As he cried into his palms, all of the thoughts in Ty’s head vanished. She put the book down on the ground beside her and got up. She walked over to her bag that she left on the ground where she had sat and picked up her notebook from it.
She returned to Theo’s side.
“Theo,” she beckoned gently. “Theo, come.”
When he stopped to look up at her, she grabbed his hands with her own, not worried about anything else, the notebook between them as she dragged him from under the tree into the middle of the field, where barely any moonlight shone through the canopy, where there was nothing but the two of them.
Ty smiled, even though she knew that he could not see her in the darkness, her hands in his, the notebook in her left hand and in his right, and then closed her eyes, remembering the stars and the flowers, the pink sky, the unending horizon as they stood at the center, the wind blowing, the stars and petals enveloping them, the burning warmth of life, the weightlessness and freedom under the soft ground soaked with rain, the hope and fatefulness of their meeting, the innocence of not knowing what came next; how could she have forgotten? It was a world built for them, a world built from their feelings, from the definite, undeniable, impassable love she could feel in her heart that had existed for as long as she remembered, for as long as the world had been created, for as long as the Earth Mother had been born.
She opened her eyes.
From the edges of her vision, she could see that the entire forest around them had transformed into their pastel dreamscape. But she was too busy focusing on Theo to see their masterful creation.
His wide eyes stared at her, the tears gone.
“Look,” she smiled. “This isn’t a dream. You’re not dreaming. I’m right here, and so are you. We’re here.”
He stared at her still, scanning her face, remembering every part of her expression at that exact moment, before he finally whispered, “This is where it came from. I remember now. I remember this.”
He let go of her hands, taking her notebook so it didn’t fall, making sure not to take his eyes off her lest she disappear. “We’ve been here before. We’ve been here, many times before. You’ve shown me these flowers, every time. The first time feels so long ago, and I don’t remember much more, but I remember this. I remember you. Out of everything, I remember you.”
Ty could not help but keep smiling. A thousand memories played in her mind, of him and her friends, all together. Laughing, playing cards, eating together. Memories she didn’t know she had, memories she had with him, in flower fields, in study rooms, in libraries, in courtyards; back when there had been nothing to lose because they had each other, back when there was only the colorful sky illuminating their smiles. It was back then that she could remember the first time she had met him, when she had no doubts, nothing but a desire to learn, a desire to live, a desire to protect the world she loved.
It wasn’t just because of all she remembered or because she had been waiting for this for so long, but because she now understood why she had stayed, all those times. Why she could not leave yet.
“I remember you,” she managed to choke through her tears.
And then he wrapped her in his arms, and they held each other in a pastel forest, surrounded by the most breathtaking pink flowers and the most outstanding stars, yet only able to look at each other, cherish the little time they had, remember hazy pasts they had once lived, pasts that were no more, pasts that held no candle to the present.
“I trust you,” he whispered. “I trust this feeling.”
* * *
Neither of them wanted to be the one to let go first, but after what felt like a long time, Ty eventually caved. “What time do you think it is?” she asked quietly.
“I can’t tell, you made everything pink,” laughed Theo.
She matched his lighthearted laugh. “That’s one potent spell.”
“You definitely took some of my anima.”
“Mm.” It was theirs, after all.
“Should we look around before it disappears?”
“I’ll make more.”
“You might bleed me dry, Ty.”
Then she finally let go and walked a few steps back to her bag before spinning around in place, admiring their handiwork.
Maybe it had stretched further before, but there was now only pink by the edges of the clearing, creating a bubble of brightness. She could see that the trees stretching past their field were still dark, untouched by their magic. The trees in the canopy above, painted with hue, blocked out the night sky, its edges golden like her flowers.
“Do you think these flowers have a name?” she asked, bending down to touch one of them, its petals just as soft as she had imagined them to be, her fingers bathed in its warm golden glow.
Theo paused in his own observation and walked over to Ty, crouching over the same flower. He rested his chin on his knees and stared at it. “It looks familiar. Maybe Selene will know.”
“Maybe.”
He inspected another flower, its petals sprinkled with small, glittering stars. “I wonder if we used up one of your Starshowers.”
“I, my notebook—” Ty abruptly stood up and started to look around for her journal, worried that she had lost it.
“Oh, it’s here,” Theo called after her, holding out the notebook that he had held onto.
“Ah, thank you,” breathed Ty, rushing over to get back her book, and then flipping to the end to take out the piece of paper.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
While she unfolded it carefully, to check the notches at the top that all standalone, single-page spells had, Theo bent down to pick her notebook back up.
Five strikes were left.
“We used one,” she whispered. Her own mother had received the spell when there were eight. Her mother used two, and her first Starshower had been cast from memory, so that had left them with six before tonight.
“You must have triggered the spell somehow, even without singing.”
“We must have,” she smiled, picking up a piece of stardust, watching it fizzle away on her finger. “I don’t need spellpaper to cast. I didn’t need it in the courtyard when you saw me.”
And then, with careful deliberation, Ty folded the page back up, walked a step closer to Theo, reached out to one of the openings of his Academy cloak, where she knew there would be a small pocket on the other side, and then tucked it away. “It’s yours,” she smiled, too bashful to meet his eyes, and then turned back around to pick up her bag from beside the tree to put her notebook away.
After putting her bag back on, she picked up Theo’s book, dusted the sides, apologized to it for having cast it away, and then walked back over to the speechless Theo.
“This is yours, too,” she insisted softly, holding out his book for him.
In a daze, Theo took it, tucked it under an arm, and then blurted, “Ty, can I try something?”
She stopped in the middle of adjusting her bag and eyed him curiously. “Hm?”
“Can…Can I have your hand?”
She held her hand out, palm up.
Theo gently placed his hand over hers, and then, looking at her, he started to recite what script he could remember of the flower, numbers that he could only guess at. He could think of nothing else to give her, nothing else to return the favor.
As he recited, Ty had the silliest smile on her face, watching him and trying to figure out what he was doing.
But then suddenly Theo’s eyes widened in surprise, and he stopped reciting, dropping the tome that he had just taken from her. He held out his other hand.
In his palm were tiny crystal sprouts.
“I don’t have a spell for this in that tome,” he said.
Her eyes widened too, and she quickly picked up a small piece of crystal in his hand before it could disintegrate. It was real.
“I didn’t know we could share anima,” she whispered as it slowly started to lose its gleam, realizing that it was because their little forest bubble was starting to lose its luminosity.
Theo followed her eyes and saw the same thing she did, and then let the small gems fall from his hand. He picked up his fallen tome, tucked it under his arm, and faced the other side of the forest. “Here, we should probably get back.”
Ty looked at him curiously, turning in the opposite direction. “I came from there, though.”
He gave her a wry—yet not unkind—smile as he intertwined his fingers with hers and began pulling her along in his direction. “Yes, but I know the right path back.”
Letting him guide her, she held his hand as they stepped out of the disappearing dream and into the dark forest, where they walked and walked, down the path back home. To the classroom dorms, where she knew there would be a hearth to light, where she knew her friends were. They spoke in whispers to each other, about random things, about magic, about themselves, and about school. They giggled under their breaths and had smiles on their faces even though they were unseen in the darkness. And not for a moment was she worried about not being able to see where she was going, or not having a flower with her, because she knew he was here with her, and she knew that she could trust him with all of her heart, that he would never forget her, he would never let her go.
* * *
Ty never did meet up with the Headmistress. Either she realized that the tactician was actively avoiding her, or fortune was on Ty’s side. But whatever it was, it left her with a greater sense of normalcy in her day-to-day. Even bumping into Luci didn’t set her off kilter like it had before; that wasn’t to say he stopped being himself, however. He was as forceful as ever with his advances, and he often approached her between classes and in the tactician’s courtyard.
Though he never really quite let his guard down again in front of her.
She kept on top of her studies and tactician’s duties alike, enjoyed time with her classmates when she had free time, and did her best to try and focus on the present rather than what would happen in the future.
The library’s fifth floor eventually opened back up not a few days after her forest meeting with Theo, but a thorough check produced no results; there was nothing else suspicious to be found, and she had refrained from divulging the contents of the original volume to anyone else, so the trail ran cold. Though Theo knew about the book, and had asked her about it before in passing, she remained tight-lipped. He didn’t try to pry an answer from her, and she was thankful for that.
Neither Selene nor Darius could identify the name of the flower, or what it could be. There were a few approximations, but none of them were exact. Meanwhile, Ty and Theo managed to perfect a spell for their mystery flower and could easily summon one without the aid of a spellbook at all, granted the halfling was around. Ty did, however, gain some progress with the luminescent dust, as Korinna agreed to finish preparing the synthetically enhanced compound by the end of the month, after it went through its incubatory period to seal in the glow. There were also some additional steps she wanted to take, but it wasn’t anything beyond her.
During the same week they received their class uniforms—a source of great pleasure among all first-years—the students of class 1-A somehow managed to figure out their tactician’s birthday and prepared a special party for her in the common room. She hadn’t thought much of it—though her own mother did enjoy celebrating the occasion every year—so it was a wonderful surprise the Friday before the final Monday exam. Callie even purchased a gift for her: a fluffy, over-sized cream sweater that she bought from the village. That weekend, she had barely left the dorms and instead indulged in a blur of fun and weightlessness inside and among friends that past her would have felt guilty for. The present her regretted none of it.
And then, at midnight on the last day, as Ty sat alone at the common room kitchen table, trying to focus on memorizing some obscure incantations as she usually did when antsy, Korinna walked in through the main entrance with a silver chain and a miniature vial.
“This what you wanted?”
Ty looked up from her work and slowly examined the items the chemist had put down on the counter in front of her. “Yes,” she responded curiously, watching Korinna strip off her cloak and scarf in the corner of her eye. “I just thread one into the other?”
“You got it. Then just clasp it together, and bam. Got yourself a neat ‘ol necklace.”
This was far more than what she had expected. “This is really nice, Kor. Thank you.”
Kor gave Ty a thumbs up. “No problem, was fun. Let me know if you want a second one, and I’ll do another batch in the new year. Just get me the dust like last time.”
Ty nodded. The offer was certainly very tempting, seeing how well this had turned out. Originally she had been worried about asking Darius to help out with the chain and clasp, but he was more than happy to. Acquiring the dust had been the more time-consuming part, though it was extremely helpful to have discovered a text during their study room scan that contained instructions to do just that; so, on several occasions, she snuck back out to her special forest clearing—sometimes with Theo, sometimes by herself—to check on a small basket she had set up by Theo’s tree. If Theo came along, they’d spend a long time there and cast some spells, hoping it’d help, but sometimes they just sat and chatted. If she went alone, she’d check the basket, do a small spell, and then make her way back to her friends. They were nice memories. At least she could say that the dust had been made with those.
“Yes, that sounds good,” she murmured in reply. “Thank you. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do in return.”
Kor laughed heartily at the foolish request. “Don’t blow it tomorrow,” she winked as she laughed again and waved her arm at the tactician, making her way down the dorm corridor. “And get some sleep!”
No longer surprised at the chemist’s brazen and boisterous attitude, Ty smiled to herself, finished up her tactician’s duties, picked up the gift, and then she went to knock on Theo’s door.
