Arrival

“Woah!” I exclaimed, almost flying off the cart with that bump.

“Are you okay back there?” One of the men controlling the cart asked.

“Perfectly fine.”

There had been a lot of bumps in the road while I was travelling with this cart, but this had by far been the greatest. I took a deep breath, taking in the fresh air far from home. The air should be the same, but for some reason this felt far better. This stray, deep breath felt hundreds of times more refreshing than the others I took before, which I didn’t even acknowledge the feeling of.

A gust of wind came blowing from the front of the cart in the direction opposite to where I was facing, causing my silky purple hair to come speeding into my eyes and mouth.

“Pfft!” I tried blowing the hair out of my mouth.

I eventually decided to simply turn towards the side of the cart and push the hair behind my ear. Now it was blowing towards my left shoulder, which felt far better than when I was making a snack out of my hair.

Suddenly, a familiar crimson colour came into my field of view. A flash of the colour sparked memories of Fae within me. An excitement started to build, but it was swiftly replaced with curiosity at seeing a field full of the crimson colour.

“Hey, what’s that?” I questioned one of the merchants sitting beside the cart driver.

“Huh? Oh, those are flowers. They’re called spider lilies.” He responded.

“Interesting.” I spoke aloud. They aren’t quite windflowers but they seem pretty interesting. “How far is the next village from here on foot?”

“Hmm. An hour's walk I’d think.”

“Perfect. Stop the cart, I’ll get off here.”

The cart came to a swift stop and I dismounted. I thanked the merchants for their generosity for taking me along this far, and wished them safe travels further on.

I skipped over to the flowers, admiring them. The string-like petals mixed with their strong colour brought about a certain elegance to them. Their striking figure captivated me for multiple minutes. I shook my head, breaking the trance I was in.

“I better get moving or else it’ll be night by the time I reach the village.” I spoke aloud.

As I continued my stroll, I took each step gently in the beginning, making sure I would avoid destroying any of the lovely flowers. This form of walking had eventually become a habit for me, being almost as simple as breathing.

As I stepped through the field, still stunned by the beautiful flowers, memories of Fae kept coming back to me.

Finally, the field of flowers had ended and thatched homes were coming into view. When I stepped out of the graceful path I was walking amongst, I waved goodbye to the flowers and continued on towards the homes. The ground here being grass made it so I no longer had to walk so gently, but the gentle way was starting to become hard to stop, due to it becoming so habitual for me.

The sun started to set behind the village. At first the light was flashing into my eyes, becoming an annoyance which I couldn’t avoid due to being in the direction. But after approximately five minutes, the sun had set behind the thatched homes which I had gotten much closer to. Thank you homes, for protecting my eyes.

I had finally reached the village where, due to the light almost being gone, they had started to put out torches. The warmth of the fire heated me up as I was starting to freeze. Kind of funny for a mage trained in ice magic to freeze.

The torches were being spaced at a perfect distance to stop any chance of a fire starting, made apparent by how far they were placed from the houses. While people were placing torches, it appeared as though they were lighting them with their very hands. It must be magic!

As I approached the village, I stepped through a bush beside two homes, causing it to rustle. My dress seemed to have caught on the bush so I quickly turned back around to unlatch it from the tiny tree. After unlatching my dress, I emerged from the bush and looked upwards. As I began looking upwards, I was met with a bright light swiftly approaching me at light speeds.

I quickly dodge the ball of light and heat, making sure it was not able to connect with any part of my body or outfit. I’m glad I learned a bit of sword play, which definitely helps in situations like this. I let out a sigh of relief at my quick reflexes allowing me to live another day.

“Fire!” called out a voice beside me while I was trying to recover.

As I looked over to where the voice was coming from, I saw a small girl with bourbon hair pointing slightly off of me. Is she trying to point at me? I don’t think I’m on fire, I avoided that pretty well. As a large quantity of heat started being felt on my right cheek I realized that behind me, the bush I had recently stepped through was on fire and was in the process of lighting the homes next to it.

With great haste, I brought forth ice magic which immediately dealt with the fire, stopping it dead in its tracks. Looks like I was able to stop it before any serious damage had happened. That could have been bad if I didn’t notice it earlier. Good thing I’m a pro at dealing with fires at this point.

“You stupid idiot! What do you think you’re doing!” A tired shout came from the direction of the people I had turned away from in order to stop the blaze.

Thinking the shouting was directed at me, I readied myself to turn around and defend myself. How could they be yelling at me when I didn’t do anything and saved their village from burning?

As I turned around. Wham! I saw an elderly woman slapping a younger boy across the face.

“I’ve told you a million times not to shoot off fire magic randomly like that!” The elderly lady continued to scold the boy.

Surprised, I simply held back all that I was planning to say and erased them from my mind. Those words were pointless now anyways. The elderly lady spun her head towards me. I speedily tried to change my expression from surprised to smiling in order to not get caught off guard.

However, what happened next couldn’t stop me from holding back my surprise. The elderly woman came towards me and then got on the ground and bowed to me.

“Thank you for saving our village from my idiot grandson.” She spoke appreciatively.

“Ah, no worries” I responded to her kindness. “After all, it’s kind of my fault anyways.” I murmured that part to myself.

“Why are you here anyways?”

“Well, I’m currently travelling, trying to learn all about magic.”

“Well then! Please, stay the night as our guest tonight. We have an empty house available for you to stay in. And if you’d be so kind as to accept some compensation for your efforts, I can spend all of tomorrow teaching you fire magic.”

“Huh?” I responded, shocked at the amazing offer in front of me. This is perfect for me. I was meaning to ask them if they could teach me fire magic the second I saw them use it, but this was even better. Although I do feel a little bad. “I can’t accept that. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Please, I insist” The older woman persisted.

“But won’t it inconvenience the others in this village?”

“It doesn’t matter. I am the village leader, and what I say goes.”

“Is that so?” I was taken aback by the elder’s candidness, but relented to her persistence. “I humbly accept the offer then.”

“Perfect! Follow me.” The village leader began guiding me.

I silently followed the elder. People who had been outside of their home and those who had recently come out in the commotion stared at me. It was as though I was being paraded through the village. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. I could even see those who had stayed inside peering through their windows at me.

The expressions of the villagers were a mixed bag. Some had gratitude across their faces at my somewhat heroic actions. Some had more angered expressions, possibly because they felt as though I was the cause of the fire, or maybe they disliked new people coming into their village. There were those with confused expressions as well, unsure of what was happening, but only seeing me trailing behind the village elder.

After a long walk, we had finally reached the guest house the elderly woman had spoken about. She opened the door, showing me a home larger than that of my parents. It was equipped with a kitchen, bathroom, multiple rooms, each with a large bed.

“Please stay here for however long you plan to stay in the village.” The village leader had offered.

“I will, thank you.” I replied, accepting her kind offer.

“It’s getting late, so I’ll let you sleep now. Enjoy.”

“See you tomorrow!” I replied, a bit of my excitement coming through at the prospect of staying in such a nice place.

As she closed the door behind her, sleepiness started to come over me. I prepared myself for bed. But before I could get to bed, there was a knock at the door. When I opened the door, I saw food had been left there for me.

It was light, but still filled me as I had yet to eat since morning. The food only contributed to my sleepiness, making me stumble slowly to the big bed. As I got comfortable in the sheets, I imagined thoughts of using fire magic and what I’d learn. With a large amount of elation, I quickly fell asleep, excited to brace the next day.