Story: Ending Part 2
[[Continuity Note: What? The boys' magical powers are going to go away? No way!]]
The brightening of the lights in the room seemed to draw the audience out of their shocked, contemplative, numbed state. They began exchanging looks with each other, and whispering before too long a large number of people had started heated debates with one another. As though removed from the world, a number of people sat there in contemplative silence. The two magi-scientists seemed a little bit shocked at the outbreak their simple scientific findings had produced. They hadn't even gone into half of it. Just the bits that were relevant to this case.
Before pandemonium grew too far out of control, Mr Aldus calmly stood and raised his hands. Instantly the room was quiet, and every face was staring at the patriarch of the family. The man who was directly descended from the first recorded magic user.
"I have a question," he stated grandly, commanding respect that Alf had forgotten people gave to him without question.
"Of course Mr Aldus," Mr Wiley obliged. "What is it?"
"Why has this only happened now?" he asked, then took his seat in expectation of the answer.
"Well, we have a number of different theories about this," Mr Wiley stated.
Mr Aldus' face showed that he had no patience for 'a number of different theories'.
"Our most likely one is that this is how long it's taken for the family to use amass enough magic to exceed your grounds' capacity for taking it. The fact that you take care of the grounds and the people within it means that the magic in the ground cannot do this. As I mentioned, magic is a fickle creature who comes and goes as it pleases meaning that it doesn't want to stay in the ground. It wants to heal. And if it can't heal because you are all doing it for it, it goes to find a different vessel. And of course, it then starts building up within the boys until it's run out of things to heal within them and can then be used like we use magic."
"We did want to ask," Mary-Ann Aldus stated, looking toward Alf's parents. "Was Alf ill at all as a child? Was he sickly as a baby?"
"Actually, yes," Mrs Struthers stated. "He managed to get pneumonia as a baby. The doctors never thought he'd survive. But he did and he's never been sick since."
"Same with Rock," Aliana stated, looking over at her son who was looking rather depressed. "At two he fell off the third storey balcony... not entirely accidentally since we were trying to test if he did have magic even though everyone said he didn't. He broke nearly every bone in his body that day. But nothing since. In fact, he recovered from that far faster than should have even been magically possible, we thought." Alf was reminded of Harry Potter and wondered if J.K. Rowling was in fact magical, or had a magical friend.
"Fascinating," Mr Wiley clasped his hands together in glee, as though all his dreams were coming true at once.
"How long will the magic last?" Rock asked, looking down at his hands as though seeing them for the first time.
"We're not certain about that," Mary-Ann stated. "We suspect about a year or two depending on how often you use it. We'd need to test you more to see how much you'd built up before we could give you a more accurate estimate."
"Is anyone else likely to develop powers like them?" Adelina Granada asked, ever the thinking council leader. Always wondering about the political ramifications of any situation.
"If the Aldus family ceases to release their magic into the ground, it is highly likely that no one else should come into magic. But the magic may already have built up into some people to that point. And we should all take care not to use magic around the nons. Simply because that magic may also be absorbed by them and taken in, causing the phenomenon to take hold."
"Then we'd better make a council decree that the Aldus family is no longer to release their excess magic into the grounds. In fact," Councillor Granada continued. "We're going to need a number of decrees to cover all the families, as well as take note of where magic is released."
And suddenly the scientific talk turned into a council meeting. Naturally Alf was bored out of his mind within seconds. It was as though his brain didn't want to process what he was hearing. He didn't want to lose his magic. In the short time that he'd had it, it had become a part of his identity. But he refused to think about it and instead counted the tiles on the ceiling of the ballroom and wondered why tiles had been placed there in the first place.
[[I guess it's end scene. Next time, we need all the teens' reactions to the news.]]
Story: Ending Part 1
[[Continuity Note: Damien doesn't want to use magic and admits that it's because it means he has to lie to his parents. Alf persuades him to still learn about magic even if he's not going to use it.]]
A few weeks passed without any cause for alarm. The teenagers learnt and studied. They were on summer holidays, now. Rock was (not) looking forward to his final year of high school and the dreaded HSC. Alf and Damien were looking forward to the School Certificate, and Jessica was looking forward to seniordom at East Hills High School.
Jessica received her school certificate results band sixes and As in all of her subjects, the best scores you could achieve almost. Her parents were proud, but not overly happy, since they were all about magic. After all, Jessica only needed to pass, how much time had she spent on her non-magical studies that could have been spent on studies of the magical variety?
But it was January, so the teenagers had no worries, other than how to stave off the boredom. Alf began working part-time at a nursery, nursing his green thumb while covertly ensuring that their plants were always healthy and vibrant. Damien and the others weren't allowed to take on part-time work, so Rock often took them on road trips out to the Blue Mountains or they'd sleepover in the city. The long line of Alduses had managed to amass a large amount of money over the centuries they'd been alive, meaning that money was pretty much no object for the two Aldus teens, who had no qualms about sharing their money with the two younger boys.
So when Mr Wiley and Mary-Ann Aldus called together the entire magical council, the Aldus family, Alf and his parents, and Damien it was a bit difficult to track down a time when they could all meet. As a result they met on Australia Day, a couple of days before school started again for the teens, and a public holiday. They gathered in a room in the Aldus house that seemed to be intended to be some sort of ballroom or something but had been converted to contain a large meeting table surrounded by chairs.
Mr Wiley and Ms Aldus stood on the window side of the room and began the meeting.
"As you all know," Mr Wiley began. "The purpose of this meeting is for us to explain the results of the tests we ran on Rock Aldus, Alfonso Struthers and Damien Reid. I hope you find our presentation informative. If you could please wait to ask questions at the end, there will be time to answer all of them."
Ms Aldus continued. "Our initial information collection involved an interview and magical sample taken from each subject." She waved her hand and an image projected in the middle of the table. Three pictures were shown of the three boys, followed by their magic samples. "Those of you who are familiar with magic samples will notice right away that there is something strange about each boy's sample.
"If we first examine Rock's sample." Rock's sample was highlighted and enlarged. "You'll notice that it's a dreadfully ugly shade of green indicative of someone who has an affinity for the earth element. But earth elemental magic usually takes the form of sand or dirt when released. You can see that Rock's magic more takes on the shape of fire if tipped from the crystal that contains it." The crystal tipped and poured out Rock's magic to indicate this.
The projection then returned to the three boys before Alf's magic sample was highlighted and enlarged in the same way Rock's had been. "As you can see, Alf's magic is the same dreadfully ugly shade of green as Rock's sample. As I said earlier, this means an affinity for earth magic. Alf's magic, instead of pouring like sand instead pours like water. Something one would associate with fire elemental magic." Again the image of the crystal tipped to demonstrate this.
"And finally we have Damien's sample." His sample was selected as the two boys before them. "Once again it's that same dreadfully ugly shade of green I've decided to call 'dreadfully ugly'. So we deduce that Damien is once again earth elemental. You'll notice that it doesn't pour, but instead appears in the crystal, then out of the crystal. This trait is characterised by the time element.
"But what does this all mean? Neither of us were certain, especially when the next facts are brought to light. Alf has an affinity for growing plants, control over the earth element as was predicted. But his magic moved like water, and Alf has not shown a great degree of ability to control this element. However Rock showcases an affinity for the fire element rather than the earth element. He can easily call it forth and command it to do his will. Damien on the other hand is more skilled with his control of air. You'll note that Rock's fire ability is echoed in his magic's physical form. But Damien's does not manifest itself physically in his magic at all.
"But these can be attributed to the immature growth of their magical power. Young witches often have difficulty controlling their spiritual element, so one is often not dominant over the others and if diagnosed too early, the spiritual element is often mistaken. The more pressing matter is that the physical embodiment of their magic is altogether different from that of your average born witch."
Mr Wiley began speaking. "The magic of the average user manifests itself cohesively into its core element, or the spiritual element as we call it. Although there is a degree of control over all elements, a magic user's magic will always manifest itself in this way. Earth magic is green and flows like sand through an hourglass, as Mary-Ann mentioned. Fire magic is red and seems to burn. Water magic is blue in colour and flows rather like water. Air magic is white and blows rather than flows. And time magic is black in colour and seems to teleport itself rather than go from one place to another as previously mentioned.
"But the boys' magic has colour and way of movement incongruous with each other. This intrigued us, but we had no explanations so continued to study the samples as though they were normal samples. We thought perhaps that we were dealing with an evolved form of magic. One where the dominant spiritual element - taken to be the colour - also had a lesser spiritual counterpart - evidenced by the motion - that was also strong in the person. We imagined this to be a breed of more powerful magic users.
"This was especially backed up by the evidence of magical incontinence shown by the boys." Realising that Alf's parents were looking at him a little strangely. "Magic users who are more powerful typically experience magical incontinence, where their magic leaks out of them. This tends to happen with teenagers as they mature through puberty, so does their magic and it often grows at a different rate to their ability to control it.
"These leaks can take the form of subconscious magic use. For example, having something suddenly appear near you that you remember thinking you wanted, or finding yourself some place you were thinking about. Other times the raw magic itself, as you saw earlier, can leak, especially if forced out as occurs in the case of a magical sample being taken. Both Alf and Rock required that temporary binding spells be placed upon their magic to allow it to resettle inside themselves after the sample was taken. Damien's magic only required a quick blocking spell to settle. The non-magical equivalents would be a band-aid for Damien's blocking spell, and something like a full body cast for Rock and Alf."
"We thought of explanations for everything," Mary-Ann continued. "Until we checked the magical signatures of the magic. When we take a magical sample, we usually take it to determine the user's spiritual element, and also to determine their magical signature. The magical signature is like a unique magical thumb print that distinguishes each magic user's magic from the other. It is like magical DNA, determining the strength and type of magic. We keep records of magical DNA to aid in settling disputes between magical parties. I won't get into how that works right now, though.
"So to add to our database, we used our usual means of determining magical signatures when we found something quite strange. The magic from all three of the boys had the exact same magical signature. This is impossible. Even in the cases of identical twins where their genetic information is the same, this has never been the case. We curiously compared the points to the familial signatures of the fifteen known magical families. While magical signatures are unique, they share many points in common with anyone from the same family.
"Obviously we began with the Aldus family, as Rock is a member. All points matched. To verify that this wasn't just an anomaly, we compared it to my own magical signature, and Dexter's as well. It was of course quite different from Dexter's as he is from the Fulke family, but there were points in common with each of the family signatures, while there were no points in common with individual signatures. It seemed as though the magic was a generalisation of magical signatures.
"We began looking for signs of this magical signature throughout the town. Of course we found it where the boys were known to have used magic. It was also especially found throughout the Aldus house. But it the Aldus house and grounds, carried so much of the signature that it would be impossible for the boys to have done it. A time spell also confirmed that much of the magic had been there for a time longer than the boys had been alive.
"We had a theory that the generalised magical signature was formed when magic from several people was mixed together. Our experiments in the laboratory proved successful as we were able to create a similar generalised magical signature from our many volunteers in the laboratory. But where could this magic have come from in the first place?"
"That was the next question we sought to answer," Mr Wiley continued. "This led us to observing the habits of the Aldus family, and we noticed in particular, something when Eric Aldus fell ill. It was a typical magical illness. Stress causing exhaustion causing the need for magic to heal itself causing an excess of magic which was then grounded in the family grounds. Tracing Eric's magical signature, we were able to watch as it joined the rest of the magic in the grounds. Mary-Ann added a little of her own magic to the mix and we noticed that the magic left the grounds, heading towards the nearest non-magical person. An eight-year-old girl.
"It is our belief that the magic over the many years of magical illness have caused magic to morph into a general shape unlike that ever seen. So much magic could not be contained by the grounds, and since the family took such good care of the surroundings, there was not much for it to do. Magic does not like to remain stagnant. Therefore it goes looking for places where it can heal. We believe that since all three boys live close to the Aldus household, the magic took root in them, building up over time to the point where it has filled them so completely that they are now able to use it like normal magical users.
"Because of this, we believe that the magic will dissipate from the boys over time, and through magical usage. We would also like to study the boys a bit more to ensure that our hypothesis is correct."
"Now we have time for questions," Mary-Ann said, as the room brightened. "So does anyone have any questions?"
[[Not quite end scene, but a good place to stop.]]
>>Questions about hybrid, borrowed magic (explanations about the incontinence and the shape of the magic), how long it should last, possible political ramifications, solutions, who will be affected...
Story: Middle Part 40
[[Continuity Note: Alf, Jessica and Rock discuss their Saturday on a balcony before Alf leaves.]]
After lunch, Alf decided to head for Damien's house again to try to talk some sense into his best friend. He knocked on the door, and it was once again answered by Damien's father.
"He's upstairs," Mr Reid said, before walking away from the door, back to whatever he was doing. Alf heard him mutter under his breath about giving Alf a spare key so he wouldn't be interrupted. Mr Reid really was grumpy a lot of the time.
Sneaking upstairs like the last time he confronted Damien about magic, Alf discovered that he had none of the same reservations. He knew that he had to talk to Damien, and this time it would just be like apologising after one of any number of fights they'd had before.
"Damien," Alf calls as he knocks on his friend's door before walking it. Damien's seated at his desk, maths textbook open in front of him, pen in hand. He doesn't acknowledge Alf and Alf is reminded of the day that Rock told them about his magical abilities.
"Go away," Damien said quietly, scrawling something onto his page. It's not a number, and is definitely not the right answer. Alf knows that this means that he's distracted Damien sufficiently so proceeds.
"You know, just because you didn't use magic properly before doesn't mean you will in the future. You're taking lessons. You're going to learn how to use it the same as everyone else."
"But should everyone else be using magic?" Damien interjected.
Alf had definitely not expected that as a response. He hadn't thought about it. Everyone thought that since they were given these extra abilities, that they should use them, that they should use them to help people. But who were they to decide what helping people meant? Who were they decide how to help people, when people didn't know they were being helped, and maybe didn't even want to be helped?
"I don't know," Alf said. "But if it doesn't hurt anyone, then what's the harm? If it's only for our own entertainment who's getting hurt?"
"If it's only for our own entertainment, then why not do something else?"
"I don't know, Damien. But don't you feel complete when you use magic? Doesn't it make you feel better than anything else. And it's not completely awful, right? We've got more friends. Rock isn't such a bastard anymore. Jessica speaks so that other people can understand her."
"But maybe Jessica and Rock wouldn't have been like that if there was no magic in their family."
"And maybe it would have been a lot worse," Alf countered. "You're young. You're not completely thoughtless. Maybe you don't have to use your magic. But shouldn't you at least give yourself the option. I mean, you might save someone's life. You don't want to be faced with someone about to get hit by a car and know that you can do nothing because you're too far away and the car's coming too fast. You don't want to be there the day you don't have magic and think, if only I hadn't given that up."
"You're right," Damien stated. "I won't get my magic bound. But it doesn't mean I'm going to use it, either."
"Well, I'm not saying that you should use it," Alf said. "But I think you should still learn more about it. I mean, how do you know you'll be able to save that person if you don't know how to use your abilities."
"Fine," Damien agreed reluctantly. "I'll learn about magic. But I'm still never going to use it ever again." He paused. "Except in emergencies," he added.
Alf nodded. "Though I don't quite understand why you don't want to use it? Since when do fifteen-year-olds care about the moral consequences of their actions?"
"Since they've been reprimanded severely by the magical council," Damien answers.
Alf gave him a look. That's what Damien said, but he wasn't sure he believed him.
"I hate lying to my parents," Damien said.
Alf looked at his friend incredulously. "Then just tell them."
"I can't tell them," Damien said. "They haven't been cleared by the council. Even though they're thinking about coming out to the world, they still won't let me tell my parents. Until their decree is passed, they're not going to let me tell them... and that's only if it's passed."
"Oh," Alf was sympathetic, though he had no real idea how that would feel. He'd just been able to tell his parents because no one told him not to. "That sucks."
"Yeah," Damien agrees. "And that's why I hate magic."
[[End scene.]]
Story: Middle Part 39
[[Continuity Note: Jessica and Alf have been sent upstairs to talk to Rock who should be awake after sleeping since his interview with the magi-scientists.]]
Jessica walked into her cousin's room first, followed carefully by Alf. This was the first time he'd been in Rock's bedroom. The older teen was lying in his large four-poster bed that seemed to have been placed there centuries ago by a different person. But since the house wasn't that old, it probably hadn't been placed there so long ago. His bedsheets were dark blue and a small beam of sunlight illuminated a strip of the bed.
Coming up beside the bed, Jessica looked at her cousin and observed his breathing. "I know you're awake, Rock," she stated, then shook his shoulder.
He rolled over, but did not otherwise stir.
"Come on," Jessica complained. "We're not bringing you breakfast in bed. And not just because it's actually lunch time."
Rock made a strange indecipherable noise as he buried himself further into his sheets.
Suddenly Alf noticed something that made him giggle. It was a small stuffed rabbit, sitting on a shelf across from Rock's bed. It was obviously well loved and the mere thought of someone so harsh as Rock carrying any variety of stuffed toy with him made him laugh. Before long, despite the fact that Jessica had no idea what he was laughing about, she soon joined it.
All of a sudden, as though not wanting to be left out, Rock sat up in bed with a slight laugh. "What are you laughing about, Sprout?" he asked.
It was difficult for Alf to get his chuckles under control for even the few seconds required to answer that statement, so he merely pointed. Seeing this, Jessica stopped laughing and Rock launched himself at the smaller teen. He was stopped by an invisible barrier that Alf had subconsciously conjured. He was furious, and this was enough to stop Alf's laughter.
"I'm sorry," Alf apologised. "I just found it dreadfully amusing."
That didn't work much in the way of an apology and Rock seemed prepared to launch himself at Harry again but Jessica spoke, "Well, at least that got you up."
And at once Rock forgot that he'd been trying to kill Alf, and that he'd previously been trying to lounge in his bed for the rest of the day.
"And now that you're up, you can tell us all about what happened yesterday."
"Fine," Rock stated, pleased that the attention was now focused on him and not on anyone else. "But let's go somewhere else."
Alf nodded his agreement and Jessica led the way out of Rock's room. They walked down the corridor, then headed back toward the back of the house. The corridor ended in a set of sliding doors that opened out onto a balcony and that's where Jessica led them. They conjured a rug and the three of them sat there, leaning against the railing, watching to see if people were coming towards them.
"So how was the interview?" Jessica asked Rock.
Despite the fact that he enjoyed having the attention on himself, Rock thought it would be better to turn it over to Alf first. "Shouldn't the Sprout go first, since he had his interview first." The way he said it made him sound like he was a little put out that his wasn't the first house visited.
He then sat back and summoned a bag of chocolate from somewhere.
"I see," Alf said. "You just wanted to eat."
Rock grinned, but made no move to contradict the smaller teen.
"Go on then, Alf," Jessica stated. She'd be sitting on the edge of her seat if she had one.
"Basically they came in and started asking me questions. Asking me about how I realised I'd come into my power. What I could do. Then they asked me to demonstrate. Nothing much really, except that when they wanted to take a magic sample I managed to get it out, but then it wouldn't stop. So Mr Wiley put a binding spell on me and I slept until this morning."
"A binding spell?" Jessica was shocked. "Do you know how dangerous those are?"
Alf shrugged. "I didn't know he was doing it until he did it. And the way he said it, it seemed like the only thing that would stop it all from just leaking out."
"He did that to me, too," Rock added.
"That's really odd, you know," Jessica said. "That your magic just came out. That's not normal. When dad did a magic test on mine because we couldn't work out what my element was I could stop it pretty easily."
"Well, you'd had your magic for longer, surely," Alf suggested. "So it would have been easier for you to control it."
"I don't know," Jessica said. "But the binding spell's off, now, right?"
Alf nodded. "Yeah I used some magic this morning when I was chasing Damien."
"You were chasing Reed?" Rock asked.
"Yeah," Alf nodded. "You know how he came back pretty out of it on Friday. Then he left before you guys had even woken up. He says he doesn't want to ever use magic ever again."
"What a loser," Rock commented. "I wouldn't give this up for the world," he said as he made a fist and caused flames to burst out between his knuckles.
"Yeah, we agree with you. Meaning we're going to have to get him to start using it soon," Jessica stated. "Before he goes asking someone to put a permanent binding spell on him."
"He wouldn't," Alf breathed. Somehow, Jessica managed to make a binding spell seem like the scariest thing in the universe.
Jessica shrugged. "He's going to start using magic subconsciously. If he really wants to stop that he's going to want to make someone stop it permanently."
"He can do magic subconsciously?" Rock asked. "But can't only the most powerful witches do that?"
Jessica nodded.
"No way. You cannot be that powerful and want to get rid of it. That's just not allowed," Rock protested.
"He didn't grow up like we did," Jessica stated.
"I didn't either," Alf interjected. And neither Aldus had a response for that. "Anyway," Alf changed the subject. "What was your interview like?" Alf asked Rock.
Rock grinned, and stretched, obviously settling in for a long round of story telling. "Pretty much exactly the same as yours." Alf and Jessica refrained from hitting him upside the head in tandem.
"What colour's your magic?" Jessica asked.
"This gross mucus green," Alf stated with a grimace.
"Hey," Rock frowned. "Mine's that colour too. Like, sort of yellowy green."
"That means your element's earth, both of you," Jessica informed them.
"Then why do I have such an affinity for fire?" Rock asked, illuminating his face with said element.
Jessica shrugged. "Because you're a troublemaker?" she suggested.
"I resent that," Rock stated, flicking a fireball at her.
Jessica doused it before it came anywhere near her and she fixed him with a glare.
"Oh come on," Alf said. "You know it's true, Rock."
He flicked one at Alf, too, who blew it back with a little gust of wind, singeing Rock's hair slightly as he wasn't paying enough attention to stop the attack.
"You're going down, Sprout."
"Yup," Alf agreed. "Nice seeing you Jessica, but it looks like I'm going to have to cut this visit short."
He stepped off the balcony before Rock could get him with anything worse than a little fireball.
[[End scene... finally.]]
Story: Middle Part 38
[[Continuity Note: Jessica and Alf are talking to Mr Aldus about what has been going on with Damien.]]
"A binding spell," Jessica seemed horrified by the mere thought of it. "That's awful."
"It is indeed," Mr Aldus stated.
"I'll bet it was Bela Kun," Jessica stated with undisguised malice. "That pig's always trying to stop people having any fun with magic."
"Now now, Jessica. It's inappropriate to insult a person's character because of their own beliefs," Mr Aldus reprimanded.
"Sorry dad," Jessica apologised, though the other two could both tell that she was not actually sorry and did sincerely believe that Bela Kun was a pig.
"Now," Mr Aldus stated, rubbing his hands together like a man with a plan. "You two run along. We'll be having guests round in a minute. Go play with Rock. He should be awake by now."
"We don't play," Jessica grumbled, as she headed up the stairs, Alf following her. They knew when they'd been dismissed.
"I wonder who the guests are," Alf voiced.
Jessica shrugged. "Probably just some of dad's friends. He never wants me around when they come by."
It seemed a little suspicious to Alf, but since Jessica wasn't worried, he'd be better off thinking about their next task: talking to Rock.
[[End Scene, I guess.]]
Story: Middle Part 37
[[Continuity Note: Alf just asked Damien why he's depressed. Damo doesn't want to tell him.]]
Jessica was waiting for Alf to just inside the door and knew from the look on her face that she knew it hadn't gone well with Damien.
"He says he never wants to use magic again," Alf stated.
"Oh," Jessica frowned. "Then why was he up a tree with a rain cloud overhead?"
Alf shrugged. "I think maybe he didn't realise he was doing it."
"Didn't realise he was doing it?" Jessica repeated.
Alf had to hold himself back from snapping "That's what I just said, isn't it?".
"Then he's more powerful than we thought," Jessica commented. "The more you have, the more likely you are to use it without thinking," she explained.
"Even though even having it is a new thing?" Alf asked.
"Well, we can't be certain, since you three are the only known cases of it, but I guess so. Unless Damien was lying."
"But that wouldn't make sense."
"Exactly," Jessica agreed. She seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in always being at least one step ahead of Alf's thought processes.
They sat down at the bottom of one of the Aldus staircases as they continued to talk.
"We still don't know what happened to make Damien not want to use magic," Alf reminded.
"I guess someone must have said something at the council meeting," Jessica said. "After all, he wasn't depressed when he left for it."
"Exactly right my dear," Mr Aldus stated, coming out from behind a pot plant. The pair on the stairs exchanged a glance, wondering how long he'd been sitting there watching them.
"You weren't eavesdropping on us, were you daddy?" Jessica asked in veiled accusation.
"Of course not sweetie," Mr Aldus replied. Though it would have been unlikely for him to say yes. "You know better than to have private conversations in public thoroughfares anyway."
"It's not exactly a public thoroughfare," Jessica pointed out.
"And it's not exactly a private conversation," Alf added.
"A private conversation," Mr Aldus defined. "Is one that you would not wish to share with anyone who may have an interest. You were having a private conversation."
Alf had nothing to say in response to that and felt properly chastised.
"So what did they say at the meeting?" Jessica asked.
"Certain council members may have implied that Damien was not responsible enough to use magic," Mr Aldus answered, disguising the guild as though actually worried about what his daughter and her friend might do to them. A couple of teenagers against some very powerful members of magical society - powerful in more ways than one. "They might also have suggested a binding spell."
Alf had forgotten that one had been placed upon him the day before. Thankfully, he did recall that he'd used magic earlier, so was not worried that it was still in effect. He also realised that he was no longer dripping pus green magic again thankfully.
[[End stuff written last night in bed.]]
