Young Flame

It didn’t take Tetsu long to find a couple of spears for us. She holds out the long pole of steel and I wrap my fingers around it in the same grip I remember Auntie Kay teaching me. The familiarity is enticing and I can’t help but stare.

Tetsu releases the spear into my grip and I immediately get pulled to the ground under the unreasonable weight of it. The thing has to weigh as much as I do.

I crouch and lift the spear in my hands, but it is insanely heavy and I struggle to do more than hold it against my thighs.

“Stop,” Tetsu says and takes the spear out of my grip.

She stabs the base into the ground, leaving it standing upright, and sweeps her hands under my elbows. Tetsu lifts me into the air, sending me into a panic. I’m already changing to incorporeal and scorching her arms when she lets me go.

I try to calm my tense body as I glare up at the woman who held me without warning.

“You weigh nothing,” Tetsu says and jogs back to her weapon stash.

“Hurry and teach her the ritual while I make a stick,” she shouts to Remus as she runs to the line of trees lugging an axe over her shoulder.

Remus and I watch as Tetsu slaps her hand into trees one after another until she is no longer in sight.

“Well, Bunny won’t be long, so we best get started.” He turns and leads me back to the cabin.

As I wait outside for him, I hear a loud crack echo through the forest. A more subdued thump follows it.

“Looks like Bunny found a tree she likes.” Grímr’s voice startles me. I’d completely forgotten he was behind me. Something so large shouldn’t be allowed to be so quiet.

I wonder how she got the nickname Bunny of all things. I just can’t see how it fits her. It’s not like she introduces herself like that.

Another crack echoes around us as Remus comes out holding a scroll.

“Wow, she’s impatient.” Remus turns to the forest at the sound of another thwack.

“She’s been stuck waiting for months now and you bring someone she can share her art with. Of course she’s excited,” Grímr says.

“I guess we better hurry then.” Remus unrolls the parchment in front of me. “Solvei, your task for the next while is to memorise this ritual. Usually, I have a mage run their hyle through the inscription to show how it works before they attempt to craft it with their element, but fire and paper aren’t exactly good friends.”

On the scroll, the inscription is configured with a large and small circle. Inside each circle are thousands of lines detailing what look like completely random patterns.

“The large circle is the placement for the target. We’ll place the remains of our hunts within. The small circle is the output, where the receiver will take in the energy transferred from the target. Please be careful with it. Getting another copy will take a long time if it gets damaged.”

I nod and carefully take it from him. It looks hard, but I need to do my best to memorise it.

“So, do I just make this shape and it’ll work?”

“I think so? Most mages I’ve met have been able to power it without any issue. Even those who’d never seen it before. I’m not a mage, so I can’t tell you if there will be any differences between using the inscription and creating it with your fire.”

My flames come to life in the air, attempting to mimic the intricate pattern as close as possible. But it’s slow work; each line has to be focused on so that its placement is perfect. I quickly lose myself trying to making it match.

“Hey. I’m done. Let’s get back to it.”

I look up in time to catch the pole thrown at me. Tetsu is already striding toward the clearing we found her. The wooden pole feels smooth to the touch and perfectly straight. A spearhead is expertly affixed to the end of the wood.

I’m downgraded to a stick again.

It’s not all bad. The stick weighs about as much as the spears back in my tribe. Not so light that I can swing it around freely, but I can pick it up with no problem. I swing the weapon experimentally. It feels good in my hands. I’m happy I can finally get back to learning Mum’s weapon.

“Hurry up!” Tetsu snaps from ahead.

“Right. Coming.”

❖❖❖

Doe never showed up, so as per Tetsu’s wishes, we leave the moment the sun reaches its peak.

Remus is the only one who seems resistant to leaving so soon. Jav jumped at the chance as soon as he heard and Grímr is fine to go along with everyone else.

“Okay, so who’s holding the kid?” Tetsu asks as she jogs on the spot.

Why would someone hold me? Is it for speed? I already know three of them can move a lot quicker than me and it wouldn’t take much to assume Grímr can move quick too, considering his body. “Should I change? Flying will be quicker.”

“No, I want you memorising the ritual. Grímr should be a stable enough ride,” Remus says.

Grímr looks at me oddly, but lowers to a crouch and lets me climb onto his back. As soon as I’m comfortable on his neck, Tetsu is already running off.

“You ready?” Grímr asks as he rises to his feet again, the others already out of sight.

“Yes.”

The scroll almost slips out of my hands as Grímr dashes after the three. He dodges and weaves through trees as I try to stabilise myself with the fur at his nape. When I said yes, I didn’t expect him to hit a sprint right away. I’m lucky I didn’t fall off.

We catch up and if it wasn’t for the trees whipping past us at insane speeds, I would think this is a casual jog with the lackadaisical effort they put into their movements.

It may not be any faster than I can fly, but the trees passing at such speed makes it difficult to focus on anything but grasping at Grímr. I try to unroll the scroll, but it flutters in the wind like crazy. I’m only barely able to keep it steady by pushing it into my ride’s fur.

This is a horrible place to do this, but I have to try anyway. I don’t know if I’ll be able to focus on the parchment enough to achieve anything, and I would really rather spend my time flying than in such close proximity to someone who is still a stranger.

“What did you mean before?” Grímr’s voice reaches me. “You said you can fly? How?”

“Remus hasn’t told you? I can transform my body. If I become a bird, I can fly just like one.”

“Is that something only áed can do? Remus has spoken of your people before. He described you as similar to the áinfean, but none I’ve met could change their forms.”

“It’s not common. My elder was the only one other than me who I know could do it. Who are the áinfean? I’ve never-” I’m interrupted by a branch whacking me in the face. I try to duck, but I’m not quick enough. Grímr’s movement around the trees is too fast for me to react while focusing on the parchment.

Fortunately, the branch passes right through my head, only leaving me a little disoriented.

Unfortunately, Grímr snaps to a halt, sending me flying over his head. I crash into the forest floor amongst roots and leaves.

I groan and check the scroll in my grasp, making sure it wasn’t damaged.

“I’m so sorry! I’m still not used to this b… uh, I wasn’t thinking. Are you okay?” The large panther stands over me.

I give him an annoyed glare as I rise to my feet. It didn’t hurt or anything, but I’d really rather fly under my own strength than be thrown around like that.

I see this group as a strong and capable bunch, but how can one be that clumsy? Did he forget I was sitting on top of him? In mid conversation?

“I’m fine,” I say and climb onto Grímr’s back again.

If it happens again, I don’t care how quickly Remus needs me to learn the ritual, I’m flying.

“Uh, you asked about the áinfean right?”

I unroll the scroll again, intending to ignore the large creature under me so they might not become distracted and send me flying again.

Grímr runs along in silence for a few seconds before my reluctance to speak becomes clear. He doesn’t take the hint, though.

“The áinfean are another energy race like yourself. Similar to how you áed are bound to fire, they are to lightning. We portian owe a lot to them for what they’ve done over the centuries. The other races have a tendency to see us as their enemy, regardless of our intentions. Most of them stick to the north at the edge of the ice plains, but there are plenty living within pact territories.”

As much as I try to ignore him and focus on the inscription before me, I can’t help but listen as he talks. It’s always interesting to hear more about the world. I wonder what he’s hiding about his race that makes most sapients hostile? I mean, these big panthers look threatening enough as it is and if it weren’t for Grímr’s open secrecy, I’d assume it was just because of their appearance. There’s obviously something more.

“They’re good swimmers, did you know? But they refuse to touch the water unless it’s as fresh as can be. Glacial rivers are their favourite. When I was a kid in the… uh, when I swam with them, I was always impressed by the speeds they could reach.”

It looks like Grímr is a fan of these áinfean. While he continues to blabber about his experiences with them, I cast my sight toward Tetsu running ahead of us. She carries a massive pack strapped to her back that one might assume is filled with camping gear and whatnot for our travels, but is instead loaded with nothing but weapons.

I watched her pack it. Half the weapons she shoved in there I’ve never seen before. The spear she made for me, along with many other pole weapons, are tied in bundles and strapped to the sides of the pack. I haven’t a clue what she could need them for.

Spear training with Tetsu had been eye opening. Only after fighting against her did I realise that Auntie Kay had been soft with me. I knew Auntie hadn’t been putting her all when teaching me, but when I compare her to the no holds barred attitude of Tetsu, I realise just how careful she’d been with teaching me.

Tetsu is a monster. I hope it’s because she knows I won’t take any lasting damage from her strikes, but with the way she acts, I can’t rule out that she simply doesn’t know how to hold back.

She was nice enough to guide me on my forms. She told me that most of the forms she knows for the spear would be useless for me because of how little I weigh. If I was to use it effectively, I would need to learn how to move quickly and always deflect rather than block. She was familiar with all the forms I remembered and told me which would be better to focus on at my current size and weight.

It was after her guidance session that she invited me to a spar. I don’t know how she considered that a spar, every second of that fight I spent trying to recover from a spear piercing or cutting through me. Tetsu might as well have used me as a practice target for all I accomplished trying to hit her back.

There is one important thing I learnt fighting her though; I’m not truly as invulnerable as I’d assumed. The faster and harder she hits me, the further my intangible body flames are sent. If an impact spreads my flames far enough, it becomes hard to pull myself back together. I found the actual sharp blade of the spear to be easier to deal with than the shaft. If the sharp edge cuts into me, my form simply bends around it. But if a blunt edge like that of the shaft hits me, it makes it a lot harder to keep myself together.

It is something I’m incredibly glad to find out now, and not somewhere it might get me killed, but I’m also stuck with Tetsu knowing. There is no way she didn’t spot how much slower I recovered when she used her shaft, especially considering she only used the blade after the first few times.

The same thing happened when I grasped at Remus during our fight. The impact he caused with the metal gauntlets dispersed my body enough that he could simply brush me off.

I’m suddenly not feeling as safe and assured of myself as I had been yesterday.

Well, whatever. There are still worse things to worry about.

Like water.

Like ice.

Like the snow-capped mountains we are currently sprinting towards.

We’re gonna stop before we reach the snow, right?