Arlo's eyelids snapped open, and he was immediately greeted by a mighty wave of sensations hitting him all at once. His body jerked, overwhelmed by the biting pain the wave conjured, and he instinctively bit his lip, stifling the urge to voice his inner turmoil. Everywhere—and everything— hurt.
It took a full minute before the pain died out, and once it did, a plethora of hazy memories invaded his mind, reminding him of just how he'd gotten into this state. Its cause had been the relatively uncommon case of a Spark Ignition ritual going wrong. Right.
Arlo fought the urge to curse in irritation. Edward lied to him. It didn't go all right at all. It definitely was not a 'ceremony'. Unless he counted blacking out as something to be celebrated.
He propped himself up on the bed he was resting, strenuously fighting a sudden weakness that threatened to force him back down, and leaned on its headboard, his eyes making a steady sweep of the surroundings.
He took it all in at once, and it took several moments to push through his mind fog and recognize the clock opposite his bed. He was, it seemed, currently in his room. And the clock's hands indicating that it was a little over two o'clock explained the sunbeams streaming through the window.
Arlo felt a sudden dizziness come along. How long had he been unconscious? Surely it hadn't been nearly as long as it felt in that weird dream.
"That would be preposterous." he whispered to himself, "unless heaven is supposed to look like home."
"Brother?"
It was then he noticed the little mass of chestnut hair rising out of the corner of his eye. His eyes darted sideways, and he blinked at the little girl to whom it belonged to. She blinked back, using a hand to wipe the dried saliva at the corner of her lips. She'd been asleep by his side, apparently.
"Lot—"
"Brother!"
Arlo suddenly found himself immobilized—both physically and emotionally— by sisterly love. The girl's arms seemed to have suddenly gained the strength of a bear, and the warmth her skin radiated seeped into Arlo's chest, effortlessly thawing it.
It seemed, the young boy realized, that the little lass missed him.
His hand naturally gravitated towards her head, gently patting and combing through her chestnut locks. He pretended not to notice the unusually pale complexion of his skin.
"Miss me?" his whisper fell on Loretta's ears.
"No…" Her words trailed off as her head immediately sprung back from his chest, and she looked away "...maybe just a little."
"Just a little?"
"Just a little!" she lightly smacked his chest, pursing her lips. "I—I was just sad I wouldn't have anyone to play dolls with anymore."
"Right…" Arlo laughed, trying not to show he'd caught her obvious lie. It was no secret that Lottie liked to play dolls alone and by her script. Friendliness and creativity be damned. He wondered if any of her playmates even liked her.
Loretta didn't seem convinced by his veneer. She creased her brows. "You don't believe me, do you?"
"Course not." Arlo admitted, cocking a brow, "You'd still have someone to play dolls with. What do you think your playmates are for?"
Loretta sat herself on the bed, crossing her arms and puffing her cheeks, then looked away. "They all act like little kids. They're no fun."
"Because you're no fun." Arlo pointed out, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, then shook his head. This was not important right now. He'd lecture his sister on her social skills later. Now, he needed to know how long he'd been unconscious and what had happened since his Ignition ritual.
"Anyways we can talk about that another time. How long have I been unconscious?" He looked at her intently, and watched her scowl fade, only to be replaced by a contemplative look.
Loretta considered his words, looking heavenwards and absentmindedly twirling a lock of hair. She held out her hand, individually counting finger after finger, then looked back at him, her eyes visibly narrowing. "I think…three weeks?"
Arlo blinked at her. "Three weeks?! Are you sure?"
"I think so. It's definitely not less than two."
'Well shit.' Arlo felt a slight panic come along. Three weeks was a long time to be in a coma. Especially for an Aldritch scion. He tried not to imagine the pile of homework Edward had left him. More importantly, his parents' hair must've turned gray from worry. Just what had happened to him?
"What happened during that period? Did father send for Dr. Sawyer?" he drew in a long breath, running a hand through his hair. Dr. Sawyer was the family's arcane physician. He'd monitored him when he was an infant and treated his mother's recent sickness.
"No he didn't." Loretta shook her head, "Not this time. He called a new medicine man. He looked scarier than Mr. Sawyer."
Arlo swiftly reclined to his thoughts. A new doctor? What for? Did father think that what happened to him was not something Dr. Sawyer could deal with? To his knowledge, Dr. Sawyer was one of the best arcane physicians in the Empire. Maybe there was another reason behind it.
"Ah!" Loretta suddenly added, giving the impression that she remembered something extremely important, "When I asked who he was, mother said he was a special medicine man all the way from Maria, her home nation."
'So, an overseas doctor.' Arlo chewed on that bit of information. If his father had to summon a 'special' doctor all the way from the Marian Republic, it was likely what had happened to him couldn't be dealt with by any Pruvian arcane physician, not just Dr.Sawyer. Perhaps some rare condition. That didn't bode well.
"Do you remember his name?" Arlo stuffed his welling anxiety underneath a mental carpet. A name could give him a clue on what the condition might be.
"No. I never asked." Loretta shook her head.
"Right." Arlo pursed his lips. "Where's father? I'll ask him."
"Father has left the manor to attend to his duties for the day." Loretta responded. " He kissed me goodbye before I came to sleep here."
"What about mother?"
"Mother went with him. Granna did too. Besides the manor's staff, it's just us home."
'Odd.' Arlo chewed the inside of his cheek. Mother rarely ever left the manor, and Granna tagging along with them only added to the peculiarity. He wondered what the occasion was.
"All right. Anything else happen besides the new doctor showing up?"
Loretta seemed to contemplate before responding, "Not really. Father had your room off limits to everyone but himself, mother, and Granna until about two days ago. The elders also left not long after you fell unconscious."
Arlo hummed, making a mental note of everything she said. It seemed the key to unlocking the secret of whatever happened to him lay with his father and only by asking him would he get some real answers. Unless…
"Say, Lottie…" his eyes suddenly met Loretta's. "I don't suppose you know what happened to me do you? Did you hear mother or father discussing anything about it?"
Loretta blinked at him, and Arlo could see the oblivion hidden behind her pupils. "I don't, sorry." the girl said, "I tried to ask, but mother and father wouldn't tell me. They said not to worry about it, and that you'd wake up soon."
'Well, it was worth asking'
Her hushed tone gave Arlo the impression that she felt guilty for not knowing.
"But it doesn't matter." Loretta lunged towards Arlo again, burying her head into his chest. "You're finally awake now. I'm glad you are."
"That's alright, Lottie. I'm glad I am too." Arlo caught Loretta within his arms, feeling warm again, and the two remained in companionable silence, punctuated only by the sounds of the constant ticking of the clock's hands and the occasional bird chirp.
Just when Loretta seemed to be getting sleepy again, Arlo spoke up, "Lottie can you excuse me for a bit? I've got to wash myself up. We can hang out once I'm done. Promise."
Loretta looked at him, nodding, then got up and excused herself from his room, gently closing the door behind her. Arlo collapsed back on his bed the moment he heard it click shut.
His mind immediately sought his memories, frantically searching through it to recall the outcome of something important: his Spark Ignition ritual. Its results would play a great role in determining his place along the Aldritch and societal social ladder.
Arcane practitioners commanded a prestige unmatched in all of the First Domain's society. They were powerful, and people feared their power. No one wanted to be in their bad books. Doing so was no different from gambling with your life. And no sane individual would gamble with something that precious.
Arlo knew that being a one, even the weakest one possible, would already place him in the upper rungs of society's social ladder. There'd be no lack of bootlickers no matter where he went, and doing things would become significantly easier. It was a great tool for enforcing one's will.
It didn't take long for him to dig up the memory of interest, and once he did he frowned, noticing it was all hazy. All he could remember was sensing the size of something before getting drenched in pain and blacking out.
His lips pressed together. That was annoying. He wanted to see the memory vividly enough to make out the kind of Spark he was stuck with. It seemed—
'Wait', he suddenly realized something. 'Why can't I just manifest the Spark myself to see it? That's possible now that it's ignited, right?' He paused, momentarily considering the plausibility of the thought, before putting a lid on it and deciding to just try. There was no harm in trying, anyways.
Arlo closed his eyes, calming his breathing and tried to imagine his Spark. He remembered it looked like a miniature-sun, so he tried to imagine that. A sun the size of his palm. He could already picture it floating right in front of him.
'Show yourself. Appear. Come forth!' A pseudo-mantra, he decided, would help with the process. He gathered all the concentration he could muster and imagined a miniature sun projecting itself from his body, and appearing within his vision.
At first he waited, feeling for any sudden change, but nothing happened. Everything seemed no different from how it usually was. The same sounds, same smells, same room temperature, same darkness elicited by his shut eyelids.
But just when he was about to begrudgingly call it quits, he felt it. The sudden wind rush, spike in temperature around him, and gradual illumination of his dark world, as if something bright and hot had been placed right in front of eyes.
Stifling a sudden surge of wonder, he slowly opened them, his pupils speedily darting to the golden-orange orb floating less than a foot away. It was there. His Spark.
Arlo wasted no time in screening it, noting every detail about its appearance. The greenish-red fissures along its surface, the small white sphere at its center, the numerous little star-like motes of light between the white sphere and the Spark's surface, and the sparkling red string of rune-like symbols wrapping around the Spark's bottom.
He noted them all, mentally withdrawing from his knowledge bank to deduce what they were. He remembered reading about the parts of a Spark from the very first magical book he'd chanced upon— Uncovering the Laws of Nature— by Alhahzared S. Aldritch.
Arlo reached for his bedside drawer, rummaging through its contents for a few seconds, before pulling out a dark brown diary and fountain pen that looked like it had been nicked from his Father's study.
He opened it, flipped through its numerous entries, and stopped at a blank page, where he drew a big circle and a much smaller circle within it, dotting the space between the two circles with black ink. He made the dots numerous.
To caption the entire drawing, he wrote the phrase THE SPARK beneath it.
What followed the caption was the labeling of everything else. He drew an arrow pointing at the big circle, identifying it as the Spark's surface, then did the same for the other drawing segments. The smaller circle was tagged CORE, and the dots were named SPECKS.
The Spark was composed of two main parts: its inner core and the 'Specks' between it and the Spark's surface. The Specks were probably the little star-like motes of light he observed, while the inner core was the white sphere.
Arlo recalled that Specks were the specific thing that allowed practitioners interact with aetheric energy. They were their personal aether magnets, responsible for drawing the energy into their Spark Expanses to use as they see fit.
He also recalled that the core was what produced the Specks. Without an active core, a practitioner would have no Specks within their Spark, and would therefore be unable to perform magic or interact with aether.
Apparently, the overwhelming majority of humans possessed inactive— 'dormant'— cores that were impossible to ignite, another reason why practitioners were so prestigious. They only made up a tiny fraction of the human population.
What the greenish-red fissures and the weird red string of rune-like symbols were remained a mystery, and Arlo tossed around a multitude of speculations on what they might be within his mind, each one of them sounding more asinine than the last.
Alhahzared's book had made no description of anything like them, and he couldn't remember if any of the other books he'd read had either. It made his head itch.
Arlo looked at his Spark manifestation again, brows creased. If anything, he was sure the greenish-red fissures were nothing good. Their appearance coincided with when he felt all that pain and fell unconscious.
And added to the fact that his father's Spark had been bereft of any fissures, the probability of them being some sort of anomaly was definitely not zero.
The red rune-like symbols, on the other hand, he was completely unsure of. On closer inspection, he realized the symbols were dynamic. They were changing, rearranging themselves every few seconds, and scintillating with a dazzling light. It caused him to wonder just what they were.
There was also the Spark's color. Unlike his father's, it was glowing golden-orange, and he still didn't know what attunement that represented. Hopefully, something as useful and powerful as Illusion.
And most importantly, how talented was he? What did a white-cored Spark mean? Was it any good? Good enough to impress? He had no clue.
He knew, though, that a purple-cored Spark was impressive. His father had one, and he'd heard enough stories from Edward during his history lessons to know that the man was extremely powerful. He was the Empire's latest war hero, a retired general who commanded the only battles Pruvia were victorious in during the Great War.
Edward had mentioned that he'd been hailed as a magical prodigy in his youth, so if his white core was even just a step down from a purple core, then his future did not seem so bleak.
Arlo exhaled sharply, dispersing his Spark manifestation by imagining it disappear. It seemed he had a lot of questions to ask his father. He'd shed light on all of these mysteries.
He closed his diary, then stashed it back in his drawer, blowing a stray lock of hair obscuring his vision as he did so. He finally paid attention to his body for the first time since waking up.
His skin was deathly pale and papery, worlds apart from the bisque light skin of a healthy Pruvian, and his limbs were visibly thinner than how he remembered. His entire body felt grimey, like he'd been covered in dried sweat for days. Every breath he took felt labored, and each movement was a painful reminder of his weakened state.
Arlo clicked his tongue in annoyance. Really, what the piss had happened to him? And, what caused it ? It was practically the first time he'd fallen ill in this life, and it had come at arguably the worst time. Just when he was about to start learning magic.
He flung back his sheets, intending to get off his bed and clean himself up, when he heard sudden rapping sounds in the direction of his door. He cocked a brow, jerking his head in its direction, and called out.
"Yes, who is it?"
"Brother, it's me."
A frown crossed Arlo's face. "Lottie you've got to be more patient. It's barely been fifteen minutes since I—"
"I know, I know. I'm sorry!" Loretta cut him off, her tone sounding extra- apologetic, "I just wanted to tell you that Father and Mother have just returned. Their carriage is right outside."