I Might Be Crazy

The next step in my plan was a bit easier, but also perhaps a bit crazier. It only seemed right after everything that happened. I wanted my return to the village to be unforgettable. It was very important that I made an entrance.

While Aggie was hesitant about joining me on my return trip, he quickly agreed to making a scene. Demons really loved being flashy. His initial reluctance was quickly replaced by excitement. He giddily rubbed his hands together and snickered as we approached.

I stopped on an outcropping not far from the village, certain they could see my silhouette clear enough. I thought about how they treated me when I last visited. I felt the anger rising from the pit of my stomach. They just thought they could call and send me away at their own will, like I was some pretty pet. I wasn’t about to be pushed around. If they were so afraid of me, I’d give them something to fear.

As the anger within me rose, I felt the heat radiating from me. My cape rose up behind me, dancing on the steam around me and framing my figure in red. I felt the glee rise with the anger. My vision almost turned red. This was going to be fun.

I saw the villagers gathering together near the entrance, much as they had upon my first arrival. They still even held their tools in hand, as if daring me to come and start a fight. The temptation was there, but I thought it was a bit too early for that. I’d see where all the cards fell first and make up my mind from there.

Hey, even I could be reasonable.

When I saw their eyes all turn to look at me (or at least I assumed that was where they were looking), I started forward. I jumped from the outcropping, hoping to make my cape look a bit more dramatic. I stumbled the landing, but I think it worked well enough to accomplish the intimidation I was hoping.

Aggie followed behind me, crouching low and using me and my cape as a way to keep him out of sight. This was the most insane part of the plan after all. From what Aggie told me, he avoided the village since it was full of humans. Even without the Mage around, the humans would attack him and while it didn’t do much to hurt him, it was a nuisance he’d rather not deal with. He wasn’t so brazen that he would literally waltz into enemy territory for no reason. Well, now I was giving him one.

I could only hide him so much though, as he was a few inches taller than me. The path sloped downward, and he was suddenly in view. The villagers just stared at us. The heat around me slowly settled and it was like the air dropped several degrees the closer we approached.

Ethan stepped out of the crowd. As he moved forward, the other villagers took several steps back, gathering in closer together. I could hear the quiet murmur of voices as I closed the final distance between myself and the village. Ethan met me before I reached it though, just as I expected.

“Ur, Miss Mage…” Ethan stammered out his words. His face was red, and he adjusted his collar as he gauged his next words. He licked his lips and looked from me to the Demon Lord standing behind me. Luckily for me, Aggie managed to remain calm, looking bored and glancing away from Ethan and the village, like there was something more interesting off in the distance.

“That smoke was to call me back, right? Sorry it took so long! It’s been a bit of a crazy day for all of us I think.” I let out a chuckle, grinning back at him. I enjoyed watching him squirm.

“Yes, but Miss Mage, that fellow behind you-”

“Oh, this is my magic teacher. He knows a ton about magic, wouldn’t you agree?” I cut him off. The grin never left my face.

“C-Can I talk to you for a moment? Without him.” He motioned for me to come closer.

I shrugged and did as he asked, making a hand motion for Aggie to stay behind. Ethan made me lean in to the point that our noses were almost touching. He dropped his voice to a whisper, but I knew Aggie could hear everything just fine.

“Miss Mage, you realize that is the Demon Lord, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, got to talking to him while waiting for you guys. He’s a bit strange, but not all that bad of a guy.”

The color drained from his face. “Not that bad? Miss Mage, surely you jest!”

“No, nothing to joke about here. But can we take this inside? The other villagers seem to be getting anxious.”

Ethan rubbed his forehead and let out an exasperated sigh. “Miss Mage, I think it’s better if he stays outside and we just talk-”

“No.” I stomped my foot into the ground. “I intend to include him, too. So, let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

Ethan shrank back. It was unintentional, but the heat within me was starting to rise again. I took a deep breath to bring it back down. Okay, I definitely needed to work more on my control, but that was the whole point of learning from Aggie. Demons did this whole control thing way better than humans.

Ethan turned around and took a couple steps back towards the village. With his head hung low, he gestured for us to follow. “Please come with me.”

I glanced back at Aggie and he gave me a playful grin. I followed after Ethan with the Demon Lord on my heels. The villagers parted to let us past, moving so far away from us they were nearly running into buildings. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. These guys were ridiculous!

Ethan led us back to the inn I was in before, though this time there was no food offered (what a shame, too). The dining hall was empty this time, all the other staff sent out of the room before we entered. I waited for the village head to take his seat then took a seat myself, choosing one across from him. Aggie flopped down in the chair next to me.

“Miss Mage, as I understand it, you called this man your magic teacher?” Ethan finally found his voice and broke the silence.

“Yup,” I agreed. “You told me I needed to learn to control my magic, right? Seemed to make the most sense to ask an expert to do it.”

Ethan seemed to have been able to recover his façade. He cleared his throat and clasped his hands together. “I assure you, Miss Mage, we are more than capable of handling your training. In fact, that’s why I called you back. We’ve come up with a plan to help you learn. Some of the villagers have volunteered to take you to Dunmaarth so you can focus solely on your studies.”

I frowned. “I have no idea where this Dunmaarth place is, but I doubt it’s in town. Are you trying to send me away?”

“No, don’t be silly! We just know how some of the villagers are, it’s better for you not to stay here. However, you will still have our full support. It’s not far from here either, less than a day’s travel.”

“Can any of you even use magic?”

Ethan furrowed his brow. “Of course not, but we understand it as it was passed down from our ancestors. This village exists specifically for this reason. We are all honored to help the Great Mage reach her true potential and bring the evil to an end.”

I let out a coarse laugh. “That doesn’t even make any sense! How can you teach magic if you can’t even use it? And you basically want me to hole up in some place far away from here so no one gets scared? I mean, I get that magic can be scary, but come now, I thought we were supposed to be on the same side.”

“Of course we are on the same side! We mean no offense, but there are many reasons the villagers fear your power. You haven’t had much of a chance to really experience it yet, but you will grow into and be capable of near impossible feats.”

I held my hand up to silence him. “Save it, I heard all I needed to. I figure I’m going to do it my way instead. I’m going to have the only other being in this world that can actually use magic teach me magic. What happens after that…we’ll see.”

Ethan stiffened. “You don’t mean…”

I shrugged. “I don’t mean anything at all. I’m still figuring out what’s going on. But as long as you don’t overstep, I think we will be just fine.”

I stood up, Aggie mirroring my movement. Nice. I turned to leave, but Ethan rounded the table and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Miss Mage, you are making a mistake! I promise you, we can train you. We have trained countless Mages before!”

I tilted my head back just enough to glare at him. “That all ended up dead. Sorry, but I don’t really like those odds. I figure it’s time to try something different. If it goes wrong, well, I’m sure you guys will just get to try again in another hundred or so years.”

I pulled away from his grasp and left the room. I could hear Aggie snickering under his breath as he followed me out. He had to hide his face beneath his hand to keep his grin from being too obvious. Yeah, he was enjoying this as much as I expected him to.

The villagers watched us in silence, their makeshift weapons no longer held at ready. They glanced at one another, but none dared to speak. I was making history, and these guys had no idea what was going to happen. Well, I didn’t either, but I figured it was better to change things up if I wanted this legend to go differently than usual. I was going to think outside the box to ensure that’s exactly what happened.

As we stepped from the village, I felt the weight lift from my shoulders. That went easier than anticipated. I mean, I wasn’t hoping for violence and having to throw some fire around, but I sort of expected it. I literally entered their village with their perceived enemy in tow and coerced them into letting him teach me magic over them. I wasn’t sure if they were more afraid of me or him, but I guess it worked and that’s all that mattered. As long as I didn’t stir up too much trouble, they should leave me be for at least a bit.

But even though that part was over, it still left a lot more to deal with. Where would we go? What would we do? If we weren’t fighting each other, was there some other goal that would appear for us to fulfill? I know in all the books I read, the troupe was always that there was some ending in sight. Having removed the only one I knew, would something else come and take its place?

I glanced up at the sky, raising an eyebrow. If someone was responsible for bringing me here, was it something like a god or such from this world? They couldn’t be too happy with me for changing their story, but I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of just fighting to die. Maybe they could go easy on me…

“What are ya doing?” Aggie stopped walking. He folded his arms across his chest as I turned towards him.

“What do you mean? I’m just walking,” I replied with a frown.

“No, yer making faces at the sky! It’s creeping me out!”

“Oh.”

Okay, yeah, that was probably really weird to him. I hid my embarrassment behind my hand and brushed it off with a fake cough. That was going to be a bit difficult to explain, so it was better I just pushed it aside. Not like I had anything telling me there was some great deity or being hiding away above us that brought me here. I could muse all I wanted to about that later on. I needed a solid plan first.

“Never mind that.” I set my hands on my hips. “It’s time to get training! I want to learn how to control this magic so it doesn’t devour me. Go ahead and teach.”

Aggie grimaced and shook his head. “It’s not quite that simple. I’m not against the idea, at least not anymore, but we are gonna hafta be a bit more proactive to really get things moving. We certainly can’t stay here.”

“And where would we go?”

Aggie suddenly slipped his jacket from his shoulders, revealing the bare skin. I flushed and turned away, not sure where to look. Why was he suddenly stripping!?

“Stop acting so weird.” Aggie sighed. “Ya see these?”

I slowly glanced back. He was pointing to the faint tattoos over his shoulders, chest, and arms. There were two darker ones curling up the sides of his neck, but the others were barely more than light stains in comparison. It did seem a bit odd to me, but I didn’t quite understand what was happening. He had more on his body now than when I first met him for sure, but what did it mean?

“Demons magic tends to have more visible marks than human magic. These symbols on my body – or tattoos like the humans call them – are what represents my magic. But as ya can see, I’m missing some of mine. Part of the problem with getting sealed, it always gets thrown around.”

I blinked at him. “Tattoos? Thrown around? What in the world does that mean?”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s pretty simple. I just gotta find them really quick. Figure it’s also a good way to teach ya. Ya can practice yer magic as we get ‘em back. A real win/win for both of us!”

New quest unlocked, I guess. Definitely not where I saw this going, but whatever. At least it got me away from the village.

I sighed and slowly nodded. “Okay, sure, I think I follow. Let’s go get your magic then.”