Mine and Freud's first meeting came a few days after Christmas.

The house was still decorated head to toe in decorations.

I walked into the library expecting to meet with Sigmund, only to find him gone,

In his place was a smaller version of him. Short, brown hair, dark gray eyes, he wore glasses like me.

Seeing as he was engrossed in a book, I could take a few seconds to consider how I would approach him.

What was it that Sigmund told me about him?

He's a loner, he focuses heavily on his magical studies, he doesn't play nice with people, and we share more personality traits than we might realize…

"Are you going to stand there all day?"

I almost jumped.

Instead of looking at his book, Freud was now staring at me.

Did he hear me open the door?

Anyway, I suppose all that planning was for naught.

"Couldn't bear to be without my presence for a minute more?

He snorted.

"If I can't make a plan, then neither can you."

Maybe that's one personality trait we share, a love for planning things out.

I walk over, take the seat beside him and angle my chair towards him.

I take a quick glance down to see the title of the book he's reading.

'A Treatise On Blood Magic.'

Wow, that seems quite advanced.

Is he just as much a prodigy as his dad, or is this the baseline level for descendants of Merlin?

I held my hand out to him.

"Pleasure to meet you, Freud. I'm Lucius."

"Yeah yeah, the Phenex child. Dad's been blabbering my ear off about you these past few weeks."

He grabbed my hand and lazily shook it.

I give him a radiant smile.

"All positive I'm sure."

He smirked at me, reminiscent of Sigmund.

"Are you sure about that?"

I returned the smirk with a perfect copy.

"That's an interesting book you got there. Seems rather advanced."

He glanced down at the book for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders at me.

"Certainly sounds like it's advanced, but it's a jumping off point for beginners."

"What exactly does blood magic encompass?"

"It's like a sister art to necromancy. Use of blood magic can empower a lot of necromantic magics."

"Is it purely a supplemental branch to necromancy or does it have applications of its own."

I felt a bit out of my league here.

Since lesson one, Sigmund and I have been focusing purely on devil magic.

He told me that he's confident that once I have a firm understanding of how to use devil magic, all these other branches will just begin to click in my head.

I can only hope that one day I'm knowledgeable enough to comprehend and use all these different branches of magic.

"I'm still not sure, I've only gotten the book yesterday. It was dad's way of getting me to come here."

Ouch, that stings a bit.

Had to be bribed to even talk to me.

The conversation seems to be flowing alright though, so maybe I'm not doing a terrible job.

"What do you do in your free time?"

"When I'm not studying magic?"

I nodded.

To my surprise, he folded his arms and began to look off into space.

Was he actually taking the time to think about it?

From what Sigmund said, I would have expected him to only study magic.

"I like board games."

I perked up because hidden in this library was a little cache of them.

I would play a few games with staff members while mom and dad were away.

It wasn't often, but I relished any chance I got to play them.

"I have board games, what do you want to play?"

He grimaced and then told me.

"I would be willing to play chess with you."

Don't like chess, eh?

Fortunately for you, neither do I.

As a result, I don't even have a chess board here.

"Don't have it."

I don't think I could have surprised him more.

"Really?"

I shrugged.

"People tout chess as being this amazing strategic war game, but I think it's a mediocre game at best. It's certainly fun at intermediate levels, but at the highest levels, it relies a lot on memorization. It also gives people unrealistic expectations of war, that both sides are of equal strength, that all soldiers will move in specific patterns, and that you will have perfect information on what your opponent is doing."

"That's quite the opinion. I think this is the first time I've met a devil who hated chess."

I don't hate chess. Like I said, I think it's mediocre.

"Let's get back to choosing a game, what do you want to play?"

"Do you have Scrabble?"

I walked over to a bookcase in the back corner of the library and pulled out a Scrabble box from behind some books.

I placed the box on the table and we began to set up the game.

We had to set up a few ground rules, Freud obviously knew a ton of magical terminology that I had no idea about. If he wanted to, he just set down a random string of letters and claimed it was an actual word, and I couldn't really say otherwise.

He told me that Scrabble was how his dad taught him how to memorize and spell those words.

We played for about an hour, chatting about random topics in between turns. We didn't really talk about ourselves that much, but we were getting comfortable with each other.

We spoke about our interests in magic, the differences in our schooling systems, our daily lives, the pressure that comes with having a legacy to live up to and what it was like growing up with Sigmund as a parent.

I don't exactly remember how we got on the topic of shows, but I was probably the one to bring it up.

"You've never seen an anime?"

Freud firmly shook his head.

That was practically sacrilegious.

You can just not watch anime? Who would have thought...

Nah, just kidding. I've taken a multi year hiatus from watching anime before.

It was certainly a shame though, and it got me thinking.

What if I was to introduce him to some shows?

I thought about what I could show him.

Most of the shows I knew and loved wouldn't be made for many years to come. The only thing I'd really been watching was Serafall's magical girl show.

Wait, that's an idea.

What if I introduce him to Serafall's show? I liked it even though I had never seen a magical girl show before.

Now all I had to do was convince him to watch it with me.

If I tried to convince him that this was valuable from a training perspective, would it work?

I spent the last game of scrabble formulating a small speech.

He told me no plans, but what he doesn't know won't harm him.

I lost the game by a sizable margin.

I stopped slouching in my chair and lightly stretched.

"Tired of losing?"

"A bit."

"Would you like to play a different game then?"

"I've got a bit of a different idea."

He raised a brow at me.

"You mentioned you have never seen an anime before. Shall I introduce you to one?"

He scoffed.

"Why would I even want to watch one? Shit like that will rot your brain."

"You think? Personally I think the opposite."

"The opposite? What exactly does that mean?"

"Well, magic is based around imagination. Watching shows with magic and supernatural abilities will help to expand your imagination. You can take ideas presented by the show that you resonate with and then you can apply them to your own spells."

Freud doesn't respond so I take the opportunity to continue.

"So, if you think about it, watching anime could also be a form of training."

He sat there in thought for a few moments.

Finally, he sat up straight and looked at me crossly.

"I thought we agreed there would be no plans?"

…Am I just a bad liar?

How does everybody know when I'm trying to sneak something past them?

I give him a smile.

"I don't remember agreeing to that."

He looked exasperated at that statement.

A few moments later a smile began to tug at his face.

"Touché."

Taking that as permission, I pulled out my phone and opened up my streaming service.

I handed him an earbud, and hit play.

We were in the middle of the second episode when Sigmund returned.

For the first half of the first episode, I noticed that Freud was having difficulties paying attention. I could sympathize, some of the best shows out there really did have slow starts. It must be a curse or something.

Eventually though, something seemed to click and he sat back and properly watched.

I paused the video and removed my earbud.

"Were you two watching something?"

"Yep, I was showing Freud a show I like."

Freud removed his earbud and handed it back to me.

"Did you two have a good time?"

"Yep." "It was alright."

Well, considering that he had to be bribed to be here, I would take alright.

Sigmund began beaming at us.

"I knew you two would be a good fit. We'll have to do this more often then."

I gave Sigmund a thumbs up.

Noticing Freud about to get up, I stopped him.

"Here, give me your number. I'll send you my login details, so you can watch it at home."

Freud didn't resist.

He picked up his phone, flicked through a few menus and showed me his number.

I opened up my messaging app, and texted him the name of the site, my username and my password.

"Don't be a stranger now. If you ignore me, I'll just send you a hundred requests to play online pool."

Freud burst out into laughter at that.

He stuck his hand out to me with his pinky extended.

"Promise?"

I accepted the pinky promise.

The two left, and I stayed in the library.

I put away Scrabble, and picked up a few novels.

The library used to be purely history and magic, but I had requested that we get some actual stories in here.

It would be some hours until dinner and it was a good opportunity to read.

Our first meeting had gone well.

Freud was a bit of a prickly character, but he wasn't boring. He also wasn't as aggressive as I expected him to be.

Sigmund had said that he preferred to display his steel, but he seemed very cordial with me.

Did Sigmund have something to do with that?

Freud did say that Sigmund had been blabbering his ears off about me.

It doesn't really matter though, we were now on friendly terms.

I took a quick moment to think about the future of our friendship.

Was I going to pursue him as a member of my peerage, or would we remain only friends?

Maybe it was too early to be thinking about this, but I think it's important to know where exactly I want this to go, and what I will want out of this relationship.

Preferably he would join my peerage, but I could foresee it causing quite a few issues. I would have to get Sigmunds permission, I would have to convince Freud without pushing him away, making Freud a member of my peerage may lead to future issues with the Pendragons too.

I would also have to think about what piece to give him.

He seemed to be a perfect match for the remaining bishop, but I barely knew him. For all I know, he may be extremely skilled with a weapon.

Enough about Freud though, if it's meant to be, an opportunity will arise.

I have a book to read.

I arrived at dinner to the excited faces of mom and dad.

This was a bit unusual, Christmas time had come and gone.

"You two seem excited. Did something good happen?"

The smiles on their faces said it all.

The two of them spoke over each other trying to get it out.

They paused, and then dad motioned mom to speak.

"We have some very exciting news."

I sat down in my chair, expecting to hear some news about Ruval.

"I'm pregnant."

What?

It's only been 7 years since I was born, and mom is pregnant again?

For a second, I considered that devil birth rates must have been different than I knew, but I can clearly remember dad's words.

'For a race that reproduces slowly, every death via preventable means is a deep cut.'

Riser wasn't that old, was he?

He was certainly older than Rias, but only by a decade or two, I think.

Something is very clear going on here, but I can only speculate at best.

"In celebration of your mother's pregnancy, we will be holding a celebration here. You're also old enough that we will informally introduce you to some members of the nobility at this party."

That was cause for worry,

I'm not going to lie and say I didn't have tutors teaching me manners at a young age, but I had always assumed that as the second son, I wouldn't ever really need them.

I was not confident at all that I was ready for this party.

I even felt a bit faint.

This wasn't even considering that if mom was actually pregnant with Riser, I was a lot closer to the beginning of the show than I first realized.

Riser was a full adult when it kicked off, but if the timeline was already so messed up, I had no idea when the engagement would happen.

And afterwards there would be increasingly strong enemies appearing around every corner.

Trying my best to stay conscious, I smiled at them.

AN: This chapter actually went far faster than I thought it would. Might take a bit of a break after this chapter. I don't really feel tired, but burnout is hiding around every corner.

I don't actually remember if I made Serafall's show, RL or Anime. Looking back I don't think I actually specified.

I had originally planned for a time skip after this chapter, but I've been persuaded otherwise. I will still do the timeskip, but I'm going to have a few more chapters before that.

My plans are in constant flux, but I think that I'm going to lock myself into doing the engagement arc in the near future. There may be a mini arc or two, but if I'm making Lucius like 7 years older than Riser then I'll probably make Ravel be born when Riser is about 12 and kick off the engagement arc. As a result, Rias will probably be around the same age as Riser. (Absolutely subject to change though, like I said, my plans are in constant flux.)

I can only hope that I won't regret this, lmao.