I didn't know where to run, how to live, what to do. And now, to be honest, I have no idea, but at least I started to understand myself and the world around me. Besides, as it turned out, half of the lessons in the clan about politics and economics were either half-truths, or ideological pumping, or outright lies.
I had to rediscover the world. I shifted my gaze to the two dragons playing a game of "Goliath and a bunch of Davids". The essence of the game is that Mayumi creates an octopus out of sand, with all but half of its tentacles covered in a thin film of fire.
The job of the "Davids" — small balls of water — is to extinguish all the fire and erode the sand, while the job of the "Goliath" is to spray the balls of water with his tentacles. The elder dragoness, who had mastered all of nature's elements, created an octopus, and Ryuko, who had only mastered air, created water balls, thus training water.
The balloons circled around the "monstrous octopus", attacking it again and again, but it lazily swung its tentacles to splash the water, making the girl gasp in annoyance, and her mother smiled warmly as she looked at her daughter. I, too, enjoyed the educational and training games that dragons had observed and even participated in over the months.
— In all magical worlds, at the time of the birth of civilizations, prophets are born, special prophets endowed with the gift of the world itself. They see and hear the laws of nature, of the world, and of magic, and bring this knowledge to the mediums. This knowledge always spreads quickly throughout the world, and the magicians become aware of these laws in all their details. Furthermore, these laws are fused into unbreakable traditions, obligatory rituals, and the like. Not that there are many of them, but not a few, and I advise you to get yourself a set of Laws. It's important for every magician. — I nodded understandingly and also made a note in my head: "Why didn't anyone tell me about this? " — Now I would like to talk about one of the laws. It's about the protection of children. "Every child gifted with the grace of miracles shall be surrounded by care and protection. Human, beast-shifter, elf or dragon " — it does not matter, every child of magic is UNPRICABLE as long as it is not tainted with SCVERNA.
Every child, adolescent, boy/girl is entitled to a reliable guardianship until the threshold of the third maturity. A trusted guardian is one who feeds, protects, educates, and heals the child, regardless of blood or magic. If the guardian fails to fulfill his or her duties, all rights, debts, and obligations of the child are FULLY WITHDRAWN, WITHOUT AGREEMENT.
The magical child itself may disown its guardian if it has not received proper attention. The child is free to choose another guardian/teacher/new family of his/her choice, accepting his/her seniority, superior wisdom by his/her word.
The guardian, if he/she agrees, must utter the words of the ritual oath of care, confirming his/her obligations and rights towards the child until the period of third and sometimes fourth maturity.
From the moment the oath is confirmed, the guardian gains full care, power, and protection over the child. The child becomes FULLY subordinate to the chosen guardian until the established minimum period of third maturity or maximum period of fourth maturity. Not to contradict the guardian in word or deed in matters of protection, upbringing, education, or otherwise, and to accept care with gratitude.
Blood, ancestral, spiritual, and material legacies are to be protected and preserved until the child under guardianship reaches adulthood, subject to the proper development of the child's strength and knowledge. In special cases, the child is free to take care of himself if he does not harm himself through ignorance and is able to perform at least half of the voiced independently. — The dragon was silent, and so was I.
While the dragons played something loud again, I scrolled through Meiumi-sama's words in a light meditation. By the way, in the second month of living here, the girl showed me a complex set of weaves that make up the structure of the artifact "Virista's Speech" — a truth detector.
And it is so called because in one of the worlds in the pantheon of gods there is the goddess of truth and lies of the same name. According to legend, she has heterochromia, and when the blue eye of her statue in the High Temple begins to glow, the rational person is telling the truth, while the golden one is lying. Again, the artifact consists of two transparent glass spheres, and their glow reveals what the sentient is saying.
Even if something is said wrongly or intentionally understated, it will be recognized as a lie. And it is not necessary to look at it all the time, as the wearer feels the special soft warmth of truth and the icy tingle of a lie. The structure was VERY complicated, so I had to make a glass ball, like a divination ball, and put the structure in it to study and make copies as needed.
The dragon told me the truth, so I sat there for about two hours analyzing words and phrases until I stopped at a couple or three places that were questionable to me. Doubtful because they made some very bad assumptions. It's worth clarifying.
— Mayumi-sama, may I ask you some questions?
— Hm? — The girl turned her head and raised an eyebrow.
— It seems that ANY child magician or child of a magical race should be protected and raised properly. What happens to those who break this law?
— Curses of varying strength, possibly total degeneration of the species. — The dragon answered simply, and I got goosebumps, because magical laws rarely consider a mage alone, more often the whole clan is condemned, so it could be me as well.
— Clan curse?
— Yes, there are. But you can get them for all sorts of reasons, so I repeat: get the Code of Laws.
— I remember. — I nod. — What if a child is in the care of a guardian, and at the same time, no one in particular takes care of it on a regular basis?
— A guardian is a certain reasonable person, or a couple of reasonable people, if they are not defined, there are no such people officially.
— What if the parents are alive but unwilling or unable to take care of the child?
— No guardian. The guardian must be directly and personally involved in the child's life, even a referral from strangers is not considered full care. This often results in parents hiring teachers in the sciences for their offspring, and teaching themselves etiquette, sewing, hunting, horseback riding, or something else seemingly useless. This is often seen by the intelligent as a tradition of the clan or society, but the true meaning is to preserve the rights to full custody of the child.
— I see. What do the words "full custody" mean? Be more specific, if you don't mind.
— That's what it means. — She shrugged her chiseled shoulders. — The guardian is free to make all fateful decisions for the child until the age of seventeen, or twenty-one if it is a human, the age may be different for other races.
— This means that the guardian can decide what the ward will study, where and how he will live... — My throat suddenly felt dry and sweat broke out on my skin.
— That's right. Marriage matters are also traditionally decided at this time, as most parents feel they know best about the child's needs and their duty to their clan.
I couldn't answer in a voice — my throat was tight — so I just nodded gratefully, stood up and walked away. With a painful click, everything fell into place. Neither the beautiful view of the sunset nor the intoxicating aromas of the lush vegetation around the cliff jutting into the sea, on which I liked to sit, moved me. I just sat there, staring blankly into the distance, while memories of all the strange things I didn't understand flashed through my mind.
I felt trouble for myself, felt something closing in on me, not bad, but uncomfortable. It was very unsettling, it gave me no peace. My mother's silence and "crooked" excuses about the reasons for her endless sit-ups at Lisa's. Worse and more painful was the understanding of strange conversations in the evenings, when the training and learning of combat magic was over. I was tired, my training on the island kept me in shape or allowed me to refine some complex technique.
I would come back tired, wanting to shower, eat, and go to bed, but my mother often began to annoy me, giving speeches she tried to draw me into, about the importance of clan, the greatness of generational inheritance, and pride in the deeds of my ancestors. Ideological pumping, of course, as it turned out, is not one of Hoshino Junko's strong points. But it put a lot of pressure on my tired brain, and it was annoying.
I could hardly stop myself from speaking harshly and caustically. Sometimes I wanted to say something like, "The giraffe is big " — he knows best! Well, you're older, you have more experience, so go ahead — rebuild the clan if you want to, and I, if I have time and desire, will think about helping.
So if I had said that or something like that (and there were many variations), Junko-san could have immediately confirmed her oath and taken away my freedom by taking full power into her hands. I don't know if it was her own idea or someone else's, but I highly doubt she would have screwed up her duties later by giving me a chance to free myself. Lucky? Lucky!