Autumn's Fire

Autumn's Fire: Chapter 8

The next two days both started with the nightmare, but were also spent blissfully with Chriol. The first day, I had been heading out the door to go to the willow when I ran into Chriol who was heading up the path to our door. I stopped in my tracks and gave a confused smile.

Chriol smiled back bashfully. "Hey, are you busy today?"

I looked down at my satchel which held my books and considered whether or not reading counted as busy. "No." I decided. "I was just going to go read, but I don't have to if you want to do something today."

He grinned at me and closed the distance between us, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Great! Let's go to the field. I have something to show you," he insisted excitedly. I agreed, and Chriol hurried me down the road towards the meadow.

We made the walk to the meadow in record time as I had to half-jog down the road in order to keep up with Chriol. The sun had just risen an hour before, and the meadow sat quietly alight in the golden orange of the early morning sun. At first, I didn't see anything of note, but as we walked further in, I noticed a blanket set up with two wicker baskets sitting side by side. It wasn't clear what was in them, but Chriol was ecstatic as he sat down next to them and motioned for me to sit across from him. I hesitantly did so and waited, a look of questioning reluctance on my face.

Chriol slowly began to open up one of the baskets but paused for a moment. "Alright, so I know that last time things didn't go great, but in this basket, I brought some basic magic supplies for teaching purposes. Or in this other basket, I have regular activities that don't involve magic whatsoever. Now, we can give the magic basket a try and switch over to the other basket whenever you're uncomfortable. Or if you're already uncomfortable, we can forget that this exists," he hurriedly ran through the options, clearly worried about possibly upsetting me again.

I pinched my lips into a tight smile while I thought. My stomach churned, and I knew that the idea of it was already making me upset. But I also really appreciated the efforts Chriol went through to make sure I felt comfortable. Plus, magic was his job, and I couldn't learn more about Chriol if I didn't grit my teeth and get it over with.

"Okay, we can try for a little bit." I swallowed hard, my stomach trying to escape through my throat.

Chriol pumped his fist dorkily and opened the basket. It was difficult to see inside from where I sat, but I could tell that the basket was filled to the brim. He started getting a bunch of supplies laid out between us, and a thought suddenly occurred to me. I cleared my throat, "Do you not have work today?"

"Hm? Oh no, I've got the week off. The Ormiel twins started their apprenticeship with Asar a few weeks ago, and I supposedly have a tendency to treat them a little harshly during training; so Asar gives me days off whenever the twins are practicing. That works out for me anyway since I'm almost done with my apprenticeship, and I can't stand being around those two idiots," Chriol explained as he continued to set up.

My mind flashed with images of bad memories of the twins, particularly Jenal, and I had to shake my head to stop the anxiety from sprouting. Chriol noticed my reaction and reached out a gentle hand as though to make sure I was okay. I smiled and shook my head, trying to dismiss his worry. He gave a worried smile back as he finally finished laying everything out on the blanket. In front of me were stones, potions, metal implements I didn't recognize and a large book with runes carved into its leather facing. Wide-eyed, I did my best to not let anxiety get the best of me as I waited for Chriol to speak.

He held up his hands reassuringly and spoke gently. "So, this is a lot. But first, all we're looking at is this. Just ignore everything else for now." He held up the book with surprising ease given its size and opened it to the first page.