Chapter 19:
Realizations of Home
Izuku made his way back to Atma's public house in an even heavier funk than before.
Something about seeing a little boy almost get permanently disfigured and disabled over a loaf of bread was just day ruining, over and above being trapped in a demon-infested world. He imagined anybody from Japan would feel as dejected by the experience as him, though he thought he'd handled witnesses the attempted ritual sacrifice and torture of six women and similar horrors fairly well.
He turned around to look back in the direction he came, to the town square where Cain had been standing around, either in deep thought or waiting for the random conversation with a stranger that was sure to come by his mere presence. The man had motioned to come talk to him, and he had hinted very strongly at having skills with magics for healing minds. Maybe he should take him up on that offer?
He'd go about his day and see if he felt any better by bed, or else by morning. Hell, a good lunch might cure his malaise.
And so, he arrived at Atma's to find Isendra sitting patiently, hands folded in front of her, at her own little table at the back.
He grabbed two plates of food and brought them over to her.
"Did you have a chance to clear your thoughts?" She asked as she unfurled herself and began eating.
"Yes." He said.
"And are you feeling better?" She asked further.
"No." He answered, again, honestly.
She looked at him blankly, matching his own expression, before motioning for him to eat.
The first bite didn't make him feel any better. The second bite actively made him feel worse. The food here was so bland. It always had been, but hunger from working so hard every day made even the worst food taste like mana from heaven. He had somehow forgotten how accustomed he was to salt and sugar, to choosing cut meats and juicy fruit bred and grown from the best stock and soil. The vegetables were crisp instead of flaccid, the breads were fluffy instead of hard, the dairy was safe to drink instead of making him not crying out for forgiveness of the old Gods, even the American Porcelain God every time he had some.
And that was just the quality of the food stuffs, not the cultural differences therein. He wanted proper rice balls filled with bean paste. He wanted ramen and sashimi. He wanted some good old Korean barbecue and sushi. And what he wouldn't give for some ice cream and chocolate, or a cup of proper tea.
He felt somebody, Isendra probably, shaking him, but he couldn't quite make her out. His vision was so blurry. She was shaking him a little too hard though, because he felt his entire body vibrating with it. Why was he so sweaty and why was he breathing so hard? Then he felt it, a tight pain in his chest.
His last thoughts before fading into blackness was that somebody must have poisoned his food.
He awoke to Isendra's beautiful face and four powerful hands lifting him up.
The absolute mountains of men that were getting him up to his feet looked like demigods of ancient mythology to him, but that was probably his delirium. He recognized one as the man wearing an animal pelt from the day before. The other was a dark, Arabic man wearing ornate crimson robes.
"Hey kid. That looked a lot like a panic attack." Said the mountain man.
"Indeed. Had a few myself during my apprenticeship. Big exam coming up?" Said the Arabic man. "No shame in it. At least you aren't resorting to self harm or excessive drinking like my failed peers in youth."
Izuku blinked at the new arrivals as he pieced together what they just said. Then he remembered his collapse and felt himself curl in on himself, hoping to become invisible to the world."
"Hey now, didn't my friend just say it's nothing to be ashamed of?" Said the mountain before putting a hand out. "I am Wyald Stromm, a druid of Scosglen. You reek of elemental magic, and that's reason enough for me to like you."
Izuku shook the offered hand, trying not to smile at the name nor the antics of the man next to him, who just made air quotes with his hands while mouthing the word "friend". Wild storm? Really? The name suited him, the utter power of his personality was wiping away all of Izuku's emotions like a hurricane.
"And I, I am Drognan of the Vizjerei clan, Mage Lord of Lut Gholein." Said the man in beautiful robes, bowing slightly to him.
Izuku tried to return the bow, then remembered where he was. He looked around to discover that the loud food kitchen was filled with people. And yet none of them were staring at him. They were staring at the two women behind them having a heated debate just off to the side of them. Well, it wasn't so much arguing as one screaming at the other.
"Where do you get off apprenticing a weak, useless boy when even I know it is verboten amongst your Clan!" The woman, some silver-blonde wrapped in far too tight leather, screamed at his mistress. "And you think to actually push him knowing how men can't handle the pressure!"
The entire scene resembled, in Izuku's mind, a mastiff staring down a yapping chihuahua. With his mistress being the mastiff, obviously, and a very patient one at that. She said nothing, just stared dispassionately and let the woman yell. He'd never seen her look so cold, save maybe when they killed the countess.
"Why you Zann Esu deign to pretend that you are a proper sisterhood, when you take on male apprentices, is a sham that you ought to just give up! Why not just put a king on a throne and become his playthings at this point!" The woman said more bitingly, before turning heel and leaving.
She picked up a trident from the floor as she left, one that had been plunged into the polished wood.
The rest of the food house returned to chattering amongst themselves, as if to pretend they hadn't just thoroughly enjoyed the show.
"I do believe our deer Cassia just demonstrated exactly why Zann Esu regularly takes on male apprentices before taking on female ones." Drognan said to Stromm, his mirth clear in his voice.
Izuku wheeled on the dark man.
"Wait, you mean this is common? I thought our relationship was an aberration." Izuku said.
Both men burst out with laughter.
"I doubt there has ever been a Zann Esu who took a female apprentice before an "unofficial" male one." Said Drognan. "They like to get the practice of teaching down with the ease of a male student before the horror of a female one. I'm at the point where if I meet an unaffiliated sorcerer I just assume he was trained by an Esu. It's a safe assumption."
"Yup. As you can imagine, an all female clan, raising females, with magic thrown in and you have a powder kegg that resembles what you just witness, but all the time." Said Strom. "Sorceresses just aren't equipped to raising sorceresses. If they were smart they'd do an exchange program with the Vizjerei to teach each-others young."
"Don't put that evil on us!" Said Drognan. "We quite like the peace of raising only male successors, thank you very much. They want an all female caste? Let them suffer the price for it."
Isendra had stood to the side staring them down during this entire conversation while they all pretended not to notice.
"Are you both quite finished?" She asked coldly.
"No." They said in unison.
"Well, you'll have to save the rest of your needling for another day. My "unofficial" apprentice and I must be on our way. Come, Izuku." She ordered.
"Yes mistress." Izuku said obediently before he staggered after her.
He waved kindly to the two men that had worked so hard to cheer him up after his collapse, which while an obvious attempt and motivation, was still appreciated.
They walked in silence back to Elzix's place in silence, and when they arrived in their shared room Isendra packed what few of her things she had out.
"I need my own room, for your safety." She explained. "That filth has ruined my equilibrium, and if my own magic gets out of control I will need my own space so as not to put you at risk from my errant magic. You are alone for the next day or so. Do as you please, so long as you do not bring shame upon me."
And without any further explanation, she left. He now had the room all to himself.
He did not sleep well that night. He woke up constantly with dreams of his mother and her lovely dinners. Each time he came to in tears, and he realized that his panic attack from earlier was not merely missing the excesses and privileges of having lived in twenty second century Japan, but the loved ones attached to memories of food and comfort.
Izuku wanted his mother.
The next morning saw a much groggier and thoroughly depressed Izuku bathing in Elzix's private baths. The hot water made him feel marginally better, and certainly got his brain working again.
He grasped the idea that had come to him yesterday as less of an option and more of a necessity, and made his way back to the town square, forgoing breakfast entirely.
Cain was sat on a rock underneath a fig tree near the beach, as if waiting patiently for somebody to arrive. Izuku went to him.
"Master Cain, I require your teaching." Izuku said to the quietly meditating man.
He did not open his eyes.
"So I have foreseen, even before your affliction at the food house. Though it took longer for the need to manifest than I expected." He said. "You need not specify in what discipline you require guidance, I know it."
Izuku bowed, even if the man could not see him.
"As such your tutelage will be abnormal, just as mine was. I shall teach you the mystic lore of our world and the Horadrim. Each story or history I tell will have hidden meaning and guidance in the magics that you are trying to learn. It will take a lot of consideration on your part to glean the real meaning." He explained. "The more direct teaching will be by learning other skills and disciplines that crossover in unexpected ways."
Ah. Teaching mind magic through parable, like the trials and rituals of the Egyptian book of the dead or similar esoteric spiritual teachings. He understood the necessity of such vagueness in his teaching. Especially due to the subject matter.
Cain then opened his eyes and looked all about him to make certain they were alone, before making eye contact with Izuku.
"Let us not mince words on what this means. The mind arts require utter faith, confidence and trust between two individuals. There shall be no secrets between us. What this also means is that will be my "Official" apprentice, to Isendra's unofficial." He declared. "You are clanless now, for you can never be of the Zann Esu due to chance of birth, but you can become Horadrim."
Izuku knew he must have looked like a fish out of water. There was so much there that left him stunned, from the man's seeming omnipotence of the conversations and going ons of other people, to the seriousness of his demand to actually induct Izuku into his clan. It was a lot to take in from one breath of conversation.
"But. I already have a mistress. A man cannot serve two masters." Izuku paraphrased a quote he couldn't quite remember the origins of.
Cain actually laughed at him.
"Isendra is not your mistress, and while I will take part in your charade for both of your benefit you are to knock it off with me." Cain said. "Isendra, is your mother in all but blood, and you her desperately desired son. That is clear to see for anybody with eyes to see, and the people of
this world are not as blind as you seem to think."
Izuku felt himself pale at his choice of words, and the one he chose to emphasize.
"Oh yes. I know what you are. No secrets, remember?" Cain said. "Which you are terrible at keeping anyways. The signs were all too easy to see especially for those who remember the Old Tales.
For the first time, Izuku felt genuine fear towards the man around him, and felt the first signs of the same panic attack he had the day before.
"Relax, you need not fear me revealing your secret, least of all because you know a more damaging one about me." Cain consoled. "Though I know you will never tell anybody about the forbidden arts I have mastered, and that you shall too in time. This is called leverage, you should court such leverage in the future. It is very useful. But before we can begin I will require your oath of secrecy and an induction into my order. You will be protected by the same oath."
Okay, that actually did work to calm Izuku down, but it was a bit much.
"This secrecy, it extends to Isendra, doesn't it?" Izuku asked.
"Indeed. To her you will say that I merely teach you lore, history and philosophy, for I enjoy speaking of these things so. This will be a lie, but you will lie to her about your induction as a Horadrim." Cain explained. "Let me be clear. Mine will be a true apprenticeship. I am not your father, nor grandfather nor friend. I am your Master. Period. And you are not to practice my teachings without my supervision nor continue your habit of experimenting with magic in the heat of battle, or at least not the magic I will be teaching you. In case Isendra failed to properly impart the danger of such magic, let me be even clearer. It is the most forbidden form of magic for a reason. Many reasons. It is easy to make irreversible mistakes that utterly destroy your mind, and is never to be used on another person."
Izuku nodded gravely at the explanation, and knew from his own world the danger of quirks to do with telepathy, or empathy, or other esp types. Rare as they may be.
"I do not expect you to make your oath now. It will require consideration. But I also recognize your need. As such, I will teach a few things today for free." Cain offered. "I will specifically teach you three things today. It is a good number to start with."
Izuku bowed deeply in gratitude.
"Sit. Learn." Cain ordered.
Izuku did so, sitting cross-legged in front of the man that would soon be his true master.
"The first thing to know about the mind, is that it reflects the body, and vice versa. You are what you think, but you also are what you do. So, my first lesson is this." He said seriously, before giving him the most grandfatherly smile he had ever seen. "Smile."
Izuku did so, but a bit unwillingly, as he couldn't stop his own smile from appearing while he laughed at the sudden change from seriousness and the unexpectedness of his command.
"Good start. Smiling and laughing, even when not genuine, can cure fear, sadness and, most unbelievably of all, physical illness." Cain explained. "Smile when you are afraid, smile when you are sad, smile when you are alone facing the totality of the forces of hell, and make them shudder."
This was starting to sound like what he imagined a lecture from All Might to sound like. And it was Awesome. He continued smiling as Cain continued his lesson.
Cain raised a finger.
"This does not only apply to smiling. All that you do with your body, your mind and emotions will reflect. If you clasp your hands into a tight fist as if out of anger, your mood will reflect that. If you haunch over yourself as if shy or humiliated, your confidence will shatter as if it were genuine. Remember this always. That is the first lesson." Cain finished.
He continued.
"You seem to have a handle on that one, so onto the second lesson, and this one you may have to write down." Cain said.
He waited for Izuku to withdraw his notebook before continuing.
"I need you to memorize three little numbers. Four, seven and eight." Cain said as Izuku wrote them down. "This is the first and most important breathing technique for meditation. You inhale for four seconds, hold your breath for seven, then exhale for eight. This will bring calm to your mind and relaxation to your body. When the next thoughts of your home that is lost to you feel overwhelming, do this technique. When you are ready we shall practice." Cain instructed. "Take a few deep breaths first."
Izuku put his journal away and did as instructed. Sitting up straighter in a more comfortable position before taking a few deep breaths.
"Breath in. One. Two. Three. Four. Hold it. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six Seven. Now Exhale. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Now do it again. One…"
And so they repeated the breathing exercise. Five times. Then ten. Soon Izuku felt himself sinking into the ground as if in quicksand, or a waterbed, and knew if somebody were to lift him up by the middle he would sag like a cat being picked up.
"How do you feel?" Cain asked.
"Good." Izuku asked, eyes still closed.
"Well, snap out of it. I need you to be your usual boisterous self for this next lesson." Cain said.
Izuku opened his eyes and tried to stand up, stumbling as he did so in his overly-relaxed state. He eventually shook himself free from the hypnotized state he was in, and that's what he recognized it as, before focusing on Cain.
"For this next one, it will be the first unorthodox skill that you may not see the immediate benefit of, but I will need to trust in my methods." Cain warned before pulling a small box out of his pocket. "For your third lesson, I will teach you how to cheat at cards."
He opened the box to reveal a deck of fifty two cards, with four coats just like from his world. He made a mental note of yet another similarity and possible cross-pollination between their worlds before returning to the moment.
"Have you ever heard of a memory castle?" Cain asked.
"No sir." Said Izuku.
"Sir?" Cain asked almost angrily.
"No master." Izuku corrected.
"That is better. A memory castle is a technique developed for card counting. A way to cheat during a card game. The technique allows for the easy memorization of many things at a time. It improves memory, focus, spatial reasoning skills and organizes one's mind. It can also lend to profitable gambling, which as your elder I must emphasize that you avoid, but like with drink and women I know you will fail to abide such advice in time." Cain explained.
Izuku nodded respectfully but kept his internal disagreement to himself.
"It is a very simple concept. You are to recreate a place in your mind, a place familiar to you. With rooms and furniture and people if possible. A place that, were you stricken blind, you could walk through unaided by a walking stick nor even by putting your hands out to feel your way. Do you have such a place? A childhood home perhaps?" Cain explained.
Izuku nodded. He was already remembering his home in Musutafu, the apartment complex with four identical buildings, magnificent jungle gym, main office and pool. He was already standing in his dining room with his mother digging the crunchy bit of the rice out of the bottom of the steam cooker.
"Does it have to be large?" Izuku asked.
"No. In fact, to start, the smaller, the better. Though, if in time you can expand it, all the better." Cain told him.
Well, with the apartment buildings being identical, he had hundreds of new apartments he could fill with his mind eventually.
"The most important thing is for the place to be vivid in your mind, and be a place of safety and comfort. A place that, under torture, you can escape to like a mental fortress and protect yourself from any corruption." Cain explained.
Izuku nodded. It checked all of the marks.
"You can open your eyes now." Cain instructed.
Izuku obeyed and looked to see that Cain had laid out all of the most important cards. Both jokers, all of the aces, jacks, queens and kings.
"The castle works through association. These are the important cards to make associations with." He said. "In your mind castle, you will represent each one with an important person or thing. For example."
He lifted the king of clubs.
"For the king of clubs, I imagine my father at the head of our dining table, with the queen of clubs, his queen, my mother sitting to his right. I myself am the Jack of clubs sitting to his left." Cain explained. "For the aces, I usually have family heirlooms or irreplaceable objects in my own possession. You only need four. And for the two jokers I usually have enemies or rivals."
Izuku already had him and his parents as the family of hearts and the one family photo of them all as the ace of hearts. He put Drognan and Strom as the jokers, because of how silly they were. For the other queens he put Isendra, Akara and Kashya. For kings he had Warriv and Cain, but didn't dare put Gheed as the final one. He needed to come up with somebody else.
Then his thoughts turned to Alexis. Didn't she deserve a place? He gave her the ace of diamonds to Kashya's queen.
"I see you have already finished most of your associations?" Cain welcomed him back to reality.
"Yes master." Izuku said.
"Do you know how to play solitaire?" He asked next.
"Yes master." Izuku said again.
"Good. I am gifting you these cards. You are to play solitaire before bed each night. You are to practice having those associations in your mind as you play. Have all of these associations in the same room, such as the dining room, to represent those still in the deck. Then create a story when two or more are played. For example, when the king and queen of clubs are in play I imagine my parents going outside to dance in them moonlight away from the party. When Jack is played with them I imagine the three of us, with me as a younger child, sleeping together in their bed after I had a bad dream. So on and so forth." Cain explained. "Once you can do this, you will have mastered the basics of the mind castle. I have more to teach, but not before we swear our oaths. Go, practice all of these three lessons, and make your decision."
Izuku took the deck of cards graciously and, noting the time and seeing how it wasn't even nearing noon yet, bowed and excused himself.
Now in a far improved mood, he wandered the streets of Lut Goleihm applying what he just learned. He smiled all the while he walked, and practiced the breathing technique as he did so. This forced him to walk at a slower place or risk not breathing enough, but made his walk all the more enjoyable.
His wandering eventually found him walking past Elzix's and the small, dirty figure standing out front with his arms crossed made him smack himself in embarrassment. Right. He somehow completely forgot about that.
"You said today." The quiet, but now angry, boy whispered accusingly at him.
"I know, I'm sorry. I had an errand to run, but I'm here now! And look, I'll make it up to you. In addition to paying you to clean my clothes, I'll pay for your bath and I'll get you some food.
Deal?" he asked.
He looked at him with a now familiar look of suspicion but eventually nodded. He didn't uncross his arms though.
"Okay, I'll go buy a bath for you from Elzix, he'll take you to the bathing rooms, when I get back with the food I'll give you the clothes to wash, okay?" Izuku clarified. "I think he has an area out back to wash clothes at."
He nodded and followed Izuku inside.
Elzix was in his usual place behind the counter, and looked up to see them approaching with a raised eye.
"Hello sir. This is my new employee, I hired him to do our laundry. I promised to buy him a bath first. Is that allowed?" He asked.
He didn't miss the scandalized look that the boy gave him, nor the even higher eyebrow that Elzix raised at his introduction, but neither were forthcoming with their reasoning.
"It is." Said Elzix. "Same price as ever. Does HE have a name?"
The emphasis on the word "he" was the first clue. When his new employee spoke up it confirmed the hint.
"My name is Myr. Please take me to the women's washroom." Myr said.
She glared at Izuku as Elzix led her away and Izuku just stood there with a smile of confidence he didn't quite feel, but allowed himself to show anyways.
Right then. Onto Atma's!
Or not.
He arrived to find a woman sitting outside of the public house crying her eyes out.
She wore an ornate purple and Grey dress, marking her as somebody important. He finally let his smile wane as he watched her wallow in misery. She noticed him.
"Oh. I'm sorry." She said, wiping her face. "You don't need to be seeing someone like me wallow in misery. Did you need some food from my house?"
Izuku put two and two together and realized she must be Atma, owner of the whore/food house. She did kind of look like what he imagined and wealthy merchant lady to look like. The pessimist in him wanted to assume she was merely mourning the loss of her business with all of her workers hiding in the palace, but he was better than that.
"You know, I've had people helping me through my problems since yesterday afternoon, and I think I owe it to the world to pay it forward. Want to tell me what's wrong? I have a bad habit of trying to solve people's problems." Izuku offered.
She laughed at the offer, though not at all in a way as to be doubtful or mean.
"I am a widow, is all. My son and husband were taken from me recently. I thought I was well enough to get back to work, but as you can see, I'm still a mess." She told him.
"Oh. I lost my mother a few months back. Almost a year. What took them?" Izuku said with as much empathy as he could.
"You must have just gotten into town." She said knowingly. "Last month an undead Horadric mage wandered into the city and wreaked havoc. Among his victims were my husband and son."
Izuku blinked. That would explain all of the guards. The coincidence of him being all but inducted into the Horadric order just as said order got its own Blood Raven, a comparison he was certain was more than skin deep, seemed too fateful.
"Oh! I know a member of the Horadrim who I imagine would very much like to resolve that." Izuku told her.
"Well, he's welcome to get permission from Lord Jeryhn to go in the sewers after it and put it out of all of our misery." She told him. "But I would suggest bringing some muscle along. Yes, Radament the Undead is still in the city and we are all terrified. There's no leaving, because the threats out there are worse."
Izuku nodded. Sounded like the Blood Moors all over again. They were clearly on the right track to finding the dark wanderer. The same evil they'd been fighting so far followed him wherever he went. It was nice to at least have a target to focus on, even if they couldn't find it.
"I have put a significant bounty on his head, with additional funds from others who lost people to him. I left the details on a poster inside. You can look over it while eating." Atma told him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to stop embarrassing myself in public. I need to go lay down."
Izuku offered her a hand to help her stand up and she took it, before walking around the building to where he presumed a back entrance sat.
Izuku got two bowls of food, paying extra for the bowls themselves under condition to be refunded when he returned the bowls, then walked back to Elzix's place.
He arrived to find Myr waiting for him. Now that she was properly washed, she actually looked like a girl now. If you squinted and looked REALLY hard. Okay, no, not really. Not to him, anyways.
"Here you go. Food, as promised." Izuku said.
They both ate in silence, save for the noise that the girl with no table manners made while eating. She sure could down it. Were they sure she was a girl?
They were soon finished and Izuku excused himself, going upstairs. He grabbed his dirty clothes, which was most of them, and put them into an empty burlap sack he kept for the occasion. He then went over to the next room over where Isendra was holed up and knocked on her door.
"What is it, Izuku?" She called out.
"I'm doing the laundry." He said.
"One moment." She said.
Lo and behold, a moment later she emerged with her own burlap sack of dirty clothes.
"Come speak with me when it's all finished." She told him.
"Yes, mistress." He said.
She closed the door on him and he left.
When he got back downstairs he handed Myr the two bags of clothes.
"When you're finished, you should be able to find me in room seventeen. Then I'll pay you… wait, we didn;t agree on pay. Um." He said.
He had to think on that. What was a fair wage for an hour or two of work? Especially with the inflated prices out here where meals cost ten gold minimum.
"is fifty gold pieces fair?" He asked, turning to Elzix questioningly.
He made a motion upward with his thumb as if to say "keep going"
"A hundred gold pieces?" He said next.
Elzix nodded to that.
"A hundred gold pieces it is." He declared. "Every three days, more if I have to go on a trip or need a rush job. Sound good?"
Myr didn't answer, but took the two bags from him and walked to the back door all the same.
He shrugged, taking it for a yes. Seeing the two bowls still on the table where he had left them, he scooped them up and walked back to Atma's to return them. Getting his refund, he figured he had a couple hours of down time before he had to return, and he decided it was time to practice what he'd learned.
He found a table at the back and practiced playing solitaire.
"Cassia has been bothering me all day." Isendra told him. "She has been especially dismissive of you, and I would advise you to avoid her at all costs."
Izuku guessed that just avoiding the woman or telling her off was something she wasn't allowed to do for some social reason. That or she was just too prideful and felt the need to show off her superiority to the woman.
"Now, I want to talk to you about the next leg of your journey." She said. "You are nearing the point of learning higher magics, and the way you think about magic will have to change completely. Up until now you have based your spells off of natural laws, this is good. But the higher tiers pay little heed to natural law. When you begin learning spells such as the meteor, or blizzard, or lightning you will understand this."
Izuku nodded, he thought he understood.
"True high magic pays no heed to natural law at all. Such as hydra, frozen orb. But before we get into any of these you will need to be accustomed to the spiritual and symbolic nature of fire and lightning and ice, and more. So from now on you must meditate on these things. What does fire symbolize to different people? From the cook to the blacksmith, to the arsonist or scribe working by candlelight. I need you to think deeply on these things, long and hard, before you can even begin trying to cast such magics." She continued.
He nodded, waiting for her to go on.
"That is all. Go no. Journal and meditate on fire specifically from now on." She ordered.
Izuku bowed and exited her room, walking across the hall to number seventeen.
There he found his dry clothes neatly folded. Myr had taken her time in washing them, but they dried in no time from the hot desert sun. They smelled divine, as linen tended to do when dried in the sun, even without proper detergent to perfume it.
He put the last of them away and sat on the middle of his bed.
He began practicing the four, seven, eight breathing technique and thought of fire. At first he imagined in his mind a furnace, being filled with air by a bellow in rhythm with his breath. As it went on he relaxed deeper and deeper. Then, he found himself sitting in front of the small fireplace back home.
Snow covered the railing outside through the patio windows and the heat from the single log that fit in the fireplace became the sum totality of his world.
Then, the power went out.
"Oh no." His mother said from the couch beside him where she was curled up, sharing a blanket with him. "I'll get the candles."
She sighed in annoyance at having to get from under the warm blanket and breathed out and "ooooh" at the cold that greeted her outside of it.
He watched, smiling, as his mother dug the candles and matchbook out of the dresser underneath the television, and placed them around the living room. She lit each one as she placed them. When she finished, she rushed back over to the couch, slid underneath the blanket and held him close to her for warmth.
They stayed like that for the rest of the dream. Basking in the light and warmth of fire, and the comfort of one another.
He was awoken by a scream.
He registered two things. One, had fallen asleep while meditating. Two, it was unreasonably cold. Even for the desert at night in the winter and the windows wide open. He then recognized the scream as Isnedra's and rushed out of his room towards hers.
He found it covered in ice, almost to the point of being sealed shut. He placed a hand on it and willed the element of fire to destroy the ice blocking his path. It worked, and the door opened at his touch.
Then, he felt rough hands grasp him from behind and push him through. He readied a firebolt to hurl at his attacker only to see Elzix closing the door behind him, and turning that now familiar raised-eyebrow expression on Izuku. Izuku canceled the firebolt.
"Wow." Elzix said. "Your apprentice sure can lose control of a spell, can't he?"
Izuku looked around to find the whole of Isendra's room covered in a thick layer of ice. To the point stalagmites and stalactites were still growing from the ceiling and floor.
Isendra was huddled in her bed, breathing hard and with hands on her face to hide her shame. She nodded at the lie Elzix had just provided her.
"To be clear, I felt a powerful wave of mana and came upstairs to find Isendra comforting her apprentice who just lost control of an ice spell he was practicing. Is this correct Izuku?" Elzix asked pointedly.
"Yes sir." Izuku said, agreeing to the alibi.
"Good. Because an apprentice who can't control his magic can be forgiven. A master who can't? Will not be ignored as the threat to herself and others is too great." Elzix explained. "Also that trident carrying bitch is banned for bothering my patrons. Let her know if she comes harassing you again."
He turned around and opened the door to leave, but had one last thing to say to them.
"Get rid of this ice and expect a hefty fine for damages in the morning. Izuku, sleep with your mistress for the rest of the night…" He paused at the unintended and looked like he was going to correct himself, before shrugging. "Eh, fuck it, shag her too, I don't care."
He then left them.
It was a long night of comforting her after that.
This story was ghostwritten by
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