Chapter 2: A big day.

"I always wonder, you know?" Asked the guard with a longing tone, "Why do you merchants decide to leave behind the safety of the walls just to travel for different cities while you could be an engineer and live here safely?"

Exactly like being a merchant, the engineer was also a mage-only profession.

Engineers were the mages who studied and innovated our magical constructs, they developed the magical barriers around the armored cities which keep us alive and also all the magical items we use in our daily lives.

For example the carriage we rode on in our journeys, it was cooled to let the items inside last longer and enchanted to move on it's own, the scanners used on our documents to enter the city was also made by them, even the documents themselves were magical in nature.

Every single year the barrier would be taken down and built anew with the latest discoveries in magical theories, making it stronger every time, it's been hundreds of years since a beast passed through the barrier.

Merchants were fighters and engineers were scholars, this was the best way to put it.

"I can't speak for everybody, but I love traveling from one place to another, also, I believe that the greatest reward is to hear how much people love the products I bring back, like your daughter does."

That explanation wasn't only for Lesley alone, but it was also for me, father loved to give me these little life lessons in his words from time to time to help me grow into a great person.

"If you say so, anyway, here is your ID, everything is fine so let's go in before we attract unwanted attention out here," waved Lesley to the door, "Welcome back."

"Thank you." we both replied before making our way inside.

We made our way to our empty home, well, not completely empty.

Our house was in the middle of the commercial district of the city and it also doubled as a store on the first floor, where we sold the things that we brought back from the outside, we worked as a community, our goods were given away in exchange of other goods that we could sell in Rockkeep and a part given to those who couldn't work for it, because of physical limitations or other reasons.

We were a tight knit community, we don't leave our people behind.

We parked the magically moving carriage in front of the store and went inside where the person who helped us in managing the store greeted us.

"Oh, Laurence, Avys, welcome back! I hope you've had a safe journey." greeted a woman who roughly looked the same age as father with a wide smile on her face.

She was Sophia, with no surname, a woman with auburn hair and stone grey eyes like most people in Icerock.

She had shoulder length hair braided on one side and a sunny disposition that made people inclined to have a positive opinion about her, which was deserved as she was a wonderful person in my opinion.

"It was normal" I replied making my way to the stair and toward the small library on our second floor "I'm going to research, see you at dinner time"

That was my schedule when I was home, study magic, eat, sleep and repeat, everyday, sometimes I roamed the city to cool down my mind.

Father didn't seem to like it for some reason, but it made me feel great every time I learned something new because as my knowledge grew, so did my ability to cast spells.

For example, I recently learned that the way people utilized magic hundreds of years ago was different from the way we do it now.

While modern magic has its bases on a strict understanding on the phenomenon that the mage wants to manifest, ancient magic was different.

In the library we only had one book on ancient magic, the author believed magic to be much more philosophical than it is believed in modern times.

"Never let yourself be ordered to do things against your principles, only by fighting for what you believe in will magic truly be guided by your will." And "Having full confidence in your own capabilities and your magic is the first step towards being able to cast a spell."

Those were the starting words on a book on ancient water magic called 'Life giver and Life taker' by Elias Thorn, it explained how different ways of conceptualizing magic could bring to different results.

The water element, for example, could be used to both heal wounds by stopping the blood flow and cauterizing the wounds, or cause wounds by, for example, shooting a highly pressurized jet of water to the target.

It proceeded to go in depth on how the mage should focus on their magic to heal through water, so I obviously had to try it out.

So after deeply understanding everything, down to the smallest details, taking notes and trying out moving the mana in the way the book instructed to, I went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife, unhesitatingly using it to cut my palm open.

"Ow." it wasn't a deep wound, but it still stung.

"Oh my god Avys, what are you doing?!" I heard a panicked female voice coming from the door as a woman I knew very well embraced me from behind and checked my palm.

Only after taking away the knife, obviously.

"Why did you do that? Oh no, we have to bandage it before something bad gets inside!" said the panicked woman, Sophia, before she started searching for some bandages.

"Stop Sophia, I've got this." I had full confidence that I could manage to heal it on my own, but apparently my confidence wasn't well accepted.

"The only thing you've got is a scolding coming right after I bandage that cut, seriously, what were you thinking?" She finally found the bandage and turned back to me.

"No, really, look" I showed her my palm.

There was no more blood on it, and the cut was sealed shut by my magic, I still had to figure out how exactly to regrow the skin on it, but it was a great beginning nonetheless.

Above my other hand was a sphere made up of the water I used for my spell, but it was now a sphere of diluted blood, I threw the water into a cup and let go of my magic, making the water in the cup evaporate and leaving only the blood behind.

Water magic was the only productive type of magic I knew, it could temporarily produce water, but it would disperse and return to nature once the spell was released.

"What?"

"See? I got this, I was just trying out a few new spells I learned"

She took my hand and looked at it closely, the skin was still cut open, but no blood was coming out of it, I had also already removed every chance of infection by thought removing any speck of every speck of whatever that entered inside through water magic.

"Never do this again, you understand me? You'll worry your father to death if you keep being so reckless."

"Nah, i'm pretty sure that I'll try even more dangerous things in the future"

She wanted to get angry at my response, but a helpless smile found it's way to her face, she knew that she couldn't win this one, "Just be careful, okay? I don't want to see you in pain."

She's been working with us for years now, since a year after mother's death when I was four.

I was pretty sure that there was something between her and my father, but it wasn't my place to put my nose in, as long as father was happy I couldn't care less if he found another person or not, but I had to admit that I rather liked Sophia, she was nice.

"Yeah sure, I'll try, anyway, see you tomorrow." I say as I left the kitchen with a positive result to my experiment.

"I'll stay here for dinner, so it's a see you later." She winked.

"Sure"

There definitely was something going on between them.

And two months later I had the answer to my internal query.

Out of nowhere, father told me during dinner that they were getting married.

"Say what?"

"As I said, in two months time I'll be marrying Sophia, I hope you can give us your blessing." he spoke slowly and with clarity looking at me straight into the eyes clearly hoping for a positive answer.

I mean, I wasn't bothered by it, just that I would have liked a bit more time to prepare a gift, if I only had two months to prepare I had to hurry to make every preparation necessary.

"I'm obviously okay with it, Sophia is a great person and I love her, it's just that I didn't even know for sure that you two were together."

"Really? I thought that it was pretty obvious." replied the woman in question.

"How so?"

"Well, I sleep here most of the times and I, an unmarried woman, and your father spend a lot of time together, alone."

Well, if she put it that way I could only conclude that I never bothered asking in the first place either.

Anyway, two months passed fast while I helped the couple with preparing everything.

The ceremony was splendid, most people in the city knew my father as a merchant and Sophia was pretty famous too as she managed one of the most successful shops in town, so a good amount of people came to give their congratulations.

Our city didn't have many people, ten thousand at most, and among these ten thousand only around a hundred were mages, most of them became engineers while only around twenty became merchants like father.

It was a job that required not only strength, but also dedication, therefore every single merchant was a figure to be respected as all of them worked towards guaranteeing a good life for the people of Icerock.

Most of all, they were all very friendly with each other and for that reason, fifteen out of twenty merchants came to the marriage, the rest were out of the walls and therefore couldn't attend.

"Avys, come here," motioned my father, "this is Rodrick Bluewing, another merchant, and the small guy by his side is his son, Roman, they wanted to introduce themselves to you."

'Why?' I thought, completely oblivious about the fan club created in my honor among the younger generation of Icerock.

Many adults looked forward to my future in magic, some respected me for the courage of leaving the city with my father, while I was more of an idol to the young ones at the times.

"Hello, I'm Rodrick, I've heard a lot about you, it's my honor to meet a magical genius like you, this is my son, Roman, I hope you could get along." greeted a smiling hulking mountain of muscles politely.

He was around ten centimeters (4 inches) taller than father, but looked like he seemed to weight like two father's combined, his arms alone were wider than my head.

He had short auburn hair and a thick beard of the same color, but his eyes differed from the usual stone grey of Icerock's inhabitants, they were actually a deep green color, like a forest in the middle of summer.

"N-nice to meet you, I'm your big fan!" Said the small boy by his side, he seemed shy, but he eventually gathered the courage to talk to me.

Poor boy, a shy mage would never make it far in the path of the magical arts, he needed to embolden himself.

He was smaller than me by around the same height difference between mine and his fathers and he shared the same feature colors as his father, he was probably one or two years younger than me.

"Yes, it's a pleasure to meet both of you, but if you'll excuse me, I have a special gift to prepare for my father's wedding." and without a second look at the two, I left.

I had already been polite enough, there was no meaning to staying around further.

"That daughter of yours is surely something else, isn't that right Laurence?" Asked Rodrick as he waved his son away to socialize with the other children present, some being children of other merchants and engineers too.