"…Soul Eye. It is a very rare Inherited Soul Magic. It is said to have been able to see the way Magic flows and that it could redirect it, but most of the things it could do was undocumented due to the last person to have one completely disappearing or dying, both are unfortunately unknown."
Those are the words that Steel said as he read out of the book for me, since Afterall…
'I still don't understand the damn language.'
I looked at the page forever and never even understood even the smallest of paragraphs.
It was driving me up the wall. So after the bath Steel saw me, looked around my back to see me face first into a book, that was maybe to high for my small childish brain.
So with only some 18th Century Undergarments on, and his very hair chest exposed he grabbed the book, sat on the edge of the bed and read me some of the book's details.
"...Oh, heres another one, but this one is to weird and I don't think that you can do what is said in the book."
Steel looks back up at me:
"Do you still want me to tell you what it is?"
I nodded:
"Yes."
I said as I sat down on the ground, in front of the chest and with Steel in front of me on the bed.
He scratched his eye brow, with a growing confused look on his face.
"The Abysmal Eye... This one is really dumb..."
He let out a sigh:
"Still a rare Inherited Soul Magic, but not as rare as Soul Eye, you end up with the ability to open a mouth through your eye canal and eat up the Soul, whether it be the Energy or the Magic, and strengthen themselves."
He looked at me slightly.
"Don't tell me that now you have the tendency to want to eat people's Soul's now?"
I shake my head and give Steel a look of disaproval.
"Now, why would I want to do that?"
"I don't know? I just wanted to make sure we got the cool one, not the... weird one."
"And you didn't trust that I had the cool one?"
"I didn't not trust you... but if it was so that you had a magical eating eye, then it'd be nice to know."
He shrugged.
"We've been raising me for a while, i never tried to eat anything I shouldn't have."
Steel shrugged once more:
"Yet?"
"Steel, you don't trust me?"
Marcilene would have my head for calling him by that name, but I just can't bring myself to call him father nor dad the last one, gave me such horrible trauma.
"No, I trust you Lazi. I've been raising you for a while, even though Marci has been the one to stay and make sure you were taken care of. I was still a very important person in your life."
He stood up, and walked back to the chest with the books inside, that didn't even full them up all the way.
"Plus, it would be the eye that I don't trust since, something like that would most likely have a mind of it's own, I've fought something like it once before, and trust me they get scary."
He gives off a fake expression of shivers.
And my mind gets curious.
"Did you lose against them."
Steel scoffed at the question.
"Lazuli.."
He turned back and gave me a cocky smile.
"... I've never lost a fight since I've joined the Centennial War."
I tilted my head when he said that.
"What' the Centennial War?"
He laughed with his head up high, then he looked down at me.
I had a genuinely curious look on my face.
"Oh, crap yeah. You're like three, I forgot."
Steel goes back to the bed and sits on the side, as he tells me another story, but no book in hand.
"During the early years of life, Human, Elf and Beastman lived in peace..."
"What's a Beastman."
"Oh, Okay. A Beastman is just like you and Marcilene. Just like both you and Marci are living being that understand language and can communicate and hug and laugh and all that. A beastman is just the same, but they look really different. Especially compared to you and I."
"They look different how?"
Steel instead of telling me smiles:
"You'll see what I talk about when you are to go outside."
"Why can't I go outside now?"
"Because of your sister. She…"
Steel took a pause, one that I'd say is a pause so that he got out the correct words:
"Okay, so you and your sister are different you know this yes?"
I nod:
"I'm not related to you by blood… is that what you mean?"
Steel shakes his head.
"Neither is Marcilene."
I tilt my head.
"Really? But I thought.."
"No, we aren't related at all, but… I found your sister when she was young more over I found her when she lost her mother and her father. Making her an orphan."
"Oh, did they ever find out what happened to them?"
Steel's aura hopped as if afraid of the answer to that question.
"No, after many years there was no answer about who was the killer… but Marcilene would be treated differently from you if she ever went outside."
"Why?"
"Remember when I said that she's different?"
I nod.
"It's not just your bloodline, nor her different looking pointed ears, though they do contribute."
His aura was calm as it flowed through his body like blood, but was always returned back to the center mass where it all clumped like it was a small ball of life in Steel.
"It's because she's an Elf."
'I've heard of some fantasy stories before, Eld are usually pretty, talented with magic, reserved and most of all they have a high standard for their own.'
"That's cool. What does that mean though? Why is her being an Elf a bad thing?"
He paused again, so did his aura for a second.
"Did Marcilene ever tell you what the Centennial War was?"
I shook my head:
"We usually played hide and seek ate, then played more."
'I sound like a child… I AM A CHILD! I'm stupid.'
I wanted to smirk but the conversation sounded serious, so I withheld.
Steel continues he shifted slightly on the bed:
"The Centennial War. It was a one hundred year long war that-."
"Wow."
I interrupted to say that but became embarrassed when he looked at me funnily.
"Don't interrupt."
"Okay… sorry."
He laughed:
"Just messing with you. If you have any questions ask them, I'll very likely be able to answer."
"Okay."
Steel went back to the story:
"The Centennial War was a war I fought in, there was many people that sadly lost their life to this war, but the main point is that is was the Human and Beastman, versus the Elves."
He put his hands together as he said it and looked down at me with a serious face now.
"For the hundred years the war was hard fought between the two sides and many people were affected by it, most fur to least fur. They had lost family and friends. But most of all the elves put up a good fight."
I nodded.
"In their struggle to survive though they lost heavy numbers and in their battle they had to draft… they had to draft kids. And the whole reason that the Elves were fighting is in the first place is because of the fact Elves were said to drink blood to survive."
"Does that mean that Marcilene drinks blood?!"
Steel looked at me like I was stupid.
"Has she drank your blood?"
"No."
"Then no… back to the story."
I frowned and looked down befor elookjng up at Steel with his aura flowing through his body like blood.
"That was a misconception from someone, but it led to a war for the Elves to fight for their peacefulness, but in the end they hadn't gained it, what they got was and excommunicated. They.."
"What does that mean?"
"Which?"
"Excommunicated?"
"Oh. To leave out of something."
"Okay thanks."
"Okay. Where was I?"
He paused:
"Oh okay. They were forced out of society and into the Warren Forest, to live there until the world deems them worthy of returning. But Elves never once drank blood, nor did they have to. Marcilene lost her parents in the aftermath of the war. I found her and decided to raise her as my own."
He reached down and put a hand on my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"Just like you."
"You found me in the aftermath of a war?"
"No, I mean that I'm raising you as my own."
"Oh okay."
"But you understand where I'm going yes?"
"No."
I shake my head.
Steel rolls his eyes and pulls his hand away.
"Since Marcilene is an Elf she be treated differently from other people, but I don't want her to experience that so when you came along it was a blessing for us since she was alone majority of the time. Now she has you."
He smiles when he says that:
"And you and her get along so well that I want what's best for you both. Now and forever."
"Oh, that's what you mean?"
"Yes… that's what I mean."
Steel stands and stretches.
"I promise to make her life easier with my power as a human."
Steel stops his stretch midway and looks down at me.
"What?"
"I want to help make Marci's life easier for herself."
Steel smiles even wider now.
He pats my head with his hand that could cover my entire scalp.
My black hair weaving down to my face.
"And how do you plan to achieve that though?"
"I'll learn to fight so that she never gets hurt."
Steel pauses.
His hand still on my head, but no it no longer pats it, but keeps it on top for a while.
I could see some small patches of arm pit hair, it was ugly.
"Are you serious about what you have said Lazuli."
His voice didn't have the sound of slight sarcasm or anything like that right now, it just had plan old seriousness:
"You'd learn to fight for your sister?"
I nodded my head slowly, reluctantly. Afraid that the answer would backfire on me.
"Okay. I see."
He rubs my head once more.
Before he takes it off and puts it beside himself on the bed.
"Go check on your sister on the couch for now, it has been a while since she was checked on."
"Okay…"
I got up, turned and opened the door.
"Thank you for helping me read the book."
"Your welcome my son."
Steel said as I slowly closed the door behind me.
I headed down the hallway, down the stairs into the living that was around the wall and looked at the small tendrils on Marcilene's body. As her orange colored aura was forming more light on itself.
I walked over to her and sat down beside her on the ground and held her hand.
'Why did he freak when I said I'd learn to fight for her? It should be common for a son to learn to fight for his sister.'
I felt my hand get squeezed by Marcilene, not hard, but gentle and full of love.
'Is this what it feels like to be loved by someone?'