Wow it's been a while since I last wrote anything so this is new. Also, Sofia the first? I'm totally weird, aren't I? Oh well...
In any case, this is eventually a Cedfia fic. I have no idea when it's going to change into that. The two are already in love but this is more of an adventure fic than anything so I hope you enjoy the ride.
Also, I'm not entirely sure if there is a large enough reading crowd for this type of story or pairing so if you enjoy it, please let me know and review. Since this is new for me I want to make sure I'm not writing no one wants to read.
Enjoy!
Sometimes the smallest things take up the most space in your heart.
The love was difficult, but easy. And it was always changing yet stayed the same. For years they loved each other, but the love grew as they did.
It was subtle, changing over time. It wasn't always so apparent, even to the two in love. Sometimes it presented itself as a dry jab with no ill intention, and sometimes it was just a listening ear.
Sofia had been the only friend Cedric had; he wasn't sure how friendships grew, especially when they began with an 8 year old. But Sofia wasn't 8 years old anymore and the love changed. He hadn't realized it did, he wasn't paying attention. The love went from making sure that Cedric was there when she needed magic to solve a problem, or advice on what the right thing to do was (like he was a good judge of character), now it blossomed into a comfortable silence they shared in the confines of the tower as they brewed potions.
Sofia used to count on Cedric for the smallest tasks, if only to make him feel better about himself. Not as if she thought he was useless otherwise, she just liked making him feel like he was the only person who could solve the problem so maybe he would stop being so hard on himself. Cedric loved Sofia, raw and deep. There was almost nothing he wouldn't do for her and the amazing thing was, he didn't even realize how far the love ran.
People talked a lot, but no one knew the true deep rooted feelings Sofia had for the sorcerer. She always loved him, she felt. He was something constant. She could always count on the pretend annoyance when she asked for a favor and the inevitable give up that he would make way too dramatic even if everyone knew he wanted to help. There wasn't a single thing she didn't love about him. And she knew that she unabashedly loved him.
He set her in some state of comfort and simultaneously burned her skin with the desire to be close to him. Her heart raced to look at him and her body relaxed in the presence of him. She wondered if he knew...
"Mister Cedric, what are we doing today?" Sofia called, walking into his lab without any attempt at knocking. He jolted upright and hit his head, whirling around to glare at her.
"Do you think, maybe JUST ONCE, perhaps you would LEARN. TO. KNOCK?" He ground out and she had the grace to look embarrassed, he knew she didn't care as much as her face led to believe.
"I'm sorry Mister Cedric. But it's two and that's usually when I'm here." She smiled at him and he pursed his lips as he rubbed his head.
"You're more trouble than you're worth; you know that, don't you princess?" He sneered and she smiled at him, her cheeks rosy as normal.
"What are you doing?" She opted to ignore him and he glowered, but she knew he'd answer regardless.
"If you must know, I'm making a potion." He looked at her and she stared at him, waiting. He sighed dramatically. "Must you know everything?" She giggled, his insides squirmed. "I'm attempting to make a locator potion."
"What are you trying to locate?" Sofia asked, sitting on a stool next to where he stood. "Maybe I can help you look." He scoffed.
"I'm looking for a better apprentice." He deadpanned and she smiled at him, despite him.
"I know you care deep down, Mister Cedric. You don't have to pretend." She kicked swayed on the stool, for a moment the Amulet of Avelor caught his eye. He could've sworn it twinkled. He looked in her eyes and back to the potion.
"It isn't for me, if you must know." He said with mock indifference. "I'm making it for my mother."
"What is she looking for?" Sofia quipped and he shrugged.
"To hell if I know..." He murmured and Sofia perked her brow at the slight swear. Not that she minded it, she liked that he was comfortable enough around her that his filter was slightly skewed. Sometimes he caught himself and apologized, but this time he took great concentration in stirring the potion in front of him.
She stared at his lips as they silently counted. She felt herself be almost hypnotized by it. Her eyes trailed down to his hands as he very cautiously stirred the potion. She felt like he would be a good pianist but never actually brought that up to him. She liked grazing his skin over with her eyes, noticing all of the imperfections that came with being a sorcerer. The burns, the scars, and callouses. She wondered where each of them came from.
After a few moments he put the wooden spoon down by the base of the cauldron and gave her his full attention. She stared at him expectantly and he rolled his eyes for the nth time.
"After stirring it for 46 times clockwise, and 38 times counter-clockwise in slow increments of two, the potion must simmer for 3 and a half hours." The one thing that always amazed Sofia about him making potions was the patience it took to do so.
"You're so good at this." She praised, secretly loving the way he flushed at the compliment and tried to cover it up with indignancy.
"I am the Royal Sorcerer and that title does not come with mediocrity." Sofia just shook her head at him fondly and stood up to peer into the cauldron. The potion looked creamy to the touch and shone like opal.
"Do you think you can show me how to make a different potion while we wait?" She asked softly and stared up at him, he was entranced by her blue eyes. Even at 17 she had an air of innocence that he couldn't fathom could be around him without being tainted.
"Of course," He said quietly, surprised by the softness of his own voice, but for a moment he couldn't look away from her stare. His insides lurched and he quickly looked away and opened his book. "W-was there a particular potion?"
"No. I just want you to teach me something new." She walked over to stand next to him to gaze into the book as well. Her height reached his shoulders; he was impressively tall even to her now. Warmth took over her as she stood close by him. He froze, hoping she didn't notice how stiff he stood with her so close to him.
"Infirmum autem in corde suo." Sofia read in slightly botched Latin. "What's that? It looks kind of difficult. Can we make that one?"
"It means..." His voice died in his throat, he had to cough to get it working again. "It means weakness of the heart. It's a very advanced potion..." He frowned at the ingredient list. He had everything for it. He'd never made this potion before, he wasn't even sure he remembered it being in this particular book.
"What does it do?" Sofia asked and Cedric gazed over the Latin scrawl next to the picture.
"I-I'm actually... not entirely sure. It just says... dolor est infirmitate. Pain is weakness. Quod est amoris. With that is love." That was interesting. A potion that didn't outright say what it did.
"Are you able to tell what it does by the ingredients?" Sofia inquired and his eyes scanned the list.
"Curious..." He mumbled. "Most of these are commonly used in... In love potions. Clove, hibiscus, black cohosh... But some of these are used in pain relieving potions like the skullcap. But honestly all of these ingredients are all over the place, I have no idea what the end result could be." His brow furrowed in concentration.
"Can we give it a go?" Sofia asked after mulling it over for a moment. "And if we make it, we could see what it does." Cedric scanned the cover of his potions book. "What are you doing?"
"I'm checking to see if this book would have any unsavory potions in it. But this book seems to be okay. These potions are all linked to uncovering what was lost in some way. I just don't see..." His voice trailed off and he opened the book to the page and read it a few more times, mumbling to himself. He sat down and his stare was intense. "I don't see how... how this potion fits into it."
"So what's the plan, Mister Cedric?" Cedric glanced up and stared at Sofia for a few seconds.
"Let's make it, I suppose. But," He said sharply, "if anything goes wrong, this was your idea."
"Yes yes, of course." She agreed lightly and took possession of the book, glancing at everything needed and walking to his stores to get it.
"Princess!" Cedric said sharply and Sofia looked up confused. "It says brunoise, not macedoine!" Sofia frowned at him. "Don't look at me like that. You're cutting too large. If it isn't exact then you don't know how the potion will react!" He scolded and Sofia sighed and looked back at her cuts and started to cut them smaller. "And don't mince! Brunoise!"
"I heard you, Mister Cedric." She mumbled and tried to concentrate on cutting correctly.
After she was done cutting everything the way it needed to be, Cedric inspected it and they re-read the recipe of the potion.
"You have dragon tears?" Sofia asked curiously and he stared at her blankly.
"Yes, who doesn't have dragon tears?" She shrugged and seemed pretty impressed with it calling for as much dragon tears as it did. It was the base of the potion, followed by a very poisonous mushroom, boiled for several minutes.
"Mister Cedric, isn't this mushroom lethal?" Sofia asked quietly as they watched the sparkly hues of the dragon tears seem to pull apart the soft exterior of the mushroom.
"It is, however the dragon tears have a stabilizing component in them to make the negative effects of the mushroom null. That's why we're boiling it down, it will become a paste. Once the mushroom reaches a certain temperature with the magical properties of the dragon tears, the molecular structure of the mushroom alters into something mimicking the effects of the magical Lilium silver Scheherazade, which I'm guessing it was easier to find this mushroom when this potion was created than to find the flower." Sofia stared at Cedric in mild awe. There was just something amazing about him when he spewed magical facts, it was... dare she say, attractive? The clear knowledge he harnessed of things she only had a slight grasp of.
Cedric turned his head to look at Sofia, his cheeks slightly darkened by the look on her face. It was flattering to see the princess stare at him as if he held the world in his palm.
Their gaze was interrupted by a high pitched
"Ceddy-kins!" And Cedric stood up quickly, looking flustered. His mother walked through the mirror he had propped against the wall. She saw Sofia and cooed. "Oh Ceddy-kins, am I interrupting something?"
"N-no mother." He stuttered quickly and she raised her eyebrow.
"Mister Cedric and I are making a potion!" She supplied happily and Winifred smiled at her and pat her shoulder affectionately.
"Oh of course you are." She looked up at Cedric. "Were you able to finish the potion I asked about?" Cedric gestured the boiling cauldron and she grinned at him. "Oh thank you, dear Ceddy-kins. I don't know what I would do without you!" She threw her arms around him.
"Mummy, why are you here? I told you it would be brought to you when it was ready." Cedric asked, amazingly not a hint of annoyance detected by his mother.
"Well..." She sat down. "What I need help finding is my wedding ring, dear. Your father needs it for a spell, but I can't find it and he doesn't know it's missing so I quickly left before he had a chance to ask about it."
"Why don't you just tell him you lost it but you're going to find it soon?" Sofia asked curiously and Winifred perked her brow at her.
"As simple as that answer may seem to you—"
"Mummy's ring is an heirloom from my father's family, it is very powerful and he probably wouldn't like it too much to know it's missing. How did you misplace it anyway?"
"Oh Ceddy, do you think if I knew I would ask for the potion?" Cedric supposed not and looked at his hour glass. He's flipped it twice so they only have another hour or so before the next stage of the potion.
"Well mother, it should be done in about two hours." She sighed and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
"Thank you dear. I'm going to go, there's other ways I can be avoiding your father. I'll see you soon!" With that she was gone.
"Sorry about her." Cedric said flatly and turned his attention to the second cauldron. Sofia swatted her hand at him and they both gazed into the cauldron.
"Oh! It's turning into a paste now Mister Cedric!" She said excitedly and he nodded.
"Now you stir it twice in a circle, finish by dragging it diagonally through the mixture and then add the" He stared at her "brunoise cut of ginger." She giggled at him and dumped in the slightly matted down lump of ginger. As he read the instructions he stirred enough to distribute the ginger and frowned.
"Well I suppose now we wait for the potion to turn green."
Their potion was done before the one for Winifred and they stared at the end product in the cauldron. It was a deep sparkling red color, rivaling to rubies. Sofia smiled at it.
"Is that how it's supposed to look, Mister Cedric?" She asked and he read over the instructions for the seemingly thousandth time that hour.
"It doesn't say..." That irritated him but he supposed it was ok.
"Maybe your mom can tell us what it does." Sofia offered and they both continued to stare at the potion as if it were going to do something amazing. It didn't. It continued to sparkle as if it had reflective surfaces in the sun. "It's so pretty." Sofia giggled.
Cedric dipped his pinky finger in the potion and noticed how it coated his fingers like slime, only to seep into his skin and disappear.
"With a name like Weakness of the Heart, I don't think it's supposed to be very pretty... In any case, the potion seems to be a success, congratulations Princess, you may go." She looked at him in disbelief.
"No. You can't kick me out before we find out what it does! I put all that effort into it!" He sighed at her stubbornness.
"Very well. But please sit tight, I have to finish this potion." He walked away from her into his stores to get the final ingredient for the locator potion.
"Mummy." Cedric called after he handed Winifred the small tube of the potion. "Are you familiar with the potion Infirmum autem in corde suo?" Winifred smiled fondly.
"Is that the potion you made with the princess? How lovely. I'm glad to hear that. I hope it turns out well." Cedric's pulse quickened. Was it something inappropriate that he did? Merlin's Mushrooms! He could be in so much trouble.
However, before he could make an inquiry, Winifred put a drop of the potion on her hand, whispering an incantation and letting it drip to the map below. The liquid moved around on the paper until it settled on a destination and burned through the paper and dissipated.
"Ce..." Winifred's voice died on her lips and she gaped at the map. Cedric walked over and looked down at the map, for a moment his blood ran cold.
Malignant Falls.
"M-mummy... How did your ring get there?" His heart thudded in his chest.
"Cedric... Mummy's not... Feeling too well..." When Winifred sat down, her whole body turned a pale white.
"M-mummy?" He walked over to her and her skin was cold to the touch. "Mother?!" She was unresponsive, he ran into the other room where his father lain on the couch, just as white and unresponsive.
Quickly, without thinking he ran through the mirror that brought him back into his tower, and stared at Sofia who had a guilty expression on her face.
"What did you do?" He asked quickly before he could get his mind up to speed with what his body was doing.
"Nothing!" She said quickly and pursed her lips. "I just, touched the potion like you did. Are you okay Mister Cedric?" Cedric stopped moving and tried his best to pay attention to noise. Sofia went to say something and he stopped her with his hand and ran to the door and threw it open and took off down the stairs with Sofia following shortly behind him.
Cedric knew something was wrong, the castle seemed too quiet. There was always the slight noise that carried to his tower of someone doing something. He couldn't hear anything right now.
"Mister Cedric—"
"Sofia! Not now!" Cedric scolded and Sofia was momentarily taken aback. She recovered quickly enough and continued to run after Cedric. He stopped at the throne room and pushed the door open. Once he stared inside, his body faltered and he put all his weight on the door in defeat.
Sofia walked through the door and her eyes widened. Her parents were sitting in their thrones, completely white and unmoving.
"M-mom? Dad?" She started to panic and Cedric grabbed her arm, preventing her from going any further.
"They're fine, Sofia." He said quietly. "Just asleep."
"B-but... what..." She looked around the room, everyone was the same, there were servants on the floor, things were dropped, the room was a mess. "What happened?"
"I can't be too sure..." Cedric said carefully. "But if I had to guess, this has to be related to my mother's missing ring." He said in defeat.
"But... How?" He looked pained.
"It was a very powerful ring. So powerful I was unable to have it. My father didn't trust me. Much like your amulet, it has properties that can be corrupted." Sofia looked at him in shock. "Don't look at me like that. I know all about the Amulet. I have for years. And I know in the wrong hands the amulet can be corrupted. Just like the ring. My mother had a wicked side, no doubt. However nothing compares to this. She isn't bad enough to put..." He swallowed hard. "An entire kingdom under a curse."
"But why are we okay?" Sofia asked quietly and was put out by him sprinting away again. She sighed and followed after him.
They made it to the tower and he threw open the book and scanned the pages for the potion. When he got to the page he sat down, defeated.
"We didn't make Infirmum autem in corde suo, Sofia. That potion seems to have been ripped out." He pulled up the mostly torn out page to reveal the true name of the potion they created. "We made muniat infirmitatem cordis. Which means protect weakness of the heart. I'm not too sure but it sounds as though this is the antidote to the first potion, weakness of the heart. But somehow it may have protected us from the curse. I just wish I knew which curse was cast." He cradled his head in his hands and Sofia walked up to him, putting her hand on his shoulder.
"You know what we have to do, right Mister Cedric?" He looked up at her pitifully, almost begging her not to say it. "We have to save Enchancia." His pained expression was more apparent.
"I was really hoping you wouldn't say that..." He suddenly wished that he, too, was under the curse.
Like I said, if this is something that interests you, let me know! If I don't have readers I'm just going to stop writing, I don't want to write without an audience so kindly leave a review!
