Arc picked at her pile of fruit as she watched Owyn make small-talk with one of her moms. It was a little infuriating how often his eyes went to Cassiel’s tits, but then again Cassiel wasn’t exactly afraid of showing off her cleavage. Not that Arc was jealous at all, being sowhat lacking in that departnt comparatively. Nope. Not her.
Owyn wasn’t being flirtatious, but it was clear his mind was typical of n, being in the gutter and whatnot.
"Wait, so there aren’t any servants and you do most of the work around here? How is that possible?"
"The place is huge, I know, but as they say," Cassiel’s mana spilled forth as she summoned her signature spell, "More hands make less work! My Hekatonkheries lets multitask all over the mansion if I need to."
"Heka...?"
"It’s the na of a mythical creature. Supposedly they had a hundred hands and if you cut off their heads they’d just grow more."
Cassiel was the most flirtatious of her moms, not that she ever let anything go anywhere without informing at least Rainier and Malzkael. Arc patiently waited through their conversation, only occasionally looking up to answer the odd question as briefly as possible, before slowly eating her morning al.
Eventually, they got to the subject of her family and she tuned them out entirely, grabbing a muffin, ripping off the top, and nibbling the muffin top on her way to the hall. Knowing Cassiel she’d be talking for ages, so Arc decided to set up in the center courtyard.
Technically there were three center courtyards, each with their own door. One was a range for weapons and magic. One was a garden - more like a farm, given how much produce could co out of it now that Sylvia was a practiced druid. And the last was a clear patch of mostly grass that hosted the family’s one cow, a hairy coo nad Blossom. Her parents did a lot of sparring in the field courtyard, and she checked the door and listened, hearing Blossom’s perpetual rumination between the sounds of tal clashes which ant the courtyard was occupied. She briefly noticed her Dad fighting soone whose back was to her, before closing the door.
Figuring she’d get more done without having to explain why she was by herself, she opened the door to the range courtyard and found it unoccupied. Making her way to the reinforced cabinet at the back of the room, she put in the nuric combination - a feature that only existed because she couldn’t project her mana signature at all - and extracted her weapon and so magazines.
Smoke, as her rifle was affectionately nad, was a one-of-a-kind weapon her father made for her after she first learned how to shoot. He’d dubbed her a "dragon gun" for how billowso and loud the flare emissions were. Or at least that’s what she thought he’d called her; he might have said "dragunov," but her ears were still ringing at the ti. In any case, the term hadn’t co up and her father’s withdrawal from her life had begun shortly after, so she hadn’t bothered to investigate. Being too big for her dinsional storage, she wanted to bring Smoke with her to the Academy, which ant she needed to clean her before figuring out how to get a dinsional bag.
Sitting at the booth farthest from the door, she made quick work of taking Smoke apart and lost herself in the act of cleaning. That is, until sothing poked her shoulder twice from behind and she jumped, knocking her stool sideways as she lifted the barrel, ready to bludgeon. Only there was no one behind her, just one of Cassiel’s many hands, which waved at her, blinking the singular eye that rested in its palm.
Unable to really communicate, it gesticulated a few vague signs like soone walking before hovering over to the door and opening it for Owyn, who nervously stepped inside, scratching at the back of his head.
"So, uh, your family is... interesting."
"What did you learn?" Arc asked, setting the stool upright and focusing on clearing out the barrel with a long scrubber.
"Let think... Rainier, Kordia, and Kir are the founders. Cassiel is with Rainier and Malzkael mostly but likes Ferro because Malzkael likes Ferro. Ferro is with Kir and Malzkael but also Rainier a lot and lately he’s been getting to know, uh, Sin. There’s soone nad rcy who’s exclusive with Lapins but has kids from Sin. Kordia is a princess and so are Lapins and Sin, and they’re together, but also they’re one person nad Reiko sotis? That one confused ."
"Just think of it as new magic. They actually offer to help people form similar bonds, though it doesn’t always get to the level of making a new gestalt." Arc scrubbed harder.
"That’s the word she used! So yeah, there’s also soone nad Stella who Cassiel calls a ’flying slut,’ but she’s got her own House or sothing. Then there’s Amarena, who’s with Kir but also bullies Ferro, and Stella likes her. Rainier is competitive with Amarena and Ferro is competitive with, uh, Stella... and at that point I got a bit lost because your mom started talking about kids..."
"Don’t worry about Cassiel. She’s a flirt, but she has the people she loves. Think we’re freaks yet?" Arc finished with the barrel and started putting the pieces of Smoke back together.
"Honestly, I can’t really judge since it’s none of my business who people care about," Owyn shrugged, and Arc gave him a brief look, finding sincerity there. "You have a lot of parents. Makes a little envious."
"Don’t be. Just ans there’s always soone watching ," Arc chewed her lip bitterly as she snapped Smoke’s receiver into place.
Owyn’s frown made itself known in his voice, though he changed the subject. "What’s that thing?"
"It’s a gun. A rifle, specifically," Arc said.
"I don’t know what that ans," Owyn continued.
"It’s a weapon. For shooting at long distances. Like a bow or crossbow, only louder," Arc dry-tested the trigger assembly, making sure to keep Smoke pointed downrange. Smoke made a satisfying click.
"Is it broken?" Owyn asked, leaning on the wall behind Arc’s bench.
"It’s unloaded," Arc thumbed the safety on before reaching for a magazine, slamming it into the receiver, and charging the gun. "Now it’s loaded."
"How do you-"
"Just watch," Arc snapped, turning and tapping the icons for the range that were built into the wall of the booth. She set up a target at half a kiloter, flat and vaguely humanoid shapes with markings for major organs.
Turning her stool to the side, she straddled it like a dragon and proceeded to put four rounds through the head, five through the heart, and ten through the chest as she alternated targets, with only one miss because Owyn distracted her with his noises. The basic protection circles built into her earrings kept the noise down, and she cleared the last shell from Smoke with a satisfied smile before tapping the command to bring the target closer.
"It hit that tiny thing from that far?" Owyn’s voice was still heavy with surprise. "Can I get one of those?"
"There are a couple of caster rifles in the cabinet. As long as you promise to listen to , I’ll show you how to work them." When Arc nodded enthusiastically, she proceeded to do just that, explaining the magical chanisms and especially the resizing circles, since the pair of rifles were demonstration pieces her father had made for guests.
Unlike Smoke, these rifles operated entirely with magic, and so they could change effects from pure force to fire and ice and so forth. And unlike powder weapons, Arc couldn’t make them work worth a damn. If she had an hour or soone else with her, she could fire them, but for so reason her accuracy with them was abysmal compared to even the most rudintary powder-based arms.
And if Arc was being honest with herself, she kindof liked the taste of gunpowder...
For a first tir, Owyn proved to be slightly less abysmal than expected. He missed fewer shots as he went along, favoring the "needle" force effect, which was one of two modes for that type of shot, the other being sothing more like a wide cone ant more for knocking down within ten ters than reaching the two-hundred or so of the needle setting, which could actually puncture.
They spent about an hour practicing, and by the end Owyn was able to land one headshot in five.
The downside to using a powder-based weapon was that while Arc was vastly better with them than most, they still required cleaning and oiling, while caster firearms could just be stowed. Sure, Smoke ca with a magic circle for taking care of the majority of the ss, but Arc found the act of taking care of her rifle ditative.
Owyn kept practicing as she took Smoke apart once more, and she was so quickly engrossed in the task that she didn’t sense Owyn had stopped until he asked her a question.
"So... I heard there was going to be so big announcent because of . Do you know anything about that?"
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