Longest chapter so far! Family bonding moments *sniff* so beautiful!

Unfortunately David gets....to live D: international conflicts and all that )': ....BUT don't worry...soon such trivial matters will matter not!

Chapter Ten – Domestic Violence at its Finest

*** David McGlothin ***

I felt his presence in front of me, as in before me inches from myself, but he had not moved. I felt his force of will as it wrapped itself around my neck choking my breath though it was not being constricted.

Then I felt something else, something real that made me tremble all the way to my core, tendrils of mana wrapped around me. Ordinarily all mages have an aura of mana, some have so much mana that others can feel it as well, but for that you had to be relatively close. In a normal instance you’d have to be within a pace’s range to feel a very dense and very large aura from a mage…physically…this…what I was feeling, this was ridiculous. I was at least five meters away from him and his aura felt like an ocean around me.

With a simple twitch I realized that he could end my life.

I couldn’t even detect his mana, but I sure as hell could feel it as it crawled all over my body permeating through my pores. I was suffocating and he did not even need to block my lungs.

The pressure he emanated, an ethereal thing at most, was strong enough to bring me to the brink of blacking out.

He took one step forward…and…and I cowered.

I backed away.

His eyes…his face…they told me enough. I was defeated and I head learned my lesson. I cast my eyes downward in surrender.

*** Bastion Cazador ***

My wife and I had been slowly making our way back to the central hall so that I could introduce her to my guests when a loud commotion made us quicken our pace. Inside the hall was the young boy, the prince of Bulbaria, standing before the young girl who was Eleanor, and a young boy that I did not recognize at first, but the family resemblance was there. His eyes glowed a strange red.

It was clear that they were at odds though the problem was still unknown.

“What goes on here?” I asked them.

“Just children being children,” Ulrick said. “Though I must admit your father, the king, has been cultivating quite the talented little mages. The feisty looking one is a fire breather, but the boy, he’s got quite the talent with earth. I bet you can’t even find which part of the floor he raised.”

“I apologize,” the Bulbarian prince David bowed to the two children. I don’t know if I imagined it or not as it was there for but a small instance, there was a small shiver from the boy’s body as he faced the child who could only be my son. “I did not mean for things to get too out of hand. And I apologize to you, lord prince, you have been gracious enough to host me in your home and I have already made a bad impression of myself.”

“I’m sorry I tried using elemental fire,” the girl said after a moment, but she was not looking at the prince, instead she was looking towards the boy whose eyes had now stopped glowing.

“You are fire and fire is wild by nature,” the boy extended his hand towards the girl to help her up. “Though I would most appreciate it if you would use other fire spells, if he was not so talented with wind magic even the minor fraction of the power you used just now would have roasted him alive.”

The girl looked downcast at the reprimand.

“I apologize for her behavior,” The boy said after a moment looking towards the boy prince, there was a mask of eerie calmness on his face. “She’s got quite the temper, I’m sure you’ve noticed, though it usually must be provoked.”

I noticed it again, young prince David shuddered, it was so slight that I couldn’t help but think it hadn’t happened.

The boy then turned to look towards me and I, my own self, inwardly shuddered, that child was not normal, his eyes were cold and they carried a level of wisdom and intelligence that was wrong for his age. His eyes shifted slightly to my side where my wife stood then they turned back towards me.

“Ah, I see,” the boy said as an expression of understanding came over him. His next words caught me off guard. “You must be my father.”

He let go of the girl’s hand, Eleanor’s, and took a step forward.

“Second Prince Leo Cazador greets his father.”

The last he said with a kneeling bow.

My face was an indiscernible mask, but within my mind raged confusion and shocked surprise.

“You may stand,” I said after a moment as I gathered my wits and noticed the boy was waiting for my permission.

“Well this was not how I envisioned your homecoming to be,” a voice said from behind me. I turned to find my own father, king Edwards, standing at the door to the hall, the very threshold I had crossed to enter myself. My wife and I stepped aside to allow him entry into the hall.

“Seeing as the atmosphere is far too tense to continue here let’s all retire to our rooms,” the king suggested. “I am sure many of you are weary and tired from your journey, the maids will take you to your rooms. The maids will come get you once dinner is prepared and during the meantime if you wish to wash up they can guide you to the bathhouse, it is quite the luxury and I am sure you will all enjoy it.”

As the guests dispersed I turned to look for my son but he was nowhere in sight, the girl was also gone.

“He tends to do that quite often,” my father interrupted my search. “You won’t find him if he doesn’t want to be found.”

“Are you sure he is my…” I stopped as I noticed the frown on my wife. “I…”

“I understand my boy,” my father said. “He’s quite something, a mana core like no other, his ability to appear and disappear like the wind, those eyes of his, and even more daunting his demeanor. But aside from all the curious tidbits of his being he’s a kind soul. It will take some time getting to know your son, but don’t give up on him just because you might find yourself unable to understand him.”

It took a while to hunt him down and get him to come to me in the central gardens, it took two days of turning the castle upside down in fact. I wanted to get to know my son and the only way I could think of was to get him alone with me, the little girl Eleanor had been insistent on participating on the scheduled day but my wife had helped me with that matter. So…here we were…in the garden…and not a single word had been said in over a handful of minutes.

“I assume that you have something planned,” my son said after a while emphasizing the ‘assume’ part.

I was lost for words for a moment, I had not expected…well I didn’t know what to expect, I had planned on doing some training, maybe even sparring but I just found myself wondering if it was the right thing. I mean, how would he react? I wanted to bond with him, I am his father dang it!

“I…uh…your grandfather tells me that you are quite the magician and you are training with the pages and doing very well with the sword,” I said after a moment.

“Yes,” my boy nodded.

“Good,” I said tossing him a wooden training sword, I held one as well. I wanted to see his forms but the boy assumed we were going to spar from the get go, he took a relaxed stance. He appeared to have left himself widely open, but that was not the case, I got the feeling that he would be capable of responding to any strike I may try and land.

“Here I come then,” I said taking a step forward, deciding to test the waters first. With a simple slash to his right side I aimed for his right shoulder. He held his sword in his left hand.

Just as my sword was about to connect with his still unguarded shoulder he suddenly did something unexpected, he launched himself low and forward, his wooden sword was a flash. I felt it skim my abdomen. First strike and he had officially landed a “fatal blow”. The strike had left him in an awkward position so he just dropped the rest of the way, rolled, and got back on his feet.

“I see,” I nodded approvingly of his level of skill. “Then you won’t mind if I pick up the pace?”

He said nothing as he simply retook his previous stance. In a flash I was upon him swinging down to strike between his shoulder and neck. His own sword came up to parry my blow and as the two swords collided they shattered into splintered pieces. My hands felt numb from the collision of wooden blades, but I felt my heart racing as the battle lust in me began to stir. My son as well, I could see it in his eyes and in the way his lips formed a visible smirk, he too wanted to continue. With the practice swords reduced to debris and my battle lust over taking my normal processes I went over to the sword I had left on a nearby bench, it was to be a gift for him, I guess I would just have to forgo the surprise. I handed the boy the blade as I unsheathed my own.

Had I been in my right mind I would have noticed that several of the knights had taken notice of our little collision and were now gathering as we were unsheathing real blades. His sword began to glow a dim red as my own glowed a dim green, he already knew how to imbue his own mana into his weapon. My heart soared with pride and eagerness to begin our bout.

This time he initiated the match. He was aiming to slice me at the waist, a simple blow to begin the tradeoff. What followed were a series of strikes and parries as we flittered about the garden sometimes running, sometimes dancing in place, other times rolling about as we dodged and struck. At some point we even began using magic sword skills such as wind blade and even more complex skills such as phantom blades.

I hardly noticed that we were leveling the garden by destroying the flower fields, mutilating the bushes, and cutting down trees in our tradeoff.

*** Edwards Cazador ***

I watched on in solemn fascination as my son and grandson fought it out in the central gardens, or what was being left of it. Their tradeoff had caught my attention after a glass shattering blow startled me during a leisurely walk through an unfortunate hallway.

Gianna suddenly appeared out of nowhere rushing towards the two panic clear on her face.

“Hold her!” I bellowed stirring two knights who were closest to her, they rushed forward and quickly took hold of her arms.

“What are you doing?!” she screamed at me, she was frantic and there was a clear tint of despair on her face. “At this rate they will kill each other!”

“They have gone battle mad,” I explained to her, walking towards her placing my arms on her shoulders as the two knights released her. I gently tightened my grip on her shoulders in case she tried rushing towards them again. “It’s far too dangerous to stop them, whoever tries might get killed or cause them to kill each other. They aren’t aiming to kill each other now at all. Try and be calm for their sake!”

“How can you say that?” she asked taking hold of my robe, gripping it tightly, her hands over my chest. She glared at me, her eyes begging me to stop the madness.

“They will tire,” I reassured her. “Then they will stop. They are going at it strongly so it is only a matter of moments now.”

As if on cue the two collided once more, the shockwave startled the onlookers, as my son and grandson were propelled away from each other.

*** Gianna Cazador ***

I was going mad with worry as I watched my son and husband fight as if intent on killing each other, why was this happening? Even as Edwards held me and reassured me that they weren’t going to kill each other I couldn’t help wanting to rush in between them, but his grip was strong and I knew I would not escape his hands.

Then as Edwards finished saying some words that I dismissed as he said them the two collided hard once more. Their sword skills caused a rumbling shockwave to explode between them launching them away from each other. My husband’s sword flew deeper into the garden while the sword in my son’s hand imbedded itself in the castle walls.

What followed was something that left me shocked, they started laughing, I was overwhelmed because not only were they taking this all lightly by laughing as if they had done something great, but my son was laughing from the bottom of his heart. In all the years I have been his mother I have not once heard his laughter exit his lips aside from a polite laugh or a forced one. Here and now he was releasing a laugh that was genuine and it filled me with joy to know he could know happiness after so long, but this joy was in great conflict with my worry, fear, and anger.