Coincidence

Cait could only fight back tears as she stepped around the island and embraced the old man, who smiled softly and patted her back in a fatherly manner.

She pulled away and stepped back, bowing deeply with unending gratitude welling in her eyes. "Thank you, uncle. I will treasure this for as long as I live."

"All you gotta do is keep making me proud, and I'll consider it worth it. To think, four months and you're already a Journeyman!"

"Old man, how did you put Sapling-Grade Imprints on the pendant?" Fate asked. It was something he had been wondering about since the pendant was revealed.

"I cashed in a favor," Travis said with a sly grin. "And seeing the happiness on my niece's face makes it all worth it. Now ring her up for the shoes while I go finish that window."

"She still has to pay for them?" Fate smirked.

"This is still a place of business," were the words Travis left behind. "How else am I going to pay you?"

Fate did as he was told with a wide grin on his face, Kravoss inwardly cackling at the old man's antics in a deep, rumbling boom that jarred Fate's thoughts.

Cait and Pospo did their best to suppress their amusement, but even they couldn't help but sport small smiles.

"How many of those have you gone through?" Fate asked as he scanned the box of boots with a specialized wand. He was referring to the long-winded scolding that the old man had just subjected them to.

The old man cared for Fate more than even his dad did, taking the role on for himself as he made sure to reprimand Fate for doing something stupid. Fate being who he was, that meant many, many such one-sided conversations.

But Fate didn't hate the old man for it. How could he? He had enough experience from his father to know the difference between a punishment because someone cared and a punishment to save face. Anyone with half a brain could see Old Man Travis was the former.

If anything, he was grateful for it. Fate's father only punished him when he made the older man look bad, but Travis took the time to mold Fate into a respectable young man that gave respect where it was earned and a beating when it was deserved.

Not to mention that without the old man, Fate would be in prison or dead from starvation by now. His father wouldn't give two shits either way, but Fate knew the many things Travis had done for him, and could feel nothing but appreciation and deep respect for the man.

Cait was of the same mentality, giving a shake of her head as she let out a giggle. "Too many to count. You?"

"If I tried to count them, I think my brain would short-circuit."

Cait laughed again, the sound like a tinkling bell, musical and pleasant to the ears. Fate started to think of snow melting and flowers budding, a cold exterior giving way to a vibrant, colorful underbelly. Which, in a way, was what was happening.

"You know, when I was little, my father would just sit back and laugh as uncle Travis went off on me. When the show ended, he'd calmly repeat each thing his brother had said with a smile as wide as a crescent moon, then give me a piece of candy to cheer me up."

"The old man always was a bit eccentric. Did you know when I was a kid, he…"

"He what?" Cait asked after he trailed off. Then her eyes widened and her smile faded, and it dawned on her.

They were speaking English.

Everything after and including the word "short-circuit" was spoken in English. Fate had resorted to it without even realizing it as it was the only word he knew to describe such an event, and Cait had followed along without even noticing.

"How—how do you know what I'm saying?" she asked suspiciously.

"How do you?" Fate countered. "As far as I know, I'm the only one on this planet that can speak it."

"I've always known it."

Strange, they both thought. Old Man Travis had never said a single English word to their memory, and that was the only thing connecting the two. At the same time, what were the chances that this was a coincidence?

Two different people, from two different races, two different towns, and two different backgrounds, both somehow knowing a language that they knew for certain they had never taught anyone?

That was impossible. And yet, here they were. The two could only finish their transaction in silence as they contemplated this new information. Cait left the store with a dazed look, Fate waving her off with the same cloudy gaze she wore.

Some time later, he shook himself out of his stupor and went back to enchanting wand cores.

'That was weird, right?' Fate asked his Familiar.

'It was,' Kravoss admitted. 'I have heard tales of powerful Mages reincarnating themselves into new lives at death's door, sometimes reappearing thousands of years in the future. Perhaps this English language comes from a long-lost civilization?'

'That doesn't make sense,' Fate said, dismissing the idea. 'In all of those stories, each Mage uses the same Spell, and they always get the memories of their previous life at their sixteenth birthday. If I was some powerful Mage of the past, I'm one hell of a late bloomer.'

'Perhaps it comes from your bloodlines?'

'For her, that's plausible. But we don't share the same Facet, much less the same blood. And I've never even heard of a Negativity Magical Beast. Even the Royal Mage Academy's library doesn't have anything on my Facet.'

He should know. His "free study" every weekday was spent in that same library, searching for anything he could find on his Facet. To this day, he'd turned up nothing, not even fables or fairy tales.

'Then the only thing to do is stop worrying about it,' Kravoss concluded. 'I'm sure the answer will turn up eventually.'