Calling Card

Osthryn holds her mug of tea in both hands, watching with satisfaction when the steam rises from it. Her satisfaction is less to do with the trivial act of heating the tea, and more to do with the lack of anxiety in Martina’s presence when she did so openly. Osthryn started with little things through the house, testing her limits of how much she can do without her hosts noticing. Commanding the fire under the cookstove to hasten or slow when Martina was cooking something particular. Latching the door without touching it. Willing the particles of stains to evaporate from clothing and tablecloths. Martina noticed the last trick quickly, and found it quite the compliment that Osthryn was starting to feel comfortable practicing her magic in her presence.

It is a new sensation for Osthryn, practicing magic unaccompanied by the usual hypervigilance. The four walls of Oswald and Martina’s home has slowly become a safe place to push the limits of her inherent ability.

“I wonder, Osthryn, if you could create tea as much as warm it?” Martina muses, a teasing smile dancing on the woman’s lips as she slowly sets her freshly emptied mug down. A shudder of recognition passes over Osthryn as a shadow appears to darken the summer suns outside the window for a moment. She shrugs it off, perhaps it was a low-flying wyvern patrol. Osthryn smiles at Martina, “Unfortunately conjuration is one thing I truly struggle to do. I just cannot imagine creating anything well enough.”

“It was worth a try,” Martina sighs, retrieving her mug and walking back over to the teakettle. Osthryn focuses on the fire burning on the woodstove, heating it just so that the kettle steams as Martina approaches.

“You should mind using your magic so freely, Osthryn,” Martina warns. Osthryn withdraws her focus, and the fire falls back to its natural state. Martina waltzes back to the table, and sits across from her. “You will soon be driven mad with requests for little bits of magic at all hours of the day,” Martina winks knowingly as she brings her mug up to her face for a sip.

Osthryn lets a small laugh escape her lips. Being bothered for a magic trick is far less of a threat than what she is used to. “That seems a better fate than what I am usually faced with."

Martina arches her brow with a conspiratorial smile behind her mug, the tea in Osthryn’s own mug mysteriously turning bright green before settling back to its natural reddish tinge.

“Osthryn, darling, mark my words, enough tea-refill requests and you will wish you were back in Bettramon."

Her tea and banter with Martina pleasantly concluded for the morning, Osthryn sets off on her usual route to the Library.

She takes up the first heap of query cards she finds. They are a little dishevelled, as if they were shuffled, or simply placed down carelessly. Osthryn pays it no mind, and tucks them neatly into place underneath each other before dutifully climbing her ladder. The sway, after so many months of climbing it, still makes her stomach lurch and her hands turn cold. She endures it nonetheless.

Osthryn scans the shelves around her. There are relatively few wisps active today, and those that are active are a little further away than would allow for a quick response. She snakes her left arm over the rung for support, making a point of it not to look down. Holding the cards in her left hand, she upturns the other in the way Silovar did when they first met. Osthryn steadies the rhythm of her breathing, trying to remember what, if any, magic she could recollect from that encounter.

He said that he had shown her all she needed to know.

Conjuration is decidedly well beyond Osthryn’s practice. A powerful healer could still reasonably weave their magic within the bounds of mysterious and miraculous recoveries. Conjuration had no such possibility, and, before she met Silovar, she was certain that it should be impossible. But, Silovar was a Dragon, and if she were a Dragon, couldn’t she...

She watches her extended palm expectantly. The world around her darkens as Osthryn’s focus narrows onto the contours of her hand; the palm lines tracing possible paths that the telltale blue flickers of flame would begin to emerge. The corners of her mouth rise with her eyebrows as those blue flickers begin to appear. An unfettered smile paints her face, she may just be conjuring a wisp! The flowing warmth from her shoulder through her arm intensifies as the flames crystallise into material space.

The flames waver as Osthryn notices movement out of the corner of her eye. The wisp disappears, unformed and unsummoned, leaving a starkly cold sensation in its wake. Osthryn closes her hand in disappointment.

The librarian on the ladder next to her, completely oblivious to their role in Osthryn’s wavering of this conjuration, continues her climb. She stops at a few shelves higher than Osthryn, and calls her wisp in the usual way.

Osthryn shakes her head. She cannot blame this librarian for her own failure. This was merely her own fear of being discovered practicing magic openly.

“Soek,” Osthryn commands resignedly. She could try this again at another time, perhaps alone. Nearly two minutes later a wisp arrives, slightly larger than usual, seemingly struggling to squeeze its corpulence through the letters on the spine of the tome directly at eye level. Osthryn stifles a laugh to avoid offending any feelings the poor wisp might have. She holds out the first card.

“Frequency of wild wyvern sightings pre-Darkening in comparison with sighting frequency in the past one hundred years.”

Osthryn sighs, this type of query usually takes some time. It is not easily resolved with one or two resources. A comparison like this would likely require several titles for the requisite Scribe to pore through and analyse. Osthryn looks at the issuer of the card, Oswald. His queries were deviating far more in the direction of wyverns than Dragons lately. She makes up her mind to ask him about it.

Sensing that this wisp would need some extra time beyond what would usually be required for a query like this, Osthryn summons a second wisp for the card that follows it.

The second wisp appears to have an almost militant demeanour. Eager, and impatient for her to show it her query. She holds up the second card.

“Do crows like picnics? Do you think one would agree if I invited her?"

The card is anonymous.

The wisp highilghts the words hungrily and darts without hesitation to a shelf at the other end of the library before Osthryn can stop it. Osthryn squints at the query, bewildered, excitement building up alongside her disbelief as she reads the words again and again.

She twists her neck, leaning as far as her fear of heights will allow, scanning the library floor and straining for a glimpse of Silovar.

A shock of silver hair and a blue tunic disappears out the front door.

She does not even notice the first wisp valiantly making his way back to her with a list of volumes to deposit on her first card. She hardly cares how the ladder sways as she scrambles down it. She moves far too quickly to notice Oswald’s smirk as she runs past the writing desks. She is down the steps and in the street before she realises she’s still gripping the card in her hand.

She does not care if she appears strange or dishevelled as she rushes to Oswald and Martina’s home. She is not even certain that it is Silovar that she saw, or if he is heading there himself. The shudder of recognition passes through her again as she sees the silver hair duck into a side street downhill from her. Her heart smiles hopefully. Perhaps he truly is back.

Osthryn eventually rounds on the front of her home, her boots digging into the spaces between the cobbles as she comes to an abrupt stop.

Silovar leans on the doorframe with his arms crossed, his coat reclaimed and over his shoulders, sporting an infuriating grin.

Osthryn lets the card slip from her fingers at the sight of him.

“Crows do like picnics,” she eventually manages to say.

Silovar’s smile grows larger.