-Sky's POV-
Before I turned in for the night, I whistled as loud as I could outside. I knew he heard me, because he teleported directly to me. Sprite nudged me, impatiently, and I did a quick taxi cab whistle. Fox materialized, and I pet them both. I held Fox's head in my hands meticulously, careful not to touch his awkward eye. It's what I'd come to call it.
I went on a small walk with them, and when I say small walk, I mean a marathon. We walked for hours, and I had to go to bed. I was exhausted. I dropped into bed, and Fox fell asleep on the floor beside the bed. Sprite had gone home to his stable again.
The morning after, I remembered something. Rob's birthday had been yesterday. He's officially 14. I snuck out to avoid waking anyone, tapped the pressure plate with my foot, and was in the main hall of the castle. I slipped upstairs, and covered the doorway with confetti and streamers. Why not? I glittered the floor, and when I was done, whipped a balloon at Rob's head.
He sat up, rubbing his face. He gazed at me sleepily. When he realized what I'd done, he smiled. He took the blankets down, and I saw Preston's hair poking out from the blanket's top. He poked Preston, who turned over. So Rob poked him several times, and finally, Preston sat up. He lazily looked around, soft golden eyes settling on me.
"What-" "Preston, my birthday was yesterday. We all forgot. Even I did." He rubbed his eyes. "Happy late birthday Rob." And Preston fell back to sleep sitting up. I laughed a little, but Rob laid him back down, and got up for the day.
"Sorry about Preston. He's exhausted." "What'd you do?" "Me? Nothing. He took out both our horses for hours. Then we had our little saving friends fiasco, so he and the horses are tired from a long day." "Oh. Then let's let him sleep." "That's probably a good idea right now."
"I have an idea." "What's that?" "Doesn't Vikk have a horse now?" "Yeah. Why?" "And you have one I presume?" "Again, yes. But why? Rob, answer me."
"I wanna have a friendly competition." "A race?" "Yeah." "Vikk can't race. You know this. He can't control the horse well." "Would Lachlan have a horse?" "If Vikk took him as a queen, yes."
"He did. I got word yesterday morning from Lachlan. He sent a weird looking letter." "Weird how?" He took a small, bent up piece of paper from his pocket. I opened it, and found cool handwriting in cursive with a lefty's slant to the right.
'Rob, this will reach you... In a few hours of me sending it? Vikk is getting better with the whole "You are my King" stuff, and suddenly handed me the Queen's crown today. I had no clue what to do with the thing, until Vikk took it back, got on the steps to be above my head, and just dropped it in my hair. I... guess I'm a queen? Like Preston? ~Lachlan'
"How is this weird? It's just Lachlan." "The writing." "What about it?" "Lachlan's a lefty? And he writes?" "He probably had someone write it. I know he's still learning with the Star kingdom's penman. You have a penman as well."
"A what?" "Penman. They write down everything. They'll have record of your father's passing, and when the priest gave you that crown. All records pass through the kingdom penman." "Does your dad have a penman?" "He does. That's how I can read and write so well." "Cool."
"I was taught cursive when I was 6, and never enjoyed writing without it." "Why can't Ty and Anthony read and write?" "They can read. They never had a penman to teach them writing. They never had to write. It wasn't required by the dragon. I can teach them to write their own language, even if I don't speak it and understand it."
"How?" "It's all penmanship. You need to learn to write in your own language before you write in foreign languages. English is foreign to them. They know Endertongue. Yes, they've learned English and can speak it fluently, but that doesn't mean it's not foreign. It isn't a natural language to them." "But if you don't understand it, how can you teach it to them in writing?" "Because I have books on it in my personal library." "Why?" "I've been learning it for myself."
"Get the books! I wanna learn it!" "Maybe you can learn simple phrases and we can both talk to them in their language, instead of them in our language." "Do you know how fun that'd be?!" "That would be pretty fun." "In SO many ways!"
I teleported to the Aether castle, grabbed the books without alerting any of the staff, and teleported out and back to Rob's. Within an hour, I was helping Rob say small phrases such as Hello, What are you doing, How are you doing, etc. He got the necessary accent pinned instantly, and sounded out the S correctly with a slight drag.
Night fell quickly, and I knew they were gonna wake up soon. I pushed Rob onto the pressure plate, and teleported home. Rob glared at me, "You could've warned me!" He whisper- screamed. I smirked. "No time. It's 10pm." "Fine"
Ty came shambling outside, yawning and sleepy. Anthony followed, just a bit more energetic. "Hi Ty!" Rob called. Ty looked over, bewildered. No longer watching his feet, he stumbled. When he regained his balance, he called back. "Repeat that?" "Hi Ty!" "How- do you-"
"Books!" I shouted. "You what?!" I laughed. "I had a book on Endertongue. I forgot about it before." "Well, that would have helped us beforehand. Now Rob, repeat that once more, just once."
He did. "Try a sharper tone." Rob obliged. "Perfect. What else did this mysterious book teach you?" Rob recited whatever words he knew.
Ty came over, and sat down with Rob on the grass. I leaned on a tree and listened while Anthony wandered around the field aimlessly. Ty helped Rob with the words he knew, but not with new words. Rob soon got the hang of it, and was speaking near fluent, but not fluent enough. He knew no other words than simple greetings.
Then Ty turned to words Rob didn't know, and Rob got flustered. He couldn't sound out the more difficult words. He couldn't get Welcome, because it contained a sliding vowel that, instead of being said where it was in the spelling, it was instead said at the end of the word.
The whole concept instantly confused Rob, and it looked like he wanted to give up. "Just a little more. You're so close to a complicated phrase." Ty pleaded. "Had you not spoken a single word, I'd have never known it was possible to teach you." So Rob tried to continue, stumbling over vowels and getting frustrated more as he went.
Finally, around 2am, with Rob and I completely whipped and tired, Rob managed to strangle out the phrase, "You're welcome." It sounds easy, but not when you realize all the weird vowels, pronunciations, and slides. Rob went home to Preston, and I went inside to bed. No matter how hard I tried, I would be awake by 9am or earlier. 7 to 4 hours of sleep. Latest I wake up, 9. Earliest- 6. I'd rather die painfully.
Living for a full day on only 4 hours of sleep is murderous. For me, dying is more comfortable to be honest. I fell asleep, slightly angered by myself.

-Seto's POV-
We've gotten to see Vikk and Lachlan, but not the others... Of course, being at Vikk's means helping. We don't mind though, because we love helping. Vikk keeps us busy moving things that normal people can't, due to being to heavy or too high up to reach. Brice and I moved those things with magic casing, it gave us power to move whatever was enclosed in the case.
Vikk and Lachlan were somewhat frantic as they tried to get used to new life here, and I noticed that no one had come to help from home. So I teleported home, found the house ravaged and empty, went back to Vikk's, and reported that there was nothing. Brice came into the room just minutes later, holding a sheet of paper. Vikk took it, read it carefully several times, and handed me the sheet in frustration. He couldn't read it. So I read it aloud.
'Hey, Vikk? Do you happen to have Seto and Brice there? Did you save them from the Syndicate Project? ~Rob~'
"The Syndicate Project? And why ask if you had us specifically?" "I don't know... But you two are only here because this weird armored person came and handed me two dog tags. I took them, and you two literally just appeared here." "What?" "Do you not remember it?" "No. I remember a dark bag coming over my head, and passing out. I woke up right here. There was no in between. I'm serious, Vikk. Nothing." "Ditto."
"That's weird. I haven't gotten rid of the tags... They're upstairs in my nightstand." "Can I actually see them Vikk?" I asked, curious. He ran upstairs, the act of moving looking rather painful. He came back down a little different, sliding carefully, but quickly down the stairs banister.
He handed me a small box, and when I opened it, found two tag-lock kits. One was labeled 'Brice Gold Solace', and the other- 'Seto Alexander Sorcerer'. How the tags had our full names, I had no clue. Also, how did they have tag-locks of us anyway?! Who took them? To have tag-locks, you need special equipment only accessible by certified people, those who have the right written on paper. Otherwise, it's illegal.
So I told Vikk I'd keep the box and tags, and he didn't care. Vikk could write though, so he wrote a short, simple letter to answer Rob's question.
'Rob, they're here. Lachlan got them out while I work out renovation here. This castle is too cramped together for all the space. •Vikk•'
It didn't seem entirely true, but I didn't want to bother correcting him. He probably said that to spare himself from more writing. Whatever the case, Rob's letter still bugged me. Why was the house empty? All questions for later. I wanted to help get this castle fixed before I went back home.