Unexpected Return

A year later, On a sunny day today two people were playing chess in a garden. One was a young man and the other a young woman. The young man had messy crimson red hair and golden eyes with no pupils and the young woman had curly medium sized blonde hair and red eyes with slitted pupils. They are Erik and Mary.

" You should really just accept that you have no talent in chess, it hurts me to destroy you every time," Mary said while using left hand covering her eyes and making an overdramatic face that made it seem like she really was in pain.

"It's not a matter of talent, I simply like the game. Although I hate losing I don't believe I won't win one day" Erik replied while seriously focusing on the board.

"If you were meant to win you would've done so at least once in the past 300 games" Mary smiled smugly.

"You never know I may just win the most important game then your 300 will mean nothing," Erik said as he moved his rook forwards.

"You really think you'd have a chance to win just because it's claimed as an important game? If I can beat you 300 times with no loses it wouldn't make sense for me to lose when it's so important no?" Mary asked while she moved a bishop.

"Maybe you'll be tired or something life is unpredictable, maybe even that arrogance will be your downfall" Erik responded while moving a pawn.

"Maybe but I seriously doubt it, besides how important could a chess game be? By the way checkmate" giggled Mary.

Sighing Erik lay back in his chair, looked up and closed his eyes. Mary seeing him like this couldn't help but smile. Over the years the two had become very close, it wasn't wrong to say they were best friends. Though neither had many friends in the first place.

" It seems I won't be beating you any time soon" Erik mumble while still facing the sky. " What academy do you plan to attend next year?" He asked suddenly remembering, he looked straight at Mary.

"I'll probably go to the one in Oramond since it's the best. Why are you asking such an obvious question? Were you planning on going somewhere else?" Questioned Mary.

"No nothing like that, I was simply curious if it ended up that you were going somewhere else I'd probably follow you there" He explained as he stretched his legs while still sitting.

"Whao Can I take that as your proclamation of love?" Mary flirtatiously asked as she twirled her hair around her finger.

She had spent a lot of time with Erik and being the only boy of her age she spent time with. It was no surprise that she had grown feelings for him and as they were now both at the age of 14 it wouldn't be weird if they got into a relationship. Mary's question, however, was readily denied by Erik.

"No, but if I ever confess my love to you, you won't need to ask if I was or not" Erik stated in a factly manner.

Erik has never seen Mary as anything but a little girl, while she was smart at the end of the day she was only 14 not only did she look like a child but she had the mentality of one as well. Unless she was like Erik whose mental age was far older than his body, he couldn't but see her as anything but a child. If in the future when she's a grown woman and still claims to feel the same he might then truly fall for her but it was unknown if they would even still be friends by then.

Mary seemed dissatisfied with Erik's answer but said nothing. She felt quite hurt how quickly he denied it, she just couldn't understand him no matter what she did. She had given him enough clues and she didn't believe that he didn't understand them but was instead ignoring her advances which it saddened her it also angered her a little bit.

"By the way Erik since we're both part of an Ancient family we can't get bad results otherwise it would make out families looked bad," Mary told Erik since she knew he probably didn't care about the tests.

"I'm not a part of any Ancient family, My mother and sister may be but what has that got to do with me. I am quite lucky if I'm honest, being part of an ancient family seems like a pain so I'm glad the Rufina family is female only." Erik smiled to show how happy he was that he didn't have worry too much about politics and family reputation.

"You can't just look at it so simply, do you not care about how it could affect your mother and little Emi? If you don't then it seems I've only just met the real you" Mary complained.

"My mother probably doesn't care too much and Emi is still far too young to even be affected by it, besides I've never even met my mother's side of the family so why should I care?" Erik clarified, the last thing he needed was for one of his only friends to start ignoring him.

"I see I guess you're right, but I don't want to see you do badly on purpose or because you're simply too lazy to even try. I can't have my best friend being at the bottom of the academy before we even enter" Urged Mary. What she said was true, she would find it extremely embarrassing to be friends with someone at the bottom of the list even if she knew he could clearly be at the top.

"Hmm for you I guess I don't mind trying a bit, if you just started with that we could've probably already finished this conversation" He joked.

"You're doing this on purpose! You just wanted to annoy me didn't you?" Mary accused. She couldn't help but stand up in anger.

Erik was confused, where had she even gotten that idea from he was just following the conversation she started. How did it all of a sudden become his fault?

"Anyway it's already noon and my father told me to come back early today, so come walk me to the car" Mary demanded but seeing Erik not move from his seat she could only sigh. She thought that maybe he just needed to be told what to do. She had tried various methods to try and get Erik to stop being a lazy a.s.s but none of them worked so far.

"Why don't you just have the car pick you up from the entrance of the mansion it's a lot closer" Erik advised her as if he had just come up with something genius.

`No shit I just wanted you to walk me there, sigh why is my life so hard` Mary mentally sighed while calling the driver. She didn't have to wait long before a car arrived not too far away.

Erik then walked her to the car and they said their goodbyes before the car drove off. Erik now alone on the road in front of the mansion started thinking about what he should do for the rest of the day. As he couldn't think of anything he decided to just laze about and just watch a drama or something.

While watching TV Erik thought about the Ancient families. He knew that there were 4 within the country.

The Báthory family, who is one of the noblest vampire families. They are well known to have blood magic where they can literally control their own blood, they don't have any other type of magic but since they're vampires they have racial powers.

Rose family, Erik has already meant someone from this family at Thamrol's shop. They are associated with the colour purple, it's not wrong to say it's their family colour. They're magic is known to be a poison body and affinity with plants but the details aren't very well known. There are also rumours that they are sinister and do cruel disgusting things behinds doors such as sacrificing people to make artefacts. They are even willing to sacrifice their own family as long as they get what they want.

Then the Elitist family, the Kergravé's. Usually having platinum blonde hair different from the Báthory families whose is more of an orange tint. Known for their control of light and short teleportation magic. Their beliefs target those with weak blood, they believe blood dictates power. An outdated concept which is why they have yet to succeed as even most other Ancient families disagree with their ideals.

And finally, the Rufina family is known for their red hair and their powerful crimson fire magic. The fact they're the only female-only family also makes them an exception making them amongst the most well-known families.

Erik didn't want to get involved In such things when he wasn't even officially part of the family, rather, that made him even more determined to not get involved. He had Grimes in his name apart from his red hair nothing gave him away except maybe his magic but since he had the most unknown ones he wasn't too worried. Apart from some people who belong to other Ancient families or high ranking normal families like the Grimes who knew him, no one else even knew he existed which made his life easier.

Since Erik no longer did assassination jobs he had a lot of free time, leading to him wasting his time away waiting for school to start. He had been homeschooled until recently, he wasn't sure why the lessons stopped when there was still a year till he was going to the academy but he was anything but disappointed since he didn't really need to know how magic worked on a technical level and what not.