Friends, at last

Alvos turned out to be as busy as he was friendly. He met us at the gates of Schwanwal at dusk and spent several minutes arguing with the guards to be let out of the gates that were about to be shut for the night.

“Ah, my apologies,” he ran up to us. He had a bag of scrolls swung over his shoulder and a woven basket in his hand. His hair was more dishevelled than before, and he'd found a sleeveless jacket similar to the one Danyar was wearing to throw over his attire. “Is all of that yours?” He pointed at the wooden cart. Thankfully, he seemed only surprised.

I nodded.

“And that young lady is with you?” I asked, glancing to where a girl was sitting on the driver's bench of a cart, playing a solo game with some tokens. She'd been there before Danyar and I had arrived, and her clothes and the fact that she was still there when clearly no one else would emerge from the city were solid hints.

“Amandine? She is. But,” Alvos rubbed his chin, examining the cart with our furniture, then his cart. “Well, frankly, I should have asked before. It would have bought those horses for you had I known how much goods you had to transport. I’m not sure our little Gan will be able to carry all this…”

The horse that’d been attached to the side of the carriage raised its head, reacting to the sound of its name. Amandine also swept the little painted tokens into a bag and hopped onto the ground.

She waved at us and approached the group with a wide smile. She made several gestures with her hands, and Alvos replied with several gestures of his own.

So this world has sign language too.

“Amandine is asking what we’ll do with your cart,” Alvos sighed.

“Well, I was thinking of storing it all in my train. Would it be all right to borrow your horse just for a short distance? I didn’t want to summon it too close to the city to avoid disturbing the residents.”

That, and I need to stall for a bit more time. I still haven’t recovered from using that stupid skill the guard made me cast.

Alvos tapped different fingers together, spelling out the word ‘train’, to which Amandine shrugged. She looked at me and signed something I couldn’t interpret.

I looked at Danyar, who was just as much at a loss as I.

Didn’t that god say I’d understand any language? If he’s using magic, he might as well extend it to languages that aren’t spoken as well. Tennis players use gestures to communicate; he should have connected those dots.

“Sorry, I don’t-”

“Oh, she’s asking if that is something specific to your class. She’s also a mage,” Alvos added with pride in his voice.

To that, Amandine’s face turned red and she signed something at him.

“Yes, my train is a mode of transportation where people and merchandise can be placed in these specialised carts, all pulled forward by a locomotive. Historically, they were powered by coal, wood, or steam, although more recent advancements have allowed them to get electricity directly from the rails they were traveling on. More specifically, a third rail - there are usually two, that guide the sets of wheels on either side of the locomotive and carts - was added to supply the train with power. They can reach up to 700 kilometers per hour! Although the one I have barely goes over 50. 100 if I really push it, but I think it’s not too safe with the dunes being so uneven. 50 is still quite alright, though. And she - my train - has controlled air temperature, so it’s not as hot as out here, and definitely not as dry -”

Amandine cut me off with a gesture that could universally be interpreted as ‘you lost me’.

I awkwardly scratched the back of my neck.

“Yes, it’s the thing I can summon. Would you like to ride in it as well?”

---

“What - how is it so big? Is it alive? Does it have a name? Did you come up with this? How - I've never seen anything like it! No, not even made by mages!”

Alvos patted the wheels of my locomotive before diving under.

“Careful!” I called after him, ducking in between the large steel wheels. Theoretically, the train wouldn't go anywhere without me, but I worried all the same. “Engineering, no, no, and no,” I replied in turn to all of Alvos’ questions.

“No wonder you killed that chenille, it must have splooshed right under this … train,” Alvos grinned.

He was lying down on his back, near the central part of the locomotive. An orb of yellow light appeared in his hand, and he closely examined the interlocking mechanisms that sent power from an unknown and probably non-existent source into the wheels. “Fascinating,” he continued, as he mumbled something about ship loading cranes under his breath.

“Please, mister Alvos,” I insisted.

I lay on my stomach, with less than twenty centimeters to spare above me. There were safer ways to examine a locomotive, like through a glass ceiling at a museum.

Although it's nice to have someone else who's curious.

“Ah, no need for all those formalities,” Alvos finally saw reason and wiggled out from under the mechanisms.

I joined him outside to watch him dust off his shirt and jacket, before picking up his hat, which he'd carefully placed to the side.

“You never answered my question, Chiyo,” he said, after giving a quick glance to Danyar and Amandine, who were moving crates. “How did someone as young as you become such a …” he tapped one of the wheels, then quickly wiped off the grease from it on a handkerchief, seemingly surprised at the contact, “unique mage?”

“I’m quite sure you never asked this question.”

Did I misinterpret something?

“Ah,” he smacked himself in the forehead. “You're absolutely right, I did not! My cousin Lucas nagged me about it so much that I must have thought I had.”

“I am 22,” I once again felt the need to reiterate.

“Oh, no, I didn't mean anything by it!” Alvos quickly corrected himself. “You know,” he winked at me, “what they say about growing tall and all that, it’s just a load of nonsense.”

“Yes,” I chuckled awkwardly, not sure where to take the conversation from here. I still didn’t feel ready to reveal the source of my powers, but his eager and sincere look made me reconsider.

“Bad luck, if I'm being honest,” I replied. That burning feeling in my chest rose to my throat, begging me to do anything but lie. “I got into an accident involving a train. I thought I was at a safe distance from it, but it was transporting dangerous chemicals, and well… I passed out. It was truly unpleasant, like an out-of-body experience,” I gestured, partially to mimic how being transported to a different realm felt, partially to let out some of that nervous energy. “I felt myself exist, the grass under me, the smell of the sea, but I couldn’t move. It was like being stung by one of those scorpions, but worse because I didn’t know what’d caused it, how long it would last, or even if there was anyone around to try and call for help to…”

I wasn’t sure why I was going into so much detail. Perhaps I just needed someone to hear it, an adult who I knew would show compassion and offer comfort. Although those realisations only reached my head after those words had left my mouth.

“Sorry, that was too much…” I brought my arms back to my sides and hid my hands in my pockets. “But that’s how I got this class. Now, I can summon her whenever I want,” I forced a smile and nodded towards my train.

“Oh, you poor girl!” Alvos exclaimed before unceremoniously throwing his arms around me.

There was absolutely no doubt that he meant well, but my mind short-circuited, as all I could think of was getting him off me and outside of my personal space.

When he finally pulled away, he wiped his eyes.

Oh no, I made this man cry! He’s such a sweet person…

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” I tried to comfort him, “It’s all in the past, really. It’s all …”

I sniffled, and soon he and I were both crying.

My family, my life, my friends… Just gone. And they will have to mourn me just like I’ve mourned them, and I can’t believe I imposed that on them …

It might have been five, or maybe more, minutes later, when Amadine tapped me on the shoulder to offer a handkerchief. She signed something before gesturing at Alvos and giving me a warm smile.

Alvos, meanwhile, readjusted his hat and stated:

“Well, if there’s nothing else, we'd better get going if we want to catch up to the Bastt Caravan by morning. I’ll take the first watch, you kids rest.”

Amandine tapped the back of her hands together before heading off to the carriage, followed by her boss.

Or are they related? I can’t quite tell.

“Are you alright?” Danyar asked quietly, once they were out of earshot.

“Yes,” I nodded. “I just … got myself thinking back to the people whom I’ll never see again. I know I should always move forward without rolling back, like a train,” I let out a habitual chuckle, “But sometimes these feelings just get to me.”

“These feelings of longing, forlorn, and grief of a life you could not even dream of returning to?”

When I looked up, Danyar’s expression was stoic.

“There are people who will grieve more than I … more than I am even capable of grieving or longing, or missing them. I … It’s selfish, but I’m the one who inflicted that on them, you know?”

We maintained eye contact for a few moments. Danyar shook his head, but didn’t say anything. Perhaps like me, he couldn’t find the words.

“Are those tattoos on your cheek representing the moons?” I asked, partially to change the subject, but also because I just realised that the moons had risen in the sky behind him, reflecting sunlight onto his green hair. Despite being thinner now, they still masked out a lot of the stars and illuminated the desert, clearly enough for us to see the carriages of my train, and Alvos’s horse-drawn carriage some meters to the side.

“Yes.”

Danyar turned around and joined the duo.

I checked my mana before dismissing the train and jogging towards them as well.