I stared at one of the many small fires. I threw a branch onto it absent-mindedly. I had too many things confirmed in the past five minutes, it was hard to feel anything with so many revelations.

I had to accept using magic, or at least not hate it. If not that, I had to not hate my own magic. Still trying to find some other plan for my fever/not-fever problem given my current hate of magic. The fever was not acting up right now, which meant that I had a very hard time understanding it.

How am I supposed to feel good about magic when it destroyed my family? The Baux family once held the rank of Count. We were spoken to with respect and considered the Sword of the South. Every head of the family had to have a sword based path. When problems arose, my ancestors fought them with a sword in hand. We had an heirloom blade that gave us a guaranteed swordsmanship path. Then the first great evil appeared. One of my ancestors rose up and defeated him. Shortly after the evil was defeated, the one representing the Baux family went insane. A dark magic was cast on him, driving him to kill hundreds of innocents. He had to be killed.

We never truly recovered. The magic sword gave corrupted paths that doomed the person to eventual insanity. Some of my family turned to magic or business to keep our family from becoming useless. A few generations later and now other barons laugh at us. Disgraced nobles clinging to former glory. Those who are like me, trying to wield a sword and regain honor, getting laughed at. The very same mages that claim to try to understand everything all stopped looking into what started the curse. The mages who act like the prince, cowering behind swordsmen while we sacrifice.

Learning to truly accept magic, and not just that I can use it was going to be a short task for me. I’d either die failing or find a way. Not much middle ground.

“How are you feeling?” The monk put a hand on my shoulder, looking at me with concern.

“Kind of numb, I guess.” Pain shot through my arm as I reached out and grabbed another jerky from the drying rack.

“Sorry about your arm being numb. Didn’t expect to get so injured a saintess would pass out trying to heal me. I mean it when I offered to be your arms until she can heal you.” Her apology was genuine and slightly moving.

“Thanks, but I meant I was feeling emotionally numb, not physically. My arms are in extreme pain, but I’m trying my best to ignore it. Trying to think about a few things right now so please give me a few hours to think.”

I watched her walk away with a complicated expression. I completely lost what I was thinking about and looked at my arms. The armor I had would go a long way to helping my skin stay together. I might be able to take it to a blacksmith later for repair. In the meantime, I would need a replacement. I could polish my sword and shield to help prevent them from rusting. Whetting my blade might be difficult, but perhaps I could teach the thief to help with mine. A long term solution to swinging my sword with broken arms will be needed. We need to find ways to address, overcome, and cover for our weaknesses. We should do whatever that after fight talk we did before again. The monk needs some way of defending herself.

A silent hand grabs my shoulder, shaking me from my thoughts with a start. I reach behind me to grab the intruder, only to feel the air.

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“Calm down! I was only trying to get your attention. I called out your name a few times and you didn’t answer. I wanted to help you.” The thief spoke fast, eager to end his thought before I tried to grab him again.

“I don’t need someone acting as my hands, and the monk already offered.”

“I meant about your hatred of magic. I doubt you solved that, have you?” I paused at his question. “

We stared at each other for a few seconds as he waited with some witty remark for whatever he expected me to say next.

“I’m thinking of such things now, you interrupted me.”

“I could give you the answer.”

“I shouldn’t let others tell me what to desire.”

“I could help you find a reason to use magic.”

“I should find a reason to use magic myself.”

“I could”, he paused for a moment while trying to craft a response, “Help you swing your sword with your mutilated arm”. He then pointed at my mess of a right arm. I looked into his eyes, waiting to hear the catch to the sudden change in topic.

“It would require you to use magic first.”

There was the catch. I dropped my head in defeat and groaned. I know I shouldn’t use my arm for strenuous things like swinging a sword when injured, likely I shouldn’t use them at all, but the idea of acting like a waste of space who can’t carry his weight nor do what he claimed to be good at disgusted me. Somehow letting go of my pride was almost as painful as moving my arms.

“Please don’t beat around the bush and tell me what you think I should do.”

“Mold a stone around your arm as a new piece of armor. Hold the bone in place and prevent any dirt from getting into your many cuts.”

He turned to walk away before stopping and turning back around.

“In case you didn’t hear it. Thank you, you kept throwing yourself between the bear and the rest of us. Your sword arm might be terribly damaged, but you’ve been acting as our shield from the start.”

He then walked away. I was left to my thoughts again. I tried to remember what I was thinking about before the conversation but couldn’t recall. Instead, I walked around for a decent sized stone to make an arm guard out of. It took less than a minute for me to be sitting next to the fire holding a large round stone. I made myself push all of the pain out of my mind and focused on the stone.

I wanted an armguard. I wanted something to wrap around my arm and take the sword strikes that would maim me. I wanted to swing my sword without fear that my bone would snap and give me an extra joint in my arm. My arms got hot as I stood there just remembering how they felt on my arm.

My arms grew hot. Hotter. Hotter. It felt like my arm was being burned completely through. I wasn’t knowledgeable about magic enough to know if stopping here was a good thing. After probably an hour, the heat died down in my arms. A sense of fatigue began to overcome me.

I opened my eyes to see the stone had partially flattened. All of my work only led to a stone flattening.

“I’ve seen worse attempts at magic, decent work for spending a minute working on it.” The prince was talking behind me. “Thought you said you weren’t going to use magic. Finally came around?”

I stared at the stone in my hands. I got a strange feeling in my stomach about doing magic almost like indigestion. I was not the type to use magic, I was a swordsman. Thus, I said the first excuse that came to mind.

“This doesn’t count as magic. It’s different.”

Perfect.

The prince stared at me for a second.

“Careful with your… not-magic then. Don’t overuse it and end up like the saintess.”

He turned away and left me, but not before muttering a few insults at me under his breath.