Death, Devotion, Dissonance

"Are you saying that he individually moved every single ice shard that came towards his way and then put them back in its original path so I wouldn't notice?" Decatur asked in an unbelieving, almost mocking tone.

"Of course not," Phel replied with a sigh. "That would be ridiculous. He probably just willed for the World energies to do something about it. Maybe he Chanted it? That would explain how he managed to create Hard Air, as well."

"So you're telling me he's a genius in Imagination Casting and also Chanting?" Decatur scoffed.

"It could be. But probably not, since I never saw him chant anything when he was above you. He didn't even whisper anything… though I could've seen wrong, since his body was still half-covered by his layers of illusions."

"I can't decide which is more aggravating," Decatur grumbled, though Phel couldn't really tell which two things he was talking about.

'Also, since you always refer to him as 'that commoner', I thought you'd be happy to hear he's talented in Chants,' Phel thought of speaking but held himself back. It would only serve to infuriate him even more.

Mages being able to cast in two different ways weren't that rare of a thing. As far as he knew, the Chairman was originally a Demanding Chanter, but then learned to Imagination Cast after he was offered the chance to learn. Same thing with Arza. The boy was a master Chanter if Evin's words were to be trusted, but now he was learning Gestures.

And he was almost eerily talented in it as well. Phel knew that Gestures took years to learn properly, but Arza was starting to show progress in only a couple months – stirring mana here and there.

But of course, that wasn't nearly as shocking as Evin's case. The boy was seemingly born knowing how to cast magic. Phel had inquired about it a few times, but almost always, Evin dodged the question, or said some dumb lies along the lines of, 'I always had a powerful imagination since birth'.

This made him think that there were secrets to Evin's proficiency, but Phel didn't really care much about it. Everyone had secrets, and they had the right to keep them. Perhaps the boy found an ancient script describing how to Imagination Cast, or perhaps he truly did have some ancient entity sitting in his head helping him cast magic like some students speculated.

Phel only hoped that no one would be insane enough to cut open his friend's head to check whether there really was something special inside it.

Thinking of such random things, Phel patiently waited for Decatur to calm down. And after half an hour of ranting, the boy really did calm down. Somewhat. At least he wasn't snapping back at Phel's every comment. But Phel knew that there was something else gnawing at Decatur. He didn't think it was Evin, he felt it someone else. Someone that actually mattered much more to Decatur.

Sighing, he decided that it was time for him to get to the bottom of this matter.

"What did your mother tell you?" Phel finally asked.

Decatur looked momentarily shocked by Phel's question, but quickly gathered himself and replied with an unfriendly tone, "She told me I should be more like Evin. That that commoner is acting more noble than I am."

'That's very bad…' Phel thought as he listened. Very quickly, he commented, "It must've just been her way of encouraging you to do better… No matter how hurtful it may sound."

"I know that!" Decatur snapped back.

Phel let the silence fall between them, waiting for Decatur to continue.

"I know… I know how she thinks. But ever since I was a child, she was comparing me to my brother, telling me I should act like he did, that I should act more regally and nobly like my brother… And I tried. I still try, you know that," Decatur said, almost uncharacteristically somberly. "But it's never enough for my mother. She always finds some new person to compare me to. When my brother left to Arcvallen, I hoped she would stop, but she instead started comparing me to my tutor. And now that I've entered the Academy, she's comparing me to that commoner."

"Well, I suppose it's natural… with how often we find each other on opposing sides," Decatur whispered. "All the barons under her must be telling her about the countless conflicts that arise between us…"

With some hesitation, Phel asked, "Would you stop your conflicts with Evin if you found the chance? I can guarantee you that Evin feels this way about all this."

"Heh… Yeah, right. Did you see him making me fight against those two swords made of Hard Air? He definitely enjoys humiliating me publicly more than you think."

"But you do the same to him, don't you? When you two first fought in a mock battle you broke his arm and even intended to break another one. And two weeks ago, you held him inside your hailstorm for much longer than you needed to," Phel insisted. "It just looks so childish to me."

"Then what do you suggest?" Decatur growled.

"Just talk to each other. I personally know how simple it is to solve disagreements between people through a simple conversation, where two sides are willing to listen to each other."

Phel expected his friend to snap back again, but Decatur went silent.

"It would feel as if I'd lost, somehow," he replied after thinking a bit.

"What does it matter if you lose to him, anyway?" Phel asked back, probably more impatiently than he should've.

"I can't lose, Phelippe… You know that…"

"But even if you win, you don't always get the things you want, no? I mean look at today's fight. It's not like the Cosmics changed their minds after everything was over."

"But I believed it would change. I wanted to show them that I would do anything for just the smallest chance to become on of the king's mages."

Phel debated speaking about it definitely didn't look so wholesome to the rest of the spectators, but decided that that was a discussion for another time.

"To catch up to your brother somehow?" he instead asked.

"Yes. If I can become one of the king's mages, I will finally stand on equal grounds with him."

Phel always wanted siblings when he was growing up, but now, he wasn't so sure about his wish anymore.

"If you hope to overcome your brother, then that's fine. I just want you to understand that Evin has nothing to do with that."

Decatur looked back, annoyed, "You don't understand, Phel. If I can't be better than some random commoner, how can I be better than my own brother?"

"You can be, if Evin proves himself better than your brother," Phel replied and saw Decatur looking back at him with an 'Are you serious?' face. "Okay, obviously not now, but in the future. After he at least reaches the same age as Gehenne."

Decatur shook his head with a wry smile, "You just don't understand…"

Phel wanted to say something to Decatur, but nothing seemed right. He let the heavy silence take rein of the atmosphere, knowing it would be awfully hard to dethrone it again. Sighing, he walked over to Decatur's personal drawer and opened a secret compartment that he knew about. In it, he found a half-finished glass of wine sitting in the dark and picked it up with a smile. Without a word, he poured it into two bottles and gave one to Decatur. They both had a generous gulp without a word and let the silence settle once more… though Phel felt it wasn't as heavy as before.

He intended the action to be a sign for peace, but Decatur seemed unwilling to accept it. "Why are you friends with Evin?" he asked again.

Phel groaned and replied the same way he did for the past month or so, "He's fun to talk with and he's not as intolerable as you make him out to be. My answer won't change, Dec. You just need to accept that sometimes people do things you won't like."

Decatur sighed and shook his head, "You sound exactly like your father."

Phel groaned again, but he did so in an overly exaggerated and joking manner. Finally, he heard Decatur's voice taking on a lighter tone.

"When I finally inherit the County from my mother and you start working for me, I'm definitely going to ban your friendship with him," Decatur continued.

"Then I guess I'm going to go run off with him to some backwater village just to spite you," Phel said, grinning.

"You even went to talk with right before the fight, too," Decatur said in a woeful tone.

"Are you sulking? Is this what this is?"

"No, I'm just saying that you didn't come to me and instead went to him."

Phel shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, one of these days, you're going to lose a duel against him. When that time comes, I'll come to you to give you some advice. After all, I'm the type to ally myself with the weaker side."

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