Chapter 10: Mutual comfort
Felix Sythias’ POV:
“Felix, can we talk about what I said earlier?” Alex asked.
I hesitated, then nodded. “...alright, but let's get back to the cave first, and I’ll need to clean that wound.”
We collected the firewood pile and took it with us by carefully—very carefully—putting it on my back. Then we walked back to the cave, doing our best not to lose too much. We could always get more, and would need to do so before dark, but that didn’t mean I wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon walking. I was tired and hurt and really just wanted to sleep. So the less wood we lost, the better.
Back at the cave, I put the wood down with the rest. Well, it was mostly Alex who put the wood down. I was more the living cart waiting to be unloaded. Looking at the wood, and taking some in my talons, I noticed most of it wasn’t dry. This wasn’t really too big an issue with the big pieces because by the time we would need those, the fire would be hot enough it wouldn’t matter too much. But the wet twigs and sticks would make it near impossible to start the fire. I simply didn’t have enough Mana to dry the sticks and start the fire.
“There, that’s all,” Alex said. “Is any of it useful?”
“Most of it. I’ll show you how to look for the dry twigs later.”
“Alright, thanks. So, um, what I said earlier—actually, can we sit down first? My legs are rather tired.”
I nodded. “In that case, let me look at that wound, first, too.”
We were both stalling for time and we knew it. Alex unstrapped his armor while I brought out our supplies. I checked the wound. It was a small puncture wound and a decent sized cut. It honestly surprised me that the weak goblin had managed to get through his scales at all. It shouldn’t have been able to. I guess the runt had hidden strength.
I took some water from my canteen and poured it over the wound in an attempt to get any dirt out. My canteen was rather big, so it had plenty left over by the time I was done.
I then dipped a claw into a vial of disinfectant salve and gently rubbed it onto the wound, being very careful the sharp end of my claw didn’t make things worse. Alex hissed in pain but didn’t try to stop me. When I was done, I wrapped him up again. I’d have to boil the bandages and re-clean the wounds before we went to sleep, but for now it was good enough.
“There, done. It’s about the best I can do right now. If I have some magic to spare later, I’ll do a more thorough cleanse.”
“Thanks,” Alex said. I laid down near him and waited for him to speak. “About what I said earlier, I wanted to say I didn’t mean it.”
Relief washed through me. I’d known intellectually that he likely hadn’t meant it, but the rest of me hadn’t been so sure. To hear him actually say it took a weight off my chest.
He continued. “It was nothing but an impulsive, intrusive thought that just slipped out. That just happens sometimes. I always do my best to watch what I say, but when I’m stressed like that, sometimes things slip out.”
He sighed and pulled his knees in, wrapping his arms around them. “It’s why I left my town. I’d kept something hidden, I got really stressed, and it slipped out. After that, I couldn't stay. I know it’s no excuse, but I think you deserve to know why it happened. And the truth is, it will probably happen again. I want to be friends—I really do—and I think you should know that about me. I try my best to not let it, but there’s only so much I can do.”
I put my wing around him and pulled him in a little closer. He didn’t protest. I think we could both use the comfort. “Have you considered talking with a counselor when classes start? The Academy provides their services for free, and I’m sure I can pull some strings to get you one of the really good ones.”
He shook his head. “Thank you, but I don’t think I’d feel comfortable talking about it.”
“Alright, but let me know if you change your mind. Or talk to one of the healers, they can set you up too.”
“Thanks.” He was quiet for a moment, thinking. His tail slapped at the floor with a regular beat. “I just want to make it clear, but I absolutely do not regret becoming your friend. And I’m sorry I made you think I felt otherwise.”
“I… thanks.” I paused, thinking. “You know, you are the first real friend I’ve had, and it’s been great spending time with you so far. Before this, I only used to have one person I’d thought might be a friend.” I stopped, wondering how much I wanted to share. “He was kind to me and gave me attention and I quickly became attached. We got along reasonably well for a time, but he… well, let’s just say he didn’t hang out with me for me. He only hung out with me because of who my dad was. One day I overheard him badmouthing me and I haven’t talked to him since.”
He patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sorry. People are assholes. May I ask what he said?”
I shook my head. “Maybe some other time. It’s a longer, less than pleasant story, and I don’t feel like getting into it right now.”
“Alright. But what about when you were younger? You really had no friends?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t. You need to understand that while I hate this fact, the truth is that I vaguely look like a monster. My teeth are sharp, my talons look wicked, I walk on all fours, and I have a tail. If you gave someone just that description, they’ll probably tell you that you’re talking about a gryphon or a similar monster.” I sighed. “The kids in my classes knew this too. They were terrified of me. Not that I can blame them—some definitely lost a parent to a monster, or knew someone who did. And even as we got older, and they got used to me, the reputation stuck. Eventually they got old enough to take part in their parents’ politics as well. So either they wouldn’t talk to me, or they would only talk to me because of my father. It wasn’t fun.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“You’ve mentioned him multiple times already, but who exactly is your father?”
After a moment of consideration, I decided to tell him. He would find out soon enough, anyway. “He’s the headmaster.”
Alex gaped at me. “Your father is the Battle Scribe?!”
I laughed. “People still call him that? Don’t let dad hear you call him that. He really doesn’t like that name.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” Alex thought for a moment. “Why didn’t your dad have you homeschooled if you were so… miserable?”
“He was, and is still, a stickler for the rules” I said with a sigh, “and the rules said any child living at the Academy must go to school in one of the child friendly branches. He’s become more flexible since then, but it was a real issue while I grew up.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”
“It’s fine now, mostly. Like I said, the school provides counselors for free to those who need it. I’ve long since unpacked these issues and learned to handle them.”
We sat in silence for a while, and I thought about dad. It had taken a really long time to work through our issues. And dad never quite shook off the rigid inflexibility. I said he became more flexible, and it was true—in a way he did. But rather than be flexible when he needed to, he changed the rules and added exceptions. We all have our quirks, I suppose. It worked well enough and I loved him for going out of his way to fix things.
“I don’t think you look like a monster, by the way,” Alex said, a bit rambly, interrupting my thoughts. “You look like a big lizardkin to me. One that walks on all fours and has wings, sure. But a lizardkin, nonetheless. It’s your snout. It looks way too much like one of ours to be considered a monster’s face. Besides, you’re way too nice to be a monster. And if you’d been a monster,” he stood up and gave me a hug, “I wouldn’t have been able to do this.”
I hugged him back, wrapping an arm and my remaining wing around him. It was really nice. The hug lasted a good few seconds before we parted. I hadn’t quite realized how much I’d craved physical affection from someone who wasn’t family before now. I hoped there would be more hugs in the future.
“Thank you, I really needed that,” I said, referring as much to the hug as to the reinforcement that I wasn’t a monster.
He smiled back. “I think I did, too. It's been… way too long since I gave someone a hug.”
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After we had rested some more, we went back out to collect more firewood until we had roughly twice as much as we needed. Both of us were semi cold blooded, so we’d need the warmth from the fire. We both had solutions in case it was too cold, but they took energy and slowed recovery.
In my case, I diverted a stream of my mana regeneration to constantly heat me up just a bit. Which was why my mana pool filled so slowly. The cold was only ever really a problem at night and during the winter, though, when the temperature dropped. The rest of the day and year, it was always pleasantly warm outside. Pleasant for me anyway, I’ve heard people complaining about the heat many times. Most buildings had cooling enchantments on them, too.
My room at home didn’t really have that issue, since it actually had heating enchantments built into the foundation.
I wasn’t entirely sure how Alex dealt with it, so I asked.
“Oh,” he said. “I have a Skill. It keeps me warm.”
“You have an entire Skill dedicated to keeping you warm?”
Before you unlocked a Path, you only had six Skill slots available, and the Skills you put in there eventually influenced your Path choices, among other factors. So using an entire slot on something like that felt wasteful to me when a simple enchanted bracelet or necklace would have done the same. But then again, I had my magic to do it, and enchanted jewelry was expensive, so perhaps I wasn’t the best judge for this.
“Yeah. I took it after I left the desert. I wasn’t sure what the climate was going to be, so I wanted to be prepared. I hope to evolve and merge it with a few other survival Skills before I choose a Path.”
That wasn’t a bad idea at all. He’d end up with an all-around survival Skill with only one purpose: keeping him alive when he really shouldn’t be. Those kinds of Skill tended to be weaker at the individual elements it protected from, but the sheer versatility more than made up for it. The only other real downside was how long it could take to merge Skills together.
“That’s a great idea. Though, I recommend picking up a few guidebooks at the library. They explain the best ways to get certain Skills, and then how to merge them.”
“Thanks. I’ll certainly do that.”
We walked through the trees in comfortable silence for a while before Alex spoke up again.
“How do you keep yourself warm?” he asked.
“Oh, I use instinctive fire magic to heat me up.”
Alex looked a bit confused. “Instinctive fire magic? Is that a Skill?”
“No. I was born with it. It’s a type of magic that doesn’t require casting or spells. But it’s really only good at small scale, low precision tasks. I won’t be flinging firebombs with it anytime soon, I can tell you that much.”
He thought about that for a moment. “How does it work, then?”
“I’d give you an example, but I’m very low on mana and will need every drop later. I can try to explain it, though. It’s heavily intention based, not unlike some Skills.” I stopped for a moment, considering how to best explain it. “For example, when I cauterized my wounds earlier I let the mana flow through my talon and gave it the intention of direction-outwards-radiant-heat. When it exited my talon, it followed its instruction and turned into heat blasting outwards from my body.”
“Huh. So, in a way you’re still casting magic. You’re just telling the mana what to do in a different way.”
I shook my head. “That’s a common mistake. It’s not telling the mana what to do, but asking it to do it. The better detailed my instructions are, and the better I am at asking, the more of the mana listens. It’s why instinctive magic is so often dropped for other Skills. People really aren't suited for it. The average person can get maybe five to ten percent of the mana to listen. I was born with it and grew up learning all about it so I’m better than most. But even I can only get maybe thirty to thirty-five percent to listen.”
“What happens to the rest?”
“That’s lost,” I said. “It’s a really inefficient way of doing magic.”
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I can see why people would drop it. But why doesn’t everyone?”
“Because some people are really fucking stubborn. It’s good for me though. I get paid well for trying to teach them.”
He nodded. “Right, you said you taught a class. I completely forgot about that. When do you teach it? What’s it like?”
“I teach during the breaks, mostly. As for teaching itself? Frustrating. Nobody likes taking advice from a child, especially not grown adults with more than a hundred levels. Actually, that reminds me of a funny story…”
We talked the rest of the way back, both of us swapping stories about teaching. It turned out that Alex taught the hatchlings back at his village, or did anyway. Apparently he was the best at explaining math, so he got saddled with the responsibility of teaching the hatchlings. They sounded a lot more fun than my students. Hopefully, they would be more open to actually listening now that I was an adult. I doubted it though. They weren’t the kind of people that changed their minds for the same reason that they kept the damn Skill: they were incredibly fucking stubborn.