Ana had put a lot of effort into the food; cooking was one of the few tasks she could still do for her increasingly independent daughter. The girl with sensitive senses immediately caught the aroma of venison, one of her favorites. A sparkle of genuine excitement filled the young girl's blue eyes. She loved her mother's cooking too much. Really, Alice just loved to eat.
Alice went to leave the basket of special herbs by the entrance, somewhat hurriedly, the excitement of the food distracting her a bit. Although this didn't make her neglect her duties, she first made sure to moisten the cloth wrapping the fire breath flowers again to prevent them from damaging the iron heart herbs. Certain precautions had to be taken to preserve both herbs, especially in such proximity to each other.
Ana smiled sweetly at how excited her daughter seemed, and despite her age, she still did things like getting excited over her food, which gave her unparalleled satisfaction. Slightly amused, Ana sat down. "I prepared one of your favorites. Let's eat, I don't want to have to clean your drool off the floor."
The rich, creamy aroma of the stew instantly awakened the young girl's appetite. "I'm not drooling," Alice responded with a childish pout. But only then did she remember to run and wash her hands and face, knowing her mother wouldn't let her sit at the table otherwise.
The little jokes at mealtime had become habitual, but mother and daughter never tired of them. After being apart all day due to their differing responsibilities, any interaction was a cause for joy and worthy of remembrance. Ana couldn't help it; she always found it adorable how Alice seemed to enjoy the little things in life and somehow always ended up infected by her daughter's joy.
Such was life in the countryside, enjoying the little things, the tranquility, and the stability. Of course, there were also overwhelming days full of work, and others slightly more special. Coincidentally, this was the case for the following day, in both senses. It would be the start of the planting season and Alice's birthday. Her fifteenth birthday was one of the most important.
No matter which kingdom or continent you belonged to, regardless of your race or religion, social or family status, every citizen in the world knew that the fifteenth birthday was incredibly important, as it was related to one of the most mystical, strange, and ancient aspects of this world—the Akash.
Legend has it that thousands of years ago, during a dark time, mortals struggled to survive. Being the weakest creatures at the time, this struggle was futile, and they only bought time until their inevitable destruction. In their moment of greatest despair, the Mother Goddess took pity on their fragility and granted them a gift.
This gift came in the form of a possibility. She gave mortals the chance to reclaim their connection with the Akash, the essence of nature, and wield it at will. Giving them a greater chance to survive. According to the teachings of the church, Althea, the goddess of the sun and life, had no other motive but to protect mortals from calamity; it was out of her infinite love for them that she did this.
However, only those truly attuned to this gift experienced the awakening of that possibility, igniting the spark of potential they called the Nexus, and with this, accessing their grimoire. An artifact hidden in the heart of mortals by the goddess herself, which could awaken precisely on the eve of their fifteenth birthday. Unfortunately, these cases were incredibly exceptional. The grimoire was where each mortal could imprint their understanding of the Akash, giving it form and intention, thus creating Arcane knowledge; giving birth to spells capable of all kinds of feats.
Although the Arcane was quite unknown to Ana and Alice, there wasn't a single person in the world who didn't know about the grimoire and the first spell that came with it. It was like not knowing that the sun was warm and the sky was blue, something so strongly linked to the gods was common knowledge.
There were even traditions regarding the fifteenth birthday, at least in the empire of Esthra. It was customary for the family to gather, waiting for the exact moment of the birthday, the hour, minute, and sometimes the exact second the individual first arrived on this earth. That, it was believed, was the moment when the connection was strongest and where, with much luck and the favor of the Mother Goddess, one could witness the birth of a new mage.
However, they didn't just sit and wait; offerings were also made, but they weren't grand or presumptuous offerings. To thank the goddess of the sun for the miracle of life granted fifteen years ago, the birthday person made the offering in the form of some kind of harvest or seed, commonly typical of the region where they were born.
They also thanked the goddess of the Akash and the Arcane Is'zara, supreme guardian of the grimoires. Although she was a lesser-known and venerated deity in places like the countryside, it was still customary to make a small vow to her. In this, it was already traditional to make promises regarding the proper use of magic and never to be led by ambition, although each birthday celebrant formulated this vow in their way.
For them, who lived a comfortable life in the countryside, such fantasies seemed like an unnecessary luxury. It was the theme of heroic epics; legends and myths narrated miles and miles away from Palo Verde. Something they would only see depicted in the pages of fairy tales, a thing too strange, wonderful, and extremely alien.
Although they didn't think too much about it, without admitting it, they still harbored in their hearts a small hope of living, even a little, the illusion of adventure. They still carried out the preparations for the offering in the form of some summer breath flower seeds, appropriate for the sun goddess. Meanwhile, Alice prepared the appropriate words for her vow to the goddess of magic. However, she never shared them with anyone and made sure that no one besides her mother saw her write them down.
That small, innocent, and playful illusion had somehow become part of their customs in recent months. In addition to the preparations becoming part of the daily routine, the mere possibility had also become part of their conversations.
Ana would guess with her daughter about what they thought her first spell would be like. According to what they knew, all grimoires were slightly different, as unique as their bearers, a reflection of oneself. Therefore, pointing out Alice's qualities that could be expressed in the Grimoire had become a new form of entertainment, especially regarding the first spell the grimoire contained, unique to each bearer of the Akash.
When Alice returned, the table was already set, and as she sat down, she formulated the same response she gave every time her mother asked this question: "A spell that makes you happy." The words came out of her mouth as if no other answer could exist.
Not even honey was as sweet as the sincerity Ana could see in her daughter. On this occasion, with the date so near, she decided to insist a little more. "Come on, Alice, what if you really had a connection with the Akash, awakened a grimoire, and then obtained some strange power? Is there nothing you would like?"
Alice thought a bit more under her mother's insistence, giving in to her instincts to make her happy and allowing herself to dream a little about the topic; she replied, "I'd like a spell that allows me to meet a fairy tale creature." Although to herself, the young girl thought more about tales related to the Dark Age and not so much about forest fairies and dragons. With a combination of longing, admiration, and curiosity that shone in Alice's eyes as she remembered a particular scene, she knew confessing which story she was referring to might only worry her mother and cause more questions about it since the dark age was not a part of history people normally preferred to think about, so she just limited herself to eating.
No matter how much Alice liked those stories, she was sensible enough not to get her hopes up too high. The world and adventure could be interesting, but her life in the countryside was more than enough for her.
Thinking about all those magical creatures that appeared in the stories Ana used to read to her daughter when she was younger and couldn't read on her own, a question formed on her lips. "What fairy tale creature would you like, maybe a dragon?"
Although she tried to hide it from the rest of the village, her mother knew well. Alice's curiosity extended from the extremely dangerous chimeras to the peaceful but not very social elves. For all kinds of beings and magical events. Such tastes betrayed how much the girl was interested in magic and how much the possibility of experiencing it excited her.
With her cheeks puffed and her mouth full of her mother's rich stew, Alice just shook her head repeatedly. After swallowing, and trying not to get distracted by the creamy yet salty taste of the stew, Alice responded. "Mom, dragons are extremely dangerous, they destroy entire kingdoms and kidnap princesses; I definitely don't want to meet a dragon."
Ana seemed surprised for a moment and then burst into laughter. Certainly, dragons were too dangerous; everyone knew that. However, the part about kidnapping princesses was probably something that only appeared in fairy tales, though Ana had no intention of correcting her daughter. "So why not a fairy or some other less dangerous magical creature?" Ana waited patiently.
"Mom, there are no magical creatures that aren't dangerous," Alice tried to reprimand her mother, though, with her mouth full of stew, it was hard to take her seriously. "Unless you're a powerful mage with an incredible understanding of Arkana, you shouldn't deal with too many magical creatures, and even they are very cautious."
Alice spoke with the tone a teacher would use to educate a group of children, elaborating more and more on a subject she barely understood. "They're different from the animals in the forest, and even those, although friendly, can be dangerous." She concluded her lecture as if it were the most interesting topic in the world. To her, it was, though she was very good at pretending it wasn't in public. In reality, Alice hadn't had much contact with the subject beyond the occasional storytellers, so what she said were more assumptions and conjectures, not to mention that the last part of what she said didn't sound very common.
The notion of a powerful mage was too abstract; there was no way to have an idea of what would constitute a being worthy of such a title. Alice had had almost no contact with the concepts of Arkana, and even less experience interacting with mages, even minor ones. As far as she knew, she had never even seen a mage, neither from afar nor up close.
To her, any mage was powerful both due to lack of parameters and as a personal rule for safety, and the same was true for magical creatures. Alice might be naive in many ways, but her integrity wasn't one of them. In her experience, a frightened deer, although majestic, could be dangerous if it ran towards her. Not that she ever really worried about being hurt by a forest animal.
Returning to her mother's question, which triggered this chain of reasoning in Alice's mind and derailed her from the conversation. With the purest of desires, Alice allowed herself to express the illusion the idea caused her; it was with her mother after all, and there was no place where she felt safer being herself.
"I've read in books that there are many creatures capable of performing miracles and healing people; I'd like to interact with something that helps, not just you and me, but the whole village," she explained excitedly.
"How wonderful would it be to prevent a repeat of what happened two winters ago? When people got sick, the cleric who healed us all said that what he used was called a small miracle. Something like that was only small." You could see in Alice's eyes how much she was excited about being able to help others with something even more significant; she believed that no matter how much she had done with the special herbs and the harvest, it wasn't enough.
"I think what I'd really like is something that allows me to be able to help many people, to be useful on a larger scale." Alice couldn't have looked more serious when she uttered those words, staring at her plate without taking another bite. Anyone who knew her would understand why a spell of that nature would be the most appropriate to represent her essence. Even Ana wasn't surprised by her daughter's reasons.