Not much happened in the next few years on the farm.
Next time Redmond came he brought a spearhead for Autumn to make her own spear, better than an axe if goblins show up while the sheep are grazing, and it helped her feel much better when at 12 her father stopped coming with her to take them out.
She only needed it once, just a stray goblin, but she kept her lunch this time. The screams would haunt her for a time but it wasn’t much different from the sheep to her, she also learned to manipulate water mana to dampen some of the overwhelming feeling of sensing, Redmond said it was a crutch she should work away from at some point but a good idea for a little while. At 13 she could feel and use every element, her training could’ve been faster but whenever she did it in the house Harlan would wake up and begin to cry, leaving only the time she was watching the sheep to try and train.
“Your uncle is coming in 2 weeks, seems he’s been promoted again and got leave early after some big mission.”
Aida said at breakfast while helping feed Harlan, the boy was always a sloppy eater.
Autumn was practically beaming to hear it, her hair was starting to get a slight orange tint, showing an affinity towards fire, she finally managed to make lightning bolts, fireballs, freeze puddles, cut falling leaves with wind. She hoped since she could finally manipulate the four of the six basic elements and an advanced element that he would teach her how to use light and dark, she could only train those on a hurt animal or small pests around the farm.
Redmond was very serious when he explained how bad an idea trying to heal or breakdown a living creature was without training, even a small scratch could end up growing into cancer if she wasn’t sure what she was doing and just tried to grow a wound closed.
Harlan barely reacted to the news, he still didn’t get who the man who brought him colored wood shapes was, but the child barely reacted to anything. Lightning strikes that were close enough to shake the house,a spider on his hand, he didn’t seem to mind those things at all. They were worried he was deaf or slow but the local healer said he was a perfectly healthy child, other than never seeming to tan and being too quiet he was a perfect child, he spoke little but well, not a surprise since they all spoke Godgiven in Ragne.
Breakfast ended shortly and they all went to their chores, the girls all wondering what Redmond would bring this time, Aida was just glad he was safe still, that she still never had men in black suits deliver a black letter.
Redmond came just before dinner was served, always on time for a free meal, it took Aida’s harshest glare to keep the girls from badgering him about gifts before dinner was over, it helped that he told the story of how he got the promotion.
“Well, it was a normal Warg culling, no one was hurt yet but the cows kept disappearing into thin air, it wasn’t until we got into the forest and pretended to walk right into the ambush, I noticed that the sun seemed to be a abnormally bright and turned up to see a Hati was diving down.
It was a sneaky one too, most of the time it's the first thing we find out, a wolf flying through the air and glowing is pretty noticeable.
I shoved the captain out of the way before it got him, took a couple of fingers though, it probably realized he was an archer and wanted to be able to flee if needed, anyway, I spun around and gave it a nasty gash on its side, it yelled a lot of things I won’t repeat then it tried to flee.
The captain didn’t have fingers to draw his bow string so I quickly regrew his arm. I never did it before but I didn’t want to let the beast get away, it wasn’t pretty, but they worked well enough.
He loosed an arrow at it and it fell to the forest floor. We cleaned up the Wargs and got back to the town, the captains arm needed to be severed and properly regrown but after hearing it was a Hati who did it they healer didn’t even charge us, just thanked us for possibly saving the life of his boy from those hateful child killers, long story short I got promoted and they are gonna send me to learn how to heal properly.”
When Redmond finished his story Aida noticed the look on his face, she knew her brother didn’t tell the whole story. She also knew that he didn’t like doing it, but he hated talking about what he really did more.
“What's a Hati?”
Harlan asked
“An old Warg who evolved”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Does it have wings? Does it have pretty colors like the birds? How big was it? Was it scary? Was it strong? Was it-”
Aida cut him off, they had never seen him take interest in anything like that, he would barely speak other than to Ava since she was the youngest.
“Well, in order, no wings, it's white but doesn’t have any patterns like those pretty birds, about as big as your mom at its shoulders, yes it's scary, those things are very bad news. If you ever see one tell someone as soon as you can so us big strong soldiers can handle it.”
He flexed as he spoke
“And it's not very strong, bigger than a Warg but probably as light as you are, they use cowardly tricks to attack people and run away if they don’t think they can win quickly.”
He said with much more of a snarl than intended, the long hours of a frontier soldier kept him on edge and he still saw the ones that he failed at times.
An awkward silence descended on the table.
Aida broke the silence
“How about some fruit for dessert, would you like to help me pick some Redmond?”
Even now he still felt like a child being scolded by his older sister, they went a short walk away from the house to their berry patch.
“Do you want to talk about what happened there…”
She said with hesitation, but he deflated, he wasn’t going to be in trouble with her for scaring the kids, she was just worried about him.
“No, I don’t think so, I’d just a little wound up, long hours out there ya know, it's nothing to worry about.”
She knew she should’ve pushed him on it, tried to comfort him, but she never felt like she was all that good at that, she wished their mother was here to help him where she couldn’t.
They picked a bowl of berries and walked back to the house while he whistled to try and keep from walking in silence, it only barely helped her stop worrying about him, after happily eating berries and Redmond betting he could throw them in anyone's mouth the tension was gone and the merry chatting started again, only interrupted to give out gifts.
“For Ava a music box.” she started winding it up as soon as it was in her tiny hands
“For Amber a flute, something to keep you busy when winter has you all locked up in here.”
A shrill sound instantly rang out
“Maybe practice after I leave?”
They all laughed as Amber turned beet red in embarrassment.
Harlan just got more wooden animals to play with.
“And lastly for Autumn, a lightly enchanted sheep whistle so you can call them back faster.”
She took it and just seemed mildly confused but happy, sheep were stubborn and she was tired of having to shove them to get them back to the farm.
“I expected a little more whining about not getting something for music like you sisters.”
“I’m not a little kid, and the sheep can be pretty annoying.”
“I guess you are grown enough for this afterall.”
He pulled a leatherbound book from his spatial bag, it was dusty and clearly saw much use, the only descriptor left was a faded gold eye, spikes like the sun came out of them, and a magically signed name. Judging by the look on her mothers face it was clear to Autumn that it was dangerous, valuable, or both.
“How much did that cost?”
Aida was clearly not impressed by what she thought was coin better spent on other things
“Nothing at all, the army was getting rid of this one for a new copy and since I got promoted they decided I should learn more. I’ve been reading this for months now and I’ve got everything I can from it.
I figure she could use it to learn when I’m not here, then I’ll help her understand the harder stuff when I’m here.”
“Uncle, who is Marigold?” The name was the first thing on the inside cover and glowed with a faint magic.
“The first archmage, she wrote that book about 1500 years ago, after the Gods left and the priests couldn’t guide mages with their help anymore she decided to take the task on herself. We would’ve been overrun and forced into walled cities still if she didn’t help so many people learn to control and make new magics not approved by the Gods.”
With that she tore into it, looking like she thought staring hard enough at the words would make them be absorbed faster.
“How about you put that in your room until we get everything cleaned up, you’ll have all the time in the world to read it after your Uncle is gone.” and with that she slipped into her room, placing the book on her dresser like it was going to fly away and went back to the main room, after another hour of playing with her siblings and listening to her Uncle’s stories they decided it was time for bed, she lit the candle on her bedside and read until her eyelids felt heavy, she dreamt she was a powerful mage growing forests and killing all the bad things in frontier so her Uncle could be home more.
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The light thought something was odd, but he couldn’t tell what, so he asked the darkness, she caused most of his worries; her words caused more worries, for he could not know which was true or false.