"Alex," Eleyn's voice sliced through the air like a scythe, carrying the unmistakable tone of a mother who's just learned her kid has used her best kitchenware for a science experiment. But this wasn't just angry— it was dragon mom angry. Her voice remained cold, but her expression looked like a boiling cauldron that was one insult away from overflowing.
"You knew exactly why Judge was on house arrest."
They were in Alex's room, though "shared" was a bit of a stretch. When Alex wasn't around, Eleyn promptly relocated herself and her wrath to her own quarters, for the sake of, well, everyone's safety. Judge, meanwhile, had been unceremoniously escorted back to his room, barely dodging an extension on his "vacation from fun."
"Come on, Eleyn," Alex leaned into his most compassionate expression, which was only slightly less terrifying than her dragon mom look. "You can't keep him cooped up forever. The kid's going to need fresh air at some point. Give him some credit. He's your son, after all. And if we're talking about troublemakers, have you seen Liam lately?
That kid practically invented chaos, and you barely even blink."
Eleyn's look hardened. "You know Judge's... challenges. Letting him out would only endanger the innocent bystanders, or did that slip your well-organized mind?"
Alex rubbed his temples, casting a mournful look at the cigar case in his pocket. His patience and diplomacy levels were being tested, but he soldiered on, hugging Eleyn with a bit more desperation than he'd ever admit. "Listen, it's just that if we keep him in a gilded cage forever, he's bound to figure out a way to blow the door off. Just... think about it."
Eleyn's eyebrow rose in suspicion. "What are you implying? And also, I won't keep my child in a cage forever."
Sighing, Alex muttered something about the Aetas Custodis. "Look, from what I could dig up, it's not just him being a handful. It's only when he gets, you know, worked up that... things go up in smoke. Literally."
Eleyn's eyes narrowed. "You're telling me this now?"
"I only recently learned." He reached for a cigar, only to have it swiped right out of his fingers.
"No smoking in the room," she barked, without so much as looking up from her furrowed brow.
"Oh, right, yes, because dragon breath and smoke really don't mix," he muttered sarcastically, but he wisely decided to drop it. His protest, though muted, coaxed a reluctant smile from her, the first sign that her wrath might be cooling.
"So, you find anything about controlling it?"
"Got one, but it would not guarantee complete safety, but it would be less
Meanwhile, in his "secure" quarters, Judge paced back and forth, glancing at the diary and notebook on his desk with the energy of a squirrel on too much caffeine.
"Boring," he muttered, dropping onto his bed, then bouncing up again like it was made of spikes. He wasn't even in the mood to fiddle with his ether-powered gadgets, which was alarming enough.
After an eternity (about thirty seconds), a new plan struck him with the force of a divine inspiration. "Nihility," he whispered, glancing around to make sure no one had installed surprise parental supervision. He could pour his restless energy into the study of nihility, the mysterious principle he'd been sneaking notes about.
Though Hawthorne had given the research notes to the noble who had commissioned him to find it, Judge had politely borrowed(Stole) both parts of the diary, he was surprised to find that he still had not gotten the beginning part of the research papers, not that he cared.
Grinning, he began mapping out his plan with the precision of a genius, or possibly a very caffeinated raccoon. The plan was simple: keep up appearances until nightfall, eat dinner (to avoid suspicion), pretend to sleep (obviously), and then... nihility time inside his personal dimension with no adult supervision. He practically rubbed his hands together at the thought.
With a casual strut, he went over to his desk and picked up his newest artifact called "The Cleaner." Supposedly, it could separate any particles attached to a surface— essentially, a fancy magic vacuum cleaner.
Judge held it up to his shirt, smirking. "Behold! The world's most over-engineered lint roller... with a cup on the side," he muttered, chuckling as he funneled his own ether into the thing since he was fresh out of catalysts.
He rolled the horizontally placed cylinder on the artifact across his chest, expecting nothing more than a puff of dust, but instead, a paper appeared inside the cup along with dust— an odd slip that shimmered like a piece of the night sky, swirling blues and blacks dotted with tiny, moving stars made of gold.
Judge's eyes went wide, he took the thick paper and put away the goblet. "Well, hello there, mystery parchment," he muttered, swiftly activating his enhanced cognition to capture every detail before whisking it into his studio. Mom's sixth sense (The spirit) for "Judge getting into trouble" didn't need a free show.
The small, thick paper held a single rune, drawn in mysterious strokes. His mom and Melina had always been cagey about runes, which of course made him infinitely more curious, but he'd learned the basics from his granddad's books.
The rune was a circle with a small opening at the top, there was a "V" stemming from the middle of the circle, and it went beyond the circle, going through the two sides of the opening.
There were two downward-curved shapes that were above and below the circle's opening and they touched the two vertical lines from the "V".
This rune, he knew. It was the rune for Sealing.
Sealing, he thought, as if repeating it would make it disappear. Why on earth did he have a sealing rune floating around his person? The rune couldn't just be hanging out on his clothes— it would've been too obvious. So… it had to be inside him.
Judge's eyes narrowed. Someone put a sealing rune inside me? His confusion quickly morphed into outrage. Who's out here playing fast and loose with my innards?
And sealing what, exactly? The rune could lock up just about anything—a pickle jar, a wild beast, or even a catastrophe-grade monster. He shuddered. Great, he thought, they probably bottled up some nonsense that would eat me the first chance it got.
As the mystery sank in, his rational thought dissolved, replaced by a slow, seething fury. Whoever had dared seal something in him would pay.
As the thoughts turned the cogs inside his mind, his rational thinking quickly turned into hate. Hate for the person who tried to seal something of his.
With the hate fueling his fury, his eyes lost their ashen white luster, it was replaced with an eerie purple glow, and he looked menacing under darkness that was brought by the setting sun.