The Shape of Magic

The amber eyes of the timberwraith shone like smoldering embers dying, its titanic body twisting slowly among the twisted roots and splintered limbs. Frieren's white cloak billowed as an instant gust tore through the clearing, carrying with it the scent of rot and dry wood. The creature's bark-like skin creaked and groaned, shifting restlessly as if it were both tree and beast, a living infection on the earth.

SpongeBob was stiff beside her, clutching the half-completed wooden spatula as a good luck charm. His puffed-out eyes darted between the hulking form and Frieren's peaceful slumber. She had known magic before, but he was seeing an entire universe for the first time—a dance of power and risk he had never witnessed.

Frieren held her staff aloft with gentle deliberation, already thinking ahead. They moved slowly, but each step was a threat to the tenuous balance of the forest.

Quietly, Frieren's fingers traced the subtle runes carved into her staff's length. She breathed in, mana amassing beneath her skin like a gathering storm.

Suddenly, the timberwraith's arms shot up, hooked limbs extending into sawing claws that shattered stone on the first cut. At unnatural speed, it hurled a burst of splintered wooden shreds, each one flying through the air at Frieren and SpongeBob.

Frieren was a blur of motion, summoning a hexagonal wall of shining gold that burst around them, the shreds crashing with shock force but bouncing harmlessly off the magical barrier.

SpongeBob gasped. "Whoa! What was that? Like an invisible wall?"

Frieren's gaze narrowed, tone unruffled. "Defensive magic. It protects us."

The timberwraith bellowed, the sound a hollow boom like creaking old wood under strain. Stomping its feet, it shook the earth at their feet, roots erupting out of the ground to snare.

Frieren drew up her staff, speaking softly, a tiny ball of electric blue flashing at its tip. "Judradjim." Sheets of lightning crackled and burst forth, stabbing the timberwraith's bark-like hide. The creature emitted a scream of noise, smoke churning where the arcs struck, but it continued to advance.

SpongeBob stared in awe as Frieren's magic poured forth like water—soft but impossible to ignore.

The timberwraith twisted, claws throbbing with a dark energy as it struck the air. From its injuries seeped a black sap that dripped and spat on the earth, poisoning everything it came into contact with. Frieren's eyes narrowed—this was no ordinary scoundrel.

Drawing on her vast experience, Frieren exhaled softly, "Zoltraak!" A driving blast shot from her staff, striking the timberwraith's side. The beast stumbled back, bark cracking and flaking away.

SpongeBob gripped his spatula tighter, feeling the beat of danger and power raging through him. He wanted to help but knew his role was to stay close, to watch.

The timberwraith let out another bellow, summoning forth roots that shot out like spears toward them. Frieren stepped elegantly aside, the barrier radiating in harmony to deflect the assault.

Taking a deep breath, Frieren extended her staff and gently murmured an ancient incantation, the air around it warping. "Vollzanbel."

A raging fire howled before her, a wave of hellfire consuming the timberwraith. The creature shrieked, chunks of its bark and limbs melting into ash.

SpongeBob shielded his eyes from the fire, racing heart.

The timberwraith would not yield, however; from the seared earth, it summoned a black whirlpool, an improperly-shaped void that pulled at Frieren's mana and could suck her into nothingness.

Frieren's expression set. She concentrated, shunting her mana concealment and resisting the pull, stepping beyond the vortex's grasp.

"This ends," she breathed, diverting all the energy she had left into her final stroke.

With a blur of movement, she unleashed *The Height of Magic* — an enormous telekinetic blast that knocked the timberwraith backward, shattering its limbs and slamming it to the ground, splintered and immobile.

SpongeBob exhaled sharply, awe and relief flooding him. "That… was magic?"

Frieren lowered her staff, her breath steady despite the effort. "Magic is both creation and destruction. Today, you've seen its shape."

The clearing lay quiet. Quiet and deep, unnatural quiet—the kind that follows calamity, not peace. The roots curled like claws previously were lying in dry shreds upon blackened earth. Nothing moved, not even the breeze.

SpongeBob moved cautiously, the ash crunching under his square feet. His spatula was sooted and blackened, the edges a bit splintered from having held it tightly.

He looked up to Frieren. She was still, eyes closed, listening—not to the world, but to the currents of mana that still whirled in the air, as if the very last remnants of her magic were drifting back to the heavens.

"…Is it done?" he asked, his voice small but curious, like a child looking at fireworks after the final flash.

Frieren's eyes opened. "Yes."

He tilted his head at her, studying her face. She wasn't bruised anywhere, but she looked far away—out of reach, somehow. Like her body had returned but her mind was still walking off into the distance.

"That was… wow," he said finally. "You didn't even flinch! Are all mages that calm when they're shooting fire and lightning left and right like scorching bubblegum?"

"No," she replied without glancing back over her shoulder. "Most don't. They hesitate. Think too much. Die.".

SpongeBob rubbed the back of his head. "Heh… comforting. Super comforting."

She finally turned to look at him, her gaze softer now. "You're not used to death."

"I mean, yeah… I've seen a lot of weird stuff—like jellyfish mating season, or Mr. Krabs without his shell—but that?" He glanced back at the steaming heap of timber and black ichor. "That was like… the whole forest forgot how to breathe."

Frieren nodded. "That's what powerful mana does. It displaces more than air."

He looked back out at the battlefield once more. The timberwraith's ravaged corpse was already starting to break down, black sap curling away into thin mist like burnt paper. Insects, or insect-like things, were crawling up out of the ground to reclaim what was left.

"Why was it here?" he asked. "That creature. The folks in the town.".

Frieren looked down at her staff, then moved slowly towards the ruins. "Timberwraiths are old. Very old. They don't migrate, they establish. It didn't arrive here—it was born here. Something must've roused it."

She crouched beside a place that had been reduced to bone-white ash, sweeping a patch of ash aside with her fingers. Beneath the cloak of devastation, the ground was gray and hollow. Drained.

"Life magic," she breathed. "Reversed."

"Reversed?" SpongeBob squatted beside her. "Like… zombie trees?"

"Not quite. Undead preserve a shape. This devours it. It feeds by unmaking. I've only seen it a few times. It's a kind of curse—seeded by ancient mages who thought they could control the forest."

She rose and looked over at the line of trees, where a few of the pines still stood, their trunks split and their needles browning. 

They stood there for a long moment, letting the air settle around them. SpongeBob felt an odd weight in his chest—not fear, but the afterimage of it. The kind that lingers when you've survived something too big to understand.

"Hey… Frieren?"

"Hm?"

"I don't really know what I'm doing in this world yet," he said. "It still feels like I'm gonna wake up in my pineapple with Gary drooling on my face."

Frieren's lips twitched into the faintest ghost of a smile. "You're not."

He nodded seriously. "Good. Because… I think I wanna learn how to do what you do."

She looked at him for a moment. "Magic?"

Yeah," he said, glancing toward the tip of her staff. "But also. that whole standing-still-as-a-monster-roars-in-your-face bit. I mean, I usually freak out when the fryer's beeping too loudly. But you? You were like a statue made of wizard awesomeness."

"That doesn't happen at first," she said, moving away from the corpse of the timberwraith. "Years."

"I've got years," he said, shoving the charred spatula back into his belt. "I'm super absorbent. I'm a sponge.

Frieren remained still.

"…We'll see."

They left the clearing slowly. The morning sun was beginning to rise behind the broken trees, lighting the path ahead in pale gold. Smoke lifted behind them, spiraling gently toward the sky. Birds had not yet returned to the trees.

But the silence was no longer terrifying. It was simply quiet.

By midday, the town was nothing but strewn forms behind them—tumbling roofs, a broken well, one scarecrow lying still in its bean bed. Ahead of them lay tight and half-damaged road, curving into grass and stone, stitched by thin veins of ancient magic.

They did not have much to say.

The trees were younger now. Birch and beech rather than pine, their leaves rustling softly, as if the forest itself was trying to forget what had been done.

SpongeBob walked with his hands behind his back, gaze drifting from branch to sky, to his spatula, to Frieren's footfalls. He tried to whistle for a moment, but the sound did not quite form. Not out of grief—but too much to bear.

Finally, resting for a bit on a still incline, he sat on a rock and pulled out his whittling again. The crude wooden spatula had chipped at the end, but it still held its form. He began shaving it slowly with a blunt little knife he'd borrowed from the ruined town.

"Does this world ever… not seem so enormous?" he asked, not taking the time to raise his eyes.

Frieren sat beside him, one leg over the other, her eyes half-lowered and serene as in a dream. She partially opened one eye.

"No."

He thought on that, then smiled half-heartedly. "That's sort of nice."

The wind caught in them, sending grass swirling around.

"Frieren?" he breathed once more. "Why do you wander alone?"

She didn't answer right away. Not that she wouldn't—but because, for someone like her, memory was a building process. Time didn't always give up its reasons so easily.

"…Because I used to go with people who aren't here anymore," she replied after a beat. "A lot of whom I still remember how it was."

SpongeBob looked at her. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes."

He nodded. Then went back to his spatula.

.I suppose if I just stayed in one place long enough," he said, "the quiet would catch up with me."

Frieren looked at him.

"I think I'd rather walk," he said.

They sat there a bit longer, sitting at the edge of the path, with no place in particular to be. Off in the distance, a bird sang for the first time that day.

Night fell, and when they stood up again, they went out together.