“W-wha…?” Theodore asked again.

“Theodore, I’m an Elemancer! An Elemancer!” I said, but Theodore didn’t look as happy as I was. He looked confused and afraid, his eyebrows touching as he took a step back.

‘Why is he reacting like that? It’s me! I would understand if it were Cain, but it’s me!’

“E-elemaner?” He said, and I smiled a little.

“Elemancer,” I said, hiding the smile.

He blinked twice, and he forgot his fear and confusion. His eyebrows turned pointy, throwing angry punches to the ground. “Every time! That’s what I said! If you unestand what I say, what’s the differen!?”

Pfft!

I laughed a little, making him even more angry.

“What’s so fun—w-what is that!?” His anger turned back into fear and confusion, pointing with a shaky finger a little lower than my neck.

Shh!

I greeted my teeth.

I was so focused on the fight and was so happy to see Theodore, I forgot about the bite. Now that I saw it again, I felt the pain again, and it hurt. It hurt a lot!

“Oh, ThIs? ThIs Is NoThInG.” I tried playing it cool, but the crackles and the high pitches of my voice said otherwise. Thankfully, Theodore found it funny and laughed.

I cleared my throat. “That Silverfang did it, but don’t worry! I dealt with it.” I said, puffing out my chest.

Theodore kept laughing at first, but when he turned to the side and saw the Silverfang down the tree, he jumped lightly and his laughter stopped. “Y-y-you did that!?” He said, his voice shaking.

“I told you, I’m an Elemancer now!”

“B-but Papa said it happens at ten. We are four.”

“I am four and a half.” I pointed out proudly, correcting him a second time, his emotions circling back to anger.

“And!? You need more than five to reach ten! How did you do that?”

“I have a secret method,” I said cheekily.

“Secret method!? What is it!? What is it!?” His eyes sparkled.

“No, no, I shouldn’t.”

“Come on, tell me! Tell me!”

I wanted to laugh, but held it in. “Okay, I’ll tell you.”

Hearing that, his first flew up and down.

“My secret is that I played a lot of…” While I was dragging the ‘of’ for dramatic effect, he drew a breath in, not stopping until I answered it. “Checkpoints!” I jumped, throwing my hands in the air.

‘Ouch! The scar, you dummy!’

Theodore breathed out, his tummy returning to normal. “Ch-check… what?”

“Checkpoints!” I said again, “Did you see the trees and the lights when coming here? Jumping from light to light is checkpoints!”

He turned his head to the side, just like how Papa did. “And that’s how you became an Elemaner? By playing check... checkthingly?”

“No. First I saw these really pretty lights and then it was all dark and then these lights appeared but they weren’t the same lights as the others and then I jumped in these lights and there was a very big one at the end, and when I reached it, it wasn’t dark anymore and then a boom came and then I became an Elemancer!”

Theodore just looked at me, blinking, his eyebrows furrowing. Suddenly, he pushed me.

“Hey! What wa-“

“Jerk.” He said over me, tears forming in his eyes. “If you don’t want to tell me, then don’t tell me. Don’t lie. Lying is bad! I scared for you and you lie! That’s not right Lyon!”

“W-what? But it’s not a lie!”

“Yeah right!” He started crying.

“I really did!” I said, my lips trembling.

Theodore shook his head and wiped his tears, only for the next ones to run down.

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“Why don—”

“I don’t care!” He cut me off again. “Why did you have to do it here?”

‘W- what...’

“Couldn’t you do that at home?”

‘Wha-ho-wa- eh-‘ He asked question after question before I could even think of the answer. Under such pressure, tears began welding up, but Theodore wasn’t planning on stopping any time soon.

“Was it because of Cain!? Because if me!? It’s been so long!”

“Theodore...” My voice was small, the end of the word coming in a hype-pitched sound as the first tear dropped. I began crying as well.

“I miss you!”

He finally said, making me gasp. It wasn’t about me becoming an Elemancer. It wasn’t about how I did it, either. It was all about me not being there for Theodore for a month. He asked to play with me every day for an entire week, and each day I would say no, all because I wanted to awaken faster.

With a shaking breath, I sniffed my tears back and hugged Theodore. He stopped crying, and he hugged me back.

“I’m sorry Theodore.”

“Sniff, sniff, does-does that mean you’ll be back?”

“Yeah.”

We held each other for a while, but then Theodore suddenly jumped out of the hug.

“Ewwww, I’m dirty now!” He said wiping all over himself.

“Sniff, hehe, oops.”

“It’s not funny! You are bader than me!” He screamed back, but it didn’t stop me from laughing.

“Worse.”

“WoRsE, mlieh.” He mimicked mockingly. “How do you know so much!?”

Heh, it seems one month wasn’t enough for Theodore to catch up. “Let’s go back.”

“Mhm!” He hummed and nodded.

On the way back, I showed Theodore what checkpoints was and how to play it. He wasn’t as good as me, but he liked it a lot, so we agreed we’d come back and play again. Maybe now that Papa was going to be back, he would come with us too! Even Cain, if he wanted...

Other than checkpoints, I showed him the flowers that come at night. He looked at them confused because they weren’t as I described them.

“Of course they are not! It’s not night now!”

“But monsters come at night, how did you see them!?”

When we reached Mr. Orion’s house, the door was half open, so we went inside on our own. “Papa! Mr. Orion!”

Footsteps came from the nearby room. Mr. Orion had already put on the everyday smile he offered us every time we visited, but it dropped the moment he saw us.

“Hal- by the Moon, what happened? Are you alright?” He asked, rushing to quickly take a better look.

“What happened, Orion?” Papa’s voice came from the other room. He didn’t wait for Mr. Orion to answer because he walked out of the room and found for himself.

“Lyon, Theodore, what happened!?” He said, more worried than Mr. Orion, his eyes changing between us.

We were both smiling and giggling, thinking it wouldn’t look as bad if we did, but it didn’t seem to work.

“I did it! I’m an Elemancer!”

“Lyon, it’s no time for jokes! Quickly, tell me what happened!” Papa said louder than before.

‘Why does no one believe me!?’

“I’m not joking! I’m an Elemancer! An Elemancer!”

“Lyon! If—” Papa’s voice raised as he spoke, but he cut himself short. Mr. Orion was done checking on Theodore, who was fine from the start, and took off my shirt (if it can even be called that, with so many scratches and holes all over) to have a better look at my wound. Papa’s mouth dropped, something that had never happened before, making mine and Theodore’s laughter the only sound in the room.

“You...” After a few seconds, Papa was the one to speak in a shaky voice, “You weren’t kidding... you really are...” Papa trailed off, unable to believe what he was seeing, but Mr. Orion’s reaction was even better, falling to his butt from the shock.

‘Hehe, sorry Mr. Orion.’

“Ah! What is that!?” Theodore screamed out of his laughter, pointing at my tummy. A little over it, was a black symbol that wasn’t there before.

‘What is that?’

Papa said a tattoo would be there, and that was it, but what even was that?

“Papa, what is this?”

Papa mumbled something to himself, but I couldn’t hear what he said. “That...” he began after a few more moments of gathering himself, “didn’t I tell you that an Elemancer has a tattoo over his core? That’s what you are looking at.”

“No, I know that. I mean, what is that? It’s not a triangle, squire, or a circle... well, it looks like a circle. Is it a circle? I like circles!”

“Well...” He paused and bent to have a closer look.

For the next few minutes, Papa rubbed his beard and looked at my tummy. In the meantime, Mr. Orion recovered from his shock, and created that water again -blech-, only this time being so much worse! It hurt like a sting and the added weird feeling only made it so blech-blech-blech!

Right about when Mr. Orion finished placing over the bandage, Papa finally spoke again. “It’s by far the most complex and bizarre tattoo I’ve ever seen. Nothing comes even close to it.”

“Not even Nali’s?” Theodore asked.

‘Who’s Nali?’

“Yeah, not even Nali’s.”

“Wow!” While Theodore was excited over... well, I wasn’t so sure what it was, I frowned. “Papa! You still haven’t answered!”

“Ah, right,” he said, clearing his throat. “The reason is because I’ve never seen a tattoo giving the illusion that’s moving. At first glance, it looks like the eye of the storm, however, once you pay closer attention, it can be argued that it’s even more impressive.”

“What is the eye of the storm? It sounds so cool!” Theodore asked before I could.

“Ah, the eye of the storm is... hmm, how do I say this... When wind blows circularly, do you remember what it creates?”

“A tornado!” I answered, still not knowing where Papa was going with this.

“Exactly. The stronger the winds, the higher the tornado reaches. The eye of the storm is when you look at the tornado from above it. We call it like that because, at the top, the winds and clouds combine and give the impression of an eye.” Papa said, pointing to his eye. “But it’s not exactly that here.”

“While it looks like that, if you pay closer attention, the tattoo is comprised of three layers- the outer, the middle, and the inner. The outer gives that illusionary effect because if you look closely,” he put his finger close to my tummy and started shaping along with his explanation, “four crescent moons are overlapping one another. Outwards, they expand, growing bigger, their ends overlapping further giving these edges here, while inwards, they shrink and condense, meeting towards the center and ending the outer layer in a perfect diamond. From then on, the middle layer continues with multiple similar crescent moons overlapping each other in a spiral until reaching the very last layer, where all of them lead but end abruptly, leaving an empty space in its center.”

When Papa finished, I looked at Theodore and he looked back at me, both of us having the same look on our faces.

“Papa,” Theodore began. “Could you explain again?” I finished.

Papa laughed and explained it again, using simpler words this time. We didn’t understand much this time either, BUT there was this one clear thing. My tattoo was the coolest ever!