That lidless eye had been floating over Oscars desk for hours now.

  The man himself had done his best to ignore the strange apparition while he gripped with the notes his father had left him. It was just the towns inventory for the year, an incredibly bland document that Oscar could only pretend to be fascinated with. One could only stare at the brewery's produce for so long before all the inconsequential liters of beer and cider started to lose the minds eye.

  The eye was before him now.

  The milk of its body seemed to bubble strangely and the iris radiated some vibrant purple, almost inviting Oscars hand, which could only faze right through its form. Oscar knew the vision was not real. He'd lived with similar delusions for years but he had not shared a word nor gasp to his family or friends.

  How could he share this? He would be hanged, and all the years of pushing these visions aside would be for naught.

  Oscars hand fell through the apparition, motioning waving it away as one would a foul smell or an ill mannered guest. The eye, obeying some strange rule of his own mind, moved aside to the corner of his room where a darkly coloured green plant sat drinking in the light from the window.

  His father hoped that the Mundus would reward Oscar for his devotion to accounting with some sort of intelligence boosting boon. But the paper sat there before him as an ever present reminder of his hatred toward numbers and busy bodies.

  Oscar would never be granted a boon for as long as he denied his own fascinations. The Mundus was some freakish law of the world that only rewarded the fanatical and unlike his father, he could never devote himself fully to book-keeping.

  Peasants and nobles alike were given boons which conformed to whatever desires the receiver chased. These boons could range from being able to write things down without a pen and striking a goblin with lightning. Oscar could picture the latter scene in his own mind, the power that one man could hold over another was exhilarating in a way that books could never be.

  If he gave in to the visions, such powers might find him.

  A voice echoed from the eyes corner, "You are blind."

  Oscar ignored the voice, madness was not tolerated in the Kingdom of Aelvian for precisely that reason. The mad and the deranged were fanatics by nature. They possessed a surety that the sane could never grasp but in return they often wrought terrible destruction to those around them. Oscar was capable of that even without some supernatural boon, of that he was sure.

  "Give it to me."

  He knew what the eye wanted, it wanted a friend. Another lidless eye for it to float about with.

  However, it promised something in return. There was a fog in his head, the eye was offering itself to him.

  A strange feeling rose from within Oscars chest, and his head grew lighter. Oscar had engaged with the apparition for a bit too long, he was starting to lose it. However, internally he wanted what the eye was suggesting. He wanted to become something more than just a brow beaten book keeper. His delusions could save him from such a terrible end.

  There was a sign post pointing toward a muddy path.

  It read-

  Oscar clutched his head, and barreled out the door to his room. Bursting the door outward, he scampered in a wild panic through the hallway of countless doors to the landing of his fathers manor, overlooking the front entrance.

  For a moment, Oscar let the adrenaline take control of his mind as he clambered down the steps and pushed his way past a maid on the ground floor, he thought he could hear a shriek from the girl as he all but shoved her to the ground in his desperate bid to reach the front door.

  The doors protested against his twisting and pulling before finally opening to his families front garden.

  The door was flanked by flowerbeds where flowers of deep blue and pale whites nestled in recently upturned soil. Further away from the manor, the garden centered around some gnarled oak tree, a symbol of resilience while also reminding others of his fathers strong lineage, that oak tree was truly ancient.

  The sight seemed to drain away his stupor, and Oscar chose to control himself. He turned around to see his fathers hired housekeeper with an aghast look upon her face and a pristine white cloth atop her head. It was rare to see Leana on the ground floor of the manor, but even rarer still was it to see her actually on the floor.

  The maid took the cloth from atop her head and stood with whatever grace she could manage to save before levying a stare upon Oscar.

  "If I had not the respect for your father I would rasp your knuckles with a ruler young lord." The mature middling aged Leana said.

  Oscar bowed to the lady, years spent under her tutelage had lead him to believe that was no idle threat, but he was 15 now and beyond the age where a servant could punish him.

  "Im terribly sorry Miss Leana, I had not seen you in my rush to the front door." Oscar replied in haste.

  The maid took a few steps toward Oscar, scrutinizing him with a familiar yet unsettling glare. "And what, young lord, were you doing in such a hurry?"

  Oscar reeled, a distant disquiet filling him as he rushed to find an explanation to his odd behaviour. His rush was unseemly but with him standing as he is, underdressed and without even a pair of shoes upon his feet it was even downright suspicious.

  "I was just- just checking to see if father had arrived, I thought I had heard him through the window."

  Leana's face turned unreadable for a moment, until she made a strange grim face toward Oscar. He had only seen this face a few times in his lessons with her, and it was always after he'd said something deeply annoying.

  "Your father wont be arriving for another quarter of an hour, in fact, you ought to be suitably dressed to receive him. While you seem to care so little, your father has a standard to uphold and guests to impress." Leana snapped, before gesturing toward the stairs behind her.

  "I suggest you head back up to your room and put on something more appropriate Oscar."

  Oscar could only nod, before whispering an apology to the housekeeper. As he walked back through the upper floor to his room, he spotted the odd gaze of one of the laundry maids. Once again, he felt as if he were a stranger in his own manor.

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  The eye was waiting for him as he trundled back into his room, but this time, there was something more pressing to occupy his mind.

  His father would be arriving soon, bringing with him the headmaster to an academy Oscar would be attending in a few months.

  The academy was far out of town, placed within the capital of the Kings own dominion. This man would be an important one to impress, not only to ensure Oscars placement but to be a guiding hand for the connections he'd make in school.

  His father had pushed Oscar to attend this academy. A place far enough away where he'd recieve fewer odd looks and a glimpse at actual privacy. Perhaps even a chance to make friends among people who were of similar background as himself.

  The headmaster was a strange fellow, said to have his fingers in many pies but completely uninterested in politics where his academy is not concerned. Oscar would be expected to impress upon this headmaster his diligence and capabilities as a student.

  Oscar was far more interested in learning about this headmaster than the other way around.

  the author smells