Not much happened in the next few years on the farm, next time Redmond came he brought a spearhead for Autumn to make her own spear, better than an axe if goblins show up while the sheep are grazing, and it helped her feel much better when at 12 her father stopped coming with her to take them out, she only needed it once, just a stray goblin, but she kept her lunch this time, the screams would haunt her for a time but it wasn’t much different from the sheep to her, she also learned to manipulate water mana to dampen some of the overwhelming feeling of sensing, Redmond said it was a crutch she should work away from at some point but a good idea for a little while, at 13 she could feel and start to move every element, her training could’ve been faster but whenever she did it in the house Harlan would wake up and begin to cry, leaving only the time she was watching the sheep to try and train.

“Your Uncle is coming in 2 weeks, seems he’s been promoted again and got leave early after some big mission.” Aida said at breakfast while feeding Harlan, Autumn was practically beaming to hear it, her hair was starting to get a slight orange shine, showing an affinity towards fire, she finally managed to make lightning spark, create embers to light larger sticks and then a little wind to stoke the fire, freeze a puddle, and hold a pebble over her hand, she hoped since she could finally manipulate that he would teach her how to use light and dark, she could only train those on a hurt animal or small pests around the farm, Redmond was very, very serious when he explained how bad an idea trying to heal or breakdown a living creature was without training, even a small scratch could end up growing into cancer if she wasn’t sure what she was doing and just tried to grow a wound closed.

Harlan barely reacted to the news, he still didn’t get who the man who brought him colored wood shapes was, but the child barely reacted to anything, lightning strikes that were close enough to shake the house, a spider on his hand, he didn’t seem to mind those things at all, they were worried he was deaf or slow but the local nurse said he was a perfectly healthy child, other than never seeming to tan and being too quiet he was a perfect child, he spoke little but well, not a surprise since they all spoke God-given in Ragne.

And with that the breakfast ended shortly, they all went to their chores, the girls all wondering what Redmond would bring this time. Aida was just glad he was safe still, that she still never had men in red suits deliver a black letter.

Redmond came just before dinner was served, always on time for a free meal, it took Aida’s harshest glare to keep the girls from badgering him about gifts before dinner was over, it helped that he told the story of how he got the promotion.

“Well, it was a normal warg culling. No one was hurt yet, but livestock kept disappearing. It wasn’t until we got into the forest and pretended to walk into the ambush, and I noticed that the sun seemed to be abnormally bright for being under so many shady trees and turned up to see a hati was diving, it was a sneaky one too, most of the time it is the first thing we find out, a wolf flying through the air and glowing is pretty noticeable. I shoved the captain out of the way before it got him, took a couple of fingers though, it probably realized he was an archer and wanted to be able to flee if needed, anyway I spun around and gave it a nasty gash on its side, it yelled a lot of things I won’t repeat then it tried to flee. The captain didn’t have fingers to draw his bowstring, so I quickly regrew them, I never did it before but I didn’t want to let the beast get away. it wasn’t pretty but they worked well enough, he loosed an arrow at it and it fell to the forest floor, we cleaned up the wargs and got back to the town. The captains fingers needed to be severed and properly regrown but after hearing it was a hati who did it, they healer didn’t even charge us, just thanked us for possibly saving the life of his boy from those hateful child killers, long story short I got promoted and they are gonna send me to learn how to heal properly.”

Aida and Harlow gave a look that they clearly didn't believe all of it but were glad he didn't scare the kids with whatever mess it actually was.

“Whats a hati?” Harlan asked

“An old warg who evolved”

“Does it have wings? Does it have pretty colors like the birds? How big was it? Was it scary? Was it strong? Was it-” Aida cut him off then, they had never seen him take interest in anything like that, he would barely speak other than to Ava since she was the youngest.

“Well, in order, no wings, its white but doesn’t have any patterns like those pretty birds, about as big as your dad at its shoulders, yes its scary, those things are very bad news, if you ever see one tell someone as soon as you can so us big strong soldiers can handle it,” he flexed as he spoke “and its not very strong, bigger than a warg but probably as light as you are, they use cowardly tricks to attack people and run away if they don’t think they can win quickly.” he said with much more of a snarl than he intended, the long hours of a frontier soldier kept him on edge and it kept taking longer to return to a civilian mindset.

An awkward silence descended on the table…

Aida broke the silence. "How about some fruit for dessert? Would you like to help me pick some Redmond?”

Even now he still felt like a child being scolded by his older sister. They went a short walk away from the house to their berry patch.

“Do you want to talk about what happened in there…” she said with hesitation, and he deflated. He wasn’t going to be in trouble with her for scaring the kids. She was just worried about him.

“No, I don’t think so, I’d just a little wound up, long hours out there ya know, it's nothing to worry about.”

She knew she should’ve pushed him on it, tried to comfort him, but she never felt like she was all that good at that. She wished their mother was here to help him where she couldn’t…

They picked a bowl of berries and walked back to the house while he whistled to try to keep from walking in silence, it only barely helped her stop worrying about him, after happily eating berries and Redmond betting he could throw them in anyone's mouth the tension was gone and the merry chatting started again, only interrupted to give out gifts.

“For Ava, a music box.” she started winding it up as soon as it was in her hands

“For Amber, a flute, something to keep you busy when winter has you all locked up in here.” a shrill sound instantly rang out. "Maybe practice after I leave?” they all got a laugh out of that as Amber turned beet red in embarrassment.

Harlan just got more wooden animals to play with.

“And lastly, for Autumn, a lightly enchanted sheep whistle so you can call them back faster.” she took it and just seemed mildly confused but happy. Sheep were stubborn and she was tired of having to shove them to get them back to the farm.

“I expected a little more whining about not getting something for music like you sisters. I guess you are grown enough for this after all.” he pulled a leather-bound book from his spatial bag, it was dusty and clearly saw much use, the only descriptor left was a faded gold star and a magically signed name, judging by the look on her mothers face it was clearly dangerous, valuable, or both.

“How much did that cost?” Aida was clearly not impressed by what she thought was coin better spent on other things.

“Nothing at all, the guild was getting rid of this one for a new copy and since I got promoted, they decided I should learn more, I’ve been reading this for months now and I’ve got everything I can from it, I figure she could use it to learn when I’m not here, then I’ll help her understand the harder stuff when I’m here.”

“Uncle, who is Marigold?” it was the only word that could still be read on the front of it

“The first Archmage, she wrote that book about 800 years ago, after the Gods left and the priests couldn’t guide mages with their help anymore she decided to take the task on herself, we would’ve been overrun and forced into walled cities still if she didn’t help so many people learn to control and make new magics not approved by the Gods.” and with that she tore into it, looking like she thought staring hard enough at the words would make them be absorbed faster.

“How about you put that in your room until we get everything cleaned up, you’ll have all the time in the world to read it after your Uncle is gone.” and with that she slipped into her room, placing the book on her dresser like it was going to fly away and went back to the main room, after another hour of playing with her siblings and listening to her Uncle’s stories they decided it was time for bed, she lit the candle on her bedside and read until her eyelids felt heavy, she dreamt she was a powerful mage growing forests and killing all the bad things in frontier so her Uncle could be home more.