22一 gems or stars? they both glimmer like your soul

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For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

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RETURNING TO THE PRINCE'S chambers from the mess hall, Hector found His Highness there quite alone. He was sitting on the carpet before the fire, with his feet playing at the edge of the hearth, and in one hand he was holding close up to his face a golden jewel; peering hard into its reflection, meanwhile humming to himself in his absentminded way.

But being now interrupted, he put down the precious rock; and pretty soon, going to the table on the far side of the room, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap began reading the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth page stopping a moment, looking vacantly at the page before him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn sigh of tiredness. He would then begin reading again at the same fifty.

With much interest Hector sat watching over him. Overly polite though he was, and hauntingly beautiful about the face, yet he had a something in it which was by all means disagreeable. (You cannot hide the soul.) Through all his unearthly masks, the knight thought he saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes 一fiery blue and bold一 there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare to stand before a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the imperial, which even his gentle manierisms could not altogether conceal. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had an opposition.

But the underlying issue of all this was not His Highness' personality. It was the fact that many looked upon him and saw a man when, in reality, he was barely stepping into adulthood. A child, by all means, whose shoulders carried a heavy and unnecessary burden.

Was this what Kassian had sought to show him? The discrepancies between the two faces of the prince? The portrait of a pure, young leader who was known for his innocence to the common people and the truth behind all of those masks一 a boy too tired of the world. It wasn't just the bone deep tiredness seeping from His Highness, but also an otherworldly wisdom shining in his eyes, a knowledge of the world that ruined the teenager's sense of self. His already tentative prospects at a normal childhood一as normal as one in his position could get一had often been interrupted or cut short by this or that. And, with any and all failed attempts at having the same thing as the other children, His Highness resigned himself with taking over the duties of his title.

"Your Highness." He gently called out, voice soft as to not startle the teen out of his readings. Jeweled eyes snapped up and focused on him, glowing in the dimming light of the room. "Perhaps it is time to rest." There was pleading in his tone, an unearthed desperation at having this boy stop trying to ruin himself.

Athanasius was running himself haggard and only Hector and Kassius' stubborn interferences managed to keep the imperial boy at a decent health level. (It was unspoken between the two knights, a promise forged in panic and terror, that they would no longer allow the prince to forget his own health. Even if that meant resulting to underhanded tactics.) After his collapse in the Temple's library, the prince seemed to hold an air of melancholy like a second skin. As if his soul was grieving.

There was a pinched expression on the younger's face, something caught between tiredness and stubbornness, as he glanced at the table on his left. Filled to the brim with different mana stones that Hector had no hope of a snowman's chance in hell to identify, the blonde placed a hand over his face, rubbing at his forehead. "Some sleep does sound appealing." He voiced out, soft and measured, as if unsure if he would be allowed to do so.

Hector had no way of knowing where these self-destructive habits and behavioral patterns surfaced from, but he'd be damned if he allowed them to continue.

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"ARE YOU QUITE SURE YOU HAVE THE permission to be here, Your Highness?" The sentence made the little girl known as Princess Athanasia almost jump ten feet high, her heart stammering wildly in her chest. Thankful for not dropping the book in her hands, she turned her head to confront her discoverer.

Tall with a lean physique 一though it was rather hard to discern from underneath flowy blue, white and gold robes一 the man (for he was a male in spite of his long silvery-blue hair and delicate face) stared down at her with an unimpressed eyebrow raised, as if daring her to defend herself. She felt like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, though, to some extent, she was exactly that.

The "here" in question was none other than the magical laboratory of the imperial palace, across which she'd stumbled fully by accident while hiding from attending Lady Every's class. Of course, five minutes ago when she entered the room it had been empty of people and she was not above herself to lay the blame of her being discovered at her less than stelar spatial awareness.

While her being lost and finding this room could be passed over as nothing less than her unfamiliarity with the Golden Palace, her noisy habits would bare the full blame of investigating the tomes of magic formulas. She should just come clean to this man about her situation. Maybe try and project some childish innocence? That way the situation might be brushed off and forgotten.

"I got lost..." She mumbled sheepishly, her hands moving to place the old book back in its place on the shelf. "And the books looked so interesting!"

A barely there twitch of a muscle told her that the man before her was less than amused by her theatric display of naivety. Woe her, but this might actually brew some trouble for her. She had no illusions to believe that this man wasn't one of the imperial mages, give the where and why of how things were. There was also the tiny, almost inevitable, fact that Claude might hear about this. Which would suck. Massively.

"Could you point me in the direction of the library, Sir...?" She changed tactics, seeing as brushing this off wasn't an option, maybe ignoring it all together would yield better results.

The man sighed, a hand coming up to massage at the bridge of his nose. Icy blue eyes looked at her as if she was a giant impediment on his life as he begrudgingly offered a name. "Mayan of Aegena, Your Highness."

Ah... A mage of Aegena.

This day was going splendidly. (Please note the sarcasm.)

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"MIGHT I INQUIRE AT WHAT IT IS YOU are doing, my prince?" Asked Kassian, loyal knight sworn to the Crown Heir with an air of ennui. His green hair was perfect at hiding any and all irritation that he night feel, but his sunny yellow eyes betrayed he more often than he could count. Vaguely, the personal escort could hear Hector, that brat, laughing at him somewhere in the background.

"No."

His eyebrow twitched at the blase rebuttal, the hands on his hips fisting in annoyance. Plastering a more than strained smile on his face, Kassian fully ignored Hector's wheezing. That brat could choke on air right now and the green haired knight wouldn't care. Gritting out, the older knight addressed the fifteen year old prince. "Your Highness, please leave this room and eat something."

Sat on the ground, in the middle of a magic circle, Athanasius steadily poured rivulets of mana in line of topaze blue stones, gently glowing golden energy engulfing the prince's hand. The stones in question, black and blue labradorite, were the most reoccurring piece of the magic circle, connecting gatherings of jet stones, all of them tying back into the centerpiece, a glowing amber surrounded by the afformentioned jet stones. This was Athanasius' hard work, what he had to show after a year and a half of research and experiments that often ended up blowing up in his face. The trial and error had been annoying, often frustrating the teen, but what he felt now was nothing short of elation.

He felt peaceful as he charged the stones with his mana, a sort of calm that let him know he would soon return home. The search for the mana stones compatible with his inner energy had proved fruitful after many exhausting tests where his magic had been at its lowest. In hindsight, his bullheadedness from the first few months of research had been what set him back for so long. Perhaps, had he acted a tad more calmly, he would have been back at the palace by this time.

What was done was done, he though resignedly, a small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth at the bickering going on behind him. Present in the Crystal Room of the temple were just his personal knights and his familiar, the latter of the three ignoring everything and taking a nap at the edges of the magic circle. The circle itself was old, having never been erased from the floor. Fail-safes, regulations and appliances had been added on it over the generations, yet its base remained the same as the day of the empire's founding.

Here, in this temple at the edges of Obelia's borders, the legacy of the Saint lineage prevailed, wavering at times but unerased. Athan felt secured in the knowledge that no-one but him and his ancestors had been able to bring modifications to this place.

"I can't leave, lest I interrupt the charging process and set myself back for a few weeks." He explained to his knights, cutting through their childish arguing with ease. You ought to think that two grown men would be more behaved than this.

Before Kassian could burst a vein and enter his motherhen mode, Hector slapped a hand on the older's mouth and smiled at the prince. "How about we bring Your Highness some food and you'll eat while you work?" He suggested, shooting a warning glance at the green haired man in his hold. Said man grumbled something behind the hand plastered on his mouth, but otherwise stayed quiet.

Huffing a laugh at their antics, Athan nodded his head. "That sounds acceptable." A small smile played on his lips as the black haired knight dragged the other 一flailing and his words muffled一 after him, leaving the prince in the solace of the Crystal Room, his beastly familiar as his lone company.

Eyeing the labradorite and jet stones underneath his hovering hand, Athan felt sheepishly embarrassed at himself. Because of course the stones that literally meant connecting the dots and purification for protection respectively would be the next best compatible with the barrier matrix and the amber core. He wasn't disappointed with his research. It brought many things into focus and unearthed multiple ideas for future projects, but he felt silly. If anything, he should have looked into jewel meanings as soon as he'd gotten his hands on his ancestors' research journals.

A small smile bloomed on his face as he stared at the beast lingering on the edges of the magic circle. "Hey Biyakko." The white tiger raised it's head, uncommonly intelligent eyes staring back at him. "We might be going back home soon. How about that?"

The mana beast rumbled a pur at him, eyes closing in contentment and striped tail swishing gently by its side.

"Yeah." The teen muttered, jeweled blue eyes gentle and tone as he continued to pour mana in the stones. "Me too."

Oh, how badly he wanted to see his people.

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I thought I was getting better, but now I'm afraid that was all a lie because the bad thoughts and sadness is coming back and I don't think I can stop it this time.

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For reference, this is the closest character design that fits my image of Mayan of Aegena:

I'm alive. 💃🏻

February is gonna be kinda awkward with trying to update on my books, given that I'm going on a trip to Paris, but I'll see how I'll manage that.

Also, I started puting down on paper the main points of this story because it's too much for my brain to keep remembering and I have too many ideas 😃

I managed my way through the legal loopholes and now I have the English version of Twisted Wonderland on my phone

I've been playing non-stop for the past week or so and it has taken over my life in the same way Obey Me! has 🤌

Bye!