While discussing magic with Kenji and teaching him a few more tricks, I was once more reminded just how insightful and intelligent Sabrina really was. We were discussing tricks to improve his archery using Wind Magic, with me giving him a few ideas based on the way I had seen Adra use her magic archery when Sabrina started to add her own two cents. Normally, I wouldn’t have expected a child to have any idea about that topic, even my prior teachings had never gone into the direct combination of magic and weapon usage as I considered it to be rather specialised, and yet, Sabrina had good ideas.

Mostly, her ideas were focused on the basic theory I had gone over with her, but she had figured out a few quite insightful ideas. Her primary suggestion, one that would either turn out to be useless or genius, was that Kenji should try to learn how to channel Lightning Magic. There was some truth to it, the primary association with Lightning would always be a bolt, a near-instantaneous strike between two points. While combining it with Archery would be a challenge, simply channelling Lightning into an arrow wouldn’t do much, it had a lot of potential. Enough potential that Kenji happily perked up at the idea, clearly intrigued.

However, getting him into Lightning Magic was a bit of a challenge. My own skill came from a combination of Fire and Wind Magic, but I had never done a lot with it. It just didn’t mesh well with the rest of my abilities, especially with my recent focus on Enchanting. That just needed different Rune Masteries, creativity and Crystal Magic, allowing me to directly engrave runes into metallic, or rather crystalline, materials using my magic. Otherwise, I’d never have invested the time to push the Magic, even if I felt a certain affinity for it, as Ice was also made up of crystals, just like the Astral Power storing Blood Spheres I had seen on Mundus.

But Lightning, Lightning was loud, bright and the exact opposite of subtle, the only things worse would be Light, even Fire was preferable to Lightning. It burned, but that was it, as long as I managed to keep the fire concealed in Darkness, I didn’t need to bother, but with Lightning, I needed to conceal the flash and hide the noise. Even the pure static charge I assumed would be left in the air after powerful Lightning Magic was used would be a give-away, just like the ozone-scent it produced. If not for my racial dislike for Light Magic, Lightning Magic might beat even that one out as my least favourite and least affine type of Magic. But I still managed to give Kenji a few ideas on where to start working.

I didn’t think he had the potential to get into Fire Magic, we tried a few small experiments using conjured Fire and a bit of channelled Fire Astral Power but he was unable to manipulate either. Instead, we went directly for the Lightning, using pieces of wire, one of which we grounded while I let short zaps jump from another piece I was holding in my hand to focus the stuff. It worked reasonably well, Kenji quickly managed to sense the zaps and by the end of our practice he managed to direct the zaps away from one wire and towards, though the distance wasn’t that big. But still, he managed the redirection as long as I didn’t resist his attempts. At the end of the day, I was far more powerful and it was my Astral Power. It worked for training, but in a real battle, there’d be no way for him to fully redirect my lightning. Mostly because I’d never use it, but that was a wholly different problem.

By the time Kenji was completely exhausted, the rest of his group and the local survivors had finished their discussions about future plans. Just as expected, the group would escort the survivors to Apple Gate Farm, taking the gathered supplies with them. There, the survivors would be integrated into the ongoing efforts, which should help a great deal, especially with child care. There were already too few children for anyone to be really comfortable with the situation, so protecting the few children who had managed to survive thus far was high on many people’s priority lists.

A contributing factor was that pregnancy, or rather the birthing process, would return to a fairly dangerous proposition, without good equipment and doctors. Reasonably advanced magic could replace the equipment but that solution needed talented and trained healers, merely changing the problem. Luckily for those at the Farm, motherhood, and thus the birthing process, was part of Frigg’s portfolio, so the Goddess should have some adequate prayers to speak and miracles for her clerics to call upon.

But the coming exodus of the survivors left me with a decision to make. Either we could stay nearby, remain in the vacation-mode we had drifted into since meeting Sabrina, or the vacation could end. At that point, the decision on how to proceed with Sabrina would go from pending to necessary, I would have to make one. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to expose her to combat, all lessons and rules about correct behaviour I had learned told me taking a child into a bloody battlefield was wrong.

But those lessons and rules had been based on the world before the change. A world where, at least in Western countries, children were allowed to just be children, an idea people wanted to impress on the rest of the world. However, if a family didn’t have the resources, the money and food, to sustain their children, was having those children work the wrong choice? If the alternative was starvation, was child labour wrong? Similarly, in a society that lacked the depth to reliably protect children, was it wrong to teach a child to fight? Or was it the right thing to do, giving her the tools to protect herself?

I had a feeling that there was no right answer. Both answers could go horribly wrong oh-so-easily but I knew I couldn’t simply leave the decision to Sabrina. She would never think that she could die out there, she had been utterly fearless when it came to magic and I had no doubt that she’d elect to stick with me if given the choice.

And maybe that was the answer. She could get into trouble with either choice. Apple Gate Farm, as much as it was the best location I currently knew about, was not guaranteed to survive, especially if I failed to exterminate the Withered. Those pests could destroy the farm if given a few months, of that I had little doubt. Even now, they had the numbers and levels, it was only their unwillingness or inability to move too far from the park they were centred in that kept the rest of the city safe. They didn’t spread, but that could change at some point. Even now, their numbers didn’t seem to wane, while their levels kept rising, regardless of how many we destroyed.

“Do you want to tell anybody goodbye?” I asked Sabrina in the evening, knowing that the survivors would leave the next morning. I felt an odd, clenching sensation in my gut when my munchkin simply grabbed hold of my sleeve, holding tight as if making sure I didn’t run away. Maybe that was all the answer I needed, the answer I knew I’d arrive at all along. That I’d take Sabrina with me, doing my best to keep her safe and to train her so she could keep herself safe.

But that also meant I’d have to give my own goodbyes and say farewell to Chris, Jenn and their baby Sebastian. I hadn’t interacted much with the baby, nor did I really want to, and while I had wanted to teach the two adults, they had been resistant to my instruction. Mother had always told me to keep in touch with my friends and help them if I could, but how did this situation fit with her teachings? I couldn’t force my friends to listen or to adapt to the situation we found ourselves in. They had to get their act together and that was something they had to accomplish.

And yet, I had a feeling my mother would want me to help them. She had told me helping friends wasn’t just for when it was convenient. That looking away could be just as bad as hurting them and that sometimes friends didn’t know they needed help. That they thought they could deal with a problem themselves, only for their problem to slowly devour them, until there was nothing left.

Sadly, while I felt like I should help them somehow, that somehow was the problem. I had no idea, I had tried to teach them but maybe it was a situation where you could lead a horse to water but you couldn’t make it drink.

Luckily, Sabrina was happily drinking in all the teachings I could give her. Though, if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be my munchkin.