Nym sat a thousand feet up in the sky, surrounded by a shell of arcana that held both him and Risa aloft without so much as a stray breeze to ruffle their hair. In the soft light of the stars and moon, he could see the valley stretched out for miles below. Risa sat next to him, a soft smile on her lips as she shared the view.

“It’s incredible,” she said. “How much arcana would it take to duplicate what nature made here? Would it even be possible?”

“Not for a human, I don’t think.”

“It helps keep it all in perspective. That’s something I think all mages struggle with. We get so used to having power over everything around us that we forget sometimes that we’re just people too.”

“I suppose so,” Nym said. He didn’t feel like he had power over everything, though he could see her point. When Niramyn started influencing his thoughts and actions, he did start to judge everyone by how much they could be worth to him, how best to exploit them, how much power he could exert on them.

Nym was afraid to let that side of him out again, afraid of what he might do that he couldn’t take back before he regained control. It was another good motivator to get stronger on his own. If he wasn’t forced into desperate situations, Niramyn wouldn’t have to come out to play.

“How did you get to where you are, if you don’t mind me asking?” Risa asked.

Nym blew out a long sigh and laughed slightly. “Lots of trial and error, lots of mistakes and lots of recoveries, and probably more luck than any single person deserves to have.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“I woke up on a beach with no memories, about to be carried out with the tide into shark-infested waters. A woman saved me, adopted me as her little brother. Then some guy tried to murder me, but I had magic and he didn’t. I was just starting out, could barely cast three spells, but I survived. I had to kill him to accomplish that. If that happened today, he wouldn’t even be a threat to me. At the time though…”

“God. That’s awful. How old were you?”

Nym shrugged. “Ten maybe? I’m not really sure how old I am, and I’m cursed anyway. My body’s aging faster than normal.”

Risa scooted back and looked him over. “You look like you’re my age. How old are you really?”

“I woke up on that beach last summer. Back then, everyone agreed I looked like I was ten.”

“You’re just a little kid?” She looked confused. “But, your magic… how? You’re already probably the youngest master mage ever.”

“It’s one of the things Archmage Veran is working on breaking. At the rate things are going, I figure I’ve got maybe twenty years before I die of old age.”

“That’s messed up, but I’m sure an archmage can fix it.”

Nym leaned back to look straight up at the sky. “Yeah, I hope we can figure something out. No luck so far, but we’ve only been working on it for a few weeks. There was too much other stuff going on before.”

“It feels kind of weird being on a date with an eleven year old.”

“Am I eleven? Physically, mentally, I’m older. Trust me, all the normal changes happened, and over the span of maybe two months. It was… uncomfortable.”

That wasn’t even counting however many years he’d lived prior to being regressed to the form of a child and locking his memories and personality away to protect him from other ascendants. Time and age were kind of nebulous concepts to him at this point.

“How about you?” Nym asked, wanting to change the subject. “How has your journey on the path of magic treated you?”

“It’s… it’s been tough. How much do you know about the Academy?”

“Not much, just that I was too poor to attend.”

“Truthfully, I’m in the same position. It’s worse though because my brother and I both displayed enough talent to go. My family are merchants, but not that rich. They took out a lot of loans to pay our tuition, so the pressure to succeed is high. They need us to both become strong mages and come back to help the business. Except they were based out of Ebalsan, and everyone knows what happened there.”

Nym winced. “Yeah… Ebalsan was bad. That’s where I was when everything went to hell.”

“Did… did you lose anyone?”

“No, but it was a close thing. I guess I’m lucky that my entire social circle is all mages. We all managed to escape.”

“That is lucky. Both my parents got out, and my oldest brother was away at the time, but you know the whole town was flattened. The business is ruined. There’s no way my family can pay tuition going forward. It’s going to be a miracle if no one ends up in debtor’s jail.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She shook her head and said, “But that’s not what you asked about. The magic itself I really like. I’m really good at fire magic too. I’m only taking this class because Phan won’t shut up about rounding out my skill set. I’m kind of glad I did though, just for this field trip. It’s freezing up here, but there’s a lot of beautiful stuff to see.”

“There is,” Nym agreed. “Do you want to look around?”

“Did you have somewhere in mind?”

“Not really. I figure we’re already seeing the best spots as part of the class, but this way it won’t be work and you can just enjoy them.”

“Plus getting to see them in the moonlight and with fine company,” she said. “Take me to the top of the glacier, Nym.”

They flew together, still safely wrapped in a shell of air and pleasantly warm. They went at a sedentary pace and enjoyed the landscape rolling by beneath them, but it was still only the work of ten minutes to reach their destination. While they traveled, Nym scried ahead to make sure there was nothing nearby, and switched to his special short-range scrying to peek under the snow and ice once they were close.

Nym sculpted seats for them out of ice and layered them with thermal barriers to prevent the cold from seeping into their butts. They sat next to each other, staring out over the valley and not saying anything for a little while. Risa stretched out a hand to hold his.

“This is nice,” she said eventually. “Not what I was expecting, but I like it. These chairs could be a little closer together though, or maybe one big chair.”

Nym’s chair slid to the left and the arm rest dissolved. “Better?”

“Much.”

“What do you think you’ll do once you’re out of school?” he asked.

“Try to get my license, I suppose. I’m three years in; that should be enough to fake it, right? There’s no rule that says you have to graduate to get a license. Then… I don’t know. With everything that’s happened, there’s no family business to help anymore. Probably go military. They say there’s always room for another fire mage in the military.”

“Better brush up on your flying then,” he told her. “They like their mages highly mobile.”

“Yeah, but they have training camps for that stuff. I’m going to focus on things I can only learn at the Academy for now.”

Nym nodded. “That’s a good plan.”

“What about you? What are you going to do in the future?”

“Try to get my missing memories back. I’m close. I know I am. Break this aging curse before it kills me. Spend time with my friends and my big sister. Spend time with you, maybe. Travel whenever and wherever I want. See whatever I want to see.”

“Already planning a second date, huh? You think it’s going that well?”

“I think it’s going pretty good,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” she replied. Then she leaned over and kissed him. It was a good kiss. That was really all his brain could come up with at that particular moment to describe the kiss. It was… good.

“Mmm. Yes, I’d say a second date is definitely on the table,” she told him.

Nym felt his mouth curl up into a silly little smile, one he couldn’t seem to stop even if he wanted to. He put an arm around Risa and pulled her closer. “How will I find you once you’ve left the Academy?” he asked.

“That won’t be for a few months. I hope you’re not planning on waiting that long.”

“No, of course not.”

“Then you can always send a letter to me until then. I’ll send one to you too. Where are you staying?”

“With Archmage Veran right now, though maybe not for much longer.”

“You’re so formal. He’s not even here, but you always use his title.” She laughed a little, a quiet thing that he found far more charming than was reasonable. “I can’t even imagine sending a letter to the headmaster himself addressed to the boy I like.”

“He’s a pretty nice guy once you get to know him,” Nym told her.

“It’s still weird. But I think I can get over that if it means I get to see you again.”

“I can probably get a postal box set up somewhere. I’m not quite sure how. Nobody’s ever needed to send me a letter before.”

“Then we’ll keep in touch, go on a few more dates. I’d like that.”

“Yeah,” Nym said, “me too.”

The conversation turned to lighter things then, funny stories about things Risa had seen happen in various classes, mishaps that had blown up in Nym’s face when he was working on new spells, trading tips and discussing which professions paid the best. Nym told her about his friends down south working in earth magic construction. She talked about her parents’ business exporting lumber and rare alchemical herbs.

The product was still there, but they’d lost so much when the warehouses had been destroyed, lost so much manpower when the whole region collapsed, that they were never going to financially recover. “That’s why I’ll be joining the military, I think. Phan is going to try to work with them directly, but I’m just going to send home shields and crests as fast as I can get them,” she said.

Nym made a mental note to speak with Cern about Risa’s family, to see if he knew them or if he thought there might be a beneficial connection to be made. He didn’t mention it to Risa only because he didn’t want to get her hopes up. Cern might have already made other arrangements, or there might not be a need for that kind of business. If he could help though, he wanted to. He couldn’t help everybody, didn’t want to try, but if he could help his friends, that was enough for him.

After an hour or so, Nym flew them back to the Academy facility. Once inside, he told her, “I had a good time tonight. I would like to do it again if you still want to.”

“I very much do.”

“When do you have time?”

“I’ll be busy with classes for probably two weeks?” she asked as much as she said. “I’ll have to look at my class schedule. Next time I have a full day off, maybe we can have a longer date. Tonight was fun, but we didn’t have nearly enough time.”

She leaned forward again and put her hands behind his head, then pulled him down into another kiss. Then she ran one hand down to his chest and whispered in his ear, “Unless this date isn’t done?”

Nym’s hormones lobbied for an enthusiastic ‘yes’ to continue, but he did after all have work to do. He’d delayed it for the date, but if he slacked off, people could die. Glacial Valley was a wild place full of predators and natural hazards. He needed to be more familiar with tomorrow’s route so he could make sure nothing went wrong.

Something must have shown on his face, because her hand went to his chest and she said, “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said, though he was not at all sure. “I do have some work to take care of.”

“Too bad, but I do admire that dedication.”

They kissed one last time, and she went back to her dorms. Nym flew back out into the night sky to continue his work. He didn’t put up the thermal barrier right away though. The cold helped distract him.