Backstory

Born an only child to a father widowed by childbirth, responsibility was ingrained into Rana from an early age. With a well-known craftsman for a father in a crowded Central city, Rana grew accustomed to the busywork of running a shop, writing receipts and handling transactions before it even learned the concept of math in school. For some reason unknown to it (at the time), raw materials and resources seemed to be especially compliant when he worked with them. This led to his role assisting his father with the making of things that required more delicate precision (such as jewelry). 

It took going to school for the first time for Rana to find out that, by some odd chance, he had been born a wizard to two human parents. He didn’t know that could happen, but according to other children, being able to slow the fall of your lunch tray and have it settle neatly after dropping it wasn’t something most people could do. 

When it returned home that day to tell its father, Rana learned something else: his father had already known. Apparently there was an actual reason for why midwives were, more often than not, witches or wizards themselves. In hindsight, Rana realized that that explained why its father placed so much emphasis on the idea that he should always remain true to his word—it was the easiest way to prevent Rana from losing his magic without directly telling him he was a wizard, meaning that Rana could still grow up more-or-less normally alongside other children. 

Just as Rana had been excited to tell his parent, other children in its class told their parents as well. Word spread quickly that the child who resided at the Mancinellas’ shop—the one with the bright eyes and equally bright smile—was a wizard, with frequent customers exclaiming that they had “always known” and that it was “so obvious”, because “Why else would such a young child already have such a strong sense of duty?”. Rana didn’t think it had been very obvious at all.

A sudden influx of people came to their shop after that. Some made attempts at subtlety, but most were blatant about their motivations for visiting: “We heard your daughter could use magic, is that true?” People were only curious and bore no ill intent, but Rana found himself hiding in the back area of the shop nonetheless. For a child no older than 6 years, a sudden crowd of watchful eyes was overwhelming.

Nonetheless, it continued to attend school daily, shying away from wide-eyed classmates and instead shifting most of his focus to the academic part of school. After a year or so, those same classmates’ excitement died down and was replaced by apprehension. Every child knew the stories of terrible wizards their parents told them about at night, but they also knew the stories of a saintly one who had helped found their country. However, nobody knew anything about the wizard attending their class who seemed to only speak to adults, never exchanging more than a sentence with his classmates.

To fill in the gaps of their knowledge, Rana’s classmates began to stretch the few facts they knew about him into fiction. By the time it was 10, Rana was more of a story than an actual person to his classmates. (“Rana is actually a million years old and stopped growing up because of magic! That’s why she’s so good at math...”) He also began to accompany its father on business trips, often disappearing for weeks at a time. This only contributed further to his mystification among his classmates.

While they were officially meant to be business trips, Rana would recall them as vacations; he was just glad to be somewhere other than the loud, crowded city they called home. Most of the time they traveled to other parts of Central, but sometimes they traveled to other countries. Flying and using magic to create storage space in their bags were skills learned with frequent traveling.

It was on one of those trips that Rana first met someone else his age who could also use magic—every other wizard he’d met had been an adult. While heading back home from the South, Rana and its father decided to stop by a small town. They had only meant to stay for a couple of minutes, but ended up staying for hours after one of the residents approached Rana for conversation.

When they met, Cozy was about the same age as Rana, and spoke more than enough to make up for his silence. Years had passed since he last participated in a casual conversation with another kid, and though he spent more time listening than speaking (which he didn’t mind), he didn’t make any attempts to end it. Glad to see Rana willingly socialize with someone for longer than a few minutes, its father let them be. 

In the midst of their chat, she suddenly asked, “Are you a wizard too?”

Rana froze. She said ‘too’ at the end of that question. He wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, but if what it knew of Southern country was true, he didn’t have to worry about that as much as it did in other countries. 

After a moment of consideration, he answered, “Yes.”

Cozy looked like she was genuinely excited to hear that news, but Rana didn’t completely understand why; he didn’t think he was anything particularly special, but Cozy had a light in her eyes that made him feel too bad to tell her that. While it was his first time meeting another wizard his age, Cozy told him it was her first time meeting another wizard at all. Both were completely self-taught when it came to the magic they did know, and it was Cozy who suggested they keep in touch via a pair of journals she’d turned into talismans. It was also Cozy who declared them friends when they said their goodbyes.

When he returned home, Rana continued to age into its teens. The only things other students knew about him was that he was a wizard, he lived and worked at his father’s shop, and he spent most of his idle time reading or writing in some strange notebook. (“He’s always so quiet. Do you think he’s writing out a curse or something in that book? That’s kind of creepy…”) He’d become more-or-less a living urban legend for older students to tell younger ones about, but he had no idea—he didn’t talk to anybody other than Cozy. 

Finally having an actual reason to study magic beyond a surface level, Rana began to read as much as he could about it. If he found something he thought Cozy would want to learn, it would take notes in their journal so that she could practice her magic too. Though study notes were often sent, conversations filled most of the pages in their book during that time. Only a few years later, they came to a point where (using a modified version of the magic Rana used to create additional storage space in bags) they each had to cast a spell on their copies to create an unlimited number of pages .

After finishing the required years of school, Rana returned to working full-time with his father. It was beginning to take on more and more responsibilities as his father grew older. There were matters (mostly travel) that only Rana could physically handle anymore. Rana ended up taking ownership of their shop in his early 20s, continuing to study magic theory and put it into practice in all of the spare time he had. It took years to notice, but eventually Rana noticed that he wasn’t aging alongside anyone he recognized from school anymore.

A little more than thirty years after meeting Cozy (he didn’t even realize that that event became what he measured time by), Rana’s skin began to take on a sickly pale color. Sleep was hard to come by, and any movement he made was weak, draining him of any energy he had. Its fathers experienced similar symptoms, but their effects were worse. Rana chalked it up to seasonal illness, and the fact that his father was much older than him. 

Weeks passed and neither of them had recovered. Rana maintained his condition, but his father was worsening and no magic he attempted to use was helping. Just as he’d been about to write in their notebook to ask Cozy for advice, a new note written in shaky letters appeared on the page he opened to: 

“Dear Rana,

Do you know how to heal a sick human? I hope your response is prompt.

Thank you.”

His heart sank, and he wrote back an equally unsteady response.

“To Cozy,

I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Rana quickly understood that his power alone wouldn’t be able to cure himself or his father, and with reluctance, sought out the aid of another wizard. Many worked in medical fields due to their ability to continue research for so long, and so Rana consulted with one. It took barely a moment for the doctor to discover the root of the problem: they had been cursed, and as a result, their health would not recover. Without identifying the curse’s origin however, the doctor told them there was nothing they could do. They would either live in that condition until dying from another cause, or be killed by it. Rana didn’t have to be a genius to understand why both scenarios were presented. He was being told that his father would die, and he would continue to live with the curse.

Writing to Cozy that night was miserable.

Even while knowing its father’s fate, Rana couldn’t accept it. Ignoring his own condition, he began to dedicate all of its time to figuring out a way to cure and save his father’s life. Rana went as far as making a promise to take care of his father to the best of his ability. 

Hoping that his research might help Cozy in some way, Rana returned to its old habit of taking notes in their shared notebook. Likewise, Cozy would write down her own notes alongside his. Their book was becoming more of a shared research journal than a way to keep in touch.

Now juggling between the upkeep of their shop, searching for a way to cure his father, and exchanging notes with Cozy, Rana was finding less and less time to take care of itself. Too tired to continue maintaining long hair, he cut it short on his 45th birthday. Less than a year after that, his condition took a turn for the worse.

Business trips were no longer a break to look forward to, as Rana dreaded leaving its father alone for too long. Nonetheless, their shop had to be managed. Rana considered taking care of his father’s work as part of its promise. 

After a day’s worth of flying towards Western country, Rana took a moment to land and eat. He wasn’t hungry, but he found himself losing focus as his thoughts started to stray towards his family’s curse. Pulling an apple out of his bag, Rana hadn’t even taken a bite before noticing the apple was beginning to decay in his hand. It started from where he touched it, and spread fast. He dropped it in shock.

Carefully taking another apple from his bag, he watched as the same thing happened. He also noticed that the colored cloth of his bag was fading where he’d touched it, and rushed to use magic to prevent it from continuing past that point. The most obvious connection he could think of between apples and cloth was that both were made of organic material. He slowly put a hand to the coat sleeve on his arm. Starting from the point of contact, the cloth began to shrivel up as if it had been set on fire.

Great.

Just to make doubly sure, Rana held the thin chain of his necklace between two fingers. It didn’t immediately wither, but it slowly tarnished until starting to melt. Rana let go of it and used magic to return it to its original state, but that only slowed the process. He decided to take the necklace off. If he was right, then that meant that anything he touched would deteriorate.

If this was what was happening to him, then Rana worried more for what was happening to its father. Casting a quick protective spell over all of his possessions, Rana turned back home immediately. Taking another day to return, Rana ended up having to reinforce the spell it had cast multiple times. That only made him worry more about what might be happening to its father.

His fears were confirmed when he arrived home, finding his father lying cold and still in his room. It was something Rana had expected for the past years, and he’d always known he was likely to outlive its father, but actually living to see the day his death came with a complicated feeling that Rana didn’t know how to completely describe. There was some guilt for not having been there, but not the kind that made him consider his promise broken. There was shock, but not enough for it to say it was in shock. The only way he could think of to describe the feeling was reluctant acceptance, but even that wasn’t completely right. 

No matter what words he used to describe it, Cozy understood. Though their specific goals were different, they had still been exchanging notes for the past years. It was morbid, but there was some consolation in the fact that they weren’t completely alone in their situations.

Determined to keep his promise even after his father's death, Rana continued to maintain their store afterwards for a decade before finally setting it aside in order to spend all of its time looking for a way to remedy their curse. It decided that finding a way to cure their disease was also a way to take care of his father.

As was its usual habit when it was unsure of what to do next, Rana took to actively studying. He found that anything his skin touched would decay unless he cast a protective spell on it, and that contact with his hands caused immediate effects while other parts of his body induced more gradual ones. Unfortunately, learning more about his curse didn’t help much in terms of finding a way to undo it.

He never stopped writing notes in his and Cozy’s book, but with much more available time than before, the rate at which he filled pages became faster and faster. By that point in their lives, there had to have been enough notes about medicinal plants from each of them to fill a textbook. When that wasn't enough, he began conducting his own research. Even though he was no longer working under the constraints of a human’s lifespan, Rana knew that Cozy still was, so it tried helping as much as it could by providing all the information he could find.

It decided to move and explore the South since it knew there was a lot of unoccupied space and (most likely) undiscovered plant life. This way, he could conduct his studies without worrying about the possibility of hurting anyone else. This tunnel vision and isolation had the side effect of his social skills weakening, but he didn't think it mattered much (the only socializing he really participated in was writing to Cozy anyways).

After writing pages and pages of research on new plants and their effects, then even more pages on their effects when mixed, Rana still hadn't found anything that could cure him. Each of his numerous trials remained stashed in his endless bag, labeled with their ingredients and effectiveness. Along with each vial of his medicines, he kept magically preserved containers of the ingredients he used. Despite his efforts still bearing no fruit, he continued his search in hopes that he would eventually find something that could help Cozy or himself.

Then a period of days came by where Cozy went unresponsive. In those few days, Rana wrote frequently asking “What happened?” or “Are you okay?” among other worried messages. He got a short response at the end of the week, containing only three words: “They all died.”

It wasn’t sure of the specifics, but based on their exchanges after that, Rana guessed that Cozy didn’t leave her town for a long time. With no more immediate pressure to conduct research, their notes to each other became mostly conversational once more (albeit in a much less lighthearted way than before). 

“Let’s find each other again. That way we don’t need to be alone.”

Rana watched as Cozy wrote that note, and responded immediately.

“I’ll see you soon."

Finding each other in the South was hard, especially considering how much of it was uncharted and unoccupied, but decades after their first meeting, Rana and Cozy finally came face-to-face again. They were close friends after confiding in each other for decades, but there was still an awkward air of unfamiliarity because they both changed a lot in that time. The fact that neither of them had been in the presence of another living person for a long time didn’t help, and neither did the fact that they couldn’t touch each other.

Despite that, it was still a welcome change of pace to be in each others’ presence and know that they didn’t have to worry about losing one another to something like age. 

Now conducting research together, they made multiple attempts (in vain) to cure Rana’s curse. To their surprise and distress, any time something seemed like it might work, the curse would only return stronger after their remedy’s effects, rendering anything useless after its first trial. This got worse and worse as the years progressed, and Rana had a suspicion as to what the cause for that might be, but kept quiet, refusing to accept it as true. They had already spent so much time trying that stopping now seemed unfathomable.

In the middle of a new trial the day after one of the Great Calamity's attacks, Rana felt a searing pain in his neck. The worst came to mind and he immediately spit out the potion he’d made, fearing it might have had an unforeseen poisonous effect. The burning sensation continued, and he clutched his throat, coughing as he tried to make sense of what was happening. 

Quickly scrambling towards the nearby pond to check if his face was turning any concerning colors (which had happened in previous trials), it discovered that the sudden sensation wasn't because of the mixture. A lily-shaped crest had appeared at the base of his throat, and he had no idea what to do. 

Looking up towards Cozy, it watched as the same crest burned itself into her left wrist. When the pain subsided, she looked back at Rana. They both knew what that meant.

Unsure of how to proceed, Rana fell back on routine and wordlessly returned to his experiment. The Sage could wait for them to finish one more experiment before heading to Central country. (Really, Rana just didn’t want to face going back home.)