A/N: Hello, everyone! Now, before you scold us for starting a new story when already in the middle of another for the same fandom, this one is already finished! It's only a matter of editing, proofing, and posting, now. I figured I'd give you all something to tide you over while we try to get more chapters backlogged for our other fics! We hope that you enjoy.
"Good morning, Mister Ceedric," Sofia hummed cheerfully. Well, it had been a good morning. Mourning his latest ruined attempt at a potion that he had been working on all night, Cedric sighed and glared at the grinning girl out of the corner of his eye.
"It's Cedric. I don't know how many times- Ooh, what do you want now, Princess?"
"I wanted to come say hello!" She smiled and paused before, "Hello!"
Staring incredulously, Cedric dragged a hand down his face. "Hello." The things he put up with as royal sorcerer. "Now if you'll excuse me I, Cedric the Great, have work to do." Maybe if he said his name correctly enough she would finally get it.
"Ooo, what magical mystical sorcery are you working on today, Mister Ceedric?" Sofia walked over to the counter and leaned over- Cedric dragged her away quickly, clearing his throat.
"Nothing important!" Best to not let her know he was after he amulet - that and if she got hurt the King would have his head.
"But you're the royal sorcerer. Everything you do is important." Scowling, Cedric did his best to not show his enjoyment over the truth. Children always did know quality, he supposed.
"Yes, well, seeing as that's true then you should probably go back to playing with kittens and bunny rabbits so I can do my very important royal sorcerer work."
"Oh, Mister Ceedric, there aren't any kittens in the castle!" Opening the door, Cedric made a face as he begun pushing her out.
"Yes, yes, very nice, and it's Cedric. Said. Dric."
"Oookay! Bye, Mister Ceedric!" This girl was hopeless.
"Goodbye, Princess Sofia."
::
"Hi, Mister Ceedric!"
"It's- Oh, what's the use." Sighing, Cedric didn't even bother to lift his head off his desk, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong in his potion making this time. Potions were always so difficult. Did he use the wrong kind of flower?
"Is everything okay, Mister Ceedric?" He heard her walk over. Opening his eyes, he saw the young girl was standing in front of him, looking curious and concerned.
"Nothing you can help with." She may have had magical potential, but not enough to do his level of work.
"Well, you've helped me lots, maybe I can help you!"
"Very well." Best to get it over with. "I'm having trouble with this potion that's supposed to help the castle gardens grow back after the last winter. I can make a few flowers, easily enough, but it takes work to make them stick around."
"Oh! I've been in an enchanted gardening group after school! Maybe I could help!" She was already looking over his books and ingredients, poor thing.
"If you think you can." Cedric gave a halfhearted wave of his hand, standing up and looking at the mess of a potion he had been working on for the better part of the day. He would need a new cauldron, soon. "I highly doubt an after-school gardening club will be helpful, however."
"Oh! Found it!"
"I- Wait, what?" Oh. She had.
"You're using a pale fuchsia mountain lily when you should be using a lavender mountain lily!" She held out the mentioned flower to him with a smile. Carefully taking it, Cedric studied the flower with narrowed eyes before dropping it into the cauldron, ready for any resulting enough, the potion turned the opalescent shades it was meant to, and began to steam lightly.
"You're quite good at magic, you know." Giving her another look, Cedric slowly frowned. Perhaps it was the amulet that gave her all that power? No, it was meant to amplify... Hm.
"I've been watching the best sorcerer in the kingdom." This girl certainly knew now to endear herself to people. Cedric was a little bit impressed. Clearing his throat, Cedric hesitantly patted her once on the head.
"Yes, well."
"Is there anything else you need help with, Mister Ceedric?"
"Ah, well..." Perhaps he could learn more about the girl if she stayed around. So he could steal the amulet easier. Of course. "I was going to re-organize some of my father's old magic books today."
"I can help with that!" Beside him, Wormwood cawed, causing the young princess to frown. Such an expression didn't seem right on her ever-smiling face.
"I suppose I should endeavor to keep you out of trouble," Cedric sighed, slightly grinning. At least this way he would get his work done quicker. "Come along, then. There's quite a few books he left behind."
"Oo! Like what kind of books?" She was quickly following after him, holding her dress up to keep it from dragging.
"Well, they're all magical but quite a few of them delve into magical theory more than anything." Walking over to the shelves, Cedric gestured to where dozens of books were stacked all around in loose circles. He really did need to organize them today. "Basically Magic 101 but there are some useful things upon occasion, I've found."
"Really?" ...If this weren't Princess Sofia, he would say that was a calculating gleam in her eye. As it was, it was probably nothing more than childish enthusiasm.
"Oh, yes. They're typically the books you'll see for courses if you attend a sorcery school. Let's see, we should probably sort these by the type of magic- Perhaps the title? Hm, author might work best, actually..."
"There's a school just for sorcery?" Sofia was beaming up at him, holding the book tightly to her chest. Raising an eyebrow down at her, Cedric gave a significant look to Wormwood. Did he see what Cedric truly put up with?
"Yes, there is, although you have to pass a test to even get in. I believe one year the test was hatching a dragon egg. Ridiculously difficult, considering dragons are near impervious to magic, let alone magic from children." Wormwood crowed loudly beside him, and Sofia's smile quickly turned down as she held the book tighter.
"Wormwood!" She huffed and, still holding the book, stomped out of the workshop. Blinking, Cedric frowned and looked to Wormwood and, hm. That was strange.
"I don't think that's the first time I've seen her yell at you like that." It almost seemed like Sofia could understand Wormwood better than he...could... "Wormy, can she understand you?" Wormwood certainly didn't seem shocked by his question, which could only mean... Oh dear... "You haven't mentioned anything about her amulet around her, have you? Oh, no, no, no, this could ruin every- She took my book!"
Well, she was far too noble and good of heart to keep it. Cedric would most likely get his book back in an hour or two.
::
Cedric hadn't gotten his book back and it had been a week and not only that but there seemed to be more books missing. They were high-level ones, too, which meant he was struggling to finish a spell when he couldn't fact-check! Hm. If his book were being stolen by whom he thought... Time for an experiment. Grabbing a low-level magic starter book, Cedric carefully left it in plain sight near the door.
By the next morning, the book was still there, but three other books a level ahead had gone missing. Arms crossed, Cedric stared at his dwindling bookshelves with a frown. Why was she taking all the higher level books but leaving the starts? It wasn't like she could use all that magic without knowing the basics! Almost the moment he'd thought that, there was a shriek, and a loud boom that rocked the castle.
Scrambling to keep things from falling over, Cedric grabbed his wand and threw open the door. "Come on, Wormwood! I have a feeling that there's a Princess who might need our help." Ugh. That felt wrong to say.
Cedric reached the room last, it seemed, as everyone else was already in the doorway. "Sofia, what happened?"
"I don't know! I was just practicing a levitation spell!"
"Cedric, would you do something?" Floundering at the king's command, Cedric looked into the room and stared at what he saw. Everything was on the ceiling. "Oh, Sofia, how did this happen?"
"I don't know! I thought I said the incantation right, and I waved my wand the right way-"
"Did you practice saying the incantation before you waved your wand- Oh, what am I saying, of course you did." Sofia wouldn't make a mistake that basic, at least. Maybe her amulet boosted the spell?
"I, um... Maybe?" Sofia was playing with her hands, sheepish expression on her face.
"'Maybe'." Cedric raised his eyebrows, staring up - up - at Sofia. "Princess Sofia."
"I-"
"Hey, Sofia, you- Woah!" Staring as James was now on the ceiling himself, Cedric frowned and stuck his arm into the room, pulling it out at once as he saw the sleeve start to float up.
"Well, Princess Sofia, I must congratulate you. Instead of levitating anything you instead shifted the state of gravity in your room."
"What?! But I was just trying to levitate Clover! I didn't want all the gravity to change!"
"Which is why you practice saying the spell before actually using it!" Sighing, Cedric pulled out his wand, and, right. Deep breath. He was a great wizard and the King was not going to distract him today. "Which levitation spell did you use?"
"Um, levitio?"
"Are you sure the spell wasn't levatio."
"...Maybe," she said weakly.
"You know, this is actually pretty cool!" James was walking along the ceiling and giggling like the foolish child he was, Cedric sighing and covering his eyes for a moment. The things he dealt with. "Hey, Dad, can we keep Sofia's room like this!"
"No, James. Hopefully, Cedric will be able to fix this. Right, Cedric?" Aha. Ha. Right. Fixing a child's mess. Because that was such a wonderful use of his talents and-
"Mister Cedric?"
"Novis levitio." Flourishing his wand, Cedric didn't even let everything fall an inch before he was quickly uttering the correct spell. "Levatio!" Honestly, how did one get spells so mixed up! Sofia, James, and everything else in her room were carefully set down on the ground, and everyone slowly went back to their business, except... Sighing and putting his wand away, Cedric went into the room and gave Sofia as stern a look as he could manage. "Perhaps next time you should start with the level one books."
"But we're already passed all of that in class, and I'm doing just fine!" Why did he ever have to grow a conscious? It was so much easier when he just saw her a sticky child who stole what should have been his.
"Yes but that's for a royalty school taught by fairies. Magic between fairies and sorcerers is quite different. While you can have a bit of leeway with fairy spells and they turn out okay, sorcerer spells can go horribly awry if you're not careful. An example would be your entire room ending up on your ceiling."
Sofia sighed. "I guess I just wasn't meant to be a sorcerer. You can have all your books back, Mister Cedric."
Opening his mouth to respond, Cedric frowned and closed it, blinking at Sofia before slowly grinning. "You finally got my name right." He was starting to think that would never happen!
"Was I saying it wrong before?"
"Oh, nevermind." He had been forced to reassure small children. What had become of his life? "And I will take my books, back, thank you." Huffing, Cedric started levitating them out of the room. "I don't want you reading these again until you read all the year one books that you'll need to know for these spells."
"Wait, you're still letting me use your books?" Beside him, Wormwood cawed as well. Cedric waved him off.
"Oh, relax, Wormy. And yes, of course. I don't have any need of year one books at the moment, although it would be nice if you let me know you take them before I find them missing."
"Yes! Yes of course, thank you so much, Mister Ceedric!" Well, that hadn't lasted long, had it? Was it that she just couldn't say certain names and words? He never noticed her having problems with it before.
"Yes, yes, it's the least I can do since I am the greatest sorcerer in the land."
"You definitely are," she said with a nod. Just as he was about to leave- "Oh, and I know it's Cedric, but I think Ceedric just sounds more magical."
Well... Ceedric didn't sound so bad, he supposed.