It's been nearly six months since they found hir student. When she realized just how badly she'd been mangling things, she almost got upset, until Wraithvine sat her down to explain that, that had been a GOOD thing, fate had been kind. Now, the young woman was showing real progress, but needed to learn moderation.
@internutter/challenge-04371-k353-itinerant-educator -- Anon Guest
[AN: I can plausibly fit this between the first story and this one: @internutter/challenge-04405-l021-where-you-learn-the-most ]
Wraithvine had done this literally thousands of times. Possibly millions. To be honest, ze had lost count. Assuming ze had ever started counting at all. Therefore, ze knew the patterns that every possible student of magic could follow.
Right now, this butterfly was flapping her wings and learning she could cause cyclones. If allowed to continue, she could get drunk on power and initiate an entirely different variety of chaos. Yes, her Ancient Elven was good enough to control her spellwork reliably. Now she was flexing her skills and realising how easy magic could make things for her.
No number of cautionary tales could prevent her from taking that power and using it to assert her dominance. She had control of her power, so there was no fear of it going wild.
Wraithvine despised having to put down a student. Fortunately, ze also knew a decent cure for so much ego so soon in a student's journey.
A student of their own.
Thus, Wraithvine followed the streams of the leyflow, looking for a whirlpool caused by someone else using it. Ah. There. Wraithvine was careful to conceal hir presence as ze approached.
A Hellkin child, scratching runes into materials and rubbing them over with the tip of their tail. They had made an apple the size of a small barrel with the rune for 'growth' and carved bits off of it to eat as they worked. They were now making a heat stone with the rune for 'fire'.
Ze knew what was going to happen with this degree of independent learning. But ze also needed something alarming to capture Butterfly's attention. The child, Curio, would be relatively safe. Their kind were proof against fire.
Curio was bound to spark Butterfly's empathy. The child was using runes to benefit their survival and little more. Growth to make their food more plentiful. Fire to give them warmth against the creeping cold of Autumn. A little inspection revealed that they had used the Stone rune to turn their tiny debris hut into a more fortified structure against the wind and weather.
Curio finished the rune for fire, and toasted their frozen toes by the radiating rock. Then, when it started to burn the area around it, the child panicked and threw it into the nearest pond.
Yes. This child would be an ideal student for Butterfly.
Ze returned to Butterfly and gave her the simple task of fetching Curio for lessons. The rest would be revealed when she returned from her little quest.
They would all do well from this. Wraithvine had hir way of making sure.
[Photo by Jeanne Rouillard on Unsplash]
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