A Thymely River

The first couple of hours went by relatively quickly and in complete silence. I was constantly looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was following us. The only sight was Analise a few paces behind. I felt my stomach grumble, it'd been more than a couple of days since I've eaten. I audibly sighed at the situation. I knew I wasn't going to die out in the middle of nowhere and of starvation.

"Alright, I suppose I should teach you something a tad more useful than your simple healing spells." I said stopping, turning to her.

"What could be more useful than healing spells?" She said, giving me a questioning look.

"Something to eat," I said flatly.

"Actually, now that you mention it. I am getting hungry. So what's this spell?"

"Well, we're gonna go hunting and the spell is a simple fire shot. It barely uses any energy at all and it'll help defend you when we inevitably get into scrapes. I can't worry about your life and my own in the middle of them."

"How are you going to teach me if you can't do it yourself?" Analise said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Simple, I can do the motions and say the words but if I don't have the intention of casting the spell then I won't. Seventy five percent of magic is intention and the rest is everything else." I said, "Now, hold your arm fully extended and with your middle, ring and pinky fingers clenched and your thumb and pointer finger stretched, with your pointer aimed at where you want to hit."

"This is all that's needed to cast this spell?" She asked, doing as I instructed.

"No, that's just the hand placement and you could steady your hand with the other one until you get comfortable with it. Now, start to push your energy into your fingertip and feel the heat build into it. It doesn't take much now." As I gave her instruction I could see that the tip of her fingertip was starting to give off heat waves. "Let the energy build until it feels like your fingertip is going to explode. Just when you think you can't take it anymore, let it go out your fingertip and watch the sparks fly."

"This feels nothing like my healing spells. This definitely takes a lot more concentration than I expected." She said as I watched her finger start smoking from the energy.

"Aim for that tree directly in front of us."

"You're not worried about lighting the forest on fire?" She said, now steading her hand.

"No, this spell is a quick flash and would only catch loose stuff and not something as sturdy as that tree. Release it now." I said looking at the tree she was aiming at. I heard her grunt and saw an arrow of fire hit the tree square. "Good, do it again. Faster this time. The enemy won't let you charge up, you must be able to fire it within six seconds." I said looking at her

"Six seconds? That seems like a short amount of time." She said firing off a second shot much quicker than the first.

"Six seconds might not seem like a lot but when your life is in danger it feels like forever. Again." She fired another shot faster than the second. "Congratulations, you've been taught by the greatest sorcerer alive. You should feel honored. I'm surprised that you're my first student." Analise gave me a disapproving look and just shook her head.

"You're not a terrible teacher, just a decent person pretending to be a terrible one." She said waving her hand to cool it off, "Now, we should go looking for something to eat. I'll keep an eye out for any foliage we can eat as we hunt."

We started slowly continuing in the direction we were headed in keeping our eyes peeled for any game. A few times she stopped me and started picking berries off of a bush. There were a couple that I recognized, like black berries, raspberries, and blue berries, but there was a couple that she pointed out that were safe to eat that I hadn't even heard of. About one hour had passed and in the distance I spotted a pair of rabbits in the distance. I pulled up my hand to stop her and pointed them out. I motioned to get closer and ducked down. When we had gotten close enough I readied the spell.

"Aim for the head," I whispered and she just nodded, also raising her hand aiming at the other rabbit. "On three. One, two, three." Both of us let our spells loose and they were both on target. Both of our rabbits dropped dead instantly.

"Good, let's clean them up, the quicker the better." I stood up pulling my knife from by side. I walked over to the pair and picked them up. "Thank you rabbits for providing us with food today."

As I straighten myself I heard what I thought was running water in the distance, I smiled at the turn of events, "Sounds like running water off in that direction. We should be able to make a small campsite there for a bit." I walked towards the sound and after a few minutes I pushed past a bush greeted with the sight of a river. I smiled, looked around for some vines to tie the rabbits up.

"If you could find us some firewood while I clean these up, that would be fantastic." I said assuming that Ana had followed me. I grabbed some reeds and started tying them together as I fashioned a small rope, I grabbed a fairly sizable rock that looked like it had a sharp enough edge and laid the rabbit down on another rock. I picked up the rock and after a few swings the rabbit's head came off. I soon took off the other head and had them hanging by the rope I had made. After 15 minutes or so I had one rabbit gutted and skinned. I turned around and saw Lise had gathered a small bundle of wood and had arranged it in a campfire.

"Great, now find two sticks that have a solid Y shape and a decently sized one that we can put the rabbits on." I turned back towards the other rabbit and soon that one had been cleaned and skinned. I saw that Ana had the campfire all set up and the stick she found would work nicely. I left the rabbits hanging there and walked over to where the stick was and started sharpening it. When I was done I untied the rabbits and washed them in the river.

"Want me to start the fire now?" I heard as I rubbed the remnants off the meat. I nodded my head and went back to what I was doing . I chuckled as I heard the fire spell hit the pile of wood. "Not above using fire magic, eh?"

"I don't need your sass right now. Besides, trying to find flint and something to strike it with is a pain rather than just using magic."

"There was an easier spell and I'm surprised that you didn't try seeing if you could experiment with what I taught you. Though fire magic isn't your forte but I'll forgive you this once." I teased her as I walked back to the now lit fire. "Either way, good job. Hold this for a second please." I handed her one of the rabbits and jabbed the other one with the skewer. She handed me the other one and I stabbed that one as well. I put the skewer in the notches in the branches she set up and smiled.

"We'll be eating in no time at all now, you did good. Now, all we'll need is to basically follow this river and eventually we'll find some kind of town." I said slowly spinning the rabbits.

"Is there a town along this river?"

"Well, definitely Greenwater but anything smaller than that I don't know. If there is, I have enough money to get us some supplies so we don't need to hunt for food like this."

"What if there isn't any though?"

"We definitely can't rely on there being rabbit every day and I really don't recommend eating for more than two days in a row. We could fish and there should be plenty of wild berries and vegetables to keep us going. I won't promise that'll be what you're used to but we'll survive."

"Then if we stay by the river we won't need to worry about fresh water either. You really do know how to survive in the wild don't you? Your grandfather taught you well."

"He also taught me that towns often spring up around sources of water so they can have a source of food and water besides farming and hunting. Even if we don't come across any towns we should find a few houses here and there. Then if we're lucky they've built their house close enough to the main road."

"So are we done traveling for the day or are we going to keep going?"

"Depends on how we feel after we eat. I would like to get to Greenwater as soon as possible but I don't want to be so burnt out that we're easy targets when we get there. I'm really only going to use anything more than simple spells only when it's absolutely required. I don't want Mathios' men finding us any quicker."

"So, the fire spell you taught me is simple?"

"Yeah, it doesn't use any real magic or energy. Of course you could put more energy behind it and have it cause more damage but there are better spells you could put that energy towards."

"Are you going to teach me anymore spells or am I left in the dark and have to figure them out?"

"There's a few spells I could teach you like a personal favorite of mine. It doesn't really use energy either and it's an easier way of starting a fire too. It'll also clean your clothes and do a few other things but the clean clothes and lighting small fires is definitely the most important ones."

"This spell cleans your clothes? That seems like it'll save a whole bunch of- That rabbit smells so good."

"Oh, yeah. That's almost done huh? Sorry, having a 'student' is an interesting thing to me. We can stop for the night and I can teach you Prestidigitation" I pulled the skewer off the holders and grabbed the holders and placed them away from the fire to let the rabbits cool. It should be done in a few minutes and we'll be feasting on our spoils in no time." Analise grabbed the sticks, placed them and I returned the skewer to hanging above the ground.

"So, Prestidigitation. Focus on what you want to happen like lighting a small fire or cleaning your clothes. Then when your mind is filled with nothing else snap your fingers."

"That's it, all you do is snap your fingers?"

"Pretty much, the hand motions aren't as important as the intention but they're still important." I grabbed a twig next to the fire, started imagining the tip lighting on fire and when the image of the flame was firmly in my head I snapped my fingers and the end of the twig light on fire. I tossed the burning twig into the fire and turned to her. "Go on, grab a twig and try it for yourself."