"Its simple, were all here with are travel equipment to set out on
a grand quest to find ones who sealed the magic, kill them, and
then unseal the magic. Even though I'm pretty sure the ones who
sealed always magic died of a millennium ago"
Alex glanced at Fox, wrinkling up his nose in light
distaste for the boy and the..."job". He turn back to Marius with a
smile. "Nah, Eliza can do some of her awesome magic on me, huh?" He
said as he tried to again ease the tension. He dug around in his
pocket for his pocket knife, holding out his arm and cutting the
backside of his wrist lightly, biting his lip to keep in a whimper.
He wiped off the blade and flicked it shut as blood began to drip
from the cut. Eliza gasped, hurriedly taking her thumb and running
it across the wound. As her thumb passed over the cut flesh, the
flesh melded back. Alex smiled, wiping off the blood that now
belonged to no laceration. "See? Good as new." He smiled widely,
winking at Marius with a confident smile.
"Arent you edgy." Marius said, blushing slightly. What a cool kid.
"I'm not here with travel equipment, I was going to get parts for
my mother's boat shop in the next town over and was cutting through
the woods. If I dont tell her where I'm gone she'll have my head."
He said, turning to Fox. "None of us need to worry about sealed
magic anyways, we all have it. Besides, it must have been sealed
away for a reason."
Fox hangs his bag from a tree branch, and pulls a chain out of the
bag, moving his gem, and placing it on the chain, and puts the
chain around his neck, putting the gem beneath his shirt and his
jacket. He thinks about maybe taking a stick and slightly charging
the bark, to dry the inside and make it hard and durable, but
decides that it isn't worth the trouble if the forest burns
down.
He turns back to face them. "We have magic because a magical force
found a way to make it past the seal and feed its magical essence
to are crystals! If we unseal the magic, then we won't need these
crystals, and we don't need to worry about what happens when the
crystals run out of power, and the magic disappears!"
"If you dont use your crystal all willy nilly then it wont run out
of power, now will it." Marius said, rolling his eyes. "Keep it to
like, twice a day and you're fine. My mother had this before I, and
her mother before that. I dont know if its always been magical but
its always been in my family."
Alex stuck his tongue out at Marius after the edgy comment,
quickly slipping the muscle back into his mouth as the two began to
bicker again. The siblings glanced at each other, trying to remain
impartial. "Guys..." Eliza said softly, glancing between them. Alex
shifted on the balls of his feet, staring at the suddenly
interesting forest floor.
Eliza opened her mouth to speak, but Alex beat her to it.
"You see... You guys do a lot of infighting, and neither of us
extremely like arguing. So... Uh... Maybe have a legitimate
discussion rather than just... Yelling at one another?" Alex had
spoken softly, which was extremely different from the look he
portrayed. Eliza nodded softly, and Alex glanced back at Marius
before glancing at Fox.
Fox hears something approaching the clearing, four legs clomping
slowly down the forest path. The moment it steps into the clearing.
He blasts a flame at it, burning it alive. He doesn’t realize that
it isn’t something attacking them until he sees the charred antlers
and the black, smoldering fur of a deer.
Eliza gasped as Fox burned the animal, hiding her view of
the burnt animal. Alex himself flinched and let out a soft noise he
couldn't keep in that sounded like a light whimper. He gave Eliza a
sideways glance, and noticed the light shaking of his sister's
shoulders before glancing at his hands to notice they were
quivering lightly. He shoved the hands into his jacket pockets,
trying to hide their quaking. He didn't know his own shoulders were
shaking a bit as well, taking a deep breath. Eliza stood beside him
with her hands over her eyes, shaking like a cold puppy.
Marius let out a soft squeak at the sight of the charred deer, were
it because of the fire, or the fact that he'd been in a similar
situation to the deer at some point albeit lesser. He moved
slightly so Alex was directly between him and the deer, blocking
his view of it. "I dont, I dont want to be here." He said, running
his hands through his hair. "I was just supposed to be passing
through" He didnt stop running his hands through his hair as his
breathing became heavy and his eyes started to well up with tears.
"I didnt, I dont I, I, I" Marius stammered.
“It snuck up on me, and in return, the balance in life permitted me
to kill it. Those who fight using reason achieve as much as normal
humans, but those who have honed instincts, will survive the
longest!”
"Then does that not make you an animal or a monster? What next you
will burn me cause I talked back? Will you burn Marius cause he is
crying? Will you burn those two for shaking?" Leon asked before
sighing. "Sorry that was rude. Look be more careful. With great
power comes great responsibility. Or something like that."
Fox feels his head calm down. “Power, what is power, why should we
continue to rely on something we don’t even know, someth8ng we
don’t understand. I’ve dedicated every precious amount of time I
can to trying to find out. When we found these crystals, they
changed us, they turned us into something different. Before I had
the ruby I was a simple teen trying to find meaning in life. After
I found it, I have been trying to discover who, or what my crystal
is”
Fox takes the crystal and chain from around his neck, and puts it
away in his pack. “If it is helping show us how we exist, then it
isn’t exactly how we exist, but more why we exist, and what are
purpose is”
Fox turns to the forest, and silently picks up the deer and places
it by a small sapling, providing the sapling with plenty of
nutrition to grow. He then walks off into the woods, and examines
the surroundings, looking for signs of other humans.