First things first, Pennsworth had Arras follow him to a slightly more enclosed area, which just so happened to be on the path way up. It was a bit difficult, but Arras made the climb without much issue. Though, he did get a somewhat inquisitive look when he reached the top.
Pennsworth sat down at a rather extravagant table, at least, extravagant to Arras's perception. Opposite to him was an unoccupied chair, but surely he hadn't meant fo-
"If you wouldn't mind taking a form slightly more conducive to conversation?"
"I... What?"
"You are a Spirit Fox, are you not? Your kind is exceptionally adept at such matters, surely you would not have me believe that one of your kind as old as you cannot perform transformation magic to such a degree?"
"...No?"
"I apologize if you are uncomfortable with matters such as this, however it is quite important, I must insist you take a seat."
Arras decided to put a stop to whatever this was supposed to be. "No, I literally cannot do whatever it is you're asking me to do. I've only been practicing with transformation magic for a few weeks."
"Pardon?" The man stared at Arras blankly as he sat innocently on the ground. "How would you not have... That..."
At this point, Arras had begun to find not telling the man more trouble then it was worth, so, he just did it. "Look, I'm not sure where you got all these ideas from, about me being some very old creature from the forest, but unless this is old to your species, I'm only two or so months of age."
Arras didn't get a response for a few seconds after that, Pennsworth's posture shifted a bit in his chair as he brought a hand to his chin, though Arras could've sworn he saw the mans hand twitch violently for a single instant. "I... See. That is certainly surprising, I don't believe I've ever heard of a Spirit Fox growing so quickly, let alone any creature of this world. That does however explain an odd lack of consistency in your skills and actions."
Air escaped his lungs in a matter that wouldn't quite be described as a sigh, but definitely a bit more than just breathing. "Hmm, this poses a barrier in my agenda, but I suppose it isn't a completely unworkable situation."
"So... What was it that you wanted to talk to me about to begin with?"
"You are familiar with the concept of time, yes?"
"Are you going to ask me about every little thing now because you know I'm not old?" Arras delivered with a sprinkling of snark, before carrying on before the man had a chance to respond. "If you mention something I don't understand I'll just ask you about it."
Pennsworth gave the statement no acknowledgement. "In about two weeks, the seasonal nobles gathering will be taking place at the honorable Viscount Lacona's manor. I doubt you'd understand a single thing about politics, so I won't deign to bore you with the details. But having powerful people working under you brings you a good deal of respect. If you're not an incompetent fool, like you seem to think yourself, then you should understand perfectly well where you fall in that equation."
"Okay... But why does me not knowing transformation magic as well as you seemed to think I do, mean a problem?"
"Because it's seen as proper to take a human form during such gatherings. Or at least, somewhat humanoid."
"...Why?"
"Fox, you'd do well questioning other matters, rather than this particular cultural niche."
"If you say so." Arras relented.
"Now... If you are not presently able to use transformation magic proficiently, allow me to ask you a different question." At this point, Pennsworth seemed to have given up on getting Arras in the chair, instead just speaking to him from up above as he sat on the ground. "How long do you think, it would take you to learn? If you truly are only two months old... Surely learning a more advanced form of magic in two weeks should be easier than reaching a stage of power in two months which a fair amount of your species does not reach, at all?"
"I... Hmm, I'm not sure. I've already been working at it for awhile now, but I've felt much more resistance from this particular avenue then... Basically anything else I've ever tried really. It feels as if the magic in me just... Refuses to move how I want it to when I attempt magic in this vein. If I tried to force it, I'm not sure what would happen to me."
"Ah, I do believe I have a solution to that particular problem for you Arras. Tell me, are you familiar with the concept of writing?"
...
And to that question, Arras had to say no, because obviously he wasn't. So, Pennsworth had somebody introduce him to it. At first he had wondered what this magical solution to his problem was supposed to be, and when he saw a bunch of odd cube shapes he hadn't exactly been convinced that it was it. That however, changed quite rapidly when he found out what exactly they were.
If Arras was told to sum up what a book was, this would be his first answer. A god sent contraption that he would've never imagined in his wildest dreams. The second being, a collection of knowledge from across the world all pooled right at his proverbial finger tips. Truly a dream come true.
He of course, wanted to get straight to reading! But was met with one, eensy teensy tiny issue. Two, actually. The first of which being that he couldn't read, the second being that he didn't even understand the language. Luckily, there was a way to circumvent this! Though it was... Less than ideal.
"In practice, transformation magic is often far more difficult to control than almost all other forms of magic, only matched in its difficulty by few other less basic manifestations. Though, uniquely from such cases, like time or space magic, transformation magic is difficult for a much different reason than the aforementioned magics. Instead of requiring exorbitant amounts of magic with control fine enough to sneak past a snoring Ozant, one must actually limit the amount of magic that they are using-"
"Wait!"
Arras practically commanded Thomas to stop, dramatically lifting a paw up to the man's face, quickly rising from his curled position on the man's lap.
"Hm, what now?" Thomas curiously eyed Arras as his paw fell back down into place, getting back into a comfortable position.
"Read over this part more slowly, it feels like it's important."
Thomas merely shrugged, and restarted the paragraph. It had been a somewhat curious series of events to get to this point, or well, not necessarily to get to this point, but more so Arras being on the mans lap.
After Arras had been introduced to the concept of literature, he basically immediately fell in love with it. However, in order to get to read, he needed somebody to read it to him. As of the present date, there was only really one human that Arras found himself liking, or at the bare minimum, tolerating. Thomas himself. Initially, Pennsworth was simply going to have somebody else read to Arras, but after a bit of mild protesting he managed to get the human assigned to the task changed.
This led to a... Nonplussed Thomas being told to get to reading, and that was how this had started. Basics of transformation magic, chapters one through ten. Arras got comfortable on the floor, Thomas took off his armor, which yes, he had been wearing the entire time... Arras had begun to think he was just some odd subspecies of human with harder skin, so he was quite surprised when he saw Thomas without it on. Though the shock passed very quickly in favor of reading!
Having a new source of knowledge to pit against his own was extremely helpful for Arras. Even though he wasn't physically doing anything yet, just getting all of this new information was exceedingly useful. For instance, he would've never realized that transformation magic wasn't nearly so brute force as he thought it was, all on his own.
Transformation magic, wasn't about completely reshaping your own form, no. Arras's assumptions on that front had been QUITE incorrect. as he had learned. Technically, it was very doable to make use of transformation magic for such a purpose, but it would most certainly not be for the faint of heart. It also required far more precise manipulations of the affinity to actually make any complete restructuring, well, function properly. There was practically a horror story in chapter seven of foolish attempts at absurd changes, which Arras wished Thomas had left just a bit more unclear.
No, the real way to use transformation magic was to make as minimal a change as possible. Obviously, there wouldn't be much point if you only made some very tiny, minuscule change to your form, but that's not what the book meant. Completely morphing your form was the wrong way to go about it. For instance, instead of trying to create constructs from out of his own flesh, it would be much easier for Arras to simply alter already existing parts of his body. Like extending a leg instead of creating an entirely new limb.
There was actually a rather clear reason as to why such changes were easier. It wasn't like practitioners of this particular magic had to make any fewer changes to their body by following along the already laid out blueprints of their own body, it was simply because of how life worked on Araia. Certain parts of the body conducted magic much more easily than others, this was a global truth across all races of the world.
Generally, this doesn't hold true for a creatures entire body, but to a certain degree it is easier to conduct magic inside of your body rather then outside of it. However, attempting to create new appendages on ones own body would end up creating what was effectively a magic dead zone, and for a type of magic that already required such fine control, all that would end up doing, is to make the spell far harder to control. There was also a fair amount of extra mumbo jumbo, but that was what Arras deemed to be a fair summation of the point.
Arras was certainly happy with his currently skyrocketing pace of growth, but there was still one other thing he was curious about... The language these books were written in. Arras did think himself a good multi-tasker, he'd been pretty good at practicing multiple things at once for pretty much his entire life, so Arras wanted to try something similar.
He asked Thomas to let him climb aboard so he could read with him. He might not have known anything about the language, but actually trying to learn it wasn't a bad first step... Even if he didn't really understand what language was. Thomas wasn't exactly against it, even if they were a little confused. Arras also asked them to read out loud, even though he wouldn't be able to understand them.
"You're one weird little guy, you know that?"
"Am I? Maybe I am to humans... I dunno. To me, all of you are the weird ones..."
"Mmm, suppose that's fair."
...
Arras would've preferred to do all of this literally anywhere else, but unfortunately Pennsworth had been quite adamant on the books not leaving the confines of his home. At first he'd wanted to have Thomas read to him in the room with Illia, but that had been quickly shut down. So reluctantly, Arras had to give up on that hope and simply sit in sadness (which was like sitting in a puddle during a perfectly sunny day with a cool breeze) as he listened to Thomas read.
Even though he was fairly certain that these were the people who attacked his previous home, Arras did find himself growing at least somewhat comfortable with this new place. He still felt unsafe in the confines of their buildings, he wasn't sure what yet was expected of him besides the obvious, he still didn't really like most people... Though he was beginning to grow unsure of how fair that assessment of humans was, given that it was currently a fifty fifty ratio between people he did and did not like to speak with.
But regardless of all of that, they did provide technical safety, they provided food, they were taking care of Illia... Even if they were the ones who did that to her in the first place... Arras twitched angrily at the thought, but quickly forced the emotions back down. But, almost as important as that prior thing, BOOKS!
Arras wasn't almost sad to see them go when it was finally time to call it a day and head back to where Illia was staying, he was almost inconsolable! Though he did recognize that if all he did was read, there'd never be any time to actually put it into practice, so that's what he resolved to do while away from them. Oh and also, you know, speak with Illia if she's awake.
As soon as he'd gotten back, Arras jumped up onto the bed with Illia to make sure she was alright, and unsurprisingly, she was. So that left him completely free to carry on with his plans, transformation magic, transformation magic, transformation magic.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Oh and also a side of trying to make sense of what he'd been listening to while Thomas was reading. Cross referencing what his mind magic translated from Thomas, the gibberish written in the books, and the sounds coming from Thomas while he read. You know, basic stuff like that. It was almost enough to make him forget about the discomfort he felt inside of the building!
...
Okay, maybe that's a little too much.
He was at least alone in the room with Illia, Thomas and his group of humans were outside at the moment, so there was nobody present to witness him spectacularly failing with an attempt at transformation magic, but that didn't stop it from hurting. It felt like the bones in his leg had become misaligned, it was... Supremely uncomfortable. Luckily, it was nothing a little bit of extra transformation magic couldn't fix. A good warning to take it a bit slower.
On the bright side, Arras felt a clear difference in the quality of his transformation from a day ago, and his magic of today. Just changing the way he was going about it had been a huge boon to his progress. He had no plans of stopping for the night, but he was taking a short break to just think about how to proceed.
Arras wanted to learn how to read. Really, REALLY wanted to learn. There were few times in his life that he could think of where he wanted something as badly as this. An untapped source of information ripe for the taking at practically any time, provided he learned how to well, read them. But at the same time, he'd been given a new goal on top of that desire. To learn how to do what he now knew was referred to as, a metamorphosis spell.
Arras was fairly certain that a metamorphosis spell would be easier to accomplish instead of learning an entirely new concept, but he didn't think it would be too much easier, certainly not enough to justify completely ignoring the process of learning a language until he finished up with it. Arras certainly wanted to get started on that second thing rather then the former, but he'd been told in no uncertain terms to work on it. When he thought of disobeying that, and actually did disobey that for about five minutes just to see if anything happened, surprise surprise nothing in the contract reacted violently against him.
Despite that, Arras decided to follow his better judgement and continued to work on his transformation magic. Exclusively his transformation magic. The sooner he managed to accomplish that one thing, the sooner he'd be able to move onto the next. He could just ignore what he had been asked to do, but Arras got the feeling it would set a bad precedent, and maybe cause some further issues in the future.
He wasn't quite sure if he even wanted to stay here yet, hell he'd even been told it would technically be possible to run away to somewhere else... But if he did, Arras would much rather stay with a group of people that liked him, or at the least could tolerate him, rather than the opposite... So, he continued to practice. Contrasting his own experience with the guiding words of the book. Hoping to make a break through, as fast as foxly possible.
...
Arras wasn't sure when exactly he fell asleep, but he did know when he woke up.
"Arras?"
"..."
"Arras..."
"...?"
"Arras! I know you're awake answer me!"
"...Illia?"
"Oh-wait you're actually awake! I was only half sure, oh whatever!"
Arras's eyes were still closed, but he recognized the feeling of what had happened. It was a hug, Illia was hugging him. The gravity of the situation of the last few days of his life came barreling down on him all at once.
He didn't cry, didn't even struggle under the weight of it. There was an uplifting force matched equally to that crushing emotion, if not overpowering it outright. He was happy, relieved. An invisible pressure he hadn't even been aware of vanished in an instant. Any of Arras's concerns about his magical conundrums melted away for the moment. He didn't exactly have the range of motion to hug her back, but he certainly made his best attempt at it.
"I... I don't even know what to say." Arras admitted freely.
"Then I'll start instead."
Arras nodded very slightly.
"Whatever happened, I want you to know I don't blame any of it on you. We both made choices, and both of us were stupid." She squeezed him just a little tighter with her limited strength before he said anything in response. "Now... Arras... Why am I alive?"
"You... Were healed?"
"But why was I healed? And by who?"
"You were healed... By the people who attacked us."
"Okay, but why?" Illia asked with an increasing level of worry.
"Because we made a deal."
She paused and squeezed once again. Arras could sense the dread coming in the next question, he didn't quite understand why it was there but the mood had been heavy from the very start, so he didn't bother to question it.
"A magical contract?"
"Yes."
"And... What were the terms of it?"
She seemed scared of something, for some reason... Arras wasn't quite sure what it could be, they were safe as far as he knew, what could possibly have Illia so worried so soon after regaining consciousness? He thought back to the exact moment where he'd agreed on the contract, and recited the terms one for one.
"In exchange for healing you, I swore fealty to the Kingdom of Arbre...?"
"...Oh." And in an instant, a large amount of the dread that Arras had been feeling from Illia simply ceased to be, it was pretty jarring.
"What were you even worried about?"
"Oh my god!" Her grasp loosened (though it wasn't that tight to begin with really) and she practically deflated. "I just... I thought there would've been way more to that!"
Arras breathed out in a similar manner, he hadn't even realized he was holding his breath! "Wait, was that why you were so scared?!"
"Uh-YEAH! Arras! Magical contracts are BAD, BAD news! Literally any terms can be set and as long as they're agreed to there's absolutely no flexibility in it besides the way they're interpreted! I don't know if they were just trying to be generous or something, but that's probably the absolute best deal you could've made-well, I guess not because it was only for healing me-"
Arras's gaze turned fierce and he shuffled out of Illia's grasp when her train of thought went down that line. "If you had died, I don't even know what I would've done. You could offer me the chance to grow seven more tails on the spot and if the price was you I'd still decline it. Any deal to save your life would've been worth it in that moment."
Illia stared at him dumbfounded for a moment, she went through a wide range of emotions in a very, very short period of time, first she thought about maybe making a joke about it, secondly, saying nothing, third doubling down on her lack of value, all of which didn't last any longer then a tenth of a second, before finally settling down on a real response. "R-really...?"
"Yes, without a shadow of a doubt."
Obviously, Illia knew that Arras cared about her, she cared about him a great deal as well. But to hear a declaration like that was an entirely different matter. To hear somebody clearly state that you were practically worth the world to them... That was a new feeling as far as she was aware. Definitely not something she'd felt before. And to that, she could only say one thing, there was no second third or fourth thought, only one. She only needed the one.
"...Thank you."
Arras nodded in affirmation, and the two sat there for a few seconds.
"...Okay wow that was tense." Illia flopped to the side deflatedly, softly thumping against the bed. All the while she kept her eyes trained on Arras, which ended up with her noticing something.
"Wh-" she immediately shot back up. "DID YOU GROW A THIRD TAIL?!"
...
Once again, Arras hadn't even realized it had happened. Illia making mention of it had been the first time he'd really noticed it was even there. As far as he knew, this was unnatural, extremely so. All of his siblings had at most two tails, and his father only had three himself. Though Arras supposed it made sense why Pennsworth was talking to him like he was some sort of grand beast now.
After the initial shock of everything, letting Illia know his situation involving the need to learn transformation magic, the place they lived in and the group of humans apparently assigned to watch over them, there were a few things that Illia had wanted to do... Besides just talking and joking around anyways. The first of those being, to take a look around town.
Arras hadn't bothered to pay much attention to anything besides possible places to run away to, which got him a somewhat incredulous look from Illia, but it didn't matter too much. He wouldn't have known whatever he was looking at anyways. So, Illia had offered to show him around town. Of course followed by their guards, but for the most part, just the two of them.
Arras, of course, accepted. Anything Illia wanted to do, he'd be sure to follow along with after what she had done. He hadn't exactly been told he needed to spend every day studying anyways, so he would abuse that little lapse... Maliciously.
----------------------------------------
Bestiary
Ozant
A humongous, one eyed, vaguely humanoid beast of a creature. They are non sentient, and also extremely stupid at that, but they are hyper aggressive. However, they are able to use physical strengthening of extreme levels, as well as somewhat proficient healing magic completely subconsciously.
There is little to discuss about these creatures, they are simple in their violence. They are solitary and do not form bonds, and have never been observed to have any higher level of thought.
For those who encounter an Ozant in the wild, without prior preparations fighting one of these is almost certainly a death sentence. Luckily, it is relatively easy to avoid them. Their eyesight is rather poor despite having only one eye, so hiding yourself is generally enough to avoid it. If you are spotted, blinding it is usually the only way out without outright killing the thing.
Uniquely, an Ozant's flesh continues to hold properties of its magic even in death. Ozant's are one of the few cases of this across the entire world of Araia, and their skin is highly prized as a result, often being used to create masterclass works around the world.
An Ozant's skin is almost always green, perhaps one or two exceptions have been noted in the history of the entire world. They are on average, about twenty feet tall.
Ozant's are part of a rare sub-classification of creatures known as monsters.
----------------------------------------
Dictionary
Monsters
Monsters are creatures born exclusively from magic, and are at the same time unable to naturally reproduce. If a creature does not fulfill both of these conditions, it is not by any technical definition, a monster.
Monsters are formed in locations with extreme amounts of ambient magic. Most often, this ends up being the final resting place of intensely magically powerful creatures. However, as long as said ambient magic is absorbed or otherwise dealt with, a monster will not be born.
Interestingly enough, monsters formed through the process mentioned above, rather than simply coming to be in locations with a high amount of magic, often times end up taking the form of the creature that perished. This is generally how new species of monsters come to be.
Alternatively, freshly born monsters tend to copy the most common monsters nearby. If a monster were to form in a patch of The Grand Forest which had no creatures feeding on it's ambient magic and the closest monster happened to be a Malix, it would be far more likely to be a Malix rather than any other monster.
Despite the name, monsters aren't necessarily monstrous creatures. Certain species of them are just as capable of logic, reasoning, and empathy as any other form of sentient or colonial life. This is not to say that the most common form of monster is not as mentioned, aggressive, but that less dangerous species do exist.