(667 A.C.)
Edgar roused to a cold bed. He blearily blinked his eyes open and stared at the empty half of the straw mattress next to him. Then, with the same resigned sigh he started every day with, he got up.
It was colder out from under his blankets, even with them as thin as they were anymore. Edgar shivered in his undershirt and shuffled toward his dresser, suppressing the urge to yawn. He rummaged through it for a moment, some crumpled hope in his chest seeming to believe that clothes warm enough for the early winter chill might magically appear, but he hadn’t had anything that nice in some years. He settled on an old red shirt that, despite the coarse patches speckling its rough fabric, managed to be one of the thickest things he owned. It was a struggle anymore to lift his arms over his head to put the damn thing on, but he managed. Not like there was anyone around to help him.
His stomach growled as he changed, but that was nothing new. He trudged out of his bedroom and into his barren kitchen, pausing briefly to check if he had any oats left to make a simple porridge. He didn’t, and he didn’t have the money for more nor did his knees feel up to the task of trekking into Livsgrove. Damn cold was hard on his joints anymore.
He sighed again and closed the cupboard with more force than necessary. So he’d have water for breakfast. Wouldn’t be the first time.
The clay pitcher he’d filled at the lake the day before was still mostly full, and he took to drinking straight from it in large gulps. Not like there was anyone he needed to share it with.
The water was cold, and the house was cold, and he was cold, and the whole bloody world was probably cold. Or if it wasn’t, it should be. Edgar grunted as a chill seeped into his limbs. He glanced at the fireplace, but there were only a few charred pieces of wood, and he’d probably want them much more later in the night if he wanted to avoid freezing to death. He shook out his arms, testing whether he felt up to chopping some more firewood. His shoulders twinged in protest, and his elbows creaked like rusted hinges. Well, that was too damn bad. He’d be damned if he ran out of firewood just because his aging body didn’t want to cooperate. Might as well try to do some fishing and get a bit of food in his stomach, too.
He pulled on his threadbare coat and reached for his knitted cap before hesitating. He gingerly picked the garment up from its place on his coat rack, running weathered fingers over its soft material.
The world was cold, he thought, but it had once been warm.
Sighing, he tugged the cap on. Maybe firewood could wait. Maybe he should pay them a visit first.
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Livsgrove’s graveyard was closer to Edgar’s cabin than the town itself, but even if it wasn’t, he’d still have trudged there, aching knees be damned. There were no flowers growing this time of year--not by normal means anyway, and there was no way he could afford magically cultivated ones--so he had nothing to bring them. Nothing but his lowly self.
He picked his way through headstones, yellow grass crunching underfoot. Eventually, he stopped before two graves.
The one on the left read, Teriva Endel, 604-651. The one on the right read, Annalee Endel, 651-654.
Edgar ran a wrinkled hand over Annalee’s headstone, swallowing hard. And Teriva. He blinked hard as his gaze slid to hers, a small puff of a sigh escaping his lips. It had been years. Over a decade.
And yet.
“It’s good to see you two,” he whispered, drawing back his hand and shuffling away a step. There was nothing--no wind, no fluttering birds, no indication that anyone or anything heard him. And yet, and yet.
He cleared his throat. “I hope you’re doing well,” he continued, despite knowing better. The old gods would have given them no solace in death, and the new gods weren’t around enough to care. Teriva and Annalee weren’t there. They weren’t anywhere, certainly nowhere he could reach. And yet, and yet, and yet.
They were together in death, in the very way they had never been in life. They were at peace together, if absolutely nothing else. Neither of them could suffer anymore.
Edgar’s gaze slid to the conspicuously barren plot of land next to Teriva’s grave. Not much longer now, he thought to himself. Not today, nor tomorrow, nor probably even in the next month. But not much longer now.
Until then, he had things to do. Wood to chop, fish to catch, a home to maintain. He patted Teriva’s headstone with a sigh and left without a farewell.
He’d be back. One way or another, he would come back and be with them again.
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Winter was well on its way now. The nights were growing colder, and the days were growing shorter, and it just caused more problems for Edgar. It made his joints stiff and ache which made it harder for him to get out of bed in the morning and do everything he needed to do–chop firewood to stay warm, head to the lake to fish for his meals, trek to the town when he actually caught enough to sell the excess and buy other necessities.
It was barely morning when Edgar found himself standing in the doorway of his empty cabin and contemplating the cloudy, gray sky overhead. Would it snow? Make his day even worse than it usually was? His knees already ached with the chill that pervaded his limbs, and his fingers felt stiff as logs. At least he’d spent most of the day before chopping firewood–he would stay warm for at least another few nights.
Eating was another matter. He really needed to head to the lake and see what he could dredge up. He’d ran out of oats a couple days ago, and that had been about the last of his food. If he wanted something more than broth for his meals, he needed to get the food himself.
He glanced behind him into the dim expanse of his cabin. The kitchen met his gaze, taunting him with its barren cabinets and empty fireplace. He made the mistake of glancing to the door to the left–the door that always, always stayed shut–and quickly turned away again. Tugging his woolen cap more firmly on his head, he stepped out of the doorway and began shuffling towards the lake. No use in sticking around.
His stomach rumbled as he took the familiar trail through the woods, warily watching the sky. It didn’t start snowing, though, and he wondered if he should have sucked it up and made the much longer trek to town. Sometimes, Old Jeck gave him the bones from the pigs he slaughtered, and Edgar could make them into a broth. Minerva, too, could be convinced to give him the loaves of bread that came out burnt and unsellable.
His knees hurt though, and recently the joints of his toes had begun to swell when he walked for more than a couple miles in a day. Without anything to sell, it just wasn’t worth it to go all that way. Besides, he didn’t feel much up for company today. Not that he felt up to it any day.
He squinted as he neared the end of the trail. The lake shimmered in the early morning light as usual, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. No, it was the fact that at the end of the pier–the pier he had made for the tiny lake, bordering on a simple pond, that nobody else came to–there was someone standing.
Edgar stopped and glared at their back. They were short with long blonde hair, and as he watched, they fiddled with something in front of them. Then, they lifted whatever it was they had up and flicked their wrist, and it took a moment for Edgar to realize that they were fishing.
He scowled. This was his lake. He didn’t have much he could claim as his own anymore, but he liked to think that he’d come here so often, been sustained by the fish and water from this lake for so long, that it was his. Other people didn’t just come and fish here. Other people didn’t bother him here.
He glowered at the figure for a moment more. They eventually sat at the edge of the pier, legs folded in front of them, ignoring the rickety chair next to them that Edgar usually sat in. Their hair was so long that it bunched on the wood behind them in golden loops.
Eventually, Edgar huffed out an angry breath and put the stranger out of his mind. More than likely they were a traveler just looking for a meal. He knew some Wandering People that came by this way every now and then–maybe this was one of them. So long as they didn’t bother him, he would just go about his business.
He walked a short way off the trail to a tree with a gnarled hollow at the base of its trunk where his fishing rod and string was stowed away. He fetched them both, and, glancing at the stranger one more time, trudged out onto the pier.
The stranger immediately whipped around when they heard his first footstep on the creaky wood, and Edgar stopped short. He realized now why they were so short–it was a young girl that stared up at him, eyes as golden as her hair. She watched him warily, her fishing rod gripped in her hands like she might use it to whack at him if he made a wrong move.
After the initial shock passed, Edgar curled his lip. “What,” he growled, “never seen an old man before?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits, and Edgar was given the impression of a cat angrily regarding a dog. After a moment, the expression eased into something more placid.
“So long as you don’t scare the fish away,” she said, turning her attention back to the lake.
Edgar just grunted and made his way to sit in his chair. The girl spared him another glance, but he ignored it and cast out his line. It hit the surface of the water with a satisfying plop and sunk into the blue depths.
“Did you really come here to fish?” the girl asked suddenly, sounding both skeptical and wary.
He snorted. “Don’t know many other reasons folk come to a lake with a fishing rod.”
“Well, sure,” the girl said haltingly. Her expression pinched, and then, with a half-shouldered shrug that seemed more to herself than to him, she turned to him more fully with an earnest expression. “You just didn’t cast the line out right.”
What? This was how he’d always done it. He’d caught fish with it. What difference did it make how he cast his line? “And you would know so much about that because..?”
The girl pursed her lips. “I was taught how to fish by one of the Wandering People. He was very specific about how I was supposed to cast my line.”
Edgar grunted. She was one of the Wandering People, then? Perhaps a case of a child deciding to join one of their little familial units which meant the others were somewhere nearby. It made Edgar feel a little better, knowing that the girl wasn’t out here alone, even if it wasn’t his problem.
They sat in silence for a moment, and Edgar was just beginning to think he could pretend the girl didn’t exist and fish in peace when she spoke again. “You’re not going to ask how I do it?”
Edgar grunted again. She looked up at him expectantly, and eventually he caved and actually spoke. “Don’t care. Way I do it has worked well enough.”
She seemed like she wanted to say something to that, but after a moment, she turned back to the water with a small sigh. Just when he thought the matter had been dropped, she opened her mouth again. “It really is better. It’s really simple, too, and–”
“Kid,” Edgar interrupted, “I don’t care. Can’t you just leave me be?”
Her shoulders hiked up by her ears so that before he even caught the hurt in her eyes, he could tell he’d upset her. Whatever. She wasn’t his kid. He didn’t have any children.
Anymore, a voice in the back of his head whispered. He ignored it, just like he should have just ignored this stranger.
“Why don’t people want to just accept help?” she spat out, glaring at him from the corner of her eye. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Maybe I just don’t want to talk to random people that show up on the pier of my lake to fish.”
She set her glare on the water in front of them. It glistened serenely, perfect as a painting, completely untainted by their little spat. Edgar didn’t even know why he was arguing with this random child.
She was saying something else, but Edgar hadn’t been listening when she started and he wasn’t about to. “Kid,” he began, but didn’t get the chance to go any farther.
“Wanily,” she insisted.
Edgar gave a long, tired sigh. “Wanily,” he said. She nodded, seemingly satisfied. “I’m Edgar. Why don’t you just go back to your little family thing and leave me be.” It should have been a question, but it didn’t come out that way–more like an order.
She frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re with the Wandering People, right? Just go with them for a while and I’ll be gone once I catch something. Then you can come back and cast your line however you want.”
She cocked her head at him. “I’m not with the Wandering People.” She tapped the side of her fishing rod. “I’m just a person who wanders around a lot, I guess. And right now I need to catch something for breakfast.” She pursed her lips and swept her gaze over the lake again. “I didn’t know this was your lake. I can leave if it’s really a problem. There wouldn’t happen to be a town around here, would there? I guess I can always try to find some work or something.”
She kept talking, and Edgar let her, trying to wrap his mind around what she’d said. She was out here alone?
No. This wasn’t his problem. She said she wandered around a lot--she must be doing fine for herself, then. Edgar didn’t need to intervene. Which was good because he didn’t want to intervene.
She stood suddenly, and Edgar realized he had no idea what she’d been prattling on about, but there was a hard edge to her gaze. Something resolute. “Is there a town around here or not?”
Edgar sighed, turning back to the water. “Sit your ass down, I’m not going to make you walk all that way for your breakfast. Just leave me alone, will you?”
He kept his eyes on the line in front of him, but he watched in his peripheral vision as Wanily crossed her arms, uncrossed her arms, and finally settled back down, fishing rod grasped in her hands. With a flick of her wrist, the hook and the bait on it were cast back out into the middle of the pond. Edgar wasn’t the type to grumble, but if he was, he might have reluctantly admitted that it was done quite expertly.
They sat in silence for a time. Wanily caught a fish first, just a tiny thing that would hardly make a good snack, let alone a meal. She didn’t seem disappointed once she reeled it in though, merely inspecting it from where it wriggled on her hook before shrugging and standing. She clutched her fishing rod in one hand, and pinched the line with the other, allowing the fish to freely squirm, though its thrashing gradually began to lose strength.
Edgar tried his best to ignore her, even as she started talking again. “Thanks for letting me use your pond. I won’t hang around here long, maybe just a couple more days.” She puffed out her chest. “See, I’m trying to learn old magic, so I can’t stay in any place for too long. I need to find a teacher. You wouldn’t happen to know an old magic mage looking for an apprentice, would you?”
“No.”
“Aw, well, that’s alright,” Wanily said easily. Edgar could hear the smile coloring her voice and found her cheer grating. “I’ll just keep looking.”
Why should he care that she was trying to learn magic anyhow? Magic was always the easy way out and still managed to be three bounds away from where it needed to be and when. And don’t get Edgar started on all the self-important military men that came strutting through town with their colorful hairdos and inability to add one and one.
Give him a piece of charcoal, some paper, and a curious phenomenon any day. Just not magic.
At some point while Edgar was lost in thought, Wanily had slipped away. He cast a furtive glance around and spotted her building a fire further down along the bank of the pond, a massive pack beside her. He watched her dig out some flint and a small blade from it, her meager fish already stuck on a pointed stick and propped up next to a piled of more sticks and leaves for kindling. She really did seem to know what she was doing. That ruled out everything she said being lies, not that Edgar had really thought she had given him anything but the truth.
He turned his attention back to his own line. When he finally caught something--barely bigger than Wanily’s pathetic meal--he stood and began making his way back to his cabin. Usually, he would stay out and try to wrangle up a couple more fish--not too many, lest he kill his only stable source of food--but he kept catching flashes of Wanily’s golden hair shining in the sunlight as the day progressed closer to noon.
If Annalee--If the Necroplague hadn’t swept through the town--
Annalee had been blonde, too. Wanily was younger than she would be now, but not by much.
Despite his aching knees and swollen toes, Edgar picked up his pace. And even though his stomach gnawed and growled at him all the while, he didn’t return to the lake until two days later, when Wanily said she’d be gone.
It was morning, and the bright sun shone through the bare branches of the trees. Edgar picked his way carefully along the trail leading to the clearing, glancing around for any sign of Wanily. His gaze snagged on the campsite she’d made two days before, but he didn’t see her or her pack anywhere around the charred pile of sticks that was once her campfire.
He let out a small breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She was gone, then. Good.
“Oh, hey!”
Edgar froze, his gaze slowly, slowly trailing up along the length of the tree next to him. Lo and behold, Wanily smiled down at him crookedly, her hair draped around her face like a curtain. She straddled a branch high in the treetop with a piece of rope fastened around her bicep and tied off to a branch next to her. Her pack, Edgar noticed, was a few branches down from her where the limbs of the tree were thicker, more capable of supporting the weight of the bag and its contents.
She waved at him. Edgar did not wave back.
“Wait there!” Wanily called, already working to untie her arm from the piece of rope presumably there to make sure she didn’t tumble out of the tree. Had she been sleeping up there?
It didn’t matter. Edgar did not wait there. In fact, he turned and started the trek home.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Hey, hold on!” Wanily shouted after him. He did not turn or slow his pace, and after several moments, he heard what was likely the sound of Wanily descending from her perch in a mad scramble. And then, when he reached the edge of the clearing, he heard a loud snap preceding a sharp cry and then a dull thud.
“Ow, ow, ow...” Wanily’s voice drifted through the crisp morning air, barely audible to Edgar’s old ears.
He stopped. Sighed. Turned and picked his way back toward the tree and the girl who had ended up as a heap among its gnarled roots. A large tree branch, edges broken and frayed at one end, laid next to her on the ground.
Edgar peered down at her. Wanily had yet to sit up and was instead curled on her side, right foot gripped in her hands. Her boot, Edgar noticed, had been worn through at the sole in hole big around as Edgar’s thumb.
Wanily peeked up at him, a shaky smile on her lips. “Sorry that I’m not gone,” she murmured. Edgar took a step back as she let go of her foot and slowly levered herself up into a sitting position. “I know I said it would only be a couple days, but then I caught a water fowl in one of my traps and I was trying to figure out where I should go to wait out the winter and one day became two then three, and well...”
She trailed off, increasingly sheepish. She scratched at the back of her head and didn’t meet Edgar’s gaze.
In the time Edgar spent trying to come up with a response, Wanily climbed to her feet and brushed herself off. She clasped her hands in front of herself and smiled again despite the way she was favoring her right leg. “Anyway. If you could point me in the direction of the nearest town, I’ll be out of your hair.”
Edgar peered down at her. She stared up at him, golden eyes wide. “How’s that foot?” he drawled.
She shrugged. “I can always look for a slime and try to make a healing potion.”
“In the winter? All the slimes will be icicles if they’re not burrowed underground.”
Wanily frowned. “It’s not that cold. The pond hasn’t even frozen over.”
“Slimes freeze at a higher temperature than water.” Edgar raised a brow at her. “I thought you were buddy-buddy with a member of the Wandering People. Didn’t he tell you that?”
She furrowed her brow. “What are you talking about?”
Edgar opened his mouth to respond, then slowly closed it. Of course. Fucking mages, didn’t know the first thing about science. Edgar supposed Wanily wasn’t really a mage yet, but she wanted to be one, which was just as bad.
“Things freeze at different temperatures,” Edgar explained as patiently as he could manage--which probably wasn’t very patiently if Wanily’s frown was anything to go by. Edgar took a deep breath, reminding himself that Wanily probably wasn’t trying to be ignorant. Just an unfortunate side effect of being an aspiring mage. “Water freezes at zero degrees, right? And slime freezes at ten degrees. It’s just the properties of their materials.”
“Huh,” Wanily said. She shifted slightly, wincing when she put weight on her injured foot. She huffed. “Then I guess I won’t be making a healing potion.”
“What will you be doing then?”
“I’m sure I’ll figure something out,” she announced, in direct contrast to the way her expression soured.
Edgar sighed. Was he really going to do this? But then, he scanned Wanily again. Thin frame with slightly hollow cheeks. Her threadbare clothes that were ill-fitted and boots worn through.
Her blonde hair that turned to molten gold under the sunlight, an image worthy of the tailored cruelty of the old gods themselves.
Edgar grimaced. “You said you needed a place to ride out the winter?”
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Edgar didn’t have the strength to be supporting Wanily as she walked, so the two of them hobbled their way back to Edgar’s cabin. Edgar stayed a few paces ahead of her, and Wanily, for her part, didn’t complain. If she had, Edgar might have come to his senses and sent her on her way. It wasn’t like it was his problem that she had hurt her foot.
But could he really turn his back on a child in need?
They reached the cabin after a short enough, completely silent trek. Wanily didn’t strike Edgar as the quiet type, but maybe her injury was good for something.
Edgar went inside and waited for Wanily to trail in after him. When the door had swung shut behind her, he gestured to the space. “Back there is my room,” he said, waving toward the open door past the main area of the cabin. “Fireplace is there, but you got eyes. Food is usually in those cabinets, but I don’t got any right now. There are basins outside I use to collect rainwater, and if we need more water than that, I’ll get it from the lake.”
Wanily scanned the main room. In the right corner, the kitchen had once been nicely stocked and ordered, but now it was mostly just dusty, stone counters and empty, wooden cabinets mounted on the walls. There was a single chair pushed against the wall to the left along with the old coat rack stocked with a single coat and a couple of hats. A dusty bookcase huddled next to the door, something Edgar had tried to forget about completely.
He had gotten rid of his table years before. Wasn’t like he ever had company over to use it, and he had needed money at the time.
Other than that, the room was empty. Just like the house. Just like the whole damn world.
“What’s that room?” Wanily asked, pointing to the left, because of course she did.
“You don’t go in that room, alright?” Edgar hissed. Wanily shot him a wary look, and he forced himself to take a breath. “Just... don’t. Or you will be figuring out something else for the winter.”
Wanily glanced at the shut door one more time before shrugging. She began to limp over to the singular chair before freezing. She had her back to Edgar, though, so he had no idea what had caused the reaction.
“I thought you said you didn’t know any mages?” she said slowly.
Edgar grunted. “I don’t.”
“Then what’s with all the books?” She gestured to the bookshelf before gingerly turning around to face him. She looked thoughtful as she asked, “Are you researching something?”
Edgar raised a brow at her. “How do you know I don’t just like to read?”
“Oh, I guess that could have been it.” Wanily pursed her lips. “But... you’re saying I’m right?”
Edgar grunted again. “I haven’t touched those in years.”
Wanily hummed in acknowledgement, glancing at the books with narrowed eyes. “Can I read them?”
Edgar was halfway surprised she knew how to read, but he didn’t bother to make a comment on that. Instead, he shrugged, moving to head to his room. “Knock yourself out, kid. Not like I’m using them.”
Behind him, Wanily made a noise of delight, and then her uneven footsteps sounded against the wooden floor as she hobbled her way over to the bookshelf. There was a whispering, rubbing sound--presumably as she slid a book out--then a fit of coughing from the cloud of dust that no doubt billowed out with it.
Edgar smirked to himself and continued into his room.
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Over the course of the next few days, Wanily didn’t make much of a nuisance of herself. She set up her bedroll in the main room, close enough to the fireplace to pick up whatever residual heat it could offer through the night, but far enough away that she wouldn’t get burned. With her foot hurt, she didn’t walk around much. Instead, she lounged on the ground, going through the old books and journals Edgar had amassed over the years, back before everything went to shit and he didn’t see the worth in them anymore.
Edgar was almost surprised that she found anything of interest in the books at all. It wasn’t like they were the kind that offered fanciful tales or... whatever else children liked. But she kept reading them, brow often furrowed and a frown on her face. It wasn’t until the fifth day, though, that Edgar heard a hesitant knock.
He never kept the door to his bedroom closed--only doing so when he or Wanily changed, mostly so he could make sure Wanily wasn’t getting into trouble, not that Edgar had much to steal. So, she had knocked on the doorframe to get his attention. He propped himself up, a slight scowl already set on his face for being disturbed.
“Edgar,” Wanily said after several moments, probably when she realized Edgar wasn’t going to say anything. “What are these books about?”
Edgar snorted. He stretched, limbs shaking and an involuntary groan escaping his throat, before he sat up fully and leveled a flat look at Wanily. She had one of his books hugged to her chest, though he couldn’t tell if it was just a regular text or one of Edgar’s notebooks.
“What do you care about it?” he drawled. “I thought you wanted to be a mage.”
Wanily frowned. “So you’re telling me this isn’t magic?”
Edgar rubbed a hand down his face, giving himself a moment before he snapped out something he would regret later. “Kid,” he said, “I don’t want anything to do with magic. Why do you think it’s magic?”
“Because I don’t understand any of it,” Wanily said, and, well, at least she was honest. “Like, everything is momentum this and energy that, and I have no idea what any of it means.”
“And you think that makes it magic?”
“Magic is fundamentally incomprehensible, and yet it must be understood in all its intricacies,” Wanily said, sounding like she was reciting something. She hefted the book a little higher. “I don’t see how anyone could understand this stuff.”
That actually got an amused grunt from Edgar. “Well, you’re in luck, then. Because I do understand it, and it’s not magic.”
“What is it then?” Wanily asked. Demanded really.
Edgar, despite it all, found himself smiling slightly. “How much do you want to learn about physics, Wanily?”
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The answer to Edgar’s innocent question was, a lot. Wanily was, admittedly, a very curious individual. As she pulled out book after book and demanded explanations on seemingly every sentence, Edgar couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. One thing he could say rather decisively, though, was that he was not a very patient person.
“Enough, Wanily,” Edgar said, halfway through yet another question on the nature of friction. She found it very interesting that something like a force of nature could be quantified in symbols and numbers, but she was not very good at manipulating those symbols and numbers.
Wanily had pulled out a small, handheld chalkboard and a piece of chalk from her pack and was watching over Edgar’s shoulder as he solved simple problems to find the friction factor. After everytime Edgar finished, she would study the board for several seconds before wiping away the original problem and replacing the numbers with new ones.
Edgar continued, “It’s getting dark. I can barely see what I’m doing.”
Wanily pouted, taking the chalkboard back. She looked over his halfway completed solution, eyes wide and inquisitive. Edgar glanced at the window and the touch of orange to the sky heralding the approaching night. It was hardly dark enough for Edgar to be calling it quits--his eyes weren’t that bad--but he wasn’t about to clue Wanily into that fact.
“Alright,” she said, scrubbing away the markings with her sleeve, leaving the fabric white. “Can we do more tomorrow? I want to know more about potent energy.”
“Potential energy.”
“See, this is why you need to teach me!” Wanily lamented. “I haven’t figured out any of this yet. Please, please, please can we cover more tomorrow?” She clasped her hands together, the perfect picture of a little beggar.
Edgar was going to regret this, he thought. But he could admit, at least to himself, that it would be something better than lying in bed between struggling to find food. Wanily had helped out on that end, too, with a couple of traps laid out nearby, one of which had caught a rabbit two days ago. And she still had some of that water fowl preserved in salt from several days back that they’d been munching on intermittently. She had promised to do more when her foot felt completely better, too, and she already had made comments that it wasn’t hurting so much anymore.
Wanily was doing Edgar a good turn. He could do this for her. Wasn’t like he had anything better to do.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Tomorrow.”
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Tomorrow came too soon when Edgar woke abruptly to Wanily knocking on his door frame again. He groaned and rolled over, cracking one eye open to peer out the window. It was light outside, but a pale, white shine that spoke of early morning.
“Go back to sleep,” Edgar called, burying his face back into his pillow.
“You said we would go over more tomorrow.” Wanily rapped her knuckles against the frame again, more quietly this time. “It’s tomorrow. I’ve already checked the traps around the cabin. I guess my foot is feeling a lot better, so I could go to town but I was hoping that you would--”
“Fine, fine,” Edgar snapped, burying his palms into his eyes. “Just stop yapping at me. Go get the book on potential energy.”
“Which one?”
“Yes,” Edgar said. Wanily huffed before her retreating footsteps sounded against the wooden ground. Edgar continued to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling until Wanily returned with a stack of books as tall as her.
She dumped them on Edgar’s bed with enough courtesy to do so on the empty side rather than all over him. Then, probably at random, she snatched one up and dropped it on Edgar’s chest. He grunted, shooting her a glare before finally sitting up and cracking the book open. “Potential energy,” Edgar muttered. “It’s really not so complicated...”
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“There are three fundamental laws of motion,” Edgar answered for probably the fiftieth time in response to yet another question from Wanily. “We got the answers to friction from the second. For what you just asked, we can determine more from the third. Which is..?”
“Objects stay in motion or at rest unless something does something to them,” Wanily answered swiftly. She sat at the foot of the bed at the opposite corner from where Edgar had propped himself up against the headboard.
“That’s the third.”
“Oh. Well, like you said, the second is the math one. And the third is...” she trailed off, brow furrowed and gaze leaning to the right like the answer was scrawled somewhere on the wall of the cabin.
“The law of equal and opposite reactions. We’ve gone over this.”
“I’m trying my best,” Wanily huffed. “This is a lot of information to take in at once. I’ve barely even seen math before all this, and I had no idea people even studied this stuff.”
“Right. Because the whole world is supposed to just rely on magic, right?”
Wanily’s gaze snapped to him. “I didn’t say that.”
“But you think it, don’t you? All you mages are the same. Magic is the answer to everything, right? Nothing could ever be useful except for magic.”
Wanily gave him a flat look. “That’s an awful lot of words to put in my mouth.” She didn’t contradict him, though, instead asking, “Why do you hate magic so much?”
“It’s useless, that’s why,” Edgar spat. “Always too little, too late, and causes more problems than it fixes.”
Wanily cocked her head, closing the book in her lap and setting it aside. “You’re a man of logic,” she said slowly. “So I’m guessing you have a reason to think that? Other than just liking science better.”
Edgar scowled. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get back to the book.”
“You know,” Wanily started, “the times I’ve heard in the past that it ‘doesn’t matter’, it was more that people just didn’t want to talk about it.” She gave him a meaningful look.
Damn this child. “And?” Edgar growled. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Wanily shrugged. “It might make you feel better.”
“Let me rephrase: I don’t want to talk about it with random children that are trying to wear out their welcome.” Edgar glared at her. “Drop it.”
“I’ve lost people, too.” Wanily’s expression was steadfast, unwavering.
Edgar let out a mirthless laugh. Fine, then. “You want to know so badly, kid? My wife died in childbirth, and then I lost my daughter in the Necroplague.”
Edgar might have given her shit, but he knew Wanily wasn’t dumb. He watched her expression shift to one of realization as she put the pieces together. “Archmage Vertrix ended the Necroplague,” she murmured. Then louder, “But that was too little, too late, right?”
Edgar gave a curt nod.
“But...” she frowned. “What caused the Necroplague?”
“You don’t know?” When Wanily shook her head, Edgar sighed. “What about that person from the Wandering People? He didn’t mention it to you?”
“It was a bit of a sore spot,” Wanily replied. “I didn’t want to push too hard.”
But she didn’t have a problem demanding answers from Edgar about it when he just told her he’d lost his only child to it. Edgar would have snorted if he felt anything but empty in that moment. “Do you know what necro algae is?”
Wanily nodded. “Black algae. I was told to avoid it whenever possible, not to touch it, and whatever I do, not to breathe in the red spores it releases.”
Edgar nodded back. “The spores it releases make you very sick,” Edgar murmured. “It’s a slow but very painful death, and the spores can transfer easily from one person to another, as well as being spread from the algae itself. That’s how my daughter got sick. She was playing outside, and I didn’t see that there was some growing in a puddle behind the cabin. It was just enough to fill a thimble, not even enough to get me sick, but enough for her. She was only three at the time.”
She had just turned three, too. And she never saw four.
Edgar shook his head at himself. Wanily had been right--it wasn’t that it didn’t matter. Because after losing his wife, nothing in the world had mattered except for Annalee. And then Annalee was gone, too, and nothing in the world mattered. And Edgar did not want to talk about it anymore.
He was about to demand that Wanily either leave him alone or they switch the topic back to the third law of motion when she said, “I was almost killed by a frost lion. But a boy my age saved my life and died instead.”
Edgar stared at her.
“There was this soldier, too, in the town of Greenspun, if you know it. He was going to--well, he probably was going to kill me. And the people I was staying with at the time, one of them tried to kill the soldier but I had to end up dealing the finishing blow.”
She shrugged, staring at her lap. “And I have no idea where my parents are. I don’t remember them or any of my family, if I have any more. They either abandoned me or they’re dead, and I try not to think about it because I don’t know which one is worse.
“I guess what I’m trying to say,” Wanily murmured, “is that I do know loss. So you’re not alone.”
Oh, but he was. Edgar was going to be alone for the rest of his life, he thought. He would be cold and empty and alone, and then one day he would die and it wouldn’t matter anymore. Not that anything did right now anyway.
“Whatever,” Edgar said. “Do you want to learn more or not?”
Wanily offered him a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Do you want to teach more?”
Edgar said nothing for a long time. Wanily didn’t break the silence, watching him expectantly. “Why do you want to know about physics? Do you really think you’re ever going to use it?”
Wanily shrugged again. “Maybe. But I want to learn. The greatest mage in the land should know a lot about all sorts of things, right? And...” she trailed off, frowning. “I don’t want other people--other scientists--to feel the way you do. Magic is for everyone. It can help everyone. It may not have helped you, but when I’m Archmage, things like that will change. I’ll help everyone that I can.”
Edgar scowled. “You want to be the Archmage?”
“Of course!” Wanily grinned, though it rapidly dimmed in the face of Edgar’s ire. “I mean, what mage doesn’t want to be the Archmage?”
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t feel like teaching any more today,” Edgar hissed. “Go.”
Wanily grimaced. “I just meant--”
“Wanily,” Edgar said in warning. “Leave me alone.”
Wanily wisely shut her mouth, gathered up the books, and all but ran out of the room. Edgar watched her go, the hot rush of anger in his chest easing into a crackling fire. He wasn’t sure if it was directed at Wanily, who had simply been curious and trying to help, or at the world for taking so much and leaving him with only memories.
In either case, he didn’t feel much like facing the rest of the day. He stared at his lap for a while before shifting to lay back down and going back to sleep.
----------------------------------------
Wanily’s foot must have been feeling better because she went to town the next day. Edgar didn’t hear her leave, caught in a half-conscious state for most of the night and into the late morning. By the time he had roused himself enough to notice she was gone, she was already back, toting a sack of oats in one hand and a dead duck in the other.
“I caught two ducks in my traps,” she explained as she set both down on the counter in the kitchen. Edgar stood in the doorway to his room and grimaced at the body of the bird, its head lolling so that one of its unseeing eyes stared straight through him. “I traded one for the oats and kept the other.”
“That’s good,” Edgar mumbled. “And... about yesterday--”
Wanily let the sack of oats thump down to the wooden floor, effectively cutting him off. “It’s fine,” she said. “I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. But...”
When she trailed off, Edgar raised a brow. “But?”
“But I just wanted to say that... I’m going to be the Archmage one day. And when I am, I’m going to come back and make you see how great magic is.” She nodded, her jaw set and eyes gleaming. “I’m sorry magic failed you and your family in the past, but you’ll see that it's amazing when I’m out there helping people!”
Edgar snorted. Yeah, right. But he wouldn’t contradict her. It was admirable, in its own way, Wanily’s pure ambition and desire to help others. Edgar wouldn’t be the first to say that magic was the way to go about that, but he could at least respect Wanily, if not her aspirations. “Sure, kid,” he said. He crossed his arms, and nodded to the bookshelf. “And in the meantime, you’ll keep your head on your shoulders instead of in the clouds?”
She smiled. “I’d love to learn more about physics,” she said. “As much as you’re willing to teach me. I... might not have been entirely truthful yesterday. About why I wanted to learn physics. Old magic, the type of magic I want to learn, is based on the laws of the world. From what I’ve read, at least. And after I find a teacher, I’m going to use what I learned to become great at magic and become the Archmage.”
Edgar shook his head but found himself smiling back. “Sure thing, kid. And after you feel ready to go out and keep looking for a teacher, you make sure you come back and visit me when you’re the Archmage, alright?”
Wanily positively grinned. Edgar wondered where her boundless joy came from when he knew she’d suffered in ways Edgar could never comprehend. But then, she didn’t and would hopefully never know what it’s like to lose a child or a spouse, yet she had offered compassion to Edgar.
She was resilient, Edgar thought. Resilient and kind. And if she wanted to be the Archmage one day, she would need that kind of spirit. Maybe she could even be the kind of leader to prevent problems instead of just cleaning up messes after they happened.
In the meantime, she was staying through the winter with Edgar. He never got the chance to share his expertise with Annalee, but he could offer it to Wanily, who might be able to do some good with it.
He just hoped she kept her word and came to visit some time. It wasn’t much, but it was something to look forward to. Something to keep living for.
How about that, Edgar mused as Wanily snatched the duck back up and went outside to prepare it. She wasn’t even the Archmage yet, and she’d already given someone hope.