“All hail the birthday boy!” Father drunkenly said. He only had two cups of wine, which was rather weak.
“Oh, Tel’am, relax.” Mother put some sense into him. “Congratulations, Edrie. You reached your first decade! Ah… Such a wonderful time of life.” Meanwhile mother had already chugged her fifth glass and remained as serene as always.
Instead of the pompous cake at my parent’s wedding anniversary, we had a simple homemade pie. Marissa looked voraciously at the dessert. She really loved her sweets. So much so, that somehow she managed to sneak her way in two family-only celebrations. We didn’t really care though.
Time flew, one day you were celebrating you parent’s anniversary, the next one your own birthday. My “second” birthday at that. It was weird that it was celebrated every five years.
That reminded me that I didn’t know when Marissa’s birthday was. As her best friend, I really failed her, didn’t I? For some reason it didn’t occur to me that she had a birthday.
Yeah, I was a moron. I would compensate it next time, I swore at the unknown name of Lady of the River.
“Here you go.” Mom passed me a wrapped gift. “Open it.”
The rectangular shape of the package was suspicious enough to deduce it was a book, either way, I opened it with Christmas Day joy. Hmm… A lot of time had passed since the last episode of memory. At least this time it wasn’t accompanied by a brain-splitting pain, just a fleeting migraine.
My not-so-little-anymore hands undid the bindings holding my present. I… I was actually surprised when I opened it.
“It’s a grimoire.” Mother explained. “For three, four, and five-star spells on the arcane element. Your father and I hope it will be useful to you.”
“I love it!” This may be the first time I showed so much emotion. I had played too much into the silent child trope lately.
Well, it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared.
After one year of daily wizardry and sorcery practice, I managed to have a firm grasp on the three-star tier. It didn’t hurt to have more spells under my belt. And it came at the perfect time because I had finally dominated the Slow Fall spell both in casting and spellcasting. I was more than ready for more three-star spells.
I had spent so much time lately with Marissa, practicing magic by myself, or practicing magic with Marissa, that I abandoned my reading hobby. The compendium gifted at my fifth birthday was already read a few times. Not a lot, to be honest. A thousand pages of copious unnecessary descriptions were a source of so much enjoyment.
I browsed a few pages when my father grabbed the spellbook. “Not now, first comes the pie.” He glanced at the starving beast called Marissa. “Then you will have your reading time.”
“Fair enough.” I said as mother was cutting the pie, then grabbed a serving.
I literally saw the after-images of Marissa devouring the pie, only for leftovers to appear in the plate. What in the name of the Lady of the River was that? I contemplated while my fully open eyes were dissecting the scene.
Geez, she was terrifying.
My approach to the pie was more tactful, having small bites. Obviously, Marissa was going for the second round. Some people might wonder about my advanced intelligence or willpower, far superior of what one would expect of an eleven-year-old ellari, but that unnatural hunger was something worthy of study and research.
Once the pie disappeared from the table, mother talked once more. “Edrie,” she looked at father “we have other news to tell you.”
That glance was suspicious. Weird theories started forming in my mind. “Am I going to have a sibling?”
Father spit out his wine. “What? No.” He looked at mom. “No?” He wondered in approval.
“Of course not, silly.” Mother pierced father with her gaze, blaming him for even considering it.
Huh. Said that aloud. My fault.
To be honest, father reacted rather poorly to the idea of having another child. I mean, fatherhood for him hasn’t been a difficult task, I was riding shotgun for the most part of the journey.
Shotgun, huh. What a weird concept. Am I having relapse episodes? Relapse… Ha. I laughed in my own mind. What was I? An addict in rehabilitation?
“Me and your father wanted to talk to you about your education.” She did her best to avoid the sibling topic. “You are old enough to go to school.”
Doubts were had, but the first wasn’t about me. “Why isn’t Marissa in school then?”
Mother had a face of ‘I knew this would come up’. “It isn’t mandatory going to school when you come of age, it’s rather a recommended thing.”
Really? Our ellari civilization was absurdly advanced in most aspect but are you telling me elementary mandatory education wasn’t one of them? There should be more at play, I doubted that was the case. Or at least, the only motif.
“Also,” father added “Marissa’s family doesn’t have as much money as ours.”
Mother looked at father even sterner than before. ‘How could you tell him this?’ Her stinging eyes inquired. ‘He should know.’ Father refuted. Obviously, this was a recreation in my mind, but they were clear about their intentions.
“What about school?” I added to undo their little gazing duel.
“Mom and I want you to go to a good school so you can learn.” Dad explained.
“Is it a magic school?” I asked, somewhat excited.
Mother giggled a bit. “No, sweety. You are too young for that.” She explained. “It’s a normal school where you learn every subject. Even your father didn’t go to a magical academy until he was thirty.”
“Yes, Edrie.” He added. “All magical institutions teach on a very high level. So, you have to be older to even understand it.”
I think I could easily prove you wrong, father. That, I did not say. I was surely capable enough to finish high school, or the equivalent here. College? Maybe out of my league. His intentions were good and made sense. I had no reason to refuse.
“Okay.” I was actually happy to have less free time. Being able to do anything and nothing at the same time, was more counterproductive that it would seem. And I was bored of the routine, of course. “Will Marissa come with me?”
I wouldn’t abandon the friend that accompanied me after so many years. Knowing her irascible, gluttony, and reading-hating self, Marissa would probably refuse. But going to school would benefit her in the long run. You don’t wish illiteracy for a child. Yes, she could read. I didn’t mean that exactly.
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“Hmm.” Dad pondered over that. “Let mom and I talk it.” They went to the balcony.
The fact that father didn’t try to haggle first suggested to me they had already talked this through in some degree before and this was nothing more than an act. I looked at Marissa. While she expressed her repulsion towards learning, the idea of going to school attracted her.
I was paying more attention to my parent’s conversation rather than her. Mother talked about how it wasn’t their decision to make, it was Marissa’s parents. While she said the truth, father made the argument that no parent wouldn’t want their children to not go to school.
According to my limited information, the only problem in Marissa’s education was the lack of money. I think it was an absurd idea, yet I went to the balcony and told my parents.
“Why don’t we pay for her?” I proposed.
Father wasn’t really fond of the idea, we weren’t poor by any means, but paying for the tutelage of two children would certainly make a dent in our savings. Mom found some light in the plan unlike him.
“Darling, Edrie will likely obtain a scholarship even in a basic school, let alone in the future. Couldn’t we pay his friend's admission?” Mom told him.
Was I going to have a scholarship? How? Didn’t those things only exist for college, not actual elementary schools? I guessed it was because of my affinity. Probably a government-funded subsidy or akin for gifted children.
I made crocodile tears to my father. This was the first time I cried, wasn’t it? Ignoring the whole post-natal shenanigans, of course. I was actually amazed I had this much control over my lacrimal gland seeing its lack of use.
“Alright, alright.” Father conceded, I jumped out of joy. “But you better have the best grades of your class, nay, your school, understood?”
“Yes!” I believe it was a plausible goal to achieve.
***
There was a tiny bitty problem with school. The ellari calendar and the working year began in the season of Frost. While the year itself began in the first of Frost, the working year started in the eleventh day. If you thought about it, it made sense to delay the starting of the working year. But the problem wasn’t that.
I was born in Bloom, and Bloom was right after Frost in the calendar. Which meant that I had to wait a year to go to school. That’s rough, not intolerable, but I felt like I had been lied to. I actually felt worse for Marissa as she would start school at the age of twelve when mostly everyone would be ten. At least now she has plenty of time to prepare.
Talking about the calendar. Weeks did not exist, but in a sense they were there. In my forgotten memory, a week is a period of seven days. Each one of the days had their own name, but I couldn’t manage to remember them, no matter how much I tried.
I commented that the working year began in the eleventh day, that’s because ellari separated the calendar in sections of ten days to make telling the day easier. Basically a week, but technically not a week. I still referred to them as weeks in my mind as there wasn’t a real difference.
In one ellari year we had: four seasons, forty weeks, and four hundred days. I bet a children’s song or rhyme about this exists. Ninety-nine percent sure about it.
“Cast it once more.” I told to Marissa. Three-star spellcasting took her between one to three minutes to have a good result. Which let me divagate in my mind freely.
The little girl had more success in common casting, yet she vehemently refused to do so. One didn’t need to be a genius to see it was a matter of pride for her. Marissa wanted to beat me in spellcasting, my forte, even if that cost her sweat and tears, she didn’t deserve the blood part of the expression though. She wasn’t that committed. Nor should she be. At the end of the day, Marissa was still a child.
“I’m tired.” She visually expressed it by collapsing on the balcony’s table, her head laying on top of it, and sighing.
“No, you are not.” I responded to her mediocre act.
“I am!” Maybe she was saying the truth, but we had only been working for half an hour. “If you motivated me, I could work better.”
“Yey. You can do it Marissa.” I spoke in a deadpanned tone. She starred daggers at me. “Alright, alright. I will cast Mana Pond.”
Mana Pond was an interesting arcane spell which recharged the mana of everyone in it's sphere of influence. Normally it was impossible to forcefully inject mana into someone, even if the subject was willing.
There are a ton of sickness related to mana, in the end.
Mana Pond circumnavigated this obstacle by not channeling mana into someone, but creating a mana attracting field, augmenting mana regeneration in the zone.
I don’t know the exact logistics of the spell. I just spellcasted it. This spell was rather difficult, borderline four-star, as it wasn’t about conjurating energy to be instantly release like a projectile spell. The spellcaster summoned an actual magical construct that attracted mana. A violet levitating energy ball that pulsed with light as the mana gathered around.
While the spell was incredibly cheap to cast, it compensated by being one of the hardest (if not the most) arcane spell to cast in the third tier. I spellcasted Slow Fall in a matter of seconds, yet Mana Pond needed five whole minutes. That’s an increase by a factor of a hundred. Ridiculous!
One also had to consider the difference in mastery I had with both spells. On the one hand, Slow Fall I had spellcasted and casted hundreds of times over the years, it was almost muscle memory. Mana Pond, on the other hand, I had recently managed to spellcast with relative ease (at the cost of its conjuration time).
The translucid sphere materialized after agonizing minutes of concentration. The lighting on the balcony changed from the white yellowish of the sun to arcane purple. The light was mildly intense, yet the spell colors overwhelmed the star in the sky.
Its light wasn’t of natural origin, therefore it didn’t follow standard physical conventions. As one can guess, magic interacted strangely with natural phenomena. Aside from the glowing orb, a fainter violet zone covered the surroundings in an area of effect of two meters. Beyond the edge, the violet stopped, as if it was blocked by a barrier.
“I like the feeling.” Marissa commented, still laying her head on the table. Now, she observed the pulsating ball. “What’s the word? Hmm…” She was so relaxed that she seemed to fall asleep at any moment. “Soothing… Yes.”
“Wake up, slowpoke.” I poked her in the forehead. “I spellcasted the most difficult spell available to me. You better cast a normal three-star right now.”
“But you have more advantages than I!” She complained without even deigning to raise her eyes. “It’s soooo slow!”
“Can’t deny that. Yet you’re the hotheaded one who wants to spellcast.” I was literally at the highest echelon of the elemental ladder, yet it took me five whole minutes to make this simple construct. “But we get better with practice, don’t we? Come on now, or I will dispel Mana Pond.”
“Noooo~” She wailed as if she was the laziest banshee in the world.
I took a rest while Marissa started working once again. Constant concentration drained everyone. Mana Pond could alleviate those effects at least. While it was more useful to sorcerers than wizards, having one’s mana pool topped out was always good.
I noticed that spellcasting was affected if you got low reserves, as empty mana pools induced headaches, and procrastination to a lesser degree. While sorcery remained wholly unaffected. The rapid-fire spell-slinging magician archetype made sense only when applied to sorcerers.
What I didn’t know was if it started from a certain point, like half the tank, or was it a gradual effect beginning from the first droplet of mana used.
Marissa began concentrating, as mild air currents followed her. She was trying to cast Slow Fall (as an air spell, not arcane), because both variations had a similar difficulty rating. Marissa started spellcasting before me, yet I surpassed her easily. While I practiced more than her, it wasn’t excessively so. Elemental affinity did make a difference. Nothing that couldn’t be overcome with more practice, though.
It would be cumbersome if Mana Pond effect ended while Marissa was spellcasting, it could affect her concentration. Mana constructs like Mana Pond were made with planned obsolescence in mind. Unlike capitalism, this was for mana instability or something like that. Ignoring the logistics, it was bad having mana freely floating around.
Marissa didn’t need to worry about that happening, the median duration of the spell was one hour, or at least that was how much time it took for the self-absorbing spell to collapse due to instability. And I doubted she would maintain her willpower to last such a long period.
Magic and planned obsolescence. What a weird concept.
Unknown yet familiar words clashed continually in my head. I let it go, focusing on the girl in front of me.
Marissa raised her head with a smile as she jumped off the chair, only to fall graciously, like a little whisp spinning in the air. Why worry about otherworldly words when there was something so magical before me?
She slowly descended from the sky, slowly twirling across the air, her one-piece dress swaying along with the wind.
“Edrie! Edrie! I’m flying! I’m flying!” Marissa shouted vigorously as her smile became wider and warmer.
Soon I found myself also smiling at the sight. Whilst I had also enjoyed the lightweightedness of the Slow Fall spell in my own, Marissa had a childish joy that I could only hope to recreate.
One might find amusing the little gestures she was doing to keep her equilibrium, but to me, it was but the dance of a small fairy in a pond. Marissa promptly touched the balcony’s ground with her toetips.
“Again, again!” The girl shouted as she climbed the table once more.
It seems we must cancel practice for today. With a chuckle, I accompanied her in her diversion.