"Mercury, Mercurrryyyy", I heard a familiar voice shouting from downstairs, it was my mom.
"wake up..... wake up!"
" mom just 5 more minutes...."
"No No, I need you to go get something for our nieghbor, she is having a really bad fever. Do something nice for your aunty next door, I have too watch her condition right now, she is burning up a lot"
"ok ok, what do I need to go get?" Mercury got up groggily, he stretched his body a bit and smelled the scent of greenery outside, the cold breeze spilling into his warm house.
"Could you go buy some medicine herbs from Gary, just tell him auntie Mave has a fever, he'll give you the right stuff."
"Here take this to carry the herbs, keep them fresh." Mercury's mom flashed a smile and handed him a exquisite looking basket along with some coins. The basket had a chilly aura from some frozen ice packs put under.
Mercury stepped out of the bricked house, it had a whitish beige color as the homes on the island he lived were made out of a unique minerals found commonly in the sand. The ground was very warm outside as the ending of summer was approaching and he would miss the shiny sun beams hitting his face and the cool summer breeze.
With basket in hand he headed towards the central market where there was a lot of shops. It may have been getting too hot and he grabbed an icepack from the basket and put it on his neck.
"Ah that feels really nice." The streets were bustling with shopkeepers and natives buying their daily needs. Our small island was beautiful and there were many tourists. Mom says they come from somewhere very far, they have lots of shiny things on them too he thought, recalling a few rich families he bumped into touring the city. Some were really nice and others had bad tempers, but Mercury was young and didn't quite understand but he knew his mom told him to avoid people who seemed bad. Mercury walked to the front of a small 2 story building with a sign written in cursive and viny plants on the walls. Mercury had a bit of pocket money in his shorts, small bronze coins that had some intricate symbols on the front indented side.
Mercury walked into the shop looking for the shop owner Gary, but there were 2 kids who looked like his age he had never seen before standing at the counter as if they were watching over.
"Ugh hello, is Gary here?"
The two kids had pitch black hair, a particular contrast to Mercury's white hair, they looked at mercury weirdly. It was a odd social interaction for Mercury. The girl decided to ignore him reading a thick book of sorts on her hands, it had a reallly nice decorated casing and looked very expensive. The boy responded back with a bright wide smile "My uncle is in the back preparing a large bulk of orders. I can help you with whatever you need to get though!". "Mercury didn't know the shopkeeper he had known for a very long time had a niece and nephew and was a bit flustered because he never really interacted with any people of his age, as the other kids thought he was weird because of his white hair.
"Ah I need to buy some strong medical herbs for fevers..." Mercury replied hastily.
"Ok ok I got you!" the boy in front of the counter said. He had given a happy go lucky impression in Mercury's head. The boy started looking around the shelves looking a bit confused on a variety of plants that looked similar, when he finally picked one up, the girl still at the counter yelled "the other one to the left dummy".
Mercury asked what was the difference because the few looked very simliar, trying to be a little bit more social remembering his mom would always complain that he never socialized enough.
The girl replied that the plants were apart of the same genetic familiy which is why they looked similiar but had completely different effects and were from different regions and growing conditions. This all seemed very wordy and Mercury didn't really understand the bit of it. The girl referred the subject of matter as biology.
"Well it doesn't really matter if you understand, I heard kids here don't have a school to go to, a lot of idiots around here." she retorted looking at some kids outside and gave a nasty look. Mercury thought to himself that she probably had a bad run in with those kids but didn't pry about it.
At this Mercury asked what school was and the girl proceeded to him it was a place of learning for people who were young. Mercury thought that school seemed to be a cool place.
"School isn't really a nice place though. Everybody back home dreams to go to school, there is a whole admission test thing and it's competitive," she said in a low tone. "But there is a whole world out there after you graduate."
"What whole world could be out there?" Mercury asked with eyes of curiousity. "You know they teach you magic right?"
Magic? Mercury was extremely puzzled at the word.
"Don't tell me you don't really know what magic is?" The boy next to her looked at him at shock.
The girl continued, well this island is super small and is owned by a royal family, theres a lot of people on this island who don't have a single capability for magic and is thus a sort of sanctuary. Mercury thought to himslef that this girl may be too smart and talked like his mom. Very informative despite how young she looked. The next thing the pair did infront of Mercury surprised him as they made balls of fire. that were quite small in their palms. Mercury took a few steps back in shock and the pair laughed very loudly. After calming themselves they exclamed "Well? This is magic! What do you think?"
Before Mercury could respond in amazement, loud footsteps could be sound coming from the back, the pair dispersed their magic quickly and tried to look composed. Gary was holding a bunch of packages with a symbol stamped on each. A symbol of a dragon biting it's tail to form a circle of the main continent, people used this stamp when shipping packages overseas.
"Oh uncle, let me help you with those" the boy said taking some wight off Gary's shoulder.
"Thanks Jacob" Gary took a clipboard and started marking some stuff then looked at the three.
"Oh hey Mercury, I see you met my niece and nephew, Elysia and Jacob. They are twins, cool right?"
"More like annoying", Elysia said continuing to look in her book.
"Well I heard a lot of chit chat and laughing going on earlier, what were you guys talking about?" Gary asked expectantly.
"Nothing much, just about some of the medical herbs, Mecury bought some for a fever treatment." Jacob answered.
Elysia gave Mercury a glance and waved her hand telling him that he should go. Taking the hint Mercury acted a long. "Yeah Elysia picked these herbs for me, I hope they work well, aunty Maeve is having a really bad fever and mom might yell at me if I take too long." Mercury said calmy.
"Those are good picks, iburansies are very potent, your studying very well Elysia, nowhurry along Mercury and tell Maeve I hope she feels better. I don't want your mom yelling at me either."
"I will!" Mercury said running out back home because he genuinely did feel he may have spent a little bit too long talking to Jacob and Elysia.
As soon an Mercury left, Gary stared at the two.
"I felt some magic being casted earlier. I thought your father told you guys to be careful. People here are very sensitive to magic and can get extremely sick. I can't feel the magic particles though, you guys have been practicing the families concealment technique quite well. Your father would be proud."
Elysia remembered the things her father had said about the peculiar island and it's inhabitants ill reactions to magic, but she got carried away and forgot about it when she met Mercury. Magic was very normalized back at home and seeing another poor kid her age has never had contact with it brought her the idea to show him a bit. Although she didn't practice the families concealment just earlier, realizing something bad could have happened. Elysia didn't want to be in trouble incase Mercury showed signs of sickness, so she distracted her uncle back on the topic.
"But why do people get so sick here?" Elysia asked, pretending to be clueless.
"Well.... the people of this island are born with the inability to form a magic core, the island itself is not very abundant with any magic and the atmosphere of the bermuda triangle near the south-east sea oddly prevent magic particles from entering this islands atmosphere, this is the only island close near the Bermuda Triangle as well. Maybe the reason for there being no magic here is that the heavily condensed magical seas are coveting all the magic around them into there, sucking them in like a whirlpool."
Elysia was a bit shocked to hear the Bermuda Triangle was near this island, it was a legendary place from a book except all the other things in the book were just myths and there was rumors of the dangerous sea being real.
"Dad told me about their illnesses hear but I didn't know about the Bermuda Triangle. Is it really here?"
"Yes the Bermuda Triangle is really near here. It is such a dangerous magic zone that would tear up most living things. Maybe if you become a strong enough magician, you can explore it!"
"That sounds like too much to me, I rather have a bunch of beautiful ladies when i grow up then die in the ocean" Jacob said closing his eyes just thinking of it.
"Ew gross" Elysia slapped Jacob hard on the face.
Gary pulled orb from a cabinet and read out a message then looked outside.
"Is something wrong uncle?" Jacob asked.
"There are schools from different islands approaching, looking for some kind of recruitment for the next school year. Summer is ending soon in a few weeks, and many academies are looking for new talent from any source they can. Some royal families are mad that some students with poor backgrounds have won the Magic games last year."
"If the people here don't really have any magic why are academies here to recruit?"
"Well to answer that" Gary sighed heavily.
"Considering the theory on the island, they are seeing whether if there's any potential of any the inhabitants here."
"OOh! What if they do horrible experiments on them?" Jacob said chewing on some fresh garlic bread.
"Jacob! Don't say stuff like that" Elysia complained. Experiments were very illegal and Elysia heard of many accidents from the past and on the news back home. Thinking of them brought her nightmares when she was younger. "Don't worry it's most likely not those kind of experiments. If someone on this island has any potential on this denseless state, maybe with some good nurturing they can grow. Also academies all around the world are looking to compete every year, they are taking large amounts of students. Even you guys need to study and train harder, your parents are doing their best for you two.
"Let's not worry about the citizens here right now. You two should pack up, I got a message from your father that he would like you two back at the main continent. He doesn't want you guys here when those recruiters are here, especially when you guys are still not affiliated to a academy yet either." Gary looked outside the window, the sun was setting.
The sun could be seen setting in the distance and the summer night was getting colder. Mercury pondered on why Elysia and Jacob were acting weird, they looked really happy to show him magic, but would get in trouble by Gary if caught. Recalling that instance Mercury could feel a sort of inner rejection towards the magic flames as if his body told him to snuff them out quickly. When the flames were dispersed he could feel the air around him feel more welcoming and gentle to his skin like a sweet breeze, he had took in a breath and felt his chest tighten. Mercury felt really happy for some odd reason and happily ran back home to deliver the herbs to his mom.