Mages of Rubia ✔️

15

Sometimes I can feel someone else creeping about in my mind. It feels strange, like having lice inside my skull. Or a single lice. Sometimes I can tell it's more than just the one, but the first has become a familiar presence.

I've been trying to catch it. By sleeping at the time I've sensed it's presence, and trying to lucid dream. Learning how to took a while, and then I tried four times and seemed to just miss it.

I'm getting pretty tired, at this point. To the extent that I barely manage to keep it together at work.

"What's going on, boss?" Rachel asks.

"Nothing. Just, haven't been sleeping well."

I know for a fact that if I tried to explain this, I would be called insane.

"Right," she says, drawing the word out for what feels like a full minute.

"Get back to work," I snap.

"On what? Everything is like, done already. And we have no customers."

I look towards the arrow sign and raise an eyebrow.

"I'll quit if you make me walk around with that sign again. Then how will you scam old ladies?"

"I'll start selling drugs at that point."

"Or you could go legit and sell something without lying."

"I have to use my magic certification somehow, Ray."

"You could do tournaments to become one of the city mages? Or one of the Council mages!"

"No way. One, I could never make it. Two, you know how I am with authority. Why do you think I do what I do?" I ask.

"I don't think any further than the simple explanation that you're a lowlife street rat kid."

"Rude. Can you restock the gumball machines?"

She rolls her eyes. "Right, fake rabbit feet incoming."

I zone out, staring at the door.

-

I never really worried much about what I would do after school. I get my magic certification, then what? I'm a mage. What do I do to make money? That wasn't on my list of priorities. I thought it would be all fun forever.

But now, two years after school, the best I can say is that I'm running a scam shop to trick non-mages. I have one employee who's ten years older than me and no sign of ever settling to have a family. I mean, I have short romantic trysts, but nothing lasts.

I don't think I've dated anyone longer than a month, and I've never thought once about having kids or buying a house. I live in the shop basement. Which is fully illegal, but all I have.

And basically all I do is sleep, work, or occasionally hang out with my friends.

-

"I am starting to seriously regret my life choices," I say to my friends. They're playing cards, I'm drinking.

"How come, Arden?" Ezzy asks.

She doesn't really care, but she's polite at least.

"I never should have gone to mage school. I could've learned something useful, like, uh, stocks. Had a job that earned money and like, a house."

"Stocks? Do you even know algebra?" Sam asks.

He isn't so polite.

"Yes! They taught that stuff in magic school. But not enough for me to go to college and get a math degree."