A/N: Thanks all for helping me to realize just how little I know about mythical creatures 0.0 .... anyway, the griffon's from the previous chapters will be mentioned as manticore's now. I'll be going back and changing them. Here's the first chapter of Volume Two, Enjoy!!!
Volume Two - Chapter One: Home
“Mom, what did you just say?”
“That’s your baby sister, Arabella.”
“But… why didn’t you tell me?”
“We thought it’d be a good surprise for you.” She smiled… smirked really.
“If anything, you thought it’d be fun to watch me be surprised.”
Her smile just grew broader, “Good, you did learn something in her care…”
At that point, dad had finally recovered enough to start walking back to the car… slowly. Great-Granny Kingsly had already appeared, and was looking at the baby while smiling. Yes, that’s right, she was smiling. Usually, she smirks or the glint in her eyes makes it evil, in other words it scares the shit out of you! This one was heartwarming, it just wasn’t right.
After my dad tried to get some revenge on Great-Granny Kingsly, and failed by becoming what looked like a gigantic bug splattered on the concrete, we all got in the car and headed to my parents new home. When we arrived in the suburbs looking at a nice, but small two story home, Great-Granny Kingsly turned and slapped my dad in his face saying, “You said that you’d found the perfect place for David to train! Then you take me to this shithole, how is he supposed to train here?”
Of course, she slapped a little hard, so he was still pulling himself off the ground about a hundred feet away. Mom answered for him, since he was obviously unable to do so “My family home is about 10 miles away in that forest. We figured he’d get a good warmup running to the place.”
“Alright, lead the way!” Great-Granny Kingsly shouted at dad now that he was back with the group. Perhaps feeling tired of being beaten half to death, dad just led the way without complaints. About 10 minutes later I was wheezing like I was about to die, and that’s after Elin helped me for the last couple of miles. I know my family was going slow, for them at least, but still! Fucking crazy people! After finally catching my breath, I took a good look around. It was like we were back in Great-Granny Kingsly’s forest!
All I could see was a giant mansion with a courtyard training area the size of three basketball courts. My mom looked at the house sadly, as if thinking about her childhood spent here. Elin smiled hugely; she’d been looking for an excuse to start training for hours, being cooped up in a plane for so long was not conducive to her mental health. Before I even knew what was happening, I’d been drug into the courtyard. Two swords appeared from thin air, and before I even caught mine she was already attacking me. Within seconds, we were trading blows, switching between stances while my mom and dad watched.
Behind me, my dad started yelling at Great-Grandma Kingsly, “You let him start refining! Look at that, you can’t be that strong without being at least a third step.”
Great-Granny Kingsly started cackling again…. “You can if you eat dragon meat twice a day for three years. Kekekeke”
At that, both mom and dad were flabbergasted. “But… But, I thought all the dragons went extinct long ago?” Asked my mom.
“I have my ways.” She said while smiling wickedly.
While my parents were busy trying to figure out how in the hell she got dragon meat, Great-Granny Kingsly was wandering around the mansion. Finally, she came back and told my parents “I think this is even better than my little abode… hmm maybe I should set up a mana barrier and move here.” Both my Mom and Dad went completely rigid, looking at each other in fear. Noticing them standing like that, Great-Granny Kingsly smiled and said, “There’s that giant forest that no one is using, and I kind of promised the Manticore’s to give them my old forest. How about this, if I move up here then when little Arabella turns six you guys get to see her every day instead of what you went through with David. I know how much that hurt you.”
At just that moment, Elin finally cut off a limb. It was a new record, I’d lasted for an entire 4 minutes without losing an arm. As I started screaming, my mom ran over while yelling at Elin. My dad started shaking his head while remembering his own experiences training with the witch. Great-Granny Kingsly just laughed and then Ali suddenly appeared out of nowhere reattaching everything. Within a few minutes, we were back at it. Although, I started getting tired quicker than normal since I hadn’t had any dragon meat that day. Half an hour later, I was completely exhausted with sweat and blood staining my clothes. My mom was a wreck, Arthur had told her what training with Great-Granny Kingsly was like, but she thought that he was just exaggerating as he does sometimes… Now, she knows better. “If you think I’m letting my daughter go through that you are crazy!”
My dad went over to comfort her, talking to her quietly. “Its going to happen, we have no choice in this matter. If it was just the clan I’d tell them to fuck off, but she’s far too powerful. At least this way, we’ll never have to worry about her getting abducted by normal people.”
While this was all going on, Elin was helping me to stagger back towards my parent’s place. As soon as we were out of view in the forest she picked me up in a princess carry, it was extremely embarrassing. After being fed a nice meal that actually had some faerie beast meat in it, I felt much better. Just when I’d finished eating Lizzy came home. I stared at her, shocked I saw the red colored wings on her back. Lizzy of course didn’t know why I was staring at her back like that, she turned around looking. “Was there someone behind me?”
Of course, when she turned around I got a clear view of them for the first time, I reached over and touched them, unable to believe my eyes. “I never guessed that you were a faerie, who are you bonded too?”
She jumped as I touched her wings, shivering as she spun in mid-air and glared at me. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that it’s rude to touch someone's wings?”
“But, the faeries at Great-Granny Kingsly’s place do it all the time (in a whiny voice), anyway you’re just distracting me from the important issue! When did you grow wings?!?! And who are you bonded too?!?!”
"I’ve always had them silly, you just can’t see them until the faerie energy changes your brain chemistry. It increases your mental capacity, and allows you to perceive this things. For your second question, I’m the same as her.” She pointed at Elin. Now that she mentioned it, how was Elin able to be here with me for the next 7 years without a bond? I looked at her questioningly for the first time noting the jealous, angry look on her face. What does she have to be angry or jealous about? Lizzy answered my question finally, “There’s a second type of bond, one that only sustains us but doesn’t grant the human half our powers. It’s called a parasitic bond, all of the more powerful of our kind are in these relationships because truly bonding is just too difficult. In order to bond one of us, it requires you to train for years without bonding another faerie and then we have to actually like the person enough to be willing to bond them.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
This explained a lot, I’d always wondered how Great-Granny Kingsly could stuff so many faeries into her safe haven. Apparently, she’d allowed them to bond her in that way. Thinking back, while none of the other faeries were as strong as Elin, Gunther, or Ali, all of them are pretty strong. Just how many of them are in a parasitic bond with her?
My parents and Great-Granny Kingsly finally got back to the house. In my Mom’s arms, I saw Arabella struggling to get free while crying. Mom was glaring at Great-Granny Kingsly angrily while my dad just tried to stay out of it. I walked over to mom, taking Arabella from her hands. I’ve had enough experience with the witch to know when someone needed to get far, far away from her. So, I went upstairs and left the adults to their own devices while I got down to the serious business of playing with my baby sister!
It took a while, but I found her play room. Toys were strewn everywhere, and as I set her down I remembered some of these from my own past. Over there were my Lego’s, I dove in deciding to make a castle. Of course, my little sister joined in making what might have been a house. It’s good to be with family.
While I was playing around with Arabella upstairs, the adults were having a serious conversation in the kitchen. “So, what do you say Arthur? Nicole?”
The couple looked at each other, before Arthur spoke for them, “You can live there, there are never enough safe havens and having one nearby would be nice. But, we already choose the school that David and Arabella will be going too and you won’t be able to change that.”
“I know, kekekeke…. That’s why Elin’s here, that school is supposed to have an electric element master to run it. So, she’s going to take it over.”
“What?!?! The reason we picked that place was because we wanted him make true, lifelong friends. Not to be held up as the future leader of our clan! If Elin is there as the headmaster, then it’ll be obvious who he is!”
“It’s the only way to keep him from becoming thought of as the greatest prodigy in history, by now he should already have the highest level of affinity to at least two of the elements. I know that he has already maxed out his electric affinity, because Elin has asked to be allowed to bond him when he starts refining, and she is only able to bond someone with maxed affinity.”
At that, everyone started staring at Elin, she started blushing before timidly explaining, “I’ve always wanted to bond with a human, but my mother was bonded to someone incredibly powerful. So, I was born as the highest class of faerie. I’ve been looking for the right partner for hundreds of years. If it wasn’t for Mistress finding me, I would’ve died long ago. My becoming the headmistress of his school was my idea. When you enter that school, you are tested for your affinities by the headmaster of the school. Since he’s spent the last three years being trained by Mistress, all of his affinities should be quite high. I think we should pick two or three of his lower affinities and announce these to the world. This way, he would only be seen as talented, not the greatest prodigy in history.”
“My son is only 9 and a high-class faerie already has his eyes on him… Sigh, he is destined to have an interesting life.”
Lizzy suddenly realized what this means. She has been serving the Kingsly family for generations, hoping to find someone suitable to bond with. She had long since given up, just being happy to be alive. Then, David had been born. As soon as she’d seen him, she’d known that he would have the ability to bond with her. Then, David comes back from his training and this stupid electric bitch appears who wants to steal him away! ”Master, Mistress… I would like to bond him when the time comes. I’m obviously better suited to him, at least I’ll never cut off his arms!”
At that, Arthur started laughing hysterically, “Great, now two high-class faeries want him. Nicole, what are we going to do?”
She had no clue how to respond. The bond was deeper than just the sharing of powers, it is very similar to getting married. Most people who have bonded even one faerie find it difficult to bond with another, the bond comes with complete, unquestionable fidelity between the two. You will never betray someone whom you’ve bonded with, and because of this it makes even finding a human partner to marry difficult. Much less sharing the same bond with another faerie… they are all jealous creatures. The Kingsly clan is so powerful because they’ve learned how to bond with multiple faeries. But, they are only able to bond multiple low-class faeries, and then grow with them. Bonding a high-class faerie is the same as announcing your plan to never bond another, for they would never accept a lesser faerie as their equal. She’d always believed that her son was special, but bonding a high-class faerie would be the same as destroying his potential! Sure, he’d be insanely strong in that one element, but he has the potential to be insanely strong in them all!
She was broken from her reverie by Great-Granny Kingsly, “Don’t worry, he will be able to do it. The reason no one’s ever been able to successfully bond with multiple high-class faeries is because in order for a second bond to occur, the other faerie’s that you're bonded to have to agree. High-class faeries are a pretentious lot, they’ll only accept other high-class faeries. They’ll even refuse to bond to someone who has a bond with a lower-class faerie. Both Elizabeth and Elin are of the highest class, they might fight a bit but they should be able to come to an agreement.”
Contrary to her words, both Elin and Lizzy looked like they wanted to kill each other. Arthur and Nicole both felt that hell was more likely to freeze over then getting two high-class faeries to agree to share a human. To them, it’s the same as agreeing to polygamy. Hell, most low-class faeries won’t agree to it either! While the two of them were getting ready to fight, Great-Granny Kingsly put her foot down, “If you two cannot agree then neither of you will be bonding him! I will personally ensure that you’ll be unable to bond him unless you agree. Who knows how long it’ll be before someone both able and willing to bond with you two is born.”
That shut them up real quick... They’d both spent over a thousand years searching, and this is the first human they’d ever seen who was able to bond with them that hadn’t already been bonded with someone else. It has to be understood that the quickest way to increase your affinity to an element is to bond with a faerie and train with them. It’s extremely rare for someone to awaken then spend years training before bonding with a faerie. In all likelihood, David was the last chance for both of them. They couldn’t keep living like parasites, it was unfair to everyone involved and only the strongest people alive were capable of helping them in this way. The two faerie’s looked at each other, completely unwilling to share him, but also unwilling to forget about bonding David.