"Modak?" surprised, Ryan looked over in the direction of his friend's stall. It was a bit out of the way but it really wasn't hard to find at all, especially with the massive crowd in front of it that was drawing in more and more attention, "Isn't he at his lot? You know, at the very back to the left over there."
Yanna immediately shook her head, looking more and more concerned, "No, I was supposed to meet him there, but his co-worker told me that he just walked off... apparently he had a fight with his parents?"
"With his-" Ryan's eyes widened, before he let out a loud groan, "Yeah, alright, he told me he was nervous about how his parents were going to react. They're not the biggest fans of magic."
"Oh... I didn't..." taken aback, the minotaur pulled her hand to her chest. She seemed surprised that she didn't know about this.
However, she didn't have much time to get lost in thought, as Ryan quickly tapped her arm, "I think I see his sister over there. The one with red highlights in her hair."
"Are you sure? Where?" Yanna asked, looking around nervously. Realizing that the minotaur was pretty frazzled, Ryan turned toward his mother and briefly excused himself. Pushing through the crowd, Ryan soon reached Kora.
"Yo," he said with a slight wave, shooting a smile and a wink over to Liam. Though, to Ryan's surprise, everyone seemed to be in a quite sour mood, "Everything alright here?"
"Oh, uh... Ryan, right? Have you seen my brother?" Kora asked nervously. She was looking around just as much as Yanna was, though she seemed much more anxious than the minotaur. Ryan looked back at Yanna, whose worry only grew at that.
"No, we haven't. Yanna has been looking for him too, and I thought maybe you knew... but I guess not," Ryan sighed, running his hand through his hair while trying to think, "What happened earlier? Did Modak say anything before he left?"
Kora immediately shook her head, "No, he was just really freaking out... Hyperventilating... all that. I'm really worried about him..."
"Oh gods..." Yanna nervously pulled out her phone to give texting Modak one more shot. Ryan was thinking intensely as well, when an idea popped into his mind. Knowing Modak, he probably had the 'coin' with him that acted as proof that he was Ryan's aide. And knowing Runar... that coin was more than just a piece of metal.
"You guys wait here, I think I have a way to find him. Just... enjoy your day for a bit, maybe get to know each other. You haven't met yet, right?" Ryan suggested, and Yanna flinched as she glanced past her phone. It really was the first time she had met Modak's siblings. Their home was a bit too small for Yanna, having been constructed for orcs, so she hadn't come to visit yet beyond dropping Modak off in front of the building.
"Right, sorry! I'm Yanna, it's really nice to meet you!" scrambling to introduce herself and make a good first impression, the minotaur pushed her phone back into her pocket before stretching out her hand toward the orc in front of her.
Kora smiled lightly, shaking Yanna's hand, as Ryan turned back around. He quickly made his way back to his mother and uncle, whispering to Runar, "Do the coins you gave Modak and Silvia have a tracking function?"
Runar pulled back surprised, looking at Ryan with a slight frown, "How do you..? No, you know what, nevermind, I'll just stop getting surprised. Yes, they do. Why? What happened?"
"Just find Modak for me. Something happened and he ran off. We don't know where he is," Ryan explained. His uncle looked at him with a slight scoff.
"That's highly unethical, you know? The tracking spells are on there for emergencies."
Staring into his uncle's eyes without another word, Ryan simply kept waiting. Runar rolled his eyes, "Fine. I'll just reuse the familiar I made before. It still has enough mana left in it for that, as long as Modak isn't too far away. But if he's in the Channel... it should be fine."
Runar pushed his hand into his pocket, pulling out the paper mouse and then grabbed his pen from his inner jacket pocket. He quickly wrote a few runes onto the head and body of the paper mouse and then handed it over to Ryan.
"There you go. It should be able to find its way now. But be careful to retrieve it when you're done, I don't want some other mage picking it up."
Though Ryan didn't know why it mattered if another mage saw these runes, considering that they didn't seem to be any particularly unique ones, he was also aware that most magic users were pretty protective over their work. That being the case, Ryan squatted down and placed the mouse onto the ground. Though Ryan was already standing at the edge of the path, the paper mouse immediately started running further off the path into one of the nearby alleys.
He didn't know why Modak would have gone in that direction, but if there was one thing that Ryan felt like he could trust about his uncle, then that was how skilled he actually was. If he said that this mouse was going to lead him to Modak, or rather the coin that he was carrying with him, then Ryan just had to trust that.
Leaving behind the main event of the day, Ryan followed the mouse through the Channel's side roads. This was the first time he saw this part of town like that. Usually, the Channel was practically pristine, like someone had scrubbed it all down just that morning. Though, that was probably because high-tech street cleaners basically did that every other day. As if to make sure that the rich and powerful never had to get dirty or bother with picking up after themselves, cleaning magic was used to take care of most parts of the channel that people frequented every day. Meanwhile, if you stepped just a few metres off of the main paths, that reality changed almost completely.
There was dirt and grime everywhere. It was almost worse than in many other parts of New Riverside, to the point where Ryan wanted to pick up the paper mouse and carry it around to stop it from getting dirty. Not because he was worried it would stop working, but rather because he felt bad for it.
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Ryan jogged for almost ten minutes until he found a trace of Modak. His suit jacket was thrown onto the ground near some police tape that was blocking off people from entering beyond this. Ryan somehow hadn't realized that they were this close to the area that was destroyed a few weeks ago. He climbed through the police tape to continue following the mouse, soon spotting a certain orc sitting on a bench not too far away.
Modak had his face in his hands and was clearly very overwhelmed by something, though Ryan had no idea what. Carefully, he approached, picking up the mouse to stop it from startling his friend.
"Yo," Ryan said as he walked over the road. At least this part of town was quiet enough to allow for a private conversation. Flinching out of surprise, not having expected someone to find him here, Modak turned around. But when he saw that it was Ryan trying to talk to him, he calmed down a bit. At least for a moment, because he quickly turned away to try and hide his face. And Ryan could tell why. He had clearly been crying.
"Hey..." Modak slowly got out, "How'd you find me?"
"It was an emergency, so don't be mad, but... the coins have a tracking marker, and Runar helped me find you," Ryan explained as he dropped down on the bench next to his friend. He purposefully didn't look over toward Modak, since he clearly didn't want someone else to see him cry. Ryan understood that pretty well.
"Oh... That feels a bit... Well, invasive," Modak pointed out. He was fidgeting with the sketch that Ryan had given him earlier that was supposed to help him calm down, "So what's the emergency?"
Ryan scoffed quietly, "Dude, you are. You suddenly disappeared, and both Kora and Yanna were looking for you."
A gasp of realization came from the young orc, "Oh gods, I forgot that Yanna was coming... Ah, fuck..." he practically slammed his back into the bench's backrest while his fingers dug into the paper to the point where he was almost tearing it.
"It's fine, she's not mad or anything, she's just worried."
The two young men were sitting there quietly. While they were pretty open when it came to their emotions, it was still hard to bring up clearly tough topics like this. Modak didn't want to pull Ryan into his business, while Ryan didn't want to push Modak to talk about something he wasn't ready to talk about. They sat there for a minute or two, just in silence, before Modak quietly spoke up.
"... How is your family about... magic?" he started, "Outside of the Aglecard family, obviously."
"Well, it's not like I really know that family beyond Runar. And, you know... my grandparents on my mom's side aren't necessarily super comfortable with magic, but they know that it's not as dangerous as it used to be."
"I... don't know what to do. I've tried so, so many times to explain to my parents that magic is fine, and that a little bit of mana is flowing through basically every tech these days. They're happy to ignore the signal-boosting influence of magic in their phones and the internet, but whenever I try to talk to them about any of my projects, they're just... mad. They basically hate me for actually going into a magic-related job. They've always known how much I love magic and all the concepts and ideas behind it, but at that point it was probably easy to just play it off as a kid's fantasies."
As Modak started talking, he basically wasn't able to stop anymore. Now that he started airing it all out, it was like a dam had finally been broken. It all just flowed out, and he wasn't able to stop himself anymore.
The way he felt like his parents always looked at him with some level of contempt whenever he spoke about magic, to how they clicked their tongues or rolled their eyes whenever he brought up one of his new projects. But it didn't even stop there; Modak even complained about the way that they acted outside of magic. About how his father let himself be pushed around by people at work, about how his mother was clearly clocked out of the marriage already, spending all her time with her 'best friend'. Modak got especially mad when he started talking about how they acted toward Kora, again and again disrespecting who she truly was, calling her by her deadname, even though she had been his older sister for more than half a decade already.
"And then, they dare to tell me that I don't deserve to have orc blood flowing through my veins?!"
Ryan could basically hear Modak's teeth grinding against each other as he forced out his words. It was to the point where Ryan took a few moments to actually register what his friend had just said.
"Wait, what? They told you that?"
For the first time since Modak has been ranting about his parents, Ryan looked over at him. He had been just looking forward at the building across the road, pretending that he hadn't noticed Modak's tears. But at this point, he couldn't do that any longer.
Modak slowly nodded, "Yeah... I guess telling them that I want to become an official 'Wizard' was just a bit too much."
"Okay, wait," once again, Ryan was taken aback, though for a whole other reason, "There's a lot of info here, but... you magic engineers can become Wizards?"
Modak smiled lightly, "I could be one of the first, I guess. There's been a few mages that dabbled in engineering, but nobody that's been, like... mainly a magic engineer. And there's definitely not been a wizard without any mana to speak of. I won't be able to get up there to something ridiculous like fifth or sixth circle, but just being a first circle wizard...? Ryan, that's been my dream since I first heard about it. And my parents just..."
Ryan sat there, looking at his best friend. He had no idea what to say, or how to help Modak through this. But in the end, rather than saying something wrong, Ryan chose to just say nothing at all. He placed his hand onto Modak's shoulder. He wanted to show Modak that he was there for him, and that he could just let it all out without worry.
Modak began to cry. Not just through the singular tears that were streaming down his cheeks every once in a while, but he started completely sobbing.
He was the sort to try and rationalize things. By explaining the thoughts and reasons behind others' actions, Modak found some comfort in the fact that things were not done just randomly out of pure emotion or gut. That he wasn't hurt intentionally. And Ryan couldn't offer him that sort of rationalization. He was more emotional, more raw. So the only thing he was able to do was be there for his friend while he was suffering.
It took around ten more minutes until Modak fully calmed down and was able to collect his thoughts well enough, "I should... find my own place," he finally said, "Maybe some distance wouldn't be bad. Maybe I could make a safe space for my brothers and Kora. I mean... I can definitely afford it now."
Ryan laughed slightly, "Want to just get a place together? I've also been thinking about putting some space between me and Runar. Plus, that way we could just get the Aglecards to pay for the whole thing."
Modak thought about it for a moment, just shrugging in the end, "Honestly, why not? Let's do it," he replied as a smile formed on his face, "But for now, I guess I should get back. The final presentation is starting soon."
"Right, but be sure to text Yanna and Kora first. They were really, really worried. I told them that I found you, but not much else."
"I'll do that," Modak nodded, lightly stretching as he stood up, "Do you remember the way back? I just kind of walked without thinking."
"Yeah, I can guide us back," Ryan nodded, patting his friend on the back while starting to lead the way. Modak smiled.
"Thanks, by the way."
"Nah, don't worry about it. I gotchu," with a grin, Ryan held his fist toward Modak, who quickly returned a quick fist-bump as the two of them walked out of the restricted area of the Channel. Though, a they were walking, Ryan's phone started to buzz. There was a message from Runar that he didn't quite expect, especially not so soon.
Unc
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