“Don’t you have better things to do?” I couldn’t contain my annoyance as I looked across my table to Angela who sat happily munching on a cookie.
It has been four days since I agreed to enchant a dress for my sister’s 10th birthday, only four days and yet I was starting to regret that decision as Angela became more and more comfortable around me.
She had started out almost meek, excitable about certain things sure, but now? Only after four days she just… shows up. It started yesterday when she showed up around lunch time, then again after dinner. And today it started early this morning, Angela getting to my house before I even woke up causing my morning workout to get cancelled as Riley prepared the both of us breakfast.
I don’t want to sound… well ungrateful? I did appreciate the company; its just Angela was clearly a very curious child, and though I didn’t mind answering questions for a time it just made it hard to work.
She gave me a noncommittal shrug as she answered through a mouthful of food. “Not really, everyone is getting ready for my party.”
“First, don’t talk with your mouth full.” I chastised her only for her to take another large bite of the cookie. “Also, isn’t it “your” party? Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, be there for the preparation? And isn’t it not for a few weeks?”
She didn’t answer as she chewed her food, the butler with her instead answering in her place. “Lady Angela’s ball is in 13 days; the rest of your family is preparing to receive guests as well as preparing proper accommodations for them as you currently occupy the family guest house.” I didn’t remember the guy’s name, but he was the head butler or something. I distinctly remember not liking him. He was the same guy who kept badgering Riley during my trip to the capital, so his presence in my house kind of put me on edge; though thankfully, despite his glaring and tongue clicking, he has kept his opinions to himself this time around. “As Angela’s elder sister, who is past the age of introduction, you should be more involved yourself, Lady Emillia.”
I apparently spoke too soon. At least he is talking about me and not Riley this time. I can deal with that. Waving my hand flippantly I scoffed, “Oh, I am sure that would go over great. Let me just pop over and ask Gabriella if she needs any help in the garden.” I chuckled to myself. “Maybe she will try to sell me off again.” That clearly annoyed the man who clicked his tongue, only for me to continue before he could say anything. “No thanks, I’m already way more involved than anyone wants. I’ll finish the dress and we can all go back to no talking to each other, just like they all want.”
I looked back to the young girl across from me only to pause as she looked back with clear pain in her eyes. Oh, good job me, you’re going to make a kid cry. “I… I can still come over after the party, right?” Angela asked in a sheepish voice, and I couldn’t help the twinge of regret in my chest as I sighed.
“Angela…” I was cut off by the butler.
“Lady Angela,” the elderly man cleared his throat. “Once your ball is complete you will need to resume your lessons, as well as preparing for your introduction into society. I believe your mother would rather you not waste your time coming to visit Lady Emillia.” His words only hurt a little, not that I was surprised Gabriella would see me as a waste of time.
Angela however rolled her eyes with all the expertise of a preteen as she replied, “Jarvis, if I want my mother’s opinion, I will ask her for it.” apparently no one expected that as me and the old man both looked at her with shocked expressions. Angela was… what 10 now? that was a surprising mature and composed response…
Well, she is a noble right? Maybe I underestimated her…
“Now,” she took a deep breath before turning large silver puppy eyes to me. “Can I still come over and play after my party?”
“Umm… yea, of course.” I stammered out my reply only for her to break into a radiant smile.
Fuck she’s good. I’ll need to be careful, or I feel like she’s going to get me into trouble. With a shake of my head, I stood from the table. “Not that this isn’t nice or anything, but I have to trace the array out on your dress for Riley.” I tried to excuse myself only to find Angela right on my heels as I made my way to the door. “Umm… Angela?”
“Yes?” She asked looking back at me innocently.
I sighed, “Nothing.” And she followed me deeper into my home.
Angela was coming to really like her sister. Emillia had been kind of scary at first but now she just seemed… lonely. Never leaving her house or even talking to anyone other than her maid.
Riley. Angela quickly amended in her mind, having noticed her sister's odd… protectiveness of her maid. Even going as far to threaten Jarvis when he had commented about the state of the house.
It was strange to Angela just how defensive Emillia was of Riley, but that was hardly her sister’s only quirk.
No, it took Angela a few days to truly realize why her sister seemed so lonely to her, and now that she looked closely it finally clicked.
Emillia never once smiled. In the four days Angela has been coming to her sister’s house not once has she seen her sister really smile. Sure, Emillia did that little fake smirk Angela had seen hundreds of people do when greeting her dad, but an honest smile?
She always felt so… sad whenever Angela looked at her. Even now, watching her carefully lay the strange black cloth out on her work bench, Emillia’s face didn’t change at all.
“Since you’re here I might as well as try and teach you something.” Emillia muttered as she pulled out a piece of chalk. “That seems… sisterly… right?” It seemed more like a question to herself than anything, so Angela didn’t answer.
That was another oddity about her sister. Emillia was, without a doubt, aggressive. She always seemed so ready for a fight, and once she found one, Emillia radiated confidence; even when faced with Jarvis, who honestly intimidated Angela a little, or dad. Emillia never backed down, facing both men without so much as flinching even when dad did his mana pulse that even Johnathen backed away from.
But once the fighting was over? Once everything was calm Emillia felt… lost. Between the arguments her sister’s confidence wavered as she constantly muttered to herself about nonsensical things; like what she should do in situations or about arrays that “could” work.
Though that did kind of scare Angela as she was pretty confident her sister answered herself too.
Nodding to herself, Emillia turned to face Angela. “Ok, so enchanting.” She ran a hand though her messy hair. “It’s a whole lot like spell casting… I think. I am pretty sure it is at least. They have the same fundamentals… kind of.” Sighing Emillia’s shoulders slumped, “This is going to be harder than I thought. Let’s just start with the array.”
Angela watched as Emillia unfolded a piece of paper and laid it down atop the dress. Circling the middle part of the array she spoke, “This is a basic wind array. It’s going to act as the core of the array, as with most basic enchantments; it’s far from the most complex part of the enchantment but if you ask me it’s the most important since it is the part that converts the mana into wind aspect mana.” She quickly grabbed a wand and pointed out the small carving towards the bottom, right next to where the mana crystal would go. “It must be placed right next to the mana source or you run the risk of the entire array collapsing. By changing this part, you can change the entire output of the spell, by the way. For example, this is a fireball wand, if I were to put this array on your dress it would change it from a gust spell to a heating spell…” she paused as if thinking before continuing, “Well a really crappy one that probably wouldn’t work since the rest of the array is conditioned for wind magic. But that’s more complex enchanting, for now just know that every enchantment starts here, and you build your way out from this point. It’s the foundation for the entire array.”
Angela couldn’t help but hang on Emillia’s every word, not wanting to tell her sister that she was… well wrong. This wasn’t anything like spell casting, one doesn’t need to convert mana to cast spells after all. A wind mage just… had wind mana.
“From there you have a few options,” Emillia pressed on pointing to another part of the array, “I typically add some flourish carvings to act as buffer and mana storage, these are the glowy bits in all my enchantments. That also makes it easier to attach the spell array since the flourish carvings are fluid it's easier to find places to connect them without having to redesign either the conversion array or the spell. Also, if you want a power more than one spell from a single array this will give you a lot more room to work with, it… takes some practice as you lose mana power the further from the core but that’s something you’ll need to play with to get a feeling for.” Emillia pointed to a complex swirling design before continuing.
“This is the most complex part of the array, the spell itself. You need to be extra careful when forming a spell array as it is super easy to cause it to short out or worse, explode if you aren’t careful. Angela,” Emillia stopped and turned to her sister, her expression strangely serious as she leveled her gaze on her. “Do not just attach the conversion array directly to the spell. Ever. Understand?” Angela nodded before Emillia continued. “Good. If you do it will simply suck all the available mana out and discharge it in an uncontrolled torrent of the spell. If you’re using a cheap mana crystal it won’t be a problem but if you use a higher grade one, or worse make an enchantment that runs off a person’s mana, it could be…” she paused, shuddering before she spoke. “Bad.” With a sigh she asked, “Now, do you know how we would avoid that?” she asked.
“Umm… no?” When one casts a spell they form the spell array first and use it as the base for the spell, so Angela was at a loss.
Emillia didn’t seem bothered by her sister’s answer as she pointed out different parts of the spell array. “Conditional arrays. These are used to limit the spell, things like output, speed, distance, just over all force.” She pointed at her fireball wand again, “Take this wand for example. It shoots a fireball that will explode on impact, but what if it misses? Then what? Will the fireball just continue till it petters out or hits something? That would be negligent and wasteful, so I added a conditional array that will auto detonate the fireball after a few dozen…” She paused looking closely at the wand before sheepishly snapping it in half and tossing it to the side. “Bad example but you get the idea. Now, back to the array. I always start with my “limiter” array that controls the mana output of the spell but that’s really just personal preference. You can add these in any order you want but always be conscious of how big the area you have to work with is given each conditional array will add to the spell's size. Never fun to get to the end of an enchantment only to find out you ran out of room to add the actual spell.”
Angela at this point kind of wished she was taking notes as Emillia pointed to the center of the entire spell array, “This is a, slightly modified, gust spell. I learned it from one of Reinhart’s books. As I am sure you know designing spells is extremely difficult and dangerous so it’s always best to only try and enchant with arrays you already know, got it?” she didn’t even slow down before tracing her finger across the array, "From there I add a few more flourishes, for… well aesthetic. But then there is the final part, and a pretty important one normally. The directional array that will act as the output of the spell. This is the only conditional array that is after the spell for obvious reasons.”
It was… amazing if you asked Angela. This was the most her sister has spoken to her in four days and well… for the first time Emillia seemed… happy. As she explained the array to her Emillia didn’t smile but Angela could feel a sudden liveliness to her sister that she didn’t expect, and it was nice. Emillia’s explanation was clear and to the point, unlike a lot of her tutors…. Not that it helped since Emillia’s enchanting arrays were nothing like spell casting at all. Minus the spell array itself the whole thing looked like a jumbled mess that even Angela could tell would never work as a spell, but to someone without magic maybe it all made sense…
Emillia, clearly happy with herself for fulfilling some unknown condition, went to work transferring the array to the dress with the caulk; leaving her sister to watch as she worked with an almost content smirk on her face. It was clear to Angela her sister took a lot of pride in her work as she carefully went about tracing the intricate lines while muttering to herself. Several times she paused before erasing a bit, “That would be way too hard to sew. Maybe… more flowery patterns? I mean it’s an under skirt but that doesn’t mean it can’t be cute… right?”
It was nearly an hour later Angela found herself leaning against the wall by the door, still content with watching her sister who was now swearing with a furrowed brow. Angela didn’t know what “God” was, but Emillia was clearly very cross with it when she realized her array wouldn’t fit the way she wanted it too.
Emillia didn’t notice the door open as Riley stuck her head, startling Angela who only just kept herself from yelling in shock.
The red headed woman looked down at Angela for a moment before glancing at Emillia who sat with a furrowed brow. Riley smiled softly as she looked down at Angela and held a single finger up to her lips before she made a very faint clicking noise with her tongue.
Much to Angela’s surprise her sister mimicked the noise without even looking up. With an almost devilish grin Riley whistled only for Emillia to again mimic the noise.
It was a habit from a lifetime ago that Riley discovered by accident, years of mimicking sounds as a joke; starting with car horns as a child that slowly turned into birds and other odd sounds that now only came as a subconscious tick.
Echo's gonna echo.
TFTC, I love your characters so much!
Okay this has been super cute. I love this chapter. Edit: Thank you for the chapter, I am looking forward to seeing these characters grow!