If I had a silver for every time I've thought of how cute Lily is, I could have filled the castle's coffer twice over by now. I woke up before her, but I couldn't bring myself to wake her up. So here I am embracing the sleeping beauty. Well, not that I'm complaining.
It took a while, but she finally started to wake up and stopped using my chest as her pillow.
"Lily, it's time for breakfast, wake up" I whispered
"Nng?" She opened her eyes, looked at me, blinked a few times then said "Food?"
"Yes, the food is ready, get up sleepyhead."
It took a while, but I managed to get her to the dining table after she won a hard-fought battle with her sleepiness. After the food was brought in by the servants, I broke the silence
"So Lily, how do you feel?"
"Mn? What do you mean?"
"I mean do you like it here so far? we still have six days left of this little bet of ours including today."
"Oh, it's... nice..." She said that almost as a whisper, a bit embarrassed her resolve was being slowly broken down so easily
"Heh, is that so? Maybe we won't need the full week after all, daughter" I said with a smirk. I am the Demon Queen, after all. I won't even need a week, I'm sure I can make her mine soon enough, then I'll throw the best birthday party ever seen in the world! I bet she forgot about it, but I did my research, her birthday was a few weeks ago. In fact, I'm sure the church didn't celebrate her fourteenth birthday either, so I should double the budget...
"Maybe..." While Lilith was in her own world, Lily considered the option seriously, then she said out loud "Hmph! My resolve won't break that easily! I'll make sure you take the full week!"
"Hoh, so that means that you won't mind being my daughter in a week?"
Lily flushed, "W-well, I guess it wouldn't be too bad..."
Too easy. "Alright then. So Lily, what do you want to do to pass this week faster then?" By now we were practically done with breakfast, so I decided to just ask her what she wanted to do
She seemed to enter deep in thought and then said "Um, you said you would teach me some magic..."
"Oh, interested in magic already? That's fine then, I'll teach you today. Why don't we go to the bath for now, then I'll start?"
"Un!" She suddenly had sparkles in her eyes while she looked at me. Cute.
Both of us now marinating in the bath, Lilith started "So, let's start from the basics, what do you know about magic?"
"Um, I have to think about making light, then I channel my mana and it works" I said truthfully, isn't that all there is to it?
Lilith's eye twitched and she said "What did I even expect... Forget everything you've learned about magic so far, I'll just explain everything from the start."
"Okay."
"Alright then, to start off with, what is 'magic' to begin with? It's the manipulation of mana outside of your own body. That doesn't mean that you can just expel some mana and call it a day, you have to actually control that mana and do something with it. Even just moving it around can be considered magic. As for the mana itself, most races simply generate mana together with the blood in their heart. But more mana-attuned races have what's called a 'mana heart'. It's a separate heart connected to the main one that exclusively makes mana and then mixes it with their blood. This includes demons, elves, and some monsters. Do you understand everything so far?"
"Un, but I have a question, I can strengthen my body using mana, but does that not count as magic?"
"You could say that. Most people start doing that to an extent subconsciously once they become in tune with their mana, but I'm impressed you can already do it consciously. As for whether it's magic or not, it's actually a point of contention for researchers, but, at least here in the demon continent, they've concluded that it isn't considered magic. After all, after a person obtains a certain density of mana, their body naturally also grows stronger, they live longer, and in general just get better health and strength. It's agreed upon that strengthening yourself is just actively using mana to reach a similar state."
"Ooh, okay."
"Alright then. There are generally two ways to utilize mana for magic, and we call them 'Mana Manipulation' and 'Mana Conjuration'. Now, can you guess what that means?"
"Well, mana manipulation probably just means moving it around and doing things with it, right? And conjuration... I guess making stuff with mana?"
"That's right. Mana conjuration is the way most people use their mana, it just means you're using your mana as fuel to make stuff with, most elemental mages use this way to make their magic. But keep in mind that almost every magic using conjuration is temporary, you'd need to invest a large amount of mana to even make something small permanent, and even then it comes with its limitations too. That's why you can't just make water to drink using water magic. Well, you can, but it's a waste of mana unless you have no other choice. As for mana manipulation, it's the lesser known of the two, but it basically means to use your mana to control something that's already there. Like taking water out of a lake or putting out a fire. Or maybe you want to control the fire and use it for something else. Any questions so far?"
"Mn, I have two, isn't fire made from magic stronger than normal fire? And can you use mana to manipulate someone else's mana? Like could I take control of other people's spells or something?"
"Sharp as always, huh? Asking the important questions right off the bat. For your first question, while mana-conjured magic can be considered to be stronger than manipulated magic, mana manipulation is significantly more versatile, and it costs less mana than conjuration. Besides, with certain spells, you're even able to switch mid-way."
"Huh? How can you switch? Does that mean you can turn conjuration into manipulation too?"
"Well, let's take fire as an example. If I manipulate some natural fire, what's the difference between that and magic fire?"
"Hm, mana?"
"Right! So why don't you just add mana? To be more specific, change the fuel of fire from 'wind' to 'mana', and you've got yourself the same as conjured fire, but with a much cheaper mana cost overall. As for switching from conjuration to manipulation, everyone already does that subconsciously. After all, after you make a fireball, you have to take control of it for it to do anything. You could say that all mana conjuration is also manipulation, but not all manipulation involves conjuration. That's also why most people overlook it."
"Ohh" That makes sense
"Let's go back to your other question, shall we? Can we control someone else's mana? Yes and no. First of all, unless the person in question has significantly worse control over their mana than you do, you need their express permission to be able to mess with their mana, and if you want to mess with it while it's still inside their body, it's practically impossible unless they directly let you touch them and let your mana guide theirs. So while you can indeed control somebody else's mana, it's unlikely to ever work in a fight. Though it's not impossible, I guess."
"Hm, but then, everything living creates some mana, right? Even plants and stuff, but I can control the ambient mana just fine."
"That's right. The difference between them is that ambient mana has no 'will' imbued in it. So anyone can just impose their own will on it and move it around and make magic with it. Ambient mana is also an important resource in a fight and experienced mages first fight to see who can get the most ambient mana for themselves before anything even starts. Though while I'm sure you already know this, you can't directly take in ambient mana inside of your body. Unless you have a special constitution, your body will reject it, and you can easily hurt yourself." She then looked at her hands for a moment, then said "We've been in the bath for a while now, why don't we continue in the yard? Then I'll teach you how to do other magic too."
"Un! I want to learn more magic!"
Taking Lily outside, we switched to some light clothing we can get dirty in and went out. Once we reached the entrance to the yard, I let Lily go first and quickly teleported to the treasury to grab a protection amulet, while I'm not particularly worried, it's better to be safe than sorry. Teleporting back, I went to Lily and placed it on her neck gently.
"Another mana limiter?" She asked, fiddling with it
"No, it's enchanted with a special barrier magic to protect you. It's so you don't get hurt"
She looked at my own neck for a second and then asked "What about you?"
"I'll be fine, I can teleport to anywhere within this castle in an instant, so I'll be fine no matter what happens"
She looked at me worriedly for another second before nodding "Mn"
"Alright then, why don't we start with something simple? Let's conjure a simple water ball to start"
"How do I know if I have an affinity with water?"
"Ah, you don't have to worry too much about that. While people do tend to have affinities towards certain elements simply due to their talents, it's not like you can't use an element just because of that. light and dark magic being the exceptions of course. Plus, the hero is born with incredible talent in just about everything, so you'll be fine. If you really want to know, researchers have made a chart with the correlation of talent between the elements. Give me a second..." Grabbing some ink and a quill out of my storage, I quickly drew a sideways hexagon with all the basic affinities at the edges: Lightning at the top, Fire at the top left, Wind at the top right, Earth at the bottom left, Water at the bottom right and Light and Dark both filled the bottom space.
"What's that?"
"This is the element talent correlation chart. Basically, it shows the difficulty of learning a certain element compared to the one you have an affinity for. For example, someone with a lightning affinity would have an easier time using wind and fire magic compared to water and earth, basically the farther the element is compared to your main one defines the difficulty. Of course, things get more complicated when considering talent for multiple elements, and light and dark are outside that altogether, but you can cast anything else with enough practice, or even 'elements' that aren't even part of the chart, like shadow and blood common with the vampires, or even element-less magic, like telekinesis and such."
"Ooh, I wanna learn that." She said, practically trembling with excitement
I chuckled "One thing at a time. C'mon, I'll show you the water ball." I stood behind her and put my hands or her shoulders "Close your eyes... breathe in... breathe out... can you feel it? Perfect, let my mana guide yours" I instructed her, and she stayed quiet while concentrating...
"I did it!" In front of her was a conjured water ball floating in the air, but then it suddenly fell to the ground with a *splat* "Aww, why'd it fall?"
"Because you stopped concentrating, dummy. Besides, that was very fast for a first try, even with me guiding you through it." She's the hero, after all.
"Again! Let's go again!" she started speaking while jumping around in excitement. Cute.
In the end, we spent a few hours watering the yard with water magic, and I decided to show her a little something at the end to motivate her, so I built a life-like sculpture of her out of earth magic. She really liked that.
If you couldn't tell, I noticed how sh*t I am at writing the background details for these chapters. So I completely gave up on it. Use your imagination~
Lilith and Lily they are already halfway to being mother and daughter just in names.
Also, I think Lily is already happier than she has been in a long time and Lilith is already a very caring parent.
Lilith and Lily
author laughs maniacally, I'm a genius, I know. No need for praise.
Hast this story fallen victim to the dreaded foe Writers Block or just a lack of interest?
A mix of both and a lack of planning i suppose, I haven't given up on it yet though, I'll probably write it on and off until I finish or get tired of it. It's a good lesson for any future story I might try.
@Nory It is an interesting premise where the "chosen hero" is just too lost and upset and just wants to be reunited with her lost mother and the demon queen is not nearly as evil as she is portrayed by the church and seems more interested in having a family than taking over the world.
Perhaps just focus on their development as a family and moving forward from loss. It is hard to process moving forward with the loss of family and we all need someone to catch us.