POV Lea Brightcloud

Lea was unhappy. Her brother had changed since the assassination attempt. That wouldn’t have been so bad. At the beginning she had thought it would only be a brief interlude, but then his bodyguard had filled his schedule with training, studying and even more training. He had still taken time to play with her, but recently that crafty snake of a woman had derailed his efforts at playing with Lea. Be it with jokes, or sensual attempts, she had cut their play time shorter and shorter.

And the worst of all, that evil gorgeous woman had even twisted her mother around her little finger. Lea had gone to mum first time she felt something amiss, but mum had simply told her to give Aron more space as he was in a self-finding phase of his life. No, this couldn’t go on any-longer. Lea would have to take care of it by herself.

Luckily she had already an idea how to do that. She needed to separate Sephiroth from Aron long enough to play with him. Lea had always been intelligent for her age. As the youngest child in the family, she had enjoyed a special status. Lea had quickly realized how to gain the most out of this. The key-point was to combine status with innocence and loveliness. The people succumbed quickly to her pouting and tears.

Naturally, she couldn’t overdo it. Lea wasn’t bad, she simply knew how to get what she wanted. She never overstepped her boundaries and wanted other people to have a happy life, but that didn’t mean that she could use her privilege and her innocent appearance to get things she wanted.

Because of that, she had awakened early today and went into the kitchen. She had told the staff she wanted to prepare some cookies for her beloved brother. They had been more than happy to help her out. Lea and the servants had backed together and successfully made an entire tray of delicious looking cookies.

Finished with her preparation, she went down to the back-garden. Aron and Sephiroth were training there as usual before going into the wild. Lea donned her loveliest smile and walked over to the two.

“Aron look, I have made you some cookies!”

Her brother quickly stopped his training-session and focused on her.

“Hi, my dear little sister. They look delicious! Have you made them specially for me?”

“Yes, big brother. I want you to feel good and full of energy.” Aron succumbed immediately to her sweet ways.

“Here, big sister Sephiroth, take one as well.” Lea smiled sweetly to his bodyguard. Naturally, the guard followed her plea and took the spiced cookie.

Aron took a bite and soon had eaten all. Sephiroth did likewise.

“How was it?” Lea asked them innocently.

“They were delicious, Lea! You get better and better at baking.”

Hearing that, Lea’s smile grew. “Can I sit over there and watch you, I love to see my big brother train.”

Seeing her hopeful eyes, Aron couldn’t say no and quickly agreed.

Everything was going like she had planned. Lea seated herself close to them and observed seemingly interested as they trained. Soon Sephiroth’s relaxed face changed to a tense one. At first, she tried to fight it but realized quickly that it was a lost battle.

“Sorry Aron, I need a quick break. Can you train further without me?”

“Sure.” Her brother replied.

Good. Now Lea had only to wait a little, and they could play together.

Five minutes later she had enough.

“Big brother, can we play? Only until Sephiroth returns, please.”

At first he wanted to refuse, but her pleading eyes once more turned out to be effective.

“Okay, but only until Sephiroth returns.”

“Yay! You are the best!”

At last she had her brother to herself for the rest of the day. Sorry Sephiroth, she might had overdone it with the laxative.

_____

POV Sephiroth

What the heck was going on?! This was now the third time in three days that her stomach had gone high wire. Once could have been understandable. Sweet Lea’s cookies might have been mixed badly, but the other two times Sephiroth had eaten normal food. Additionally, it seemed only she that had the problem. If the ingredients had been bad, then it should have also been a problem for Aron. Even more so, his body was much less durable than hers.

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Having survived another diarrhea session, she dragged her hurting body back to the garden. Turning around the corner, she came face to face with Aron and Lea. They were playing happily together. This had happened the last few days more often. Wait, no that couldn’t be?! Lea?! Had she poisoned her food? The little angel. How could this be?

Sephiroth took a step back. What would Lea get out of it? Seeing the smile on Lea’s face, it became suddenly clear. Lea had missed her brother. That was right, they never played together as long as Sephiroth had been around. But now they had been playing much more often. Lea must have really felt lonely. Still, to poison her food. What should Sephiroth do now? If she went to Aron or Amanda with this, Lea would hate her forever. Sephiroth knew well how vengeful young girls could be.

Sephiroth waited until it was time to go to bed. Aron dutifully tucked his little sister in before he left her room. Five minutes later a window opened and Sephiroth entered Lea’s room. She pensively watched the sleeping form of the girl. After a nod to herself, Sephiroth stepped closer and roused the little troublemaker from her sleep. She easily saw the recognition in Lea’s eyes.

At first Lea adopted a surprised and innocent countenance.

“Sephiroth, what are you doing here? It is late already.”

“Don’t play innocent. I know it was you who has been spiking my dishes with laxatives.”

To her surprise, Lea didn’t seem scared by the revelation.

“I see. Well, it was fun as long as it lasted. So what do we do now? I take it, you have come here in hopes to find an alternative solution in handling this?”

Sephiroth revised her opinion of Lea. She was much more calculative and intelligent than Sephiroth had thought. Until now, she only had seen the cute little angel. But that was mostly an act.

On the other hand, this also presented an opportunity. One could bargain with calculative intelligence.

“This little diarrhea episodes have to stop. What do you want in return?”

“You have poached my big brother much too often lately. I understand that he needs to train and get stronger. He can’t ever be hurt again! But I still want to have some time with him. During the last month, he only played once or twice with me. That’s too little!”

Sephiroth had been right, Lea simply wanted more time with her brother.

“Okay, what about once every week? I know it is not that much, but Aron needs all the time he can get to train.”

“No, that's too little. At least one and a half afternoon playing session per week.”

Sephiroth thought about it. That should be doable.

“Deal, but you support my views in front of your brother and no more laxatives, okay? If you don’t like something come to me first.”

Lea nodded, “Deal.”

Having come to an agreement, the two regarded each other in a new light. A small bud of kinship had started to grow.

_______

POV Aron Brightcloud

The week had began so well. Sephiroth had caught something and often excused herself during the afternoons. I used that time to relax and play with Lea. That had changed. Sephiroth intensified my lessons and the little free time I had got somehow converted into my little sister’s playtime. At first I had tried to slip out of it, but Lea always found me. Only after some time did I realize that Sephiroth had sold me out. They worked together!

My life was bleak… No, who was I kidding. I enjoyed it very much, although sometimes it pushed me to my limits.

I checked the surroundings and quickly buried my head behind the book I was reading. Lea was playing not far from me.

“Aron, do you need a break?” Sephiroth’s sweet voice carried over. Damn, she had noticed me.

“No, everything is fine. I am studying a very interesting chapter about magic and how the different types work together. I don’t need a break.” I could have sworn one of Lea’s ears had turned in our direction. Don’t wake the devil.

“Really? Tell me. What have you learned so far?”

“I have been reading about secondary magic. The so-called affinities. It is very fascinating how much it can change the connected primary magics. An example: I could have the attack attribute as secondary and fire as primary. In that case, my fire magic would have an overall damage buff. But it can also be the case that the attack attribute is connected with another secondary attribute, let’s say shielding, and both of them are linked to fire. In that case, there are different possibilities. All fire magics get a damage buff and it is easier to build shields out of fire, or the attack buff only applies to the shields that are made of fire. Depending on how it is linked the benefit changes significantly and with it the way the magician uses his magic.

Another topic all together is arcane-magic. It is element-less. So alone it is worse than any other magic. But it can be easily mixed with the others and support weaknesses of other elements. For example, fire is very flighty, but if mixed with arcane magic it can have liquid or even solid properties. This empowers shielding abilities immensely. If used alone it is known as force-magic. It lets one move objects away from your own body, build force-shields or force bolts. Naturally there are other spells, but these are some of the best knowns.”

“You are right. Anything else?”

“Yes, I read about an adjacent topic as well. The differences in awakening an element. During an awakening, one connects with an element and allows a piece of its origin into one-self. Depending how much willpower, affinity and luck one has, the bigger that piece is. The awakening is accompanied by a phenomenon. An example for fire, if you have a low grade awakening, your hands will burn. Middle grade, your entire body will be on fire, and in a high grade awakening you will be the center of a massive flame. The people with a high grade awakening are also known as an element’s chosen. That is because of the visual changes that happen to the body during the process. The chosen can have different colored skin, hair and eyes, proclaiming their pact with an element for all to see.”

Sephiroth nooded approvingly.

“You learned a lot, good. I see someone is looking forward to his own awakening day.”

“Yes, I am. It is getting closer and closer. I am very hopeful for if and what element I’ll get. Both my parents are mages, my chances should be high.”

Sephiroth smiled innocently. “I am sure you will get one. But you know, even if not, I will happily train you further.”

Yes, right. So not going to happen if I had the slightest say in it. She would torture me to death.

“Naturally Sephiroth, to whom else would I go for martial training, if not you?”

“That’s the right answer. Enough talking for now, study further. You have still one hour to go.” My evil taskmaster responded neutrally, yet I could see the happiness she hid on her face.

Following my servant’s wish, I read on.