"And you are not to leave this room until I have given you permission to do so. Understand?"
"He was asking for it! You heard what he said about dad!"
Amelia tried her best to not smile at that, keeping her face of disappointment plastered on her face as she stared at her son.
"You cannot just go around insulting and assaulting people. Let alone someone from the Clock Tower." She made sure to emphasize that as she put her hands on her hips and stared at her son who glared back at her before averting his gaze.
"...I don't regret what I did…but I won't do it again."
Amelia huffed knowing that while he meant what he said for now it would happen again. She pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers and exhaled slowly.
"A week. You are grounded for a week. You are not to leave this room with the exception of physical drills. Understood?"
"But Mom!"
"Understood?"
She watched as Micheal swallowed nervously before saying he understood. She sighed and left the door to his room closing it behind her. She placed several spells and a bounded field or three on the door to make sure it stayed shut before turning around to see Desmond looking at her with a raised eyebrow.
"It's for his own good, you know."
Amelia said defensively as Desmond merely arched an eyebrow,
"Yes. Confining the boy to his room is clearly for his own good."
Amelia sighed and walked towards her study motioning for Desmond to follow her. Opening the door she saw that the decanter of brandy she kept in her desk was already on it complete with two glasses. Glancing back at Desmond who had his best neutral face on she sighed and held the door open for him to follow her.
She walked over to her desk, snapping her fingers as she did so, causing too smooth balls of ice to form out the condensation in the air, only the land clinking into the glasses. She popped the brandy, smelled it appreciatively, and then poured two fingers for her and Desmond. She capped the brandy and sat down in the leather chair. She picked up the glass, swirled it a few times, and then downed the entire thing in one go sighing appreciatively as she felt the alcohol burn its way down her throat.
"After this afternoon I needed that."
"I bet you did ma'am."
She looked over at Desmond who was swirling his own glass staring into the amber liquid. He took a sip and nodded.
"Satisfactory."
".....What favors do you think I need to call in to get Micheal into the Clock Tower."
"I'd assume some big ones."
Amelia groaned and began to reach for the decanter again before thinking better of it. She opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a thick leather bound tome. As she did so, Desmond's eyebrows shot up.
"....Are you sure?"
"He needs to make friends and get an education that can help him, Desmond. I refuse to let the Church get their mitts on my son." She almost spat the last part. Despite being French she had no love for the Church. Even more so after discovering his origin and that one of the affinities her son had was Holy.
She flicked off the straps holding the tome sealed and a small burst of mana pulsed from it. She opened it and flipped for a few pages before she found what she was looking for. Biting her thumb to draw a bit of blood she let the blood drop onto the page. Less than a minute later the phone on her desk started to ring. Healing her thumb quickly she picked up the phone and leaned back into her chair as she smiled evilly,
"Bonjour Duke Davis-Taylor. I have come to collect on what your family owes mine."
~~~~~~~
Micheal laid on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He had already tried to get through his door but the bounded fields his mother had set up both reinforced the door and completely neutralized his electricity. He knew he could melt through them in time but he also knew that he'd pass out before he did so.
"A fucking week? Really?" he muttered to himself. He sighed and sat up getting off the bed and wandering over to his desk. Sitting down he opened a drawer, closed it, and pulsed the handle with some electricity
He opened the drawer again to pull out his journal.
He opened it to the last thing he wrote about which was the dreams he'd been having. He thought back to them as he mouthed the name he was always called in them and felt that the name was both familiar and foreign in his mouth. He shook his head and continued drawing.
Ever since he had come out of that coma he'd been watching and living another persons life in his dreams. It was a world of magic but unlike the Moonlit one he inhabited. There was this giant…web that connected the entire planet. Normal people had mystic codes that could display tv and photos and myriad other things. There were people who were literally bottling the sun to power civilization.
He frowned, tapping his pen against his lip and began to write. This last dream had clearly been in a school of some kind.
It was centered in an auditorium with a pit in the bottom for the professor to lecture from. The board had various formulae on it that Micheal felt like he understood instinctively but clearly this "Anthony" needed to practice to remember and use them.
The dream seemed to fast forward then until it had settled down on a view of looked like a factory of some sort. There was a metal tube that had been cut in half and what looked like magnets lined up on either side. Set in front of the tube was an ox ring target board. Anthony had looked over at someone and said to go for it.
Suddenly the sounds of cicadas started and something had launched itself from the tube and hit the edge of the paper target punching straight through before hitting the fabric wall behind it. Even in the dream Micheal could feel the excitement this success had done.
Micheal refocused on the drawings he had made. It was similar to the tube from the dream but he had made some improvements to it. Of course he wouldn't know if it would ever work because he didn't have the ability or materials to build it.
He looked over at the clock on his desk and saw it was after 9pm. He sighed and closed the journal. He locked it back in its spot on the desk and got up stretching.
"And I have to stay in here for a week…."
~~~6 years later~~~
"And you're sure you'll be fine?"
"Mom, I'm just going across the channel and then taking a bus to the Clock Tower. Stop Worrying."
Amelia hugged her shawl closer around herself and pouted at Micheal as he stood nearby. Seagulls cried overhead and were framed against a cloudy grey sky. She got up off the bench she was sitting on and walked over to her son, opening the shawl just enough to wrap him in it as well causing him to hunch over a bit. Thankfully he didn't try to move away as she hugged him. He had grown into a fine man and she couldn't help but be proud of him. Suddenly she realized that he had a solid 10 or more centimeters on her when he was standing up straight.
"Its my job to worry as your parent."
Micheal sighed and gave her a side hug under the shawl as a cold wind blew by them both causing her to shiver through the woolen shawl. Micheal adjusted their position so that he was breaking the wind for her and she smiled.
"....I know why you're worried." he said quietly as a privacy bounded field dropped around them. She looked at him approvingly. She didn't even feel mana when it sprung up, "When you showed me my origin and affinities I thought you were pulling my leg….then you told me what happened to dad and I realized that I needed to keep this very very secret."
Amelia frowned as she remembered that day. She had finally decided to tell Micheal about his other affinities as well as his origin as him not knowing would have made it more dangerous. She had explained it to him and then, haltingly, had explained how his dad had defended them from the Church. They had somehow known that a saint had "arrived" somewhere in the small town that the mansion was on the outskirts of.
When they had arrived they had tried to kidnap Micheal who was 3 at the time. The only reason they didn't was because Jarod had been awake tending to the animals and heard them break in late at night. They had put Micheal under a sleep charm and Jarod had fought tooth and nail to get Micheal back…only to lose his life in the process. She remembered seeing the depths of rage in her sons grey eyes when she had finished and he shot up from the sofa.
It was the only time where she had felt threatened just by being near her son. She remembered him opening and closing his fist as lighting traced from his palm to the tips of his fingers as the air hummed and vibrated, only for it all to suddenly stop as Micheal visibly broke under his rage slumping backwards into the sofa he had been sitting on.
That was when he told her that he had known. That he remembered his dad cradling him with one arm when he woke up from the spell. That Jarod had been turned into a pincushion by lances of light, had his arm blown off, and that he had still kept fighting. And then when they were all dead he had picked up Michael with his remaining arm and put him back to bed making sure to tuck him in.
This had thrown her for a major loop until Micheal had explained that it had been a recurring nightmare he had had growing up for as long as he could remember.
She shook her head pulling herself out of her memories and looked back up at her son. She reached up and ruffled his sandy blonde hair eliciting a mutter from him as he tried to flatten it down in response.
"Yes. You need to keep this extremely secret." Amelia stated sternly, "Now tell me what you're going to do when you get into the Clocktower."
"Mom, you and Desmond have been repeating this plan to me for the past two weeks. I can go through it in my sleep by this point."
"I don't care. Tell me the plan."
Micheal sighed and leaned his head back closing his eyes
"First thing I'm going to do is go up to the registrar and hand them the letter of recommendation from Uncle Arneharte-"
"Professor Arnehearte."
"Right, Professor Arneharte. I'm going to give them that letter, let them read it, then when they accept it as valid, set me up with a student ID. My lodgings, utilities, and everything was sorted a month ago by you, 'Professor' Arnehearte, and some new magus family who had a spot open up in the dorms."
"The Velvets. And less snark." She chided as a horn could be heard coming through the fog across the channel. Micheal pulled himself out from under the shawl and Amelia shivered as she wrapped it back around herself, "and be nice to your roommate! Also if you get a girlfriend I expect to be told!"
Micheal was already walking towards the pier but turned around to give her a look of steadfast disapproval. She winked and waved at him as he got in line with his luggage. She looked back up at the cloudy sky and took peace in that Micheal wouldn't do anything stupid on his first day…she hoped.
She wandered over to the edge of the dock and looked out over the channel northwards towards the United Kingdom. She frowned thinking back to her first day in the Clocktower…and how that went. Suddenly feeling nervous she fast-walked back to the pier only to watch Micheal climb the boarding ramp to the ferry.
He caught her eye and walked to the outer railing of the ferry, leaning against it. He cocked an eyebrow at her as she huffed and tried to put her hands on her hips only for a breeze to get under the shawl causing her to immediately pull it closed around her.
"I feel like I don't need to say this but I feel like I have to: Don't do anything stupid. Don't feel like you need to 'defend' me or your father, and please don't get into a fight on your first day."
"You do know I know what you wound up doing on your first day right?" Micheal said dryly, "Something about ticking off three older students and then bending all three of them over your proverbial knee in the sparring room within two hours of stepping foot into the building?"
Amelia felt her heart sink and was about to ask who had told him when the ferry horn sounded and it began to pull away. She walked alongside it speeding up as it started going faster
"Be safe! Be sure to write! If you get a girlfriend you will let me know!"
She reached the end of the pier and waved as the ferry entered the fog watching as Micheal waved back grinning at her.
She stood there for a bit just listening to the waves before shivering in another cold breeze and walking back to her car.