Chapter 6

Safron walked up the hill to see what the big kids were doing. She was very proud of the fact that she walked the entire way and didn’t fall over once, even though the hill was steep and it was fun to roll down and last winter her big brothers had pulled her up it on a sled and they had gone down it together and that had been a lot of fun.

The big kids were being boring. She knew that being boring was part of doing magic, but she was too little for magic so she didn’t have to be boring. And she didn’t want them to be boring right now because she was here. They could be boring when she was somewhere else.

If she paid real close attention, she could sort of sense something was happening. Something was being pulled in from all around them. From the air, from the spring that was new because her Mom said ‘we need a spring here now that we have a water cultivator’ and because her mom knew magic now there was a spring that flowed down from the hill. From the Earth itself. And from the fire that never seemed to go out even though she’d never seen anyone tending it. Ever.

She wondered how that worked, but she knew the answer.

Magic.

Probably boring magic, to be honest. She had the feeling that most magic was actually really boring almost all of the time except for a few split seconds when it was, well, magical. And then it was amazing. But the rest of the time it was boring.

She wondered for a minute which of the big kids she should bug.

There was Pao, who was her brother but not really her brother because he didn’t come out of her mother because he had a different mother and that meant he wasn’t her brother really. But he kind of was, because she said so and that was good enough for her.

Pao was fun. He was big and strong, and he once showed her that he could grow a dandelion in his hand. It was really boring at first because nothing happened and she’d wandered off. But then he’d called her back like two hours later – more like ten minutes but it had felt like hours – and they had watched together as the weed had sprouted.

But most of his magic was boring.

Then there was the youngest of the children aside from her. Her brother who really was her brother. Tan. Tan had the best magic because he could fly, but he wouldn’t take her flying with him because he was scared he’d drop her and she’d get hurt. She didn’t think that was a good enough excuse, but he was stubborn and stupid about it.

As she thought about how if she asked him to take her flying he’d say no she got mad even though she hadn’t asked him, so she decided to ignore him for the rest of the day.

So that left the two new kids, who lived in the shack that was also new. There was Won, who was a boy and had the second coolest magic after her real brother, but Won wasn’t her brother, he was just a boy from the village who’d learned magic. But he could make fires with his magic and that was amazing. But he was even more careful with his magic around Safron because fires could hurt you, and she wanted to play with someone who could use magic without hurting her.

So that left the girl, Ko. Which worked out well, because Safron decided that she wanted to play with a girl because she almost never got to play with another girl. She’d only ever played with boys before Ko arrived with her twin brother, and it was nice to have a girl to play with.

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So she ran over and jumped on Ko’s back and screamed, knocking both of them into the spring.

The girls came up, one laughing and the other sputtering. The spring wasn’t very deep, only a foot or so at the deepest, so there wasn’t any danger, but they both got wet and muddy. And Ko was very stern with her for a few seconds before she decided to get revenge and spray the littler girl with magic water.

Safron retaliated by splashing her back, but Ko cheated and used magic to block the attack.

This continued for a few minutes before Safron ran away screaming and Ko chased after her.

It was a good day, Safron thought to herself. Even when her mother caught her and dried her off using one of the most boring applications of magic – although Safron did admit that it was convenient and was glad to be dry afterward – that the little girl had ever seen. And her brother flew out to the lake and came back with enough fish for everyone in time for dinner, which was always nice.

“When do I get my magic?” Safron asked at the dinner table, as she had often over the last few weeks. She was almost four years old now. The fall was close and they would be moving into the big house soon for the winter, and her birthday was in the winter, so then she’d be four years old and that was only one less than five and they had promised – oh, she answered her own question in her head.

“You know when,” her father answered. And he was right, she did know.

“But it’s so long to wait!” she complained.

“There’s nothing for it. It’s not good to start cultivating before age five. You need to develop your mind or the spirit becomes too strong and influences you. You want to be yourself, don’t you?” her mother said placatingly.

“I want to have magic.”

“What sort of magic do you want?” her father asked.

Safron perked up at the question. “I get to choose?”

“She gets to choose?” Tan asked, sounding shocked. “I didn’t get to choose.”

“You’re right, we didn’t give you a choice, Tan. We simply found the most powerful spirit that we could find and gave it to you. Would you have chosen any differently if you’d known then what you know now?” his father asked.

Tan paused. He glanced at Won, who smirked at him. Won’s ability to conjure fire was something that he lorded over the other boys. Right up until Tan dashed in so fast that he couldn’t react and punched him in the balls. Then he stopped lording it over Tan, except for occasions like this when the lingering jealousy popped up.

“No,” Tan admitted.

“Good. Fire is a dangerous element to cultivate anyway. Won must walk a narrow path between creation and destruction in order to grow his power without harming himself or those around him,” his father said, repeating what had been said before. “Air is perhaps the most versatile element. You’re not as strong as an earth cultivator, but you’re faster than a water or fire cultivator and you’re able to fly. I know how much you like to fly. You wouldn’t give that up for anything, would you?”

“No,” Tan said with more feeling.

“Good. I was certain I picked the right spirit for you. I’m sorry that you didn’t get a choice, but Safron’s situation is different,” her father explained. “I can’t find her a spirit quite as strong as Zephyr. But there’s a water spirit who’s as strong as her mother’s Rudeus was when she first bonded him which we could hunt. And there’s a fire spirit in the ashlands who is almost nearly as strong as that. And of course there’s always the Earth. I can find any number of powerful earth spirits for you, Safron.”

“But not Air?” she asked.

“I could find an air spirit for you too,” her father said. “but it would be the weakest of all of the options. You’d be … you wouldn’t be able to fly like Tan can until you turn twenty years old. Maybe older,” her father explained. “But with the other spirits you’d be much stronger than Pao, Ko, or Won by the time you reach their age.”

“Do I have to decide now?” she asked.

“Nope. You just have to think about which one you’d prefer, because that’s the one we’ll hunt for you,” her father said. “So that means you have how long?”

“A year and … three months?” she asked.

“About that, yes,” her mother said. “You’re very smart Safron.”

She beamed. Because yes she was.