleep alarmed Roran greatly.

“This was targeted.”

He spoke in a calm even tone, 

“Whomever entered here knew ye lived here and even Yasmin herself. Her letters are strewn about as if someone searched through them yet as ye said none of the valuables were taken. I have two sets of daemonsteel armor that they didn't even touch… they were-”

Roran's lips curled into a frown

“They were after ye….”

“Ea want out- ea want out!” 

But what was out? He whimpers, the pressure of the last months of hard choices and harsh words pushing down on him. He begins to clutch at his chest.

“It's niet fair- it's niet fair!”

“Ye are Nickolai, ye are out now, ye are out.”

Roran closed his eyes trying to calm the young man.

“Nickolai, this is exactly what they want, do not give it to them. Think boy, think!”

He opened his eyes to look into Nickolai's own. 

“Why would they do this? Why take something so precious? They want ye to lash out, they want to make ye suffer and hurt and go after them and make a stupid mistake. It was yer work yes…but also it was paper, it was leather….It can be remade. Yer life, yer sanity cannot. Do not give them what they want.”

Nickolai felt violated. Cheated. His sanctuary had been trespassed and his most valuable possession claimed. It was one of the few nice things he ever received from his family. Nickolai gasped, clutching at his chest. It was becoming harder to breath, his vision blurring and heart beating wildly. Roran's eye widened as he quickly recognized the same signs from before in Alba. He quickly knelt down to his son.

“H-hey! Look at me!”

Roran took hold of Nickolai's face

“Nick, look at me!”

His tone quickly turning to one of desperation

“Focus! Focus! Breath! Stop thinking, just look at me and breath!”

Roran took deep breaths, in and out, in and out.

Nickolai wheezes, blinking hard as tears ran down his face. He was trying to take the breaths. Trying to mimic Roran but it was proving difficult. His hands shook, clasping at Roran's own. Strained whimpers fell from the teen as he gritted his teeth, the enamel squeaking.

“Ye are fine…just look at me and focus.”

He did his best to keep his tone calm but panic was evident still.

“It is okay, ye are okay…” 

Roran stroked Nickolai's cheek as he pulled him into a hug

“Papaej is here…I've got ye and nothing else matters right now.”

The 17 year old clung to the knight panting softly as he felt the organ in his chest work against him. This was what his grandfather meant.. Right? Regretting ever being born? This feeling of utter helplessness and anguish. Nickolai's eyes began to blink, his vision growing dark whilst his pulsed raced like rapids. Roran felt Nickolai go slack in his arms as unconsciousness took the teen. If he was not panicked before he certainly could not hide it now.

“Son?” 

Roran pulled back. 

“S-son?”

He looked over Nickolai, the first thought of the teen having just died in his arms. This caused the very definition of anguish to fall upon Roran's face.

“No…” 

His voice was meek and pleading.

“Don't ye go…please…my son.”

Roran could not stop the tears which fell as he cradled what he thought was Nickolai's corpse. Yet like a lightning bolt, he remembered the chest compressions he had seen an imperial guard perform on Nickolai before hand. There was faint glimmer of hope was seen in his eye. He laid Nickolai down onto his back and removed his gauntlet to quickly check for a pulse in the young man's neck. 

“H-hold on my boy…please fight.”

Roran swallowed hard, he was no medic yet he had to make the attempt. He leaned forward and placed one hand over the other upon Nickolai's chest and pushed down upon his ribs, trying to revive the unconscious teen. Roran would push and push, every so often stopping to check Nickolai's pulse before starting his chest compressions once more. His own vision blurred as tears welled up, falling from his eye.

“Come on….Come on damn ye…wake up!”

Nickolai's body laid limply in Roran's arms, only to move with each chest compression. There was a soft pop from each press, likely the sternum clicking from each push to force breathing to take place. Nickolai sputtered, wheezing and gasping for air. He was awake but not exactly lucid. His eyes lulled around, tail curling and uncurling. He was okay. The stress just had been too much. Roran cradled him in his arms, holding the teen close.

"I have ye.. I have ye.. Papaej has ye...everything is going to be fine."

Roran would make sure of that...

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[Frostdrop1 1843]

A book danced over a lofted hand, floating in the dulled confines of their room. Macabre, quiet tones oozed from the pages. It was not far from the covers of the bed the bandaged devil has curled himself on; rather, it was all the meagre energy he had that morning to reach for the trinket and will it to open and play. Even if the sound was uncanny and wrong, it struck a note of similarity. His gaze scanned the ink – and there was familiarity.
 

It was little time before there were sparse drips of tears, yet his gaze never left the page. Even so, it was not tears alone, for a faint smile traced his lips: the first in many years regarding his son. Small, cracked hums echoed along from him. The world was slow, and he could ignore the shifting sounds around and the echoes outside.
 

Upon the end of one tune, the book flitted on to a new song and began the whole thing again. A stray quill, used as a bookmark, slid down the middle and onto the cloth below. These little trinkets were important. They had become memories in themselves of what once was – a reminder of why he did any of it, why he was persisting - for a father left in anguish each day.
 

He did not leave that morning until he had played the song-book the full way through, before resetting the quills exactly to the places they had come from before. And even then, he lingered a while longer in solitude just to hold it close.