I like to think that the walls like smiles :)

. . . . .

A couple of weeks had passed since your meeting with the two boys, and so far you had not had the pleasure of seeing them again. Also, and since you did not know their names, you had decided to name them 'noisy and grumpy' and 'small and shy' for obvious reasons. In the meanwhile things were developing normally in your small and sweet home; winter was finally giving way to a new and beautiful spring (still cold, but still improving), and the plants in your garden were beginning to bloom at a promising rate.

Gardening (believe it or not) was one of the most powerful parts of sorcery, almost as much as the curses or spells. Plants, from the simplest and most common flowers to the most extraordinary wild specimens, could produce strange effects and, in many occasions, useful when they were mixed with the right magic. Of course this was also precisely what made it so dangerous: magical herbology was VERY PRECISE. Which meant that you had to be very gentle in the process, and very precise in measuring the quantities of the ingredients to be used. Or if not the results could be really disastrous...

Just for example, you were currently in the delicate task of measuring the exact amount of crystal essence drops (a kind of magic substance ESPECIALLY DELICATE) that you were adding to one of your plants; a still young buttercup, that was going to bloom very soon. As you mentioned before, the quantity was very important: you had to add exactly 3 drops of the magical substance to achieve the desired result... or at least not to kill the plant...

Dot

One...

Dot

Two and...

¡KNOCK! ¡KNOCK!

"Fuck!" You exclaimed when the sudden knocks on your door deconcentrated you, causing you to accidentally throw the pipette with the liquid on the young plant...

Dot, dot, dot...

''Oh shit" you had just the time to mumble before the little plant began to tremble as the magic substance took effect...

KAAAAAA-BOOOOM!

...

"* Cough Cough * Hi? Can I help you?" You coughed harshly, opening the door, while you blinked in spite the ashes that covered your face, and that in the past had been part of a young buttercup, trying to concentrate your blurred vision on the two guys at your door.

"SHIT, ARE YOU OKAY?" a voice asked, and you immediately recognized who it was. 'Noisy and grumpy'! You rubbed your eyes trying to see the young boy, and finally everything cleared up a bit. He had not changed much since the last time you two saw each other; his clothes were still simple and peasant, and his hair was messy and wild, although you must admit that he looked much better without that dirty old hat covering it.

"Hello again! Nah, everything is perfectly" you greeted, being interrupted by another series of small coughs when a cloud of ashes from your old plant separated from your clothes, permeating in the air. "None of you is asthmatic or something like that, right? * Cough Cough * There is some dust in here" you explained while trying to clean the air with your hand "... and ashes".

"YOU REALLY ARE FUCKING CRAZY" he murmured, before suddenly he seemed to remember the reason he had come and return to the normal volume of his voice "I NEED SOMETHING, CAN WE GO IN?" he asked.

His serious tone immediately caught your attention, causing you to take the situation more professionally and immediately open the door of your (still with a faint smell of burnt) house.

"Yeah, right, go ahead..." you murmured, watching as he and the other guy walked through the door. And then you noticed something...

He was holding the other boy by the arm while they were walking. The look of the new boy did not seem to be very focused, moving nervously by random points of the house while his head was still stuck looking at the exactly same place, without looking at anything apparently...

... was he blind?

After the boy you already knew helped the other to sit on one of the straw chairs in your kitchen and the three of you became comfortable, you hesitated, looking at both of them before you finally dare to talk.

"Can I see?" you asked timidly, while pointing to the boy sitting in front of you, his eyes still lost somewhere in the room. 'Noisy' nodded silently, so you figured you must have guessed right the problem.

Slowly you got up from your seat, careful that your footsteps made enough noise on the old wooden floor so that the boy could know where you were. He was thin, perhaps a little too much, his hair was blond like wheat and his skin was pale, though not as much as 'noisy''s. You gently lifted his chin with your hand and forced him to move his face towards you, peculiar (but still pretty) two-colored red and blue eyes blinked at you with confusion. They were... covered by a kind of semitransparent black-looking layer. A clear and precise phrase instantly lit up inside your head...

A spell of blindness.

You bit your lip, gently releasing the boy's chin to let him go. He moved back, still seemingly confused by your actions, as he gently caressed with his hand the part where you had grabbed him, now that you realize perhaps a little stronger than you intended at first.

He blinked again and finally moved his head in your direction, in what seemed to be an attempt to look at your face "2o... you are kk'2 new friiend" he murmured with a remarkable lisp. It was... kinda cute.

"Yes, that's me" you replied, a big proud smile breaking through your face "although I must admit that I did not expect him to talk about me that way" you added, glancing sideways at the young boy sitting on the other side of the table. For a moment you almost thought that he looked a little smaller, and that his cheeks were a little flushed.

"fuck, are you kiiddiing me? he doe2 not 2top talkiing about you all the fuckiing tiime" the other boy said, clearly in a tone that managed to affect the other.

"WHAT THE FUCK SOLLUX?!"

You laughed audibly and you spoke again to the blind boy. "You seem quite calm to meet a witch" you grimaced, pointing to the other. "He was terrified" you whispered, low enough so he would not hear you.

You were rewarded for your comment, and a small tentative laugh came from the boy's ('Sollux') throat, who for a moment almost seemed to forget his inability to detect where you were, even daring to give you a small smile. Smile that surely the wall must have received with gratitude, who knows...

From there, the situation became... silent. The discomfort was obvious, mainly because neither you nor 'grumpy' wanted to point out the boy's mistake. Who, judging from the growing seriousness on his face (probably a cover for shame), was beginning to understand his unpleasant situation. You did not want to be the first to speak, but in the end you had to intervene for the sake of the future of the conversation...

"If you do not mind me asking" you changed the subject "can I know how he ended up like this?" you asked, obviously referring to the boy of the spell, with a tone of voice that clearly was not humorous at all.

You're sure 'grumpy' could not have been more frozen after your question, even if he was literally.

"CAN NOT YOU FIX IT?" the bright-eyed boy asked, with a mixture of disappointment and sadness on his face, which for some reason made you worry, so you quickly set out to correct him...

"NO! I mean..." you let go, maybe not in the most orderly or polite way possible "I CAN do it, although it will take a lot of work... and time..." you murmured "but that's not what worries me..."

You sighed and looked up, silently watching the two boys, although you were sure that only the one you already knew was watching you back (for more than obvious reasons). For a moment your eyes acquired a strange glimmer of mystery and wisdom, which seemed to be so common in magical beings...

"This is dark magic."