---Northeastern Urth---
Sitting on the damp, barren floor, he pulled his thin jacket tighter around himself. The cold wind from the north blew again. His sore body remembered this biting cold; it was the same as the winter he was taken away. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
The cold wind shook his body and sharpened his senses. Raising his head, he looked over the top of the gray tower, a place that had become his home for... he didn't know how long he had been here.
What he saw was a wide floor, sprinkled with mighty pillars and broken walls. Where rough, gray stone had withered away, it exposed dirty red strings that bled a rusty color. They also jutted out at the edges of the small cover he had, where he found shelter beside the Hawks and the Mucks.
On the other sides of the tower were only mutilated pillars and gaping windows. No shelter, no warmth, only the endlessly deep precipice, always luring with the freedom of the land at the foot of the tower. He could see the ruins, the green meadows, the forest, and the small mountains in the north sprawled out below his feet, but far out of his grasp.
Another bout of wind struck his face. It was biting, but also welcome. It brought memories and hope. The wind from the north... it was his only way to tell the change of time. Not even day and night could be trusted in this place. He couldn't say how long it had been between them, but this was the third time he felt the winds.
He had been here for three winds....The others said that wasn't long, but it felt like an eternity to him. The loose clothes his mother had sewn for him to grow into had come to fit him snugly. He started losing the memory of his parents.
The face of his mother he could barely remember, and from his father, he only remembered his warm smile. A smile so warm it would have singed him in this place. It must have been a long time; he refused to believe that he would forget them so quickly.
Yet, everything was turning blurry with time. The smile of his father, the embrace of his mother, was starting to get replaced by the memories of Father. Father was the master of this tower. He had "saved " him and brought him here. Father told him to call him Father.
His stomach let out a protesting growl, interrupting his thoughts. The cold air filled his lungs. With a scratching that echoed in the small, sheltered part of the tower's top floor, he got off the concrete floor. Slightly wobbly on his feet, he walked over to the set of cages.
The hawks and the mucks, the food and pets of Father. His food and pets... The hawks were pretty gray birds with sharp golden eyes. They would lay eggs every day, for him and Father to eat. The mucks were quirky fur snakes with four legs. They were more fun to play with, but their eggs were not as tasty.
Still, he took one of each egg. They burst in his mouth, the yolk flooding his tongue. The shell was hard and crunchy, but the only thing with some taste. When the yolk and shells were in his stomach and only their aftertaste lingered, the knowledge hit him again.
This was why he didn't like eating them together, but Father insisted that he had to. It was important for young gentlemen to learn a wealth of knowledge and a proper trade. In the beginning, his head would constantly hurt, as he endured the feeling of bugs crawling through his mind to deposit knowledge and memories he had no connection to.
However, now, it only took a few minutes now. He had talked with the other boy on the floor below, and apparently, everyone learned the same, except for the trade, which was unique to everyone. He heard that on the floors below, people had become chefs or carpenters, bakers or tailors.
As his own knowledge grew, he came to agree with Father. A wealth of knowledge was important. Especially when he wanted to ever escape this place. With their ordinary trades, others had little hope of escaping the fate of the lowest floor. They had to believe, but he was different.
He had learned the craft of alchemists, and he felt like this also sharpened his mind. The others believed Father. The story that he had saved them, that he taught them a craft to master. That he would release them once they were old enough to survive in the world.
Father had asked him what profession he had gotten, and despite being small, he had already lied. Father was a being emanating warmth and love at any moment, but after the first headaches, he could no longer convince him. He felt the facade was fake. He was convinced of it, back then and now.
Despite no longer being hungry, he ate another pair of Hawk and Muck eggs, enduring the terrible headache again. He needed all the knowledge and skill he could get. He had to proceed with his plan before the Father saved the next child.
The reason was simple: Father also stayed here. On a pedestal at the end of a thin stairwell was Father's nest, where he slept. If he wanted to escape, he needed to have access to this place. He would no longer be able to come up here once he moved to a lower floor.
When the knowledge settled in, he stabbed in the gap between pillars, where the wind was blowing.
He needed to use this chance while Father was still on his patrol. Minuscule amounts of mana connected his small fingers as he gathered the essence of the North Wind.
This was it, with this dose, he would finally have enough to act. He places the dust of the North Wind he just collected in a small bottle he had fashioned from one of the hawk eggs. He now had the essence of the North Wind, the Essence of the summer breeze, and some other dusts he managed to identify and collect in this ruin, thanks to the knowledge he received.
He heard the flap of massive wings and hurriedly put the egg bottle back in his ragged jacket. Father's crimson wing glistened in the sun as he circled around the tower, before rising up and landing at the top, close by.
Wings turned into red sleeves, claws to black shoes, a sharp avian face into the sharp handsome face of father, who now stood before him in his black and red suit, giving him a bright smile.
"You are up already? Well done. Waking up early is the proper way. Here, I brought you something to read. You liked reading, right?" he asked his friend, offering him a thick, slightly worn book. It looked like a novel.
With wide excitedly eyes, he happily accepted the book, thanking the Father Bird profusely, as a he would have if he didn't suspect Father. He did indeed like reading ever since... Right, ever since he was not with his mother anymore. Looking at the book, he felt like he and his mother had read one from the same author. At least the picture looked similar.
He accepted the book and read it to kill time, waiting for his chance when Father left again. Father left, going down the stairs to tend to the other boy held in the tower, but he wouldn't stay for long. He never stayed for long during the day, a few hours at most.
Reading the book, he almost missed the moment when Father flew away again. He gave the book a list wistful look, before setting it aside and taking it upon himself to climb the taboo stairs. Right in the beginning, Father had told him the rules.
One was that he could only climb the stairs if Father was there, and it had to be an emergency. Well, his survival was an emergency, right? He climbed the stairs and quickly reached the nest atop the stairs.
When he reached it, his eyes were glued to the three small objects waiting for him there. Three small eggs with fiery red and black patterns, no bigger than the eggs of the hawks and mucks. Looking at them, his mouth suddenly watered.
Father's eggs. He didn't know where this desire came from, but it was like an instinct that told him that he had to eat these. His plan changed slightly, and he started poking small holes into the bottom of the eggs. He used a small piece of wire he had found up here, and also used to make his egg bottles.
He was able to control his movement until the hole was made. But he stopped moving with a conscious thought the moment he saw a drop of liquid spilling from the eggs. He didn't want to give in to the intrusive thought. He wanted to blow the egg!
But now his lips touched the eggshell, and he started sucking out the interior. While his mind was screaming in disgust to stop, a terrible-tasting liquid and solid chunks of the horrible innards traveled down his throat.
He had tears in his eyes and wanted to throw up. He had just consumed the young of Father, but his body vehemently denied him the liberation of emptying his stomach. On the contrary, as if driven by an addiction, he switched to the next egg. Drill a hole, drink it. Drill a hole, drink it. In a matter of moments, he ate all three eggs.
Quivering all over, he felt a terrible heat rise in his body as a tremendous power washed through him. The little mana he was able to move in his body turned to a flood that drowned out all thoughts.
By the time his consciousness returned, he found himself in the same spot. He didn't know how much time had passed. In a panic, he started preparing the eggs for his trap when he noticed his hand had become much smaller. His clothes had also become loose again.
"Oh no!" he whispered, shocked. Father was going to know immediately that something was wrong. Father couldn't see him like this. he moved as fast as he could, filling the alchemical compound into the three hollow eggs.
When he wanted to connect them with the mana fuse, a technique that had taken a long time to master, he found another change in his body. He suddenly had immense amounts of mana. Where he had only a puddle before, there was now an ocean of unfathomable size.
He could barely control enough of his own mana to set the trap and return to his little place beside the cages below. He used the thin blanket and book to hide as much of himself as possible. Then he waited for Father to return.
When Father returned for the night and sat in his nest, he would trigger the booby trapped eggs, filled with a compound primarily consisting of Northern Winds and a little Summer Breeze. He had tested it, and he was convinced it would freeze Father. Then he could steal the keys for the door to the lower floors and escape!
He lay in wait for a while, trying to finish the book before he escaped. The night came. Suddenly, he heard the flapping of big wings. Father returned. He tensed up. It was time.
"Good night, Son."