Foxtails and Fairytales: Facades and Fables of the Phantom Prince

[Arc 6] Ch. 9 Warlock's Declaration

A/N

Ahoy,

This chapter is dedicated to everyone going through a hard time right now. Right now, there are times that my Grandma doesn't even recognize my mom even though they're living together. Some of you have people that are in tragic places. At the end of the day we all live, and we all die. But that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't stick together. In honor of Memorial day, Mother's day, and the other holidays I missed. And especially in honor of the loved ones going through a hard time right now, even if that's you reading this right now.

We don't always get to tell the people we love how much they mean to us, it's not always fair when tragedy strikes, we don't always get along, and we don't always know how important they are to us until they are gone. Hats off to you and yours, and a moment of silence for the fallen.

But those of us that are still here. We are still standing, and we will stand by you. Even if the moment is fleeting it's never too soon to tell someone they matter.

As your Captain, whether we've spoken or not, you are reading this. And I have one thing to say to you before the chapter starts.

"We are here, you are important, and although our paths may never cross, these words connect us across thousands of miles, hundreds of cultures, and several continents. We are one crew, we are pirates, and none of us stand alone."

May the winds of fortune ever fill your sails.

-The Captain

** ** **

Sebas

"I'M SO SOR-"

"Stop." I held up a hand and looked at my food. It was safe so rolled my eyes again and urged her to continue. "If you understand anything about anything you should be able to figure it out after the first glance."

This is kind of a test, if Julie can really live up to her reputation then this should be fairly simple for her. In the meantime, it was all I could do to keep my sanity with her so close. As I watched her, I witnessed her eyes grow bigger and bigger.

"Nyah! This is amazing!" She exclaimed. "You managed to figure out how to reverse manipulate fire magic to create a chill effect! Nyah."

"When you have poor affinity for everything but fire you learn to improvise. Chantless or not." I shrugged. I pointed at the back. My gloves are my "focus". Most magic users have a focus to channel their magic. Normally they are wands, staffs, a religious symbol, grimoire, or weapon. It helped for visualizing spells for faster and more accurate spellcasting. Depending on the object, you can inscribe magic circles into them for shortcutting spells.

That's what I've done with the gloves. I have four major magic circles on each one, front and back, inside and out. Each one works in sync with the others, and although they stack and simulate the composite magic circle idea, they are all traditionally composed for the purpose of not giving away my identity. The one on the back of the left glove absorbed heat which could more quickly lower the surrounding temperature then applying ice magic. I could channel the gathered heat and amplify it with magic to shortcut the cost of fire magic spells. Recycling.

Julie flipped the glove over and made all these observations, and I couldn't help but admire how excited she was as she looked over the magic circles and read all the symbols. People always remarked how amazing things like this were, but they never really understood why. My keeper exclusively used the vampire version of blood magic, a version I dubbed Sanguine Magic to differentiate it from hereditary racial blood magic. Lilith really liked water magic but focused on alchemy and rare ingredients. And back when I traveled with Cheshire, he was the instinctive type who just picked things up like it was natural.

I was completely blown away by not only her ability to understand and decipher the modern runes, but also the ancient and obscure ones also. There were even some specific to certain regions that she was able to decipher. I told her that as an adventurer I spent most of my time in the south around the monster hunters and other adventures and that's where I learned most of them. Which wasn't technically wrong. Not only did she understand everything I said, she was able to keep up with and predict that theory that took me weeks to wrap my head around in some cases.

If she had been around when I was creating this magic it wouldn't have taken nearly as long.

I may have gotten caught up in the conversation because we were interrupted by Sable chopping us both on the head.

"It's about time to go, was my food really that bad?" Sable asked.

We apologized and began stuffing our faces will lauding her cooking skills. After she turned around both of us made eye contact and giggled with our mouths full of food.

"Shorry abwout dat, Nhah." Julie said with her cheeks puffed out. Then she swallowed and continued, "It's not often I get to talk about magic like this. Nerinin is more obsessed with countering magic, Tiera is all enchantment and is leagues outside my experience, Flint is full practical application, and Florence is an alchemist. None of them seem to get me about this kind of thing." Julie smiled shyly. "If I start rambling, let me know. Nyah."

"I can relate." I responded. "My party was made up people who weren't interested in this stuff either. But I can't help that magic fascinates even a guy like me. And now that I'm going to be a warlock it's important to keep my trade secrets under lock and key. So I don't get to just chat like this anymore without charging something."

She smiled and giggled.

"What?" I asked noticing a far off look in her eye.

"I was just thinking about Sebas, he taught me how to love magic and personally began my education when we were little. Nyah." Julie sighed.

"That's right, weren't you his Childhood Friend or something?" I took a bite of my food and noticed how she twitched at the childhood friend phrase.

"Sorry," Her ears folded down. "I just have some complicated feeling about that phrase right now. But yes, we grew up together. Then he was gone and that was that."

"I'm sorry, with how many people are looking for him, you have probably gone through a hard time by knowing him." I sighed looking down at my food. Stupid. Stupid. Why did I bring that up? I totally killed any good mood that we had.

"I don't regret any of it, it's just complicated. Nyah." Julie stood up and walked away.

I reached out to her and realized that I didn't even know what I'd say to her. Sorry I left? Sorry I unleashed the Nighclaw on the world? Sorry I didn't come right back? Sorry I am still lying? Sorry I'm a giant dickhead!? And right now, I'm Hyde, what could or should I even say?

Ultimately, I chickened out and didn't say anything.

I really am just a coward.

Without speaking to anybody I handed my tray back to Sable and went back to work. I made several icy duplicates that... aw who am I kidding? I'm a stupid idiot...

What really happened was I stood up and grabbed her hand before she could get away. The food on my lap spilled on the ground by the sudden motion. "Hey, screw him!" I said and she turned around indignantly. "Okay, I'm not saying this because you charmed me or anything." I could barely keep eye contact, but I felt my blush building. "You shouldn't get bent out of shape over something like this... what I mean is... you're amazing. Objectively speaking you shouldn't waste time on people who haven't even bother to stick around."

I felt her fists clench and realized I was failing to get the desired effect. And... well I panicked.

"Now! These are the moments that matter!" I shouted, which shocked her a little. "People who are here NOW are important. Honor the dead and past. But if you live in the past, you die in the past! Your smile to everyone here now, is more important than your frown to someone who isn't. Even that asswad wouldn't want to see you frown! Look around you, don't you understand how important you are!"

How important you are to me...