Perseur was surprised by the way the boy greeted him. As the First Prince he had a lot of people trying to butter him up, but he never thought Ciaran would be one of them.
"What did you think just now? Whatever it was tell me right now! I know that look Perseur, he looks like that when he smells fresh blood." Diana said, worried for her big brother.
The man was stronger, and more experienced than Ciaran, but as she understood it there would be no violence between the four of them. And if it came down to mind games and deception, the poor royal was going to be toyed with.
"Relax, I just liked the boundaries he set, that's all," Ciaran said, as he showed her what he meant. He thought it would be funny to surprise her, but she showed him a reason not to.
Diana blushed and looked angrily at her brother.
"Don't look at me like that young lady. I am only strict for your protection. Speaking of, when he becomes sixteen I am perfectly fine if you use-
"STOP!" Diana had had enough. For one, her brother was not joking and was honestly giving her guidelines, for another Ciaran's eyes were shining.
After the girl protested and told them that was going too far, the two royals looked at each other.
"Diana, you do know that most people lose their innocence at around eighteen right? Some are just early bloomers. If anything you should be protesting about it being too long of a wait." Veronica said.
Ciaran was not firmly
on board with whatever they were going to be doing. He got two allies who would be working on Diana's reluctance.
"Before any of that, I would like to test the power of my sister's man. Home here brat, show me what you got." Veronica said.
Honestly, she just wanted to vent a bit of her frustrations, and Ciaran was a great punching bag.
Diana was about to protest, but Ciaran agreed. He instantly summoned all of the elements that would listen to him and got into position.
The royals were surprised at how many elements he could use, but they thought he was only showing off. It was widely regarded as a fact that mages focusing on one element were stronger than those who used multiple.
Sure the multi-element mage would have more versatility, but in a fight, they would lose to the pure mastery of a specialist.
"Get ready to lose b-
Veronica couldn't even finish her words as the world itself was out to kill her. What Ciaran did was beyond what she thought possible. He didn't use a single spell. He just gave the elements a single command.
"Get her!"
It was a very short command, but it was spoken in runic, and not just the Storm version of it. It was spoken in pure runic, a language only the Magi used.
The moment he said his command out loud every element under his command was out for her blood. Without a single spell cast, he put the fear of nature in her, and she had to go all out.
Sure, she was a Rank Seven, but when every molecule around you wanted her dead, she had little to no choice. She made a sphere of Sunlight around her body and charged at the boy.
"Let's see if breaking your teeth would stop this madness." She said, the anger in her voice apparent.
She wasn't a prideful person, but losing to an eleven-year-old, when she was technically defending her sister's honor was out of the question.
She got to him, but before she could hit him she was pressed down by a massive force. At first, she thought the dryads were intervening, but then she saw it, the boy was pressing her down with his Storm, and strangely enough, it was actually working.
She could not advance anymore, so she decided to stop playing nice, downed her armor, and drew her weapons.
"Let's see you handle me now brat." She said, but then she ran away.
She couldn't explain it, but she felt like she was jumping in the maws of one of the hungry beasts of the Invasion. She only saw a boy that looked too old for his age looking at her, but if this was a real fight, she would have run away by now.
"You are right, I can't handle you. I give up, it's your win." Ciaran said, and the world calmed down.
Before the two royals could ask, Ciaran was already next to Diana again.
"See, I told you I knew what I was doing." He said.
"I gave you options Rony, it's in your hands now." She said. Surprisingly, mostly for Diana, he backed off instantly.
'This might be a little too effective.' She thought.
Whether it was the glint in her eyes, the way she said that, or the 'hunger' they felt when she licked her lips, the royals now were fully aware they had it backward.
Logically, they had to tell the older party to back off, but that was their little sister, and they were extremely biased.
Now however, they could feel that both had a desire for the other, but Ciaran was completely honest about his, and had it under control, while the girl was sticking to morals that weren't hers and was slowly losing grip on her self-control.
"What was that kid, I have never seen magic like that," Veronica asked, more than a little eager to change the subject.
Ciaran gestured that they should sit down in the gazebo before they talked, and then started explaining.
"You see, I was never thought magic properly, or to be more specific, I was never thought your flawed way to use your elements properly." He said, as he waved his hand and a speck of all of his elements came to him.
"I don't have control over these. I just speak their language and tell them where to go, and who to hurt. Any practitioner, be they a mage or a Warrior should be able to do this, but you can't because you ignore the simple fact that everything around us has sentience. " He said, as he conjured two tiny sparks of both Sunlight and Moonlight.
The three could feel that unlike them, the boy had no power over the elements, and there was none of his mana or his will embedded in them. They were just there, answering his call, almost playing in his hand.
"As for my own element, that is a far more complicated matter. You see, I recently found none of us have elements, not really. We are part of nature, just like everything else, so we don't use it, or create our own version of it, we ARE our elements, if that makes sense. Diana says she doesn't get it." He said, getting a smack on the back of his head.
The First Prince was amused by his explanation, as it sounded like the rumblings of a kid caught up in his own success.
"How do I talk to my Sunlight… to ah, to myself?" Veronica asked. She cast away her pride. She saw what the boy was when they clashed, and what she saw could in fact be called a force of nature.
Ciaran shrugged, he had no idea how someone would go out of their way to learn his method. Sure he did it, and he thought Diana, but that was because they were already willing to talk to sentient mana, and didn't find it weird at all.
"I don't know. We will figure out how to teach you on the mission. Or you can give me a Sunlight user and I can be of better help." He said and confused them.
To clarify what he meant, he showed them images of how his Storm had eaten souls right out of the bodies of his victims.
Like most people, the two felt their hair stand on end. But unlike most, they also felt the screams of the fallen, and how they just made the boy hungrier.
When they looked at Diana, to their absolute horror, they saw only love and affection in her eyes, as if she found his actions not a grotesque display of monstrosity, but a beautiful act of poetry.
"Don't give me that look guys, I am just a bit of a foodie, that's all. I never ate someone that didn't deserve it. Besides, what did you think my Name meant?" He asked and they took a good long look at him.
If before Veronica could feel the power hidden in his body, now she could put a name on it, The Soul Eater. It was a pretentious Name, but then again, most were, but it accurately described its owner.
Perseur Hemperyngs on the other hand, only saw one thing, a monster that was willing to rip apart anything that stood in his way, and subsequently in Diana's.
'I hope they disobey me, and Diana puts a permanent leash on him.' He thought, already considering the possibilities.