บท 3: You Can Speak?

Greyson slowly felt his eyes opening and was trying to remember what happened before he fainted. He finally thought about Sister Lily as his eyes flung open. He quickly sat up and started to look around in a panic. He finally saw Lily at the edge of his bed resting her head. She felt his sudden movement and also woke up along with him. Looking into his eyes, she felt conflicted but also proud of him. Greyson saw the hesitation in her eyes and felt fear that she would abandon him as well.

He quickly grabbed her hand and started to tear up, "Are you afraid of me?" Sister Lily looked immensely shocked to hear his voice and did not answer at first. She blanked out for a moment just looking at him.

"You... you can speak?" she stuttered in surprise. Now it was Greyson's turn to feel surprised by her unexpected question. He realized that this was her first time hearing his voice, so he quickly nodded his head.

"Why didn't you speak before?"

"Everyone would always crowd around me saying stuff about my looks or that they pity me because I'm an orphan. Plus the other kids are so annoying..."

"So you thought if you never spoke, they would just leave you alone?"

"Well... yes..."

"Myself included?"

"Hmm... well I thought I would get caught if I spoke to you then everyone would realize I CAN speak and I was just ignoring them." At this moment he finally looked repentant when he thought of all the times Sister Lily would keep talking to him even though he would never respond.

"Sister Lily is the only one I want to speak to..." Greyson looked worried and tried to quickly explain himself.

"Oh well, then for a while you will just have to put up with me ignoring you. You should experience talking to someone who only nods or shakes his head. Hmph!"

"Wait don't do that... Please~... I'm really sorry..." He bowed his head while looking up with tears filling his eyes. Sister Lily looked on and couldn't deny that face so she just laughed all of sudden saying, "I wouldn't be able to keep up and remember to be silent all day anyways, I don't have your patience. Just promise me you will keep talking now, okay?" Greyson suddenly smiled and laughed as well making Lily feel like she was fooled by his face.

"But, Greyson, do you know what you did to that man today?" Sister Lily's face got serious again as she asked him.

"I'm not sure. I just felt so angry and helpless at that moment, so my body moved on instinct. What exactly happened?" Greyson looked scared of himself and started to shake.

"It's okay, it's nothing bad. He was a bad man and you didn't hurt him very badly. You just knocked him out. I checked before I left and carried you back to the church. But I think it was magic, right? Except people with magic are rather rare, especially with magic like yours. There's a 1 in 100 chance of being born with the ability to use magic and usually everyone only has one element that they have an affinity with. You used water to move the snow and earth to move the tree branches. That's already two, and you didn't use any chants for a spell. It just moved with your thoughts... Greyson you should probably stay low-key with your magic and I will ask around town about what kids with magic should do. Maybe you could be given a better position later on if the nobles know that you can use magic." Lily quickly analyzed the situation only to realize that, as someone without magic and no prior experience, she didn't know how to help Greyson.

Greyson nodded his head with a serious face. Sister Lily looked at him acting like a little adult and felt that he was too cute. She ruffled his hair and smiled at him.

"Well it's not too serious. You can still try to play around and try to figure out your magic. I don't know how this stuff works, but just try to remember what happened yesterday and pull from that!" Lily spoke with a sparkle in her eyes. She was curious about his abilities. Greyson was also very curious about testing it out so he nodded to her feeling very excited.