‘I’m sorry, I tried looking for them. I just had some important mage things to do.’
Java laid back, flattening the tall grass beneath her. Her brow thick with sweat as she took a break from harvesting vegetables. Her thoughts jumped back to what was said to her at the end of the last market, ruminating over his words.
‘I’m sorry, I tried looking for them…’ she leaned her head to one side stretching the tense muscles in her neck all while taking rhythmic deep breaths, ‘… I just had some important mage things to do.’ Only after a couple more deep breaths into the stretch did she lean her head to the other side and repeat this attempt at easing her overworked shoulders.
He was a silly man. A silly new mage. Just a silly academic who thinks their personal works are more important than keeping the balance of Folkwisdom. Before he had been initiated he had learned to be woodwise as she is. But now? Her stomach lets out a painful grumble.
‘I just had some important mage things to do.’
It should be an honor to know as much as he knows. To be learned and chosen in the way he was. Had she had the same chances, her life would be different. likely for the better. He was lucky, privileged even.
Java suddenly sat up and shook her head, wishing away her thoughts, “No. That’s not fair.” Rising up she plucks her half filled bag from the ground and resumes harvesting food for the town. She is not a judge, it is not fair for her to judge him at all. Even if it wasn’t fair for him to leave her and the other woodwise to search for all the binding moss. Even if it wasn’t fair that he got to further his studies and met with a powerful Earthmage.
A sudden ache of pain in Java’s shoulder hit her, her thoughts again disrupted as she immediately let go of the bag.Taking a long moment to look about the field, she lightly kneaded her tender shoulder as she looked about.
“Am I a bad mage?” the words fell from her mouth with ease, leaving with the breeze that waved around her. Winter was going to creep in sooner than previous years she could feel it. Again her stomach rumbled.
“And what if I am a bad mage?” Java knelt on the ground and began to rip clumps of weeds out of the ground. It’d be easier to poison the earth, no weeds to pull if everything diseased out and died. Just as it’d be easier if more people choose to fast themselves and fool Vecatra, but not everyone is good at being Folkwise. So what did it matter to not be a ‘good’ mage?
It did matter though. That’s why it bothered her.
“You know what?” Java continued her conversation with herself, her stomach a constant reminder to the knowledge she holds and wields for the community as this year’s Speaker, “I think it’s best if I take time for myself, they will not starve.”
A celebration with The Disinherited sounded like a fun distraction anyways. Perhaps in the next upcoming season’s she will prove herself to be a good mage.
