The sun shone brightly on the light blue sky. The fire died out a long time ago, as small traces of smoke could be seen flying from the coals in the fireplace.
As Ili got up, she noticed that only she and Old Man Kal were still inside the house. The old man was covered in a thick blanket, only his head being seen above as he was peacefully sleeping in his bed. Ili stretched her back as she quietly got up. She took her pouch and sword that were next to her bed, placing the sword back at her hip. Then, she put on her shoes and carefully opened the old wooden door, not to wake up the old man.
Outside, she found Kaeldor, who was chopping some wood for the fireplace.
"Morning!" Ili said, washing her face with some snow she picked up from the ground.
"Oh, morning!" Kaeldor turned his head politely towards her before getting back to chopping wood. "So, how did you sleep?"
"I slept well, thank you!" the girl said, stretching her back and looking up at the sky.
"I was thinking, would you like to come with me later to hunt? Since you're going on a long journey all by yourself, you should learn to hunt, as it might come in quite handy. What do you think?"
Ili paused for a few moments, before responding.
"Well, I do know how to hunt, but I wouldn't mind joining you! I should at least try to help you, as I'm staying in your house, eating your food..."
"Oh, don't think of it like that, it's our pleasure to have you with us! And if you say that you know how to hunt, I won't question your words. But even so, I'd enjoy having your company on the hunt!" Kaeldor smiled, as he finished breaking the last piece of wood, throwing it in the pile with the rest. "So, after lunch, sounds good?"
"Yeah, sounds good!"
Ili looked around, searching for something. "By the way, where's Kulhun?" she finally asked.
"Oh, Kulhun is on the preparation team for the festival. He left some time ago, saying that there were some things he needed to resolve regarding it."
"I see... Alright, thanks!" Ili began walking down the path, towards the main road.
"Going to the village?"
"Yeah. Just thought of going out for a little walk, nothing much. See you later!" Ili said casually, waving him goodbye.
"Alright then. Take care!" Kaeldor waved as well, getting back to work.
The road was pretty empty, a few merchant carts being seen from time to time, entering and exiting the village at a slow, relaxed pace. The people in the town were slowly beginning to wake up under the warm rays of the sun. Unlike the other races, most of the dwarves were already awake for quite some time, going on with their daily chores. From time to time, you could hear the distant sounds of wood being chopped in the forest that was on the other side of the valley, as dwarves were coming to the village with water-filled buckets from the snowy paths coming from that same direction.
Turning her head to the left side, she spotted the smith's home, higher than the others in the valley. Outside the house, under the extended wooden roof, could be seen the already ignited fire of the stone forge, but with no one around.
Ili followed the same path she took last night, walking up to the gazing point. Taking out her blanket from her pouch, she placed it down on the snow, before sitting on it, looking over the edge once again.
She took a deep breath, relaxing, finally having time to be with her own thoughts.
A long time has passed, but her master's words kept echoing in her head...
'I trust you, my apprentice… Only by facing the world's joys and sorrows can you find your own path…'
'My own path...' Ili repeated, gazing once again over the edge, at the vast world. She took out her white sword from its sheath, looking at her own reflection in its blade.
'My own path feels... Lonely...'
The girl sheathed back her sword, finally getting up from the blanket. She shook the snow off it, before folding it neatly and placing it back in her pouch. After looking one last time over the edge of the cliff, she got up and left.
The sun was high up, illuminating the small valley completely. The road was once again filled with merchant carts and passersby, with also a few more visitors joining the village's grounds.
Not long after, Ili made it back to the path leading to Kulhun's house. Right outside the house, Old Man Kal was sitting once again on the wooden bench, looking at the sky. She nodded to him and went to the door, but didn't enter, as she heard some noise coming from the back of the house. It sounded like iron hitting iron with force. Curious, Ili decided to go and see what it was all about. Peeking from behind the house's walls, she saw Kaeldor and Kulhun in the snow, fighting. They were both wielding battle axes almost as tall as their bodies.
Kaeldor launched at his cousin, sending an attack from above, which Kulhun blocked with the side of his axe.
"You're getting sloppier, Kaeldor!" Kulhun smiled. Pushing his weapon up with force, he sent a wide swing with his axe, which Kaeldor was barely able to dodge.
"Don't get too cocky, cousin!" Kaeldor responded with confidence, as he regained his footing and leaped again at Kulhun, their weapons clashing with force, so much that the snow beneath flew in all directions.
They finally lowered their weapons to the ground, as they laughed.
"Just like in the good old days!" Kulhun patted Kaeldor on the shoulder, with a wide smile.
"And yet, you still haven't bested me once!" Kaeldor laughed.
"You just had to destroy the fun, huh?"
"Oh, the fun has just begun!"
Both of them jumped back quickly, with smiles on their faces, as they raised their weapons again to one another.
"Show me what you've got!" Kaeldor yelled, as they leaped at one another with speed yet again.
Ili looked at the scene with a smile, seeing how close the two of them were. It reminded her of all the times she trained with her master, although she wasn't even close to being evenly matched with him. Deciding not to disturb them, Ili turned around and went inside. Wanting to be helpful, she started the fire in the fireplace with a quick spell and began making some food for lunch.
"Well, let's see what I can make... Hmm..."
Looking through the house, Ili couldn't help but be disappointed in the lack of supplies inside.
"Guess I gotta make use of what I have..." she thought out loud, putting some vegetables on the small, round table that was next to her bed.
Looking around in the chest, she took out a metal pot, which she filled with ice from outside. Then, she put it on the fire, to boil it into clean water. Meanwhile, Ili cleaned and cut a few vegetables with a knife, placing them all inside a wooden bowl. Filling three more bowls with cut vegetables, Ili placed all of them into the boiling water, which she then mixed with a wooden spoon in the metal pot.
Soon, the fighting sounds from outside stopped, and some laughter took their place, followed by the sounds of steps moving through the snow.
Ili had just finished the soup and took it off the fire, as the two dwarfs entered the room, with Old Man Kal slowly walking inside from behind them, with the help of his wooden staff.
"Well, something surely smells nice!" Kulhun spoke in a joyful tone.
"Come, come! Sit down!" Ili invited them in an excited tone, putting the pot in the center of the carpet, in the same place that it stood last night. "I made soup!"
Everyone sat down on the carpet, taking the same places that they had last night. To Ili's surprise, they began to eat directly, without making the traditional prayer from last time. 'It must have been only for dinner', Ili thought to herself, shaking off her confused expression and returning to her usual, cheerful expression.
"So, Kulhun..." Ili began, trying to break the deep silence from the room. "I heard that you're working on the festival. How is it?"
Kulhun raised his head, not seeming too happy about it.
"Well, we had a few problems," he began. Some mechanisms broke and unrolled the scrolls (1) way too early, shooting a few fireworks. We had a few guys look at the mechanisms to fix them, then we had to write a few other scrolls to put in their place... It was a big nuisance..."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that..." Ili said in a somewhat sad tone, contemplating her decision to ask that question.
"Nah, it's alright!" Kulhun spoke. "And we managed to get them to work, eventually. We've pretty much finished all of the preparations for the festival! Now, we only need to hope that no problems arise in the meanwhile."
"That's nice to hear!" Ili smiled sweetly, clearly relieved. "So, I take it that these 'fireworks' are a spell?"
"Yes, that's exactly right!" Kulhun responded, excited to finally explain his work. "We have a few mages in our preparation team, and they work on writing the scrolls and infusing mana (2) into them to activate the spell. And then, we use some small devices with cogs, kind of like a clock, which unroll the scrolls at a given time, which will be during the festival, in our case. Well, the spell is actually called 'Exo-Enos', but Old Man Kal said that 'firework' has a nicer ring to it, so we went with his idea. After all, he was the one who invented the spell!"
Ili's eyes widened as she heard that last part.
"Wait! You are just going to casually bring up the fact that Old Man Kal created this spell, like it's nothing?!"
Both Kaeldor and Kulhun laughed at her surprised expression.
"Well, didn't I tell you that Old Man Kal was a great mage back in his days? Of course he had created countless spells, I don't know what you're so surprised about!" Kaeldor said, patting the old man carefully on the back.
The elder didn't seem to mind Kaeldor's pat nor Kulhun's words. He seemed to be fully out of it, trying to enjoy his soup.
"Well, I guess that makes sense... But you shouldn't be so casual about it!" Ili said, a bit embarrassed.
Everyone seemed to be having a good time. Ili kept asking random questions, Kulhun and Kaeldor happily responding, all while Old Man Kal was quietly enjoying the soup. Even after Kal went to take a nap in his bed, the three still remained on the carpet, around the now empty pot, talking. The chatter only stopped after a while, when Kulhun had to leave to get back to working on the festival, to make the last checks and modifications.
Footnotes:
1 - A scroll is a rolled piece of paper for writing on. In this context, Kulhun was referring to a magic scroll, which are scrolls containing a spell and the mana to use it, activating the spell once the scroll is unfolded, destroying it in the process.
2 - Mana is the magical force of a person. It is used in almost every type of magic, incantations, and divine techniques. The more mana the user has, the more powerful a technique becomes, and the longer the user trains, the bigger his mana "pool" will be. Mana does regenerate over time, but it varies depending on a lot of internal and external factors.