"Cely! My beautiful daughter! I have a surprise for you!"
"Don't call me Cely."
"Tina!"
"I will not allow you to call me that, either."
"Celes!"
"Do I need to call momma in here?"
"Buuuh, the world is so cruel. Such treatment from my own flesh and blood." A grown man was on his knees crying at the door of his own private library while the cause for his distress was sitting quietly on a leather armchair reading his books. The now six year old Celestine.
I'll fill you in on the situation in the mansion now. It's really a bit disgraceful. The reason Daemon was begging Sylvianna and Celestine to move in before was because some rumor circulated around the city and now no female help wanted to be hired to help take care of his mansion. The only help that stayed was his cook. No idea what that was about, Sullivan wasn't told specifics. And he was really short of words when telling Celestine, too. I have my own theories, but I will keep them to myself because they aren't relevant. Basically, even without my existence, like I said before, Sylvianna and Celestine would have moved here. Something like fate does exist a guess? The situation was kind of reversed, though. If I hadn't 'gifted' Celestine, Sylvianna would have most likely ended up begging Daemon to allow them to move in. But because the ball was given to Sylvianna, it was Daemon who had to beg. And with that, the dominant force in the household became Sylvianna. Though you wouldn't know it if you compared dress. Sylvianna took the role of a maid willingly, wearing a very plain looking black and white gown outfit. Looks nothing like the maid outfits you see in anime on Earth, it's like it was made to blend the wearer into the background of the house. If not for me, Celestine probably would be in that role, too. So fate strayed a bit. Sylvianna has taught her daughter how to treat her father, to his misfortune.
Right now, Celestine spends most of her days pouring over the contents of the books in the library. Still nothing really relevant for magic, though she did find a few more of the different schools of magic from fiction. There's light, which I mentioned before; elementalism, which allows you to control elements to a certain extent; and spacial, which is like telekinesis. The book she got this from was about a city full of mages who practice their power daily almost as easy as breathing. It was like the book came from some other culture and somehow ended up on this shelf for Celestine to one day read. The setting of the story was very long ago, though. So who knows just how old it might be or if the city even existed.
Oh, I also figured out the time system this world uses and I think I have a little bit of the solar system figured out thanks to the books Celestine has read and casual observations. The sun is much larger than Earth's sun and given the fact that it is bright white in the sky and not yellow, might mean it is much hotter, too. Under those circumstances, it's no wonder a year on this world is over 500 days long. Still no idea how well an Erde day translates to an Earth day, though, since their time keeping system can't exactly be the same as ours. There really isn't some universal system in place that guarantees a second is the same on all worlds. The year is 528 days long. The years are separated into 4 "months" to correspond to the seasons. Each month is 130 days long. That leaves 8 days at the end of each year for new year festivals. Now then, next question is if a year is 528 days long, doesn't that make 6 Erde year old Celestine actually 8 and a half Earth years old? Well, yeah. But conveniently, humans on this planet age slower than humans on Earth. At least that's the conclusion I've come to. Celestine was born on the 115th day of the Winter month, which is the first month of the year. Year 1568. Still haven't figured out the significance of this year counter. Probably based on some event in the past we will learn about when she gets a formal education somewhere. Won't get much more information here because the majority of the library's nonfiction is on plants and mixing plants into drugs. Sort of expected from the house of the family that mixes anti-venom for lamias.
Now, while she acted cold toward her father, Celestine actually grew to love Sullivan really quickly. Sullivan is half a year younger than her, so I think she just loves being the big sister. Not like Sullivan really has the willpower to reject her either. When she gets a hold of him, she usually forces him down and teaches him how to read, something their father casually neglected. His shyness around her never stopped, though. He doesn't speak for himself unless asked a specific question and he also avoids Sylvianna like the plague for some reason. Gynophobia? If that's the case, maybe him being around Celestine is a good thing. No, I'm just looking into things too deep, just like when I thought Celestine had androphobia. She is just shy around strangers. Maybe Sullivan's shell is just a little harder to crack.
But, he's not here right now. He should be downstairs somewhere in Daemon's workroom making simple medicines, since he's going to be the one to inherit the family legacy. And instead of supervising him, Daemon came up here to pester Celestine.
"Cely!" He stood up like that little exchange never happened.
"What do you need, Daemon?" Was the only response Celestine gave. Another dagger to his ego. He dropped to the floor whimpering about wanting to be called 'daddy'. I think Celestine is enjoying this. Don't pick up bad habits from your mother, girl!
He crawled up to the chair she was sitting in, sat down there on the floor and just looked up at her like a dog waiting for their master's attention.
"What is the sur-"
"I got you a tutor!" He interrupted her. "One of my old friends from Eldwen. He needs a place to stay while some heat dies down. So in the last letter I sent I told him if he tutors you he can live in the house for a while!"
"What would he teach me?" Celestine's eyes lit up at her father's surprise, which healed his soul completely. He stood back up and continued.
"Man's a master of Restructuring magic, as well as the more common schools. Since we can't ship you off to a university at your age, a tutor will give you a great head start!"
"What's Restructuring magic?" Celestine asked. Despite wanting to be a painter, during the last year during our conversations in her dreams I convinced her to seek out magic first and foremost. Once she can live up to the expectations of the church and her family, she should be free to pursue whatever her heart desires and she will be able to protect herself in the harsh world.
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"It's magic that lets people heal wounds and repair broken objects. But since he's a master, he can do all kinds of other things! I'll let him show you when he gets here! Shouldn't be long now since his last letter just arrived."
"Did you ask momma about this first?" Celestine asked her father, suspecting any friend of her father's to have just as much of a history with her mother, too.
"Uhhhmm, uhhh, noooot yet, but don't tell her yourself! Please! I want to surprise her!" The man in the green suit held his hands together in a sort of prayer, begging his daughter's cooperation.
"Oookay... as long as he isn't someone momma would hate..."
"Then it's settled! I'll tell the dock workers in the east to expect him! Bahahaha! I'm going to make my daughter into a great magician!" He ran out of the library before she could say anything else to him. Such exchanges were the norm for them. But now we have a proper teacher on the way. This should be good.
----
"Sylvianna! You finally mastered restructuring!" Shouted a boy about the same age as Celestine, who is now gripping Celestine in a tight hug. Celestine is standing stiff as a stick right now. This sudden strange boy hugging her and thinking she's her mother? Did she look that much like her mother?
The boy looked normal enough except his clothes were odd. Not what you would normally see worn around here. He had black overalls on over a sweater and over top all of that was a thick wool robe with the sleeves not quite allowing for his hands to escape them. That wasn't the weirdest part though. On top of his head, along with his brown hair, a pair of droopy brown dog ears fell off the side of his head and drooped down over where human ears would be. Is this the shota puppy boy I asked for? I didn't want one that was part bloodhound...
"No, wait. Your eyes, why did you change your eyes?! Or, is this Daemon! How did you learn my magic?"
"Daemon, what did you do!" Sylvianna, the real Sylvianna stormed out of a side room she was cleaning after hearing the commotion at the front door and was shouting for Daemon to get an explanation.
"Sylvianna! Two Sylviannas? Oh! A daughter!" The boy separated himself from Celestine and casually brushed off her shoulders a bit. "Where's Daemon? He sent me a letter about teaching his daughter?"
"Uhhm, I'm his daughter?" Celestine said quietly.
The dog boy looked between Celestine and Sylvianna for a bit before looking up at Sylvianna and pointing to Celestine, "How did that happen?"
"You ask any more questions, old man, and I am going to kick you out that door. And get away from my daughter!" Sylvianna tugged on Celestine's arm and pulled her behind her.
"Aww, this isn't the kind of reception I thought I would get." The dog boy lurched forward and started to grow in height and body, his joints and bones popping as he grew. His clothes adjusted as well before he stood taller than Sylvianna, but he was much older. Probably in his 60s? Ah, but the pointy ears betrayed that. His dog ears changed into that of an elf's. And his hair changed from a youthful brown to an ageing brown-gray combination. If elves are long-lived in this world, this man could be a couple thousand years old. There really wasn't much information on them in the books aside from geography on their homeland.
Restructuring magic indeed. I wasn't expecting that. But then again, we haven't seen much magic used aside from light magic. Unfortunately Sylvianna had refused to teach Celestine that and also forbid Daemon from teaching her as well.
"Daemon promised asylum if I taught his runt magic. Did your church finally get rid of that silly 12 year old policy on your ceremonies?" The old man spoke, pulling a suitcase from the front porch inside and closing the door behind him.
"Daemon had not told me about this." She said, turning her head and shouting toward Daemon's work room, "DAEMON GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE!"
"YES, MOTHER OF MY PRINCESS!" Daemon shouted before ripping the door open and tripping on the door frame, falling face first into the marble floor. Sullivan was right behind him, though hid as soon as he saw the strange man at the door.
"Looks like he hasn't changed much at least. Wish I could say the same for you, Sylvianna..." The old man said.
Ignoring him, Sylvianna spoke to Daemon, "Why wasn't I told of this?"
"I did tell you." He spoke, getting up and holding his bloody nose. "I told half of you at least. That counts, right? You're looking healthy, Warran!"
Celestine tugged on her mother's uniform to get her attention. "Daemon told me about a tutor six days ago..." She started crying now. Uh oh, feeling sorry for Daemon now. "He said it wouldn't be someone you'd hate though... and not... to tell you..."
"Now look at what you did, Daemon, you made a little girl cry and you didn't even get her to bed yet." The old man said before Sylvianna's foot was planted right between his legs. And then he went down to the ground holding a different body part than Daemon.
"Watch your tongue around my daughter, scum."
"Yeee, yes ma'am..."
"Wh---who's Novos?" The old man asked between groans. Celestine ignored the question, went to grab Sullivan and ran upstairs.
And that was the first meeting with Celestine's new magic tutor, Warran.
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Next chapter is going to be a bit longer than the others. I'm going to take an extra day to write it, so don't worry if Sunday rolls around without a chapter.