Wish had been lied to.
She had spent weeks failing to create a successful rune. All her secret attempts outside of town had failed. She was ready to give up on this nonsense. That had been true until she had stumbled right past the answer in her misery.
Her magic had been disabled.
Crippled might even be a better description. She glared at the necklace on the table in front of her. It had been right under her nose the entire time. All of her struggling and self disappointment was now heaped on the charm she had been so careful to never be without. She had forgotten it one morning after a long night poured over books, desperately hoping to know why within the shop she felt a connection with enchantments yet lost it as soon as she left.
She had been late to pick up her weekly groceries, and three weeks overdue to pay off her tab. She had rushed and had thrown on clothes without pause and hurried out the door, remembering only to grab her coin pouch from atop her table.
Wish reached the stall much later than she preferred to. The streets were slick from a heavy rain and the alleys and gutters had run grime across her way where drains had become clogged. When she rounded the block to where Ms.Grythor put out her bundles, Wish faced a long line of people that went down the inclined street. It seemed that many had come rather early while there was a break in the storm. Wish tried best to arrive earlier to avoid them. She looked up at the overcast sky as it let down a gentle sprinkle.
Wish quietly stepped towards the line, but kept her distance to avoid standing in a deep puddle. She settled for a dryer space under the overlapped eaves at the entrance of an alley. The people were shifting slowly, and she waited for the old farmer ahead of her to move. Right as he did a young boy in tall boots leapt into the puddle. His mother, only concerned for the wetness of the child, scolded him for splashing. She then took up a spot in line beside the puddle as the boy stood in the water quite proud. Wish waited.
The line moved and the spot in the puddle was taken by a man whose attention was held by the damp pages in his hands. He slowly inched through the water as the line shifted. A young dwarf stepped up next, waiting to the side of the puddle, but intent to cross it. Wish still stood back, watching with unshown frustration. She lightly scuffed at the dirt with the ball of one foot trying to be indirectly noticed should the movement gain the consideration of the next approaching customer. A man joined behind the dwarf proving the motion ineffective.
Wish sighed through her nose slowly, looking at the ground she had disturbed in her motion. The dirt had accumulated where she stood but was quite sandy and lacking in mud. Her foot had carved a staggered pattern across the patch. She looked at the pattern and slid her shoe across it, making a circle in a few toed scrapes. Another person joined the line so she set to pass the time in doodling. Doodling an illegal rune in the dirt. It wasn’t as if she was measuring or putting studied parts together as some of her other attempts. This was just that wishful, artsy, moment where she wanted something to part the puddle in front of her so she could go on with her day. She turned and shuffled, entertaining her want to be home back in bed with the desire to have magic aid her way. The rune came together and looked quite nice for being kicked into existence in a sandy patch. She smiled at the creativity in it, pieces of ideas overlapping with the magical potential to see her will done. She stooped and touched it as any mage would to imbue it.
The rune activated.
It was subtle. Lose sand was drawn in. Edges shifted to stabilize. The markings cascaded in their triggered effects.
And then it took off.
Wish watched as a line, as if drawn by an invisible finger across the ground, took off from her rune, extending the directional marker she had made. Water retreated from the end of the mark, lapping away. The line crossed the puddle making the low spot no more than a sandy depression instantly. Wish watched in fascination. She had done magic. Her mind swirled with all of the excitement and wonder of what to do next when there was a shout from further up the line. She looked ahead and the line which had gone unnoticed from those behind, was now chasing a small wave of water as it dried the gently sloping road. Another puddle further ahead was reached and the moving wall of water was large enough to over take the ankles of those it passed. Wish looked at her rune to see that no duration or distance had been set. She panicked as more and more people cried out at the assaulting liquid. The spell was growing as more water was repelled along the ground, and the magic sped forward to counter it and drive it away. Wish’s head swam. It was drawing from her, she could feel it. As much as that overjoyed her, it was beginning to hurt. The wave began knocking people over. Wish couldn’t remember what to add to fix it. There was crashing out of sight. Wish panicked and struck the rune at its core. She felt the magic disconnect. It warped in the sand and vanished, a pulse chasing down the line that had run its way down the street. Wish leaned on the wall of the building. She was dizzy. Her first rune had come and gone, but she had succeeded. She stepped out from the eaves into the trickle of rain and looked along the path of her spell. The road was scattered cobbles and dry sand all the way down to the next crossing where the intersection was now flooded with a dirty swirling pool. People were rushing to a pair of carriages that had been caught in the event. The horses tangled in their harnesses and unable to stand. There were cries demanding to know what happened.
Wish slowly turned and left.
Magic did as it was asked. Wish had asked for more than she intended because she doubted that she was capable. She would need to be more careful. She walked home in a haze. She was so tired she couldn’t manage to theorize why had been able to form a working rune, so she instead just daydreamed of all that she would do tomorrow. She made it into her room, locked the door and fell into bed with her clothes on.
She woke nearly an entire day later.
It wasn’t until after she parched her thirst that she found her amulet left on her nightstand. She picked it up and it felt…wrong. She scowled at the charm, flipping it over to look for any sign of runes. All of its magical workings seemed to be internalized. She dropped it on the table again, and could not help but feel…free. It was silly, nearly paranoid to think her necklace was somehow the missing piece to why she couldn’t do magic. It was an unrelated charm. It was meant to do nothing more than safely teleport her away from harm. Surely it wouldn’t interfere. Suspicion lingered and she brushed the charm into her bag and set out to go test it in the thicket at Wallren Farm.
~~~
Wish came back that night angry. She had made another successful rune. With her charm tucked away. She did it again, with her necklace around her throat and the lines just sat there as no more than mundane art. She had repeated it, over and over. The results never varied. Wish was a well studied and adept rune scribe, each piece working as she intended it. But only so long as her charm was not touching her. The one magical item she had been so studious to never be without since it had been given to her as a child. That gift that had been so lovingly and intentionally given to her by her parents. The one thing they had taught her to always have with her no matter what, for her own safety.
She sat in the Crowded Shelf days later, staring at the charm in front of her. The spell book even seemed to avoid the loose trinket. She was having trouble confronting the idea that her parents had done this intentionally, but she was only remembering more and more details that condemned them. They had hidden away the fact that she was a mage.
But none of that mattered now.
The reality of how different her future could be now was astonishing. The world of mages was far from the path she had been considering. Wish brushed a bit of web off of the spell book to its approval. She had much to work out, but she knew she would make up for a life absent of practice thus far. She would prove talented, and gain a good standing among the mage courts rather than just be conscripted like so many middling mage youths.
She dropped the trinket into her bag and hid it away.