It was a hot and humid day in the Castle, with storm clouds converging on the horizon overhead. A young message rat was running as fast as it could from its sender on
Alchemie Way, the Senior
Alchemie Apprentice Selesia Rincewind. She had sent word to her dear friend, Becky Rowland, that she had gone into labor and was in need of immediate medical assistance. Her husband, Marcus, was busy playing in a Counter-Feet tournament in the Ramblings and she didn't wish to contact him. Now, for a
Physik Woman the contents of the message in itself were not unusual for Becky - certainly not enough for her to grab her medical bag and sprint out of her house, wearing only one sock, and make a wild dash for
Alchemie Way. What was unusual however was that Selesia Rincewind had
not been pregnant earlier that morning.
Fueled by pure adrenaline, Becky Rowland managed to kick down the purple door of Number 79
Alchemie Way, racing through the house. "Selesia!" she exclaimed, until she heard a scream of pain coming from upstairs. Becky nearly tripped over herself in her hurry, looking like a huge mess as she finally emerged into her friend's bedroom, only to find that Selesia had not been joking.
To her trained eye, Selesia was nine months pregnant and ready to push.
"How did you manage this?!" Becky asked, grabbing a stack of towels from her bag and tugging the blankets away from Selesia on the bed.
"If I knew that, I would be telling you right now!" Selesia snapped, before letting out a scream of pain. "It just
happened!"
Becky huffed a bit, but she knew not to let her temper get to her. She was in total shock and that wasn't what her friend needed at the moment. Most people who were nine months pregnant had time to prepare for this. They had an idea of what was coming. Selesia didn't have that. "Alright, Les, you and I are going to get to know each other a lot better than I imagined."
She knelt down and spread Selesia's legs, putting towels everywhere that it would be needed. "You're ready to push," she said, a bit stunned. "On the count of three, I want you to breathe and then push. Okay?"
"Just fucking do it!" Selesia screamed.
"One...Two... Three!"
Blaise Rowland, ExtraOrdinary Wizard of the Castle for over a decade, was not unused to visits from his sister. He was in between apprentices at the moment, allowing them some privacy on the 21st Floor of Wizard Tower. Of course, having the Senior
Alchemie Apprentice there with an impossible baby was certainly one of them more unusual things that Becky had brought to him. "And there is no way you just simply did not notice the pregnancy?" Rowland asked Selesia.
"Do you think I'm daft?!" Selesia snapped. Becky sent her a bit of warning look and Selesia pinched the ridge of her nose. "Sorry, Blaise, it's just... I know myself and I know my body. I was normal when I woke up and then all of the sudden, I was the size of a balloon."
Rowland nodded, tapping his fingers on the arm rest of his chair for a moment. "It is no coincidence that this occurred on the seventh day of the seventh month," he said after a pause. "As you are both aware, the seventh child of the seventh child possesses extraordinary
magykal abilities... A child with no father, coming into existence on the seventh day of the seventh day..."
"...You think
Magyk created the child," Becky summarized. Her brother had an awful habit of beating around the bush and not just getting straight to the point.
"I don't work with
Magyk - not really, you know
Alchemie is very much distinct from that," Selesia pointed out to Rowland.
"I do not think that we will be privy as to why this happened to you - only how," Rowland admitted, his piercing green eyes looking at the steady brown ones of Selesia. "At any rate... The circumstances of the child's birth should be kept between the three of us. The Wendron and Port witches would only be the first to attempt to abduct a child created by
Magyk. I have to imagine the Eastern SnowPlains would have an interest as well."
Selesia scowled, but she nodded. "Becky, would you mind making me a potion or two? Something to give Marcus, to keep him from questioning this..."
"Of course," Becky said, reaching into her bag and handing a vial over to Selesia. "Two drops a day for a month - then a single drop a week for a year. It'll be enough to obscure his memories - to convince him that the child is his."
"Once the child is old enough, I will offer her the ExtraOrdinary apprenticeship," Rowland then said calmly. "If our theories are correct... Then she will need guidance. Her rearing will be incredibly important, in order to avoid letting her become an agent of the
Darke.
Fifteen Years Ago...
Life had largely gone unchanged at Number 79 Alchemie Way. Marcus Rincewind, universally agreed to be a failed Sub-Wizard, never really could quite remember much of his wife's pregnancy. He had some suspicions that she had cheated on him with Marcellus Dumont, the Chief Hermetic Scribe, but he never was able to get any proof. His daughter's eyes had yet to turn green, but she had begun attending classes at the Purple School in the Ramblings - the very school all children of wizards attended if they could.
"Arya, get back in here!" Selesia shouted out the window. Marcus was passed out upstairs, having drunk himself into a happy(?) sleep. Selesia preferred it this way. When Marcus was drunk and unconscious, they tended to get into less fights. It then gave her less of an urge to cheat on him out of spite.
"Arya Selesia Rincewind, are you listening to me?!" Selesia shouted, seeing that her daughter had not moved a muscle.
Little Arya Rincewind was just standing there in the grass, looking intently at something that Selesia could not fathom. She tossed down her notes in frustration and put on a pair of shoes, prepared to scold the child and send her to bed without supper for this behavior. "You are grounded!" Selesia screamed, going out the front door and roughly grabbing Arya by the arm.
The child didn't flinch or move.
"Arya, what is the matter with you? Are you listening to me?" Selesia asked, her anger turning into worry. Arya wasn't responding and Selesia snapped her fingers in Arya's face, trying to get some recognition out of those eyes. She knew that Arya would be an unusual child - but the Rowlands had assured her that Arya was developing normally.
"Arya?!"
This time, Arya's eyes flickered and focused on her mother.
"Sorry Mummy..." "Arya, dear, your father's inside - I am sure he'd love to see you," Selesia told her daughter.
She just shook her head.
"He's not my daddy."
"Rowland, she can't wait any longer," Selesia explained, back in the comfortable and sadly familiar rooms of the ExtraOrdinary Wizard. Rowland's apprentice, Peter Wylie, was thankfully out of Wizard Tower. He was spending time with his girlfriend, a gorgeous noble from the Eastern SnowPlains. The two were quite smitten.
"Until Peter either completes or terminates his apprenticeship, I cannot take her on," Rowland explained gently. "And besides, Selesia, she's too young..."
"She's having these... these
trances. I don't know what goes on in her head during them, but she
knows. She knows that Marcus isn't her father and neither is Marcellus. She's told me that she's been speaking to her father."
Rowland raised an eyebrow at that. "How unusual," he murmured, though everything about this case was odd. "How frequently does Arya have these symptoms? Are there any changes to eye color or temperament?"
Selesia shook her head. "I've been checking, thinking I might see a pop of green but there's nothing... The trances are getting often, Blaise. She's having them every day. I feel so powerless to help her, it's like she's stuck in her own little world."
The Royal Physician, Becky, finally decided to weigh in. "I do have a tincture that may be of use... I generally give it to patients exhibiting psychosis, but I believe that it may stop these trances that Arya is experiencing for now, until we know more about what is happening," she explained. She took the tincture from her bag. It was
Charmed as to have infinite storage, courtesy of her brother.
"What else will it do to my little girl?" Selesia asked, taking the vial. She appreciated
Physik, but she knew that there was bound to be a trade off. The memory potion she had used on Marcus had resulted in his alcoholism. She didn't want to do that to her little girl - she loved Arya, even if she didn't always show it.
"There may be shifts in temperament," Becky explained. "A slight weakening of
Magykal ability - but it is only a temporary solution, not a permanent one. I promise you, Les, we will find a way to help her."
"And what if there isn't one?"
Achronum
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