Some people seem blessed at birth. Small villages, relying more on superstition and folklore than patterns of fact, would find any reason to seek the extraordinary, either to condemn or to praise. Vynera was born with the rising sun, her infant cries heralding the dawn. It was received as a good sign, and her parents were seen as the bearers of fortune. The squalling infant, however, seemed to have a different opinion, as she voiced her displeasure at being taken from somewhere safe and warm. But, this was a normal reaction to coming naked and empty-handed into a world that was a jumble of new sensations. Once she was placed at her mother’s breast, however, she settled down quickly and was soon asleep, her belly full.
Being born and raised in a simple family, surrounded by simple folk, Vynera’s childhood wasn’t a harsh one. Like other children, she laughed, cried, and learned as she grew, having her share of good days and bad ones. But, with her auspicious birth, there was placed upon her an expectation to do well, and adults saw things in her that perhaps they had no right to see. Perhaps they were a little too quick to praise her, and a little too slow to point out her flaws. For the most part, this didn’t seem to spoil her. She was a sweet child, mild of nature and calm of spirit. The belief others had that she was good seemed to be be a self-fulfilling prophecy, that unfortunately, they took as truth rather than perception. It didn’t hurt that she was a comely child, with lovely blond hair and green eyes, both of which were seen as attractive to a farming community, for the one brought to mind wheat, or the sun, while the other brought to mind the fresh shoots of thriving plants.
The faith the villagers of Nornstad had in her became further vindicated when a traveling wizard stopped by the village. The existence of magic was well known and accepted, even in small villages such as Vynera’s, but most people could go through their whole lives without ever meeting a fully fledged wizard. There was a little magic in everyone, in every living thing, but most quantities were not only small, but inaccessible. There seemed to be only a small percent of the population who could free-cast magic. Others had to make do with rituals or potions. And with the scarcity of wizards in the world, such things came at a steep price, and were rarely seen outside of the largest cities. But since practitioners were so rare, the masters often searched for new apprentices, between projects. That is what Menym, the wizard, had arrived for.
The villagers were almost frightening with how eagerly they pressed him to test Vynera, and though the wizard doubted that any of them had a clue what to look for in a magic user, he obliged them. It was the easier, and perhaps kinder, path to look at the girl and pronounce her unfit than to argue with them. So he was greatly surprised when, after assessing Vynera, he found that she did, indeed, possess the spark that differentiated magic users from the rest of the world. Not only did she have a spark, but she had a fair quantity of magic as well. Not the strongest force he had ever sensed, but definitely enough that she could go far, with proper training. In the past, most women who had the spark were isolated, neutralized, or killed as they were considered dangerous. But those days were in the dark pages of a darker history.
Wizards like Menym were from a more enlightened school of thought. With some reservations, he sat down and told Vynera’s parents that their daughter was, in fact, gifted. Overeager, her parents insisted that she be trained right away, but Menym rejected this proposal. He said the girl was too young to train in magic; a certain level of understanding and obedience was needed first. It was a disappointment Vynera’s parents didn’t take gracefully. In an attempt to mollify them, Menym decided to settle down in the village for a while, volunteering to oversee Vynera’s mundane education as well. Although it was not what her parents wanted, they accepted. At least, that way, the mysterious wizard wouldn’t disappear, leaving them with a sense of being cheated, despite the fact he owed them, and Vynera, nothing at all.
Menym wasn’t a teacher in the strictly academic sense, but he had taught magical students before, and he simply shifted the principle of teaching them to teaching Vynera. She seemed bright enough, and learned fairly quickly, having a somewhat curious nature. She was also well behaved, and if Menym had known more about children, he might have been suspicious at how well behaved she was. Instead, he was simply relieved that she wasn’t prone to having temper tantrums or pulling pranks. What irritated him more was how much her parents seemed to hover in the background. They seemed to have it fixed in their mind to have Vynera learn magic as soon as possible, and too frequently they would take every small academic success Vynera had as ‘proof’ that she was ready to advance in her studies. Menym was firm, however. But, he wasn’t a young man, and eventually his patience wore thin.
By the time Vynera was twelve years old, the wizard had run out of steam. It was very tempting for him to pack up his bags and flee for his sanity, but, at the same time, he couldn’t bear to leave a person with such potential untrained. Usually he would have waited until a student was fifteen or sixteen before training them, but he feared he would have a complete nervous breakdown if Vynera’s parents pushed him any further. It was a mild case of hubris that he believed withdrawing from the world would do more harm than good, so he began the magic lessons. Magic had a lot of components to it. Will, intent, and focus had to align in a caster’s mind, and the materials needed had to be on hand, whether it was a complex list of ingredients for a potion, the bits of magic found in the living beings of the world, or the cords of magic woven through the land itself.
But, like anything else, one had to start with the smallest things. Stark theory was rather dry for a young girl like Vynera, but rushing into the active part of learning was a dangerous risk. If a novice magic user tried to handle these powers before their intellect or emotions could handle it, it would spell disaster for them and those surrounding them. At least Vynera hadn’t quite hit a rebellious stage yet, so she was mostly patient in her learning. Using simple drawings, and blocks as object lessons, Menym demonstrated how different parts of the magical world interacted with the mundane world, with the wizards being the thing that helped the two connect.
Perhaps the most important rule of magic was that all magic had a cost. Every person had a certain amount of replenishing magic inside of them, it was restored as a person ate, slept, and otherwise rested. Working like a muscle, one could strengthen that amount, but only to a certain extent, and overuse could damage a person. It meant that any magic user could cast a certain number of spells with little but the focus of their mind, and the will to execute the spell. A magic user could draw the latent power out of others, but this typically required the consent of that person, though a few very powerful individuals could force this magic out. However, if they failed, it could backfire and damage their own reserves permanently, so usually only the most desperate individuals tried this method. Menym deliberately kept that information from Vynera, deeming it too dark a path for her, especially at such a young age.
Apart from the reserve, a person could often sacrifice parts of themselves to enact powerful spells. Blood was commonly used to boost spells, but a caster had to be careful not to damage themselves too much. The adrenaline from pain or fear could also heighten spells, which made a frightened or damaged wizard more of a threat as long as they had the strength and focus to continue forward. Menym only touched briefly on this, not wanting to worry his young student. He explained more about other forces in nature, such as waterfalls, volcanoes, or lightning storms that generated a lot of energy on their own. These events and places were usually very obvious, and very powerful, but some of them required the right time to be useful. Plants and animals all had magic inside them. They were common to find, but had very low potential; it would take fields of grain, or herds of animals, to produce very powerful magic, but they were fairly safe methods.
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Time itself was also a powerful force. Certain rituals could be used to concentrate magic in large quantities, but this was only useful if a wizard had a specific goal in mind a long way down the road, sometimes years ahead, so while it was a good source, it was not one that could be used in an emergency. It also meant that the longer lived a wizard was, if that wizard was wise in resource management, the more powerful that wizard was. It was one of the largest fail-safes many mentors had against overly ambitious underlings: they often kept large stores of magic bound to wands, rings, or staffs in case one of their apprentices became a threat to the master, or the world at large. While wizards didn’t have a complex society of their own, it was a generally accepted rule among them that a master wizard was the first line of defense against an apprentice. It was their duty to stop such a rogue wizard.
Mentally, Vynera seemed to understand these concepts, but Menym wondered if she truly understood the further implications of his lessons. However, he didn’t want to erode the veil of innocence over her eyes by pushing far enough to get a satisfactory answer. He simply trusted his observations and hoped for the best. It was, perhaps, Menym’s biggest mistake, but he wouldn’t be aware of it for quite some time. When enough of a foundation had been established to depart from theory into actually connecting with the magical forces, Menym started with healing magic. While accidents could occur with any form of magic, healing was generally benevolent, and very few people could do enough willful damage fast enough to disrupt the world around them with it. They started with simpler life forms, such as plants. If Vynera stumbled in her lessons, the consequences would be minimal.
Basic restorative magic utilized the acceleration of natural process, rather than the creation of a new process. Vynera didn’t have to know how a plant, animal, or person worked to invoke the simplest of spells. She simply needed to gather her magic, focus it, and will the target to restore itself. Practice began on a single leaf on a tree, which Menym would carefully score with a small knife. At first, Vynera lacked the focus to make anything happen at all. It was discouraging to her, since she was still so young, but Menym was patient. Building up power that couldn’t be released could be dangerous, so he had to have a task ready for when she connected to the source of magic fully and made a channel to the target. When she first made the connection, she didn’t know how to get it to do what she wanted, and the leaf ended up withering and falling off its stem.
Vynera would fret over her mistakes, and sometimes she wanted to give up. She would go home to her parents in tears, but they refused to let up on their aspirations for her. Although her mother comforted her, she wouldn’t give the girl the choice to take another path. Menym could feel the impatience of the parents, even though they never spoke of it directly. Their passive aggression was highly annoying, but once he started teaching Vynera, it was too dangerous to leave her to her own devices. However, if he could have secured her away from her parents, or knocked their heads together until they behaved properly, he would have done so. As it was, he could only grit his teeth and push through. While he owed them nothing, he owed it to the world to not leave a partially trained wizard running loose in it.
On the day that Vynera successfully managed to not crumple, curl, wither, or explode the leaf, her parents made a little too much of her half-way success. Menym couldn’t understand how Vynera wasn’t a complete spoiled brat by the way her parents went on. She hadn’t even managed to heal the leaf yet, she had just avoided damaging it further. This was an important step in the process, but it wasn’t a cause for celebration. If he had been disposed more kindly towards the parents, he might have thought it was a sign of the dull life they lived in a sleepy village that any excuse to celebrate was valid. But, from the looks of a few fellow villagers, Vynera’s parents were a class all on their own.
Still, as much as he didn’t respect Vynera’s parents, or their methods, they seemed to work for the girl. She seemed determined to keep living up to those expectations, and worked hard. In time she managed to restore the leaf to its proper state, and this time, Menym kept quiet about her success, and moved onto something more complex. From the leaf, they moved to more intricate plants, and then small creatures, like field mice or common birds. Menym often had to use magic to keep them still long enough to have Vynera work her magic. And, of course, her earliest attempts usually weren’t successful. Except this time she was far more devastated about the actual consequences of the failure, rather than the failure itself. Seeing the little creatures she was trying to help die was upsetting. Menym soothed her as best he could; telling her that in nature, they likely would have died anyway, and they would have suffered more that way. She had given them a chance at a longer life; it wasn’t her fault that it didn’t work.
Menym’s words helped Vynera allow her tears to dry, but learning to cope with the loss was a harder lesson to learn than any magic. Even now, with all her worries and tears, her parents were relentless. Menym tried to convince them to give their daughter time to heal, so she could return with greater focus, but in this case, his words fell on deaf ears. Caught between a rock and a hard place, he kept on with the lessons. But he had never had children of his own, so he often fumbled in his attempts at making the girl feel better. Even so, there was a bit of a bond growing between them as her skills grew. While Vynera didn’t realize it herself, this was because he was giving, rather than just demanding.
Once she was good enough that she didn’t harm nearly as many creatures, she started to work on minor livestock and other domestic animals. The stakes were higher, but so was her confidence in her abilities and understanding of magic. And, certainly, the villagers were grateful for her assistance. In a farming community, everyone’s prosperity was tied to the land and the plants and animals on it. From a young age, Vynera was almost a celebrity of sorts among them, and her parents soaked up their adulation towards her. Vynera herself seemed largely unconcerned with it. In fact, while she seemed kind and friendly, she never became particularly close with anyone. Menym worried about this sometimes, but her parents brushed these concerns aside. He had the vague feeling she should be out, having fun, making friends, rather than pushing herself so hard.
Time waits for no one, and Vynera grew up. By the time most people were starting their apprenticeships, Vynera was already well on her way to being a competent healer. She had pretty much mastered the skill of accelerated healing, and did a lot of good for those around her, working on the people and animals of her village. There were definitely limitations to her healing. Actual illnesses were difficult to mend, since accelerating them could cause more damage in the long run. She could not replace missing limbs. And there were many problems that a person was born with, and no amount of her type of healing would mend such a thing. Still, the villagers were happy for whatever help they could get, especially since Vynera charged very little for her services. A pittance, really, when Menym considered how rare magical aptitude was.
Vynera’s parents were also surprised at their daughter’s resolve to take very little from her fellow villagers. Her parents had lifted her on a pedestal a little too high, and it backfired slightly. While there was still a lot of admiration for both her, and her parents, she refused to take any sort of special treatment or advantage, charging only what anyone could easily afford. Even if it was a child crying over their small pet, with little to give in return, Vynera would do her best. And her parents could say nothing to change her course of action without sounding greedy, and possibly alienating the very peers they wished to impress. Menym’s concerns were a little less worldly, even though he agreed partially with Vynera’s parents. He feared the child would overextend her magical resources and damage herself badly if she tended to every little ache and pain the villagers had. Despite his gentle caution, Vynera remained unmoved. She acted on the belief that this was her purpose in life, her calling, so to speak.