A Fairytale for Wizards

“…Okay.”

The Chief Knight put away his sword. Azriel sat down in front of the wheel. Behind her stood Largo as if he was guarding her. “Esthera.” According to Azriel’s spell, the wheel was surrounded by a dim golden light. As the light disappeared, it became intact as if it had never been broken. It was a brief moment. 

“Ohhh…!” The knights exclaimed.

“You can pay me whatever you want for the repair.” Azriel said firmly as she stood up and brushed off her robe. The Chief Knight blankly nodded and lifted his chin at another knight. He took out a gold coin from his chest. “Thank you, young wizard lady.”

“No problem. Oh, this is too much. You don’t have to pay this much.” A gold coin was equivalent to a hundred silver coins, which was 10,000 pels. It was an amount that could support a poor family for a month.

“Don’t worry and just take it. You saved us.” The knight gave the gold coin to her with a smile on his face and got on his horse. “Let’s be off!”

Without a moment for her to say something, they left immediately. Holding the gold coin, Azriel vacantly looked at them disappearing from her sight. “They must be extremely busy.”

[Woof!] Largo barked instead of answering her. Touching up the messed up road with magic, she smiled pleasantly. “I guess we could buy a better gift, thanks to him, right?”

[Woof, woof, woof!]

“The road is all clean! Let me get on you again, Largo.” Largo, who was wagging his tail, shook his body. In no time, the yellow dog grew much bigger than a wolf and lowered its back. Ariel got on his back. “Let’s go. We should get back before the evening comes.”

When Azriel grabbed the fur around his neck and leaned close against him, Largo dashed through the woods like flying. Azriel stopped by the shopping district in a nearby city and returned home. In her hands, a well-packaged gift was held. The next morning, she held it out to Rhema.

“Happy birthday, Rhema,” said Azriel.

Rhema looked down at the package that was held out to him as if he was looking at a mutant that deviated from the truth. “What is this, Azriel?”

“This is your birthday gift. Your birthday, you said you don’t know the date but it’s in the winter. Today is the first day of winter…” Just like he gave her a birthday gift for the first time, she wanted to give him a birthday gift. However, all Azriel had were given by Rhema. She did not want to prepare his gift out of what she received from him. So, little by little, she raised money with the reward she earned by lending help to the village with magic. Since what she earned was merely at the level of an allowance, she was worried that she would not make much even if she worked hard. However, she could buy something nice as she luckily got to fix a noble’s carriage yesterday.

Upon receiving the package, Rhema’s face gradually turned still. Azriel became nervous. Since he had everything, he did not need anything. Did she do an unnecessary thing? ‘But I wanted to celebrate Rhema’s birthday, too.’ She wanted to do so, just as he celebrated her birthday.

“This is my birthday gift? You prepared this?” Rhema asked again. When Azriel nodded, he cautiously unwrapped the wrapping. A silver pocket watch came out. Without saying anything, he just gazed at it for a while. As his silence went on, Azriel wanted to cry. He must not like it. “I’m sorry, I wanted to give you something better, but I didn’t have enough money.”

“…Did you run out of the gold coins in the storage?” Rhema did not give Azriel a separate allowance but told her to use anything from the basement storage. Inside the storage, gold coin chests that were as tall as a person were piled up like mountains. Azriel bowed her head down deeply. “That’s your money… I wanted to prepare the first gift for you on my own.”

Rhema steadily gazed at her. The emotions passing by welled up, wadded together, and at last made his scale tip. He slowly closed his eyes and opened them back. He picked up the pocket watch. The ticking sound from the watch’s moving hands penetrated into his ears. By the time Azriel wanted to really cry at the long silence, he spoke. “Thank you, Azriel.” His voice sounded different from usual. It was somehow creaking and shaking. “But please don’t give me any gift from now on.”

“You don’t like it?”

“No, I am glad,” ‘To a dangerous degree,’ Swallowing the last words, Rhema briefly smiled. “Since I don’t remember my birthday properly, you don’t have to take care of it.”

“But…”

“Don’t try to give me something, Azriel. I won’t take it from now on.” It was a gentle, yet stern tone. He was glad but asking not to give him anything. Azriel could not understand it. Even saying so, he preciously packed the pocket watch, even the wrapper, too.

*

The next day, Rhema was not seen since the morning. Azriel, who was eating breakfast alone, received a guest who came from the village, running. It was the son of the village chief, Tom.

“Is there an injured person?” asked Azriel.

“He’s all bloody. He must’ve been hit by an arrow,” Tom replied.

“Okay. Wait for a little bit.” She quickly entered the house and put on a robe. Noir, who was rolling around in the living room, asked. “Where are you going?”

“Someone’s hurt in the village. I’ll be back soon.” Azriel answered him quickly and left the house. When she was young, she did not step out without Rhema’s familiar spirit, but ever since she almost mastered conjuring, she often went to the Hanora Village alone. Noir debated whether he should follow the girl running out and decided not to. “Well, she’ll communicate if there’s a problem.” Any wizard could use communication magic between wizards. The black cat lazily yawned and lied down.

Azriel went to the Hanora Village with Tom. In the chief’s house, an injured person was lying down on his chest on a bed. It was a blond boy who looked about 13 or 14 years old. The chief couple was taking care of the boy. He had lost his consciousness and was breathing heavily. On his back was an arrow. It was clean around where the arrow was, as if someone had wiped his injury.

“If I give you a sign, pluck out the arrow,” Azriel ordered.