All Epilogue 11 - Etherian Powers

“Rrrgh!” Virgil scrubbed at the spot on his shirt in the school bathroom. “Rrgh, come on…!” Cursing the stain vehemently, he couldn’t get the shirt to come clean, and he certainly wasn’t going to go to his classes with a ruined shirt. “Why...won’t...you...get...clean?!” As he shouted at it, moving his hand over the spot, there was a slight sparkle, and suddenly the shirt was as clean and perfect as the day it had been made. Virgil blinked, looking between the mirror and the shirt. As what had happened sunk in, a grin of barely-contained excitement spread across his face. This would call for some serious practice. He composed himself, straightening as he left the bathroom. He would keep this under wraps for now: he was already more than familiar enough with magic to know that this sort of arcana wouldn't be aided by teachers. His father's was learned from a book, and Lucca's was entirely different; any magic he possessed had to be natural (since he certainly hadn't meant to cast that spell), meaning it was probably closest to his elder sister's, and he already knew she learned hers through practice, not instruction. Better to keep something like this a secret until it was perfected some, until it was really impressive.
----
"Yo!" Lucca turned around from his spring planting to look at Mako, who was walking towards him. "One of the girls is here. Think it's Nuan? Slammed a door." He kept walking deeper into the yard. "Just so you know; you probably want to look into that." It was barely noon; it was far too early for her to be home from school.
Thanking Mako for the heads up, he turned toward the house with a troubled frown. Finishing with the plant he had been about to commit to the earth, he stood up and brushed the loose soil off his hands before heading into the house to investigate. Making his way to Nuan's room, he knocked lightly at the closed door and called her name.
"Go away!" she yelled, from behind what sounded to be a pillow. Her voice was hoarse: she was crying. Lucca could hear her sobbing softly.
"Nuan...hun, what's wrong? What happened?" He asked through the closed door, not particularily wanting invade her space.
"Lemme alone..." she said, sadder this time. 
He gave a soft sigh and leaned his head against the door momentarily before opening it just enough to step inside. Nuan was laying on her bed, face jammed in a pillow. "Come on, sweetheart, don't be like that...let me help, please?" He pressed gently, making his way across the room to perch lightly on the edge of the bed next to her, "Talk to me, what's the matter?"
She lay quietly sobbing for a short while, not quite able to form words, before eventually shouting out, "Why can't I just be normal?! Nobody here is normal, and it's not fair!!" 
He blinked, a soft, sympathetic cast mingling with the concern in his expression. "What do you mean? What happened?"
She cried for a little longer, before muttering something unintelligible. With some soft nudging from Lucca, she finally exclaimed, "I killed a tree!"
"...Huh?" He blurted, caught off guard. Collecting himself once more, he gently placed a hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry, sweetheart...that really sucks, I know. Accidents happen to all of us though. I know I've certainly screwed up and done that before...but we learn from our mistakes, right? One of the nice things about plants is, even though we can't bring that particular tree back we can always try again with what we've learned. How did it happen?"
"Rrgh!" she growled, emotional and frustrated, pulling her face up. "It's not the same!! It's not like that!! I killed it! I...pulled all the water out of it, or something! I don't know!! I'm a freak!!" she threw her face back into the pillow, sobbing anew.
It was a few seconds before he spoke again, caught off guard by this development as he was. When he did his voice was firm despite its kindess. "Alright, first thing's first. You are not and never will be a freak, never. So please don't say that sort of thing, it's neither right nor fair to yourself."
"I am!! I kill things and it's stupid spirit magic and it's cause I'm not really a person!!" She sobbed brokenly, "I'm...I...I don't want..." before trailing off into sobs.
"Oh hun..."He sighed softly, his expression pained. "C'mere..." He urged, moving gently to gather her into a hug. She cried into his shoulder, shaking in his arms until she eventually ran out of tears. He held her tightly, gently rubbing her back as he waited for her to settle before speaking once more, his voice low and gentle.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart...I'm sorry that this is happening and that it's hurting you so much...I wish there was a way that I could take it away for you or make it stop or something. I really do. I'm sorry that I can't..." He hugged her a bit tighter. "You aren't a freak, or not a person, or anything like that...all sorts of people manifest magic like this...it doesn't make you either of those things. We'll figure out how it triggered, and how to control it, and then you wont have to see it or deal with it again if you don't want to, kay?"
She picked herself up and wiped at her face, nodding slightly. "I don't want to be a spirit..." she whispered hoarsely, looking into the middle distance. "They're selfish. They do whatever they want, and hurt everybody." She rubbed her face once more, "I'm not ever doing magic again."
He looked away as an odd look flitted over his face, shaking it off before turning back to her and saying, "You're not a spirit, Nuan, and you're definitely none of those things. If you don't want to do magic again that is absolutely your choice." He paused, then added, "But we probably should try to figure out what triggered it in the first place, so there aren't any more accidents, yeah?"
She shook her head, "It was...a weird sort of feeling, like I could feel something moving, inside it. I...pulled on it? I thought about trying to make it move differently, and magic just happened." Shaking her head again, she added vehemently, "M'not doing it again."
"You've already got it all figured out, then." He commented with a small smile, reaching out to brush a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "That's my clever girl." She snorted and looked down, but a faint hint of an embarrassed grin played at the corner of her lips.
----
"Lucca..." Nuan said slowly. "Can I talk to you about something?"
"Of course." He nodded, setting down his book with a questioning look.
Nuan gestured outside, leading Lucca out to the garden that she tended, all of the plants selected and grown by her, as well as the furniture and small pond. It was her project, the place she liked to tend and spend time in, that Lucca had helped her with for years. The girl, just begun at secondary school, sat on a bench.
Lucca took a seat next to her, and after a moment prompted, "What's up?"
Crossing her arms and looking conflicted for a minute, eventually, she huffed and spat out quickly, "I think Virgil's using magic. At school. On people." She looked somewhere between vindictive and ashamed: she knew she was tattling.
The druid blinked a couple times, a frown colouring his expression. "...I don't like the sounds of that. What makes you think so?"
"I've seen people use magic before," she replied bluntly. "I just...think he is. It's...the quiet kind, the sort where you're not really using specific words, but, I'm pretty sure I saw him twice, doing...something. I don't know." She folded her arms tighter, looking bitter, "People like him too much..."
"Making friends has always come pretty easily to him...but you think this is different, yeah? That he's using...some sort of charm magic...?" Lucca pursed his lips momentarily, then asked, "Tell me about what happened? Could you describe what you saw?"
"Well..." she thought about it for a moment, before explaining, "Just...sometimes, I'll see him talking to people in the halls, and it's like...they just stop and listen to him, like whatever they were doing before just didn't matter? It's weird; it's not like he's that important. I saw a teacher do it once. Just...it's like everything he says is the most important thing ever. And one time, I know he was casting something. I saw some people arguing in the halls, I don't remember what about, it wasn't really important. But he was walking by and he saw them, and I noticed him just...do something. Casting. A teacher yelled at them to stop fighting, so they did, and ran off...but there wasn't any teacher in sight. It was probably an illusion." She frowned, scuffing the grass at her feet, "He shouldn't be casting on people. It's wrong."
"Hmm...No, he really probably shouldn't." Lucca agreed, sitting back sightly, his expression thoughtful. After a few moments he sighed, "I'll make sure he's spoken to about this, it's past time for it anyway. Thank you for letting me know," he smiled at her slightly.
Nuan frowned, "Wait, you knew?? Why were you letting him get away with it if you knew??"
"No, I didn't know anything. This is the first I've heard of any of this, honestly, and it'll be addressed right away." He replied calmly with a shake of his head. Continuing, he explained, "It's just, years ago when we were dealing with the All, Gemini alluded that he was likely to manifest some sort of magical ability. It's around the time that it'd be expected, a little early maybe, but still. So on that note, we probably ought to have discussed this sort of thing with him preemptively, that's all I was saying."
"Oh," Nuan said. She paused for a minute, then sighed, "...Everyone in this family is weird."
----
Virgil walked up the beach, the sun setting over the land behind him, casting purple shadows over the water. Though he walked easily, looking without purpose, he was looking for someone. Eventually, he found her: his sister Xue, sitting on a large rock overlooking the waves. He called out to her a few times before he got her attention, at which point she snapped back, as though she had been mesmerized. Climbing down, she joined him on the sand. “Hey, sorry about that. Is it dinner?”
“Yeah,” he said, and the two started back towards their house. “...You cut out pretty early today,” he said.
She shrugged, “It was a free period. Didn’t see any point in sticking around. Rather be out here.”
“That’s cool,” he shrugged. The were quiet for a little longer, before Virgil changed the topic entirely, “You think you’re going to follow your mom?”
“Huh??” the question caught her entirely off-guard.
“Like, you’re the daughter of an ocean spirit, right? Think you’re going to go find your mom?” He grinned, looking up and away, “Like, I’m the son of a devil, so I’m totally going to go follow Dad to Hell. That’ll be so cool. Probably be a long time from now, but who cares, right?”
She gave him a playful frown, “Idiot. People die when they go to the spirit worlds.”
“Heh, yeah, sure, but a lot of tales say that spirits are born like people, then turn into spirits when they’re ready. I’m going to be ready. I’m going to go with Dad.”
Grinning, she asked, “How do you know you won’t be like your mom? Turn into a bird instead?”
Virgil returned the smile, “Maybe. But I’m still gonna go with Dad. Hell bird!” he exclaimed. “Hell’s gotta have some pretty cool birds.” Xue giggled. After a few beats, Virgil continued, “I’m gonna go with Dad. So, it’s cool if you think you want to go with your mom.”
“I barely even remember my mom,” she said with some sarcasm.
He shrugged, “Fair enough. I bet the spirit ocean is still pretty cool though.”
“...Maybe…” she said quietly, looking away. With that, Virgil changed the topic entirely once more, speaking about the latest school gossip; Xue happily took her mind off of the subject.
----
Word had gotten back to Lucca that Xue had skipped all of her classes for the third day in a row. She had been seeming more and more distracted the last few months, getting worse with each day: she showed little interest in anything other than spending time at the beach. It was indeed there that Lucca found her this afternoon, sitting on a rock and staring at the water as though transfixed, listening to something only she could hear. As he walked over to stand next to her, his expression held faint hints of sadness and concern. He called her name a couple times; gently touching her shoulder as he repeated himself, he finally caught her attention.
"Welcome back, kiddo. Mind if I join you?" He asked, smiling slightly. She gave a vague nod and sound of assent, turning back towards the waves. Taking a seat next to her, he looked out over the waves as well. After a while, he said plainly. "You missed school again today." Her response was again only a vague 'Mhmm.'
"You're out here all the time, now." He went on after another long pause. "What is it you're watching for? What are you thinking?"
After a long pause, she said, "...I don't know...I can...hear something...kind of. ...Something...is going to happen...and I have to be here, when it does...It's like...everything else...is quiet, and I'm...far away."
Category:Advent of the All