The Promise

I saw Fae seated on the same chair she had sat on in front of me when we first met in her old home. Somehow this chair was one of the things she was able to salvage, which makes it kind of funny as it was by far the fanciest chair in the house. The funniest part was that we were also able to salvage the pained, rotten, chair. Which conversely was the least fanciest chair in the home. As I approached her, I asked her what she was reading.

“This is a book mentioning nice places to visit.” She answered.

“Are you planning on going somewhere?” I didn’t want her to leave.

“Not really. I was just looking at places. I didn’t get much free time with my old job since I was busy protecting the castle. Never got the time to see these sights. Besides, I’d much rather stay here so I can continue to help your parents and return their generosity.”

I went to go next to her, sitting on the comfortable armrests of the chair. Like this, I was able to view the book clearly alongside Fae (at the cost of the chair starting to tilt just a bit). We quietly sat together as she flipped through the book, until three pages later, a drawing of a beautiful flower field came into view.

“Woah!” I exclaimed, taken aback by the beauty of the drawing and colours which depicted the field.

“It says here these are known as ‘Windflowers’ and the field is somewhere in the Lores nation.” She explained, giving me some cool, albeit pointless knowledge. “Actually, I think I’ve heard of this field before. Back in the day I had heard rumors about it, but everyone I asked had said the location of the meadow had never been disclosed. I wasn’t able to go and look for it since I was so busy with work.”

“Fae, when I’m eighteen let’s go together and see the flower field.”

“But you’re already seventeen. You’ll be eighteen before we know it.”

“Aw come on. Please?”

“Ugh, whatever. It’s a promise.” She replied with a tender smile.

I leaned back in my excitement, causing the chair to tip over and for the both of us to fall. On the ground, we began laughing, a hardy laugh shared between just the two of us.

As we picked ourselves off the ground still laughing, we left my home. Since we had the ability to, we decided it was for the best that we also helped out those who couldn’t use their limbs. Ever since the first incident, there have been others, causing more and more people in the village to have to deal with the terrible injury. It’s still a rare occurrence, but it’s been happening far more often than it had been prior to the initial incident.

As we arrived at the home of one of the newly injured women, we were told to let ourselves in. We followed as she ordered, not expecting her to get up to open the door for us. Seeing her sitting there on her couch made it look as though she wasn’t hurt at all. But in reality, on her own she wouldn’t be able to move from that spot. She hadn’t just lost a limb. She lost two legs and an arm. When we were healing her, it was definitely a trial to convince her to keep going. At least now she’s a bit happier.

The village was able to pool together enough funds to purchase a faded green crystal that looked almost as though it was a clear cloudy colour instead. This stone was able to help the woman levitate using wind magic. This at least allowed her some mobility. The whole village decided it was the best thing we could get her, and it seemed to help lighten her burden.

What we thought we could do for her today was to provide her some entertainment. Fae and I tried doing multiple things. We started with singing, but it seemed as though Fae being tone deaf, only caused the woman to laugh instead. So continuing with the feeling of laughter, we tried doing a comedy routine. It worked exactly as it was supposed, causing the woman to let out more laughter than she had in a while.

We decided to end it there and leave her to rest. As we exited the home, she thanked us for coming around, as many others tended to avoid her. Only wanting her to find some happiness, we waved back and thanked her for being an amazing audience. We shut the door slowly behind us, making sure not to cause too much of a ruckus at our departure.

“Ahhh, that felt good.” Fae spoke as she stretched her arms.

“You’re right. She seemed to be doing so much better than she had been before.” I responded.

“You bet! She's gonna be fine in no time!”

“I hope so too.”

“Hey Celes?”

“Yeah?”

“Tomorrow, I want you to meet me in the field by the hill next to the old home.”

“Why?”

“We’re going to be having a lesson!”

“All right, let’s do it!”

It had been a while since we last had a proper lesson. I’m so excited to see what else I can learn with ice magic. Initially, I didn’t care much for ice magic. I only really wanted to learn healing magic after all. But after seeing Fae talk about it so extravagantly, it made me want to try it out. After using it for a while, I came to like it more and more.

Learning offensive magic feels entirely different from that of learning support magic. But the thing about offensive magic was that it could be used for things other than offensive. The ability to manipulate the ice magic in whatever way I desired gave me a certain sense of freedom I hadn’t found in other things before.

Thinking about it now, maybe Fae didn’t like ice magic as much as she spoke of. She probably wanted me to not be stuck on a single type of magic and instead have a versatile set of magic at my disposal. She had mentioned before that mages that stick to one type of magic normally tend to hit a wall they can never surpass. I guess this just relates to that.

As I reached home, I got into bed. I was tired from the long day I had, but also excited for what was happening tomorrow. The weird mixture of feelings only caused me to fall asleep even faster than I normally did.

“Alright, it’s time I teach you my strongest offensive ice spell. You already mastered the upper levels of healing magic a while back. To be honest, you had the skill and power to do this quite a while ago, but I felt it would be good to hold off on it till now.” Fae gave me what felt like a compliment, but at the same time made sure I understood this was the last thing she could teach me.

“I’m ready.” I exclaimed, making sure I would not let her down.

“Ok. Imagine a block of ice first.” She began teaching. “After that, shape it into a thick icicle. After that’s done, imagine it being huge. For comparison, aim for the size of your home.”

“Ok, I think I’ve got it.” I replied, preparing the image she was describing.

“Now I want you to try aiming for the hill you used to climb up to reach my old home.”

I raised a single arm and aimed it for the hill, locking the target into my sight. I popped the mental image into my head and in front of my eyes, a ginormous icicle with a misty blue glow formed, hovering a little bit above the ground. As I checked if my aim was still perfectly in place, I imagined the icicle shooting out at light speeds. Finally, the monolith of an icicle blasted off away from my hand and went speeding towards the hill. With the speed the icicle was going at, I was starting to think it would have melted from the sheer speed. To my surprise, it stayed intact and collided with the hill, leading to a great explosion of dirt and debris. After the dust had settled, the hill which had once stood proudly in front of me was no more, instead replaced with a deformed piece of ice which had started rapidly melting. I couldn’t contain the large smile that came across my face. I tried to cover it with my mouth, but Fae had seen it instantly and started laughing.

“You aced it like I thought you would.” She told me with a hint of pride and laughter coming from her voice.

My hand dropped, showing off my large smile to Fae, which caused us both to break out into even louder laughter.

“It’s a little early, but tomorrow, how about we go find that flower field, huh?” I reminded Fae of the promise we had made a while back, wanting to do it a little earlier.

With a smile different from the one she had previously, she replied saying “Sure, let’s make good on our promise a little early then.”