As she entered the house, Amilya looked up from where she was focused on a pile of mana stones.  Seeing the scorched state of her clothes, Amilya shouted, “What in the world were you doing, haven’t you been burned enough?!  You didn’t get burned too badly, I hope, since you are walking fine… What happened?”

 

Sighing, Dawn walked over to the table and turned one of the chairs to face her mother before sitting down.  After settling Niphru in her lap, she began, “I was just playing around with my magic, and showing off for my friends, but I felt much more connected to the fire and had a feeling it wouldn’t hurt me, so I tested it.”

 

Before her mother could object, she held out her hand as she summoned a small flame, then sent it running up her arm, watching again in fascination as it flowed over her skin like water.  As it reached her clothing, she pulled it away to prevent damaging them even more.

 

Amilya jumped up and started towards her as she began, only to drop back into her seat with her mouth open as she saw Dawn was unharmed.  After a few failed attempts she managed to speak, “Dawn, what you just showed me is something incredibly rare.  Only the most talented of mages ever manage to gain enough control over their spells to be able to exclude themselves from the effects.  You shouldn’t let anyone but those you trust most know that you can do so.”

 

She shook her head for a moment as Dawn stared at her in surprise, then continued, “I have no idea how you are so in tune with fire, none of our family have been even mildly talented with it for generations…  Regardless, I will do what I can to make sure no one mentions this, since the children don’t know how important it is that this stays secret.  You can trust Morris, but I don’t know who else you can in the capital.”

 

As she stopped speaking for a moment, Dawn took the opportunity to interject, “Is it really that uncommon, Mother?  It feels so simple and easy, like I was opposing the flame before.”

 

Amilya chuckled before answering, “Of course it is, you are apparently deeply in tune with the flame.  Even I am nowhere near that level of affinity with my light magic, despite specializing in it and working with it for decades.  When I was studying in the capital, there were only three people known to have that level of control, and two of them were blessed by the gods.”

 

This time, it was Dawn who gaped in surprise.  While she hadn’t seen it firsthand, she had heard that the towns had many hundreds of people, sometimes hundreds of hundreds, which she thought she remembered being called thousands.  And the capital apparently had so many people you couldn’t count them, being several times larger than all the villages and towns combined.

 

Seeing Dawn’s reaction, Amilya nodded before switching topics and continuing, “Anyway, now that we have discussed your unexpected skill, what I had wanted to tell you was that I talked with some of the villagers and managed to get you a tent, some preserved food, and a small cart to carry everything.  You should be able to leave shortly, though we will all miss you while you are gone.”

 

Upon finishing her speech, Amilya got up and headed for the kitchen, motioning for Dawn to join her.  Dawn picked up Niphru from her lap before she stood up, then turned around and put him back on the chair, making sure he was comfortable before following her mother into the other room.

 

As she entered the room, she saw Amilya popping the mana stone from the stove with one hand and grabbing a pan with the other.  Amilya looked up and remarked, “Since you are going to be on your own for a while, we need to make sure you can cook with your fire rather than just burn with it.  Or do you want to have to rely on having a pre-charged mana stone?”

 

Watching her mother grin knowingly, Dawn replied, “Of course not, I’m sure I can control myself well enough to cook!  It can’t be that hard, right?”

 

Amilya simply continued smiling as she put the pan on the stove.  As Dawn took her place, she headed to the icebox to remove some vegetables, then passed them over to her daughter.  As Dawn put the vegetables into the pan, Amilya remarked, “To start off with something easy, all you have to do for these is warm them up.  Not enough heat, and they won’t thaw out.  Too much, and they will burn, but it isn’t terribly complex.  Give it a try.”

 

Dawn nodded before focusing on the pan, creating a small flame near her hand and moving it to the stove just below the pan.  After a moment, steam started rising from the center of the pan, and Amilya mentioned, “You should probably stir them a bit, or the center will burn while the outside will not heat up.”

 

“Oh, that makes sense.  I wonder…” Dawn replied, then split her flame into six smaller ones, spreading them out into a hexagon as she grabbed the wooden spoon from the counter and began stirring.

 

“Good thinking, spreading out the heat helps a lot with cooking, but is difficult normally as it would require multiple mana stones working together.  Being able to control fire is helpful there.  Also you could slightly raise the heat without any problems as long as you are stirring it regularly,” Amilya stated.

 

Dawn listened but decided to keep the heat where it was, since the vegetables were all steaming now, and instead scooped up one of them to test if it was done or not.  Watching from the side, Amilya nodded, as her advice was intended for the start, and raising the heat then would have burned the food.

 

After finding the vegetables were warmed quite nicely, Dawn looked to her mother, asking if she should consider them finished or not.  Receiving an affirmative response, she let her flames die out and put the pan aside.  As she did so, Amilya turned to the side, pulling a large pot out of the cabinet she was standing in front of, then taking it to the water spout to fill it up.

 

As she waited for it to fill halfway, Amilya explained, “The next easiest thing to do is to cook soup, which I expect will be the best way to use the preserved food that has been prepared.  After all, dried food is rather tough to eat, and makes you thirsty anyway, so why not turn it into soup?  For this, you just need to heat a bunch of water up until it bubbles, toss in some food, then reduce the heat and let it sit for a while.”

 

At this point the pot was about halfway full, so she shut off the water spout and put the pot onto the stove where the pan had been before.  She then stepped back to give Dawn room before continuing, “I am not sure if you can manage this, as it takes quite a while, but it is worth testing.  Personally, I roughly halve the heat once it starts bubbling, and stir it regularly.  But since you can spread out the heat better, you might be able to get by with less stirring.”

 

“I’ll try it how you do it, Mom, I doubt stirring it more than it needs would hurt, right?” Dawn replied, and receiving a nod, began setting up her flames beneath the pot.  As the water began boiling a few moments later, Amilya grabbed some jerky and more vegetables to toss into the soup.  Following the earlier instructions, Dawn reduced the power of her flames, continuing to watch carefully until her mother chuckled at her.

 

“You don’t need to watch it quite that closely, just maintain the heat and occasionally check on it.  It will take quite a while to finish, so feel free to have some of the vegetables you heated up while we wait,” Amilya told her.

 

As she was eating, she found she had unintentionally increased the heat of the flames, and weakened them again.  Shortly after, she found they were too weak, and fixed that too.  Each time, her mother nodded in approval at her having caught and fixed her own mistake.  Eventually, she found it too difficult to continue keeping the flames going, however, and let them go out.  “That is really difficult to maintain, is that enough?” she questioned.

 

Amilya responded by grabbing the spoon and testing the soup, then replying, “It isn’t terribly good, but it also isn’t burned, or cold, so it is acceptable.  You also won’t be making as much on the road, so it should be easier.”

 

Afterwards, Amilya used the pot to fill three bowls up, taking two to the table as Dawn brought the third.  While Dawn fed Niphru, Amilya ate her soup, and waited for her daughter to finish her own.  “There is just one more thing to go over today, and that is setting up the tent, as I am sure you don’t want to be sleeping outside,” Amilya said as Dawn finished her meal.

 

Shaking her head, Dawn replied, “No, that doesn’t sound very comfortable at all.  Hopefully it isn’t too difficult.”

 

“You should leave Niphru here, we will be back shortly, he will be fine here,” Amilya said.  Nodding to her, Dawn picked up Niphru and took him into her room, settling him on the bed and making sure he was comfortable before she returned to her mother.

 

Amilya then led her outside to the northern gate where they stopped beside a small cart resting under a small roofed area.  Digging through the supplies piled upon it, Amilya eventually pulled out a large bundle.

 

Setting it down on the ground and unrolling it revealed several thin wooden rods, which she put to the side.  After making sure Dawn was watching, she began slotting them together and weaving them through loops attached to the fabric, slowly causing it to take form.  Once she finished, she pointed out where it could be staked to the ground, pointing out a handful of bone spikes still sitting on the cart.  She then took the tent back apart, returning the wooden rods to the middle of the bundle as she rolled it back up.

 

“Now give it a try,” she said to Dawn as she stepped aside.

 

Quite a while later, after significant help from her mother, she finally managed to both set up and take down the tent twice in a row without correction, and they replaced the tent on the cart before returning home.

 

“Good job, Dawn, I’m sure you will be fine now.  Using the cart is really easy, so we can cover that right before you leave,” Amilya told her daughter.

 

“Thanks, Mom, I hope it is as easy as you expect.  I’ll be careful too,” Dawn replied before they split up to head to bed.

 

Upon entering her bedroom, she found Niphru was already asleep, and was careful not to make too much noise as she changed.  She then carefully slipped into bed, trying not to shift it too much to avoid awakening him.