Heart of Dorkness

I think I’m getting used to flying.

More or less.

Having Felix clinging onto me helps a little. She’s like a warm teddy bear, but less plush and more... bones. At least she’s distracting, asking me questions and listening to me tell some of the stories I remember.

I’m not great at story-telling, I don’t think, but Felix doesn’t seem to mind, and some of the questions she asks are surprisingly insightful.

Mostly, I find myself talking about some of my favourite subjects. Magic!

“I know there are eight elements,” Felix says.

I nod. “That’s right. Mostly right. There are actually a few more than that. Sixteen by some reckonings, and twenty-four by others.”

“Which one’s the right number?” Felix asks.

“That depends. Is Ice an element? Or is it just Water but cold and solid? Is Magma an element, or is it just really hot, liquid fire? Even your own element has more than one form.”

“My element? You mean Wind?” Felix asks.

I nod, which tugs my hood back a bit, and the wind whipping past us does the rest, ripping it off... again. I tug it back on. “Yeah. You use wind to see, right?”

“I think so? It’s not so much wind, just, like, feeling the air move?”

I laugh. “Air moving is what wind is.”

“Oh. Then I guess it is wind. I don’t remember when I learned how to do it though. I’ve been able to for a long time.”

“Maybe you were blessed by one of the Three, or maybe Gaudium smiled down on you?” I ask. “Did you ever stay at one of their temples? I read that one way to unlock a praxis... technically it’s how I did it, but, well, I cheated a bit.”

“Because your mom’s a god.”

I feel my cheeks warming a bit. “I guess. I’m a bit privileged.”

Felix nods, her head rubbing against my back. “I wish I had a mom, period. Even if she wasn’t a god.”

“Well, you had to have a mom at... uh, nevermind. Hey, if you want family, then we can be as close as family! A lot of my books say that friends are the family you choose!”

Felix’s laughter is loud and clear, and she hugs me tighter. “Would that make you my sister then?”

“I guess,” I say. For some reason, I can’t stop my face from flaming. I don’t know what the emotion is, exactly, so it’s hard to pin. “W-well, anyway! Magic. Uh, you never had much of an education with yours, right?”

“More like none,” Felix says.

“Right, that makes sense. Well, Wind magic is pretty strong. A strong Joy mage can use the magic to speed themselves up, as well as to control the wind around them. It’s not super strong in a direct offensive way, but Wind magic can be used for all sorts of handy things.”

“Okay,” Felix says. “I know I can use it to hear people from afar, and to know where people and things are.”

“Those are probably some pretty advanced uses of Wind magic. You’re actually really impressive.”

“I’m really not,” Felix says.

I shrug. I’ll have to show her how far behind the average Joy mage her age is—maybe then she’ll learn how far ahead of the curve she is. “You probably spend more time practicing than most. Um. What kind of exercise do you use to regulate your emotions?”

“Regulate?” Felix asks.

I swallow. “Oh. Yeah, of course.” That’s not the best news. “Well, it’s not too late, I’m sure.”

“What is it?”

“Using too much of one emotion can be bad. It becomes easier to use that emotion over time, and eventually you feel that emotion constantly. There’s two paths you can take. One is to constantly spend that emotion, cycling it through your core non-stop so that it’s always low. That means never really feeling that way until you need to.”

“But I like feeling happy,” Felix says.

“That’s the other path, to feel that emotion constantly. The problem with the suppression route is that until you need to use that emotion, you won’t feel it. A Joy mage will be unable to feel happiness, an Anger mage won’t be able to feel anger. Then it comes out as a powerful burst when using that kind of magic. It’s... generally considered the better way of doing things.”

“And my way?”

“To always feel an emotion, without ever stopping, that means that eventually that’s all you’ll be able to feel. A Grief mage that feels nothing but grief will die of sadness. A Fear mage will have their heart give out.”

“But being happy is nice,” Felix says.

She’s still upbeat, still happy.

“Yeah, I know, but, but maybe sometimes you shouldn’t be happy? Even if it means hurting a little?”

Felix shakes her head. “That doesn’t sound right. If I’m not happy, I can’t see.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “Look, there are exercises, and there are ways to make it... not be so bad. You’re still young, you can still rebalance things. Even if that might mean not feeling so happy all the time, you’ll at least be able to live, right?”

Felix squeezes me a bit. “Thanks,” she says.

“You’re a friend, and friends don’t let friends turn into jabbering messes.”

Felix laughs.

The wyvern we’re riding on growls, a deep, resonating sound that makes it rumble beneath me. I lean forward, hands grabbing at the spikes nearest the end of the saddle. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

I squint ahead, and then grin as I see something, way off in the distance. A plume of dust, rising up into the sky. The caravan!

It’s nearing night-time already, and we haven’t had a break yet.

I’m not sure if attacking at night is a good idea. On the one hand, they’ll be stopped, but I don’t need to take out the entire caravan, just the wagon with the books, and maybe having some more help would be nice.

A dozen wyverns is scary, but I’m pretty sure the caravan will be somewhat well guarded.

“Let’s land,” I say. “We can walk around, maybe drink and eat a bit. And then we can plan things out.”

“You don’t want to get it over with?” Felix asks.

“Not just yet. We can surprise them in the morning. My books always mention the evening and morning as the best times to attack, and I’d rather do it in the morning. Let’s talk more on solid ground.”

Also, I really need to use what passes for a washroom in a big empty forest.

The flight of wyverns tilts to the side, and soon we’re falling gently towards the north, not quite away from the road, but closer to Ares Pond. The road follows the water for a ways, so it’ll be hard to get lost if we find a spot between it and the lake.

The wyverns find a nice clearing with long grass and some trees all around it, and they come down in a swooping landing.

I almost lose my lunch again, especially when Felix grabs me tight around the waist, squeezes, then screams happily into my ears.

I stumble off the back of the biggest wyvern, then find my feet and take a moment to catch my breath while Felix hops off. “I like flying,” she says.

“That’s nice,” I reply. “Can... can you get our stuff out of the bags? I think I have some blankets and ropes; we can set up a small tent if we find some sticks to use as pegs.”

“Is it safe out here?” Felix asks.

“Right, there might be snakes and stuff. I’ll find some smaller monsters to guard our tent overnight. And I guess I can start a fire.”

“You know magic for that?”

“No, I have a tinderbox.”

As the sun continues to set, Felix and I set up camp. It’s mostly me who does the work, and because of that, it’s not very impressive. A large tarp strung between two trees, with pegs holding the edges down, serves as a tent. It’s only enough to stop the rain, even though there isn’t any. We put some blankets down, and Felix helps me find some sticks to pile up.

By the time the sun sets, I have a small fire going--even though it takes me an hour of fiddling with my tinderbox to get it lit. We eat a bunch, some of it warmed on the edge of the fire, some of it burned inside the fire.

Most of all, I have a lot of fun, even if I can’t help that pit of worry in my tummy.

By tomorrow, I’ll have Mom’s books back, and it’ll be back home with me.

Maybe... maybe Mom will let me keep Felix around? Like, as a pet?

***