Continent of Lemila

Prologue - Part 1

I snuck out of the house again, this being the fourth time this month. I'm generally not allowed out of the house to go see people, not that I know anyone to go visit, but Miss Caelynn doesn't let me leave the house unsupervised and especially not without my gloves.

Sometime last month, during one of our shopping trips, I caught sight of a child around my age with icy blue hair. She was practicing some kind of magic that I've never seen before. It was similar to water magic, but the spells were cast differently. The water would turn into ice halfway through, but she seemed to be trying to cast normal water spells and trying to find a way to cast differently to use the ice effectively.

I rounded the corner and found the girl practicing her spells and runes in an alleyway. The girl's spells had gotten better over time, I assumed her parents got her a teacher to practice her special type of water spells. She traced runes in the air, writing out a spell and a small ice qeolae was formed using water from her bucket of water. The tiny creature soared around her head before flying over to me and perching on my shoulder. The girl turned to follow the qeolae and saw me being tickled by her creation. She laughed with me before walking over and gently picking it up with her hands. I pulled back behind the wall and felt my face go a bit red.

"Hey kid! We've been looking for you!" A guard grabbed the back of my collar and yanked me away. I started squirming to get out of their grip, but these guards were used to my flailing by now. The icy haired girl was peeking around the wall, her ice qeolae snuggled up in the palm of her hand.

"Let go! You could've asked me to go with you!" The guard sighed and let go of my collar. I adjusted my tunic and turned back to see if the girl was still there. She wasn't there, but the ice qeolae was flying toward me with something in its beak. It landed on my head and the cold from the ice made me shiver. I reached out my hand and it dropped the item it was holding. The tiny creature melted on my head and the water doused my hair and shoulders.

I looked at the palm of my hand to see a small folded piece of paper. I opened it to find a note with very nice handwriting that I couldn't read. I stuffed the note in my pocket and crossed my arms while walking with the guard. I was dropped off on the front steps of Miss Caelynn's house and sat there waiting for a few minutes before I saw her walking my way with a basket full of groceries on her arm. I stood up and dusted off my clothes while Miss Caelynn unlocked and opened the door.

"Did you run away again while I wasn't home?" I silently nodded and followed her inside. "You do know that you can tell me where you want to go, right?"

"But I don't know where it is! I just want to see the icy haired girl and learn magic like she does!" Miss Caelynn started unpacking the groceries and preparing our lunch and dinner. "She gets to learn pretty magic while I can't even do anything without these dumb gloves on! I want to learn magic like hers."

Miss Caelynn seemed to look very sad for a moment before turning to me with a happy face. "Well you have to learn the basics of magic before you can do any sort of specialized magic. Not to mention that the best schools for magic are very far away from home. You'd have to leave for very long periods of time," she squatted down in front of me and took my gloved hands in hers, "I'd miss you terribly, and I'm sure you would miss my cooking."

"I could write you letters when I'm away, I wouldn't mind it that much. Oh and speaking of letters," I pulled out the note from the girl and handed it to Miss Caelynn, "I can't read this. The words are all fancy and I really want to know what it says. Could you read it to me?"

"I'll do you one better: I'll teach you how to read and write in cursive, and I'll start teaching you basic runes and spells. You need to know a certain amount of spells of certain types to get into the school that girl you mentioned is probably going to." I burst into a smile and tackled Miss Caelynn in a hug. She kind of fell over and started laughing a bit.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! I practice everyday and I'll write you letters all the time!" I got up and started helping out with the food preparation. "I'll even learn how to cook so I can have a taste of home every now and again!"

Miss Caelynn started showing me runes and simple spells to practice while she also helped me learn how to prepare lunches and dinners. She spoke loud enough and clear enough for me to understand and drew runes into the air. A shimmer in the air focused itself into colored light in the shape of the runes she drew. The nearest item started to float, and I practiced reciting those words and runes while helping.