New disciple (2)

"Though I guess we can't return to my village, even if we have some money. They would recognize me."

"A river then?"

He nodded and pointed east. "There's a small rive close. Though it's difficult for a horse to reach it."

"We're going to let the horses go anyways, so it's okay."

"What?"

Sighing, she pointed at the trail the hooves of the horses have made, slightly distinguishable even with the dry earth. "We've left a trace for them to follow. We can only get rid of the horses and make another one for them to track, while we go walking to the other side."

"Oh." He looked at her appraisingly. "You're smart."

She scratched the side of her nose, her head tilting slightly down. "We should have done that yesterday, but I wasn't in the right mind to think of much. Sorry."

"Don't worry. What matters is that we can do it now," he said as he grabbed the bag with the small amount of food they had. It was obvious that the slaver-traders bought enough for them to last for the two days of travel they had left as it wasn't much. They then motioned the horses to go to the west, while they walked in the opposite direction.

"So, after we are no longer hiding about, what are you planning to do?" she said, mostly to do small talk as the kid seemed to be done with checking the map.

He hummed, his shoulders dropping slightly as he turned away. It took him a while to answer and when he did, it was with a small voice. "I don't know."

She walked ahead, before turning around to look at him. "Me neither! Though maybe I could sing or play the flute. No matter. In the meantime, how about we continue together?" Her eyes lit up as she thought about all the possibilities this world had to offer. A new life, a new opportunity, after all. Though she sobered when she thought of this kid. She couldn't leave him alone. She saw his soul and it was a quite pure one. Maybe that was why it didn't bother her to say, "I could even help you learn some magic, what about it?"

He humphed and looked away, his arms crossing as if he was hugging himself. "Don't wanna."

Blinking slowly, she furrowed her eyebrows. She could tell he was defensive and while she had her suspicions... Well, it was better to continue probing, right?

"I can tell you have a good aptitude for magic, you know? Are you sure you don't want to learn?" she asked, once again. Even though at first she had said it as a whim, now she regarded the matter seriously. She didn't know how magic worked in this world but it couldn't be that different if he had that color of aura around him, so that meant he could use magic. And she could feel the magic in the environment so the mages probably used it to empower themselves. Tough probably she couldn't help him open his Third Eye, as it had more to do with the way one thought, and that required years of thinking in a certain way. She opened it late but was lucky to be a prodigy with it.

"You're lying," he hissed, his arms unfolding as his posture became rigid. "I can't do magic."

She tilted her head to the side, almost tripping over a branch as she kept walking while looking at him. "I'm pretty sure you can though?"

That didn't seem to help. He only got madder, with his fist clenching until his knuckles became white. He still spoke softly though, as if afraid of the words. "The army told me I couldn't, that I didn't have the aptitude for it. I worked and worked but... I couldn't."

His voice broke in the end but they didn't bother acknowledging it.

She sighed. "Amycus, I could see your aura back then when I was dealing with those slave-traders and you definitely had some magic. Maybe the army taught magic you weren't capable of. Though I wouldn't know as I hadn't seen a soldier before. What type of magic do they teach you?"

Relaxing a little, his eyes still had the same somber look. "Different types of internal magic. Mostly to be able to boost your biology and your weapons. It's a type of magic everyone is able to do it. Well, almost everyone."

Huh. Well, that sounded like support magic. And yeah, while it was a common type everyone could learn, there were still people that couldn't do it.

"I don't know about you, but I've met a couple of people that couldn't do that and still were able to be great mages."

He looked at her suspiciously. "I thought no one taught you."

"Doesn't mean I haven't met other mages. They do give me tips to broaden my base," she replied smoothly.

"Right," he said, stretching the 'i'.

"Anyways. Your aura is a deep blue so it's most likely you can use Water." She then smiled. "If that's so, then you're in luck, kid. I'm a great Water Elemental mage myself!"

"Water elemental? What does that mean?" he asked, surprised.

Now it was her turn to be surprised. This world didn't have elementals? Or at least normal Water mages? She raked Astra's brain of all knowledge of magic and, while she didn't have a great understanding of it, there still was some common information that all people had. There were various types of magic, but the main five, who only some knew how to draw from what Astra knew of, were: Sea, Forest, Storm, Inferno, and Space. She didn't know the specifics of each one though considering the names, she could guess all. Though, how internal and external magic came to be, she had no clue.

In her world, there were innumerable specialities but the main types of magic were five, too: Aether, Water, Air, Earth, and Fire. And without knowing if they really manipulated aether, which was really rare in her world, or if it was another type that they called Space and had nothing to do with Aether, it was better to not speculate.

Anyways, at least she could guess that she was supposed to be a Sea mage.

"Er... I mean, a Sea mage. Yeah, that." His suspicions didn't abate, instead, they grew. So she added, hastily, "Hey, what do you expect of me? I told you I didn't go to a fancy Academy so of course, I don't know the correct names. Humph!"

He hummed, still looking at her weirdly, so she just turned around, giving him her back, and walked forward. "Whatever. Let's just go. We can talk more when we have reached our destination."

"All right. Though you're supposed to take a right now to go to the river."

She stopped and looked behind her where the kid had turned and was going to another path. She took the collar she kept from the leader and inspected it to hide her embarrassment.

- -

A/N: Finally, to take all the stinkiness off them.

Amy Winehouse is today's singer. What about you, what are you listening to?