Chapter 16: Chapter 16 – Sometimes You Just Need a Magic Creature to Cuddle

"Huh?" Thenio stared at Bero, bewildered. "What are you talking about? Of course I'm human. What else would I be?"

"Well, that's the question, isn't it?" Bero said with a small chuckle. "I honestly don't know. You look human. You act human. Siora Iterune certainly seems to be your mother. I've seen your medical records, going clear back through her pregnancy check-ups before you were born. No record of any paternity tests, but I saw you standing next to your father yesterday, and you definitely resemble him. There's really nothing to suggest that you're not human. Except...for the small but significant fact that you can absorb magic. I've never seen a human do that before."

"Wait, what?" Thenio blinked. "Absorb magic? When was I absorbing magic?"

"Just now. You didn't notice? That's how Ariom was making your magic destabilize. He wasn't directly manipulating it at all. He was just releasing magic close to you and letting you absorb it. Do you remember how we talked about magic circuits being like water pipes? And how a person's magic destabilizes if their power level exceeds the capacity of the circuit?"

"Yeah...?"

"Well, that's what was happening to you. Ariom released some of his magic, and you absorbed it into your magic circuit, which temporarily pushed you over your capacity and destabilized you. Well, he was deliberately doing it in a way that would cause a more pronounced effect. If it were always that bad, you probably wouldn't have survived attending the Royal Academy. But that's part of what's so strange about it. There are a lot of creatures that absorb magic power in one way or another. But none of them have to worry about potentially killing themselves when they do." He gave a nod in Humerus' direction. "Revenants have a tendency to be greedy and eat more magic than is good for them if they get the opportunity. But all that happens is that they lose their senses and go on a sort of drunken rampage until they burn off the extra power. Then they're fine again. All the spectral beasts and magic parasites that I know of are the same. They might have temporary side effects from overeating, but they don't literally explode."

"I guess that rules out the theory that he's a very high-level revenant that's capable of inhabiting living bodies?" Ariom said, watching Thenio thoughtfully. "Not that I was really sure about that idea to begin with. His process of absorbing magic doesn't look very similar to Humerus' or the chickens'."

Bero shook his head. "No. And most magic parasites are the same—they have to take the magic in and digest it for a while in order to convert it into their own type. They can't just immediately assimilate it like he's doing."

"Wisps and elementals absorb it directly like that, don't they? No...but they're only attuned to one type of magic...and he can take in every type that I've tried so far...." Ariom frowned. "I've really never seen anything like it before."

"You haven't?" Bero looked slightly surprised. "Oh. I guess you've been zealously avoiding anything military-related ever since you were a teenager, so you wouldn't have seen one since you learned to use magesight."

Ariom frowned. "One what?"

"A demon, of course. The way he absorbs magic looks just like how a demon does it. Well...apart from the exploding thing."

A moment of stunned silence followed this remark, which Bero had said in a surprisingly nonchalant manner, considering the subject matter.

"Well, obviously you're not a demon," he added in response to the horrified look Thenio was giving him. "They're just mindless eating machines. Even worse than mimics, which is saying something." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You do sometimes hear wild rumors about an intelligent species of demons that's in contact with the government higher-ups...or the Wizard Association...or some cult or criminal organization.... There are various conspiracy theories floating around. Probably all complete nonsense. But if there's any truth to it at all, General Obarin would know. And there's no way he would have let a civilian wizard take custody of you if he thought you might be a demon."

"Does he even know Thenio can absorb magic?" Ariom asked. "It wasn't in the records we got from the Stability Center. And I only told them he was being influenced by ambient magic, since I didn't see enough back at the academy to be sure."

"You really think Focilo Sephior wouldn't notice something like this?" Bero gave his nephew a skeptical look. "He probably filed a separate report directly to Kalion. I told you Focilo contacted me to make sure I was going to come help you out. He didn't say it outright, but he definitely implied it was because he wanted me to take a look at Thenio, as someone who's familiar with spectral beasts. Most of the doctors at the Center probably aren't aware of it, though. It's common for them to keep sensitive information like that in separate files, that only the head doctors have access to. It's a government-run facility, after all. They see plenty of things that they can't talk about openly."

Ariom frowned. "So you're saying they deliberately withheld information from us? Same as the Association did? How do they expect us to take care of this kid if they won't tell us everything they know?"

"Focilo would have known we would find out about the magic absorption ourselves. They're probably not really trying to hide anything. I expect they're just keeping it quiet so that people don't jump to conclusions about him. You know how most people feel about creatures that eat magic." Bero shot a glance at Humerus. "As for the Association...well, I agree there are some suspicious omissions in the files they sent you. But we don't know enough to ascribe motivations to it at this point."

"And they wonder why people come up with those conspiracy theories...." Ariom muttered with a sour expression.

"What information did they leave out?" Thenio asked tentatively, not entirely sure that he even wanted to hear the answer.

"Well, there's nothing about previous chaos morphs absorbing magic, for one thing," Bero said. "And it's a little hard to believe that none of the Association researchers would have noticed. But the most obvious thing is that there weren't any detailed magic profile analyses."

"That would be things like the blood analysis that Professor Rhimari did when I took you to his lab," Ariom put in. "And there's no way they don't have anything like that. Even if the technology wasn't available for some of the older cases, there should at least be some magic crystal samples. Look at how many of your crystals the Stability Center has been sending around for different people to research. And they should have been able to do a blood analysis for the most recent chaos morph, even if—" He suddenly broke off and looked at Thenio with a slightly apologetic expression. Clearing his throat, he went on in a more subdued voice, "...even if he was only seven years old when he died, so he wasn't old enough to give them any very good magic samples."

Thenio looked down at the magic torch he was still holding in his hands. Seven years old. That was the same age as Kleyo....

"Why don't we put your suppression bands back on?" Bero suggested gently. "I think we've done enough examinations for right now."

Thenio nodded without raising his head. He placed the torch on the work table and held out his hands. None of them spoke while Bero put the leather straps back in place on his wrists.

The uncomfortable silence lasted for a minute or two. Then it was broken by a small thump coming from the next room. Looking around, Thenio saw a groggy-looking Iggy appear in the doorway of the dragon box, holding one corner of a blanket in his mouth. He came over to them, eyes only half open, dragging the blanket along with him and occasionally stumbling over it. It was just a small blanket—the kind that had been scattered all over Thenio's house when Lem and Kleyo were babies. But it was still rather large for such a tiny dragon to carry.

Iggy came up beside Thenio's chair and looked up at him for a moment, blinking sleepily. Then he crouched down and jumped up onto Thenio's lap. Or...almost onto his lap. The blanket got in the way, causing the dragon to land just below Thenio's knee and have to grab onto his pant leg and clamber the rest of the way up. Then he started circling around like he was about to settle down, but in the process, he got himself tangled in the blanket he was still resolutely pulling with him. Thenio had to intervene and untangle him, holding the blanket up out of the way until he had finished circling and had curled himself up in a tight ball. Then he wrapped the blanket lightly around the sleepy little dragon, forming a small nest. Iggy laid his head down on one side of it and seemed to fall back asleep almost immediately, the corner of the blanket still clamped between his teeth.

Thenio smiled and lightly scratched the dragon's head in between his tiny horns. Funny little guy. Had he somehow sensed that Thenio was upset? Or was the timing just a coincidence?

Bero chuckled. "Leave it to Iggy to lighten the mood. If I didn't know better, I'd think that was his familiar talent."

"Does he have a familiar talent?" Thenio asked, stroking Iggy's back.

A familiar talent was a special ability that familiars sometimes developed as a result of forming a contract. It was usually just an enhancement of one of their natural abilities, but once in a while it was something completely unexpected, such as a gryphon randomly developing the ability to breathe underwater.

Ariom nodded. "It's his high magic sensitivity. All dragons have good magic senses, but Iggy has an exceptional ability to recognize magic patterns. He actually helps me a lot with my work because of how quickly he's able to understand the flow of magic in an enchantment and spot any problems. It's a bit uncanny, really."

Thenio looked down at the little black dragon curled up on his lap. He didn't look like he'd be that good at analyzing enchantments. And after chasing him around the atrium that morning, he found it hard to believe Iggy would be able to sit still and focus on anything long enough to analyze it. Of course, the dragon had been quiet and well-behaved during Thenio's scribing class. So maybe he could do it when he wanted to.

"What about Humerus?"

Speaking of familiars being quiet and well-behaved.... The skeleton was still sitting silently on Ariom's work table. He hadn't spoken a word during the entire conversation. If it weren't for the fact that he turned his head or twitched his tail from time to time, he could have passed for an anatomy model.

"His talent is a sort of amplification of his instincts as a scavenger," Bero said. "It basically allows him to assess other creatures. How strong they are. What sort of intentions they have toward him. Whether they're dangerous or not. That kind of thing." He gave Thenio a small smile. "That's why we're not worried about you being some kind of dangerous monster, whether you're really human or not. Because Humerus says you're all right."

"Oh." Thenio looked at Humerus, feeling a bit awkward. "Um...thanks?" He glanced back at Bero. "I really am human, though."

"Well, like I said, we don't really have any reason to doubt that. It's possible that the magic absorption is simply due to a characteristic of chaos magic that we don't understand yet. The similarity to demons might be purely coincidental. Or it could be that the opening of the demon rifts is somehow related to the conditions that cause chaos morphs, since we don't have any record of them existing before the Rift Crisis. Just having a connection to demons doesn’t necessarily mean that you're any less human." Bero nodded toward his nephew. "I'm sure void magic caused a stir when it first appeared, too, since it's not like any other type of magic. Chaos magic just seems strange to us because we don't know enough about it yet. Anyways, the important thing isn't why you absorb magic. It's that you do absorb it, and it's dangerous for you. That's why half of Ariom's treatment plan revolves around creating a magic insulation device.”

"According to the records the Association did deign to give us, that sort of thing has actually been tried before, and it wasn't successful," Ariom said. "But in that case, the treatment was only focused on removing the influence of ambient magic, and that's not the only thing causing you problems. We're mainly going to use the magic insulation to buy time for you to train your magic control. It should help a lot if you can at least learn to keep your magic from randomly changing types like it currently does. If it goes well, maybe you can eventually learn to manage without the insulation, too."

Bero nodded. "I do think it's a better plan than relying on magic suppression. The insulation will eventually have some detrimental effects, too. But it's still better than suppression. Putting someone under long-term heavy suppression is basically a death sentence. Just a slower and less painful way of dying than being killed by your own magic." Bero grimaced a little. "Not that watching someone sleep themselves to death is really any easier. I've had to watch far too many people die like that. I really don't want to have to repeat the experience with you."

Thenio bit his lip and stared at the sleeping Iggy. "That's why you left the Stability Center."

It wasn't a question. The pain in Bero's voice made it clear.

"Mostly...yes." Bero let out a deep sigh. "I really admire people like Grandmaster Sephior, you know? He's been working at that place for more than a century. I don't know how many thousands of patients he's lost in that time. I was only there for twelve years before I couldn't stand it anymore and had to run off and distract myself by raising fake chickens." He sighed again. "Of course, I only started working at the Center in the first place because my father was a patient there, and I was desperate to help him in any way I could. And by the time he died...my sister-in-law was there, too, so I stayed to help support her. Then my older brother had to go in for a few years because of the shock of losing the two of them so close together. Well...at least he eventually made it out again." Bero gave a bitter smile. "Call me weak or biased or whatever. But watching your own family members go through something like that really does hit harder."

The room was silent for a long moment.

Thenio hesitantly glanced up at Ariom and discovered that he, too, had been staring fixedly at the little dragon on Thenio's lap.

Thenio looked at Bero and asked in a small voice, "Um...when you talk about your brother and sister-in-law...?"

"Ariom's parents. Yes," Bero said, answering the unfinished question. He was watching his nephew with a tender expression. "But he really doesn't like to talk about them, so let's leave the subject here for now, all right?" He looked back at Thenio. "The point is that we both knew what we were signing on for when we decided to help you out. And we have good reason to want your treatment to be successful." He gave a slightly forced but gentle smile. "We're on your side here, all right?"

Thenio nodded. His throat felt a little too tight to speak. And he wasn't sure what to say anyway.

Humerus still didn’t say anything either. But he must have decided that his partner needed a little skeletal comforting, because he got up and jumped off the table onto Bero's lap, where he curled up in a position similar to Iggy's. Bero smiled wryly and lifted one hand to stroke his bony head.

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Seeing that, Thenio considered for a moment, and then he carefully scooped up the blanket-wrapped dragon from his lap and handed the bundle over to Ariom, who gave him a brief look of surprise before taking Iggy and cradling him against his chest with a well-practiced ease.

Judging from his expression, Ariom probably needed a dragon to cuddle more than Thenio did right then.

 

---

 

Thenio crouched behind the rubble at the back of the alleyway, trembling with fear and cold. Something in the back of his mind whispered that he shouldn't really be here. That this was probably just a dream. But the bitter cold of the pavement beneath his feet and the hunger gnawing at his stomach still felt painfully real. One side of his face was throbbing like he'd been slapped.

"Ah. There you are," said a gentle voice. "I've been looking for you."

Thenio raised his head. A man was coming down the alley toward him. The figure was blurred and foggy, so he couldn't see the man's face, but something about him was so familiar.... Who was that? He should remember. He should know that man's name. Why couldn't he remember...?

The man knelt down and reached out a hand to touch Thenio's face. The pain in his cheek eased, and the cold and hunger seemed to fade away.

But even though he felt relieved, Thenio couldn't stop himself from shying away in fear. "Did you come to take me back?"

Back where? He didn't know, but he felt dread at the very thought.

"Do you want to go back?"

"No! I'm not going back! They don't want me there anyway. They hate me! They call me a monster!"

Who was he talking about?

A monster.... Was he a monster?

"All right. If you don't want to go back, I won't make you." The man reached out his hand. "Do you want to come with me instead?"

Thenio stared at the hand with a mixture of longing and trepidation. "Where?"

"To a new home. A nicer place. A place where no one will call you a monster. Where you won't have to be hungry or cold or afraid."

"...you promise?"

"I promise."

Hesitantly, Thenio reached out and took hold of the offered hand. His own hand looked terribly small in comparison.

His hand shouldn't be that small, should it? That was a child's hand....

The man grasped Thenio's small hand and stood up. "Let's go get you cleaned up and find you something good to eat, all right?" He put his hands under Thenio's arms and lifted him up out of the rubble.

It was so high. Was the man some kind of giant? He was holding Thenio in his arms like he was a child.

Thenio sighed, and his small body leaned against the man's sturdy shoulder. He didn't understand what was going on, but the strong arms wrapped around him felt safe and warm. It felt like finally coming home after wandering out in the dark for a long time, lost and afraid....

Maybe...maybe he could figure everything out later. Maybe it was okay to just enjoy this moment....

The man started walking, carrying Thenio out of the dark alley he'd been hiding in. "There's one more thing.... If you don't want them to find you, you're going to need a new name. How about 'Thenio'? Do you like that?"

What? 'Thenio'? Wasn't that already his name? What else would his name be?

As they left the alley, the scene started to break apart and fade away....

Thenio blinked and found himself standing on a grassy hill overlooking a large forest with a thick layer of mist hanging over it.

Oh. He was back here.

He turned to the side, and, as expected, the dream beast was standing a few steps away, watching him.

"What was that?" Thenio asked it. "What did I see just now?"

A memory. The dream beast spoke in the same strange, soundless voice it had used the last time he'd met it in his dreams.

"A memory?" Thenio repeated, puzzled. He couldn't think when something like that might have happened to him. "My memory? Or someone else's?"

It's hard to say.... The dream beast tilted its head, apparently considering the question. Perhaps it's some of both.

"What happened to that boy? The one hiding in the alley?"

The man did what he promised. He took the boy to live in a nice place where there was plenty to eat and no one was cruel to him. They lived together happily there. For a while.

"Just for a while? Then what happened?"

The creature let out a great sigh that seemed to shake the entire landscape. The mist stirred, and the trees in the forest creaked. Even the stars overhead shuddered. Then the boy died. His magic killed him. Just like all the others....

The world stilled again. There was a long moment of silence.

"Am I going to die, too?" Thenio asked, very softly.

I don't know. I'm doing everything I can to stop that. But after all this time...after so many failures.... I don't know.

Neither of them spoke for a long time after that. They simply stood together and stared out at the strange, misty landscape.

Finally, Thenio opened his mouth again. "Hey...." He still had a thousand questions to ask, but for some reason only one of them would come out. "...am I really a monster?"

Of course not. Stepping closer, the dream beast stretched out one of its huge, feathered wings and draped it around Thenio's shoulders. You're a precious, innocent child who's gotten caught up in a terrible situation. It's not your fault. You haven't done anything wrong.

Thenio leaned against the dream beast's shoulder and buried his face in its soft mane. He didn't entirely believe what it said. This was just a dream, after all. It was probably all just something his own mind had created. He was just trying to reassure himself.

But the creature's embrace felt safe and comforting. The fur and feathers were soft and warm.

So maybe it was all right to forget about everything else for a little while.

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