Chapter 4: In which Claire becomes a pupil

Hisirdoux Casperan opened his eyes and then shut them tightly again. The sun was far too bright and he had a headache the size of Camelot itself. He hadn't felt anything like this since the time he'd been pressured into trying Old Mulligan's home brew circa two hundred and eighty years earlier, south Ireland. Never did remember anything after the second tankard, but even today there was a very interesting local song that described the sorts of things a wizard might do under heavy intoxication.

Wincing, he shielded his eyes and sat up. Sunlight came streaming in low through his window and the air had a weight to it that implied it was the end of a long, hot day instead of morning.

"Oh no! What time is it?!" He fumbled for his phone only to find it dead. "That's… odd. I could have sworn it was fully charged last night."

Stumbling to his feet, he was surprised to find it harder to walk than it should have been. Several times he had to stop and lean against the wall to rest as he made his way toward the throne room and Jim's stone casket. The westernmost windows had been covered by cloth so that the trolls could safely spend time there. Toby and Archie were with them, all talking quietly among themselves.

"I need a phone," he said, making them spin around.

"Douxie!" Archie cried, crossing the room in two flaps of his wings and crashing into him. It was a far more exuberant greeting than the wizard expected and he landed hard on his back.

"I'm still knackered, Arch! Owww… I could sleep for at least another hour but I don't have time." He got up with Blinky's help. "Does anyone here have a working phone? I need to call someone and—"

"Dude, you've been asleep for days!" Toby interrupted. He held out his phone, not quite sure why Douxie suddenly looked horrified. "You can use mine."

"…Thanks."

"It was really creepy seeing you sleep in the air like that. Do all wizards sleep that way? Archie wouldn't tell me because he said it was none of my business, and good luck getting anything out of Merlin! Why won't anyone explain these things?"

Douxie was still trying to process the fact that he'd slept through an important date. "I… I really need to make that call."

Accepting the cell phone with trepidation, he walked just outside onto the main walkway between the castle's two main towers, Archie still perching on his shoulder. The dragon—or cat at this point—had wrapped his tail around Douxie's neck as though worried his friend would disappear if he didn't keep close.

"How long?"

Archie looked away. "Six days. Merlin said you may not wake up for weeks, so I'm glad you're early."

"Six days? Oh, fuzzbuckets." He ran one hand down his face to hide the pain of this revelation. After taking several deep breaths, he dialed a number and put the phone to his ear. "Come on, please pick up… Zoe! I promise you I have an explanation for— … Yes, I know you've called and left messages but I think a spell caught me unawares or something. … No, I'm serious! I just woke up less than five minutes ago and realized— Zoe? Zoe?"

He stared at the phone which heartlessly blinked the words 'call ended' at him.

"Well, that's the end of that," Archie sighed. "I should have warned you about setting up a date when we're in the middle of a mission. You can't always keep a schedule."

Douxie leaned against the crenelated stone wall that kept residents of the floating castle from accidentally tripping and suffering a long, leisurely fall to their deaths. "What happened? If what Toby said is true then someone must have cast a spell on me. Was it Merlin?"

"No. You were hovering while you slept and no one could wake you."

Douxie shot a surprised look at his friend. "Ensorcelled sleep? But that only happens to beginners when their magic is first calling them. I haven't done that since I was a lad."

"Merlin thinks throwing away your piece of the Heart caused it. He said you have nine hundred years' worth of catching up to do."

"Well, that explains all the dreams," he said with a vigorous headshake. "One giant jumble of a mess going nonstop. But the weird thing is… at the same time things made sense. I don't know. It's hard to explain. Did I miss anything while I was out?"

"Hm. We fought off four more niffin attacks with no lasting damage, Tobias is a pain in my tail, the trolls watch over Jim, though the many-eyed one continues pilfering ancient, irreplaceable tomes down into the dungeon, Merlin keeps to himself and his research, and Claire is doing her best to imitate him. She only comes out for meals and then runs back to her retreat."

"Where?" he asked, a suspicion latching onto his thoughts.

Minutes later he entered a chamber in one of the the middle levels. He recognized it as belonging to Brigitte—the last apprentice Merlin had taken on before himself. Even though she was little more than an average sorceress who specialized in earth magic, that conceited blonde always looked down her nose at Douxie whenever she saw him just because her father was a feudal lord (and he may have retaliated with some "misapplied" spells that involved roaches or spiders… and a mending spell gone wrong on her wardrobe… and another that soured her perfume… and maybe a few others) so there was little love lost between them. Seeing the fury in her eyes when she found out Merlin had left him and Galahad in charge of Camelot after he'd taken to his slumber was more than a little rewarding.

But she always did have a fancier place than Douxie. Hers were spacious quarters with stained glass windows, a fireplace (and an elaborate one, at that), tapestries, magical artifacts, bookshelves of engraved beech wood, perfectly polished desks and furniture, a four-poster bed, and even a carefully-organized set of monster skulls along the back wall.

And there in the middle of it all he found the Mexican girl sitting on the floor amid several piles of books. Her armor was gone and instead she wore a long dress that looked very much like something he'd seen in Brigitte's closet. (She had raged when the color of her favorite gown magically changed from wine red to purple but she could never pin it on Douxie.)

Claire glanced up in surprise as the heavy oaken door creaked open, white shank of hair bouncing. "Douxie! Everyone was so worried about you! Are you alright?"

"Smashing," he said with more than a little sarcasm as his familiar leaped to the nearest table. "But I suppose I could always be worse. Archie told me you've locked yourself in here the last few days."

She gestured to the collection around her. "Just working on my Latin. I had to distract myself somehow."

Nudging a book with one foot, Douxie read the title and raised an eyebrow. "Brushing up on dead languages by using texts specifically about shadow magic?"

From where she sat cross-legged, Claire gave a frustrated scream and threw her hands in the air. "None of it works! I try and I try, but not one thing in here helps me."

Douxie picked up the book she'd been reading then flipped through it. "Maybe part of your problem is that these are all advanced magic." He shook his head at her. "A staff amplifies your abilities tenfold. Sometimes more depending on the situation. It's understandable that you thought you'd lost all your magic once the staff was gone, but in starting that way you skipped ahead past all the foundational building blocks and then couldn't find your way back."

"What can I do?" she wondered helplessly.

"Well, you could try finding the right books, first of all. Be back in a tick."

The wizard went into the main library two floors up and slid his finger along a set of bindings until with an "Ah!" he drew out one with a red cover. He held it up for her to see as he returned to the room.

"Latin is more scholarly, what you'd mainly use for philosophical discussions of enchantment as well as general history of magic and its impact on the world. True knowledge of training is kept between masters and apprentices, written in what's called spellcaster script to keep it exclusively in their hands." He let go of the book, allowing his magic hold it in the air as it flipped open. "So, you ready?"

She almost couldn't believe her ears. "Douxie, are you saying you're… willing to teach me?"

"I can't let you go barmy doing it on your own, can I?" he asked, tilting his head to one side as though wondering if that's what she wanted.

Archie reached out one paw to tap his arm. "But what about Merlin? You know what he said last week."

There was a pause. Douxie's magic tightened its grip on the book, making its pages flip faster as he grew resolute. "Listen, Claire, I know how you feel. You want to be there for Jim the way he was for you. And I also know you're not about to give up just because Merlin said to. So I can either let you stumble through it on your own or safely help you find the right path. As long as no narking dragons interfere, I'd be willing to help you out as often as you like."

Archie's tail bristled. "I do not nark!"

Claire's smile bloomed, both at the irate Archie and Douxie's announcement. "Where do I start?"

"With the basics. They're meant to be simple and you may even scoff at them, but they're what every true application of magic requires. Soon they'll be second nature."

Behind him Archie paced the room with surly agitation, still hung up on Douxie's comment. "I have done many things in all the years we've been associates, and nark is most certainly not one of them!"

They spent the next hour carefully going over exercises in clearing her mind and focusing on her magic. As Claire relaxed, she slowly became aware of a space both inside and outside herself. Colorless and immaterial, it grew in her mind, gaining density as her perception of it began to unlock. Claire couldn't deny how much she wanted to seize hold, but when she tried, it swayed out of reach almost tauntingly. Douxie assured her that was natural at this point.

When they stopped, she was surprised how tired she felt.

"I guess you're lucky," he said, joining her on the floor when she continued to sit there sluggishly. "There aren't many shadowmancers in the world. Most have other elements."

"Are shadowmancers the rarest?" she wondered.

"No, actually. Mine and Merlin's are the rarest. Only a few are born a century, and only to families that have a long lineage of magic in their blood. I haven't met any since the early 1800s, though."

"What kind is that?"

"Ambient—typically it's the strongest because I can borrow magic from the world around me in tandem with my own power. My binding with Archie helps too, of course," he added before the dragon could take offense. He brought his hands close together and Claire watched as pale blue light took shape between his palms. "That's one reason my charm bracer works so well. I don't just keep a collection of spells, but their full casting power no longer draws any energy from me, which is a lot more convenient than you'd think. After nine hundred years I've stored up more magic than most wizards use in their lifetimes."

Entranced, Claire had reached out to touch the ball of light. Douxie smiled at her wonder and twitched his fingers to make it dance. He beckoned to a candle and the flame there obediently detached from its wick, sailing over to ignite his magic so that he was now holding a ball of writhing blue fire. A moment later he snapped his fist closed and it snuffed out. Only a tiny wisp of sapphire smoke was left.

"I can't create water, wind, fire or other elements, but I can manipulate them. Most of my abilities come in the form of raw magical power, which I can solidify into any shape imaginable. It's just a matter of learning how."

They sat across from one another, the black-haired girl now curious about him specifically. "Archie told us you could already use magic before you met Merlin, so who taught you the basics?"

Douxie pulled up one knee to rest an arm on it, looking down. His four-legged friend was suddenly there by his elbow, gazing up into his face anxiously. "Mum did."

He was quiet for a minute, devoting himself to stroking Archie and making the cat purr. It was a loud, enthusiastic noise that she suspected was primarily meant to soothe his wizard friend.

"Is it painful to think of her?" Claire asked gently.

"Not as much as it once was. She made me happy, and that's what I remember most. My da, not so much." His expression darkened. "I never met anyone I hated more."

Sensing he was opening up to her and not wanting to lose that, Claire kept her voice soft and encouraging. "Was your father really that cruel?"

"Mum protected me from him as much as she could," Douxie murmured back, a shadow of old memories clouding his face. Now Archie climbed into his lap and pressed close while he spoke. "We were poor. Too poor to do anything more than scrape for a living off someone else's land. If I disappointed him, I got beaten. Wasn't all that strong as a lad, so beatings were just a way of life."

"That's horrible."

"My mum was secretly a hedge witch from the Casperan clan, but she never told that to anyone except me. During a war before I was born, the entire family was labeled traitors and hunted down. Never completely understood because no one would talk about it. Not even Merlin."

"A… hedge witch?"

The cat glanced her way, answering for him, "Magic-wielding humans who are somewhat weaker than your average wizard, but they can still surprise you."

"Mum thought I was nothing but a hedge wizard too in the beginning, but she was confused because I didn't seem to have a specific element and I was much stronger than any she'd ever known. If only she'd been able to see exactly how strong I am… I know she would have been proud."

Claire opened her mouth to speak, but held herself back. There was something in the way Douxie sat there, such a faraway look in his eyes, and she sensed a deep hurt he'd pushed back so long was coming forward.

"There was an accident out in the fields that broke her leg. It got infected. She died when I was twelve, right as my real powers were starting to emerge. Da mourned her by beating me even worse than usual the night of her funeral. I couldn't take it and unintentionally attacked him with my magic. I had no choice but to run after that. Didn't stop moving until Merlin took me in."

Suddenly he turned away and almost dumped Archie on the floor as he started picking up the books littered everywhere. She noticed he carefully kept his face averted as he worked, indigo-touched hair hanging down to hide it.

"Ha! Been a long time since I had a walk down memory lane," he said in a more lighthearted tone, still not looking at her. "You do need rest, though. Even with practice, magic has to settle in the psyche. I didn't really get much of that, which is why I'm not at the caliber I ought to be. Do as I say and not as I do, yeah?"

"Yeah." She stood. "Thanks for the lesson, Doux, and for sharing with me. I know that had to be hard."

"I'll put these away. You won't be needing them, after all."

He left her to rest in her room and carried the books upstairs. The heavy door gave a rattle that echoed in the large, round library. Douxie rubbed his eyes with a weighty sigh and let himself collapse in a nearby chair, sending the books into a stack with a quick display of levitation.

"What's wrong with me?" he wondered. "I haven't waffled like that since I first met you, Arch."

His familiar alighted on the back of the chair and stretched one soft paw down to pat Douxie's forehead. "Consider that perhaps you needed to talk about it again."

A/N: Just because in this universe Morgana never lived in Camelot, I gave her room to a random sorceress I named Brigitte, then let Claire have it in the present. It really is lovely even though we only get to see it once in the show and it's mostly shrouded in darkness because the artists wanted to give it a mysterious/dangerous atmosphere. The amount of detail on that fireplace is incredible, though. I want it!

Anyway, it's honestly hard to figure out if Douxie might have been abandoned as a baby or if he lost his family at a young age. The single clue we get is that he refers to Archie as the only family he's ever had (cue hairball). However, I wanted a bit more depth to his history, showing not only that he did have strong, loving memories of his mother, but also some extremely painful ones of his father which led to him instinctively seeking out a father-figure in Merlin instead. (My alternative backstory was to have Douxie the sole survivor of an attack on what was left of the Casperan family after they were targeted and hunted down, meaning he actually witnessed their murders as a six-year-old child. During his escape Archie impulsively protected him and they were inseparable after that, though he ended up suffering from severe claustrophobia due to having to hide in a small space for so long. Still, it seemed like too traumatic of an event for someone who looks so hopefully at life, so in the end it felt better to age him up and give him more of a good foundation before it all went to pot.)

As for the type of magic he uses, I had to guess on that too. I spent forever going over all his spells and trying to find some kind of pattern. I figured out a few interesting things like the way he needed an outside source for fire, how he and Archie managed to work magic together to capture Morgana, how he could take over someone else's spell and then manipulate it (Merlin's muffling masks, for instance), then there were other things like levitation that he could do without thinking. Incantations were the most confusing, though. Sometimes Douxie just said them and other times he specifically had to use his bracelet/bracer with them. All I could really determine is that any wizards can use general incantations but may not be able to use spells above a certain level. In the end, I kind of came up with my own set of divisions for magic. There are elemental types (air, fire, shadow, earth and so on) which each have their own strengths, but there are also those in the highest level whose users can be immortal because their magic literally draws power from the world around them. 'Ambient' felt like the best word to describe it since it means "of the surrounding area or environment".