A week came to pass without anything of importance happening in the family.
Arya continued trying to cast his spell, but to no avail. It seemed as if he were missing something crucial.
His mother, Lillian, became a bit worried due to his excessive sleeping. But he would often comfort her by saying that he was merely bored, and that's why he slept so much.
Neel had gone off to the mines a few hours ago, leaving Gray in a sour mood.
Although the time Arya had spent with his new father was short, having grown up without a father figure in his past life, he was quite used to that.
{The more I see it, the more excited I get at the prospect of studying it more,} fascinated Arya, as his mother used a base magic spell to move the table so she could clean.
"Mother, how many different spells do you know?" asked Arya, memorizing the image of the rings that had appeared during the activation of her spell.
"I'm a wind mage, though I only know a few spells from that element as well some from a few other elements," replied Lillian, not stopping to look at Arya who was sitting on the floor where she had already cleaned.
"Who taught you?" asked Arya, after taking note of the white ends of her hair.
{It seems that the end color of a person's hair corresponds to what element they're attuned to.}
{Mother's hair is white, while Armin's is red. Since Streya, Neel and Gray don't have colored hair does that mean they don't have magic?} he wondered as his mother cast another spell.
{No, I can't prove a hypothesis with such a small test group. And besides, if I agree to that, then by that logic I'd be magicless too. But I'm sure I saw my magic activate that day.}
"I learned from watching my mother. Luckily she was a wind mage too," she said, coughing a little from the dust that was blown into the air by her wind spell.
Arya saved the image of that spell's circle to memory as well. He had recently noticed that there were strange-looking runes marked along the concentric rings.
"Mother, do you know what the runes on the rings mean?" asked Arya.
His mother burst out into laughter, causing her wind spell to deactivate.
"What's funny?"
"It's just that you don't seem like a toddler at all. You seem like the same age as Gray at this point," she giggled, picking Arya off the ground.
"I don't know what they mean, baby. And I don't think you need to either," she continued, before carrying Arya off into the kitchen to prepare some dinner.
{Perhaps I'm pushing it a little. I should keep my questions to a minimum,} he decided.
The last thing he needed was his mother taking him to some mental house because he was acting weird.
{Are there mental houses here though?} he wondered.
{Best not to ask,} he decided after glancing at his mother, who was starting a fire with a spell.
***
On the dinner table, Armin had a grin so wide that it was hard to ignore. Arya would've asked what was going on but had already decided to start talking less.
"Spill it already, you're clearly excited about something," whispered Streya, breaking the silence.
"I finally mastered the spell that Argen taught me," replied Armin, trying his best to keep the excitement out of his voice but doing a shoddy job at it.
"It's only been a few days though," exclaimed Streya in surprise.
"Is that impressive?" asked Arya.
"Yeah, mom said that it took her a whole month to master her first spell," replied Streya, still looking at Armin with eyes full of pride.
"Well done brother," murmured Gray, a sour look on his face.
He was clearly still bothered by his father leaving.
"So when are you going to learn your next spell?" asked Streya.
It was clear to see that Streya was fascinated by magic. Although her eyes were beaming with excitement, underneath all that hid a deep sadness.
She felt sort of crippled whenever Armin would talk about magic, but as an older sister, she couldn't show it. What kind of sister would she be if she dumped her problems on her younger brother.
"Argen said I could come as long as I mastered the first spell. So I was planning on heading there tomorrow," he replied, taking a bite out of his stale bread.
"Armin, I'm sorry that we can't afford to take you to the magical academy. I hope you aren't to-" Lillian's voice trailed off before she could finish her sentence.
"Mom, I'm sure Armin understands. These are just our circumstances, but pretty soon they'll change," said Gray, breaking the silence.
{That look. Sometimes I wonder how a person like him can make it,} thought Arya as he looked at the worried expression that Gray had on his face.
At the same time, Armin seemed to be going through a lot of emotions. It was clear that he sort of resented the life that they had to live, but he knew he had to soldier through it.
Everyone was relying on him, so there was a lot of pressure to succeed. That's why he pushed himself when it came to magic.
Normally, someone his age wouldn't be learning how to cast spells yet. But with his talent, he decided to get a head start, so that maybe by the slim chance he gets into the magical academy, he wouldn't be left behind by those nobles.
"Can I come along?" asked Arya finally.
"I don't have a problem with it," replied Armin hesitantly, looking to his mother for confirmation.
"You're not taking your brother out to visit that strange man. I understand that you need him to teach you magic, but I don't trust him around Arya," Lillian retorted, a sort of finality in her voice.
"Please mother, I merely want to ask him a few questions. If I can understand the workings of runes, perhaps I'll have an easier time with the visualization stage of magic casting."
To that, everyone on the table froze in shock.
Arya's sentences were becoming more and more complex, it was a rather odd sight to see a baby keep up such conversation.
"Did I say something wrong?" asked Arya, his face obscuring into what everyone else could only assume was curiosity.
"Mom really was right. Arya might actually be a genius," teased Streya as she took a bite out of her bread.
"So what, he can piece together a few sentences," muttered Gray under his breath, his brows knit in anger.
{I messed up again,} thought Arya, biting his tongue.
{Perhaps if he visits Argen, then maybe his obsession with magic will stop. Maybe Argen can break the news to him,} she thought to herself, looking at Arya with pitying eyes.
"Okay, you may go, but I'll tag along with you. We'll go after I've finished cleaning around the house tomorrow,"
"What kind of favoritism is this," muttered Gray, before standing up from his seat and walking to his room.
"Don't worry about him, he's just upset that dad's gone," smiled Streya.
{Yeah right. One of these days, that menace is going to try and kill me,} thought Arya, however, he kept that to himself.