Eternal Winter

Halting Impression: Part I

"That was the last stop before Austa. We should be arriving by tomorrow." Julian set down his cup briskly, eliciting a rattle from the saucer, amplified even more by the train as it picked up even more speed. He hissed as some of the tea splashed over onto his hand.

Michaela immediately handed a handkerchief to him, a murmured reprimand not far behind, "You think you would've learned delicacy by now."

"I'm a soldier at heart, madam," he replied briskly. "Unfortunately, delicacy isn't quite in our nature."

"Oh? Not even for a gentleman soldier?" I added, arching an eyebrow his way.

He turned a heated stare on me. "Etiquette and delicacy do not necessarily go hand in hand."

"Isn't that what etiquette is?" Sammy piped up beside me.

Julian did not say anything in response to that, merely took hold of his teacup again, sipping noisily from it and earning stares from the booths around us. The next time he set it down, he did so purposefully with a pointed stare towards Michaela who had since turned to look out the window at the white scenery whizzing by.

"It is truly tomorrow already?" Sammy murmured into the lull.

The reminder renewed the tension that had settled over the last few days of peace. Julian looked to Sammy with a brow furrowed and sorrow lighting his normally dark eyes. "It seems so," he replied in equal quiet. "We should be passing under the last of the Midilan mountains soon."

"Do you think...?" Michaela's question quickly tapered off and she shook her head.

"Are you referring to Jakob remaining behind?" I pressed gently. Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she nodded curtly. I sighed, my shoulders heavy as I shrugged. "I do not suspect the difficult of our task will change much, whether he is with us or not."

She twisted the teacup on the saucer absentmindedly. "I fear as much...but it is still discomforting, knowing we could have had the support of a Wizard."

"Thinking on what could have been or not...is always tempting," Julian admitted quietly. "But, do you not think we are enough as is?"

Michaela waited a moment before she replied in equal softness. "I think we can be more than enough." She looked up, then. "It is only a question of how prepared we will be."

"What do you propose?" I asked, sliding my empty cup aside and leaning in closer.

She let out a let breath, before she, too, slid the cup and saucer away. Her voice was barely louder than a murmur, "Let us start with what we have at our disposal—two Apprentices, a Novice verging on Mage, and a skilled fighter against a master of dark magic who is also the Great Wizard Shifter with countless others at her disposal."

"Wait, two?" I asked. "I couldn't be more than a Mage, surely."

She shook her head and then gestured to the spell book at my hip. "It is a true mark of an Apprentice magician to be able to read and cast spells—of which you can do, after having trained with my father and Jakob in doing so."

"What about me? It was only in the last year I learned I was a magician," Sammy commented.

"You are a Novice verging on Mage. Novice is the lowest rank of magician, those who have the weakest grasp on any tendril or whiff of their magic. A Mage is one who can call upon their magic in practice and commonplace, which is the sign of one who has become closely intwined with their Art. Had you not trained extensively back at the summit and since, you would still be a Novice. Although, eventually, you would have still become a Mage as the years progressed," she explained. "The higher ranks are much more difficult to reach and focus around training and spells alone: a Wizard is able to intuitively read and cast spells, but a Great Wizard is able to create spells."

"There is only one Great Wizard at a time, though," I stated. "Couldn't there be other magicians capable of creating spells?"

She leaned back and pulled her hair over one shoulder as she shrugged. "It is quite possible, though, I would not stake too much on it being so. There is a reason there is only one Great Wizard—it is a countlessly difficult endeavor, the nature of spellwork. Some spend their entire lives studying and are never quite able to truly reach Apprentice." She nodded towards me, then. "It is why I say you are an Apprentice, after having seen your success time and again in spellwork."

"Then, why are you not a Wizard?" Julian asked, turning towards her. "You seem talented and capable enough."

She grinned widely, her eyes sparkling. "That is very kind of you to say, but I can assuredly say I have not reached the same level as my father or uncle. Not when I cannot yet read and cast a new spell with ease."

I thought back to our time at the summit of the ever-flame. The difficulty of reading through each and every spell, even when they seemed otherwise indecipherable. Yet, once I had read them, the cast replied almost as quickly as the wind. Although, the wind hadn't always replied to me so easily. No, it had taken over six months before I was a Novice verging on Mage. Six months of re-training and I wasn't even quite at the level I had supposedly been at before...before Teacher...and Olym.

In another life that only spoke to me in snippets and whispers.

My eyes dropped before I could stare between Sammy and Michaela—the reminder of all that I should remember and know. Even then...even then...could I say this magic was truly mine? When it had been forced into being by another who served as a similar reminder of a past life that no longer existed?

There was a gentle bump against my leg and I looked up at Julian, whose dark eyes were trained on me intently, a silent question resting in them. I held his stare for a moment—the noise of the train carriage slowly coming back to me, the light of the flitting, white scenery reaching me again—and I nodded once at him, bumping his leg in return. The weight wasn't quite off my chest, but I could breathe.

Now wasn't the time for questions on what could have been or was.

Only that we were enough.

There...and here.

As the noise changed from the gentle conversations and clattering of dishes into a wave of tense silence filled quickly with terse voices climbing in volume.