All Epilogue 16 - Virgil's Training

The sounds of clanging echoed through the rear gardens as Virgil and Mako sparred among the trees. Mako had eschewed his disguise hat and fought in his true form; at the age of fourteen, Virgil was still nothing close to a threat, but his years of diligent training certainly showed. He had long ago graduated from using a wooden training sword to a true weapon, taking up one of the old swords that had been left behind by Victor as he trained in the more fluid, twirling style that had been his, and at one time Mako’s, prefered discipline. The devil paid little attention as he slashed and pressed his opponent, unconcerned with the entire affair and muttering about dinner. Sighting his opportunity, Virgil caught Mako off-guard and managed, for the first time, to slide past Mako’s defenses. Years and years of being told not to hold back on Mako’s account held true and Virgil did not check his lunge, leaving a thin gash on Mako’s side where he had just barely managed to reach. Unfortunately for him, Mako also had years of honed reaction trained into him, and the sudden sting of injury caused the wrathful, impulsive devil to lash out with a snarl. His claws could move faster than a human could follow, particularly a largely-untested teenager, and the entire exchange took hardly a second. Mako blinked, regaining control of himself only fast enough to realize his mistake but not to stop it. Virgil didn’t scream but he uttered a guttural, choked moan as he dropped his weapon and sunk to the ground, bleeding heavily from the significant gash in his abdomen. Paled and terrified, Mako dashed away towards the house, leaving the boy there.
As he ran, closing in on the proper backyard and sighting the house, a sharp noise from behind suddenly stopped him: a whistle. It was a sharp sound, clear and true, and certainly not something being made by someone who was in the process of bleeding out. He faltered, and as he turned to look he did notice movement through the gardens behind him. There hadn’t been anyone other than himself and Virgil. Someone whistled again, the trilling sound of someone calling for attention, and when he caught sight of the person he dashed back. Virgil stood there panting, out of breath from trying to catch up to the much faster Mako; he stopped running when he saw Mako returning, and grinned at the devil’s expression of residual horror. To look at him, the boy was uninjured, untouched and barely disheveled. “Hey,” Virgil smirked, gesturing behind Mako’s shoulder with his chin, breathing heavily, “Look over there for a sec?” Reflexively Mako complied, and as his eyes scanned around for something or someone, he felt Virgil tap him lightly on the back. He whipped back to look at the boy, but as he was about to say something, or perhaps just yell incoherently, Virgil smiled, “Gotcha.” 
An icy presence suddenly behind Mako pre-empted any outcry. Mako seemed to almost shrink as Osamu spoke behind him, his voice cold and dark, “What is going on?”
Mako turned slowly, wincingly, to see Osamu looming, his expression stern and displeased. Virgil was utterly undaunted and continued to smirk, “Nothing! Tricked Mako, s’all.” Osamu’s glare turned from Mako towards Virgil as he explained lightly, “He’s always pulling pranks with me, and I wanted to get him, for once.” He shrugged, “That’s all!” Osamu stared down his son with icy authority, and while the look Virgil returned him was smiling, his eyes were undoubtedly sending his father the same message. Mako had turned his focus back to Virgil, and indeed there was no sign of pain, no trace of blood, sweat or dirt on him; he looked down at his hand which had been smeared with blood as he had run for the house, but now was spotless. The sudden jarring switch from panic and back had left him stunned, wondering what was even real.
After what seemed like an eternity of the two staring each other down, Osamu narrowed his eyes. “Do not repeat yourself.”
Virgil nodded dutifully, “Yessir. Not again.” 
Osamu turned his look towards Mako, making it clear that the message was meant for him as well. Mako nodded distantly, his reply quiet and almost meek, “...Yeah…” With one last disapproving look, Osamu turned. Taking a few steps, he suddenly vanished, teleporting back to where he had been before. Virgil smiled with a bit of relief as he turned and made to walk back to the far fields. When he noticed that Mako wasn’t following him, he looked over his shoulder. Mako had left as well. Frowning sadly, Virgil left to reclaim his abandoned sword. 
-----
It was later that evening that Mako entered the room where Osamu meditated, his eyes closed and posture severe as he sat on the floor. Quietly, Mako knelt across from him and sank down into a position of deference and shame. There were no words spoken for a long time.
Osamu was the one who broke the silence, speaking flatly, “Be glad that apparently, nothing happened today. Because had something actually occurred that warranted that amount of panic from you, apologies would not suffice.”
“Yes, Lord Miro,” Mako intoned softly.
“As it is, though,” he continued to speak without opening his eyes, “there is no evidence of any misdoing, and Virgil is adamant in his story. Whether he is truthful or applying himself wholeheartedly to a lie, for either of your sakes, it places me in no position to enact appropriate discipline, as there is nothing to accurately suggest who or what requires address. So unless you are going to confess to something which I would be required to reprimand you for, this remains a matter between you and my son, and I sincerely hope neither of you startle me like that again.”
Mako replied quietly, but did not move, “...I reacted, by accident.”
“Then take care to not repeat your accident,” Osamu said bluntly. 
“Yes, Lord Miro.”
Not once had any trace of emotion crossed Osamu’s face, and he ended the conversation in the same fashion, “This matter is closed.” Mako bowed further before skulking from the room.
-----
Virgil whistled as he walked out towards the pond in the early morning. He hadn’t spoken to Mako since yesterday, but he had seen him go to the pond before disappearing for the night. It wasn’t the first time he’d vanished after going near the pond and Virgil had a decent idea that he wasn’t disappearing at all. Mako couldn’t do magic and even though the devil was good at hiding, he wasn’t exactly supernatural about it; also, he had to breathe. The time seemed ripe for a lakebed investigation. He smirked: getting Lucca to cast a spell that allowed him to breathe underwater without also getting his nose into his affairs was a tricky business that involved a fair bit of doublespeak and misdirection, but he had succeeded. Wearing minimal clothes yet still armed with his sword, Virgil hopped into the water to see if he could find exactly where Mako was going.
After a painstaking search, he found what it was he was looking for: a camouflaged mesh grate, covered in algae. It moved aside easily enough to reveal a tunnel roughly dug into the earth, large enough for a person. Smirking, he reached down to grab a stone from the lake bed that he muttered over. It began to gleam as magic took hold of it and he held it out in front of him to light his way, pausing to replace the grate behind him.
The tunnel wasn’t very long and quickly began to slope upwards, and soon Virgil could see the surface of the water. Pausing thoughtfully, he chucked the shining stone up out of the water where it landed on some sort of surface, still shedding its light. Cautiously, Virgil held his sword up over his head protectively as he kicked his way up gently to the surface. When he did, the light from the stone illuminated the area, clearly revealing a small, barren room dug out of the earth. It was large enough for a human to sit up but not stand and had nothing in it but what appeared to be some blankets, dirty with mud from the floor. The air was heavy with moisture but seemed surprisingly fresh to Virgil, considering that it was a sealed underground cave; curiously, it had the light scent of baked goods and spices. Posed over him threateningly, claws bared, was Mako, but when the devil saw what had thrown the glowing rock, he huffed and pulled back, sitting down heavily and looking rather sulky. Virgil grinned, “Sorry about the rock. Figured that going into a cave head-first wasn’t bright.”
“Tch!” Mako snorted, looking away. “Means you lost the element of surprise.”
Virgil chuckled as he pulled himself out of the water onto the muddy ground, “Yeah, but in this case? The element of surprise would probably just get my head taken off.” Mako hissed slightly, folding his arms and looking perturbed. Virgil, however, was not perturbed in the slightest as he sat cross-legged nearby, still smiling as he looked around, “So, this is where you hide out when you disappear into the pond? Nice. Did you dig it out?”
“Feh,” Mako just snorted again. Reaching over, he picked up the glowing stone that still illuminated the room. “What’s this shit, Twerp?”
Snickering, Virgil grinned, “Magic!”
“No shit,” Mako frowned. 
“Started figuring it out a few years ago. Still not great at it, but I’m getting the hang,” he waved his hands about as he finished, muttering a simple spell. With a few casts, he dried his clothes and Mako’s, and cleaned the mud from the blankets. 
As Virgil picked up one of the blankets and wrapped it around himself, Mako narrowed his eyes, “Years? Ain’t never heard hide or hair of magic coming from you.”
The boy explained himself brightly, “Wanted to perfect it first! I wanted to be good at it before throwing it around, ‘specially since it’s not wizardry, so it’s not like anyone knowing or telling me about it was going to do me any good. Plus, better to keep magic in reserve, right?” He continued to grin, obviously pleased with himself, “People assume you don’t have magic until they catch you using it, so it’s a great trump card if you can keep it secret.”
Mako looked over the rock, obviously thinking deeply. “...You ain’t wrong…” he muttered. His eyes glanced up, “Not wizardry...but not split-soul magic like the Wakahisas,” he shook his head, correcting, “Junko. So, sorcery?”
“I think it’s that ethereal bard stuff,” he shrugged, “Least that’s what some fey mentioned back when I was a kid.”
“...How old were you, when you started?”
“Uhh, think I was twelve,” Virgil replied, thinking back. “I was at school, public school, first time I casted something by accident. Been training it ever since. I can do a couple different things by now.”
Mako pursed his lips, “...I think that’s young for sorcery. Real young. Split-souls cast as kids, but sorcerers usually don’t start ‘till they’re older. Fifteen, sixteen usually. Maybe even older.” He tossed the rock lightly over to Virgil, who caught it easily, “We’d want ‘em in the army, bad. We were always looking for casters that weren’t tied up in the church, and wizards weren’t exactly a dime a dozen in Yeto. Only old families that all had their allegiances squared.” 
“Neat!” Virgil grinned, always grateful for glimpses into the past. Snorting again and looking away, Mako folded his arms. For a bare second, Virgil looked at Mako with concern before smiling again, “Good thing I was training, right? I didn’t even scream or anything!” He made a mock wincing face as he spoke, “Stomach wounds hurt, but I think the chest is worse?” Mako’s head stiffly turned around to regard him as he continued lightly, “Plus it was only like, a cut and not a stab. Stabs are pretty bad.”
Mako blinked slowly, “...What…”
“What?” Virgil grinned innocently before chuckling, “I figured out the healing spell pretty early? Guess I thought it was important or something. But, I mean, what good’s a healing spell if you can’t use it when you need it, right? So I’ve been practicing it, basically every day or two. I’ll skip a day if I’m practicing other spells, but this one’s probably the most important to have perfect under any circumstance, right, so it’s usually got priority.”
A very slow, incredulous grin began to spread across Mako’s face, “...So you practice stabbing yourself, and healing it.”
“Stabbing, cutting, burning, whatever. Gotta mix it up, make sure I can take it and still cast the spell,” he said with levity. He shrugged, “I’m pretty sure that the spell can’t fix breaks or like, ruptured eyes or anything, so I’ve never tried that. Probably have bigger problems if that happens. But! Stomach gash field test was a success!”
As Virgil finished his statement, Mako broke out into giggles that escalated into full laughter. The boy continued to grin as he had been through Mako’s display, waiting for him to finish. Speaking through his chuckles, Mako managed to spit out, “That’s…! That’s so fucked up!”
Virgil chuckled a few times himself, smiling self-deprecatingly, “Yeah...I guess.” As Mako’s giggles came under control, Virgil got something of a serious look as he said, “...Don’t stop.”
“What, laughing?”
“Training with me,” he corrected with a shake of his head. “You don’t hold back,” he cut himself off to correct his statement with an eyeroll, “Well, like, obviously you hold back, but not like Dad does. I want to get better, and you’re just, you’re just a better teacher. I don’t know if it’s ‘cause you have more practice training people or if Dad just worries more or what, you’re just better.” He gestured broadly, “So I got hurt. So what? I’m gonna get hurt, I get it. That’s what we have clerics and potions for! I need to not die, so I need to practice getting hurt without something actually trying to kill me, so I can get better.” With a tight sort of frown, he finished, “So don’t coddle me like Dad and Lucca. I got hurt not just ‘cause I’m not good enough to really fight you yet, but ‘cause you didn’t expect me to hit you. I’m not as weak as you all think. I don’t care that you cut me; you should be cutting me. It’s not like the hit you gave me would’ve killed me right away anyhow: I would have totally lasted until Dad or Lucca came. But now you know I can fix it, so it’s even less of a deal and you should be pushing me more.” He clenched his fist and muttered towards the floor, “I don’t care what Lucca or Dad says…”
Mako had sobered as Virgil spoke and regarded him with a gravity that was uncommon for the manic devil. After a quiet pause, Mako mentioned, “Yeah...you are more like your Dad than we give you credit for sometimes…” He was quiet for another moment before scoffing and turning around. Lying down on his side, he curled up and away from Virgil, thinking. With his soft smirk coming back, Virgil reached over and tossed one of the blankets over the devil before scooting over. Lying back himself, he rested his head on Mako’s side. Mako clenched tightly, “Kid! Personal. Space.”
“Meh,” Virgil disregarded him entirely. The two lay there for a while in the mud before Virgil spoke, “I’m sorry. About yesterday.”
“...Yeah, whatever…”
“...Did’ja turn yourself in to Dad?” Mako only grunted in response. “...Sorry. I didn’t want him freaking out for nothing. ...Is everything cool?”
“...Yeah.”
“...Good.” He smirked, “But you haven’t said anything about the real thing here.”
“Hmn?”
“Come on,” Virgil said proudly, twisting his head to look at Mako, “I hit you.”
Slowly at first, Mako began to chuckle again. He didn’t turn as he spoke, “Barely, Twerp. Hardly a scratch; it’s already healed.”
“I hit you,” Virgil reiterated proudly.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mako said with a grin, still pointed away. “Guess I won’t be able to be completely asleep when I fight you from now on.”
Virgil chuckled. They sat quietly for another moment before Virgil commented, “I like how it smells like Granny’s house in here.”
“Tch!” Mako spoke sharply, “You can’t get stupid elf air bottles that don’t smell like something.” He muttered, “Friggen elves don’t do anything normally...” Virgil just chuckled, and the two sat in a sort of comfortable silence for a while until the light of the stone vanished.
Category:Advent of the All