Chapter 11: Apprenticeship
"No-" came the prompt answer.
"Mom?!" The interrupting shout had palpable indignation in it. Almost like whoever said it just got rejected the deal of a lifetime. In some way that was actually the situation.
"Listen, I can understand your enthusiasm, but-" Lilly started speaking, but was interrupted again right before getting to the point.
"What do you mean you understand? If you understood you would not hesitate to agree for a second." Zora said angrily, almost shouting at his mother, who just stood there trying to finish her sentence.
"Listen here, honey-" she tried again.
"This is the opportunity of my life, do you not see that? I can finally learn magic. Do you understand? MAGIC! And you just say 'no'?!" he kept shouting, but due to his poor physique, he quickly ran out of energy. All the while Lilly was standing over him smiling and not saying a thing.
"So... huh... What is it?" Zora asked, as he had an inkling that he was overreacting for some reason.
"Are you finished, will you listen now, my child?" Lilly asked patiently.
"...Yes... Sorry, mother." came the reply a few seconds later, right away as he managed to catch his breath. It really was unbecoming of someone who lived hundreds of years already. Well, human brain works the same way everywhere it seems. And right now Zora only had a teeny-tiny 4 year old's brain. Having the memories of a multi-century old man and the growing and evolving brain of a human child is never a good combination. He has to struggle trough his first 20-something years in almost every life he had so far and it never gets easier.
"Okay. If you let me finish this time, what I want to say is, that you cannot stay here for sure. You are very sickly and your body is weak, you know that just as well as Olak and I do. He wouldn't be able to take care of you, so by living here you would be in danger and would be a burden on Olak at the same time. So no, you can't live here with him. But anything else I will allow, even encourage. It's fantastic to finally see you being so enthusiastic about something. You are always so quiet that it worries me sometimes. But now I can see there is nothing wrong with you. I'm relieved." she finished, smiling all the while speaking.
"Well it certainly would be better to have you around all day so I can properly teach you, but your mother is right. I can't take care of you while also running shop. But I can give plenty of work for you to do at home, also I have many books you can borrow, as long as you take care of them." Olak said, glancing at Lilly to see if that is agreeable. He got a slight nod as confirmation.
"I can bring you to the village at least once a week, but when you get older you will be able to come on your own too. You don't have to rush things, you have all your life ahead of you, just take it easy." Lilly said. It was kind of out of character for her to say something like that, considering she was the willful one in the family, rushing to work on her ambition all the time. Sometimes parents have to at least appear to be wise. Some preaching never hurts.
Zora respectfully listened to what his elders had to say, then crossed his arms and looked down on the table in concentration, as if he was contemplating what was said in the conversation, then finally nodded, as if confirming that the proposed state of order is good enough. With this he returned to his usual quiet demeanor.
"Hahaha, as I see we have came to an agreement. Now lets go home for the night, and we will come visit next time when I have to come to the village. Come now, Zora, say goodbye and we will be on our way." Lilly said merrily, then picked his son up and made her way to the door. Before leaving though, Olak remembered something, asked them to wait for a second, then rushed up to his study and came back with a book and a piece of paper.
"Before you go, take this. On the paper I wrote down the alphabet. Lets see if he managed to learn that before you come back next time. If he really is a genius and finished too fast, then here is the most basic book of magic I have for him to try read and comprehend. He will have to learn it some day anyway. Take them and go." said Olak, pushing the items into Lilly's hands. Any book was actually quite expensive for a farmer, not to mention a book about magic, so even holding it was making Lilly a bit uneasy. After some niceties and thanks she finally left the house.
At home Zora was unwilling to let go of the sheet of paper even when it was time to eat dinner. He had to use all the time he had before the Sun goes down, because artificial lighting isn't really a thing for a farmer family. Obviously they kept a few candles at home, but for emergencies only. Using up expensive candles needlessly was not something they could afford to do.
He was actually dying to have a spell that can make some light, no matter what kind. Well maybe not the burn-the-house-down kind of light. The next day he already knew the not too long alphabet by heart, so he moved on to practicing reading right away. Luckily all the characters' calligraphy were unique enough and the language itself was as easy as English was back in his first life, so he got the early part of the learning curve very smoothly covered.
But actually reading a hard material as magic theory, even if it was only for beginners, was a completely different matter. It needed such a vocabulary that he didn't have, but he still tried and fought hard to understand what was possible with what he had. The rest he tried to remember as best as he could, because he had nothing to write on, so no notes either.
His momentum seemed to start dying down, but then he realized, that between the memorizing and all the reading, a few days had already passed, so it was soon time to visit his teacher again!
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone