Dies Et Noctis

End

(End)

"Papa!" A grown-up version of the four-year old Lux now ran into the hall where I now sat, completely satisfied. "Wait, no, Uncle Sol!"

I found myself smiling mildly at the flustered change in addressing, ever amused by the boy, even while Lucida chuckled softly beside me. It had already been years, and still it felt ephemeral. Is this truly the same woman I had fetched from the First Realm, the same woman who told me she loved me?

"Yes, Lux?" I entertained, sensing quickly the boy's eagerness to please. The years have passed, and Lux had slowly learnt to not call me his father –though he still made occasional trip-ups.

Initially, Lucida had been put out to learn that there was a young boy who looked like my son –had almost been suspicious that Eva was my secret lover who birthed my son. Eva herself had been desperate to make her position clear, and had almost been desperate enough to bring her son to go running from the kingdom rather than to bear the brunt of my own lover's suspicion.

But of course, my perfect woman understood the situation as well as the strength of my love to her enough to trust that no one was lying to her –that Lux was truly my nephew, and that Eva was Nox's jilted lover that I had come to adopt into the kingdom of Solus.

"I scored full marks for my tests!" The boy proudly brandished a slip of paper, which I accepted to find was his result slip. The individual elements had been tested, and it seemed as if the young boy had excelled in controlling every one of them –excluding the Light. "Aren't I good?"

"Of course you are." Lucida was the one to answer the boy, for she had leaned in to catch a look at the perfect score that the boy had gotten. "What else do we expect from you, Lux? You have Sol as a mentor and a foster-father. You are a prince, wouldn't it be terrible if you were lousy at everything?"

The tease went down well as the boy scrunched his nose in childish disbelief and crossed his arms across his chest in a pout.

"Of course I will always continue being so good at everything! I'm Prince Lux of this kingdom!" The ten-year old boy declared in pride.

"Are you?" I asked with a rising smile. "You didn't score full marks for your elite element, Lux."

"That's not fair!" Immediately the prideful exterior fell away as the tantrum-playing child came back, stomping his feet. "Uncle Sol, you can't say that, because I don't have my elite element yet."

"Work harder on that, then we'll crown you the best Prince ever in Solus, okay?" The encouragement was all that was needed to make the young boy jump up and down in glee, rolling around on the floor like the child that he was.

"Was it fair to do that?" Lucida leaned in to whisper, watching the boy in amusement. "We don't even know if a wizard can ever be skilled at both Light and Dark."

"Don't worry." I replied with a reassuring smile. "If there is anyone in the Realms to be able to master both elements, it will be Lux. He is the only child born that has part of both Light and Dark inside of him. Darkness from Nox, Light from his mother."

"And no one thought to consult me? You drive a hard bargain for my child, Sol." The intruding voice surprised everyone in the large hall, and alarm raised increasingly as flustered guards ran to get backup. It wasn't surprising at all to find the gathering of black mist had happened in a shadowed corner of the large hall that Nox himself walked out from the shadows into the Light bravely.

"My brother." I greeted, standing without fear. A hand raised to calm the flustered soldiers, I gave brief orders for them to stand back, that no harming of my brother nor any power play should happen in my halls. "How nice of you to visit. You should have given us a warning as well, and I would have dressed Lux in his best clothes to meet his dear father."