“Good bye may seem forever. Farewell is like the end, but in my heart is the memory and there you will always be.”

  ― disney

  Following the death of his furry companion, Lios threw himself into his training. He found it difficult to sleep at night with thoughts of his inability to save her, and so he spent the next few nights training his spells. He knew if he had just managed to complete the spell on the first try that he could have saved the fox.

  His days were the same, though his father offered to let him take the next few days off to grieve the loss. He would wake up, train, eat lunch, go to work or train some more, then train even more. Interspersed between his tasks, he took care of the fox cubs that Brioche had entrusted him with. When his friends came by, he would practice his spells with them attacking him. In the first few spars, he didn’t get anywhere close to finishing the spells, having to learn to lead the fight in order to write the runes correctly.

  That quickly changed. He got better, as one does, and quickly grew to the point he could create all five runes in only a few seconds during the fight. He was even able to do the same for multiple different types of spells. Since he was only changing one or two runes to change the element but keep the same effect, he started practicing a wave-type spell for water, earth, wind and even lightning.

  He never released these spells, not wanting to accidentally destroy the grass around him or burn himself again. Still, he managed to get all of them down to a science. Through his sparring, he was able to adjust the spells on the fly, writing them as needed now that he had figured out he could partially write a rune and come back to it later.

  The weeks passed quickly, filled as they were with activity. Not once during this time did Lios, stop lamenting his loss, wondering at the deluge of sunny days surrounding him. In movies and shows, it always rained when someone lost a friend. Here, though, the power of the media did not affect his life. The sun kept appearing every day; each day was as beautiful as the last. Despite being spring, when showers were more present than during the rest of the year, no rain fell for several weeks, even as it approached Lios’s tenth birthday.

  “LiLi, I think I’m going to take a class. My parents want me to wait until I’m older, have my future husband pick it, but I don't want to wait. What do you think?” Rose sang-spoke to him as he kept up his practice one afternoon.

  He faltered, stumbling as mana dissipated at her declaration. He turned to look at her, aghast. “Your what now?”

  “My future husband. It’s all my parents keep talking about. Something about this boy at the Iron Tigers pining after me. I don’t want to get married, especially not to some random boy!” She stomped her foot defiantly, glaring down at the ground.

  Lios knew that girls were often wed early in their lives here on Ravos, but had never taken the time to consider what it might mean for his friend. Of course, he had no inclinations in that regard yet, being younger than ten and with vastly different cultural values embedded into his psyche. He stabbed his sword into the ground as he considered what she was saying.

  “Well, I personally think you should pick your own class. I mean, I know you want to travel, and I doubt this boy would let you. Do you know when your parents want you to get married?”

  “When I turn sixteen, my mom said when I asked. I haven't even met this kid,” her voice was a growl. Lios ignored the fact that she was only eleven herself, calling someone else a kid. “I’m not some... possession to be traded away! I know the only reason my mom wants me to marry him is his dad owns the Iron Tigers, or something. I bet she's already all but guaranteed I would marry his son!”

  “Well, why don’t you come with me when I leave for my adventures? I was planning to leave Arborton after I turned fifteen.” Lios smiled at her gently, posing his offer. He hadn’t thought about taking anyone with him but wouldn’t mind the company.

  “Can we leave now instead? Ughgh I know we can’t. I’ll think about it though.”

  The two continued to chat, with Rose frequently ranting about this Ethan boy she had yet to even meet. After a bit they returned to their respective practicing, Lios with his sword and Rose with her flute. The swordsman danced to his companions' music. They practiced for a fair while until his mother called out to him, letting him know the foxes were up. They spent much of their day napping, as babies were wont to do, but they had also grown a ton over just a few weeks.

  “Have you decided what to name them yet?” Rose asked as they walked toward the relatively small house.

  Lios just shook his head, sighing. “I’m not sure. I mean, what do you think I should name them?”

  He turned to his friend hoping for some advice, but she just shrugged. Then they walked through the door and saw the pair of foxes wrestling with each other on the floor, immediately working to release what energy they had just recovered from their nap. They were a boy and a girl, both with silver and black pelts peppered with tan from their mother.

  On watching them play, Lios went to the kitchen to gather some pre-minced meat, a small bowl of cream fresh this morning, and some chopped fruits and vegetables for the pair. Then, he and Rose sat cross-legged on the floor beside the small puffballs.

  He used his hand to wrestle with them a bit contentedly, smiling at the sounds they made. He failed to notice his friend watching him, or his mother emerging from her room and doing the same, taking in his smile that had been largely absent in the past few weeks.

  “Lios, your birthday is tomorrow. Any requests for dinner?” Hoping she had caught him in a good enough mood, Elaine brought up his pending birthday.

  “Hmmm... Maybe a meatpie? And can Rose come for dinner too?” Lios asked, internally debating if that was the best idea.

  Rose seemed to watch eagerly as the healer nodded an affirmation. She broke into a smile and beamed at the older woman. “Is there anything I can bring Miss Elaine?”

  As they spoke, moving on to different conversations, Lios couldn’t help but think about an impending self-imposed deadline. In the wake of the loss of Brioche, he had been debating postponing it, but in the end he decided against it. He knew if he kept procrastinating the impending conversation he would never get to it.

  A part of him argued that what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. The only problem with that logic was that he was basically telling himself to lie to them. If nothing else, Lios had always lived with a sense of integrity, even when he had been Isaac. It was one of many core tenets driven into him by the Boy Scouts of America, and it was something he would do his best not to abandon. Plus, it was difficult to do away with two and a half decades of behavior.

  He sat and played with the foxes, relaxing, for around an hour. Once they started to tire out, he gave them their dinner and joined his parents for his own. His friend had returned home a bit over half an hour before Ezekial had returned.

  His parents spent the meal talking to him about what to expect when he got the system, and telling him not to take any skills without discussing it with them first. Truthfully, Lios had already decided what skills he wanted. He had also already decided he would take his first class as soon as all of his skills reached level ten, instead of waiting until he was older.

  There were two main reasons for this: number one, he hadn’t changed his mind in nearly a decade about what he wanted to do when he grew up. As for the second thing, he wanted to clear his general skill list so he could gain all the requisite smithing skills he would need for his second class.

  On the eve of his tenth birthday, Lios couldn’t find himself to be overly excited at finally gaining access to the system and level ups. Instead, he was still lamenting his lack of power a few weeks ago, wondering if he would have been able to save Bri had he only had a class. Had he only had the benefit of levels. Resolutely, he thought yes, he would be able to. And he hated that fact.

  It was with some small amount of resentment that he fell asleep, cuddled by the ilk of his first friend.

  __________________________________________

  Careful not to disturb the puffballs, Lios pulled himself away from his cozy straw mattress and made his way outside with his longsword. Rather than start his training, given the hour, he laid back in the grass near where he practiced and gazed up at the sky. Unbidden by light pollution, for truly there were few lanterns bright enough at this time to influence the sky itself, stars shimmered brightly.

  Ten years already, huh? He sighed as he searched for the long-faded memories of his first famili’s visages. He had a vague recollection of how they looked like . He knew what color their hair was, and their eyes, but couldn’t picture them anymore. His iceberg blue eyes flicked between star clusters, wondering if he was even looking at the same stars as those he loved. I miss them.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He turned his attention to more immediate concerns; today was the day of his self-imposed deadline. Tomorrow... I’ll ask Mom and Dad to take tomorrow off. I’ll take today to be a kid, but tomorrow I return to being an adult.

  For a little while he simply stared up at the sky, not bothering to train even as the stars began to wash away in the dawn. He lay unmoving and just enjoying the cool springtime air, the feel of morning dew on his back. As he relaxed, he took in his own body, admiring what the past four years of work had done for it. He was lean, well muscled especially for someone his age. He could only imagine what might change in the coming years, and especially with the system influencing his growth.

  He was still on his back when his father emerged from their home. He heard the door creak open, the rattle of Zeke’s armor, and began to sit up, glancing over in that direction.

  “I went to wake you, but you were already out here, huh?” Zeke sauntered over, already ready to head into work.

  “I’ve been having trouble sleeping.”

  “I know, son, I know. It wasn’t your fault. You can’t keep beating yourself up over it.” Zeke stopped just before Lios, the child looking up at his father.

  “I try not to, but if I had just been a bit better, I could have prevented her death. I’m sure of it.” Lios stood up, his head reaching just below his father’s chest. He was pretty tall for his age, at least in the upper twenty-five percentile, but his father was also tall.

  “Then you’ve just gotta get better until you don’t lose like that again,” Zeke ruffled the boy’s hair encouragingly. “Say, since after today you’ll have the system, why don’t we have one last spar before I can’t beat you anymore?”

  “Oh, like the legendary Blade Blossom would lose to his own kid. But sure, you’re on, old man!” Lios taunted before grabbing the longsword from the dirt. “Um. I haven’t tried it since that day, but... can I try casting a spell against you, Dad?”

  He hadn’t even told his parents all of what he had done while fighting the rottfangs; they didn’t know about the spell. Of course, his mother had seen the aftermath of the first successful casting, so he knew they knew about his spells. His father took a contemplative stance before nodding and stepping back with his hands behind his back.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I meant while we spar, not a freebie.”

  “Hmm, I suppose if you think you can do it, I won’t stop you.” Zeke smiled down at his son, taking a few steps back and drawing a tattered short sword, Lios’s training weapon.

  With upturned lips, gone were the darker thoughts and thoughts of longing that had muddled his mind, Lios raised his sword in two hands. He wasn’t quite physically strong enough to continuously swing the longer weapon with a single hand despite several years of training.

  He didn’t wait too long to move; first, he took in his father’s stance. The guard held his sword to the side, casually dismissing his opponent. He was leaning back ever so slightly on his left leg, the right appearing casual but ready to burst into motion at a moment's notice. With a tilted head, he gazed down, eyes resting emotionlessly on the boy he had raised.

  Considering his pose, acknowledging that his father didn’t see him as a threat, Lios began to semi-plan out how he could lead his father in order to craft a spell circle. He knew in a real fight he would stand no chance. There was only so much punching up a person could accomplish, and unfortunately the current foe was far above him.

  When Lios finally moved, the clash of steel broke through the eerie silence of early morning. Underfoot, the dew splashed in all directions, the grass crunching beneath hardy leather boots. Barely visible, the first line of a rune was left in the grass, not quite deep enough to cut into the soil. Lios had long discovered that he didn’t need to leave physical marks in the ground to form runes, and in fact doing so would only clue his foes to his designs.

  As soon as their blades separated, they clashed again, Zeke standing relatively still and parrying every strike with ease. In contrast, Lios slowly began to circle the older man, confused at his tactics. Each step resulted in another line being drawn in the wet grass. Realistically, the budding wizard knew that a real fight would not often consist of his opponent standing still, only moving enough to counter him, but he would take it this time. True, he had been somewhat hoping to be able to succeed in casting it during a real fight, but his father was far more powerful than he, and a real fight was a long time away.

  Shortly after steel banged against steel dozens of times, a rune circle appeared and filled with mana as the swordsman finalized each individual rune. Flames burst into existence around Lios’s longsword, tickling his own hands as tongues of fire twisted and reached out every which way.

  The boy let out a nearly unbelieving laugh; sure, he had successfully cast two spells, but the first had been an accident and the second a moment of desperation that was somewhat burned into his memory as a failure due to Brioche’s loss. This time was different. He had just cast a spell before he had been granted access to magic by the system. What was more, he could feel the magic react to his will as he cast it, forming a blade of fire that was strong enough to cut things that steel could not.

  Not wasting too much time on his reverie, Lios leapt back towards his father, catching the quickly fading shock in the man's eyes. Replacing it was an expression of pride that sent a pang of guilt running through the boy, but he squashed it by slamming his blade into his father’s. The heat of the sword was just barely enough to make Ezekiel take a step back, stumbling slightly. He began to laugh as well.

  “I suppose things are heating up, huh, boyo!” Lios rolled his eyes at the pun.

  Ignoring his father’s jests, he resumed his assault. Now, however, his foe began to move and to parry his blows. Over the next several seconds, Lios clashed with his father a few dozen times. No matter what he tried, his father was able to block, parry, dodge or otherwise evade the sword strikes. The young swordsman didn’t let this get him down, however. In the four years he had been sparring with his father, he had managed to land a total of three blows. The first training had been one, when his father was clearly not taking him seriously, with two more occurring when Lios came up with a trick.

  He had no tricks this time around, nor was he so desperate to prove himself. There would be plenty of time for that in the coming years, and plenty of that on the morrow if he had his way. No, the purpose of this spar was simply to show his father that his training had not been in vain, that he had improved by leaps and bounds in a simple four years even without the system.

  I suppose that’s proving myself in a different way.

  Almost as quickly as the flames had appeared, they vanished with a whoosh. The brightened clearing suddenly dimmed, the trees still blocking the rising sun for a bit longer. As the flames dissipated, a wave of fatigue washed over the wizard, a consequence of using mana he had found. He had felt this same fatigue the first and second times as well. He stumbled for a single step, nearly falling, but he was caught easily by a concerned dad.

  “I’ve never heard of anyone successfully casting a spell so young. You’re incredible, my son!” Ezekiel missed the wince on Lios’s face as the boy stared down at the ground.

  “Thanks dad! So, uhm, do you have to head to work now?”

  “I should, yes. Gotta protect the fine folks of Arborton an’ all that!” One thing about Ezekiel was that it was rare to catch him in a bad mood. He was unflappable, reliable, and a source of light to the surrounding people. It was something Lios admired greatly in the man he called father.

  “Do you think it’d be possible to take tomorrow off? There’s something I need to talk to you and Mom about, and I think it would be best to start early.”

  This request was enough to flap the unflappable guard. Clearly curious but deciding not to pry until the next day, he slowly nodded. “Sure, I can do that. Want to give me a heads-up on what it’s about?”

  “I can’t, not until tomorrow. I love you, Dad. Have a good day at work.”

  With that, Lios returned to a starting position for a sword dance. He began to practice the same blade enhancement spell, only this one would coat his weapon with wind rather than flame. Seeing that his son had set his mind, Ezekiel bid his farewell, lips pursed with contemplation, and headed to work.

  The rest of the day passed slowly. Lios resumed his training, though his mind was elsewhere. He was still debating how to approach the topic the next day. None of his friends showed up to train with him; save for Maya, they all had skills to train up and more chores assigned by their parents. On becoming ten, most kids took on more household responsibilities, and at as early as twelve could usually take some sort of apprenticeship or job.

  After he was done training for the morning, he confirmed his mother would be home the following day and then went to work at his own job at the barracks. The air was a bit tense as he felt his father’s gaze on him whenever the older man thought he wasn’t paying attention. He knew the old guard was rather curious and mildly concerned about his request that morning.

  Near mid afternoon Lios went to stand by the smithy for a bit, having delivered some damaged chainmail. He watched as an older apprentice, perhaps sixteen or older, repaired the armor. While he was watching, he hesitantly approached Darren, the owner of the smithy. He had debated having his father have this conversation for him, but he was a big boy and wasn’t quite so young as he looked, so he would handle it.

  “Excuse me, Darren?” He called out from beside the fencing when there was a lull in hammer blows or bellowed instructions to his apprentices.

  The grizzled smith looked over and beamed, a cheery smile contrasting deeply with what could otherwise be confused as the face of an angry bear just woken from its hibernation. The toothy grin was even visible behind the scraggly gray and black beard.

  “Yes, young man, what can I do for you?” Darren set down his hammer and tossed the piece he was working on back in the forge to heat up again before walking over to the fence.

  “I turn ten today. I was wondering if you could use another apprentice in the next few weeks.” Lios looked the older man in the eyes, having to crane his neck to do so.

  “Oh? I knew you were curious about the forge!” The man let out a cacophonous laugh, as though someone had spoken a raunchy joke that nobody else had heard. “Aye, I think I can find some space for ye. Though I have no need for anyone full time. Say, you work at the barracks every other day, yes? How about three days a week, one silver per day?”

  A silver a day was a pretty good rate and was right in line with what the guards paid him, meaning he would be making around six silver a week if nothing changed. To be truthful, the coin was a bonus. He wanted to learn to smith more than he wanted money, didn’t mean he’d turn it down though.

  “Sounds fair to me! I’ll let you know when I have cleared up some general skills so I can get to work then! Thank you, Darren!”

  “You do that, Kiddo. Oh, and tell that lout Maximus to take it easier on his equipment when he’s training! Seems ev’ry other week he sends ya here with damaged arm’ments!” He let out a hearty chuckle, patting Lios on the shoulder with a meaty, calloused hand, then turned to get back to his now red-hot metal. Not using tongs, likely due to some skill or another, he lifted the work in progress farm tool out of the coals and started smashing it with a hammer, shaping it into its final form.

  Lios took the dismissal easily, heading back to the barracks to see if he was needed anymore. He was sent home to enjoy the rest of his birthday. The rest of his afternoon was spent chatting with Rose, who had come over early for dinner. Supper came and went, an enjoyable endeavor that was filled with plenty of questions aimed at their guest, laughter and stories from the vice captain of the guards. Before long, Lios was lying awake in his bed with a pair of foxes curled up against his body, taking comfort in his warmth.

  I’ll need to come up with names for them soon, was the last idle thought that ran through his sleep-deprived mind before he finally drifted off to sleep. Evidently, he had been born late at night and would receive the system while asleep.