"Enix!" A giddy voice exclaimed and Fero, turned Phoenix, and nicknamed Enix, was snuggled into his mother's grasp.
"My precious Enix, how are you feeling today?"
Enix made a small cry, 'Whew! Man being able to speak, despite only odd and broken cries, is so wonderful.'
Around three months were about to pass, and gradually, the light everywhere around him had started to dim. He had occasionally noticed a green hue mingle into his whiteness and had realised, after some time, that it was magic being cast on to him.
Yes, this world had magic quite literally!
Moreover, he also found out he was a noble! The son of a duke— his father was the King's cousin.
Moreover, the most important discovery was that whenever his mother used to carry him in his embrace... His sister started bawling.
"Uwahh!"
"Haha! I know you are here too, Fria, Mama hasn't forgotten you."
His mother, Mugam, carried her too in her embrace and he could feel a small leg lightly kicking into him.
But Enix was in other thoughts, 'I think today's the day... I can finally open my eyes today!'
Indeed, despite him not liking it, the light that used to enshroud him had started to diminish and currently, there was only a trickle of light peeking at him.
He had a feeling that once this timid peek, blinking in and out, passed away too... he would finally be able to open his eyes and gaze at this wonderful world.
"Uwahhh!!!" Enix grumbled from his sister's cries as Mugam placed her down while still holding him close.
In a bid to ignore the noise, Enix remembered another thing, 'I nearly forgot, Interface!'
[Name: Phoenix Juggu
State: Alive(8 months and 30 days; Premature)
Stats: Strength–0.1; Speed–0.1; Defense–0.1; Magic–278; Intelligence–14
Traits: Rebirth Evolve, Peek o Magic
Skills: None]
'Yay! My magic jumped to 278 from 277!'
Another two of Enix's discoveries.
First, the Interface, he happened to hear upon it by chance during a conversation between his mother and a doctor or the sort who used to do regular magic check-ups on him.
Second, his magic stat! In simple terms, magic stat was used to do magic and limited how much one could perform.
And for some absurd reason, his kept increasing almost everyday since when he started opening his interface. Not forgetting that it started from a huge value too.
Also, he had tried almost everything he could and try to fork out an explanation or description of his two special abilities, one that he had obtained from who knows where, but to no avail.
A crisp pair of boots resounded in the room, as, dishing out a chilly aura, a man strode in.
'Father!' Enix whimpered, trembling as he felt the coldness prick at him. But quickly, seeing him quiver, his mother hugged him tighter and his father feigned a cough and tried to pull back his overbearing prescene.
With a guffaw, Juggu rubbed his rugged hand on Enix's smooth head before proceeding to play with Fria and hushed her cries into silly, incoherent groans.
Mugam stopped swinging Enix around in her arms and spoke up, unintentionally making him realise the depth of her breath from her bloating belly, "Juggu... You haven't answered my yesterday's question yet."
Enix froze, 'Here they start again...'
"What question?" Juggu's voice quavered in confusion.
"I asked you to exempt Enix and Fria from the right to compete for the throne." Mugam spoke in an undeterred and overbearing tone, trying to succumb him.
"Oh!" Juggu's voice turned eerily cold, "Did I not tell you to never mention that again, Mugam?" His tone was the sort one would direct at someone who cuckold's one's wife.
Mugam's body jolted, "So you are not going to do as I say?"
"Never!"
"Listen, Juggu. You know how delicate Enix is... and Fria is a girl... You need to know that securing their survival is the best thing for them... stop thinking about yourself for once."
"Shut up! Mind I remind you how tedious it was? Eliminating the crown prince? I created the opportunity so desperately... so that my children could be the ones to inherit the throne. And now you are telling me to ruin their future? To let my cousins reap the reward of my labour? NEVER!"
His voice made the walls shudder.
Mugam choked and flumped onto the sofa, shocking Enix momentarily, "You are going to ruin their lives... Juggu. But of course... how well you celebrated their birth... by murdering the crown prince! Your hideous plans didn't even pause when the news of these two was delivered to you... and you say you do all you do for them? Bullshit!"
Her breaking voice melted Enix's heart.
From what he had come to understand, his father had a terrible obsession with the throne... and he had plans to forge Enix and Fria into the perfect vessels for it.
Going as far as to murder the crown prince was one of his many schemes, which happened to be the day his mother was giving birth to him and Fria.
"And as for what you said," Juggu started, in a cold and aloof tone, "That Enix is delicate and Fria is a girl... I have made arrangements for that too."
"What?" Mugam's body shook, Enix heared her continue in a whisper, "What evil have you concocted now?"
"Since Enix will be unsuitable to take the front stage. And Fria's gender will limit her... We will just have to do some shuffling."
"Shuffling?" Mugam repeated with a scowl.
"Indeed, we can just have Fria be shown around as a boy." Juggu nodded as if it was no big deal.
"You are mad... Th-That just can't be. Its about to be three months and word has spread of a pair of a boy and girl. How can the girl just vanish and be replaced by a boy?" Mugam growled, trying to reason with a rock.
"Humph! Enix, as you say, is rather delicate. He should have no issue living that way either."
"What do you..." Mugam gasped, "You not only intend to turn Fria into a boy... but Enix into a girl!?"
"Hahaha! The roles shall suite them well."
"Absurd! Absurd!! I shan't have any of your nonsense, Juggu. These are my children, my precious children. You will not lay a finger on my children." Mugam snarled, a seething aura gushed out of her and assaulted Juggu.
As the two bickered, Enix was in another thought altogether.
'Such beautiful red hair... and grey eyes! She has a slightly tanned skin color, and an oval face adorned with supple lips and a slender nose... So this is Mugam... my mother?' Enix's eyelids fluttered, the harsh light—much different than the one he was accustomed too, or maybe because his last fee weeks had been spent in quite some darkness— started to subside and his scintillating eyes sized up his mother's flushed face.
'So this is... the word I am in?' His eyes shuffled about, curiously sizing the grey walls adorned by intricate golden-brown cornice.
Soft light drizzled out from the four odd shaped crystals embossed in the center of the ceiling and illuminated the place.
Juggu, seeing his hectic wife quieten down suddenly and not reply for quite some time, paused and sneaked a glance.
Seeing her agape face, frozen as she stared at Enix, brimmed with tears and a blinding luster coated her cheeks. Seeing her shivering lips, his breath paused.
With quick short steps he moved over and stared down at Enix's face.
His cold heart fluttered with an odd sensation, "Such beautiful... unpolished crystal blue eyes."