There was one magic spell anyone could cast and, oddly enough, it was for time travel. You couldn't alter the past in any way or change how things turned out in your darkest moments but revisiting the past had the power to do a great many things depending on how you used it.

Most people just called it memory.

Greater Rens unfolded through their minds, an ideal small town of scattered farms that produced much of the food that was sold around the continent. A quarry dug into the plains several miles outside of town was where those that felt more at home in an enclosed space went to work, giving the town a dual income from agriculture and mining.

The people were brawny and strong and the children were often seen running through the streets after school, yelling and chasing each other like packs of wild animals to the amused scoldings of those trying to keep the economy going.

“Get him! He's casting a spell that'll set everything on fire forever!”

One such wild animal was Wade Bruin, commanding his pack of local kids with shouts of encouragement, only thirteen and as tall as some adults but with a face as smooth as a river rock. The others surged at his call, laughing and yelling at the call of a people who loved strength as a means of life.

The 'wizard' they chased capable of such fiery feats was Clarke Script, age fourteen. Shorter, not muscle enough to feed any of the hungry monsters the children pretended to slay but quick enough to be a challenging target for chasing in their favorite game. On his head sat the wizard hat, a dirty leather hat whose tip leaned over to one side just as would be expected of a well traveled head piece worn by a mage. They'd taken it into their heads that it granted world ending powers and it had become a staple of their frequent play.

He grinned as he looked back, all those in desperate pursuit starting to catch up as he willed it. A wheelbarrow pushed by a local farmer blocked his way but he hit the ground, dropped and leaped over, legs horizontal as he cleared it and the kids flooded around it. A shop they passed had a mother call out, one of the children breaking from the pack.

Jean to his family's tailor shop.

He kicked up dust towards the market, dodging past people selling their goods, shouts to bring people's money to the various stalls. Children were picked from the group as Clarke raced by, parents bringing their children in to work and learn their trade as they needed to.

More so recently as the kids grew into teenagers. More time taken up to learn the secrets of successfully making your way in the world, something that Clarke secretly aided the parents in by bringing them this way and having them safely in time for life lessons (more commonly known as chores). Oddly for someone of his age he was thrilled by the prospect of the change, of becoming someone new through the acquisition of knowledge and he worked to keep his friends caught up in it.

Only a few of them remained as he slowed for the last stop, the Golden Bear Bakery. His shirt caught on his neck and he choked when Wade had caught his clothes.

“I got him!”

Clarke slipped free of his shirt and wide eyes followed him as he launched up the side of the wall with feet and hands scrabbling over stone footholds until he hauled himself up to the top of the building, sweat sliding down him and his chest heaving.

His smile faded when he saw that Wade had the hat in one hand and his shirt in the other.

“I didn't think that through.”

Even winning Wade glared at the items in his hand and tossed them down to grab the side of the building and start hauling himself up the side of the building.

“Boy, get down from there! You're gonna bring the wall down!”

Wade was jerked from the side of the building down onto his butt and hauled up, his shirt coming up around to cover half his face. Wade's father had hold of him and before Wade could stutter an excuse he'd been cuffed in the ear.

“How old are you?”

He didn't let Wade finish before cuffing him again. The other kids ran at the second blow and Clarke tried to disappear atop the building, still peering over the edge.

Wade had gotten the worst of life's changes lately. Violence ran in that family's blood and Wade senior had taken to trying to boil Wade junior's blood into a violent bubble of training and pain.

“You come to me one day, asking me to teach you to fight. So you can be a real fighter-”

“A knight, sir.”

“A knight is it? Knights don't climb buildings and tear across town like a savage lizardman. You wanna be anything more than the best damn guard any town had ever seen like your dad then you show up on time, y'hear?”

He jerked Wade along behind him and they set off for the back of the building where a small set up of training dummy and wooden weapons waited them.

Clarke didn't move until he heard the sounds of practice weapons whiffing the air and he carefully climbed down.

“Clarke, c'mere ya rascal.”

Mrs. Bruin stood below, a small covered basket in hand. She was a big woman, round and the exact definition of motherly looking with a heavy set body and big hips. Brawny arms plucked him from the wall and put his shirt on him, smoothed back his hair and put the hat on top.

“I'm sorry Mrs. Bruin, I thought we'd gotten here in time-”

“Oh, don't worry about that, boy. You were here in plenty of time but it'll never be enough for that old curmudgeon. He's late everywhere he goes. But Wade's lucky to have someone around to herd him in the right direction.”

She handed him the basket, peeling it back to pull out one of her village renowned sweet buns and stick it in his mouth.

“Now you run along to your own lessons. Your mother has been on and on about how well you're doing. I don't know what use having pretty handwriting is myself but she keeps you in food and home with it so there must be something to it.”

“Thank you ma'am.”

“I don't know how she can stand sitting in that library with that owner. If ever there was a criminal type it'd be him. He's got that mean look about him. Like he's looking for a chance to stab you and go through your pockets and sell your meat and bones to lizardpeople.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Clarke didn't imagine there was much of a market for human bones but he blindly agreed even if he didn't. For all her talk of how the librarian was looking for a chance to stab someone no one had ever actually seen him do it.

“Yes ma'am.”

“Well, you better get going. Go use that pretty handwriting however you smart types do.”

She swatted him on the butt and he jogged off, waving as he ran.

He did like the scribe work. The contentment of seeing the words appear under his quill, the flow of ink that his mother had taught him for years already. He took the hat off of his head as he ran. Ran his fingers over the rough leather and the large stitches.

Being a wizard might not be so bad either...

He 'cast' some spells as he ran, tossing boulders of pure ice at imaginary foes until he saw the squat, grey stone building come into view. It was unusually large for a small town with few readers but no one had seemed to mind when the owner paid for it and filled it on his own coin.

He pushed the thick wood door open, the knocker fashioned after a rat's head rattling as it always did. The smell wrapped around him, waves of musty paper and old leather, of new and old books alike. The entire library was unusually dark and books often sat in stacks instead of on the shelves where they belonged so he was careful to keep from knocking any over.

The librarian sat behind the desk he'd constructed for himself. A ratling who had come into town one day just about the time that Clarke and his mother had moved in. None knew where he'd gotten the money for the library but rumors were all of the criminal sort, as was often the case for the secretive ratlings.

He was brown all over save for the giant white spot around his one blue eye, the other being a light brown. Grey fur was beginning to sprinkle his ears with salt despite being middle age as near as Clarke could tell.

He didn't outright glare but he looked up from his book as Clarke passed and stared back. It wasn't mean but it was intense, like he was reading Clarke's mind and logging the events of his day before looking back down to his book and making some notes on a few papers on his desk.

“Hmph.”

A tingle up Clarke's back, exactly the width of a knife, had him turn to walk backwards as he passed. That was all the ratling said everyday. It was lucky he didn't care whether he was popular within the town or not since he hardly did more than hmph at anyone. No one even knew his name.

Clarke passed him by and headed to the usual corner. He could hear soft talking through the shelves and approached slowly.

Please be with a client or reading something aloud or...

He stopped just behind a shelf, looking at her in the gloom of the windowless corner with a candle lighting her from below in unnatural shadows. She wasn't very tall or strong, a small woman with big green eyes and short brown hair and little physical presence to her at all.

She looked off into the dark and spoke, whispering to no one with words Clarke couldn't hear and, when he could, words he didn't understand. Clarke knew better than to interrupt her like this. She wasn't dangerous but she wasn't...herself. It was like she was somewhere else entirely except in body and no amount of shaking or prodding could bring her around.

She suddenly swept books off the table sending them flying over the floor and clattering into the wall, an inkwell teetering on the edge of the table above previous spills from years past. She balled her hands into fists, clenching at her hair and talked faster, yelling at one dark corner. A faint 'hmph' from from the front desk came through the quiet.

He slowly approached and sat beside her, pushing the basket onto the table but keeping his distance. He'd once been within arms reach and had had his eye put black for a while. He knew it wasn't her, it was the fit, the emotion that overtook her. She always came back from it if you were let her alone.

“Mother?”

She didn't respond, whispered something to the air again.

“It's been so long...leave me alone...there's nothing we can do...”

“Mother, I'm here...”

He began to reach out but his fingers wavered and curled. He took his hand back.

“Mom.”

She calmed, her eyes coming back into focus slowly and her body deflating like a sleepwalker coming back from their wandering. Clarke sat beside her and began writing about his day, the same practice his mother had asked him to do for years now.

In a few moments she turned, looking down at her papers and then to Clarke. She jumped, slapping a hand to her chest.

“Clarke! I've told you, don't sneak up on me! You're going to put me in a grave haunting around like a ghost.”

“Sorry.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head to clear the adrenaline away. She eventually smiled, pulse settled, and noticed the basket in front of her. She picked out the honey cross buns as Clarke had and nipped into it.

“Mmm! That woman is headed for baking godhood.”

They enjoyed a little pre-lesson snack and she took Clarke's notes about his day and looked them over.

“Very nice. I wish I had the strength to be as athletic as you are. Also, don't climb up on the bakery.”

“I'll do my best.”

“It shouldn't take your best. It's very easy not to climb a building. I don't it all the time.”

“You just said you wish you could.”

The sudden appearance of books in the corner of his vision caught Clarke's attention and he jumped to see the librarian standing near them, candlelight flickering under his muzzle and in his eyes. He pushed the books closer to Aggatha.

“The font books you ordered. And we're gonna close soon so hurry it up.”

He looked at Clarke and muttered quietly to where Clarke was sure the words only made it to his ears.

“Just don't let people see you doing it. Then you can do it as much as you want.”

He melded back into the shadows, Clarke wondering where the sudden sociability came from when his mother placed a blank sheet of paper before him.

“Okay, today I want you to work on this.”

Then came another sheet of yellowed paper, old and the words faded, small holes interrupting sentences. A page from his mothers work as a scribe. Once in the rare while she let him do actual work and every time he felt pride in the fact that he'd come so far to be trusted with it.

“I'd like you to copy this down as accurately as you can. Fill in gaps with clues based on the rest of the work. You can often figure out what word may be missing if you look at the rest.”

He began writing, ink spreading into the fibers as he sped along. She plucked the quill from his hand. His letters became looping, swirling together in long lines and twists that rolled around and twirled like dancers on the page.

“In common printing, please.”

“But mom-”

“No, look here.”

She pointed to the original document, pointed out the font. Straight lines and blocky letters.

“Any time you can, mimic the original.”

“But it looks so much better in your handwriting-”

She stared him into silence but a small smile picked at her serious face.

“Clarke, don't try to flatter your way out of the rules. You write how the client asks. We'll make you a collection of styles before the end of the summer. You'll need it since...well, Clarke...I've decided that you're old enough and good enough to go to work in the city.”

Clarke's jaw didn't drop exactly but it slowly yawned open. She clapped it shut.

“You'll attract flies. But yes, I have a friend in Deraforda who would like to take on a scribe in a couple of months. They're wanting to expand the library there and want to add more books so they'll need people who can copy quickly as well as people willing to learn on this new printing press device some dwarves brought into town there. There's also a good chance a noble might pick you up for personal work since I've been spreading your name among my own clients. How does that sound?”

Clarke couldn't get his mouth open despite his previous slack jaw. Images of the city crowded his mind, of the people, the adventure and a new life to be found there.

“I...I...yes. Yes! It sounds...yes!”

“It sounds yes. We'll work on your speech before you go.”

“Hey.”

The librarian had snuck up before them again, glaring over his whiskers. Three heavily robed individuals loitered at his counter, none making so much as a movement or breath and each wearing a ceramic mask of a snake.

“We're closed. Make off.”

He stalked off before they could say a word.

“What about his speaking skills?”

“He's not my son.”

They packed up quickly and the door locked just as soon as their feet cleared the threshold. Night had fallen by then and they could see stars spreading out like thousands of pinpricks in a dark sheet, the two moons floating overhead, one bright white but covered in the odd skull shape the lizardfolk claimed was their old god, the other a myriad swirl of cool colors.

They walked in quiet to the edge of town to the squat, stone home they shared. Clarke couldn't get the thought of inevitable change out of his head. He remembered that being the moment he was finally aware of the passage of time. He would come to hate it.