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rallis-fatalis · 5 years

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The Forms of Magic

Powerful, incredible, dangerous, extraordinary. Magic comes in many descriptions and forms, as do the mages themselves. There are as many different spells as there are practitioners. Vastly different spells don't generally work well together, and just like their magic, vastly different mages also struggle to get along. When Rallis meets a fellow mage with ideals quite different from her own, sparks threaten to quite literally fly as they attempt to work together. Hopefully they have more sense than their spells and can come to a conclusion that doesn't involve setting fire to a library.

It was rare Rallis visited Arceuus anymore. After an incident she'd rather not dwell on, she didn't feel safe in the city on her own. That being said, she loved the library and would brave a trip into the district for reading and research. Today was one of those days, and she hadn't gone alone either. Both Peg and Adam joined her and it made her feel much more comfortable, even if one of them was just there to goof around. Adam was used to Rallis dragging him along by now, she had begged him to accompany her so many times. At first, he thought perhaps she was still not well enough to be on her own from her most recent attack, but now he was starting to grow suspicious that it may be something more.

Rallis wanted to go to the library in hopes of finding information on something. Adam also had something on his mind lately he wanted to research, so at least tagging along with his friend wasn't completely unproductive. Peg just tagged along because she wanted to hang with them, but once she realized they were headed to a library of all places she knew she would grow bored quickly. While Rallis and Adam did whatever boring nonsense they were going to do, Peg found her entertainment in watching a young man talking to himself by a table against the far wall of the room as he fiddled with things in vials. He had a few books open and runes scattered over the table. As Peg continued to watch, the man jumped back with a shout and ducked under the table. A whirlwind of violet fire and sparks raced through the room shot down the connected corridor, threatening to set the books on fire.

The man whimpered under the table as he covered his head, whining about what to do over and over. Peg took action. "HEY! RALLIS! ADAM!" she hollered down the halls as she took her cloak off and pat out some of the smaller flames before they could run rampant.

Rallis came running first, quick to put the the main fire out with a blast of ice. That seemed to amaze the cowering mage, admiring the odd magic dragon from his spot on the floor. Adam came next and swore at the remaining sparks reaching for the books. "Peg, go get one of the librarians!" He pat out the rest of the sprouting flames with Rallis while Peg ran off and soon the explosive magic was no more.

Rallis held out a hand to the cowardly mage. "You can come out now. The fires are gone."

His eyes nearly popped out of his head at Rallis speaking. He forgot to even say thank you, and instead of taking her help to stand, he took her hand and looked it over. He jumped up, startling the dragon, and continued to look her over in wonder. It was making Rallis uncomfortable.

"Is something wrong?" she said with drooped tail and ears.

The mage nodded and muttered to himself before coming to a conclusion. "Yes, I've got it. You are simply... a marvel. You're made of some crazy magic, aren't you? What an odd reptile. Why do your scales look like woad leaves? Hmm, maybe they are! And your ability to speak and use magic! I'd love to examine you..." He spoke rather quickly and without censor.

Rallis paled and slithered behind Adam who had now joined them. She grabbed his hand and whispered to him. "He makes me nervous."

He rubbed her arm as if to say everything was fine and stepped forward. "Are you alright, sir?" Adam asked. "That was a rather sudden explosion."

The mage waved his hand. "Pssh, I've done worse. It was just some magic gone wrong. I'm fine."

"I seem to remember the librarians having a strict rule against practicing magic in here for just this kind of reason," Adam scolded. "You could have burned everything."

"But I didn't," he said snarkily. "Thanks to you and your... incredible friend." Rallis hissed under her breath. She didn't like how he spoke of her. It wasn't just admiration, it was more like evaluation. "Besides, as long as the librarians don't find out, everything's fine! You didn't tell them, right?"

Before either of them could reply, Peg came sprinting into the room, followed by the most furious and shrill scream they had ever heard.

"LLLAAANNNCCCIIISSS!!!"

In stormed a furious Biblia, screeching harsh enough to give a wyvern a run for its money. Seeing the normally quiet and collected specter seething pure anger was startling to say the least.

"Oh boy, you did," the mage winced. "Hi Bib--"

She grabbed him by the ear and yanked him hard, like a furious mother. "LANCIS I INFORMED YOU OF WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THE NEXT TIME YOU DISOBEYED OUR RULES!" She continued to pull his ear as she shouted, forcing a tear out of his eye and quickly having him beg for mercy. "POTENTIAL TO HARM OUR GUESTS, POTENTIAL TO HARM OUR STAFF, POTENTIAL TO BURN THE BOOKS, POTENTIAL TO BURN THE BUILDING, AND MORE! I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!" She gave him one last harsh tug and let him go. The mage whimpered as he rubbed his ear. Biblia calmed herself and returned to her normal indoor voice. "From this point onward, you will be searched every trip you make into the library. Any runes, vials, concoctions, or otherwise possibly dangerous contents will be left with a capable mage until you leave the premises. If you have any objections, I'm sure Logosia would love to speak with you. Am I understood?"

He opened his mouth to argue but the tension in the air quickly made himself realize that would be a foolish decision. He gave the librarian a pouty 'fine.' Biblia held her hands out, waiting for him to hand everything over. The specter floated away with stacks of runes and rather unsafe looking chemical compounds.

Rallis worriedly eyed the bubbling vials the librarian was taking away. "Just what kind of mage are you?"

Adam thought he had an idea who. "She said your name was Lancis, right? You wouldn't happen to be Lancis the Wild Formula, would you?" The description he had certainly matched the mage in front of him. Long dirty blonde hair with a beard of a similar color, simple glasses to help him see, stood around 5'8, blue and white wizard robes the mystic mages of Yanille usually sported, and a demeanor as wild as the story behind his title.

Peg and Rallis looked at him questioning who that was, and the mage tilted his head back with a groan. "Yes, that's me. Could you please not call me by my name? I hate my name. Form is much better. You know, 'form' from 'formula?'" He laughed at his attempt at a witty name, but no one played along. He groaned again. "Please just call me literally anything other than my name."

"He seems like a kook," Peg said. Adam tossed her a withered look and Rallis nodded in agreement.

"He's a Legend," Adam explained. "He's a mage and alchemist who saved an entire city from being wiped off the map."

Form interrupted him. "Yeah, I stopped a plague, cured the sick, did some cool magic, you know how it goes. What a ride that was!"

Rallis grumbled under her breath. "The last Legend mage we met tried to kill us. This one makes me just as nervous."

"He's no Miles," Adam assured her. "He's just... well, 'wild' is in his title for a reason." He turned his attention back to Form. "What brings someone like you across the ocean?"

"What else? Magic of course. The magic on the continent over is stale. There's a whole new kind to be discovered here! I've been trying to test the limits of Arceuus magic, but everything I try has been blowing up in my face lately. Just like my most recent trial, as you saw..."

"Arceuus magic is used for reanimation," Rallis said. "What were you doing to get it to explode?!"

"Trying to turn the magic into a potion." He said that like it was obvious and that she was stupid for even asking. "Reanimation magic is such a pain to learn and practice and it's harder to do the farther away you are from the Dark Altar. So I'm trying to make it portable and usable by all, regardless of skill. Pretty cool, right?"

The three of them were intrigued. Such a feat didn't sound possible, but the idea was certainly an interesting one.

"So with your potion I could, what, dump the thing on a dead person and they'd come back as a zombie or something?" Peg piped up. "Even if I can't do magic?"

Form shrugged. "If it worked, then yeah, pretty much. Except this way they'd hopefully come back as their normal selves and not mindless cannibals."

"That seems rather reckless and dangerous," Adam warned. "The dead stay dead. Whenever they're forced back to life, there are always complications. Also I'm pretty sure that's considered necromancy which isn't entirely legal."

"Well I'm obviously not going to test this on people immediately. Maybe I'll try it on some flowers or a dead tree or something, see what happens. I can deal with complications when they happen." He completely ignored the legality statement. "And if for some reason it just never pans out, the idea could be pretty useful for making a healing potion. If the power that lies here is strong enough to heal the dead, I don't see why it couldn't heal the living as well."

Rallis had to admit, that seemed extremely useful. She could use healing magic herself, but it wasn't a common practice and in reality it only transferred the pain from one person to another, not actually heal a wound completely. An actual healing spell at her fingertips that anyone could use seemed incredible.

"Why can't you get the spell to work as a potion then?" she asked.

Form smiled, eager to explain his process. "I've already made enough progress to know what needs to be combined in order for this thing to work. Trust me, that took an experiment or five. Why do you think the librarians here hate me?" He scooped up his now partially burnt and stained notes from the table behind him and showed off his notes and drawings as he spoke. "The biggest issue for me is getting the most important part physically into the vial. If my theory is correct, this potion will only work if it contains magic from the Dark Altar. Not much, but some. The way to get that is through these."

He fished out a small shard of purple crystal, a sliver from the giant ones that grew all around the Altar like weeds. It was hardly bigger than a fingernail.

"These need to be ground into powder and mixed with the rest of the ingredients. Only problem is when you shatter or grind one of these crystals, they explode. That fire you saw earlier? That was from something this tiny."

Rallis frowned. "Are you sure? They're not exactly easy to break, granted, but I've broken a few with no repercussions." She snatched the shard from his hand and bit it in half. Form squealed in fear and ducked for cover, but nothing happened. He stared at the dragon in shock and awe.

"Why didn't it explode?! How did you do that?!"

"Simple. The magic grows unstable if you break one of these. So you just move the magic then put it back when you've broken it." She snapped the weakened small shard between two claws and showed them to the mage. The claws she cracked it open with glowed the faintest bit of purple. "Remove the magic, break the crystal, and..." She touched the bits again and they sucked the glow out of her nails. "Put it right back."

Form's jaw hit the floor at the realization while Peg and Adam just watched in lost confusion. Neither of them entirely understood how magic worked. Rallis handed back the fragments and snapped a spark out of her fingers. "That's amazing!" Form sputtered. "You're amazing! I can't believe... I can't do that! Please, you have to teach me how to do that!"

"Umm..." She turned to Adam. "That's up to you. If it's late, we can go back to Hosidius. And I don't... I can't be here... alone."

"I know." He pat her head. "I'm quite lost but it seems interesting. A potion that could heal any wound on the go is certainly something I'd like to learn about. Could have used that this past year, that's for sure."

Put that way, Peg was interested as well. And if she got bored during their experimentation, she was sure she could find some poor soul to entertain her, whether voluntarily or not.

"As long as I'm home to feed Tanner in time, I don't mind," Adam told her. "It's your decision."

Rallis chirped a thanks to her friends. She was still wary of mages in general, but this one seemed to have good intentions, even if he was a bit eccentric showing them. She decided she'd help. "Alright I can try to teach you how to transfer magic." Form's eyes sparkled. "But you'll need to practice on your own for a long time. You can't learn this in a day."

Form seemed to ignore her statement. "Fine, sure, now let's get started!"

The four sat down at the now burnt table and listened to Rallis with varying degrees of interest. "In order to transfer magic from one thing to another, you need to know where the magic is going to be momentarily stored. When I broke the crystal, the magic was stored in myself, more specifically my teeth and claws. I can do that because of what I am. I can store magic anywhere at all. It's different for you since you're a human. Tell me, where do you think you would have to house the crystal's magic?"

Form may have been a master of magic, but even he had no idea the answer to that. "In a piece of essence?"

Rallis shook her head. "You can't get the magic back out if you do that. You'll just end up making dense essence and then all you can do from there is make some runes."

The mage grew huffy. "Then where does it go?"

"How well do you know the four locations of magic?"

Peg hopped out of her seat at that. That sounded like the beginning of a boring lecture she wanted no part of. She ran off to bother the nearby librarian for something more interesting to read. Maybe there was some tale of romance somewhere.

"What kind of half-baked mage do you take me for?" Form scoffed. "Of course I know them! In humans, they are the eyes, the mind, and the hands, and in more powerful beings, they gain the fourth of the heart." He smirked, proud to show off his knowledge.

"Exactly," Rallis praised. "So for you, which of the three would make sense to store excess magic in?"

"The mind is always the safest bet."

"Normally, yes. But this magic isn't normal. You'll go mad if you let it persist in your thoughts. It's safer to hold in your hands. That way if something goes wrong you'll just cause another explosion and not kill yourself or go mad."

Form nodded at the valid reasoning. Adam tried to keep up with the conversation. "I had no idea magic was this complicated. No wonder I could never do it."

"You probably couldn't because you have to master magic sight first and your eyes are always too busy staring at women," Rallis snorted. Adam playfully swat her with a scowl and she giggled.

"So all I have to do is will the magic out of the crystal and into my hand and that's it? That's not hard! That's the same as pulling magic out of a rune!"

"When you pull it out of a rune, you use the spell immediately. This isn't a spell and so there's nothing to 'use.' It's not the same. It's going to be hard to just take out and hold onto, not to mention you have to put the magic back after. Go ahead and try it like you would a spell. See what happens."

Cocky, Form concentrated and tried to will the magic out of the crystal. The shard grew a flicker brighter but otherwise nothing happened. He frowned and tried again. Nothing. He grit his teeth in frustration and tried once more, trying to picture the purple glow leaving the crystal and resting at his fingertips as clear as he could. The crystal almost seemed to sigh in disappointment as it ceased glowing. Form slammed his hands on the table. "What gives?!"

An angry shush echoed down the halls at his scream.

"Told you, it's not the same," Rallis said. "It's hard to train yourself to hold onto magic instead of just immediately using it, so when it comes to something like this, it's either you pull it out and hold it or nothing happens at all."

"Magic is all about thinking! I'm thinking I want to hold it and it's not working! There's obviously a secret to this so what is it?!"

"There is no secret," Rallis stated matter-of-factly. "It's just hard and takes practice. Humans can't do it easily so it's going to be a lot harder for you than it is for me. You just need to keep trying to feel the magic in the crystal and help it move from one point to the next. You can't force it, just take it slow, think, and feel."

Form grumbled and tried again. Time sped by as the mage tried and failed to make the dark magic bend to his wishes. Rallis gave him tips and examples here and there, giving the mage every trick she could think of to make this work. Adam and Peg came and went as they pleased, checking in on the dragon from time to time. Peg found the closest thing to a romance novel she could find and sat down at their table to read it. Adam was shocked the girl was actually reading a book, but when he asked what it was about, she would hide her face and cover the page with her cloak. If she was going to act strange, he wasn't about to bother her. He continued hunting for any book on something specific he was interested in, but he had little luck. The only book he could find with the librarians' help was an old childish book of fables, which he sat down with and absentmindedly flipped through.

Hours had passed and Form had no progress to show. He was growing angry and Rallis grew frustrated at his anger. "This is impossible!" he shouted, startling Peg out of a particularly heated scene of the book. "I'm no magical talking beast, I can't do this!"

Rallis frowned. "I told you this isn't something you can do in a day. It's going to take a while."

"Well since you seem to be such a master, why don't you make my potion for me?"

"Because it's your work, not mine. And if I made one, would you have me make another? Or all of them? I would end up doing all your work for you. You're a mage, you should want to practice something new like this."

"No! I'm supposed to get everything quickly! When I wanted to learn magic, I understood it immediately! When I wanted to learn alchemy, I mastered every combination in weeks! When I had to find and create a cure for a plague that gave me my name, I did so quickly, efficiently, and masterfully!" He growled at the unassuming crystal shard on the table. "So why can't I do this?!"

"That which is worth learning does not come easily," Adam interrupted like some poetic sage. It was obviously not what Form wanted to hear.

"That's what the unskilled tell each other when they're not good enough to get it the first time. I am a prodigy!" He did a double take at what Adam was slowly flipping through and snatched the book away from him. The man gave a whiny 'hey' at the action. Form hurriedly flipped through the book and slammed his hand down on one of the pages. "This! This is what I need! If I had this, I could do any feat of magic without issue, even something like this!"

Rallis tried to peek at the page, but Form's hand covered too much. "That's a book of myths," Adam said. "I was looking through it for information on an old tale. Nothing in there is real."

Form waggled a condescending finger at him. "You're wrong to think that. I've done research on this exact book and all the tales of magic inside and I know everything there is to know. This is probably the only thing in this book that's real." He moved his hand off the page. "The imbued heart."

Rallis turned a ghostly shade of white, Adam curiously waited for more information as that was what he was investigating, and Peg's attention was finally captured.

"'Ancient beasts that walked the land, humans with their heart in hand, the fires of war grew and fanned, with magic imbued turned life to sand.' I could recite the whole tale by heart, no pun intended." He laughed at his own remark and continued. "The imbued heart lets anyone use nearly any kind of magic, whether they're a mage themselves or not. I could perform a party trick like this without issue if I had one of those! Hell, I probably wouldn't even need to resort to making a potion if I had one! I could just heal and reanimate as I desire!"

"You should never wish to own such a thing," Rallis hissed. She scowled at the meticulously painted colorful picture next to the tale Form spoke of. It held a gruesome stylized drawing of a human tearing out the heart of a monster and using it to become a mage-king no one could disobey. "You would have to murder the innocent for one. Disgusting."

"Innocent?" Form snorted. "It's a monster. You think I'd care? Monsters aren't innocent, they kill people. Another dead beast doesn't matter if it means we can--"

He didn't get to finish. Rallis was out of her seat in such a fury, the poor chair went sliding across the floor. Her claws and fangs were out as she snarled at the mage. Peg instinctively turned into a raccoon and hid under the table, and Adam was out of his chair just as quickly, ready to restrain his friend if she went mad. The mage cowered in his chair, as if just remembering who, or rather what, he was talking to.

"So it doesn't matter if the beast you kill doesn't look human! As long as it's not your kind, you're free to do whatever you want with it! Since you can't understand it, it must be an evil killing machine! People like you are the reason they're all dead!" Her fangs were growing dangerously close to the mage's face as she snarled. Form was shaking in his seat as she inched closer. "You are the murderer, not us! People like you...! Like you... are the reason I...! The reason I nearly di--!"

Suddenly, Rallis began to cough and waver. She nearly fell to her knees, holding steady against the table for support, claws digging deep into the wood. Peg squeaked worriedly from under the table and Adam reached to help her but she pushed him back.

"People like you... are sick..." she rasped between coughs. "You don't deserve magic."

Without another word, she turned tail and stomped away. Peg turned back into a human and motioned as if Adam should follow her. Form hadn't even noticed the girl's own transformative magic he was too shaken from the dragon's rage, nor had he noticed the grooves Rallis carved into the table faintly glowing blue for a moment before fading away. Adam ran after his friend, leaving Peg to handle the shaken mage.

Rallis had ran off into a dark quiet corner of the library, hidden from anything and anyone, even proper lighting. She was leaning against one of the shelves and panting like she had run laps around Kourend. She faced a wall of shelves and didn't see her friend appear behind her.

"Hey, Rallis, you okay?"

Adam worriedly reached for her shoulder. She spun out of his reach with a gasp, slamming her back against the shelves and knocking books to the floor. She looked terrified as she wished the books would swallow her whole and let her escape from her friend's sight. Her claws glowed bright blue, one hand gouging similarly glowing marks into the shelf she held onto, the other gripping her chest in pain. The same blue glow flickered in her eyes and chest, barely visible through the dragonhide top. He reached for her again, this time much more worried. "Rallis, what is going on?"

"Nothing! Just...! Go away! Give me a minute... Please..."

"Alright." He backed away. "You'll be alright?"

Rallis nodded her head and turned away, sinking to the floor to sit with the fallen books.

"I'll be right here." He turned the corner, out of her sight. She breathed a sigh of relief and focused on calming down, thankful to be alone in her quiet dark corner. Adam worriedly poked his head in every now and then, wanting to make sure she was okay. After a while, she calmed down and the glow vanished. She quietly put the fallen books back into their spots and shuffled out of the corner. She grew embarrassed upon seeing her friend again, wishing he hadn't seen her little fit. He, however, was just happy she seemed to be walking around just fine despite whatever episode that was. "Are you alright?”

She sullenly nodded her head.

"And how about your snarling at Form? That was quite the explosion, even for you. You mind telling me what that was about?"

Rallis hissed and he could see her claws dig into the carpet they stood on. "I just can't stand it!" she shouted. "He just wants magic handed to him on a silver platter, and he doesn't care where that platter comes from! Thinking it's okay to kill what he thinks is a monster just so he doesn't have to work as hard!"

Adam could see her claws start to flicker blue again until she shook her head with a groan.

"He's just like the rest of these damn Arceuus mages! Too lazy to find a real solution to their ineptitude so they resort to cutting open another living being! They don't care where their magic comes from so long as they get it!" Her screaming quieted into an angry whisper as a tear trailed down her face. Her claws dug into her chest again. "They don't care..."

Adam realized what was going on, why she blew up and was acting so strange. He already had his suspicions. "You have one, don't you? What he's looking for, an imbued heart." He could hear her breath hitch and see her grow completely still. He was right. "That's why you got so mad."

Rallis whined, wanting to keep that information hidden, but if she couldn't trust her friend, she couldn't trust anyone. "Yes, I do... And you can't tell anyone. I've had enough experiences with the mages here trying to rip me open to get it, I don't need anyone else knowing what I have. Especially not someone like him."

'The mages here?' he thought. He had figured that was the case, but to have her confirm it. "So it did happen here. I started to assume so. You've grown scared of this place even in passing conversation ever since I found you bleeding behind the bar. How come you never told me who did it?"

"I don't know... Maybe I thought if I didn't speak of it, if I stopped thinking about those four awful demons, it would all fade like a bad dream and I'd stop being scared," she admitted. "But that wasn't the case. Now it's become part of my nightmares like Galvek and everything else." She let out an angry bark of a laugh. "It seems even an entire continent over, nothing has changed. I saved Arceuus by helping them with their ice elemental problem, and how do they thank me? By trying to cut my heart out, that's how! I save the world from Galvek and I'm treated like a monster here to end mankind in his place. Galvek, Wintertodt, whatever comes next, it will always be the same. Humans really are no different no matter where you go..."

"That's not true and you know it. Don't let the faults of the few make you lose your faith in the many. There are plenty of people here and the continent over who are grateful for what you've done. I know I am, and I'm glad you're still here." He grabbed her hand and her pout bloomed into a smile. She nuzzled his arm with a purr as a thanks. "Now come on," he tugged her hand. "I'm sure they're worried about your storming off." Rallis nodded and they began their walk back. She already seemed better. Adam was glad she bounced back quickly.

A thought popped into his head as they walked. "So is this how you were able to pull that crazy stunt against Galvek?" he asked. "You froze the damn ocean and more during that fight. I've never seen anything like it!"

Rallis nodded. "Yeah. It lets me do magic as strong as I want without runes." She winced as the ghost of the painful aftermath made itself present at her remembrance. "It hurts so much though."

"Considering what you're using instead of runes, I can imagine it's a little more painful than some heartburn, and likely infinitely more dangerous. I wouldn't use that power if I were you." Even still, he couldn't help but admire at how incredible it must be to have such power. He found himself wanting to use it, but sharply reminded himself such power always had dire consequences.

"I try not to. And please, tell no one. Don't even tell Peg."

"Don't even tell Peg what?" a different voice broke into their conversation. Peg popped her head out from behind a corner as Rallis and Adam neared the table they had spent most their day at. Rallis jumped out of her skin at how stealthily Peg had snuck up on them. "So what aren't we telling me?" she pried again.

"That I'm making nothing but vegetables for your dinner," Adam joked.

Peg stuck out her tongue and pretended to puke. "Disgusting! How dare you even suggest such a thing!"

Form awkwardly walked over to the three, much more quiet and shy than before. Rallis didn't want to continue talking to the mage. She just wanted to go home where it was nice and safe. But she supposed she had to finish what she started.

"So, listen," the mage began. "I'm not good with the whole apology thing because I just don't do anything wrong, or even when I do I personally don't think it's worth apologizing over, and even then--!"

Rallis scowled at his tangential nonsense.

"Off track, I know. What I mean is... I'm sorry. Really sorry. I've been rude. I'm just not used to... not getting things perfect immediately."

"Hard work is the only way to get things done," Rallis scolded. "Instant perfection isn't a thing. Nor are shortcuts."

"I know, I get it. I'll keep practicing. Hopefully I can make this project work, and soon!"

"And with your own power. Don't go relying on a murderous myth."

Form was appalled remembering his outburst. "Ugh, god, yeah, I'm sorry about that. I guess that's like if you told me killing people would be fine if it meant you could do some fancy magic. I did not think that through and I'm sure it was insulting."

"Very."

"I'll be more careful in the future," he vowed. "I suppose I'll have to get out of your hair now. Or, horns? Either way, I'll leave you be. Thank you for the insight and help. If this ever works, you'll be the first to know!"

"I hope it does work. It sounds exciting and useful."

"Just don't use it for illegal reanimation," Adam warned. "Prison isn't fun."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Oh but I do have one last request!" Form excitedly bounced up to Rallis. "Could I possibly have some of your scales?"

"What?!"

"Well, they're just so different from standard blue dragon scales! You are a blue dragon, correct? Yours are so pale and oddly shaped, I swear they look like woad leaves! And with how interesting and magical you are, they must be too! Please, I must have some for tests!"

Rallis hissed. "No way!" She booked it down the nearest flight of stairs, fast as she could. "Bye, Form!"

The mage cursed but did not pursue. He had to clean his mess of a table up and more practicing to do before he went chasing after the dragon. Adam and Peg said goodbye as well and much more calmly scaled the stairs to the ground floor.

"They do look like woad," Peg mumbled. "What if she glues them on?"

"Rallis does not glue on woad leaves. That's ridiculous."

The two met back up with the dragon and readied to leave. Before they could exit, Adam took note of Peg trying to hide a book under her cloak. "You know, I'm glad you found something you actually enjoy reading. But are you really trying to steal from a library, Peg?" Adam chided.

Peg's face turned bright red. "N-no!"

"Then why are you hiding a book that's obviously not yours under your cloak?"

"I'm not!"

Too occupied with arguing with Adam, Peg had no time to react to Rallis swiftly yanking the book out. She ignored the girl's desperate pleas for its return and read the title. "'The Tale of Sir Richard and Princess Felidae.' Never heard of it."

"Give it here," Adam said, holding his hand out. "So this is what you were reading? The title seems adventurous." Peg had no hope of reaching it now. He flipped it open and skimmed through, not only curious about what kind of book could capture Peg's interest, but also have her trying to hide it. As he flipped through, something caught his eye and his green face began to turn red. Peg immediately knew what he just read. "Peg! I can't believe--! You shouldn't--! Peg!!!"

"Stoooooop!" she howled, embarrassed.

"What is it?" Rallis asked.

She reached for the book and both of them screamed 'no.' Adam cleared his throat and composed himself. "Why the library would have such a book on display for children to read..."

"I'm not a child! Besides, you have worse under your bed."

"PEG!"

Rallis finally understood. "Oh is it like the pictures of naked humans I found that you told me not to ask about?"

Adam's face grew brighter red and Peg smirked. "Yeah but this is even better. You have to picture it yourself since it's only words and it's so much more descriptive."

"Huh. So am I allowed to ask now why there's drawings and now books about naked humans that both of you seem to enjoy?"

"No, absolutely not!" Adam shouted. He stomped over to the nearest librarian and all but slammed the book in their hands to be put away. "We are never discussing this! Now let's go home!"

Peg followed after Adam with a cheeky grin and evil laughter, leaving a confused Rallis to trail behind.

#osrs #my writes #oc tag #runescape

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