7 | Lessons (I)

2412, Tull 20, Briss

Last night, Xanthy spent a good hour staring at her hands. Not only was she forced to swallow the fact that she was a fairy, she apparently had a special power that could destroy worlds.

It should have been finished on that. But, apparently, unknown forces were looking for her to use her to wreak havoc. Xanthy slapped her temples in frustration. Questions ran in circles in her mind.

One, how could people be sure that the Virtakios could indeed destroy worlds when they didn't even know what it did? Two, why would people want to wreak havoc? Lastly, three, out of all the unfortunate people in this island, why her?

Xanthy squealed into her pillow. She wanted nothing of this. House! That's all she wanted out of this adventure. That's why she was out here in the Commons and not because she wanted to play hero and save worlds.

What would she even be saving this godsforsaken world from?

House, house. I will get a house when all this was over. She sighed and chanted to herself. But...when would all of this end? Would she even get her house before she turns eighty?

Perhaps, Xanthy should just toss these behind her and remain a weaver forever. That would be the easiest thing to do in this situation. However, what would happen if the enemies find her and make her destroy the world?

She snorted. What if she let them? It would be easier for all of them, wouldn't it?

Then again, Pidmena would make Xanthy crawl in her own guts like a worm in the Land of Wonders in compensation for all the trouble Xanthy would have caused. Xanthy shivered. Oh, okay. Wasting her life as such was not the answer, then.

Xanthy rubbed her face and pinched her ears. Her heart, if possible, thundered louder in her head. If she accepted everything people say about her, about being a fairy and that...special thing, she would have to also accept the fact that she has become one of the creatures she spent a lifetime hating. She would have to become a terror to the Humans. An abomination. An error in the system.

Disgust curled in the pit of her stomach. No. She didn't want anything to do with these creatures. Was there any way to revert back to being a Human?

Xanthy bolted up. That's it! Her eyes widened at the plan developing with every turn of the gears in her mind. She may have giggled menacingly to herself. This was beyond amazing.

If she was going to learn magic from Vikara tomorrow, she would use that chance to find spells to remove her fairy bits and along with it, the destructive magic. She would be human again. And if she's lucky, the Virtakios would go away with it. Absolutely perfect.

That way, Xanthy had tossed and turned in her bed. Her mind whirled with thoughts that made her get only an hour of sleep before a girl sent from Vikara's household came knocking at her door.

Xanthy had gotten up. The smell of dagrine fertilizer that the down of the mattress was stuffed with was thick on her nose. Now, she followed a girl dressed in a plain dress and skin slippers across the whole estate.

Xanthy fought off a yawn as she watched the daily stream of workers out to do their jobs for the day. Tunicless men heaved large buckets of sloshing sandy brown liquid that smelled like hell. Leather tanning, then. Men and women with beige aprons over their everyday clothes milled about, a dozen knives sheathed into their belts. Hide production, maybe?

The girl had led Xanthy past sprawling grounds flanked by rotting buildings, dining halls bigger than the one Xanthy and June usually eat in, and finally, a narrow path that opened up to a lone mansion in the heart of the estate. The sky burned in colors of dawn as the moons from last night gave way to the sun.

Once inside the mansion, Xanthy inclined her head at the smooth ceiling and the lacquered walls. She wrinkled her nose. Why were Nobles allowed to have these luxuries while the Commons weren't?

The girl led her through corridors that sported less and less windows at every turn. Xanthy looked over at a wooden ornament shaped like a drinking cup that housed a wax candle. Who lighted these things every single day?

The girl came up to an ornate door with patterns of flowers and leaves carved into it and knocked. Vikara's garbled voice echoed from the inside, voicing at them to come in. The girl nodded at Xanthy before pushing past her and disappearing back from where they came from. Oookay.

Xanthy smoothed the skirt of her dress, shifted her weight from foot to foot, and twisted the knob. The metal was cold against her skin. She swung the door inward and came face to face with a pile of tomes. Lots and lots of tomes.

Xanthy cleared her throat. Dust tickled her nose. She resisted the urge to sneeze. "Hello?"

"Over here," Vikara stepped into view by edging a tower of tomes piled as high as a human. Today, the woman wore a light chestnut brown dress whose sleeves fell to half of her forearm.

"Yeah," Xanthy nodded at the tomes. "Is this why you called me here?"

Vikara clapped her hands. "Precisely," she moved past the manuscripts by the door and went deeper into some kind of maze made of tomes. "You would profit best by reading on your own and practicing with me."

Xanthy opened her mouth to speak when Vikara slammed a leather-bound tome to Xanthy's chest. Dust exploded and invaded Xanthy's nose. A cough escaped her throat in a hoarse crackle. "I—"

"...to use this, as well," VIkara passed another tome to Xanthy as they went deeper into the maze. Xanthy straggled after the woman. "Of course, before you go to advanced spells, you would need a complete, standardized dictionary of spells—"

"I cannot read," Xanthy blurted; her cheeks burned. Her voice echoed dully against the lacquered walls. Vikara paused.

"I can't read," Xanthy repeated in Keijula.

Vikara tapped her chin. "Oh," she moved towards another tower pressed against a dusty, glass-plated cupboard. She passed Xanthy a compact tome as large as a palm. "Use this to translate. The words should come easy to you if you can understand the language."

Xanthy nodded and added the small tome into the growing pile in her hands. Vikara yammered on as more tomes joined their brothers in Xanthy's grip.

"Use this room if you need to study in peace," Vikara waved her hand at the dust mixing with the air. "Ask me if you want to read the other tomes. Some might be too advanced for you. Those I gave you should be enough to speed you through the basics."

Xanthy nodded, mum. Her eyes scanned the sides of the tomes where squiggly lines were etched and casted with foil along the spines. Which of these could be the answer to her present problem? Would she learn a dainty spell of reversing whatever turned her into a fairy?

"...get going," Vikara's pause snapped Xanthy back to the conversation. She nodded her agreement even when her mind blanked on what Vikara had just said.

"Yeah," Xanthy mumbled. "Do I still have to report to the Weaving Warden?"

Vikara folded her hands together. "Why, yes," she knitted her eyebrows with fake concern. "You still need to earn that money, right? Besides, you are not staying here for free. You work and you get to sleep in your quarters and eat food from our kitchens."

Xanthy sighed. That's why Vikara wanted her out early. Looks like she would have to spend her mornings like this. A timeteller nailed to a spot on the wall beside the door chimed in dissonant, mechanical clicks. The hands pointed somewhere between the first and second hour of the first quarter. Two more hours, then.

"I will take my leave," Vikara grasped the door's knob and swung the door close as soon as she's outside. "We practice at night after dinner."

Xanthy nodded but the door already closed to her. Silence filled the room. With a sigh, Xanthy tramped towards a clear spot and dusted it with her foot. She laid the tomes in a hazy semi-circle in front of her as she plopped down, cross-legged.

The jumble of letters of the koset screamed at her eyeballs. She shook her head and picked up the small tome. How was she supposed to learn from just this?

Her fingers pried the pages open and light slammed into her face. She yelped and threw the book. It landed with a dull clatter. What in the Queen's britches?

She blinked the dark spots dancing in her vision. Creepy book. She exhaled and glanced at the bigger tomes spread out beyond her. A small yelp sped out of her lips. The letters...they made sense now.

The first tome from the left said Magic Systems, while the tome next to it had the words Basic Maxia Spells on its cover. The final one was titled Ancient Language Dictionary. Xanthy knitted her eyebrows. Why would she need a dictionary of an extinct language?

Also, how in the world could she understand the letters after a tome sprayed her with unnatural light?

Xanthy shrugged and picked up the thrown tome. Squinting her eyes and leaning it away from her face, she pried it open again. This time, no light poured in a torrent. Instead, it showed her demonstrations of how each letter was supposed to be drawn out.

So the light was...a spell? To facilitate faster recognition? Huh. Anything was possible with magic, really.

Excitement bubbled in Xanthy's stomach as she flipped through the diagrams. If she did her best, perhaps she'd be human sooner. Humming to herself, she studied the letters, even tracing her hand to follow what the pages were teaching.

She glanced at the timeteller. Only a few distance from when she started. Ugh. This was going to take longer than she expected. This appeared to be the Ylanen Koset as Xanthy remembered familiar symbols sometimes etched in houses or in merchant caravans passing through the Disfavored region.

Xanthy leafed through the pages, going further. Look, there's numbers, too! She giggled. Who knew learning could actually be fun?

She reached the end of the small tome as she traced the last of the symbols. It appeared to have been used to end sentences or separate words. She wasn't sure which. Might pick it up when she started teaching herself to write. Later.

She moved to the next tome. Magic Systems. She flipped to the first page. History of magic. Ew.

The yellowing parchment felt brittle under Xanthy's fingers as she turned the page. The ink in which the squiggly words were written with contrasted with the smooth surface filled with splotches of discoloration. Xanthy wrinkled her nose at some pages peppered with nibble marks. Cleret or worse, mercok. Pesky insects.

The pages talked about what June explained to her. Maxia, Escuira, and Rysteme. There was no mention of the Virtakios anywhere. Apparently, Maxia literally meant "light" magic meaning it was easy and has less burden on the caster.

Xanthy flipped through the Ancient language dictionary on her other hand. Escuira, meaning "obscure", focused on heavier spells and most of them were abstract. Pages after pages described how Escuira spells were discovered and made. Xanthy rolled her eyes at a prominent figure that kept getting mentioned as the one who formulated a ton of spells.

Averal Coris.

He didn't look like much, though. A Human. Studied in the Academy for Magical Arts when he was a child. Came out spouting magical nonsense or so his peers thought. He paved the glorious road for Humans to keep up with the fairies with their Rysteme spells. That's how Humans were now able to do almost every fairy synnavaim out there.

The downside was one has to memorize a graspel-load of words, verses, and chants to fully execute them. Most have dangerous effects that one mispronunciation could kill the caster.

Xanthy bit the inside of her cheek. Huh. Was this the reason why most ordinary humans didn't bother learning? Sucks.

She thumped the tome shut and moved to the next one. Basic maxia spells, huh? Was detonate included? That one didn't look like it was basic especially if Xanthy was able to punch one damned crater into a wall. Thankfully, that wall was fixed and functional now thanks, well, to magic.

Ylanenla words blinked at Xanthy as she came at the comprehensive list of all the maxia spells known to humans. The list went on until the end of the book when Xanthy looked. Oh, gods. Was this what humans have to deal with in order to cast spells?

That made her glad that she was a fairy. Then, her stomach sank. She shook her head. No. Fairies became monsters because they have everything easy. They didn't know the hardships of having a locked synnavaim so they took advantage of the Humans' weakness.

And for what? For a pot of gold? Was there a history book somewhere here?

Xanthy shut the tome and crawled to the nearest pile. Now that she could sort of understand the Ylanenla Koset, she began skimming the titles. Plants and other Materials in Brewing. Xanthy snorted. Not that book.

Hmm. Leather Technology. No. The Catalog of Species. No, as well. Taboo Spells and other Prohibitions.

Huh, interesting.

Xanthy inched her fingers to yank the tome out from being crushed under the weight of a dozen more books atop it. She pulled. The leather cover stuck to the back of the book above it so when Xanthy freed it, the succeeding pile fell forward. Then, the tomes slammed into the glass-plated cupboard in a resounding crash.

Oops. Hopefully, there's no expensive marquine sets in that cupboard.

Xanthy blew a breath and glanced at the book in her hands. It's small and would fit in the pockets she sewed under the folds of her dress behind the Warden's back. Good. She could read this before bed.

The clang of bells rumbled in the distance. Xanthy glanced at the time teller again. The hands pointed to the fourth quarter. Who knew two hours would go that fast?

Xanthy kicked the tomes aside and brushed her skirt free of dust that might have settled on the folds. She raked her hand on her hair and framed her face with it.

Time to work. Later at night, time to learn about spells to turn herself back into a human.

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