Chapter VIII: The Pair

Virgil decides to charm Carson’s amulets next. As he asks Carson for suggestions, Carson has no idea what to suggest—until he suggests something unexpected the day later.

As Virgil wondered what to do with charms, he remembered Carson. Even if Carson had Ace around, Virgil couldn’t help but think he needed to spend more time with him. “Oh, yeah. Carson has some amulets. I think I’ll try charming those.”

“I see. Has he mentioned any interesting charms?” John asked.

“Hmm… Nope. But I’ll ask later.”

“Alright. I’m gonna sleep. You can just go ask him tonight.”

As John lay down on his bed, Virgil looked at the clock in his room. John rarely slept this early, but it’s nothing new. It wasn’t the first time Virgil had seen John with his unusual sleep schedule, after all.

Not wanting to disturb John, Virgil left his bedroom.

Once Virgil had gotten downstairs, Ace and Carson were eating at the dining table, and he joined them. After eating and cleaning the dishes, Ace had to leave for the night, so Carson stayed downstairs with Virgil.

“Hey, Carson,” Virgil asked, as he watched Carson rearranging the kitchen utensils, or that’s what he thought he was doing. “You know how I’ve been practicing charms?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’ll be practicing again tomorrow, and I don’t know what to practice next. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Hmm…” Carson shuffled the utensils, as Virgil wasn’t sure if he was rearranging them, or doing something else. “No idea. I know there’s power, agility, warding, and that’s about it.”

“Oh, I’ll grab you the book then.”

As Virgil headed upstairs to grab the book from their room, he remembered how Carson fidgeted around with the utensils—he was probably stressed out by something else. Now that both of his housemates didn’t seem to be in their best state, and Virgil wasn’t in that of a hurry to charm Carson’s amulets, he might as well cut him some slack.

For the rest of the night, Virgil let Carson take his time going through the charms in his book. And he told Carson to meet him after work, and bring any amulets he had.

As Virgil headed back from work, looking for Carson—his mind wandered to the moment his teacher was giving examples of charms. He remembered how he would be terrified at some of the examples, such as the ones that could slowly kill the wearer from inside, the ones capable of letting the wearer see things they weren’t supposed to see, and so on. He wondered, would Carson suggest something like those?

But all the worries didn’t matter—as Carson finally answered, placing a pair of amulets in Virgil’s hand. “Just go with any charms. Anything that fits these two.”

It was a pair of matching amulets, from Carson’s parents. The exact ones he retrieved from their bodies.

Virgil cast aside the disturbing memories surrounding those amulets aside, as he observed the amulets. His hand held them more firmly—not wanting to drop them, even accidentally. “Uh, you sure you wanted me to charm these? It’ll be much harder to reverse the effects if I screwed up… They’re important to you, aren’t they?”

“Mhm. They’ve been sitting in my bag for a while, so I thought it might be better to add something to these. Just charm this with anything you want. I don’t mind if it’s something basic like the power charm.”

A pair of charms belonging to Carson’s family… What should he do with them? he wondered.

Chapter VIII: Friendship Gifts

Virgil charms Carson’s amulets as a gift, and he isn’t sure if Carson would like them at first.

Something to charm Carson’s amulets with… It would be the best idea to charm it with something he could use—and the first idea that came to Virgil’s mind was the agility charm.

“What’d you think of agility charm?” Virgil asked Carson.

“Yeah, I’m fine with that.”

“Alright.”

Once Virgil and Carson arrived at the floor for charms, Virgil swiftly placed the amulets down, and he reviewed the exact words for the agility charm in his head—while Carson was watching.

If agility was considered one of the basic charms, Virgil might as well make it more special—with the techniques he learned while he was practicing more advanced charms.

“For agility,” Virgil chanted, as his consciousness returned to the same trance, where the entire process took place. He allowed the charm’s essence to manifest and grow, to the point of draining his own force. Once he noticed his weakened state, he concentrated the rest of his energy on the amulets in front of him—imbuing the essence into them before he could fall, as each amulet got a fair share of it.

When he snapped himself out of the trance, dizziness struck his vision for a moment, before he picked the amulets up. Sensing the agility charm in each individual amulet, he pieced them together—creating a denser magical aura in the air.

It’s working.

Before Virgil could feel a sense of accomplishment, he knew that wasn’t an impressive trick—any other charmers could’ve easily done this. When Carson asked for the amulets, Virgil almost hesitated.

After wearing both amulets on his neck, Carson strolled around—his eyes fixating on his quickened steps. Before Carson could end up hitting a shelf with his enhanced speed, Virgil caught him.

“You can take one of them off, and it’ll be slower.”

Carson removed an amulet from his neck as he took a few mindful steps backwards. “Oh, I get it. That’s neat.”

“Should I adjust anything? I could try making the effects lighter—”

“Nope, it’s already perfect. I would kill for something like this.” Carson wore both amulets again. “I’ll get used to it. And thanks for these.”

For a moment, Virgil’s progress in charms seemed a bit more impressive to him. But either way, as long as Carson didn’t hate them, Virgil would already be happy.

Once Virgil and Carson were done with the charms, they returned home. John hadn’t returned from his work, and Virgil doubt he’d be back ‌soon.

As this was the day Virgil wanted to spend more time with Carson, and John seemed more tired yesterday, he thought of an idea. “Hey, Carson. Wanna cook something together?”

“Hmm… Yeah, why not? What are we cooking?”

Chapter VIII: Dinner Time

While waiting for John to return from his work, Virgil and Carson cook some dinner for themselves and John.

Since Virgil came up with the idea to cook just now, he thought about what they were about to cook for a moment. With a vague idea in his head, he asked Carson, “Say, what’s your comfort food?”

“Hmm…” Carson scratched his head, taking some time to recall his past.

“Take your time.”

Carson’s fingers fidgeted as he really took his time, and he finally said something. “…Bread. Yeah, I liked bread.”

“Sounds nice.”

Carson nodded. “And what about you?”

“Mine’s soup, ate that a lot when I was a kid.” As Virgil answered, he recalled what they had in the pantry. “We could make a bread soup. What’d you think of it?”

“Sounds good.”

“Alright, we’ll need…”

Virgil headed to the pantry shelves, looking for the ingredients as Carson helped‌. Then Carson boiled the water, while Virgil chopped the ingredients.

Since the recipe wasn’t that complicated, Virgil let Carson put the chopped ingredients in the boiling pot, knowing that there’s not much room for mistakes. After that, Virgil seasoned the soup with some spices from the pantry, and tasted it on a spoon.

“Is it ready?” Carson asked, looking at Virgil taking a few uncertain sips.

With the spices that kicked his tongue to his right amount, Virgil wasn’t sure if this would be palatable to Carson—John’s palate was similar to him, but Virgil was way less sensitive to the heat. So he had one thing left to do. “Grab a spoon and try it yourself.”

Carson tried the soup, too. Upon noticing his surprised look, Virgil asked, “Too spicy?”

“Nope, it’s great. Just a bit spicier than what I’m used to.”

Taking a note of Carson’s reaction, Virgil added some remaining ingredients and spices to the soup. Even if this meal was mainly meant for John, he wanted Carson to enjoy it, too.

While Virgil was still eating and letting his mind wander, John had already finished his bowl and headed off to the sink. Carson then joined in, too. While Virgil had already expected to hear the usual banters from the two, he also heard something worrying from them—starting from when Carson began to raise his tone.

“Dude, I can wash this myself—”

“Nope. Just go play with your trinkets or whatever.”

“I can wash dishes, y’know. You think Virgil’s the one washing all the dishes when you’re gone?”

“I’m not trusting you with the dishes—”

“Bullshit. It’s been years since I broke a dish. You can go write or whatever, I can do this—”

Even if Virgil knew both of them could sort this on their own, somehow, he couldn’t help but wonder if he should be the mediator in this situation.