Micheal cracked open his eyes and looked up at the ceiling of his families medical wing. He had the single worst headache of his entire life so far. It felt like someone had crammed an entire other persons brain alongside his own. He grimaced as he felt this other person's life meld with his own and laid there gritting his teeth for what felt like hours until finally the feeling subsided. He breathed out and tried to make sense of why he was here. He leaned his head forward a bit and saw tubes extending from every major part of his body to various machines that beeped and blooped nearby. He tried to sit up putting an arm under him as he did so as the door to the room opened and a woman with shoulder length wheat blonde hair entered the room with a vase of flowers.
She froze seeing him and Micheal briefly wondered who this woman was as she dropped the vase to shatter on the floor while she ran forward to wrap him in a tight hug. He felt the tubes being bent and was about to tell the woman to get off of him before he noticed that her entire body was shaking as she sobbed. He sat there awkwardly for a few seconds before reaching up with an arm to gingerly pat the woman on the back. As he did this the door slammed open and a tall man entered the room. He had graying hair and a carefully trimmed beard. For whatever reason he reminded Micheal of a bird of prey. The man was wearing a butlers outfit and stood there in the doorway staring at him.
Micheal opened his mouth to say something as the man in the butler outfit smiled warmly and walked into the room to ruffle Micheals hair,
"Welcome back, Micheal."
####
Several minutes later the woman had calmed down and was sitting in a chair that the butler had brought her. Her eyes were still red and she was sniffling but she stared at Micheal with an intensity that unnerved him a bit.
"I..don't even know how to ask any of the questions I want to or need to ask…" She said as the Butler came back into the room with a box of tissues for the woman and a large box that he set down beside the bed, "I guess I should ask….do you remember who I am?"
Micheal stared at her and then looked at a nearby wall as he thought. As he did so something bubbled up from somewhere in his brain and he clutched his head as it pressed into his brain. The woman gasped and reached for him only for the Butler to grab her arm and shake his head. Slowly the woman took her arm back as she looked worriedly at Micheal.
He knew the thought wasn't his own. It came from that other brain that had been shoved into his head. He grit his teeth as he projected a thought to it
[Whoever you are can you try to give me information in a way that doesn't put me in pain!?]
Nothing came back of course but then the bubble of information 'popped' and he suddenly knew exactly who the other people in the room were. He turned his head to look at who he now knew was his mother Amelia Lafaire and the family Butler, Desmond.
"You're...my mom. Your name is Amelia." He said grimacing as his own brain absorbed the information. His mother looked like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulder as she smiled fresh tears falling from her eyes as Micheal then looked at Desmond, "You're...Desmond. You've taken care of me for as long as I can remember…"
Desmond nodded smiling happily. Micheal looked around the room more closely and then back to his mother
"...Where's dad?"
Amelia went from happy to crushed in a matter of milliseconds. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it only to open it again. Desmond sighed and put a hand on Amelias shoulder causing her to look up at him. He shook his head at her and then looked at Micheal,
"Micheal...Your father is dead. He died nine years ago to protect you from the Church."
Micheal felt a million questions spring up in his brain making his head spin. He fell to the side slightly but caught himself on his arm as Desmond leaned over and gently pushed him backwards into the hospital bed.
"I'm sorry but I'd rather not give you false hope. Your mind is in a delicate place right now and needs the truth more than anything else. We...weren't sure you were ever going to wake up."
Micheal let Desmond push him back into the bed as his mind still buzzed with questions but realized that he wouldn't be getting answers to them right now. Desmond briefly checked the various machines around him and swapped some near empty IV bags with fresh ones. He then took Micheals temperature and performed some basic tests to make sure he had all five senses. After doing all that Desmond looked at Micheal and his had some slight worry on it,
"Alright Micheal. Do you remember what happened before you entered your coma?"
Micheal once again felt that bubbling sensation but it was slower this time which caused him some minor discomfort but didn't hurt like before. He looked at the wall behind Desmond as the bubble popped and he got the memories back. He briefly wondered what else the other in his head would give him but shook his head slightly. Desmond sighed and was about to speak when Amelia spoke for the first time in at least half an hour,
"I still don't know what I did wrong to...cause what happened to happen."
Desmond looked back from where he was sitting at Amelia who was still sitting in the same chair holding her head in her hands,
"Amelia you couldn't have known-"
"I tried everything to bring him out of his coma. Everything. I stimulated his magic circuits, I flooded him with mana, I went to the clock tower and read every book I could find that might help three times over."
Micheal tilted his head and sat up a little,
"Mom you didn't do anything wrong. I might not remember much but I remember enough to know that whatever happened wasn't your fault."
Amelia looked at Micheal as fresh tears leaked from her eyes. She smiled at him and wiped her eyes with her sleeve before stiffening and looking back at what remained of the vase and flowers. She sighed, stood up, walked over to the spilled water and snapped her fingers. Micheal watched entranced as the water lifted itself off the floor up to Amelias shoulder level and condensed itself down into a opaque ball of ice. Amelia grabbed the ice out of the air and looked back at Desmond,
"I'm getting something to drink to celebrate. Do you want anything Desmond?"
"Not currently Madame. Micheal needs to be brought up to speed on the Lafaires current situation so I will be here for a bit. If I might impose some water and some oatmeal would be excellent to get some food into the boy."
Amelia nodded and smiled at Micheal,
"Welcome back honey. We've all missed you so much."
With that she snapped her fingers again and the remains of the vase lifted themselves off the floor and floated into a nearby trashbin. The flowers came off the floor next and arranged themselves into a small bouquet that floated over to Micheal who tentatively reached out to grab it. Amelia nodded and left the room closing the door behind her. Micheal stared at the flowers, idly turning the bouquet over in his hand looking at all of it as Desmond coughed into his fist to get Micheals attention. Micheal looked over at him and gently set the bouquet down beside him on the hospital bed as Desmond took a breath,
"If at any point you require me to stop so you can rest or need me to explain. Please tell me."
Micheal nodded and sat up fully in bed folding his hands in his lap as he looked at Desmond who raised his eyebrows in surprise,
"Well color me surprised. Usually you dread hearing the Lafaire family history and make every attempt to escape hearing about it…" He looked Micheal in the eyes and studied him a bit. Micheal fidgeted under the intense gaze and averted his eyes to looks somewhere before he mumbled,
"Well….It might be better to think of me as being a new person since I don't remember anything."
Micheal looked at Desmond whose face turned from surprised to confused,
"I'm surprised I remembered you and mom if I'm being honest. Even then it was less I remembered outright and more that the memory...bubbled to the surface of my mind."
Desmond leaned forward and scrutinized his young charge for several seconds. Micheal stared back into Desmonds brown eyes before eventually Desmond leaned back and blew out his cheeks as he leaned his head back onto the back of the chair.
"You do give off an entirely different presence than you did previously so the idea of treating as though I'm meeting you for the first time has merit….Alright."
Desmond sat forward and steepled his fingers together as Micheal sat up straighter in the bed,
"I guess I should start from the beginning then. The Lafaire family has been around since the mid to late 8th century as we were involved with Karl de Grobe also known as Charlemagne, King of the Franks. The Lafaires helped him along with his 12 paladins in their adventures and eventually found themselves serving as the Kings aides for all things in the Moonlit world. We were, and still are to a degree, at war with the Church due to bitter fighting going all the way back to the Investature Controversy-" Micheal felt his head start to swim a bit and Desmond chuckled, "Don't worry this is a fast version of the Lafaire history. If you want to learn the full version there is a series of books in the Library that have been penned by every previous head of the family about the triumphs and struggles the family has gone through during their time. Your mother is currently in the middle of writing her own book."
Desmond continued telling Micheal the history of his family for the next two hours. At some point Amelia came back with a glass of water and a small bowl of oatmeal. Micheal managed to take a few sips of water and a couple spoonfuls of oatmeal which was all he could manage to do for right now. Amelia then pulled up the chair she was sitting in and sat beside Desmond as he continued speaking offering her own comments as she felt fit to do so.
"….and with the second exile of Napoleon and the end of the Napoleonic era as a whole the Lafaires reentered the Moonlit world at large after being forced into hiding by Robespierre and Danton. At which point we were granted reentry into the Clocktower and that leads us to today."
Desmond finished leaning back in his chair. Micheal struggled to make sense of everything he was hearing but he knew one thing for sure,
"So….we're a super important family then?"
Desmond chuckled as Amelia reached over to ruffle Micheals hair,
"Almost as important as the Pendragons." She said smugly. The clock on the wall rung out a tune and Desmond glanced at his wrist watch. He stood up, said his farewells, and left to go handle whatever task he needed to handle. Amelia thanked him for his help as he left and then turned back to Micheal looking at him much like Desmond had earlier. Micheal fidgeted under her gaze but did his best to look her back in the eye.
"….Something about you is different but I can't tell what…" She muttered, "Micheal do you mind if I run some mana through you? I want to check something."
"Sure. As long as it doesn't put me into another coma."
"...Well thats certainly different," Amelia stated surprised, "You certainly have more snark than before. Turn around if you can and lift your shirt."
Micheal did this and a few seconds later he felt something warm drip onto his back. As soon as the drop landed on his back he felt lightning shoot through his body making him jerk a bit. Amelia yelled and quickly did something to stop the shocks. Micheal looked back at her, eyes wide, as Amelia had a similar expression on her own face,
"...I take it thats not supposed to happen." He stated neutrally to which Amelia narrowed her eyes at his back clearly looking at something.
"No….its not. Micheal what do you feel right now. Do you feel anything at all."
Micheal looked away and focused in on himself closing his eyes as he searched for any feeling at all. As he looked through himself he felt something that for lack of a better word felt like two spheres melded together into a peanut shape. He said as much to his mother who hummed a bit,
"Okay….How much of your mage training do you remember?"
"As I told Desmond I don't remember anything. The fact I could remember either of your names I'm chalking up to luck."
"..Interesting…." He heard Amelia mutter from behind him. Right as he was about to ask what, exactly, was interesting she started speaking again, "So you need to relearn your trigger to activate your mana then. What I did earlier was drip some mana infused blood onto the crest that was implanted into your back. That seemed to have activated your circuits briefly…."
She trailed off for a few seconds and Micheal looked back again to see her tapping her lips with a finger clearly thinking.
"Okay. You need to establish a new mental trigger for starting and stopping the flow of mana."
"And whats a trigger?"
"Its something you imagine as 'releasing' or 'starting' your mana. Normally your mana is at rest but when the trigger activates it it begins to flow through you enabling you to cast spells and various mysteries."
"So whats your trigger then?"
"The feeling of crushing a rock in my hand. It works since my greatest affinity is for earth and gem magic. I turn off the flow by imagining dropping the remains of the rock out of my hand."
Micheal thought about it, remembering the feeling of shocks running through him, He closed his eyes and imagined a few things but eventually settled on the idea of catching a lightning bolt. He imagined catching a bolt of lightning and immediately felt his body come alive with energy. He opened his eyes and looked at his mom who stared at him smiling only to have her mouth drop open when she looked at his face. Micheal tilted his head at her and then imagined letting the lightning bolt go. He immediately felt the energy in his body fade away as he stared at his mother who seemed too stunned to speak.
"Uhhh...Mom?"
Micheal was tempted to snap his fingers in his moms face and had just moved his arm to do so when she finally spoke
"Your eyes…."
"uhhh...what about them?"
"Do your activation trigger again."
"uhhh-"
"Just do it."
Micheal swallowed at the brusqueness of his mothers voice but did as he was told and felt his body flood itself with mana again.
"Do you feel any discomfort in your eyes. Anything at all."
"I mean...the back of my eyes itch a bit but aside from that nothing. Why?"
"You have mystic eyes. Prismatic purple mystic eyes. I don't think- I'd need to check the records but-"
"Mom? Is everything okay?"
Micheal was worried and that clearly showed in his voice as Amelia stopped muttering to herself and looked at him. She smiled a big happy smile and said proudly,
"My boy has mystic eyes. Everything is amazing sweetie. It couldn't be better in fact. We'll need to figure out what kind of eyes they are but try not to use them if you can help it. Do you think you can turn them off while having your mana activated? Try to imagine everything but your eyes being activated with mana."
Micheal focused on that and felt mana running through but this time he noticed the absence of the itching sensation behind his eyes. Then just to see if he could he lifted his hand and imagined the feeling of his mana flowing between his fingers. As he did so electricity began to arc up between his fingers starting from the webbing. Amelia sucked in a breath and stared at his hand. Micheal quickly stopped doing it and the arcs stopped.
"Was I not supposed to do that?"
"…...We need to get you out of this room and into the training hall as soon as phyiscally possible. We have so much we need to check and test." Amelia said still staring at Micheals hand before he lowered it into his lap. She stood up and began to leave but as she pulled the door open she looked back at Micheal smiling at him warmly,
"I'm so happy your back Micheal...I've missed you so much. We can wait to see what you can do until you're feeling like you're able to do it. So rest up okay?"