Oh, Sweet Lullaby,

Rock my child to sleep.

For the cradle must not stop rocking,

For I fear for thee to awake.

Let the sweet voices of thy angels whisper in your ears,

Let the darkness shield you from prying eyes.

Let me be thine support because thine path is long and rough.

I shall give thee a weapon to protect thyself,

And a shield to protect thy friends.

Remember, oh child of mine,

For fear is thy best friend and thy worst enemy.

“Oh, woe is to my child for thee hath to face thy destiny.”

-Lotus Snow

“THE TIME OF BEGINNING STARTS WHEN SOMETHING ENDS TO PAVE THE WAY FOR THE NEW ERA TO BEGIN. AN EQUAL AMOUNT OF ENERGY MUST BE GIVEN TO CREATE SOMETHING NEW. A LIFE FLICKERS AND ENDS, SENDING ITSELF OUTWARD LIKE A BIG BANG. FROM THE COLLECTION OF ENERGY SENT OUT FROM DEATH, THE ACCUMULATED POWER GREEDILY PULLS THE PRECIOUS ENERGY BACK IN. DEATH HAS FORMED A BLACK HOLE. FROM THE VOID, A SPARK IS LET LOOSE, SIGNALING THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CREATION.”

–Snow

“Aurelius! Aurelius!” Heavy knocking could be heard as the door violently shook. A male voice yelled impatiently at Aurelius to wake up from his deep slumber. “Aurelius! Get up! You are going to be late!”

Groaning, Aurelius’ hand searched for the snooze button on the alarm clock. Lifting his tired arm, he slammed down in hopes of silencing the annoying ear-shrieking noise, but instead, the alarm fell over to the ground with a loud thunk.

Disheveled, feathery silver-white hair was tangled up in a bird’s nest, covering half of his face as it tickled his nose. His hand reached up to brush it aside, and drool was smeared across his rosy cheeks and he wiped it away.

The morning sun peaked through the half-open curtains, bringing unwanted light into his room. He pulled his cover over his head in the hopes of getting back to the comfort of his bed.

“Aurelius! Get up! Why are you still sleeping?” The thundering roar jolted him awake. Who would have thought such a voice would be so loud that it would wake him from his peaceful sleep?

“Wha—?” he groggily replied. Waking up this early in the morning wasn’t something that he was happy with. Sleeping until the afternoon and lazing away for a couple more hours was ideal.

“I’m coming in if you’re not getting up in the next five minutes. You won’t have a door standing here anymore.”

“Can I do it tomorrow?” Aurelius weakly replied from his half-awake slumber as he halfheartedly waved over his head. He wasn’t in the mood to get up so early in the morning, especially when he had stayed up past three A.M last night reading. He would usually read even later, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open long enough to stay awake.

“No!” Lucian yelled. He was getting impatient in waiting for Aurelius. “Your initiation is today. Hurry up!”

Initiation. How could Aurelius forget? The reason he took longer to sleep was explicitly that reason: he was just too nervous. To occupy his mind, he read himself to sleep, allowing the words to bore him. It miraculously succeeded every time.

“Fine.” Groaning with displeasure, Aurelius got up with a heavy sigh, and he scratched his bare chest. Pushing the thick covers aside, his feet touched the floor. With a shiver, the cold wooden floor jolted him awake with its welcoming morning wake-up call. An angry hiss escaped in between his lips.

“Why is the floor so cold?” Aurelius squinted, looking down on the floor. A light, thin sheet of blue ice covered the foot of the bed, leading up to the door. “Did Lucian set a cold spell on the floor again?”

Aurelius groaned, not liking what had transpired next to his bed. This was torture to him, and it wasn’t the only time that Lucian had found different ways to wake him up.

“It’s going to take a while for it to defrost again,” Aurelius whined, bringing up his feet an inch off the ground to let it get warm before he tried stepping again.

Sleep.

He needed more of it.

Reaching over across the bed, where a chair stood, Aurelius grabbed his clothes. He pulled over a black t-shirt that had a white devilish tail design on the back of the shirt that stretched from the bottom toward the top. Two pairs of small angel wings were also decorated at the end of the t-shirt. Next, he pulled up his black jeans off the chair and put them on one leg after another. Gold designs lightly accentuated the edge of the clothes with an intricate floral pattern, giving them a subtle flair.

“Aurelius!” Lucian yelled once again, his discontent clear. Aurelius could hear Lucian impatiently rattling the doorknob a few times.

“Alright,” Aurelius said in an annoyed but tired tone. “Alright. I’m almost done. Keep your pants on.” He slid his shoe on his right foot. With a tired sigh, he got up and tapped his toes a couple of times, allowing his foot to settle in and get comfortable.

Lightly stepping on the floor, Aurelius tried his best not to slip. Tightly holding onto the wall, trying not to fall, he went past the small mirror half his size. He saw his golden eyes reflect at him.

What stared back at him was his disheveled appearance; his finger gently reaching up to untangle the ruffle on his feathered hair. Pushing back, a baby face frowned again at him, creating a small dimple on each cheek. He wasn’t considered very masculine in many people’s eyes, bordering between slightly feminine features on a male body frame. Women loved it; he hated it.

At times, he would be mistaken for a female instead of a fully grown man, even though he was sixteen years of age. However, his long slender arms and legs didn’t compare to the standard of an Esequi Nuntis species. He was considered small, falling about five feet ten inches, while an Esequi Nuntis usually reached past six feet and headed straight to seven. Not only that, but his strange feathery hair and his unique, slightly tanned skin set him apart from the rest. He was considered an oddity in this world, which made people take a second glance whenever they saw him.

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Like a newborn lamb, he wearily walked toward the door. A couple of times, his feet almost slipped under him, and he came close to making a perfect split. He had to use the wall to help himself move toward the door without falling. It was such a pain that when he got outside, he wanted to punch Lucian for setting up this deathtrap right next to his bed.

“I’m so getting back at him for this,” Aurelius grumbled, stressing the word. He didn’t understand why Lucian sometimes went way overboard with using his magic.

Lucian was considered a genius when it came down to magic and technology, but to use it on such a petty trick wasn’t him at all. When compared to Aurelius, who didn’t know how even to use magic at all, he couldn’t help but feel jealous.

Lucian was the rising star in the upcoming Daemon youths. He was the top of the class, the best in everything that he did, and the youngest member to ever be placed into the Daemon’s high-level group.

Aurelius sighed, scrunching up his eyebrows, and he took a deep breath to tackle the problem in front of him. The splash of ice on the floor was a little too excessive, making movement very difficult without skidding across the floor and possibly doing a splendid split. Just the thought made him wince as his legs came together.

Shakily, almost losing balance, he inched forward. His body did a weird squiggle-like dance that threw off his balance, where his foot caught on an unsuspecting edge on the floor, stubbing his toe. A sudden, horrible pain shot throughout his whole body. He howled. The moment he lifted his foot even an inch off the ground, he slipped backward and hit against the shelf that was next to him. It was full of collectible toys and books that fell on top of him as he crumbled onto the ground.

Aurelius groaned in pain. He pushed himself up as the books and toys tumbled off. With great difficulty, he picked himself slowly back up. His right hand reached over toward the back of his head, where he felt a pulsing pain.

Why?! Aurelius thought. I was doing just fine balancing without slipping!

He looked down and saw what had stubbed his toe. It was the door frame, jutting out just to make his life more miserable.

Pushing aside the toys, he got up with shaky legs. Carefully, he walked his way toward the door, shifting from one leg to another in a low crotch and holding onto the wall as if his life depended on it. Slipping up again wasn’t something that he wanted to do any time soon, especially so early in the morning.

Aurelius was now fully awake and in pain; two of the worst combinations to be in. Turning the doorknob, the door jerked open. His head snapped back as he tumbled forward. Lucian stood in front of the door, catching him just in time before he could have another rough tumble.

“You alright?” Lucian asked. He pushed Aurelius back onto his feet and helped him straighten up.

“No,” Aurelius said with an annoyed grumble. Having another close call made his mood even fouler, though he was glad that Lucian was there to break his fall. He brushed back his disheveled white feathery hair behind him and glared at Lucian. “I would appreciate it if you could stop waking me up with your ice magic. This is the second time I fell this week.”

“What are you talking about? Asked Lucian. “Second fall? I don’t know how to use Ice magic. It’s not me,” Lucian said, holding up his hand in front of him.

Aurelius blinked a couple of times to clear his vision. His senses were still slightly out of whack since that backward fall, making everything blurry. When his vision finally cleared, he noticed that Lucian was dressed up in his usual red and black outfit. A red bandanna was wrapped around his right wrist and chains were hanging from the buttoned shirt to his pants. He had sharp red eyes that sparkled with a ruby red hue, a very rough masculine, handsome face, but also an icy personality. This, coupled with his long black hair tied in a pony tail and very light brown skin that was close to a golden wheat hue, indicated that he had a high standing in the Daemons’ race.

What Aurelius noticed was that compared to the Daemon species, the Angelous was more elegant and very beautiful. Their colors tended to be brighter and cheerier while the Daemons tended to keep darker and richer in colors. The society between the two races, Angelous and Daemons, could be considered the polar opposite of each other in personalities and ideals. They were Esequi Nuntis: one Daemons and the other Angelous.

“Then who did?” Aurelius asked, trying to calm down. His hand crossed in front of him.

Lucian was quiet for a moment, looking at Aurelius innocently and replied, “I think I might know who. I’ll show you.” He motioned for Aurelius to follow, going into a jog.

Early morning jogs had never been an activity that Aurelius enjoyed. It did fully wake him up; however, washing away any notions of sleepiness, but instead it was only replaced with fatigue.

They continued past the small cottage where Aurelius lived, and out into the open field where different pastel-colored flowers bloomed. It was a beautiful field, and birds would leisurely come in to dive for their daily meals. Some of them glanced up but didn’t fly away as they knew that the two young men were no threat. Aurelius didn’t have time to gaze upon the beauty of the land, however, as he was bent over, wheezing for breath.

“Lucian! Let me catch my breath. You’re killing me.” Aurelius’ head flopped forward as he rested his hands on his knees. His breathing was shallow and heavy. He thought he tasted a bit of gritty sand from his dry lips, smacking his lips a few times to get it wet. It took a couple of deep breaths before he was able to bring himself back.

Running wasn’t his specialty, stamina was his weakness, and he knew that he needed exercise. When he finally settled down, he scanned the surroundings. Out before him were small blue bunnies, hopping around the field and grazing on the flowers. Their ears and noses twitched, looking up at them as the bunnies munched on plants.

“An ice bunny,” Lucian replied as if it was the typical answer.

“You serious?” Aurelius asked, not entirely understanding what Lucian was getting at. From his perspective, Lucian had just roped him into a morning jog to go bunny watching. There were times when Lucian did take him out into the wild to watch the animals out in their natural habitat, but right now they were short on time.

“I saw some of its blue fur nearby entangled with the wild flame flowers growing not too far away from your door. Ice bunnies have a natural habit of freezing everything around its vicinity while it’s eating. Look.” Lucian pointed at a specific bunny.

Aurelius followed the direction where Lucian had pointed. Aurelius squinted to take a good look at what Lucian was talking about. His eyes caught a glimmer of red and blue, sparking off around an ice bunny. Crinkles of ice started forming slowly around the ice bunny, freezing any vegetation near its vicinity. Only the flame flower countered the ice bunny’s magic from going out of control. The ice stopped about a good seven feet away before the flame flower dissolved the encroaching ice; allowing the other plants to survive.

It was a strange sight to see an ice bunny eating away at a flame flower, mainly because they were different elements. Aurelius always wondered why the ice bunny didn’t melt or get burnt from eating the plant.

“I see.” Aurelius thought it over for a moment. He realized that he had to rehome any flame flowers near his cottage so the same incident of waking up and slipping on the floor didn’t happen again. The problem was the flame flower’s fire could easily burn his fingers. He had to go back to bring out some insulated fire gloves to pick through those hellish flowers.

Aurelius gave out a defeated sigh. There were just way too many things to do today and rehoming the flame flowers was another one of them.

“Let’s go. We have an orientation that we need to attend.” Lucian turned around and ran into a full-out sprint.