The Silence

I stared at everyone. They were all doing well. Each of them able to produce a magic orb out of nothing. They could bring out a big, moist ball of colorful sparkles that could do magic but I—could not.

Everyone was seated for the annual magic tournament, where all the wizards, and witches gather to watch their little ones fight to be the best. Each of them gambling their bets on their kids.

The judge sat in the center, on a thick, floating mahogany chair with a matching desk floating along with the teacher. Each student were seated in a the first row of circular structure of the area where the contestants were to sit.

"Contestant 64--Marcus White!" the judge shouted, she was dressed up in ivory robes, befitting a witch of her stature.

Marcus, the student who sat directly next to me came to the center and concentrated intensely. Suddenly, sparks of colorful sparkles formed into a violet cluster, with a radius of about 6cm.

"Well done Contestant 64!" the judge announced, "Magic Tier 7!"

Everyone else looked shocked. A high majority of them god tier 3 and 4 but Marcus had got a tier that very rare amongst the Magi population. Many of them whispered, "is that possible?" Of course it was, Marcus came from a line of great mages. He could be anything.

"Next!" the judge acclaimed with a smirk, "Prince Alex Strage!"

Everyone looked at me. Many of them had to contain their laughter. It was I, the son of the King, who had been a disgrace to my social standing. I was born with, supposedly, 'god-like' genes to perform magic but I couldn't even create a spark. The astromagician who predicted this was executed for uttering nonsense about a failure like me.

"Prince Alex Strage," the judge repeated, "come in front and produce some, hopefully, magic."

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Everyone laughed at me as I walked to the front.

I came to the center, exactly 10 feet away in distance from the judge who was above me.

"Your honor, I beg you," I pleaded, "please don't make me do it."

"I'm sorry Strage, but you MUST compete in the tournament," she mocked, "Otherwise, what will everyone else think of me? They'll think I'm favoring the prince."

The fact that she had the audacity to call me by my name instead of my royal title explained how much everyone degrades me, but she is right, I deserve to be degraded, since I'm trash.

I closed my eyes despondently. All that came into my head was the thought that I wouldn't be able to do it. I focused and managed to imagine a dark space. The abyss grew larger and larger until it felt like it was a pool of nothingness.

I focused harder and harder. I tried to imagine a sparkly blob. Nothing appeared. Come on! What had I to lose? Everyone already thought the worst of me. I was already labelled as the 'worst of the worst.'

I who had anyone's dream of a lineage, was an unfilial prince who could never return any sort of achievement to anyone. Dad suffered the most because everyone in the castle, including the maids, treated me with no respect. I was the prince but they treated me like a beggar. Every citizen in this country were so absorbed in my failures and it became common household talk.

But Dad---he never scolded me. All he did was encourage me to try harder. He gave me the best resources the world has to offer but what did I give back? Nothing. I have to make him proud. I must do something, something, anything to not be called a failure anymore.

Please, at least form a tier 1 ball. Even if it's trash, I'd be able to do a bit of Magic. Please! Please!

BAM! A spark appeared as my face illuminated in joy. But that was not all; many more tiny sparks appeared, and it started to cluster. The color changed from white to yellow to orange to red and then purple.

BAM! The purple cluster turned into a black spherical ball. Black? That was tier 10. The highest! I opened my eyes and to confirm my visualization, I saw a black ball formed in my hands. It gathered into an orb.

Everyone around me was shocked. I was filled with a silent audience venerating my black orb. I realized that everyone was staring at me too much and I just realized the gravity of what I had just done. Mouths were open from complete shock. Some people were even trembling in fear seeing this unforeseen event.

"Bbb----Black orb? Ttt-Tenth tier?" The judge managed to say as she went crazy over this phenomenon, "That's the first time in the world!" That was true as Tier 10s were only realized in theory and had never happened before. Everything made sense---'Tier 10s would be late bloomers due to the massive amount of magic possessed'---that was in the magical records. And it was true.

Now, as I stare at the picture of my coronation as the King. Dad looked happy in that picture. His eyes looked jovial, and his years of stress seemed to relieve himself by what I had become.

Unlike how I was treated then. Everyone's viewpoint of me had completely changed. Sometimes I really miss the way I was belittled and made fun of me as, now, no one dared to laugh at me.

It was the silence of that moment that shook my world. The way I was treated completely changed after I was regarded as a prodigy. I was content with that as I grew into someone that my father could be proud of.

Later, I found out that my father had been watching that moment in silence as he used an invisibility spell that day and had seen by incredible feat. After a few moments from seeing it in the Magical Tournament, he couldn't contain himself and tackled me in a hug and whispered for the first time, "Son, I am proud of you."

Dad, I know that you're still watching me in the silence even as I carry on my duties as the King. Even though you passed away a month ago, I know your soul protects me. I will always rely on the silence to be with you.

By light_queen1