By Libra's Scales

Words of a wise Wizard, Memories of a dumb man

A tree tapped quietly at Damien's window. Tap tap tap.

He rolled over, dragging his blanket over his head. Tap tap tap.

The house echoed his groan as the wind howled outside. Tap. tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

He grunted, ripping his pillow from under him and hurled it at the window. This seemed to stop the wind, almost by coincidence. Damien sighed before laying his head down, pillow-less.

He muttered unintelligible curses as he grabbed his other pillow. He had it tucked between his arm and elbow, a habit he'd substituted over a teddy bear in second grade.

"You're too old to be laying in bed with toys, Damien," his father had scolded. His hardened face was turned away from him, an eight year old Damien could feel his fathers scowl as if he was looking into his dads face.

"But, papa..." he started to protest loudly, but let his voice trail off. Mr Modeus was not one to hear excuses. And when it came to his children, he was a tad too hard on them. "I can't sleep without Ursa."

Mr Modeus was quiet for a moment as he taped the box labeled, "Dames's stuff."

"Damien?" he'd said at last.

"Yes, Papa.'' Damien replied meekly.

Mr Modeus faced his son, then knelt so he was eye to eye with him. "Pretty soon you'll be able to cast magic and spells just like me and your momma. Do you know what that means?"

The child shook his head.

"It means," he placed a caring hand on Damien's shoulders, his large hand wrapping around his son's shoulder blade and his thumb eclipsing his collar bone. "It means you'll be protecting people from monsters and big scary things you see on TV."

Damien had grown up knowing all about the monsters his dad was talking about. When he was in first grade, Damien's class had a "Mega Super Long Recess," as his teacher had called it, with a big smile stretched out beneath bloodshot eyes and smeared eyeliner. Little did he know at the time that a basilisk had crawled through the plumbing of the girls restroom and killed a classroom of twenty and three faculty.

"Like that lizard monster that turned Ms Bachman's class to stone?"

The corner of his dad's lips twitched. Mr Modeus was on the other side of town when he got a call from Damien's elementary school. Unfortunately he didn't answer because he was busy.

A few of his buddies in the Spirit Hunter's corps told him about what happened afterwards. That was a grim school year. And, yet his kids, and all of the kids, knew nothing about what happened to Class 2A, since they were unwoven afterwards. He smiled a little, nodding in agreement. "And sometimes they won't just be monsters. Last week your daddy had to... take care of a witch who wanted to-"

"Did you beat her up, Papa? With, like, a big fireball, that went BOOM!" the child made an explosion with his hands, accompanied by the sounds of said explosion with his mouth. Damien's eyes were filled with so much wonder, so much joy that Mr Modeus remembered he was talking to his eight year old son and not someone back at the department.

"The Menders and I, we..." Mr Modeus had to bite his tongue before saying what really happened. "We did what we were trained to do to make sure everyone stays safe."

"You didn't kill her, did you?" Damien's innocent face could be damned to the truth of what the Anachronistic Mending Force did.

In truth, they unwove her, which is a nicer way to say they completely erased her existence. Only the memory of what happened to her remained amongst the Menders who cast the unweave spell.

"Damien," Mr Modeus fumbled to find the right words, the appropriate words to tell his son. "Damien, sometimes us magi have to do things to protect the people around us. Sometimes those things are hard to do. And we'll feel bad about having to make those decisions afterwards. "

"Do you feel bad about it, Papa?" Damien asked. "About killing that lady?"

Mr Modeus winced. "Damien, one day you'll be able to cast spells just like me. Spells that keep me and your momma, and your sister safe. You want to keep everyone safe, right?"

A wide grin spread across Damien's face. "Yeah. I want to be big and strong like you so I can keep momma  safe." he flexed his undeveloped biceps, admiring them for a moment. He kissed one, and then the other with a large smooching sound for each.

"Look at those big muscles." His father exclaimed, reeling back in faux surprise. "You can probably beat me up with them!!"

"Raauggghhhh!!" lunging forward, he wrestled with his dad's torso a moment. Damien seemed surprised to see his father fall to the floor, yelling in "pain" as he was "beat up." Damien giggled, but he knew he could never beat his father up.

"Now Damien," Mr Modeus said, sitting up, sitting cross legged in front of his son, who mirrored his dad. "Now that you're strong, you can't have toys like Ursa anymore."

"Awww!!" Damien whined. "But papa-!"

"Damien!" Mr Modeus snapped.the room was quiet for a moment. His son lowered his head, fiddling with the leg on his pajama bottoms. "Look at me, Damien," his dad commanded, not easing up at all. His son looked up, his eyes wet with tears. Instead of berating him for crying, Mr Modeus paid no attention to it. "When you get older, you won't be able to rely on people, like me or your mom, or your little toys neither. Instead, people will look up to you," Mr Modeus gritted his teeth as he stood up' the pain in his knees was getting worse by the day it seemed. His son stood up, his eyes drifting to the floor as he realized where this conversation was going. "So you need to be able to sleep without that damn teddy bear, you hear me?"

"Yes, papa," he muttered.

"I can't hear you, boy. Speak up!"

Damien looked up at his dad, a blazing defiance burning from his reddened eyes. "Yes. Papa."

"Good." Mr Modeus turned to a box full of Damien's childhood toys, lifted it and made his way to the door. He paused, almost apologizing. Instead he said, " and fix your face." Leaving Damien alone in his room.

A quiet green specter leaned quietly against the door frame. The onlooker tossed and turned as he tried to find a comfortable position in bed.

Damien, a much older Damien who was beginning to understand his dad's words, tossed and turned in his bed. He opened his eyes, realizing he had accidentally slipped back to his memory from eleven years ago. When he opened his eyes, the green mana around him faded into nothingness.

The pillow he had substituted was too flat. Lazily, he raised his hands, rings of green energy flickering around his wrists. Lines of white magical energy, or mana, beamed and shot across the circle, forming a pair of hexagons around his wrist. The same sigil of a hexagon in a green circle formed under the pillow he had thrown. In a quiet whomp his pillow sprung back across his room, reversing the trajectory it made when it was thrown. He slapped his flatter pillow away and replaced it with the well fluffled one.

"'Can't be relied on if I can't sleep, can I, Papa?" he muttered to no one in his empty dorm room. Outside the dorm room, and unbeknownst to Damien at the time, the tree had been frozen in time. Even the wind seemed to disappear.

However, an older green specter shook his head in disappointment. It spoke, its words were in reverse. "?Neetenin ta erutammi siht llits I saW ! Anam fo sroloc gnikcuf eht yB" (By the fucking colors of mana! Was I still this immature at nineteen!)