Boiling Isles: The Next Generation - Act I.

Chapter XLV. - The First and Only Friend

Five-year-old Charna Armaros crouched on the carpet of her room. Magical books and worn yellowed notebooks lay scattered around her, as if a small library had exploded in the middle of the room. The walls of the room were decorated with faintly pulsing magic symbols. Dozens of books lined the high shelves, grouped by subject, from demonology to alchemy to curse magic. The sunlight filtering through the window softly illuminated Charna's red skin and the shadow of her horns, which cast a semicircle around her on the carpet.

The demon girl's lemon-yellow eyes darted across the pages of the book with lightning speed, and she was engrossed in a particularly complex spell when a soft knock broke the silence.

"Come in," Charna said, not even looking up from her book.

The door creaked open. After a few seconds of silence, there was a soft cough. Charna looked up. Her parents were standing in the doorway. Maiwenn, her mother, was watching her with a serious face. Next to her, Rajani, her father, was looking at her with an apologetic look. Charna's internal alarm immediately went off: her parents were probably trying to force something on her that would be upsetting to her.

"My little girl." Maiwenn began precisely. "Starting today, we will have guests for a few weeks. The Noceda couple will visit us every day, and their little girl, Azura Lucia, will be with them."

Charna pursed her lips and rolled her eyes dramatically. It was clear that she did not like this.

"We know that you do not like such situations, but this is exceptionally important now" Maiwenn continued patiently. "Azura's mothers are asking for our help with a very important matter of covens and they cannot leave their daughter home alone, as she is too young to be left there."

"Actually, Azura is exactly the same age as you." Rajani added with a smile.

Charna's eyes immediately turned towards the ceiling, then a deep, dramatic sigh burst from her.

"And what am I supposed to do with this Azura?" she asked irritably. "People my age usually just scream, run around, try to blow up the pillow with magic, then they moan if they don't succeed, and if they do succeed, they cry. I'm not like that. I want to read. Learn. Not waste my time on something like that..."

Rajani and Maiwenn looked at each other in silence, then Maiwenn spoke in a gentler voice:

"You don't have to worry about either of them, because according to Amity, Azura is an enthusiastic and curious type, but at the same time she has a quieter nature. So she won't be running around screaming if that's what you're worried about. As for the magic..."

Rajani cleared her throat at this moment, and the milky-white-skinned demon bit off the end of her sentence and her gaze flashed at Rajani. The granite-gray-skinned demon man shook his head. Maiwenn raised her eyebrows in question, and Rajani glanced at his wife meaningfully, then gave a barely noticeable nod of her head towards Charna. Charna knew right away what it was about. Her parents always communicated with each other this way when they had to talk to her about something sensitive. In such cases, her father usually took the floor and tried to present things to her in the most digestible way possible. This case was no different.

Rajani moved towards Charna, then sat down next to her daughter on the carpet. Charna glanced suspiciously at her father.

"What's with her magic?" the demon girl asked immediately.

Rajani sighed.

"You know, baby... Azura... She's... human. She doesn't have a magical bile sack, and according to her mother, she can't use glyph magic yet."

Charna's eyebrows shot up and she looked at her father in disbelief. Of course, she knew that a member of the Noceda family, Luz to be exact, was human, but that didn't matter, because she was a famous glyph witch, many considered her the pioneer of the branch of magic, even if she herself always modestly denied it. And her wife, Amity Noceda, was a true genius in the field of abomination magic, in fact, the only one who could be ranked above Amity in this field was perhaps Darius Deamonne.