Shard

Sorry about being late yet again, my depression is kicking my ass lately.  Not sure I can keep doing two chapters a week either, though I will try to do so.

After having met with Tanner, Dawn hooked her belt back to the cart, and they continued walking towards the western gate.  Along the way, several of the villagers nodded towards her, though she was glad to note that none of them bowed this time.  As they arrived at the gate, she saw why there seemed to be less people around than normal; there was a crowd waiting for them.

Several of them bowed, as others pressed forward offering gifts and well-wishes.  Overwhelmed by the crowd, she numbly accepted the gifts.  By the time they got through most of the crowd, she had the cart halfway filled with various preserved food, a large blanket, another durable robe in her size, and a fearsome looking dagger carved from the remains of the blighted beast to the south.

On the other side of the gate, she ran into the other children, her friends congratulating her on being able to see the capital, and demanding she come back and show them more magic.  Feeling much more at ease now, she thanked them, exclaiming she would be back once she was done learning.  As she was making her final farewells, Billy came forward and presented a small and simple looking knife, stating it was made from a fragment of the giant turtle’s shell, with two more fragments shaped into a sheathe; it was his first creation on the path of learning to produce things from the remains of twisted creatures.

Dawn thanked him for the gift, slipping it into her belt as her mother smiled behind her.  As the other children returned to the village, her mother spoke, “I do wonder what he is thinking…  He is clearly terrified of Niphru still, yet acting that way towards you regardless.”

She asked her mother what she meant by that, but only got a chuckle in response, followed by a mysterious, “Well, I suppose we will see in the future, won’t we?”

Shrugging, she decided to quit wondering about it, as her mother reached into a pouch at her hip and pulled out a copy of the map she had seen before, as well as a letter.  Handing them over, Amilya remarked, “I don’t think you will need the map, you just have to follow the road mostly straight, after all, but it can’t hurt to have it just in case.  And be sure that this letter gets to Lord Jerald.”

As she finished speaking, Amilya sighed, then enveloped Dawn in a tight hug.  “I’m going to miss you; you have to be careful, remember not to let anyone but Morris know your true level of control,” she said.

As her mother released her, Dawn replied, “Of course, and I will try to make you proud with my accomplishments!”

Amilya shook her head and responded, “You already have, I can tell you will go far beyond what I have as long as you apply yourself.” She then turned to face Niphru and spoke to him, “I am thankful for all you have done as well, and I hope someone can help you recover.  Thank you once more for saving my daughter.”

With a sigh, Amilya turned back to Dawn before saying, “I suppose you should get going before I change my mind and try to keep you here.  I’ll miss you…”

Dawn nodded to her mother, exclaiming, “I’m going to miss you too, but I should be fine with all the help everyone has given me.  And we should be able to send messages to each other once I get to the capital, right?  I remember you sent a message to get Morris to visit us.”

Amilya nodded in confirmation before hugging Dawn again and stepping back.  With conflicting emotions, she watched her daughter head off towards town, hoping she had made the right choice.

Likewise, Dawn had conflicting emotions as well.  On one hand it was exciting to be out on her own, but she was also leaving behind everything she had ever known, and traveling into the unknown.  She then revised that thought—she was bringing Niphru with her at least.

Thinking about it again, she hadn’t tried to reform the link between them in the past few days.  She slowed the cart to a stop and unhooked herself before turning back to Niphru.  Gently stroking his head, she told him she was going to try to link them again.  His tail slightly twitched as she finished speaking, which she took as a good sign.

This attempt she was able to feel something, but it was incredibly faint.  Even after closing her eyes to concentrate more closely on it, she wasn’t quite able to ‘grab on’ like she had before, the link constantly slipping away the instant she stopped focusing.  Demoralized by another failure, she had to remind herself that at least it was better than before, so things had to be improving.

After relaying her lack of success to Niphru, she hooked herself back up to the cart in melancholy and resumed her journey.  After a while, she became quite bored, seeing nothing but a constant expanse of grass in all directions with little else except the road she was following.  She had heard of how there were basically no living creatures beyond the villages, but it hadn’t really hit her until now.

There were barely even any bugs, and she had not seen a bird in over an hour.  For the most part, the only noises were the wind and those caused by her travel.  Fearing she was going to lose her mind, she began telling Niphru what she was thinking, despite knowing he couldn’t respond currently.  Doing so did help her keep focused rather than losing herself in the monotony, however.

Eventually, the sun began to set, and, still having seen nothing but grass, she decided to stop for the night.  Unhooking herself from the cart, she glared at the endless field.  Not wanting to bother with slogging through the waist-high grass, she summoned an orb of flame to test an idea she had, plucking a bit of grass and holding it out.  She set it alight, then tried to pull the flame off of it, and after a few false starts, managed to succeed.

With a grin, she called up a large ball of flame and hurled it into the grassland, rapidly burning a large circular patch of land.  Extinguishing her fire, she stepped into the burning circle and began to pull the flames towards herself, smile growing as they obeyed more easily as she continued.  While it wasn’t much practice, it still helped her quite a bit, as it felt almost natural by the time she finished.

Not wanting to waste it, she dropped the flame she had gathered to the ground, then ripped up handfuls of grass to help feed it.  Unlike her expectations, however, the fire rapidly consumed the fuel, flaring up in intensity before dying back down.  Muttering under her breath, she scolded the flames, eyes widening as they seemed to draw back from her.  Feeling silly, she apologized, and was surprised to see the flame flicker back towards her as it dimmed.

She gathered more grass, tossing it into the flames, and this time it barely flickered, continuing to burn slowly.

Seeing the flame would continue for a while without supervision, she turned back to the cart, digging through the contents until she could pull out the tent.  Unable to resist, she stopped to pet Niphru for a moment before heading back into her clearing to set up the tent.  Thanks to the practice before she left, there was no difficulty with the relatively simple process.

She gathered up more of the omnipresent grass to feed to the fire, then returned to the cart again, bringing back the bedroll and blanket.  Once she had them placed to her liking in the tent, she went back to grab Niphru before realizing she should just bring the cart off the road.  It was much more difficult to move without using the belt, but she didn’t want to bother just to move it a few feet.

With it beside the tent, she resumed her prior thought and brought Niphru into the tent, settling him into the blanket.  Feeling better now that he was settled in the tent, she went back to the cart, digging out the pot, some dried meat, and one jar of preserved vegetables.  Setting them aside, she shuffled things to the side, reaching the box her mother had attached to the cart.  Opening it up, she pulled out a fist-sized mana stone the mages in the village had worked together to enchant.

Placing it into the pot, she reached out a bit of her mana into the stone, activating it.  Air began swirling into the pot before rising back upwards, small drops of water condensing onto the stone.  Confident it was working, she headed back to the side of the clearing, pulling more grass to feed the small fire.  After several trips back and forth, she decided the pot was full enough, and deactivated the enchantment, retrieved the mana stone, and returned it to the carrying box.

As she went to put the pot over the fire, she realized she had forgotten to grab the metal rack to hold it, and went back to the cart to find it.  While there, she also grabbed a bowl and spoon before returning.  Placing the rack down over the fire, she adjusted it until it seemed relatively centered before putting the pot over it.  Thinking back to what her mother had said, she put the dried meat into the pot first, waiting for a while as she stirred before adding the vegetables.

Eventually, she decided it was done, and removed the pot from the flame.  After a moment of glancing around, she shrugged and just set the bowl on the ground before pouring the stew into it and setting the pot, with the remainder, onto the ground as well.  After trying to pick up the bowl and recoiling back from the heat, she decided to let it cool down a bit first, and headed to the tent.

After making sure Niphru was awake, she picked him up and brought him outside with her.  She settled down beside the bowl, resting Niphru in her lap as they watched the small fire burning itself out.  After testing the bowl several times, Dawn felt the stew was safe to eat, and took a spoonful of it, blowing on it as it was still steaming, then tried it.  While it was warm, it wasn’t as hot as it looked, so she began the task of helping Niphru eat.

Once he was finished, Dawn began eating the rest of the stew, eventually finishing it all, along with half of the bread.  Feeling she had eaten a bit too much, she decided to make less stew tomorrow.

Wanting to make sure it was safe, she pulled the remaining fire from the smoldering remains of the grass she had piled up, then let it fade into the air.  Confident nothing would catch fire while they rested, Dawn picked up Niphru again and returned to the tent.  She put Niphru down beside the bed roll as she stripped out of her robe, folding it and placing it to the side, with the belt resting atop it.  After slipping into the furs, she pulled Niphru over beside her head, hugged him for a moment, and attempted to sleep.