"The most important thing to remember is…" Nicholos spoke, chewing a half-finished potato from his dinner as he flicked his fork in his hands. He stopped just as suddenly as he started, holding a look on his face somewhere between thought and confusion.

Carmine watched him with her full attention, ready to take note of whatever wisdom the old mage could teach. He didn't have a long beard or pointy hat like in the stories, but if Mother taught him magic, then he must be good at it.

Carmine set her own supper aside, barely touched. Even with Miss Vale's medicine earlier in the week, her face still stung when she chewed. Not that she didn't want to, the Rolderston Inn made better meals than Nicholos ever could, but Carmine wouldn't tell him that. Most of her burns still ached beneath her bandages, but at least now she could push the pain to the back of her mind.

"Uh...well, there's a lot actually…" Nicholos furrowed his brow, scratching his chin with his fork. Carmine scrunched her nose at that. "The most important thing is…"

"Intent," Carmine offered the answer after a moment of silence. This, at least, was the one lesson her mother taught. "That's what M-Mother said."

"That's an important part of it." Nicholos pointed his fork, finally no longer talking with his mouth full. Maybe Mother should have taught him table manners too. "But that is just a part...but you can't think of it as just a part because magic is all one whole at the same time and..." Nicholos went quiet again to think, pinching his brow.

"You're confusing me." Carmine looked at him, doubts starting to form.

"You're not the only one." Nicholos looked around the inn room for the secrets to teaching, while Carmine stared at him from her footstool of a desk. Voices from the tavern below the inn to crawl up the floorboards to fill the quiet. They made sleeping hard some nights.

Does he know what he's doing, Carmine wondered, wasn't there a better place to teach her? Where was his tower? All mages had towers. Except Mother, but she had a horse, so it evened out. For a moment Carmine wondered how Bandit was doing, if the bad-tempered horse was still alive.

"Why don't we just start with what Antora told you, eh?" Nicholos put his plate aside on a table, wiping his hands clean on his cloak. "We can go from there."

"Mother didn't...couldn't tell me much." Carmine tried to recall Mother's teachings of that night, walling off the rest of it. She wished she could recall the lesson better. "She said words in a different language, and that I had to want for what they meant. She made me do funny things with my hands too." She tried to mimic the gesture Mother taught her and curled her fingers in different directions. She only ended up with a cramping hand. "I knocked a chair over once. Mum said the spell was force."

"That is a starting point, at least." Nicholos scratched his beard, looking at Carmine's failed flailing with an amused smirk. "I can't really say there's a 'most important' part about magic, it's all necessary to learn. Maybe an example…" Nicholos grabbed a candlestick from the nightstand at his side. "Say i want to light this candle-"

"Don't," Carmine stopped him. She leaned further away from Nicholos without even thinking. Every firelight in the room stayed locked in a lantern and that still bothered her. An open flame...even the thought sent cold sweat down Carmine's neck.

Nicholos looked at her with a sympathetic nod. "Say...I want to break this candle," he continued with the same tone as if he'd never stopped. Carmine cracked a smile at him. "I would use an application of force, much like what you've been taught. Normally you would use your hands " Nicholos grasped both ends of the candlestick and tried to snap it in his hand. It refused. "One...moment."

Carmine watched him grunt with increasing frustration as the stick bested his strength until he snapped it over his knee.

"There," he declared, trying to hide the wince on his face with a grin.

Did Mother really teach him? Carmine tried to fight back her growing smirk before it spread over her face.

"As you can see...I used force to break the candlestick manually. Ow."

"Why didn't you just-?"

"Use magic? Because, this is the lesson I'm teaching."

Or make up on the spot.

"I used my body's energy to change the candlestick into pieces. Bit of a simplification, but Magic is the same in the regard of using energy to change the world around you." Nicholos nodded, his aimlessness replaced with confidence. "Yes, energy and change; that is the fundamental heart of sorcery."

"What about the words and hands movements?" Carmine asked as she tried to follow along."

"They direct our energy, otherwise you'd not be able to use your spirit for magic." Nicholos moved from his chair and knelt in front of Carmine. She tried to hide her confusion, but her furrowed brow was a giveaway.

"Think of it like this." Nicholos said, pushing Carmine's footstool an inch aside. "My mind makes the decision to move the stool, my energy fuels my muscles which use force to push the stool. In magic: My mind is the intent, my spirit is the energy, my words turn my energy into force and then, the gestures direct it." Nicholos moved his hand next to the stool and whispered the command for force. His fingers moved with practiced swiftness but never touched the stool as it moved back into place.

Carmine hummed in surprise. She could only knock things over with that spell; apparently it could be gentle too.

"Experienced mages can cast spells as easily as you can walk," Nicholos explained, standing up with an assured smile. "The best can manage with a thought."

"Can you teach me that?" Carmine leaned forward, beaming towards Nicholos in anticipation of the answer.

"Well…" he started to stammer, losing all his momentum. "No."

"Oh." Carmine sat back down, a little embarrassed for herself for asking and for Nicholos' response. Am I a bad student? She already began to worry herself. "Sorry-"

"Don't be." Nicholos assured her with more sternness than she expected, but his eyes weren't angry. If anything, they approved. "A hunger for knowledge is an important trait for a mage. Hold on to it."

Carmine met his eyes, still finding it a little strange. Her guardian was a stranger just a week ago, but she saw in him just a glimpse of a wise wizard from her stories. "I will."

"Good." Nicholos turned his attention out the window for a moment, leaning against the sill and gazing up. Rolderston's lamps burned against the black void of night. No clouds covered the sky, but two of the four moons, white and green, shined amidst the spotless black vista.

"Some things in sorcery just can’t be taught. You just have to...feel them; gain your own understanding." Nicholas smiled to the sky, pointing slowly to the pair of moons. “The ancients taught us magic many centuries ago, but not just that. Science, engineering, medicine, they taught us knowledge that propelled us into a golden age. Whether it was to help us survive in a harsh world or just to see if we could grasp their knowledge, I’m not certain. Since then, though, we’ve advanced far beyond their starting line. It may not seem like it out here, but if you ever get to the capitol, you’ll see it's a different world.”

“Why? Because they have castles?” Carmine tried to imagine what Nicholos meant, but the most she thought of were old fables she knew were fake.

“Oh, it's so much more than that." Nicholos focused on the distant horizon, looking at something beyond its edge. "Imagine towers as high as the clouds, a city with multiple levels, walls and floors that move on their own, and, by Gods, the food!" Nicholos let out a wistful sigh, enough to pique Carmine's imagination.

"Fo-food? What kind of food.” Living off of the meals at inns was fine, since that's all she and Nicholos had, but it hardly measured up to Father’s cooking. She made herself a little sad longing for a home cooked meal, but she sought to fill that hole in her heart, and stomach, with something to look forward to.

“Only the best, Carmine.” Nicholas happily obliged. “Over there, they eat for enjoyment. Rich meats, sweet vegetables, and spices that could make your taste buds sing. It's so-”

“When can we go?” Carmine rose clenching her fists in excitement. The capitol, it sounded like a land of dreams, and the food definitely helped.

“Well, we could try,” Nicholos scratched his chin, his smile turning to a shallow frown. “It's great there, but the people, they’re...snobs.”

“Snobs?” Carmine tilted her head.

“They think they’re better than people from the outer lands, like you and me. They think people need to talk a certain way, walk a certain way, dress like this, bow like that,” Nicholos groaned as he shook his head, widening with exaggerated bewilderment. “Sometimes I think those folks have their heads on too tight.” He hunched his head between his shoulders and scrunched his face. Carmine chuckled at his expression. “Though, If you want to go there someday, I’ll try to take you.”

“You promise?”

He hummed a moment, pretending to think. “Aye, I say I could promise that, if you promise to be a studious pupil.”

“That means i need to study a lot right?”

“Right you are.”

“Then I promise.” Carmine replied, confident she would be the best student Nicholos ever had.

“We have a deal then,” Nicholos nodded with a grin. “You be a good student, and I’ll treat you to the best the Capitol has to offer.”

Knuckles rapped on their door at the end of their deal. “Nico, you in there?” Vale’s voice called from the otherside. “Please be, my evening has been awkward enough already.”

Nicholos pushed off the wall towards the door. “You’ve got us, Vale,” he replied opening the door to their hooved friend. Vale trotted inside holding a few sheets of paper.

“About time,” Vale sighed, her shoulders slacking. “You would not believe how angry some people get when you accidentally walk in on them-”

“Vale,” Nicholas tried to get her attention, motioning to the papers in her hands. “What have you found?”

“Oh, well, I asked a few folks I know in town about some odd jobs; finding a lost pet, fixing a leaky roof. You know the type.”

“Right, all jobs that are a little…” Nicholos droned, waving his hand for Vale to move on.

“Below your station?” Vale raised a brow at him. “You might want to cut that attitude, Nico. Last you told me, you hadn’t gotten a big job in a while.”

“That’s fair,” Nicholos nodded with a begrudged frown. “But still, I am an experienced mage, not a handyman. Fixing roofs and finding pets seems like a bit of a waste of what I can do.”

“Whatever. Just don’t get too picky,” Vale shrugged, glancing towards Carmine. “You’re not just looking out for yourself anymore.”

“I know. What about those papers? More jobs?”

“Not exactly.” Vale placed them on a night table and looked for a candle, only to find the broken one from Nicholos’ lesson. She said nothing, just gave him a narrow eyed stare.

“I was teaching.” Nicholos shrugged in a futile attempt to look innocent.

“Right. Might want to keep those lessons a bit less destructive," She wagged her finger at him, "or you’ll have another thing lightening your purse.”

While they went back and forth, Carmine peered between them at the papers Vale laid out. They had a lot written on them, in small writing too, but Carmine read the larger words at the top just fine.

“Land deed,” she read out with slight confusion. “Deed? What did the land do?”

“A deed!?” Nicholos picked up the paper and held it to his face. His eyes shifted over it as his brow deepened. “Vale, I was looking to make some silver, not to spend what I have left.”

“Then you should think harder.” Vale countered. “Carmine isn’t in a state to travel you know. Not to mention if you take to the road I'll have a lot more trouble finding you.”

“So I should buy a house?” Nicholos slapped the paper with the back of his hand. “Why!?”

“Maybe because the second floor of a tavern isn’t the best place for a young girl to live?” Vale rested a hand on her hip. She let the noise from the revelry below fill the silence between them. Yells, howls, and more than a few words that Mother would not have let Carmine say floated up again.

Nicholos grumbled, but didn’t argue. “Still don’t see why I need a house here,” he said.

“It might help to have a place of your own,” Vale suggested. “In time you may not need it anymore, but for now some stability will make it easier for Carmine to recover, and you to adjust.” Vale pointed at the paper in Nicholos’ hands. “It’s a small place, a bit further away from town. You’d have your own privacy and wouldn’t have to worry about getting thrown out in the street. You know, in case you’re too picky about the jobs open.” Vale sent another smirk his way.

Nicholos let out a long sigh, considering the paper in his hands before looking at Carmine. “What do you think, kiddo?”

She shifted from foot to foot, remembering the comforts of home, and how much she missed them. “I...I'd like having my own room again. There's a lot of people here.” Hearing people stomp past the inn room's door worried her every single time. A home, even a small one, sounded a lot more peaceful, more than the last few weeks at least.

“Alright,” Nicholos relented, turning back to Vale, “We’ll give it a go.”

“Great! Hope you’re ready for an annoying amount of paperwork,” Vale warned.

“This far from the capitol? How!?”

“Sorry, the empire is fond of its land control. Just be glad you’re not a faun. There'd be a dozen more forms to follow, and then an arbitrary rejection to top it all off.”

Nicholos groaned as Vale ushered him into a chair. She put a pen in his hand and sat across from him, pointing at where to start, though Nicholos grumbled that he already knew. The pair of them went over the documents top to bottom, bantering back and forth through the evening. Carmine watched them both, feeling a slight ache on her face from a small smile.

A new home, she considered without a word, maybe…it would be alright.