Chapter 19: Busy day

 Darius made the dust removal rune, with a little adjustment. The dust was supposed to be sucked into the rune as soon as it landed on it. The nymph that wanted the rune had told him that the usual runes just didn't work for her.

That was just fine, as far as Darius was concerned. Runes were fairly simple, once you learned the beginning 200. Something that had costed him a couple of sleepless nights. He heard a knock on the door, and then his father entered. 

"Busy with runes again?" Andiel asked with a grin. 

"D ranked ones," Darius answered, and nodded to the topmost rune. "This one could keep an entire house clean." 

"Good to know," Andiel said, and then nodded to someone behind him. "But you seemed to have forgotten someone. Or rather, two someone's." 

Andiel stepped to the side and let Anastasios and a blonde little girl through.

"Don't chew him up too much. You know how he gets, once he gets determined to pursue something," Andiel said in parting, and he walked away. Darius blinked, and then remembered.

"I was supposed to meet you both at the archery ring," Darius murmured. He had not gone because he had been too busy with his rune making. 

"You were," Anastasios asked with a scrunched-up nose. "This is my sister, princess Prisila."  

The young girl waved happily at Darius. He took a good look at her. She was pretty, but he didn't feel the same tug he felt when he looked at Anastasios. The demon boy sighed, and looked at his friend. 

"It is not her," he said simply, and then looked at the girl again. "You are pretty, my princess, but you are not my soulmate." 

"It is ok. I don't feel a tug towards you either," Prisila said, and looked at her brother. "Trying to foist your soulmate on me, now, are you?" 

"I don't have a soulmate," Anastasios said stubbornly. His sister swatted him on his arm.

"You'll hurt my destiny brother's feelings," Prisila chastised, and then she saw the runes. "What are those?"

"Runes, my princess..." Darius began, but she shook her head. 

"Prisi. You call me Prisi from now on, or I won't talk to you, brother," Prisila demanded, and Darius nodded. He could see himself getting along with the girl.

"Prisi, these runes are just beginning ones, but I have already begun to add improvements to my runes," Darius told her, and the brother-sister duo came to his desk. 

"Don't you have to bleed for runes?" Anastasios asked, looking worried. "Or sacrifice things?"

"I can do the runes by simply using my own blood. I eat Galtea stew, and that makes me produce more blood. It looks icky, really, but Galtea is not a real mushroom and tastes more like seaweed," Darius clarified, and showed off the blood removal rune. Those were ever in demand, and he couldn't make enough of them. "This is a blood removal rune. It works even with demon blood." 

"What about vampire blood?" Prisi asked, and then got a mischievous look on her face. She prickled her thumb on her fang, and then smeared the blood on her dress. "Oh, no. Now, we have to try it." 

"Prisi, that dress was from aunt Narcissa," Anastasios chastised, but his sister didn't pay him any mind. 

"So, we pour some mana inside the rune and then bam, no more stains?" Prisila asked Darius. 

"Something like that," Darius didn't feel like explaining that the mana sync had to be well tuned. He pressed the rune on the stain, and watched it disappear. He got an idea then.

"I think I have a theory," Darius told the two. "Everyone who is not in the cycle of life is under the same category. Just like how everyone who is in the cycle of life is in the same category."

"Cycle of life?" Anastasios asked. This was the first time he had heard about such a thing. Surely, everyone who breathed air was part of such a cycle?

"Demons and vampires can become immortal, and are outside the cycle," when Darius got empty looks, he clarified. "The cycle is birth, grow old, die, rebirth."

"Wait, so we won't get reborn, if we die?" Prisila asked. That sounded dreadful. She hoped that Darius had it wrong. 

"Well, I am not exactly certain, but it could be like that. In any rate, the rune for demon managed to remove the blood of a vampire," Darius said, and then took out a notebook where he took notes about the new additions to the runes, and wrote that down as well. "Does any of you know if the Basilisks are outside of the cycle?"

"Basilisks can live only for a thousand years," Prisila said. Darius was confused at that. 

"Then, why did the notes say that their blood can't be removed by the original rune? If they are in the cycle of life, then they should be able to be under the influence of the life rune," Darius said more to himself, than to the other two. 

"Well, they are beasts. What if they don't get rebirths either?" Anastasios suggested. He was fairly certain that beasts didn't get reborn after they died. No one had ever said they remembered being a bear or a lizard in a past life. Where the cases of people saying that they had been elves or nymphs had been many. 

"This must be researched," Darius wrote some more in his notebook, but then Anastasios cleared his throat. 

"We came to take you out of your cave dwelling routine to the archery ring," Anastasios said, and Prisila nodded. 

"Yes, brother. How are you going to charm this tough nut if you work on runes the entire day? Come, have fun with us. We are leaving tomorrow, so there isn't much time," Prisila said, and Darius closed the notebook. 

"I have to show Anastasios that there is nothing wrong with a soulmate, it is true," the demon took ten silver coins from his pouch, his entire fortune, as he had given the rest fifty-nine coins to his father, and took his coat. "I will show you around town. Come on."