Thinking of doing away with the 'using other games magic spells as this world's magic' plan. I'm probably going to end up with either spamming google translate Latin or, idk, using locations from the Professor Layton series as spell names or something.


Familiar Worn Out Faces

By Bilbo-sama

Chapter 8


"You..." Roland attempted.

"Me?" snarked back the Arcane.

"I hadn't seen that face for almost a year," Roland managed. "I had been aged down to twenty when I arrived in Ding Dong Dell."

The other man tilted his head, his face twitching towards confusion before he smoothed his features to look more neutral. How has his alternate self not noticed yet?

"I don't know what I expected," a guard commented, "but it wasn't this."

"Kind of disappointing, really," said Bracken.

"Was that always on his back?" asked Batu suddenly.

"What is?" Roland twisted around in attempts to see it. He only managed to see something shining.

"It could be a spell," guessed Tani.

"It's probably the one Doloran used to send me here," Roland sighed.

"Perhaps it is," said this world's Arcane as he circled around the otherworlder, "However, I have no knowledge of your world's system of magic so the rune is unfamiliar to me."

"Let me see," came Evan's voice from the throne and Roland automatically turned his back, facing the stares from a few of his colleagues' (friends'), before he realized what he was doing. He noted that the Arcane stepped aside.

"What does it look like?" asked Roland, even more curious.

Tani quickly summoned her lance and used it to trace the rune in the air. She started at her left shin and moved the lance point to the upper right diagonally. She continued by moving horizontally to the left before going diagonally to the lower right to her right leg. She readjusted her grip and repeated the movements again for the second time.

"There was two," she explained.

Roland blinked as he mentally repeated the movements in his head. It...seemed...familiar somehow but he never saw it before. He then realized that Doloran knows what it is but most likely wont share if Roland managed to ask him somehow.

[THAT'S OLD MAGIC. OLDER THAN ALLEGORIA ITSELF. YOU DON'T HAVE MY PERMISSION TO KNOW IT.]

How come? Roland asked, curious.

[YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT.]

I do when it affects me.

[YOU'LL FIND OUT SOON ENOUGH.]

Roland grumbled in annoyance. The Horned One retreated and Roland suddenly realized that he was awkwardly clutching at the top of his head as purple cleared away from his vision along with the familiar pain.

Everyone in the throne room had surrounded him, their weapons ready to strike. Draigfawrlanloff, who Roland could've sworn wasn't by his counterpart's side or in the room before, glowed faintly. Roland vaguely wondered if the rabbit-headed Kingmaker's true form was a dragon like Lofty or a giant rabbit.

He then spotted a light brown furred grimalkin with dark blond hair on his head dressed in Evan's clothes holding a familiar sword. This world's Evan's tail swished in caution. Somehow Roland could not find the energy to be surprised. Why not, he supposed.

"Please stop talking to the Horned One," Bracken requested, slowly moving her finger away from her gun's trigger.

"I...Was I speaking out loud?" Roland turned to the Arcane, who carefully lowered his eagle-headed staff. The three jewels in the center of the head piece gleamed with power that was waiting to be used.

"You spoke in a language similar to Allegorian," the Arcane explained, "I suppose that was the language spoken in your soul mate's Allegoria. Fascinating that the differences between worlds include languages."

"But why would I speak in a language I never learned?" asked Roland.

"You know it because your soul mate knows it. Just like you too have a Kingsbond to the Horned One."

"I have a what?"

"A Kingsbond," repeated the Arcane, "presumably since birth just like my soul mate."

That...that was something he should have considered. Doloran has a Kingsbond and somehow Roland inherited it. It would explain why he can hear the Horned One.

(...He wondered if that's why his reelection campaign last year went so smoothly. Was it because of the Horned One?

No.

Don't think about it. Deal with that later.)

"The Horned One affected Doloran that badly while it was active as well," added Evan, apparently oblivious to the sorcerer slightly shifting in place (which Roland knew meant he felt guilty after he himself doing it many times as a child), "he always said it was too loud."


"'Rule the world?'" repeated Doloran in disbelief so strongly that Roland could feel it. "You have been reading too many fairy tales, boy. That was not my intention."

"Then what is?" asked Evan.


"Dammit, not now," muttered Roland as he came back to himself.

"I beg your pardon?" said Leander who was suddenly next to him, startling the otherworlder.

"Ah, welcome back, Mr. Crane," said Draigfawrlanlofft, "you missed Leander's explanation."

"Did he?" Leander was confused, "but he spoke to us..."

"Yeah but he was kind of in some sort of trance," Bracken pointed out, "and half of the sigil was brighter until he...came back I guess."

Roland didn't seem to be listening. Instead he stared at Leander, now discovering the final difference he will encounter in this world.

Leander had wings, tail feathers, and -

"Why is your coat blue?" his mind decided to focus on. How did he miss all of that in the first meeting in the dungeon? How did he miss a pair of wings?

"Why shouldn't it be?" said Leander neutrally.

Roland had no answer for that.


Writer's block is strong this week but this feels like a good place to stop.

1. Okay so the spell described is the eleventh spell in the Wizard's Companion. However, it only describes what the spell does and the fact that using it is draining on the caster. Since it doesn't say what happens if you cast this spell on somebody else and that this was cast on Roland by a guy whose magic is amplified by a corrupted personification of power, I'm gonna make things up as I go along.

Also it turns out this site doesn't allow images so you're all spared from my attempt with ms paint.

2. I had many ideas what to do with Evan and the last idea was 'half-grimalkin who resembled a grimalkin but had no tail and couldn't meow/make cat noises/communicate non-verbally' and that just sounded too depressing so full grimalkin it is.

3. It's my fic and I get to say that the alternate reality has a half-human Leander. He was decided long before I got stuck on Evan.

And to be honest, the more I write this mess, the more I want to someday write out the whole AU because I haven't lost control of my life enough lol