The afternoon breeze felt a bit chilly on my sweat-soaked skin as I sat on the boulder, my hand moving with trained precision. My gaze locked on the lazy stream as I watched the little pebble skipping on its shiny surface four times. It was a good day, a day that I needed to feel a bit of normalcy after the chaos that I was thrown in. A day of waking up early, helping my mother first with the house, then with her weaving, and then going out to the fields to tend to my own, tiny, piece of land while my father watched over me. A day playing by the stream.
“I figured I’d find you here” Lugan’s cheerful voice broke me out of my reverie.
“I had a new record earlier, a full six skips.” I answered without taking my eyes of the stream as my hand picked a new pebble from beside me.
“Bullshit. You can’t even count to six, that’s why you shouldn’t have skipped school today… the others were waiting for you.”
“I’ll come tomorrow. My parents wanted me all to themselves these two days.”
“Elly was crying you know. And as a heads up, Greg wants to beat you up for making his sister cry just because of some goblins...”
“She’s such a crybaby. As for Greg, he always wants to beat me up, nothing’s different there.”
Lugan sighed as he sat next to me and picked a pebble as well, flinging it after me but only managing two skips.
“One day you should really teach me man…”
“There’s nothing to teach, you just lack finesse.”
“No… I meant teach me how to cheat. First skipping training, now skipping three years ahead of me in getting a job. And if that wasn’t enough, you have the nerve to go pick a magic job as well when you know that it’s me that will become the mage…”
I looked at Lugan, but his gaze was glued forward to the horizon. It suddenly dawned to me that if anyone heard us talking he would have never thought that we were just two seven year old brats.
I only realized the extend of Lugan’s weirdness now that I had the memories of an old man inside me. But he… he had long since started talking like that. I remembered when, just two years ago, we went together to the school for the first time. Two kids chasing each other around with a stick while an exasperated teacher was trying to put us in order. In two years’ time I’ve grown up, but he, he had completely matured. If he had changed that much in just this short time, how would he be in ten years’ time?
Putting a regular seven year old from earth next to most of my friends here, one could already see a difference between the two, but putting them next to Lugan made me realize, for the first time, how scary the concept of aptitude truly was.
As someone who had nurtured kids in my old life, I wanted to urge him to chase his dreams, but instead, the natural thing that came over me was a toothy grin as I teased him.
“Ha! You’re jealous of my talent?”
“Jealous? Why? Even if you had ten years headstart, I’d still overtake you. With just this tiny amount it’s more like the world is trying to make up for your natural stupidity.”
Lugan clumsily toppled over in the dirt in his attempt to dodge my punch, dusted off his knees, sat in his previous spot and continued on like nothing has happened.
“But really, work hard to make top notch items, so that if I become a merchant instead of a mage first, I’ll have some expensive stuff to peddle around to quickly make up the cash for an apprenticeship. Speaking of which… how is it having a job? Have you tried making something already?”
“Dunno. I don’t really feel that different. Maybe it’s because my job didn’t really affect my physical attributes but only my magical ones, and I don’t really know how to use those.”
“But don’t they say that when you get a job the world imprints on you the basic knowledge on how to do that job?”
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“Yeah sure. When I woke up I felt like someone jammed things into my mind. But those things are stuff like how to use goblin blood to make mana potions and how to turn purple dragon flowers into poison…”
“But… doesn’t everyone know those?”
“There’s also some knowledge there of how some of the procedures could be done with magic instead of labor, but not the actual spells for them. I guess when they said that we get basic knowledge, it truly is basic. If anything, the stuff that I’ve learned from helping Neven this past year are far more extensive and complicated compared to anything that I’ve gotten from the job change.”
Lugan went silent as he looked down and started searching for a flat enough stone to skip. He grabbed one, and turned to look me straight in the eyes.
“My father says not to trust Neven. And I agree.”
I closed my eyes as I remembered how two days ago she had whispered into my mind. All of her previous warnings not to speak about my hallucinations to anyone becoming extremely suspicious, to the point that I now was sure that she was indeed hiding something. These two days I’ve agonized if she saved me for some nefarious reason of her own. But for all my memories and experience, I was drawing a blank. If she wanted to just use me, there were plenty of opportunities that she could have simply snatched me before. And if she really wanted to manipulate me, well, good luck with that, I had a few dozen years of experience dealing with bureaucracy stored inside me now.
“My folks are wary of her as well. But she saved my life man…”
“She did a reading on you. Only high priests can do that, and they are rare even in the capital. She can’t be a dual path either, a high priest with dual job would certainly be a celebrity.”
“I know…”
“So that only leaves with having her soul cleansed from her old job before she became a herbalist.”
“My father told me she spoke with the elder though, and the elder let her stay here. So, she can’t be that bad.”
“I don’t know dude, I can’t imagine someone would willingly have his soul erased from a high priest down to nothing. It seems more like some form of punishment coupled with an exile from wherever she came from.”
I shrugged as I watched the sun slowly disappearing behind the distant mountaintops. He was right, she could be dangerous. But she also seemed to have at least some answers, and she also was indeed the only one around these backwater lands that could teach me.
I watched Lugan standing up and stretching.
“It’s getting late, my mother would eat me alive if I don’t rush back home. Remember, if you don’t come to school tomorrow, I’ll have Elly and Greg come drag you with force.” He laughed as he kicked a stone and started turning away before suddenly stopping when he put his hands in his pockets.
“Ah! Here.” He pulled a small metallic object out of his pocket and threw it to me.
I almost had to dive to grab it before it hit the ground, only to see a small, iron, whistle in my hand.
“Hey! Isn’t this the one your father brought to you from the city?”
“No one expected your baptism dude, so no one had a present ready for congratulations. So, think of this like mine.”
My surprise turned into shock. That was a really good whistle. The only of its kind in the village! Lugan was, rightfully, extremely proud of it. It could be easily heard from like a mile away!
“But that’s your treasure man. I can’t have it.”
“Shut up and take it. After all, with your luck, you’ll need it to call for help the next time you stumble onto goblins or something.”
And without giving me an opportunity to answer him back, he turned and disappeared.
After spending a few minutes examining the whistle and playing it in my hand, I stood and slowly walked almost the same path as I started returning to my own home, my own family. If I wanted to go to school tomorrow, I better be rested for the hazing that would surely ensue.
I wasn’t going anywhere. If anything, I would still be with them, in the same village. But that knowledge did nothing to alleviate my feelings about this goodbye. I wasn’t sure if it was the old memories, the job change, the apprenticeship, or something entirely different. But for some reason, it felt like with that small move from my place to Neven’s I was slowly truly drifting away from my friends.
-
Neither of the boys noticed the small mockingbird that was perched on a branch a few meters away from them, its eyes dimly shining white with mana. As the last boy left the small clearing, so did the bird as well, flying fast through the village and diving straight into a small, wooden, house through the chimney.
It did a small circle in the room before landing on the still body of the woman that was lying on the bed. A second later, the color started to return to Neven’s pale cheeks. She stood up, picked up the dead bird, and threw it in the cold fireplace. With a small chant, the dry wood in it easily caught fire.
As the pleasant warmth started spreading through the small room, breaking the evening chill, she walked to the desk and pulled a blank piece of paper from one of the drawers. Illuminated by the trembling light, and as the smell of burning wood and flesh started wafting in the room, she dipped her feathered pen in the inkpot, and started writing a letter.