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Belonging to Talent was not an easy thing. How could it be? He was not an easy man, and his task was to make Sorin exceptional. To that end, there were Talent's many lessons.
Some lessons were imparted through statement, or question, or conversation. Some were demonstrative, and others implied. Some were straightforward, but most were not. The vast majority were truly useful. It was why Sorin had not run off two years ago, and why they still bothered at all.
There were also games. When it came to Talent's games, the way to win was rarely the outright pursuit of victory as you understood it, and winning might feel very different than you'd expect. Some of these games were simple. Some were built just for Sorin, like a story arranged around them. These more elaborate games were their favourite, because they contained the shape of Talent's thinking in the structure, and in playing they could learn him better.
So too were there chimeric lesson-games; games that were instructional but not meant to be taken to heart as lessons were; and things that seemed like lessons, but were only expressions of Talent’s boredom or pettiness. The grand challenge that arced over it all was determining which was which and how best to play. Sorin got good at that, eventually.
On that night in early Harvestmoon, they were kneeling in an inn room for a new game. They were still north enough that the air coming in the window smelled like wet evergreens. They were on the floor with their back to the fireplace, and their wrists were bound behind them. The heavy blindfold meant that they couldn't see the dozens of lit candles that had been placed in a circle around them at varying heights and in various precarious positions, but they could smell them—earthy tallow and clean beeswax, and even the sweet smoke of dipped mullein, all mingling together.
Between the burning logs in the fireplace and the multitude of candles, Sorin was very warm and the open window hardly helped. Their sleeveless undershirt was already damp at the underarms and their upper back. Their blond hair was long enough to braid again, but still short enough around the face that loose pieces stuck to their temples.
"Begin," said Talent.
They gave an experimental tug at the restraint. Standard hemp, new, and tied well—but not the kind of simple tie that a soldier or guard would use, though it would function the same way. There were four inches of slack in the loop between their wrists, space enough to link them up with a line of other prisoners or tie them to a wagon or saddle. The bindings around their wrists were too tight to wiggle out of, even if they dislocated their thumbs, and went up their forearms.
The rules were simple enough. To do it perfect, they must get free without knocking over any of the candles or getting even a drop of wax on themself. The blindfold must stay on. Somewhere, amongst all the candles, was a knife with which they could cut the ropes. Talent would watch, and make sure that they didn't burn the inn down if they fucked up.
Sorin was determined to do it perfect.
First, they needed to get their hands in front of them. Easy enough for someone with their flexibility. It just took a little awkward shifting, and they were careful not to swing their braid around, lest it catch. They had already learned that the smell of burning hair was just awful.
Once that was done, they ignored the nothing black behind the blindfold and focused on their other senses. Immediately, they understood why he had them kneel in front of the hearth. Within the haze of heat, they would only know they were near a candle flame when they were close enough to be burned.
Their keen hearing wanted to attune to Talent—the chair in which he sat creaked when he shifted his weight, and they could make out his breathing and periodic sips of whiskey—but they focused on their near surroundings and reached out with their hands.
First, they skimmed their touch over the floorboards in front of them until they found a distinctive knot swirl to serve as marker. With their starting direction in mind, they felt their way through the gaps between the candles all around them, turning clockwise as they went.
They worked slow, fingers brushing brass candle holders and empty wine bottles with tapers stuck in the mouth. They startled when the bit of rope between their wrists snagged on the handle of a candle-holder and dragged it an inch along the floor, then unhooked themself and pulled the loop taut with their thumbs, so that wouldn't happen again. When they needed to reach deeper into the testing circle, they dipped their left shoulder and raised their right while twisting at the waist, so that their stacked arms could better snake between the narrow spaces.
It was when their arms were fully extended in this way that they felt a fiery kiss on the outside of their forearm. In avoiding a cluster of tallow candles, they'd gotten too close to the flame of a taper. They kept from jerking back too quickly but couldn't help hissing in pain.
They froze, expecting Talent to tell them that they had failed. He said nothing. Sorin fancied that they could hear his next sip of whiskey slipping past one of his infuriating smirks.
So the game was still on, which meant...
When Sorin's spine straightened and their mouth curved with their realization, Talent read it in the language of their body. He still didn't say anything, but Sorin knew it because he went hmm? and they could hear the smile for sure now.
The rules were clear on the subject of the blindfold and not being touched by any wax, but there was no such rule against being burned. They had only thought of it like a rule because it hurt to be burned, and that was fair enough. But many things could hurt you, and fear of pain could be overcome by setting your will to it.
They made faster progress then. There was the faint smell of burning as the fine hair on their forearm seared away while they searched a patch of floor surrounded by short fat candles, and a few spots on their arms and the backs of their hands were hot and sore, but nothing felt severe enough to blister.
It was when they got back to their knot and could be sure that they had thoroughly searched the circle of candles that they had their second realization of the game.
Talent read this, too. His empty glass tapped down on the small table beside him and his chair creaked as he leaned forward.
"Well?"
Sorin was loath to say it, because it was so obvious, and because it made them feel stupid.
"There's no knife."
"And the lesson there is...?"
They huffed in irritation and flexed their hands, stretched out their fingers, and rolled their tight shoulders. They felt a tickle of sweat slide down their neck. "You're a gods-damned bastard."
"Charming." He was in a good mood tonight and the whiskey was decent, so there was no real danger in his tone, only a harmless and maddening condescension as he repeated himself. "And the lesson is?"
"The game is rigged."
"There it is." Another creak, this one a settling as he leaned back again. "Scribe this on the inside of your skull: 'When someone else has defined the rules, the game can safely be assumed to be rigged.'"
"So, be the one who makes the rules," they grumbled. "Got it."
"Or be in a position to break the rules—which you presently are not."
As they raised a hand to push the damp blindfold off their face, Talent said: "Hold."
He continued as if this were obvious. "The game is not yet over. Unless you're giving up, in which case, I spent time and effort on this for shamefully little payoff."
"There's no knife," Sorin said, playing up their frustration in the hopes of getting more clues. "What am I supposed to do? It's not fair."
"Get free from your bonds," Talent said, in a tone of voice that said I know what you're doing and it's not going to work, you brat. "Do it without removing the blindfold, and without getting any wax on yourself."
"I still have to follow the rules, even though there was never any knife?"
A silence answered. Absent anything to suggest the contrary, they characterized this silence as smug and set their jaw.
"Right. You make the rules."
"Don't take too long with it." They heard the pop of a bottle stopper and the refilling of his glass. "It's getting warm in here."
Sorin refocused their mind, but this time they drew inwards. Ignore the heat. Ignore the little pains where their skin was flame-kissed. Go back to basics.
The first step to any escape: Consider your circumstances.
They spent a minute exploring the binding more closely, feeling for knots and tracing the shape of it. It was all one length of rope, and there was no knot; the ends were secured against their forearms by the winding structure of the tie. If they could only sever the rope at that slack length between their wrists, they were certain that it would only take a bit of finagling before the whole thing came unwound.
But there was no knife.
Second step: Inventory what you have available to you.
There was their own knife, resting on the bed on the other end of the room—too far away. Talent's dagger, on his belt—he'd never fall for a ruse that would bring him close enough, and there was no way they could get it away from him while they were sightless and he was not.
There was the poker beside the fireplace... That was intriguing. Closer than their dagger, but still far enough outside the circle that they would have to get through all the candles. Even if they memorized a path with their hands first and stepped very carefully, they weren't confident that they could manage without knocking anything over or splashing wax. Even if they could, trying to cut the rope with the end of an iron poker would be awkward and take ages... Wait.
The rope was new.
Sorin rubbed their fingertips along the hemp, then raised their wrists to their face and sniffed. It wasn't just new, its hempen strands were dry and unsealed. They knew what to do, and schooled their face before they could smile about it.
Talent stayed quiet and watched as they picked the best candle among their options. They felt for its flame and let it smart their fingertips enough to memorize its place in space. Then they tugged the slack portion tight and brought the rope to the little fire.
It didn't take long before the smell of scorched hemp filled the air. They could even hear it as it burned, a velvety crackle to their elf-blooded ears. They tugged harder on the rope to keep it taut. They sensed heat growing between their wrists, and their heart went quick with stupid fear, childish fear. In their mind's eye they saw their hands blackened beyond salvaging—but they could master this, as they had mastered other fears. They would. They would win.
The rope snapped.
They quickly knelt on the smouldering ends of the rope to snuff them out. Glass tapped table. Talent was out of his chair and moving towards them. They were reaching for the blindfold when he said—
"Hold. Leave the blindfold."
Sorin dropped their hand into their lap and their back straightened. Why hold? Would there be some new challenge here at the end? It was difficult to master themself when they were overheated and unsure what was about to happen, and they could feel their thoughts flickering over their face.
"It took you long enough," he said, not unkindly. They pictured him standing just outside the circle of candles. "That wasn't poorly done, though. There's not a drop of wax on you."
"You made sure the rope was unsealed." They felt a touch breathless. Not a drop. They'd done it perfect. "You wanted me to do it that way."
"There were a few possible methods. You chose the most obvious."
They let themself smile, just a little, and tilted their face towards him.
"The obvious way was the most simple, once I'd found it."
"There's something to be said for simplicity, isn't there?" The direction of his voice changed as if he were bending down. "So too is there something to be said for breaking the rules, if you can't be the one making them."
Sorin opened their mouth to answer, then gasped at the startling constellation of pain-bright heat against their bare shoulder. They cringed away on instinct and tore the blindfold off. A splatter of beeswax was already cooling to hardness against their skin.
They stared up at Talent in outrage. He looked down at them with a curve to his mouth and a lit pillar candle in his hand. Sorin bit their tongue. He sustained eye contact as he blew over the flame.
And so it was that any game could be a lesson, and the lesson might be that they were never going to win.