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shady-tavern · 2 days ago

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And it's out on my patreon and ko-fi! I very much hope it's a fun read and thank you all so much for your support! Be it memberships, likes or reblogs, it means the world to me!

If you'd like to check out more stories of mine, don't hesitate to give the masterpost a peek! There are a bunch of great stories there!

Preview for "Making Miracles" the March Short Story

(Warnings ahead for death, dissociation and suicidal ideation, please be sure to take care of yourselves)

*.*.*.*

"The Gods provide," was the favorite sentence of your family whenever trouble brewed. Your grandparents had said it when they had been alive and your parents did as well now, as did your younger brother.

In all honesty, you had no idea if they were right or not. Sometimes it looked like the gods did provide and other times nothing but days-long hard work could even begin to solve a problem. You would like for them to be right however, simply because it would make them happy.

Your father was an upbeat, colorful man, who seemed to sing more often than not, hair long and braided and he always insisted on embroidering everyone's clothes. You loved him dearly and no matter what was going on, he always took a moment to listen to you, his soul and heart kind and warm.

Your mother was more fiery in comparison, her laugh ringing through the house like cheerful bells, her grin fierce and she never shied away from the challenges of life. No matter how busy she was, she was always willing to fight for you and the rest of her family. She made everyone around her better and brighter, just like her spirit was.

You liked to think that your little brother had been born with chaos in his heart. Your parents only laughed when you said so in a mock-grumble. In their opinion both their children were perfectly lovely.

For all that your little brother could get on your very last nerve, especially when he was in one of his mischievous moods, you knew you could always count on him. The two of you could be real shits to each other, but absolute nightmares to anyone who dared to come after you or your family.

All in all, you led a happy life. Not always an easy one, but a good one nonetheless. When your magical abilities showed themselves when you were fourteen years old, your parents didn't hesitate to send you to a mage academy, full of pride and love for you.

Your little brother just smiled that perfectly innocent smile and asked if you could learn spells that opened doors or would turn them invisible.

You knew that the cobbler's son had said very mean things about his best friend and he had been thinking about how to get revenge ever since. Harmless revenge at the end of the day, but still something that would make the other boy's overblown ego deflate a little.

You just patted him on the shoulder in silent agreement and then you went on your merry way.

The mage academy was both very demanding and very fun. You found two amazing best friends named Iza and Gil. They were, like you, a little daring and rather willing to experiment around.

Magic was amazing and as long as you didn't have to rigidly follow spell instructions, it was rather easy to use. You did better with improvising compared to pre-determined, carefully selected and thought out spell casting.

Which, of course, at times bit you in the ass quite a bit. As it turned out, thinking ahead wasn't the worst idea, especially in a spar against talented, more practiced mages.

You wrote home frequently and visited during the holidays, helping your little brother get his revenge. Afterwards you showed off the spells you had learned, making all your father's flowers bloom to the point where they were the most beautiful in town and you helped your mother in her forge, carefully etching runes across steel to imbue it with a little blessing. A little magic.

A little bit of wondrousness wrapped around the mundane.

"The Gods provide," your mother said with a laugh, reaching out to pull you into a hug as she pressed a grinning kiss to your temple. "And you are certainly a gift they gave us. You and your brother both. My little god-made miracles."

"Eh," you made a mock-unsure, doubtful noise and she laughed, giving your back a pat as she returned to her work.

You left to meet up with your friends for the rest of the day, since they didn't live too far from your hometown. The three of you were thick as thieves and you loved them more than anything in the world. You could entrust them with all your secrets, your good and bad parts and they did the same. With them, no matter where you were, you had a safe place.

Yeah, life was good and it stayed good even with some harsh lessons in-between, some bad experiences and rough times. Because you had love in your life and that gave you strength and hope and you always had someone to lean on, to get a moment's reprieve, when you felt like caving in yourself. You could always wade through the dark to make it back into the light and therefore, life was good.

And then, your little brother fell in love and you got to watch him be as besotted with someone as your parents were with each other. The young man he brought home was quite the polite, friendly lad and he clearly was just as in love with your brother as he was with him. You were quite happy for them both.

Your best friends Iza and Gil started to date each other shortly after you all came back from the holidays and you had to admit that, apparently, your people-knowledge wasn't as good as you had thought. Because you had not seen it coming, but now that they had mentioned how long they had liked each other, you did start to see it.

You couldn't help but be amused as well as relieved at how insistent they were that you had to keep hanging out with them no matter what. Your little trio would be lacking without you, they said.

Your friendship indeed remained as strong as ever and the three of you graduated as full-fledged mages, ready to explore the world and make a name for yourselves. To your surprise, you soon received a letter by one of the archmages of the north, who had selected you among a couple other graduates to come study under her.

It was an incredible opportunity, but it would also take you away from home for at least three to five years, depending on how long you would stay. Coming back home would take too long to be worth the time you'd have off.

"A chance like that doesn't come along just any old day," Iza insisted, giving you a giddy little tap with her fingers on your lower arm. She was visibly very happy for you and she bumped your shoulders together. "Gil and I will make sure to check in with your family, so don't you worry about any of us."

With such reassurances bolstering you and everyone's insistence that, as long as this was what you wanted, you should not let such a chance slip by, you wrote your acceptance to the archmage. Your bags were packed and you were soon on your way, making your friends and family promise that they would write to you regularly.

The archmage was incredible once you arrived. She, just like you, only followed guidelines when it suited her and you had never had a better, more talented teacher. She was as demanding as she was rewarding and whenever you wrote back home, your letters were filled with your excitement about the things you had learned.

The years passed as well as they could have and while at times problems emerged that worried you, things could be resolved sooner or later. The Gods indeed provided at times as well.

You felt like you could do amazing things on your own now and you were eager to wrap up your apprenticeship and return home at last. All that was left was presenting what you could do, the spells you had changed into something better and the spells you had invented to a gathering of the council of archmages. If they were impressed with you, if you could convince them, they might bestow the title of archmage onto you as well.

Once you received that honor, you would head straight back home. Both your brother and your friends desired to get married and they had told you they'd make sure to wait for your return. You loved them all so much, even if you never really told them that.

You were nearly done with said apprenticeship when you noticed that it had been a while since you had received any letters. How long had it been, two months? Three? You weren't too concerned at first, considering that sometimes the riders delivering their letters could be held up by a number of things.

It had once taken half a year for a letter to arrive because there had been massive flooding and the rider of the postal service had fallen sick in some backwater village where he was unable to contact the service so someone else could take over for him.

Then you heard the rumblings of war at the horizon and still you didn't grow worried. Your hometown was in a peaceful, slightly remote valley after all and Iza and Gil were there as well. Two mages could keep themselves and those around them safe from harm.

So you wrapped up your apprenticeship with a happy smile, the archmage you considered a good friend and even better mentor taking you to the council of archmages.

You were viciously nervous, but you made sure to present everything with confidence and aplomb, even if you had to fake it. You held your breath as the council discussed their decision and at last, they presented you with the title of archmage.

You just barely held back a shout of joy and the moment you and your mentor were out of the council building, you cheered loudly together, hugging each other and laughing joyfully. You had done it!

Your mentor last wrote you a glowing recommendation, in case you wished to work for nobility or in another high-ranking job and she told you to come visit her whenever you liked. Her enchanted tower would let you enter without issue.

With that thick letter in your pack, along with the certification that made you an archmage and your pride puffed up and happy in your chest, you were eager to go back home. You traveled fast, the good weather on your side and you made sure to skirt the areas where armies clashed.

You only had a vague idea why this war had gotten started – something about succession and the prince not wanting his niece on the throne, bogus like that – and you were happy to not get within a mile's radius of the conflict.

There were already plenty of mages at war as well and you had no desire to join, neither for money nor for glory.

At last you crossed into the valley where your hometown laid and as you walked faster, smiling with happy anticipation, you started to notice strange things. The hard-packed dirt road was wider and churned up, trees along the road felled and there were large campsites, long abandoned but the vegetation still struggled to recover.

And then you saw the first village and where you had expected to see old neighbors, to say hello and be greeted in return, you saw nothing but burnt-down husks.

An army had come through here, you realized and the joy curdled swiftly into a terrible feeling you had never felt before in your life. Of course you had known fear and worry, as well as self-doubt and struggles.

But this was different. This was a nameless dread that gripped you like invisible hands, squeezing your throat tighter, kicking your heart into a faster rhythm like a startled horse, your stomach getting speared by an ice-lance of fear.

You rushed forward, your brisk walk turning into a jog at the next burnt village and then into a full-on sprint when you saw, up the hill, your hometown, blackened and nearly gone. Ash and rubble was all that remained.

You were shouting as you approached, a desperate kind of hope clawing through your veins. It felt like that hope was the only thing that kept you together, like stubborn threads making sure worn, old clothes didn't fully fall apart.

You skidded to a stop, breath catching in your lungs and for a brief moment it felt like your entire body entered some kind of stasis, your gaze stuck on the body half buried beneath blackened and charred remains of a house. The flesh was so badly burnt that not even insects or other animals had wanted to eat it.

That was the cobbler's house, a distant part of you realized and you forced yourself to keep moving.

More and more bodies laid strewn about, some torn to pieces, though you could not tell if it had been by animals or your fellow humans. Some had only left shredded clothes and chewed apart shoes behind as they had gotten devoured by wild animals. Others were nothing but bones, picked clean and chewed on.

How long...how long ago had the attack taken place? It must've been months.

You thought back to the sudden lack of letters and you nearly threw up as your stomach heaved. All this time...all this time that you had been safe and happy, playing with magic like a...like a child and your family and friends had been thrust into the middle of a stupid, senseless, needless war.

There were banners in the dirt, brown with a white, rearing horse and distantly you remembered that it belonged to the brother of the late king, who clearly had no desire to see his niece on the throne.

You felt strangely distant to your own body as you kept walking forward, like someone caught in a bad fever dream as you headed for your home. The place you remembered as standing tall and broad, having been extended twice. Once so your brother and his beloved could move into their own space together and another time so you could have your own place as well, for living and for practicing magic.

Iza and Gil had lived there in the meantime.

It took you a moment to realize you had reached your home, because it was...gone. Crushed and caved in by something that must've been magic.

Of course. Iza and Gil would not have simply died, they would have fought and even an army would struggle against two mages who worked together as smoothly as clockwork. It certainly would have allowed most people in your hometown to escape, while Iza and Gil guarded their retreat.

But if the army had mages in their employ, then nothing but ruin would remain if Iza and Gil lost.

They must have lost, a numb, distant part of you thought as you stared at your old home, flattened like cardboard stacks that a giant stepped on. Your arm felt heavy and distant, your magic felt heavy and distant, as you started to levitate the pieces, trying to find something.

You did. In a divot, like a round shield had protected them, you saw four curled together bodies. You saw the dirty, embroidered clothing, the work of your father, the carefully made jewelry your mother had gifted for birthdays and special occasions.

Something peeled off the pieces you had floating, falling to the earth with dull thuds and you stared at the crushed and half pulverized bodies of your best friends. It had to be them, when you saw Gil's necklace hanging from a nearly shattered neck, his head gone and the other body had Iza's enchanted iron hand still stuck to her arm, which had separated from the rest of her remains when she had fallen just now.

The broken pieces of your home thudded to the ground as you dropped the levitation spell and you felt dizzy and reeling and distant and breathless all at once.

You had no feeling in your fingers when you made yourself move, carefully wrapping the bodies and casting a stasis spell, followed by a shielding spell, the same that Iza and Gil must've cast to protect your family. It hadn't been enough.

You had no idea how long you stood there or when you started to move or really what you were doing. It felt like you were drifting in and out of focus, collecting bodies, clearing roads and streets and levitating aside debris to try and find everyone.

You didn't count the bodies, but deep down, a part of you knew that no one had survived. An entire town, wiped out.

Because some people argued whose ass got to sit on the throne. What a joke.

*.*.*

If you'd like to read the whole story on march or any of my other short stories, feel free to check out my patreon or my ko-fi! Thank you all so much for your support, it means the world to me!

Additionally, you can find more of my short stories here in my masterpost! Happy reading everyone!

#my writing #short story #fantasy #magic #preview #hope you'll like this one!#tho please heed the warnings as well

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