Five years have passed since the fateful late January day that Risa and Jeramiah's souls were bound to one another. and we now sit on the precipice of their thirteenth year.
Risa has been in and out of psychiatrists, as well as various other medical facilities, as there have been times where her language, or writing, has reverted to Jeramiah's language. She has continued to practice her piano, and has also learned how to play the violin, as well as the clarinet. She tried out for La Crosse in the fall, however because of her doctor's appointments, she was cut from the team the week before the first game.
Jeramiah has spent the last five years learning magic, alongside Princess Silene, who is three years his senior, from Archmage Alec. With water, earth, darkness, void, and corruption as his schools, knowing that whomever he is bonded with will be able to use, Fire, Air, Light, Creation, and Nature. his two stones have yet to change colors, as he was told they would if anything ever changed. he often pulled the pink stone from its hidden pocket on his belt and looked at it.
Princess Silene, over the same amount of time, has become more introverted, and more focused on her studies, which she shares with Jeramiah. she still feels as though she owes the young man a debt because of the events of his awakening, and rarely goes anywhere without him. Since her sixteenth birthday, almost two months ago, she has been planning a surprise for his birthday, in addition to the normal present she gives him, a formal invite to his parents to come to the castle and see him.
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Silene sat in her study, writing out what she wanted done to the item in the box, who to take it to, what she wanted done to it, and when it needed to be returned. She knew the work would only take minutes, but left special instructions that it was not to be brought back until after the festivities of Jeramiah's party had started.
She handed the twenty two inch long, four inch thick, and wide, box to one of the ladies-in-waiting that had been assigned to her, and she carried out the duties the princess wrote in the letter.
Silene walked out of her bedchambers, and toward the rooms her father had given the boy, five years ago tomorrow. she was anxious to see what contraption he was working on now. the system he had devised for the Fellgrove gate, he called it 'compound pulleys' made it to where only a single person was needed to reopen the gate once it was closed. the system was now in place in all of the walled villages and towns in the kingdom, and here in Gemini, the things he designed were much more abundant.
She had no idea where he garnered the inspiration for the contraptions, but all of them seemed to work really well, and made life in the capitol much easier.
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Rachel had not been far from her friend since her eighth birthday, only La Crosse in the fall, separated the two since then. Rachel had been around her long enough to know how to interpret what she was saying when her language skills were impaired.
Tomorrow would be Risa's thirteenth birthday, Rachel, with Anne's permission, had gotten Risa a new case for her violin, one with hard sides, and enough space for a second one if she ever got another one. Rachel sat at her desk, and opened the top drawer, and pulled out a pad of paper Risa drew on every time she was at her house, and flipped through the pictures.
she noticed that in none of the pictures, were any signs in English, they were all in the strange language she wrote in, when she was having trouble. she flipped through the pad, and found a map of a castle, about midway through it. Each area was labeled as to what it was, and had a few pieces of furniture drawn from the top-down view.
She took out her phone, and started taking pictures of her drawings, and entered them into her computer, and slowly built a rendering of the castle using the pictures. About lunchtime, her mom came into the room, and looked at the screen.
"What are you working on? a history project for school?" she asked.
"No, mom. these are pictures that Risa has drawn in the book I keep for her here. I noticed that even the map uses the strange language she writes in sometimes. so I figured I would take the pictures and try and give perspective to what she drew, just to see if the space would even work." Rachel turned her head to face her mother, "Mom, I don't think there is anything wrong with her, I think she is legitimately seeing this, everything lines up too perfectly, and the ones that were drawn on her good days, still use the weird language she taught me."
Her mom patted her head and smiled at her daughter, "You girls have always had an active imagination, I love you both. I just wish there were more we could do for her, maybe I should find a boyfriend for her mom?" she laughed at herself as she left the room.
"Please don't! what kind of guy would put up with Anne and Risa?" Rachel shouted at her mom's back as she went back to work, taking bites of the bowl of cheesy rice her mom had brought into her for lunch.
With most of the pictures aligned and in the computer, she felt like she could navigate the space a lot better, and the jumble of pictures made a lot more sense to her as an actual space. she then wondered why it had taken her five years to think to organize Risa's drawings.
Rachel then noticed something in one of the drawings, a girl. she had a dignified bearing, and a dress that looked like it had walked out of the Victorian era. the whole picture was black and white, except the use of blue in the girl's Iris' the girl was peeking in through a door, and if it weren't for the blue in her eyes, Rachel would have never noticed the girl standing in the cracked doorway. at the bottom of the drawing, was a word in their private language, she could read it, but didn't know how it was pronounced, and it was also the only picture that she felt had a name: 'Silene'
she quickly went through the sketch-pad again and found the picture, carefully removed it from the glue-type binding, and filled out one of the artist cards her art teacher had given her. she filled out Risa's information, as well as the date she had drawn it, and then gave it the name at the bottom, then put it in her art folder, so she could give Risa's picture to the art teacher the next day at school.
in another picture she found that Risa had drawn music sheets, and she used her computer to recreate them, and did something similar to them as well. The annual Watertown Arts Festival took place on the last day of winter, so she planned on giving the piece to the school's music teacher.
she saved the project to a thumb-drive, and pulled it out of the computer, and then started on her homework, finishing the last little bit just before dinner.
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Jeramiah awoke, today he would be thirteen. he had just finished the small scale prototype of an elevator. As an aspiring mage, he didn't need it, but he knew there would be a need for it in villages where magic users weren't. in his small scale version, he had figured out a way to use engraved pieces of wood, the cheapest material he could think of, to act as a way to find the cart's position on the rails, and allow it to stop automatically where it was needed.
The current model worked with five floors, and he was quite pleased with it, but knew it had limitations. he left it alone, and walked over to the wardrobe in his room, pulled out the outfit that he thought looked the simplest, even though it still had a baby-blue rope sewn onto the shoulder seems, and laid in a loop on the outside of his shoulders.
Once dressed, he left his room, and walked toward the formal dining hall, as the maid assigned to his room had told him to do, as he woke up. He entered the room, and was greeted by the King and Queen, their personal retainers, then the Princess, three of her four ladies-in-waiting, and then her personal retainers as well.
once the formal birthday greetings were out of the way, the King's Crier unfurled a scroll, and announced his parents, as well as his four year old sister. They were still living in Fellgrove, but were in a far better position than what they had been while he was living with them.
he had found out that as part of the arrangement the King and Princess had, she was to send forty silver pieces a month to his parents, and put an additional ten into a safe in the treasury room. The fifty Silver was to be considered Jeramiah's wages for guarding her, as was his official reason for being in the castle, even though all of the staff believed she was more like a guard to him.
Any staff member assigned to his rooms went through all the proper channels, but the final decision to hire a person for his rooms, went through her. Not even the chamber-maid was spared from a personal interrogation from the Princess when she was hired.
His parents gave him the first gift of his birthday, a box of stationary. writing paper, envelopes, a wax seal, as well as four sticks of sealing wax. the seal was a round piece of bronze, affixed into the form of a ring, the symbol on the front was an axe head with a small gap in the center, and a snowflake etched on the side of the axe head. a symbol representing the first use of his gift, the broken, and frozen Axe that almost took his life. He smiled at the bitter-sweet memory.
it was the turn of King Emeth Alva and Queen Tikva Alva. They stepped forward together, and handed Jeramiah a book, he opened it, and saw that it was a manual of spell's chants and forms. the few at the beginning he recognized as forms Alec had been putting him through. Silene stepped forward and curtsied to him, and then began speaking.
"I must apologize, I sent one of the ladies-in-waiting to fetch my gift for you, but she has yet to return. You shall receive it, from her own hand, as soon as it arrives." she then stepped back into line with her mother and father.
he then walked down the line as each of the castle's staff presented him with small gifts, none would be considered extravagant, but he liked it better that way. he received the last gift in the line, from the chamber-maid from his rooms, and Silene's last lady-in-waiting entered the hall. he felt the timing was too perfect to be coincidence, especially knowing how Silene's mind worked.
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he walked up to her, and waited for the princess, as was proper decorum, and the princess instructed the girl to present the gift. she curtsied, then placed the polished wooden box in both hands, and opened the lid, revealing a smooth and polished wooden wand, a turned silver handle, and a yellow gemstone affixed to the base of the wand. he recognized it immediately as a manna-well.
he took it out of the wooden box, to show that he accepted it, as well as show everyone in the room, placed it back into the box, closed the lid, and gave a curt bow to the girl still holding the box. Silene instructed her to take the wand to the armory for safe storage. as the girl turned, Jeramiah noticed the etching on the small end of the box, it was the same emblem now on the signet ring his parents had just given him. He decided to act like he hadn't noticed it.
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"I didn't know you could write music like this, Rachel." Mrs. Cailey, the music teacher, stated.
"I didn't write this, I saw it drawn in one of Risa's pictures, and couldn't make heads or tails of where the pages should be, so I copied all I could find of it, and wrote it out. I figured you could figure out the composer, or at least the order of the pages." she said.
"You said that Risa drew this piece in one of her drawings? may I see it?"
At the music teacher's request, Rachel brought out the thumb-drive and plugged it into her computer, and brought up the image of the drawing.
"My, My, I knew she was a gifted musician, but I didn't think she was a gifted artist in other areas as well." Mrs. Cailey said. "I have an idea, lets see if I can get her to play the missing notes. I'll see if I can find the composer during my prep-hour. Thanks for bringing me this."
"No Problem, Mrs. Cailey. Risa hasn't had much good news in a while, I want to give her some good news for the first time in five years." Rachel confided.
"I understand. I think I know how to handle it. I'll make it a musical exercise to all the students. I'll remove the markings off these pages, and see if she recognizes it."
"Thanks! I have to go see the Art teacher next, I want to put one of her drawings in the school's art exhibit."
"Does she know about it?"
"Nope! See you in class!" Rachel said as she left the room, heading toward the Art Room. nobody was in there, this is what she was hoping for. she walked over to the drawing submission rack, and placed Risa's Drawing 'Silene' on the rack, and walked out.
Risa walked into her third period class, Orchestra, with Mrs. Cailey, and sat her stuff down, and grabbed her violin off of the storage shelf where she kept it during the school day. the bell rang for class to start as she applied rosin to the bow.
"Alright class, instruments on their stands, or cases, respectively. Get out a pencil, and pull your desks up." Mrs. Cailey told the class as she walked in carrying freshly copied packets. "Today, I want to see if you all can arrange a piece of music, without having heard it before. ive also removed portions of the sheet music, I want you all to fill in what you think goes there." she started passing out the packets to each student. "you all have twenty minutes to do this, and we will use the second half of the class to learn the page I have placed on top, and the only complete page in the packet, what you don't get done in class will be homework."
When Risa received the packet, she instinctively reordered the pages, and filled in all of the gaps in the remaining four pages, without looking at it much. she then raised her hand, and Mrs. Cailey called on her.
"I don't think this was a fair assignment, Mrs. Cailey." Risa told her over the clacking of pencils drawing in music notes, the looks on her classmates faces said they agreed, but for different reasons.
"And why is that, Risa? not everyone is a composer?" she asked.
"No, Mrs. Cailey, I feel as though I should be exempt from this particular piece, as I have heard it, the stipulation of the assignment was to arrange a piece we haven't heard." at this statement, the entire class stopped moving, and confusion was evident in their eyes.
"Do you think you could play it?" She asked Risa. the response was Risa picking up the violin, and playing it through without looking at the notes. (here is the song I thought of while writing this part)
The rhythm of the song was fairly upbeat, and the rest of the class seemed to get into the music while she played, but no others picked up their instruments.
once she was done, she slowly lowered her bow, and violin, the feel of the music still coursing through her, she opened her eyes, and in the corner of her vision she saw the emblem of a broken axe head with a snowflake over it, embossed on a small wooden case, being held by a lady with her back turned to her. Her blond hair was held up by silver spiral pins, and part of it was let loose to fall in tight ringlets. the girl wore a violet veil over her head. She knew what she saw wasn't really seeing it, so she did as her therapists have told her over the years: she calmly put up her instrument on its shelf, and sat down with her back in the corner of the room.
all the teachers had been told to allow her to do this, as it was part of her therapy from something that happened when she was younger, but none of the teachers ever asked what it was.
The rest of the day, went without an episode, and she rode the school bus home. she walked through the door, her mom wished her a happy birthday, and kissed her on the cheek.
"I had another episode at school today. I need to go to my room for a little bit." she told her mom.
"Alright sweetheart. take the time you need, its a couple of hours before people get here anyway."
"Alright, I think I am gonna draw what I saw, can I use your colored pencils this time? the colors were more vibrant than normal."
"Sure sweetheart, go ahead."
Two hours later, Rachel and her mom, Amethyst, arrived for her birthday, as well as the neighbor boy, Mordecai, who had a crush on Risa, and learned to play the Clarinet just to have something in common with her.
Rachel when straight to Risa's room when she arrived, knowing what had happened at school today, she knew her friend would be drawing. Risa was putting the final touches on the emblem on the case when Rachel entered the room.
Risa picked up the drawing, held it arms length away from her, and then set it down, and added some shading at the girl's waist in the picture, accentuating the horizontal pleats in the back of the dress the girl was wearing.
"That's a beautiful dress. is it the same girl that was in the last picture you put a person in?"
"No, it's not Silene. its one of her attendants. That's what the purple veil signifies, that she serves the princess. A name didn't come with it, just feelings, and this symbol."
"May I have this drawing? I want to put it in the school's competition." Rachel asked, hoping to get this one too.
"Sure, use any of them you want, its not like anyone but us will make heads or tails of them."
"If that's the case, can I take pictures of all the ones in here for an art project I am working on?" Rachel asked her friend.
"Go ahead, they'll just rot in here." Risa replied, as she left the room to go see the other guests, she could already hear Mordecai's voice talking to her mom in the living room.
Rachel hung back, took out her phone, and started taking pictures, and naming each photo with the date the pictures were drawn, she then forwarded all of them to her computer.
Risa entered the living room, and greeted Amethyst, Darryl Rachel's dad, Mordecai, and his dad, Jesse. She looked into the kitchen, where her mom was putting the finishing touches on her birthday cake.
Anne carried the chocolate cake into the living room, while singing 'happy birthday' to her daughter, and the rest of the guests followed suit, with Rachel coming into the room in the middle of the song. They all took a piece of cake, and relaxed for a few minutes, joking with one another, and teasing the new teenager in their midst.
Risa started opening the presents, and noticed that Mordecai set his behind Rachel's to open his last. From Jesse, she got a new Rosen for her violin, a nice quality one with gold flecks. From Darryl, she got cork wax for her clarinet, Amethyst gave her a pair of Sapphire earrings, her Mom gave her a set of strings for her violin, as well as an extra E string, one she knew gave the sound she preferred.
she then opened Rachel's gift, and gave her friend a hug for the pearl white violin case. she picked up the last gift and smiled at Mordecai. She knew he had been shoveling sidewalks since first snow to be able to get her the gift she now held in her hands. she opened it gingerly, and nearly dropped the box when she realized it was still sealed.
She gingerly opened the box, and slid out the Cecilio wooden electric violin. she quickly tuned the attached strings, and used her normal bow, instead of the one it came with to try the feel of it. she set it down in the case, and stood up and gave the boy a hug.
The whole group went outside a few minutes later and made s'mores in the fire pit outside. they were all still wearing their big coats, even with the fire, the temperature was still a freezing negative fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. (-26 C)
"Alright everyone, its a school night, and ten o'clock. its time to call it quits for the night." Anne finally announced.
"Ms. Daijon, can I stay the night? It is her birthday, and she had a rough day at school." Rachel asked.
Anne looked to Rachel's parents and they both nodded. "Alright, Ray, you may stay, but you girls WILL get some sleep tonight."
"Yes, Mom." the girls replied together as they filed back inside the house.
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A/N: this one was a bit longer than I originally planned it to be, but the dialog makes it appear longer than it is. still needed for character development. Next chapter: Magic crosses the bond.