My teacher is THE Ancient Elf. I thought the lessons would be exciting, and, sometimes they are, but they're pretty mundane, too. I'm working hard, want to make hir proud. But now they're having me help another beginner, too. Wow, didn't know teaching was this hard.
@internutter/challenge-04371-k353-itinerant-educator -- Anon Guest
What nobody tells you about learning magic is how boring the practice can be. How humbling it is to know how difficult everything actually was. Including re-learning Ancient Elven. My grammar sucks and my pronounciation is worse.
As for history, hir first lesson was why they called it the Imploded Empire. There's bryg'haduuns all over the place. Cities that pop up out of nowhere. Places you can only reach at a certain time of year. Places that come into existence for one day, and vanish again for years.
I learned all about the Singing Brick Plague, the Carnivorous Forest, or all the species of aberrations and abominations that resulted from magical experimentation gone bad. It was very alarming to learn how close I had come to turning people inside-out or making rats be the size of ploughhorses.
I've changed my chosen name to Humble Caterpillar. It's appropriate.
I'm nowhere near emerging as a beautiful butterfly. I am still growing. Nevertheless, Wraithvine insists I'm showing good progress.
I'm not feeling it.
Especially not now.
There's a little kid with potential in Scrapie Hills. The gossips said they were Fey Touched at best. They were seven, and a lot strange. Mostly quiet, until you got them started on fungus, lichens, and bugs. And, very recently, Ancient Elven runes and the magic they could make,
He had recently inscribed a stone with the rune for fire and, panicked at its heat, turned mucklemire pond into a hot spring for a tenday. That was what Wraithvine insisted was a clear warning sign. Someone had to teach them.
So, luring them in with learning Ancient Elven Runes, I took them to Wraithvine's strange little classroom.
"Just in time," said Wraithvine. "It's time for your most important lesson. You must teach little Curio everything you know."
"What?" I said, "I barely know anything."
"You know more than you did when we met," said Wraithvine. "You know the beginnings of magecraft. How to push and pull at the leyflow. Which materials lead to the best results. How to temper a rune. That's a lot of knowledge to share. And in the meantime, I will teach you more."
Me? Teach? And worse, teaching Curio, a Hellkin who was strange even for their kind? "How am I meant to teach them when they have such a limited frame of interest?"
Wraithvine smiled. "That," ze said, "is the most important lesson of all."
[Photo by Gary Ellis on Unsplash]
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