A Gentleman's Curse

The Clock Ticks

Seasons passed by in the blink of an eye as the world continued its rotation, bringing them to the year 5'658 at the beginning of the fourteenth month. Damien was nearing six on this planet while looking like a nine-year-old from Earth, aging at a speed that was too slow for his tastes. Knowing Humans aged faster than the other races physically, he'd been hoping he'd look like a young teen or at least catch up to Alexa, but was barely as tall as she had been two years ago.

He'd followed in his father's footsteps, keeping his straight black hair around two inches in length most of the time while praying he could grow a goatee just the same. In his old life, he'd been a big fan of the Robert Downey goatee look, and his father definitely had the genes for it. Damien could only hope he'd have the same genetic blessing.

To his body's credit, his facial structure had begun to mature slightly and he lost most of the pudge off his cheeks. His eyebrows were growing in thick as a prominent feature, framing his eyes which, similar to the girls' eyes, had become the cornerstone of his looks. They maintained the same beautiful swirls they had the day of the ceremony. Still a base color of dark grey, silver and vibrant red wisps trailed back and forth over the top, like a never-ending lava lamp.

He and Alexa had restarted their usual daily routines a few days after they'd gotten back. Damien would wake up and scratch her wings to begin the day, followed by them stretching, running through the forms, eating breakfast, and sparring. Occasionally, something would change as a wrench was thrown into this routine, whether on purpose to allow them to enjoy a day off or by accident, and they'd do something different. Usually though, the days were passed in this methodical manner.

He spent his time practicing the finer details of his lightning magic during the forms, able to manipulate it long and easy enough to make it a feasible switch from air. The increased difficulty of being inside the house and around metal objects only served to add to the training. Over weeks of this, his fine control of the deadly element reached new heights, giving him greater trust in himself wielding it around members of his family.

Truly, a magical world. Electricity never flowed so smooth or obediently in his old world without pathways, yet here all he had to do was exert his will over it and it became a third arm.

When they'd returned, Damien and his mom sat Garrett down and explained a few things to him regarding Damien's history. Credit to Garrett's earlier outburst from their first talk, the man had actually expected something like this to come up again and maintained his stance of Damien being their son. Instead of making a big deal about the past, he began asking questions about Damien's world, eager to hear of its accomplishments. When the conversation eventually branched to technology and science, they both expressed hesitation in trying to recreate any of the inventions into this world. Such information falling into the wrong hands could be the cause for a much more deadly war to break out, rather than the passive skirmishes that existed currently. The need they had for anything from Earth was minimal anyway, what with mana providing a solution instead of technology, so the matter was put to rest.

Kastra was the same as she'd been at the lake, if not a bit less reserved and more worldly. At first, she had been a bit of a hassle to deal with. She'd always clung to him, never knew what to do outside observing he and Alexa, and assumed most things around them were a threat. Eventually, this petered off, and she began to develop interests outside of protecting her two bonded. One lay in the forms, something the Fae never had to practice to strengthen their control of magic. She enjoyed the way it felt to move about similar to Damien while controlling her mana around her body. He also knew she loved the way it looked, which was most likely the main draw as she'd chosen light magic to practice with.

Another interest she'd picked up was drawing and painting. One day she'd been watching as Damien and Alexa had been moving through the forms together and instead of joining them she began to draw what they looked like in the dirt nearby. By the end of the hour, a veritable masterpiece had been formed as Damien and Alexa looked at a carved out depiction of them moving through the forms, Alexa looking like an overly serious practitioner of martial arts who had no room for mistakes or carelessness in her movements while Damien was depicted more free-flowing and abstract. Alexa hadn't liked how it made her seem so stern while Damien had expressed his sadness that it would disappear after the rain and natural elements got to it, imploring Kastra to draw it upon paper with charcoal or some other substance. Ever since then, she'd taken a day or two off every week from their usual sparring matches and moving through the forms to work further on her drawings, each one more detailed than the last.