THINGS THAT SCARE ME | OPEN

Swooping lines played across the paper with each stroke of his pen, the symbols arching and curving in time with each of his drawn breaths. Medwin always had found calligraphy to be rewarding, if a rather tedious and repetitive art form to master.

It was all too easy for him to become utterly lost in the art, engrossed with each word that was strung from his pen. There was an almost ritualistic method to calligraphy, from the dip of his pen to the way the ink spread across the page. It was a precise art, but not one without whimsy. Medwin often found it to be therapeutic, even relaxing, despite the words others had used to describe the work. Calligraphy prevented his scattered thoughts from racing, concocting situations he had no desire to visit.

The silence of the library offered him a sanctuary in which to practice his craft. Although the apprentice compounds provided similar study spaces, it was rare to find them void of others. Even the quiet chatter from his peers had the ability to remove his focus from the moment, shattering his concentration. Home was no better in that regard, still occupied as it was by his younger twin sisters. Though his loved them dearly, they were a little too curious about his calligraphy materials; the last time he had brought them home had resulted in an unfortunate incident in which a good deal of both his sisters and their blankets had ended up a dyed a deep, inky black. His parents had been less than thrilled about the result.

Medwin felt the corner of his mouth twitch upwards at the memory, his pen still passing steadily over his page. No, it was much easier to seek out places like here, where he could focus solely on the content of his apprenticeship. Time was drawing on, however, and it was difficult to tell how long he had been there. It seemed reasonable to assume it had been long enough, if the layers of dried practice paper to his right was any indication. He had other duties to attend to, and it would not due to be late.

Gathering up his belongings into a neat bundle, Medwin lifted them from his desk and brought them close to his chest as he balanced the set between his teke and bags. Careful not to spill the ink pot, Medwin inched away from the spot he had carved out for himself in the corner of the library, beginning to make his way across to the exit.

His own hooves betrayed him as he strode across the library floor, catching on one another in a manner that sent him stumbling to the ground. The scrolls and pens clutched close to his chest were unceremoniously thrown from his grasp, scattering across the tiled floor in a haphazard pattern. It was with horror Medwin watched as his final piece of equipment, the calligraphy ink, flew from the grasp of his silvery blue teke, only to splatter across a nearby table occupied by another patron of the library.

For a long moment he could do nothing, muscles frozen into place with terror as he watched the black ink ooze across the wooden surface; no doubt permanently staining the desk and just about anything else it came to contact with. It was the ink reaching the corner of one the ornate volumes stacked on the table that spurred him into action, snatching a rag from the ground and leaping towards the table.

"I'm so sorry," Medwin managed to stammer out as he desperately began to blot at the ink with the cloth. Several books were sent sliding off the table from his meager attempts at slowing the spreading ink, his teke reaching out to lift the lower volumes from harm's way.