First Contact

Alex spent a couple days exploring the coast of Alakitasia before he stumbled upon his first signs of human activity. He started noticing well worn trails and old ash piles from quick camps.

The smells of humans and a bustling fishing industry assaulted Alex as the small fishing town came into view. Judging from the amount of permanent houses, Alex figured this village housed roughly 1000 people during the regular year, though it was currently boosted many fold with the military presence.

The Army had a big military style 'tent city' set up outside the village. Alex didn't know if this village had some sort of strategic advantage or if they were just on deployment training but figured he should avoid the soldiers all the same.

The village itself lacked any sort of defenses letting Alex know they weren't worried about attacks from either people or beasts. As Alex approached the town, he gathered a few curious looks from some of the soldiers hanging around the tents closest to the road. He must not have seemed all that special or out of the ordinary because they went back to what they were doing shortly after.

Alex entered town uninterrupted and began taking in the sights. The one tavern he noticed was stuffed to the brim with loud and drunken men. They weren't wearing their armor/uniforms but they could only be from the military. Alex was about to carry on his exploring when movement from an alley caught his eye.

Getting a better look at whatever had drawn his attention, Alex came upon the shivering form of a young boy no older than 10. He had the typical look of a street urchin, disheveled hair, ragged clothes, malnourished and incredibly dirty.

The only thing that really jumped out about his appearance was his snow white, almost silver, hair. Alex didn't know if white hair was considered rare on this continent and he couldn't see anything special about the boy with his mana sight other than slightly above average mana capacity so he just shrugged it off.

"Hey, Boy! Are you alright?" Alex asked the child while nudging him awake.

"I'm sorry! Don't hurt me!" the boy said as he covered his head and tried backing further away from Alex.

'What the hell's with that reaction? Guess this isn't a good town to be homeless' Alex thought with a shake of his head.

"I'm not going to hurt you kid. I just wanted to see if you were alright" Alex said, his voice as calming as he could make it.

"Uhh y-yeah. I-I am fine, I'll get out of your way s-sir." The boy spluttered out as he tried backing up away from Alex.

"How about a trade kid?" Alex asked, stopping the boy in his tracks.

"I ain't got nothing" the boy said. He still seemed wary of Alex but was starting to calm down.

"Do you know this town some?" Alex asked and the boy nodded. "Well then, we can trade. I got some food and I need some answers. You have some answers and look like you need some food. Seems like a trade to me." Alex said with a shrug.

At the mention of food, the boys stomach actually rumbled. Alex probably would have laughed at the coincidence if the boy didn't look like he would die from starvation soon. To drive home his point, Alex pulled out one of his prepared meals. It was a simple plate with an assortment of sandwiches and cut up veggies, it wasn't anything special but it was fresh.

The kids eyes almost popped out of his head and before he could stop himself he was already hungrily devouring the food. Alex also gave him some water to wash down the food with.

While Alex was waiting for the boy to finish his food, he used {Mana Manipulation} to create a new clean set of clothes and nice hoodie in the boys size. It didn't feel right to not do at least this much for a child down on his luck. Alex was in the process of setting up one of his tents when the kid finished his meal.

"Why are you setting a tent in the Alley? Are you going to sleep here?" a curious voice asked, pulling Alex from his task.

"Ha! Not quite." Alex exclaimed. "There is a shower on the inside you can use to get cleaned up before getting changed into these new clothes I made." Alex lightly chuckled as he showed the boy the clothes.

The boy nodded lightly as he took the clothes and inspected them quickly before turning back to Alex.

"How does it all work?" the boy asked calmly.

'Why is he taking all this so well? Shouldn't he be more cautious? He's not even questioning anything' Alex thought as he watched the kid curiously examine the tent.

Alex just shook his head to clear his thoughts before explaining how the runes work. The boy took a good 20 minutes to finish his shower and get changed before rejoining Alex.

Alex asked the boy, whose name was Liam, many questions about the town and surrounding areas. They were all unimportant questions that any villager should know, he didn't actually need any answers about this town and had used it as an excuse to give the boy some food.

The questions eventually led to the military and Alex learned this village is just a routine stop over during the patrol of the border. He also learned he was in the Alvarez Empire and the town name was called Pesca.

'Huh, it matches Ishgars naming sense, neat.' Alex thought with an inward chuckle. Pesca was Italian for 'Fishing' and strangely fit the usually quiet town. Once Alex was finished with his questions, Liam started barraging him with his own string of questions. Though his where all about magic.

He wanted to know what type of magic Alex used, how long he has been a mage, what he was doing in this tiny little town and most importantly if he could teach Liam magic. Alex laughed good naturedly at Liam's enthusiasm before stopping to actually consider it.

'Don't suppose it could actually hurt anything, but how the hell do I even go about teaching someone magic? The way I do it is quite different after all.' He thought with a frown. 'Guess I could try the method Zeref used to teach Mavis and the Fairy Tail founders'. Alex shrugged at the thought.

He wouldn't know unless he tried and honestly had no idea where to start aside from giving him a lacrima with said magic. Though awakening magic naturally should make it more versatile and offer better affinity.

Shrugging again Alex turned to the boy, "If you're serious, I can try to teach you. Whether you are able to awaken the magic inside you or not, will entirely depend on your own will and most importantly. Feelings." Alex said with a serious tone. He went through the same speech Zeref did in the 'Zero' series and even explained the 'power of feelings' to Liam.

Before he let Liam start to meditate to try and awaken his magic, the moved to the forest outside the town to get away from prying eyes. When he found a clearing big, and out of the way, enough to serve as a good camp site he explained the proper way to meditate and had Liam start trying to sense the ethernano in the air to pull it into his body.

Alex left him too it and started setting up the camp site, lost in thought. 'Why am I doing this? What do I have to gain from this? Why is this kid so trusting? Is it okay to teach him magic? Will there be any issues with teaching him magic? How did helping a starving orphan turn me into a magic teacher?' He rattled off a series of questions in his head as he set up two tents.

Even if Liam seemed to trust him to an unhealthy degree considering the amount of time they had known each other, Alex wasn't going to share a tent with the stranger.

It took two days for Liam to be able to freely absorb ethernano into his body, his ethernano was white, an almost direct match for his hair, and carried a chill with it.

'Hmm, guess his element is probably Ice/cold related' Alex mused. He was proven right when Frost started forming around the area Liam was meditating.

When Liam realized he had used magic, he started acting like the 10 year old he was. Excitement radiated off the boy so much he started freezing their campsite subconsciously. Alex told him to reign in his emotions and concentrate on his feelings and magic. He needed to learn control and practice the release of his magic to make it effective and useable.

Another couple days passed with them focusing on control and release before Alex decided it was time to leave this area. He had heard the army head out to continue their patrol and he planned to head in the opposite direction. All that was left before departure was to figure out what Liam planned to do from here on out.

Later that night, around the campfire, Alex said "I am going to be leaving tomorrow. Now that you have magic, you should be able to look after yourself and earn some money".

"Where are you going to go?" Liam asked, he had a saddened look on his face but at the same time seemed to expect this.

"I don't have a set destination, I am not even from this continent and I'm just exploring" Alex answered honestly.

"Can't I just come with you then? I ain't got anyone that cares about me in this village. At least not since I was kicked out of the orphanage" Liam said in a sad tone.

Alex had noticed the orphanage the day he found Liam and had asked him about it. He had learned that orphanages here only looked after their charges until they where 10 years old. If they had not been adopted by that age, they were forced to leave and live on their own.

On this continent, Magic users where many times more common than on Ishgar where only about 10% of the population could use magic. There where many more guilds and organizations that would accept young people and train them up from a young age so the actual amount of young people that remained homeless long enough to starve to death was quite low given the circumstances.

When Alex questioned Liam about not joining one of these organizations, he was told it was because of very bad timing. There was no permanent guild in this small town and the next 'recruitment' wasn't for a few more months. He had tried to offer his help to the villagers in order to survive until it happened, but no one needed the help of a brat with no physical strength.

When questioned about why he didn't try joining the military while they were in town, Liam simply said he did. He was told that the military of Alvarez only recruited from the magic guilds and they had no interest in people with no magic of their own.

Alex was a little torn about what he should do with Liam, it wouldn't be too difficult to bring him along, but it would be a massive inconvenience. Liam couldn't fly on his own and Alex didn't want to carry him the whole time.

He could probably create something that would allow the boy to keep up with him or he could just use his jet to get around, though that would kinda ruin his exploring of this place.

"Are you sure you would be happy to go exploring with a complete stranger?" Alex asked after thinking about it for a while.

"Yes! Anything to get me out of this place. Besides, you can pull food out of thin air so I wouldn't go hungry" Liam said with a cheeky smile. Alex laugh at this before telling him it was just storage magic.

"I promise to help all I can and not be a burden" Liam said, his tone was slightly begging and he even tossed in the 'puppy eyes' for good measure.

"Hmmmgruuhh" Alex grumbled unintelligibly, before rolling his eyes at the boy. "Fine, but I won't promise anything and if you start grumbling about everything I will drop you off in the next village we come across" Alex said, finally conceding.

'God damnit... I am too damn nice sometimes. Maybe I should be more of a jerk to people' Alex continued to grumble internally.

"Oh YEAH!" Liam shouted with all the excitement a 10 year old could muster. "Before you get too excited, see if you can make wings out of your Ice to fly with" Alex said, bringing Liam out of his excitement.

Alex had seen magic do many strange things in this world and thought it might be possible. Though he doubted very much that the boys control was enough to actually fly with his 'Ice wings', it would give him a starting point to try.

Liam didn't even know where to start, so Alex had to show him his own wings as a point of reference. It didn't take him too long to be able to make a copy, but just like Alex suspected, he couldn't fly with them.

Given how poorly his actual control over his new magic was, Alex doubted he would be able to fly anytime soon. With a sigh, Alex told him to practice his control or meditate to increase his capacity while he tried to figure out Liam's transportation situation.

(A/N. New OC, really not even sure why I did this or where it will go. I do most things in this book on a whim and hope for the best. We will see how this plays out, though even I am not sure. Maybe I just wanted Wendy to have a little brother? I don't know...)