A few moments of strained silence rained where it was clear Ezekiel was considering whether or not to let the subject change. Perhaps realizing the sincerity of his words the Shifter soon nodded and began to life his arms up into view.

Ezekiel grunted and rattled his wrists, wincing as the metal rubbed sensitive raw skin. “I would agree with you about the chains, but babe I’ve tried everything to get free myself. These chains don’t break. I can’t shatter them, and I’m too weak to try at this point. I’ve tried digging the pad locks out of the wall to little success and I even thought about breaking my wrist, but it’s not like I can get the collar off unless I just decapitate myself.”

Ezekiel hissed as he ducked his chin and glared at the collar. “The fucking things even shrink to scale when I turn into a Leopard!”

“Damn...” Brandon gently agreed, as Ezekiel easily named and dismissed every idea he had just started to evaluate. It seemed the Guardian had tried everything.

Frustrated the Druid glared at the chains. Concentrating all of his hatred and annoyance on them and tried to think of a solution, but nothing came to him. It was somewhat chilling to have lost his greatest asset in his time of greatest need. His mind was a dulled knife in his hand and he couldn’t function. And yet the longer he thought on it, the longer he concentrated on the chains...

Suddenly Brandon thought about the cold, vile slither of the Mana had felt, back in the Bowels. He remembered how he had forced stones to appear from thin air.

Stone...to air. He did Alchemy before...

Perhaps....

Reaching deep into his mind he hesitantly sought out the cold burn. Brandon flinched and nearly cried out as he felt an unwanted burning cold start to bloom deep inside of him. Like the glide of ice across his intestines. Brandon felt panic claw up and down his spine, and he started to press the vile sensation away...but then he realized that he had to think beyond his dislike.

Perhaps...Perhaps he could do something. Something similar to creating the stones. Uncertain and shaken he suddenly had the funny desire to get a closer look to the chains and give it a try.

It was evil. It was sick. It was...it was all he had.

“Can...Can I see the collar please?” Brandon asked nearly in a daze. The Guardian, who seemed to sense his unbalanced state, simply shrugged and Brandon waited for Ezekiel to lean down to him, before he reached out and touched the chains at Ezekiel’s neck. The collar was thick, nearly clamped across the blistering skin of the Shifters upper throat.

Then ignoring the blood, Brandon softly he ran his hands down Ezekiel’s arms and fingered the chains at his wrists. Where nearly jumped back in surprise when the metals seemed to thrum against his fingertips...because the feel of them zinged across his entire sense like the chime of a bell in his core. Pure and loud.

Mana. Brandon felt the cold inside of him suddenly wash free. The world all around him snapped sharp and taunt about his senses. The white walls around blared, the silver of the chains seemed to almost sparkle.

And the sensation of the air settled all over his flesh, it felt as if he had been submerged into a vat of invisible glue. He let the sensation overcome him, and almost vomited bile as his nerves roared with cool agonies. Brandon gaffed, closing his eyes, put his hands to his gut and shook his head.

“Brandon?” Ezekiel started to question, pulling back, then his blue eyes flashed in surprised awe. He stepped back again, and shook his head, a smile of childish wonder growing on his lips. “Holy crap...your glowing Brandon! Glowing all over!”

Brandon froze, then he looked down at himself. Holding back a cry of dismay he stared at his hands in a mixture of happiness and disgust. Trying to ignore the roar of his discomfort in his ears, Brandon shrugged as he stepped close, grabbed the collar again and glanced at the Shifter.

“Yeah...I noticed. I think that happens whenever I touch Mana. It’s kind of creepy huh?” He forced himself to speak, even as he felt the icy churn of Mana burning across his veins and stuttering in his heart beat.

Ezekiel snorted, barely an inch apart from him, leaned closer, and kissed his glowing, white temple. “Did you forget that your hands were glowing back in the Clan Lands? It wasn’t creepy then and it’s not now. It breath taking! I can’t believe you can do this....you smell like lighting during a storm. Like something burning...”

Brandon stared at him for a moment, then he smiled. “You...You’re a dangerous one Ezekiel...” he softly mused.

Ezekiel smirked and shook his head. “Why?”

“Because you always say the right things...” Brandon replied stealing a soft kiss, then he pulled back. Once more he touched the metal at Ezekiel’s throat, gingerly examining the simple silver collar. The Mana pulsed like frigid flames up and down his arms, and Brandon stiffened at the horrendous sensation, and clenched his jaw. God, he hated Mana. He wasn’t sure if he hated the cool bliss of Ether or the burning numbness of Mana more.

“Does it hurt?” Ezekiel suddenly and softly asked, touched his arm.

Yes

Brandon thought.

“No.” Brandon said.

After that Ezekiel thankfully grew silent. And Brandon did too.

Beneath Brandon’s hands the metal seemed ice cold. He somehow sensed the power in them. The dark Alchemy that had created them seemed to emanate from the objects. As cold and vile as the kiss of Mana. Brandon swallowed as the feel of it vibrated across his senses releasing goose bumps inside as he nearly sensed the metals vibrate.

In the Silver Brandon felt a pulse, it was like hearing or feeling the air around him tightening in such a way, that the metals almost felt alive. The Mana in them, came alive beneath his touch.

Brandon was almost confused by this sensation, but he realized that the silver if it had been made by an Alchemists, would be comprised almost entirely of Mana. He was an Alchemists, so the Mana would be something he could feel. Mana was a part of him. And always had been. Always would be.

Fuck...

Brandon mused, in a chagrined manner.

He rubbed his fingers across the toxic silver, weighting it in his palms, then he slowly lifted his hands back to Ezekiel’s collar. It was the oddest sensation. Like he was running his fingers across lightening, and cold water. The Mana within him twisted and churned, he could feel it in his core, thrumming about his finger, burning in the air, even as it chilled is soul to a precise agony just on the edge of torture.

He could feel the Mana in the chains, he could touch it. He could sense it in ever part of his mind and body. It was alive, a seething mass of solid materials, and suddenly he knew, he knew with all of his might, that just as he had created those stones...he should also be able to manipulate the metal. Somehow. Someway.

At these thoughts the vile cold inside rolled and seethed. It was his to shape. To Mold. To bend.

But knowing something and understanding how to make it work were two very different sides of a problem. Brandon knew everything he had ever knowing about himself. About the Druid Hunger. About the Acris. About Mana. But he just didn’t understand how to make any of these things work.

Inside of his head Brandon felt should have been as easy as reaching forwards, and twisting his own thoughts around the pulsing chains and perhaps tearing the links apart, or simply wishing them to come loose. By sheer force of will he wanted it to be so.

Brandon remember trying to turn the stones into a weapon of some sort, trying to make the door trapping him disaster, with just his Will. And he recalled that he had failed. He tried not to think about how the Bane had come upon him, shivering, frightened, in a corner. With nothing but a useless pile of stones to show for his desperate wishes.

But this time he told himself it would be different.

So Brandon strained mentally with all of his might. The air filled with the sizzling scent of something being burnt, but Brandon ignored it. He concentrated his being into the collar at his fingertips. The boiling numb mass of power inside of his core bounced around inside of him, it crackled along his fingers, and Brandon was sure that every inch of his being was glowing gossamer white, but that was all that happened.

The power roiled for a time, then it settled, a simmering biting frozen lump.

Frustration burned him. Hopelessness rose up. It was no less devastating to him to fail in this moment, then it was every time he had failed to control the Hunger, or the gluttonous burn of the Acris Ignorance seemed to be his lot in life, when it came to him. To his own body, his limitations, and possibly his potential. Ignorance controlled him. But this was how they had molded him. How Hovel had raised him, and prepared him for the slaughter like cattle....

Sickness, rage, bile and frustration, tore his concentration to shreds. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to look Ezekiel in the eyes if he didn’t try again. So he did. Over. And Over. And over.

Each failure more disparaging than the last. Terror clawed at his mind and he started to tremble.

Brandon didn’t know how long his stood there, trying to understand the pulse in his boy, trying to make it do as he wanted. The power to release his lover so close he wanted to scream.

“Brandon...” Ezekiel hissed, his voice so broken, ragged and laced with distress that Brandon flinched and came awake as if from a deep meditation. His body thrummed with the cold burn, his core ached. More pangs of discomfort to add to the pain caused by the gnawing Hunger and exhaustion.