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“Hey, Ace!”
Ace grinned and jogged the last few yards to where Sabo was sitting on their favourite rock. It was right on the edge of the Grey Terminal, with a great view of the ocean, and tall flower bushes shielded it from view of both the Terminal and Edge Town. As a result, it smelled a fair sight better than most of the edge of the Terminal. “Hi, Sabo.” he sat down heavily, letting his pipe fall to rest on the rock next to him.
“Look what I found.” Sabo beamed, holding up a thin, ratty looking book with a large stain on the cover.
“It’s a book.” Ace said flatly.
“A book on affinities!” Sabo beamed, opening it to a random dog-eared page. Half the book looked like it had been dog-eared at one point or another. “This one’s mine.” he pointed at a large picture of some kind of dog. “Dogs are easy, so the tester spell is to talk to one. Squirrels are pretty easy too, but they don’t talk about anything interesting.”
“What about wolves?” Ace asked, looking at the squiggles which he knew made words explaining how animal magic worked. “Or crocodiles?”
Sabo laughed and punched him in the shoulder. “I can’t talk to crocodiles yet, stupid. I could probably talk to a wolf, though. They’re basically dogs.”
Ace grinned and flipped to the next page, which had a picture of a blue striped dress that flickered weakly gold when he turned the page. “Alchemy?” he guessed, tapping the picture. It went white and gold for a solid second before going back to its weak flickering. The magic was pretty much all worn out.
“Illusion.” Sabo corrected. “The tester spell for this one was really tricky. You hafta make a glass of water look like a glass of milk. I couldn’t make it change colour, but I did make it stink.”
Ace laughed and flipped to the next page. It had the two masks he saw on the outside of theatre buildings, one laughing one crying. He looked at Sabo.
“Oh, that’s charisma.” Sabo wrinkled his nose. “It makes people think or feel different about something. You’re supposed to make somebody really like or really hate you, then change them back.”
Ace shivered, and turned to the next page. He’d rather take his chances as a non-magical fighter than risk making his only friend hate him like everyone else. The rest of the book didn’t have any pictures, so he flipped back to the beginning. Sabo explained alchemy, weather, celestial, nature, and the different elemental magics. Then, after a few long minutes of staring at the squiggles and willing them to make sense, Ace sighed. Time to own up.
“I can’t read.” he admitted, passing the book back to Sabo. “Sorry about wasting your time.”
Sabo frowned and opened the book to the first page, weather magic. “Okay, so I’ll read what they do out loud, and then you can just repeat the spells after me.” his eyes flicked over the page far too fast to actually be reading. “This is supposed to make a little cloud in your hand, and if it’s your affinity you might make a raincloud.” he frowned slightly, then his eyes widened. “If you’re extra strong, you can do lightning!”
“Cool.” Ace grinned, sitting up straighter. “What’s the words?”
Sabo read the words out loud, and Ace repeated them in his head a few times before holding out his hand and willing his magic to pool there, to coalesce into a cloud and zap Sabo with lightning. He spoke the incantation firmly, like Dadan did when she was making the fire light itself, and after a few seconds cracked open an eye. His palm was empty, not so much as a scrap of fog between his fingers.
The elemental magics produced similar disappointments, which was kinda a bummer because having fire magic would’ve been awesome. Dadan would’ve had to teach him, or he could pretend it was an accident when he burnt that old shitty house down out of spite. But he didn’t have an elemental affinity, or a weather affinity, or alchemy or illusion or nature or even goddamn animal affinity. He threw the book down and stomped on it, denting the already battered cover with his heel.
“This is stupid.” he declared, grabbing his pipe and jumping down off the rock.
“We haven’t tried charisma yet.” Sabo said hopefully, and Ace’s stomach twisted like it wanted to eject everything in it. He didn’t want to do that spell. What if he messed it up and couldn’t make Sabo like him again? It was a miracle the blond even hung out with him in the first place, after he’d spent months trying to kill the other boy. If he made Sabo hate him, then- then Sabo would remember why he should hate Ace, and Ace would be alone again.
“Do I really seem like a charisma affinity?” he asked, stalking off towards the woods. Killing something would help him feel better, and he had to hunt dinner anyways.
“You’ve got a point there.” Sabo dropped the book on their rock with a thack, and his pipe clanked as he jumped down. “But that’s not all the affinities there are. Yours is probably really cool. Or really illegal.” the blond grinned, walking up next to Ace with his pipe over his shoulders.
“Illegal?” Ace frowned.
“Yeah, like, necromancy or some shit like that.” Sabo shrugged.
“Even if I was a neck-whatever, my magic’s not strong enough to do anything with.” Ace huffed, crossing his arms. “I’ll just get strong enough I don’t need magic to fight.”
“Ace, you can’t do tha-”
Ace whacked Sabo over the head with his pipe, and grinned wickedly. “Can you stop that with magic?” he asked, jabbing at the blond’s ribs and making contact. “Or that?” he whipped his staff around for a third blow, and this time Sabo blocked. Metal rang on metal, and Ace smirked. “Go on, beat me up with magic.” he taunted, stepping back and tapping his pipe into one open hand a few times. “I’m just a helpless nobody who can’t even levitate a fork.”
“I can’t do that, you dick.” Sabo huffed. “It’s not like I can call down a swarm of birds on you or anything.”
“And even if you could, I’d bash your brains in before you finished the spell.” Ace bared all his teeth in what was technically a grin, and Sabo sighed.
“Whatever, idiot.” the blond’s pipe flashed out and caught Ace just over the ear, making him stagger sideways. “I’ll just have to beat you at your own game.”
“In your dreams.” Ace laughed, lifting his staff to defend from an overhead swing. This was how things were supposed to be, just him and Sabo in the woods with their heavy steel pipes and an easy camraderie which came from three years of friendship. All the magic in the world couldn’t replace this.