Chapter 2

21 days later

It was cold, so I didn’t sleep well that night. But the cold did prevent other things from happening, so maybe it was for the best. At least it didn’t have claws to defend its boundaries.

I woke up feeling a bit concerned, however. Not a lot, of course, but just enough to wonder what the future might bring. The road to Nar-Alar would take us months, and with autumn upon us and a complete lack of funds, it may be a bit more difficult than I had originally anticipated. After all, I had thought I would have a stable job and enough savings to cover the occasional trips to the hot springs by now… Just like in Lagoon of Mermaids…

I shook my head. Thinking about it wasn’t safe when she lay so close. Of course, that book was the reason I had only brought a small one-person tent with me. But then, in Mystery of the Tail, Niar neither had claws nor a foul mood, and the small space we shared didn’t give me any chance to back off if both of them suddenly got combined.

Unfortunately, I must have stirred because Tila sat up and gave me a mean look. For good and bad, she slept with her clothes on, so at least I could focus on our journey. Travelling in autumn had some benefits in the end.

We ate a few apples in silence, and I poked my head through the tent flaps and looked outside. It drizzled. I shivered. It was weather to huddle together by the fireplace, not to walk, but I didn't dare to say that to Tila. After all, we didn't have a fireplace, so maybe walking wasn’t so bad. At least it would keep us warm.

I retreated from the rain and came back inside just in time to see Tila unwrapping herself from the blanket, and my gaze instinctively fell on her bare feet. To my horror, her cute toes also had claws. Wasn’t there any part of her body that couldn’t defend itself? Life wasn’t fair, and I was absolutely heartbroken.

“What?”

She looked at me with a frown.

“N-nothing. We...need to go.”, I mumbled and followed her outside.

My tent was a parting gift from Talinderie. At first, I wondered why she had chosen to give me a tent of all things, but I had come to appreciate the fact that it popped up and collapsed into a small box on command. Without its magic ability, we would definitely have been forced to sleep under the tree, and even I couldn’t imagine any exciting scenario there, at least not in this weather.

I wrapped the cloak around me, and we set out along the muddy road to the next village. Tila didn’t seem to be bothered by the rain. I assumed that her nymph blood had some benefits, but of course, I didn’t dare to say anything about that either. I had learned the hard way that her current look, as cute as it was, was a sensitive topic.

“How far?”, she asked for what must have been the thousandth time in the last week.

I didn’t think we would ever pass this stage of conversation, but I still had big hopes that everything would sort out in the end.

“Few hours..?”

She frowned.

“How far until we’ll reach your mentor?”

Yeah, that… I hadn’t really had a chance to tell her where Talinderie lived because of the claws, and I had hoped she would stop asking about it. But unfortunately, she hadn’t. At all… I did understand that she was annoyed by her current look, but how I could have known that my spell would turn her into a half-neko, half-nymph on top of binding her to me?

“A b-bit further than this”

It was the safest answer I could give her. She glared at me.

“You are a mage. Why don’t you teleport us there?”

I grinned at her question. My career choice was my favourite topic, and my was I good at talking about it.

“Because that type of magic isn’t my speciality!”, I beamed.

I hoped she would ask me more, and she did not disappoint.

“So.. What is your speciality?”

I almost began to bounce up and down hearing her question.

“Meteor strike!”, I cried, throwing my arms high in the air.

She blinked.

“Meteor strike ?”

“Yes! METEOR STRIKE!”

“What does that do…?

I looked at her with a smug smile, posing myself like Talinderie had done when she lectured me, and said,

“Meteor Strike! It’s a spell that the Great Sorceress Ardryll Fenlar Yinqirelle used to destroy the Dark Dragon-King Naegolor in the battle of Tannatar-Fen during the First Age of Enu!”

I was pretty pleased with myself after that, and as expected, my career choice had left her speechless. Only the tips of her cute ears twitched slightly, and her tail flickered from side to side.

“I see….”

I was lucky she was too overwhelmed to ask me to demonstrate it there and then. After all, Talinderie had found me learning it long before I fully understood how it worked, so I would have to reconstruct the last part of the incantation on my own. I was fairly certain it would work. After all, it should. The Desert of Fen was a living testimony that it had worked. At least in the past.

We arrived at the village in the afternoon. I really hoped I would have enough money to get us a warm meal. I had tried to tell myself that apples were good because we could eat them as we walked. But after the fourth one, I lost the ability to convince myself about it, and to be fair, I didn’t think Tila enjoyed our food either.

“Get us something to eat and a place to stay.”

I watched her pull her hood up and tuck her tail under her cloak. I glanced at the entrance to the inn and weighed my pouch in my hand before stepping in. It was almost empty inside. There were only a few local farmers sitting next to the fireplace, discussing something with mugs of ale in their hands. I guess normal people avoided travelling in such weather.

I was quite disappointed that my entrance hadn’t caught anyone’s attention, though. But maybe travelling mages were common here, and admittedly, I wasn’t as famous as I wished I were. But that was about to change.

“Mage Lindiriel at your service…”

I bowed my head to the old woman standing behind the counter, hoping that such an introduction would at least earn me a discount.

“A mage…?”

She interrupted me, eying my dirty clothes. Due to the limited funds, my robe wasn't as new and shiny as when I had left Nar-Alar, but as the old saying went, it wasn’t the robe that made the mage. But before I had any chance to continue, Tila said,

“She is pretty good, do you have any work…?

I almost wanted to cry. I had spent days crafting my introduction, knowing how important the first impression was, and she destroyed it without a single remorse. Yes, it was true that it hadn’t landed me any work yet, but my skills were highly specialised. How could she have done that to me?

The woman pondered the question for a moment, glancing at the farmers gathered around the fireplace, before turning back to us.

“My nephew may do with some help. The wolves have taken his sheep lately, so maybe you could cast a protection on his pasture”

Before I had a chance to object to such simple work or mention that I didn’t even know a spell that could do that, Tila smiled under her hood and said,

“We will be happy to help you”

The woman nodded with a smile.

“I will talk to him tomorrow. What is your name?”