A nightmare. Blurs of images flashed through Paley's head, each one full of scarlet. Muffled screams and shouts of rage filled his head before a peaceful silence. Then, the blur of a fat man dressed in black appeared and shouted something as he held the haze of a lifeless girl in his arms.
"Quim..." The man's scream faded away and he snapped awake. The river water washed by as normal and the usual gentle breeze calmed his pounding heart. 'What was that?' he thought, unable to remember the details of his nightmare.
He sighed and stood up. It was barely daytime, with only half the sun visible over the horizon. The sky turned a deep shade of pink-red around it before transitioning into the usual blue. He walked to the top of the hill and focused on the church.
It had a giant clock on its tower, displaying that it was six in the morning. "Only six hours of sleep?" He thought aloud and began strolling down the river towards the spot where Rauba taught him magic.
Once he got there, he saw the withered remains of the tree he attempted to create yesterday. He was about to take his shoes off to cross the river but remembered he left them in the dormitory, so he just rolled his rags up.
Everyone in the orphanage wore some kind of ragged old clothing, but now and then, Madella would have enough money to hand-knit new clothes for all of them. Though, after Jurie joined the orphanage, she would have to spend all her money on food to feed everyone.
That made Paley want to use his being a Quimnia for everyone's benefit even more. In fact, he couldn't wait to train his magic anymore and got straight to casting spells. Starting with Firebolt. He put his hands together, making a diamond, and cast the spell.
"Firebolt!" Somehow the word made his magic flow by itself to his hands, generating the fire and blasting it into a tree, igniting it. He tried to conjure up some water and extinguish the flames, but nothing happened.
Panicked, he rushed to the river and dipped his hands in the water, trying to manipulate it to extinguish the fire before it spread across the grass. The water slimed upwards and landed on the fire just before it reached the next tree.
Crisis averted.
Though, there was one issue. He could no longer feel his magic like before, only feeling small fluctuations occasionally. "Firebolt!" He tried to use the spell again, but this time a measly flame erupted from his hands and dissipated before it flew more than a meter.
'That's weird.' He thought. He still felt like he could do the spell, but there was no mana within him to complete it. "Firebolt!" He tried again and it was much more minuscule this time. 'Maybe I need more sleep or something.' He theorized and looked at his palm. He visualized a flame bursting to life on it, but only a spark formed.
After a few more tries, he made his way back to where he woke up. It was half-past six now, and instead of going back to the cottage, he just sat down on the grass and tried to conjure up any element.
A few minutes passed and he decided to take on a different approach, closing his eyes, sitting up straight, and focusing on his breathing. Then, he felt it. Not his mana, but everything else's. Very faint traces in the grass and trees as well as slightly more concentrated mana within the forest, which he assumed to be animals.
Looking further, he felt the mana become stronger and stronger, but he averted his attention to the cottage. Inside the cottage, he felt two stronger magic presences and three fainter ones. 'One must be Rauba' he thought.
He began looking beyond the cottage and towards the town, forgetting about his mana issue and becoming more intrigued by a growing presence that overshadowed all others.
But before he had a chance to feel where it was coming from, Bacha shook him back to reality. "Hey! Good morning!" She yelled out of frustration. "A-Ah, good morning," Paley replied, slightly dazed.
"What're you doing?" She crossed her arms.
"Trying to figure out why I can't use magic anymore. Do you know?" He asked.
"Nope, I don't know much about magic, sorry. Anyways, it's nearly time for breakfast, come on." She began walking and he followed. She was short, only coming up to his side.
"How long were you there for anyway?" She asked. She, Amasha, and Madella were the only ones awake at that moment. "For an hour or so, what time is it?" He asked. "It's like 8:30." She answered as they got back to the cottage.
"8:30?" Paley was surprised at how much time had passed while he was meditating. To him, it felt like only thirty minutes passed.
Inside, Madella was preparing some sort of triangle-shaped white bread pastry. "Oh, you're back. Where did you wander off to?" She took a ladle and stirred a runny white cream inside a pot before taking a scoop and spreading it across nine of the pieces of bread.
Bacha made her way to the table and sat down next to Amasha, who was bouncing on his chair in anticipation of the steaming pastries.
"I went to try out some more magic," Paley replied.
"How'd it go?" She carefully sprinkled some crushed green herbs to finish off the product.
"I can't use it anymore for some reason." He said gloomily.
"You're probably just hungry. That's how I dealt with running out of mana, I just ate a bunch and I was back to full strength." She flexed her bicep and carefully set the tray of pastries on the table, taking one of the pieces for herself.
"I hope you're right," Paley took one of the pastries and bit into the side. It was incredibly flavorful. The bread was crunchy, yet barely crumbled beneath his fingers, and the sludge was packed full of sweet delight.
"This is delicious," Paley took another bite.
"Why thank you," Madella replied, grinning.
He had proper etiquette while eating, making sure to savor each bite before taking the next. In contrast, Amasha and Bacha wolfed their pastries down.
"Thanks, mom! That was so yummy!" Amasha exclaimed.
"Glad you enjoyed it," She ruffled his hair. They finished far too quickly and watched Paley with puppy eyes as he took another bite into the bread.
"You can have it," He gave in and gave them the remaining half of his slice.
"Are you sure?" Bacha felt guilty, but she was starving.
"Yeah, I'm already full." He lied and split it for them.
"Thank you!" Amasha took it with no hesitation, gobbling it down quickly. Bacha, on the other hand, took her time this time, actually enjoying it thoroughly. Paley began to notice an unusual amount of sweat developing on her face. Or it had already been there since yesterday. He didn't know.
"Amasha, could you wake everyone up for me?" Madella requested as she walked over to the fireplace to clean it.
"On it!" He replied energetically and ran upstairs.
"Mom?" Paley began.
"Hm?" Madella cleaned out soot and a build-up of ash underneath the charred hardwood.
"Can I help with anything?" He asked.
"How thoughtful of you, Paley! But I don't need any help." She finished wiping the last few traces of dirt and placed fresh wood in the fireplace.
"I say we let him help," Jurie came down the stairs with Teerom, "You should teach him how to cook,"
"Please could you teach me?" He asked with puppy eyes, mimicking Bacha and Amasha. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get rid of his icy glare.
"Okay fine," She gave in, slightly holding back laughter, "Are you up for the task?"
"Of course." He was determined to help Madella in any way possible. Starting with cooking.
After everyone ate, instead of following Adimia and the other kids to the river, he stuck around for Madella to teach him how to cook. Jurie and Teerom were also there, watching them.
"Hmmm," Madella was lost in thought. "I guess we should begin with the basics of the basics. I'm an Air Mage, so I use the wind to prep the vegetables and whatnot. But since, you're a Quimnia..."
"I could use every magic type to cook," Paley finished her sentence.
"Exactly, so let's start with that. Jurie can teach you the rest of the basics."
Madella taught Paley how to use Air magic to cut up vegetables into perfect dice. Though his weren't as perfect as hers, he was just glad that he could use magic again. Then she moved on to basic cooking knowledge.
After a while, Jurie switched with Madella and taught him all the techniques like baking, frying, etc... For those, he used fire magic to control the heat, depending on how he was cooking the food, and Earth magic to create more arms to move more equipment at once.
It took him a few days and a lot of wasted food to master cooking, but like magic, it came to him naturally as if it was muscle memory from before his amnesia. He also began doing house chores with air magic, getting rid of the abundance of dust in the cottage.
Madella had much more time to spend now because she now rarely had to do chores and split the burden of cooking for nine people with him. His cooking skills improved quickly, and he even made suggestions that made their food magnitudes tastier.
He started to accompany Jurie and Madella to the town to help them carry more bags of shopping. It was a small rural medieval town and the streets were lively even in the nighttime. It lay a few hundred meters south of the city called Gouon.
He would only use air magic following Madella's advice to keep his being a Quimnia secret.
He became great friends with everyone. However, the happy days did not last that long. One day, they were all playing in the river. Paley was manipulating the water to make big yet safe waves for everyone to swim in.
They were playing tag and Bacha was it. She was having fun, laughing and shouting as she chased everyone, even tagging Adimia - the fastest runner out of the orphans. Until she suddenly went limp and fell into the water belly up. "Bacha?" Paley stopped the waves and made the water bring her to him.
She was burning up. Her breathing was irregular and panicked. Paley quickly picked her up and ran back to the cottage with her in his arms. "Mom!" He barged in and bought her to Madella, who was trying to get some rest on her bed.
"Something's wrong with Bacha," He said as he struggled to hold Bacha's weight. "What happened? Put her here," Madella got off the bed and lay Bacha down on her bed. "Jurie!" She shouted to Jurie, who was upstairs reading a book.
"Yeah?" Jurie shouted back. "Bacha has a fever, bring some towels!" Madella requested.
Jurie rushed down with three towels and gave them to Madella, who used them to wipe the sweat off bacha. Bacha held her hand tightly, whimpering and moaning like an injured cub.
"It's hot," She said. "Let me help with that," Paley cast some wind magic around her head and chest, cooling her down. "Thank you, Paley." She gave him a fragile smile.
For the rest of the day, Paley kept her well ventilated while eating unseasoned meat and raw vegetables to replenish his mana.
"Bacha! Hang in there!" Adimia and Reben encouraged her throughout the evening. Jurie fed her warm vegetable soup and Madella left to go look for a doctor in the town that night.
Now Paley sat by her side while everyone else had gone to bed. "I'm scared..." She whimpered, unable to get any sleep. Paley found her hand and grasped it. "I don't want to die." her grim words struck him in the heart.
"You won't. Mom's gonna come back with a doctor and they'll get you cured." He tried to reassure her, but her shivers and coughs were getting worse and worse. Madella came back a few minutes later, drenched in rainwater.
"I found a doctor... But-" She gritted her teeth, "It's too expensive. I can't afford it."
Paley bit his thumbnail, trying to think about what he could possibly do until he suddenly remembered something. A book that he saw in his nightmare that morning. He must've read it before he lost his memory and it contained exactly what he needed. Healing magic.
"Mom, is there a library in the town?" he asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"I want to learn healing magic. Maybe then I can help Bacha. Where is it?"
"I'm not letting you go by yourself, you're only thirteen."
"What if I went too?" Teerom offered. He had been listening in on the conversation from the stairs.
"It's night, it's going to be dangerous..." Madella said wearily.
"Don't worry. I can look out for myself. Besides, I trust Paley." Teerom gave a cool glance at Paley.
"I'll go too then-" She began.
"No, you stay here and take care of Bacha. We'll be fine," He hugged Madella to reassure her. She clutched his shirt in desperation. She was truly a loving mother and Paley adored her for that familiar aspect.
"Be quick. Before I change my mind." She let him go and he looked back at Paley, who was already getting ready.
"Where's the library?" Paley asked.
"I'm not sure, it's in the next bit of the town," Madella explained. The town they went to for their groceries was connected to a bigger, more city-like town, mostly inhabited by slightly richer commoners and the higher classes. There was even a magic school there whose receptionist Madella was extremely close to.
"We'll be on our way then," Teerom put on a brown cloak that was far too small for him and threw Paley an even smaller one. Paley began following Teerom out the door before Bacha called out to him.
"Paley!" She coughed, "Teerom. Stay safe, please." She pleaded.
"We will." Teerom put a ragged black hat on and tipped it down at her with an incredibly determined look on his face before walking out into the pouring rain.