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Sleep rarely came to the wizard.
Or rather, the wizard rarely went to sleep. Magnus was tired, yes, constantly even, but on the other hand: he was extremely busy. He has an entire town to protect, with threats from the depths of both Cindersap Forest and the Gem Sea, as well as the deep caverns and elementals to watch out for, never mind his pupil that he has to train, and train well, as well as his young, rash, beloved spouse, whom he had had to expend magic on to get them home safely after they passed out in a less-than-ideal location more than once, and there was that whole situation going on in Castle Village and the Galdoran Desert that Camilla dragged his spouse into without asking either of them and-
Well. Perhaps he was guilty of substituting meditation for sleep once or twice. Thrice. Frequently.
Who was counting, really?
His spouse was, in fact. And they were quite keen that he got his sleep. He had a bedtime now! Some calloused and stubborn part of himself wanted to be indignant at this fact, to stay up late just to spite them, or to prove that he could, or to say they had no control over him. But they did, at least over his heart, which they had managed to soften back up after a lifetime of divorce and bad decisions.
So he had a bedtime now. He would make it home to his dearest in time for a late dinner, the two would spend their evenings together, and then both his spouse and their three cats would herd the powerful old wizard into bed. He would place his ash cane next to theirs, and lay down in their shared bed, and fall asleep warm and content.
And normally he would sleep through the night.
Normally.
It was… difficult tonight, however. Valentine was off at Ginger Island tonight, the first time they had (intentionally) not slept at the farm since their marriage. Since their coming to this valley, actually. The bed was, thus, cold tonight, without them to warm it. He couldn't help spying on them through his cauldron throughout the day, making certain they came to no harm a boat's ride away. He couldn't teleport that far. Not without a major toll anyway.
Sleep eventually found him in that cold bed, but it was not last. A mere few hours after drifting to sleep, he began to dream.
It began as a simple dream about the farm. The plants are thriving, the chickens are clucking happily in the coop, the pigs and cows are snuffling and pronking in their fields. Then something changes. The ancient fruit become spotted with blight, and the chickens squawk as they run to the coop for cover. The cows and pigs stop their activities, and turn their eyes towards the sky-
And he wakes up.
By now Magnus was quite adept at remembering his dreams upon waking. More importantly, he was very good at recognizing the distinct magical signature of a certain someone. The feeling of the very earth's mana revolting against him, of a pull against his own magic, and of that mana turned to stagnant waters.
He was up in an instant, shooting out of bed with near-magical adrenaline. In one hand he grabbed his cane, in the other the mermaid pendant. He hadn't intended to grab it, but instead reached for it out of instinct, and slipped the necklace on with nary a thought that he was doing so. Armed with embarrassingly fuzzy slippers and his hat, and having completely forgotten to change out of his pajamas, Magnus was out the farm's front door as fast as his aching knees would carry him.
As he stepped from the porch, dark clouds were already beginning to gather, something that would have been ominous and foreboding, were he not well aware of its cause.
"Medea!" he shouted.
A dark figure shot out of the sky, and came to a landing just in front of him. It was an old, haggard-looking witch astride her broom. It was a face he had once known quite well. One he had taken many a night trip with years ago.
"Augh, Magnus!" His ex-wife spat on the ground, and he watched the receiving grass wither and die. "What do you want? Can't a woman fly around hexing farmers without you interfering?"
Magnus grimaced. "No, actually. I am…" He trailed off, then took a deep breath. "I am kindly requesting that you leave this farm alone and un-hexed Medea." He scolded himself mentally for not renewing the farm's protective charms last new moon.
She looked him up and down with a skeptical eye. What was she looking for? What was she seeing? She scoffed, and the searching was over. "Thought you didn't like mortals anymore, not after that little townie." Medea hoped off of her broomstick, and began walking towards the coop at a brisk pace. "Never known you to care so much about them." A beat. "Or anyone," she finished with a sneer.
He sighed. It was always like this, wasn't it? "People can change. I can change." He moved to keep up with her, careful not to catch his cane on the uneven ground.
He had changed, hadn't he?
"Oh?" she called back to him. A flick of her hand, and the coop gate cracked, and fell to the ground. It posed no barrier to her now. Which, frankly, Magnus found excessive. It was a gate, the point was that it posed no barrier to a human in the first place. She stepped into the field, and then she whirled on him. "Then why did you never change for me?" Her voice dripped with venom. Figuratively and literally.
He could ask much the same of her, he thought bitterly. "I tried," he hissed. "You didn't let-" ugh! There he was, falling right back into that old, invective mindset. Yes Magnus, what a fantastic demonstration to show that you have changed, by immediately returning to old habits the moment your ex comes back. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and counted to four.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Now, try again.
"Sometimes… circumstances aren't right- no. Sometimes circumstances make it difficult for oneself to make meaningful change. And you weren't all sunshine and pearls either, Medea." He watched her screw up her face, and immediately regretted allowing those words to leave his mouth.
"The only thing meaningful change you've had is that you've slowed down." Medea's broom was already under her before she finished the sentence, flying her to the chicken coop. She was greeted with the smell of ozone, and her ex staring her in the face.
"Teleportation is still faster, I find. Why are you targeting this farmer?"
"I caught- no, actually, I have my reasons, and you don't deserve an answer you sneak." She sneered. "Does this farmer know how much of a bastard you are?" Magnus tightened his grip on his cane handle, letting the texture of the polished wood ground him. "Does your soon-to-be ex know they've married the valley's most ornery bachelor? About how moody you always are, what with that magical staff of wisdom shoved up your ass? That you are incapable of providing any encouraging word, without spending a half-hour lecturing about the 'proper decisions' they should have picked?"
Magnus could feel his face heating up under her insults. He knew what his eyes looked like. He knew he was being baited. "How do you-" Ah. His hand came up to his chest, where his pendant would normally rest, and felt smooth shell instead of bare chest. When had he put that on? She only brought his spouse into this because she knew it was a weak spot. He tried telling himself this.
But Y-ba dammit, trying not to lose his temper was akin to moving a mountain. "And what about you then?!" he spat back. "You're still as horrible as-! What about all the times I asked you for help when I had expended too much mana? What about when I needed someone I could- someone I could go to? What about all the nights I spent alone after you made promises you never kept?" His shoulders hurt, when did they get so tense? Why did his cane wobble so? He glanced at a hand that must have been his own, only to see it shaking. He looked back to Medea, who was looking quite pleased that she still knew which buttons to press.
"You think I did that on purpose? Fine then, maybe I did! you know what I did do on purpose? Unseaming your hat after you destroyed my only swirl stone! I was going to-agh! Maybe next week I'll pop back down and do it again!"
All of spring's refreshing coolness had evaporated into the air. What it left behind was the simmering heat of summer's dog days many moons early. The grass around them curled away and dried in an instant. A deep rumbled sounded from above; the storm cloud had soured to their moods.
Saltwater had begun to run down his cheeks, and catch like dewdrops in his beard. Why must anger always bring tears? All it did, Magnus felt, was make him look guilty. Worse, how did he lose control so quickly? "Why didn't you love me?!" Why couldn't he stop? Was all his hard work so easily undone?
"I tried to love you Magnus!" She was shouting now, and he saw lines form on her face. Wrinkles of anger on her forehead the he knew he had put there. He didn't flinch at her anger, nor she at his. Why would they? This was familiar. Comfortable, even. Rage and anger and spite were easy. "I tried to love you, but you never believed me! I could have said it a thousand times a day and it wouldn't have been enough for you, you needed more, more, more, and I'm so tired of it! So now you don't get any!" She spat on the ground again, making him dance backwards, and hit his back on the coop door. Medea cackled, and then there was the sound of glass shattering. He looked over in time to see the window smashed, and his ex-wife in his spouse's coop.
Shit, he really was slowing down. He opened the door behind him just as she finished laying her hex. The incubator pulsed with her magic's work. His spouse's poor chickens had flown to the rafters of the coop, decidedly vacating their nest boxes. Everything was a mess. He was livid, and yet. "Medea, I am genuinely sorry that I never believed you loved me." He sighed, feeling regret's weight upon his shoulders. Despite this anger though, Magnus still wanted to do better. "I have… my own struggles. I pushed you away, I hurt you, but you hurt me too. Please, can we both move forward with our lives? We have aeons left to live, and I intend not to spend them rehashing and reopening the same wounds and hurt over and over. I want to move on."
"Well I don't! You don't get to to move on and claim you never hurt me and expect me to let you live a happy life!"
"I am quite definitively not claiming that-"
"Maybe I'll find that little mortal spouse of yours and curse them too, hah! We'll see if they love you then!" She cackled.
Magnus saw red. In two strides he crossed the coop. He may have been old (ancient), but he was still powerful. He leaned in until their noses nearly touched. She still smelled of swamp flowers and mushrooms. The scent brought back memories, but Magnus would not allow nostalgia to color the past in rosy hues. Nor the present. "If you even attempt that Medea," his voice was low and serious, "then I will personally ensure that you and your damned broom plummet into the depths of the Gem Sea, right over the lair of a ravenous sea elemental."
She smiled. "Ohh, I was right. That's the Rasmodious I know. Why don't we-"
"Medea." He interrupted firmly. "I am not flirting with you. I want you gone. Now."
Her face twisted. She had always hated him setting these barriers. 'Too many rules' she would say. Sometimes she'd just pretend she had never heard them. Sometimes she would take them too seriously- "So you want me to disappear forever? Is that it?"
He averted his eyes, choosing instead to watch the incubator. "Yes."
"Well, I'm not going to. You don't get to control me Magnus."
He summed up all his strength. Mana flowed through him, tingling in his fingertips. He knew this land favored him, not her. He also knew his spouse had planted a bushel of forest seeds before leaving for Ginger Island. They would forgive him. Hopefully. Definitely.
"No, I do not. I can only control what you concede to." He just had to stall for a minute.
She was looking him up and down again. Why? "Since when did you use a staff?"
He was taken aback by the question, and nearly lost his focus. "What do you mean a 'staff'?"
She pointed a calloused finger to his cane. "That. Not your style."
"It's not a staff Medea. It's a cane."
"Ah…" for e moment, something soft flickered across her face. A twitch of the lips, the loosening of a jaw. Then it was gone. "It's not going to help you get me off this farm."
He scowled. The wilderness golem standing in the doorway, summoned from earth and seeds and clay, also scowled. "Do you want to leave of your own free will? Or do you want the indignity of being forced out?"
She looked to the golem, then back to Magnus. For a moment, he thought this was going to escalate, that she would never leave, that he would have to make good on that threat.
But she straddled her broom with a curse, and off she flew. The moment she was gone, his unsteadiness returned, and he had to lean heavily on his cane to keep from falling. Doubt began to creep in. Should he really have sent her away like that? It only hurt her feelings more. Urgh, no, he reminded himself. This isn't about sparing her feelings. You have yourself to worry about, not to mention your dearest as well.
With a sign, Magnus looked up to the chickens in the rafter, and called them down gently. One in specific he caught in his arms. A chicken, black as night, with eyes red as blood. He rubbed its forehead gently. "I suppose she didn't think to question whether my spouse was already fond of void chickens or not, hrm Spindle?" It looked up at him and clucked, before settling its head on its crop. Magnus tucked said void chicken back into its nest box, then looked around the coop. What a mess. He turned to the wilderness golem he had made, then looked to the shattered glass and the broken fence. At least he had help.
~
Sleep would not find him again tonight, as he spent the moon's light placing every charm he could think of on the farmland, thoroughly draining his mana in the process, all while also repairing the damage beside the farm's golem.
No, sleep would find him when dawn's first light crept over the horizon, as he was making his way back through the crop fields. His cane was not enough to hold him up under fatigue which weighed more than sopping wet robes. It dragged at his feet like creeping tendrils, and his staggering steps stopped, and he passed out.
~
At least, that's what he assumed happened, when he woke up to Valentine's worried face inches from his own. They were quite lucky he was not known for startling upon waking.
"Magnus?" His beloved's face was full of concern.
His back complained, and his knees complained, and he was quite sore indeed.And there was something licking his hand. From the corner of his eye he saw one of their cats, furiously grooming the hair on the back of his hands. The other two were presently swarming his nearly-frantic spouse. Perhaps he should just keep laying down for now.
A groan escaped his body, not at his partner, but at the sheer and utter exhaustion he felt. "Yes, my dear?"
"Oh thank fuck! Magnus, sweetheart, you passed out in the middle of the damn crops, are you okay? What the hell happened?"
He chuckled slightly at his spouse's foul mouth. "Oh, where do I even begin?" His eyes drifted shut as he mulled over what, precisely, to say. "Do you remember my ex-wife?"
"The one you sent me to steal your ink back from a few days ago?"
Ah. Magnus groaned again. "That would explain it."
"Explain what?"
"Last night was a doozy of events. If you give me a moment, I will explain-"
"Wait," his spouse interrupted. They stood up from where they knelt (and in doing so accidentally dropped their cat Snuggles, who had sense an opportunity for Lap Time), and disappeared from sight.
He waited there for a moment. He couldn't do very much, still being supine amongst the crops. His body was full of aches and pain, and he had a feeling he would not manage much magic use in the coming days.
A sensation drew him from his thoughts. It was a paw, which pressed into his large belly. Then another. Magnus' eyebrows raised, and he laughed. He was about to become a cat bed.
Snuggles just settled onto the prime real estate of his tummy, when he felt a second set of paws. Then the licking stopped, and he felt a third set. Cuddles and Puddles both lept up, and moved to place as much of their bodies on both him and Snuggles as they could.
"Dearest?"
A face reappeared into view, now carrying a small basket in their non-cane hand. "Yes?"
"I believe I am being held hostage."
Valentine looked to the cats on his tummy, then back to him. They lowered themself to the ground and sat. And then they swung a leg to rest atop his own, the other folded against their body. "Huh! What a shame." They smiled down at him with love in their eyes, and he found himself believing it. "When did you eat last?"
"Ah…"
"Mm-hmm. Eat." They offered the basket to him.
When he pulled the offerings out, he was surprised to see their ancient berries. "Not using these ones for wine?"
"Magnus, honey, I love you to bits, and also I found you passed out on the farm, which, by the by, is supposed to be my job, and also-" they plucked at his shirt and pants- "you are still in your pajamas, sir! You lost your slipper over in the strawberries! You are allowed to eat the ancient fruit, I'll have more in a week, and strawberries in a few days." Their voice was soft as they teased him, and he couldn't help but to laugh. "There we go!" Valentine smiled with all the sweetness of their harvest.
This life was nice, wasn't it? Perhaps he should trade favors with Angelica, and ask her to grow his spouse's crops, just to make up for what Medea had done to the land.
The ancient fruit was bright and fresh, though he did need to sit up (despite the protestations of his back) to swallow it. The cats simply rearranged themselves, climbing further up his chest and tummy, not disturbed in the least. As he ate the fruit, he felt some of his magic return to him. There was a poetic sweetness to the plants his spouse grew reviving him, he felt.
"Once you've eaten you can tell me what happened, okay?" Valentine removed their leg and moved instead to sit beside him, laying their head on his shoulder. They grabbed some of the fruit and began to eat as well.
He chuckled. "Yes dear."
Their cats purred away happily on top of him.
Yes, this was nice.
~
"Magnus, look! My ancient fruit grew again! Early!"
"Oh my, I wonder how that happened."