Adrastos folded his legs, plopping his chin on his propped up fist, he quietly stared at his sister that had fallen asleep underneath the base of the now-familiar tree. "Noona likes going here when she's stressed out from her studies," he hummed to himself, used to talking out loud just so he wouldn't forget his own voice.
His eyes softened and a warm smile tugged on his lips. His sister was now thirteen, soon she'll be of age to have her debutante. A pang of pain and guilt reminded him that he wouldn't be able to give a single dance to his sister.
Lying down on the floor, he soon started to float around his sister, pulling on the little mana he could control to let a gentle breeze surround the slumbering princess, hoping that such an action would be enough to fence of the summer heat.
It was the intrusion of an unfamiliar mana that made the ghostly prince shot up and take a defensive position before his unaware twin. Not too soon did the stranger arrive, bearing a strong aura, Adrastos narrowed his eyes at the man with raven-black hair and dangerously glowing red eyes.
"Oh? A Psychi? And here I thought you were just a regular left-over soul."
It was with a start that the prince realized that the man could see him. At once, surprise, fear, and hope filtered in his heart at the strange phenomenon, before he quickly shook it away. Glaring at the unknown, he snarled, "who are you and how did you enter Palace Grounds?"
The man yawned.
He. Freaking. Yawned.
Confused and annoyed at the response he got, a yelp escaped his lips when the man was suddenly in front of him, a sly smirk on his lips, "boy, I've been watching you and your sister for awhile now. And I offer you a proposition."
"Why the hell will I listen to you?" He immediately demanded, a distrusting frown on his face.
With a shrug, the unknown leaned back, "you don't have a choice. I'm your best bet to keep your sister alive and well."
"Yeah? And what the heck do you want?" Adrastos grounded out, still blocking his sister from the man as much as possible.
"Nothing much, just your sister's excess mana." Another smirk, "you don't have to be too high strung, I won't hurt either of you, you're both too interesting, ya know?"
This time, before Adrastos could even answer, a soft groan made both males pause. Turning to the awakening princess, Athanasia blinked in shock and confusion at the unknown man standing in front of her.
"Who are you?"
"Good day, Princess, My name is Lucas, the magician of the Black Tower," there was an extravagant bow before he stood up once more, another smirk playing on his lips, "and by your brother's wish, I am to be your guard and teacher"
-♕22♕-
"Consider yourself lucky. You'd be dead if I had got there even a moment later."
"Yes yes, you saved her, now please stop eating my cookies"
"Make me, princey"
"Stop! Poking me!"
"Is that an order, your royal highness?"
"Since when were the both of you close?" Athanasia finally asked.
Both boys paused to look at her, and if she didn't knew any better, she would have thought that the two were the twins and not her. Rolling her eyes, she gave a pointed look to her little brother who huffed.
"Noona, I am repulsed to know that you think that this guy and I are close" he commented with a flat look.
"Seeing you two interact makes me think otherwise," she retorted, ignoring how the black haired boy took another walnut cookie, much to the ire of her brother.
"Seriously, why does this taste so good? Ask the maid for more when she comes in," said black haired boy interjected, spraying crumbs all over the place.
Ardy shot him a disgusted look, "don't you have any manners?"
Lucas grinned smugly, "I do, but not any for you."
Athy sighed in exasperation. 'Why don't you explain first what you're doing here?!'
"Oh yeah, turns out your dad ain't really Aeternitas," the boy continued, playing a weird game of stealing the cookies with her glaring brother trying to protect said cookies.
"Are you stupid, of course not." Athy huffed, hearing a whine, her attention shifted to Raven asking for a pet as she continued to answer, "Aeternitas has been dead for over 200 years already"
"Oh?" he hummed in return, looking utterly idiotic with crumbs and chocolate all over his face.
'And I thought of him as pretty the first time I saw him,' she grumbled in her mind.
Everyone in the palace is currently looking at the moron before her as her Savior. From what both Ardy and her guest had explained, she collapsed from the mana running rampant within her body.
'And of course, not a single competent magician could figure it out,' she sighed dejectedly as she yanked a chocolate almond. 'They couldn't even tell what was wrong with me! Sheesh.'
Hearing a yelp, she wasn't surprised when she spot her brother yanking the boy's long black locks, trying to reach for the box of cookies within the latter's arms. 'Hence, in the midst of all that, this... nut job showed up, claimed he could heal me as a young gifted magician. But what got me the curious the most is—'
"Ack! Are you a dog?! Don't bite me you disgusting magician!" Ardy shouted, smacking the black haired boy several times.
"Yuf sharfef if!"
"I don't understand— AGH! Let go!"
'...Ardy was the one who told Papa to trust the nut job, but why?' she frowned in thought, 'my overly protective vigilant baby brother initiated such a thing? It sounded preposterous and yet..'
She eyed the two boys rough housing. Hearing another whine, she picked Raven up who immediately cuddled against her.
"You should throw that thing out"
Eh?
She blinked, meeting the scowling face of her baby brother, hair puffed up and clothes messy. Turning to the red-eyed boy who didn't look that well off either, she noted how he was eyeing her pet.
Flinching, she wrapped her arms around Raven protectively. "You can't eat Raven!"
Ardy eyed her weirdly while Lucas the nut job snorted. "Geez you really have trust issues. But your brother's right. Throw that thing out or don't interact with it at all."
"What?" she frowned, "why would I do that? Raven's innocent!"
"Hah!" snorting, the magician jumped back to his seat, and with a snap, looked perfect once more. Ardy who saw this gave another glare but moved to his own place beside her. "Even if that thing's the reason why you were like that in the first place?"
"Huh?" Surprised, she looked down at Raven who innocently blinked
"Noona," her brother called out, a frown on his face. "Unfortunately, the idiot—"
There was a short cry of "hey!"
"Is right," blue jeweled eyes rolled, ignoring the other boy, "from what I understand, Raven is no ordinary beast. It's a mana beast, your mana beast. By interacting with him constantly, the mana that left you got absorbed back to your unprepared body, which caused the chest pains and then later on the bleeding."
"It's rare," Lucas continued, a bored look on his face as he picked on his ear, earning another disgusted look from Ardy, "but it seemed that your mana has a strong will to return to you or that you just have way too much mana."
"D-does that mean I can't spend time with Raven anymore?" Athy asked, looking down at her friend whose ears laid flat against his head.
A snort came from in front of her. Looking up, she flinched as the magician smirked, red eyes glowering— making her be painfully aware that the one that sat before her wasn't an ordinary boy, but rather a couple of years (maybe even hundreds, who knows?) older than either her or Ardy.
"You take me for an idiot who can't even solve a puny problem like that?" he questioned, leaning forward with a shark-like grin, "You think I'd end up killing someone I just saved?"
"Lucas" the sudden sharp call from Ardy made her jump
"Tsk" the owner of the name clicked his tongue, leaning back with another bored face. "Anyways, you should be grateful your brother and I stopped your Dad from killing that thing," there was an indication to Raven, "Your dad seems to really care for you both, huh? He tried to slay that thing the moment he heard it was the reason you were dying."
"It would have been more dangerous if he did that," Ardy sighed, shaking his head, "all the mana of your holy beast would have slammed back into you, Noona."
Eyeing her brother, she couldn't help picture the sad face of Claude that she saw in her dreams. She also couldn't help to think that if she had died, would her brother be as lonely as the Athanasia she saw, too?
Shuddering from the dreams that had haunted her, she took her brother's hand with her right hand, frowning as she gently brushed through Raven's fur using her other hand. "Then, has Raven been avoiding me because he thought it might have been dangerous?" she questioned Lucas who arched a brow
"No? How do you expect them to be that smart? They just follow the tendencies of the owners."
"Like how you and Raven both go crazy with chocolate," Ardy pointed out
Sharply elbowing his side, she huffed as she ignored her brother's hiss of pain.
"You actually want to run away from here, don't cha?" Athanasia flinched at the sudden attack, "you want to hide with your brother where no one can find ya and escape from this palace."
'Goddammit,' Inwardly panicking, she pointedly ignored her brother's scalding stare from her side. "N-no way! What are you t-talking about?"
"And you hate me right? You want me to get out of your sight this instant and never see me again, right? right?"
She flinched once more, sweating bullets, she tried to hide her panic with a smile— although she supposes that it would seem more like a grimace at this point.
"See," her arms are suddenly missing one fur ball called Raven, "This thing squirms uncontrollably every time I touch it because of you" she yelped when the boy suddenly leaned uncomfortably close, making her stare into his ruby red eyes
'Pretty' she thought in surprise, before grimacing, 'gah! What am I thinking right now?!'
"It's your fault!" she huffed, ignoring the surprised look of the boy, "It's only natural for Raven to be scared of you since you keep talking about eating him!"
"Whoa, does that mean you don't hate me? What a relief. You know, I'm actually really fragile and shy~! It totally breaks my heart if someone doesn't like me."
Athy could only stare, utterly flabbergasted.
"Alright, back off, mutt" Ardy suddenly spoke out, ire evident as his hands pushed back the magician who flopped back to the couch, still holding onto Raven.
"So why are you acting like a kid?" She asked, frowning, ignoring how the two boys fell back to another poking-dodging match.
"Despite being a big powerful wizard," her brother spoke up, adding a mocking tone to his voice, swiveling away from the other boy's finger with a smug look "this kid's mana is way smaller, so he's maintaining this image in order to save up his mana."
"Hn, I don't like acting cute either," Lucas added his two cents, frowning at the ceiling, giving up from his poking quest. "Oh yeah," the boy suddenly turned to her with a grin, making her shudder, "your mana's tastier than I thought"
'Excuse me, What?'
She faintly heard Ardy growl.
"What, don't look at me like that, I only ate the mana misbehaving. There isn't any other way to get rid of it anyways." shrugging, the boy grinned a lazy grin.
"But wh—"
"Noona," Ardy suddenly interjected, holding her hand, face as flat as a table, "it's not worth asking"
Slowly nodding, Athanasia decided to listen to her brother. Suddenly seeing movement, she yelped when Raven was thrown to her lap.
"Your dad's coming"
The door opened at that moment.
ლ
lmao clifffyyy. That's the updates for today, IMPORTANT REMINDER: Next week's updates are two special chapters in celebrating the twins' birthday of this Friday :D We'll return to normal update on December 13, but I do hope you'll still enjoy the special chapters~!
About Mentality: The reason why Ardy is acting more emotionally childish is because he didn't really had a chance to grow up in his past life, unlike Athy who remembers being an adult. So even is both twins are very much mature, they both have emotional moments where they just act their age ;)