For the next half hour or so, my mind dipped in and out of attentiveness, touching down upon the realms of thought and slipping between the toes of wonder into the bottomless waters of when and how to test the temperature. Eardrums increasingly insensitive to the outside fuss and commotion, I stared on blankly whilst Donna’s daughter sobbed eternally into her bosom. The more this scene unfolded, the more my eyes focused. Those thoughts in my head, the worries and scepticism I had about Donna, that vilifying and hollowing notion that infected my brain with lies and laughed in my face about how ignorant I was of her, all that seemingly deep self-observation came crashing down when I saw that girl. Sheesh, being that beautiful should be a crime.

Great, now my raging hormones sacked the importance of the very issue at hand, but as much as it brought me back to the present, it also allowed me to finally hear this conversation between the royal family.

“Did he really save you?” she asked, her loosed amber hair falling near the table as she stood up, her hands propping her up as if she was at a heated debate and turned furious.

“Should I have not?” I asked, finally speaking, earning their focus and surprise. More unrecognisable faces crept in every now and then, setting a humid feeling in the room.

“What right do you have?!”

“The right of a pubescent boy with no privacy, though, it didn’t bother me.”

They gave their mom a strange look afterward. Didn’t they discuss all this stuff when I spaced out? Donna sniggered, blocking her mouth, “Well,” she shrugged a little, “I may have implanted a piece of my mind in a book and got trapped in his mind after he opened that book,” she chuckled nervously like a kid in trouble. If they weren’t discussing the important things that I thought they were, then what did they say to each other when I traversed the maze of my thoughts?

“You got trapped, in his mind? Wait, explain how you came back alive,” the bearded king told her, leaning forward on the table in genuine question.

Seriously, what were they talking about before? She began explaining again, and to be quite frank, despite the unexpectedly harsh sting that Donna was no longer with me, she found her home and I was happy for her. The ever-increasing crowds filled the room and I took that as my cue to depart.

I got up and pushed the chair into the table. A tight grip coiled around my wrist, “Where are you going?”

“What do you mean where? Home, to Aquan. Don’t give me that needy look, it doesn’t suit you. Really, rude, disrespectful and insulting one’s very nature until she’s satisfied is more like you.”

“And what will you do when you go back?”

I pocketed my hands and looked off into the ceiling, “Hell, I dunno. The Order is getting pretty boring,” I commented. Murmurs and gasps filled the finely decorated and slightly echoing room.

“A user from the city of mages!” I heard someone exclaim in a low voice, so as not to disrupt the talks too much.

I guess the Order is kind of a big deal. Well, they were always a big deal, I just never paid it much attention.

“Well, when it gets boring, you know where to find me,” she said, turning to face me.

I don’t know what I was thinking–if anything–but my body moved in and I kissed her on the forehead. The king’s eyes shot daggers at me; I could almost see an image of a guillotine in his eyes’ reflection. “Calm down,” I told him indifferently, “Donna’s literally been a part of me for seven years,” I stated, then murmured, “whether I liked it or not,” and reverted my voice to normal, “surely a little kiss on the head is fine. To be honest it kind of feels like I just cut my legs off and handed them to you,” I told the furious king who slowly calmed as I talked.

“Your analogies are still garbage. Guess that hasn’t changed,” Donna dissed me, despite the audience about. The Eric in her would definitely take time to be replaced with proper royal etiquette and mannerisms.

“Meh, I’ll never change,” I said, then there was a long pause, an almost silent farewell as we locked eyes. “Hey, Donna, remember you told me you once saw people bowing to you? I guess we know where that memory came from now, huh?” I chuckled a little.

That wasn’t what I wanted to say. In fact, I had so much more to tell her, but those words just kind of knotted up and got stuck between the walls of my throat. Man, it didn’t feel good at all. I was making a horrible mistake here. “Well,” every fibre of me screamed and rebelled, “this is,” yearning and pleading to take back the last word to hobble out my dishonest mouth, “goodbye.”

I rose with Levitate and glided back, taking my last look of her before I went out the door. The minute I stepped out, I heard a voice, “She’s your property now you know?” Emily, out of nowhere, scared the crap out of me.

“Dammit, woman! You’ll be the death of me one day! I swear! Can you just appear like normal people? You and May are the same damn person! Good god!” I complained, holding my chest. Surprises weren’t my thing.

“I’m saying,” she flicked me on the forehead, “you don’t have to give her up, and you probably shouldn’t. You saw the look on her face.”

“Y-yeah,” I rubbed along my elbow to comfort myself, “I saw it.” It was the exact face I made.

“She didn’t want you to leave her there,” Emily enforced, but I couldn’t oblige with her message. Even if Donna and I bonded to an almost unnatural degree, her home wasn’t with me.

“She,” I hesitated saying it, almost frightened to word the truth to myself, “doesn’t belong to me.”

Emily shrugged, somewhat exhaustively and disappeared into thin air. After grabbing breakfast in the illustrious capital, Endathal, I roamed about a bit, my drive for adventure overshadowing the emptiness to come.

Quite a lively city brimming with the etymology of commerce and trade, flourishing every day and brazenly showboating the stark contrast to places like Gassity. It felt like I was gliding through a slightly more modern version of the northern district in Aquan, but on an endlessly grander scale.

By noon, I had lunch and decided to leave. Now that Donna was out of my life, my sense of direction went askew, to the point where I even questioned the sense in returning to Aquan. What I wanted now was power, magical knowledge and strength but most importantly, a fast and efficient way to develop myself. Back home didn’t have that, and the ‘city of mages’ as outsiders called it, was the pioneer of magic. So, what should I do? Well, I couldn’t figure that out for the life of me, so at that moment I began my return to Aquan, arriving close to midnight.

The next morning, I checked out the request board and there was a quest there, asking for the death of a creature called Ashfur. It recommended at least twenty-five mages of rank four officers, a baffling number. How strong was Ashfur? I brought the flyer back to the clerk and her jerked reaction when she saw the colour of the paper–black–startled me a little. “Y-you need twenty-five officers to accept this quest, sir.”

How am I–just when I was thinking it was impossible, I noticed the reward, a collective two hundred and fifty thousand gold coins. Hell, that’s a small fortune, but… I thought about how that black flyer must’ve caught a lot of mages’ attention amongst its normally cream or white brethren, which meant a lot of mages read it and those who didn’t would’ve heard by word of mouth. Yet, no one amassed a party, no one grabbed this opportunity. At this point, you could tell what I was thinking immediately, however, it would’ve been horridly foolish to attempt this seemingly dangerous quest without guarantee that all members would survive.

Was this not the perfect time to learn more about light magic? It definitely was, but my firepower was too great to focus solely on healing, an attribute Hydra far surpassed me in. “Could you get me all the information you have on Ashfur? Also, do summoned spirits count as a party member?”

“As long as it’s as strong as the average officer. Our authority on spirits, Aldis, will have to make that judgment.”

“Is it possible that I can reduce the number of members required with a single mage?”

She propped her glasses up, stopping her other medial tasks to give me her full attention, as the topic seemed to interest her, “Well, I suppose. But, any mage stronger than an officer is a councilman, of which there are eight you can ask, but getting them to agree to it is another thing.”

“How many officers would a councilman fill in for?” I inquired, gaining intrigue in the subject myself. She put up three fingers.

I see. It’d be nice if I can get about three councilmen at least.

I thanked her and glided away, finding Aldis immediately. “Old man!” I yelled out to get his attention, “Wanna kill Ashfur?”

He looked me deep in my eyes, his always-furrowed brows not budging a bit, sighed and walked off without a word.

“I’m serious!”

“Then you’re a fool!” he snapped back.

“Well, you don’t have to come. Just tell me, how many officers you think a spirit lord is worth?”

“Well, I can’t summon them so I don’t know. But, the strongest spirit I can summon is worth about five officers. I’m sure a more accurate reading is somewhere above ten, but go with five just to be safe.”

“Good, write that down, will ya?” I gave him a quill and paper, “Be sure to input your magical signature.”

“Are you really going to do it?” He asked, a little hesitant to give me back the paper with his seal of approval, but I snatched it anyway.

“Why? You wanna come along now?”

“I’ll pass. My days of adventure are over. How many members do you have?”

“Three, the strength of fifteen members, according to you. If you include me, that number should rise to twenty, but I think I’ll just put myself at the level of one officer. So, in all, sixteen.”

Aldis, the bearded geezer scoffed and walked off once more. Right, so now, I meandered along the halls where I was first suspended. Figured if I stayed here long enough, I’d run into one of them, and I was right. He was a little distant, even whilst I was talking to him. For a councilman, he was surprisingly young, probably no older than my pops.

“Keagan Garran,” he said, and we shook hands. He was extremely straightforward, and looked at the quest as a chance to rid the world of yet another evil. A strong sense of justice and frankness were his two most apparent traits.

“Eric Archibald,” I greeted, “what are you proficient at in magic?”

“Earth magic, be it close-combat or ranged.”

“Great, you know any other councilman who’d be interested?”

“Yes, try Meagan Garran, she’ll go as long as I go.”

“Keagan. Meagan…”

“Our parents were simple people,” he said, as if too tired to explain. Later that day, I had a run-in with her and talked her into doing it after I mentioned her brother, or perhaps his name did the talking for me. She was versed in ice manipulation and healing, a rare duo, but her close-combat skills weren’t good.

This was going amazingly good for the short time in which I had. By evening, I’d gotten information on Ashfur. It was an ash bison, a creature with high magical power, and this one in particular was famed for its grey woolly fur, unnaturally large size and strength. It boasted a slight resistance to magic, making mages struggle more than they should.

I had just three more officers or one councilman space remaining, but, no one I asked had accepted. Those decrepit councilmen simply weren’t interested nor did they want to battle, but they were more than willing to recommend officers to go. It disgusted me a little. I knew they were banking on the witch’s claim of me being the strongest in Aquan, hoping that I might actually take down the beast and bring an even shinier reputation to the Order of Mages. That disgust was shoved to the side though, as this was actually something I wanted, but, not so much for the officers. All who I asked that day flat-out rejected my invitation, and obviously blabbed to the rest of the damn Order.

By the next day I already had a furious Dawn breathing down my neck. “You are unreal! What part of this seems like a good idea?!” she argued, giving me a death sentence with her eyes alone.

Pyro’s infectious laughter jumped to Volt and Kira in a heartbeat. “Why can’t you just stay here with me? You always run off on your own, without us, without me,” her face was that of a teary one, but she kept those watery ducts in check.

“Sorry, but, I can’t exactly include you guys just like that, it’s too dangerous,” I stopped that notion in her head immediately.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll tag along,” Kira intervened. How did I not remember her? I gave myself a slap on the pate mentally. Strongest in Aquan, me? Not with her around.

“Okay, this works. We just have to hope they’ll let it fly,” I said, walking closer to her, then lowered my face, “you better stick on them like glue! Like glue, you hear?”

I presented the party that day, making sure to summon Phoenix, Kor’zha, and Hydra despite her shameful appearance. Introducing Kira as an Apostle of the witch allowed Dawn, Volt, and Pyro to take part. The Garran siblings also vouched for me, despite knowing next to nothing about me. The quest was accepted officially by the Order and news of it was sent to all the involved towns and cities giving part of the reward, and of course, this meant news would travel back to Endathal.

A few days after, we got joint approval from all the participating regions, further concreting how impeding of an existence Ashfur was. Usually, any one quest could be immediately accepted, carried out, and turned in for a reward, but not this one.

At the start of the next week, when all seven of us packed our traveller’s backpacks, little did we expect an additional member. What the–how did I not sense anything? Ugh, god, she’s just like me. But, I thought, at that moment, looking at this individual gliding towards me, that I was genuinely happy to see her. She jumped from the Levitate spell and landed on me, toppling me over.

“Well, nice to see you too,” I greeted Donna, the royal escapee. We stood up, after a few long seconds of staring at each other with stupid smirks on our faces. Even with her having a physical form, our relationship didn’t feel any different than before, which I found comfort in.

“Man,” she pulled my cheeks in all directions, even squishing them together, “I missed the shit out of you! The castle is so stuffy! I don’t even know how I lived there before. Insulting your dumb ass feels so good it’s friggin’ criminal!”

I didn’t answer, just stared on in pure relief. This felt natural, having her next to me felt like I breathed air into my lungs again. It was a calming, homey feeling. “You’re sayin’ stuff in your head thinking I’m hearing you, huh?” she tapped my forehead with her index.

“I’m, really glad you’re back,” I wrapped my arm around hers.

“Well, you won’t be when Dawn beats your ass for sexually assaulting me like this.”