Almost Burning The Village

She walked down the stairs and made her way towards the door. The weight of the Grimoire had almost made her lose her balance.

The sun outside made her blind for a moment, Nefaaya shaded her eyes with her hands. She looked around. Learo was practicing with his sword, she could hear the sound of his sword as it cut through the air.

"Don't you think it was too early for her to have that book," Learo said.

"I think that it would be good that she had taken interest in it," her mother, Nefri, replied.

Nefaaya followed where the voice was coming. It was already past morning, the sun had mostly ascended above the distant mountain ranges. But there are still thin flocks of clouds scattered on the horizon. The leaves of the nearby tree rustled as the wind started picking up. It scared the birds and carried the leaves on the ground to her direction.

She found Nefri crouching before her garden, her hands were stained with dirt. She was wearing a wool dress and leather boots paired with her gardening apron where she put seeds and other tools. Beside her was her father, Learo, in white shirt and brown trousers. He was slashing his longsword in the air. He aimed in a straight line and immediately pulled back the sword, and spun around to slashed again in the direction of an unseen enemy.

Learo stopped and sighed inwardly, "I'm just worried... that she might feel just like how you feel." Nefaaya noticed the uneasiness in the way her father phrased what he had said.

Her mother turned in her direction and waved her hands. Nefaaya walked slowly, she felt tired carrying the thick book with her.

Nefri rose and walked towards her.

"What is it, Nefaaya?" She said, crouching before her.

His father continued his sword practice. But Nefaaya got a feeling that he was listening to what she would say.

"What is casting? I was trying it last night, but it seems I cannot do it," she said.

She smiled.

"First let me ask you one thing, can you read what was written here," she touched the book's cover with her fingers.

Nefaaya blushed, shaking her head. How could she forget! She was even a teacher in her previous life. The basics in wanting to comprehend a concept was being able to understand it first. How could she understand it when she had no means of understanding it in the first place!

"This language was a variation of Lilian Language used in the Nortic Empire. It is called High Lilian," she said.

Nefaaya abruptly said, "can you teach me how to read it?"

"Your mother wasn't a great teacher and up until now I'm still having a hard time in comprehending that language," she started and glanced somewhere.

Nefaaya traced where her mother was looking.

"But I know someone who could," she said louder than usual.

Nefaaya tilted her head, wanting to know the answer. And then she saw Nefri glanced at the direction of her father. When Nefaaya turned at him, Learo was no longer practicing his sword. He was sitting cross-legged in the grass, a longsword laying beside him. His long black hair unbraided and was being whipped by the wind.

He breathed heavily. "Okay, okay, I'm teaching her High Lilian... But."

Learo turned to her with a smile, "you also need to learn how to use a sword."

Nefri gasped.

"Nefri don't pretend, you know that this daughter of yours would not stay in this high-mountain village forever. The first sign had already shown that someday, Nefaaya would go down to explore the world for herself. And when that day comes, I want her to know more than casting. She needed a reliable weapon, and the sword could do it for her."

Looking into her father's suggestion, she realized it was true. Nefaaya had fixed her mind on the idea of being able to explore this world. But, she didn't even think of leaving this village! All she wanted was enough skills to survive. But it seems her father misinterpreted her enthusiasm to learn.

"She practiced the sword three hours after the first light and then I'll lend another two hours for teaching her High Lilian," her father said and started walking in the direction of their house. Learo stopped and glanced at her from his shoulder.

"What are you waiting for, we still have an hour before the schedule for High Lilian ends," he announced.

Nefaaya's eyes widened. *He's strict,* she thought. *It reminds me of one of my professors in college to whom I shaped my teaching.* The nostalgia had made her longed for her old life.

She stood before the door waiting for Learo. And as she does, her mind keeps going back on her previous life—almost in a trance.

Only the sound of Learo's boots had pulled her back from her reverie. She saw him carrying scrolls, fountain pens and bottles of ink. He stopped, eyes searching for something. When he saw his daughter staring at her, Learo announced that the best way to learn something was to find a comfortable place.

Her father settled in the tree beside their house. There was a wooden table placed before it; her father built it last summer against Nefri's wishes. She insisted that there's no need for another table, well it turned out there was. She thought it was perfect since the table was shaded by the tree. Learo murmured to himself as he scattered the things on the table.

"As you can see from your book, High Lilian was a writing with an appearance similar to the waves. It is because the first users of this language had come from across the ocean. Or so what the scholars said,'' he said. "High Lilian was characterized by having its letters connected to one another."

*Oh, much similar to what we call cursive in our world.*

"But High Lilian has a rule that only thirty letters are allowed per line."

Nefaaya raised her hand, "no matter how long? What if the the thirty letter rule was not enough for the other wor-"

His father cut her, "thirty letters, if the last word in your sentence wouldn't fit, you have to put it in the next line, just add a dash to indicate that it continues the letters below. That's High Lilian, thirty letters no more, no less. You only break the rule if you're ending a paragraph."

As she looked on it, Nefaaya gulped. She know she would be having a hard time mastering this foreign language.

---

Seasons passed. Nefaaya was already four years old. In the course of those months, she always found her father eyeing her suspiciously when he was asking bizarre questions about the language.

There was one instance when a mother and kid were passing on them while they're busy translating a poem. Learo looked at the boy, he was the same age as Nefaaya. Learo looked at the crying kid, complaining to her mother about something. Then Learo gazed at her with suspicion in his eyes. She stared back tilting her head. It was after when she felt too stiff from looking down on the book that she had realized what was behind in that look.

Learo was wondering why she didn't behave like that—why she was different from how the kids her age should be.

Nefaaya closed her eyes in frustration and slammed her feet on the foot of the bed. How could she forget! She was a four year old kid. And kids this age were supposed not to ask bizarre questions. She doubted that kids like her should study a complex language used outside this mountain!

She sat on her bed and shook her head. Her white hair had already grown long, her mother had given her a cloth to tie it every time she was practicing sword or learning language. Nefaaya searched for her mother's Grimoire. Throughout the course of a year, Nefaaya had been able to summon the waterball that her mother was using to water her garden.

Indeed, the key to learning something was the ability to comprehend it. After learning the language, and with Nefri's guidance in describing how casting was done, she was able to summon a waterball.

"For someone to be able to summon, one must visualize it correctly and also speak the right Chant," Nefri said. She closed her eyes and opened it, revealing a gold glowing eyeballs that look almost like swirling fumes of smoke.

Blue Pieces started appearing around her, swirling and restless as if dancing in a beat that they couldn't hear. She learned that Pieces appear when someone is chanting the right words. She asked her mother about the swirls of moving light. She said to her that there wasn't a real explanation about Pieces, but people believe that when Pieces appear around you it is because you're still following the Flow of the World. Deprives were apparently creatures who disobeyed the Flow, thus no Pieces appeared when they Chang the words. What Deprives were was something her mother refused to explain.

A waterball appeared before her hand, swirling as it grew larger, creating a gushing sound similar to a rushing flood.

"Water that gives life. Here my call — Water number one."

When she blinked, her eyes were back to normal. First time mage suffers from something similar to night-blindness. Her mother said that it was the case if you cast powerful spells without proper training. The spell that she could cast had level, water ball was type level 1 for Water Spells.

After Nefri discusses what is casting and its implications, Nefaaya finds herself short of breath and tired. The simple act of visualizing and chanting had her forehead hurt.

When everyone was asleep, Nefaaya headed outside. This time she wanted to try something different. She resisted the urge to close her eyes. Nefri warned her about this habit. She said that a Mage who closed her eyes in the process of Chanting was as good as dead as there were other types of Mage who can enhance their physical abilities. Being unable to track their actions would be a big trouble. Nefaaya raised her hand upward and felt the world around her. When she blinked the darkness of the night had vanished. Nefaaya was surrounded in different colors moving in their own unique paces. Two meters from where she was, she saw what seemed like a raging blue fire, placed atop a slow moving thick bright brown light. She figured out that it was the tree where she and her father did their lessons.

The words of her mother floated back to her mind.

Nefaaya raised her hand, Red Pieces appeared around her, hanging behind her and at the corner of her eyes. A surging ball of fire slowly appeared before her palm.

"Fire that gives light. I call to your might. Fire number one."

In most of her training, Nefaaya had never tried to put too much strength in what she did. But this time she intended to put half of what she can in this ball of fire. The fireball grew brighter and she felt its heat warming her face and her palm. But this was the type of warmth that didn't burn, even if she increased the strength of the fire, the heat didn't increase enough to burn her skin, but she knows that her fireball is getting stronger. For a second she found herself in a dizzying state, confused and dazzled. She looked up, trying to search for the fireball that she intended to explode.

A booming sound. Nefaaya finds herself covering her ear. All around her she saw the lights from the dead houses poured on their windows.

"What was that?" Nefri asked somewhere inside the house.

Nefaaya looked up from the ball of fire that she casted to explode. From where she was crouching she saw remnants of the fireball. Small fires descending towards the village, similar to how a meteor shower would appear in her world. With a start, Nefaaya immediately gathered her thoughts. The fire that didn't die as they descended on the roofs of the house were her targets. She raised her hand and threw a speeding waterball in the fire. He heard the hissing sound of the fire as the water hit it.

The door of their house flew open, and her father saw her throwing waterballs on the descending fire. Nefaaya didn't know what to make out of the situation, Learo was looking at her sternly but Nefri was smiling like a child as if her almost burning the village was something to be proud about!