Who would have guessed that the first time I faced a monster that I killed I’d be left feeling a little more afraid than I was going into battle?
The trek to Ysmur’s farmstead was in relative silence. Nubi stayed out of sight, hiding just behind my earlobe, little featherlight touches tickling the skin when they snuck the occasional peek at Uncel. I couldn’t fault them for being on guard. Despite seeing the corpses, uprooted grass and soil, and me with a splintered wooden club — Uncel was unfazed as ever. Walking alongside a mule carrying a host of carcasses and rubbing their shoulder while muttering something about a pain.
I was trailing behind not wanting to be in their line of sight after the hard stare they gave me earlier. A heavy bitter taste on my tongue when I looked from the splintered wood to the tails and claws hanging from the back of the cart, barely covered by the tarp. The whole purpose of the moon was to come and help Uncel but it’d been finished in the matter of seconds. With Uncel saving my life and potentially finding a reason to dislike me along with it.
Although, shouldn’t I have been the one that was miffed?
If it wasn’t for Uncel running out there on their own then I wouldn’t have gotten into any of that mess. I clenched my jaw and stared down at the splintered club. The splintered borrowed club.
From… Ysmur.
Oh no.
Instead of thinking about the blue beady eyes greying out over the top of my head or Uncel’s hard stare, I mulled over potential excuses to save me from Ysmur’s wrath. Stumbling over a few loose rocks and eyeing the tall grass warily for anything that might have reached for me. I doubt it would be able to take another go and what if I broke it down to where there was nothing left but a toothpick?
Ysmur would definitely kill me then.
“Hey.”
I jumped and looked upright, catching the gleam of Uncel’s eyes peering at me from between the arrows holstered in the quiver over their shoulder. For a dull moment, I looked about to see who they were speaking to before pointing to myself when the thought occurred that it would be me. The look they gave me was wholly unimpressed and I hunched my shoulders, bowing my head.
“Where did you learn to do something like that?”
“… I didn’t.” They raised a brow and I quickly added, “I panicked.”
Uncel’s steps slowed, the mule throwing back its head with a click of the teeth cutting through the heavy silence.
“… You panicked.”
I nodded slowly, hoping my face didn’t give away the panic I felt.
“And used an air spell with an earth-elemental weapon.”
I looked down at the club in hand. An earth elemental? Slowly, I lowered it to my side and stared up at Uncel. The confusion must have showed on my face because their eyes widened. A sputter of laughter then a guffawing chuckle ripped through them, startling me and Nubi as well, if the tight hold on my hair was any indication.
“Let’s make this clear,” Uncel said after clearing their throat, beating a firm fist against their chest. “You have no idea what an earth elemental weapon is?”
I shook my head, now entirely confused. It was made out of wood but what would set it apart from any other wooden club?
Uncel seemed to regard me with sympathy, shaking their head. “How about a trade?”
“Trade?” I didn’t have much to give them and I wasn’t sure what they would want from me aside from laughing at what I didn’t know.
“I thought I finished off most of them and brought ‘em off to Ysmur, but I guess there were stragglers.” Uncel set their hands on their hips, frowning at the cart. “You helped me out by finishing them off. As it was, they would have snuck up on us and killed my mule let alone ambush me.”
Uncel looked at me, a small smile on their face. It took a second longer, an embarrassing long one, before I realized I was being thanked and took a deep breath. Only able to muster a nod in reply.
“But what about Ysmur…?”
Uncel scratched the top of their head, the fuzzy hairs making a skrrch with every pass. “Ah, she’ll come along looking for us soon, enough time for me to teach you something… and for you to think of what you’ll say to her about the club.”
I nodded mutely, allowing Uncel to lead me away from the grassy plains to a gravel road where the clopping of the mule’s hooves was louder.
While the faint memories I had of video games didn’t lend much in the way of understanding this world, there were a few things that matched up too well. Uncel’s home was almost like the typical blacksmith shop. Squat, pressed to the dirt, and with a chimney pouring colorful smoke into the open air. Weapons of all shapes and sizes propped up against dark wood, held up on display with hooks staked into the walls. Some gleaming and polished while others were a bit old, catching on the light from the fireplace Uncel stoked to life while knelt in front of the stone hearth. They clapped their hands together, a few wisps of dirt and soot rising from their hands. Slowly, they turned to me and silently raised a brow and I immediately inched away from the tables display knives and various metals laid out on its surface.
“You don’t know anything about craftsmanship, do you?” Uncel asked after I fidgeted and squirmed for what felt like eternity.
Keeping my mouth shut seemed to be my best bet and I shook my head vigorously. With all I’d seen thus far, I assumed it was just as consuming as trying to fight. Uncel rubbed the back of their shorn hair and glanced about the smithy, suddenly much warmer than it’d been before. When they rose up and started around the counter, I moved to follow only to stop when I saw something strange in the furnace. Fire ordinarily didn’t have a face but this one seemed to have a face, a mouth, and eyes. The base of the flames, a deep violet, rising into a scarlet-red, then topping off at orange seemed to flicker and move like eyes.
“If what I saw before was any indication, you were using spells,” Uncel said, their voice further away, near one of the walls displaying a few weapons from bows to short swords and a small display of daggers of varying sizes. I was torn between looking toward them and eyeing the flames a bit more. Cautiously stepping toward the counter and resting my arm on its top, peering across the space between me and the furnace. Two smaller wisps creeping around the crackling stones Uncel threw into the fire began to inch their way into its center, swallowed up by the purple flames and emerging in white flames along the orange. Narrowing at me with a curious look.
Oh, that was not normal fire.
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