Liam enjoyed nature. The sun, the breeze, the scent of autumn. Swirling leaves and birdsong. A crunch underfoot could sound so much like the whisper of a dear friend as he walked and considered and connected. Roots would reach up to spring his steps, low branches would bend to accommodate him, flowers would turn to face him.

So what the hell was he doing at a bar instead?

He himself didn’t really know. He had been walking through the woods surrounding the academy town, well away from anywhere his fellow trainees would usually be even during a festival week. Liam had just been minding his own business when Cath had found and tackled him before he even noticed the other man’s approach. They had tumbled into a bush and after a brief shouting match Cath had dragged him off to a tavern to meet up with other students in their class.

Cath, Jess, Bernard, and a reluctant Liam were now playing a drinking game involving using small bursts of magic to keep a coin from sliding off your team’s side of the table. Liam was halfheartedly waving around a tiny vine he had sprouted from the wooden table while his teammate Bernard was intent as he shot little bursts of wind whenever the coin came too close. Jess was using her own ale as requisite water for her own magic while Cath was struggling to keep his fire from drawing the eye of the owner/waitress that seemed to possess the unique and uncanny ability to be everywhere at once in her tavern.

“That’s another round on you!” Bernard announced with the broadest, toothiest grin Liam had seen in the last two minutes since the last time. 

Jess sighed and manipulated her playing-ale into her mouth while reaching for her purse. Cath, ever the sore loser, pouted and began making excuses about how “this never would’ve happened if I could actually play without that hawk of a lady constantly watching.”

“Then don’t suggest a game where you know you’ll have a handicap, smart-ass.”

Cath looked at Jess aghast. “It’s not like you were complaining when we drew straws for the teams! If you were so against it why didn’t you say something, huh?”

“I did say something. You were just too busy blowing that pitiful smoke up your own…”

Liam tuned out the bickering siblings and pulled a small spool of wire from a pocket in his cloak. His fingers began idly twisting and wrapping as he let his gaze wander. This had been a habit of his ever since he could remember. He grew up in a community of artists in the far reaches of Leppa, a town nestled along the coast and cut off from the rest of the kingdom by a range of mountains. 

He had been adopted and raised by two artisans after his parents had passed in a shipwreck. His adoptive fathers–both huge, burly woodcarvers with competitive streaks–had been his uncles before the news had reached them. Liam was too young to remember any of this, but he had apparently been staying at their house while his parents were out working on a commission in the kingdom. Still too young to care for himself, he had just remained at their house and they had formally adopted him a month after the funeral. 

His magic had manifested not long after that apparently. The story went that three year old Liam had been sitting in the backyard watching his fathers compete to see who could carve the most sculptures in one day. The competition had gotten heated, as it always did, and by the time noon came around they had already carved their way through all of the wood they had stockpiled. Little Liam had been clapping and cheering all throughout the competition, so the news that it was over so soon had sent him into a fit of crying. 

“More wood!” he had shouted like a little princeling making demands of his servants. His fathers attempted to console him by promising to order some more and continue carving the next day but Liam had just screamed “Now!” while kicking his feet.

And spoiled little brat he was, even the very earth had to cave to his demands eventually. A tree sprouted right there in the center of their yard in response to his command. It wasn’t nearly big enough to carve, but it had certainly sent a stir through the entire town. To this day the tree remained in their yard as a home for birds and squirrels and as a reminder that he was not the same as those around him.

Looking down, a small yet proud copper tree now rested in his palm. The places where wires overlapped or ran parallel created a metallic imitation of bark that glinted in the warm interior lighting of the tavern. He clipped the wire where the spool still connected to the tree, then reached forward and used a small amount of magic to bury the roots in the wooden tabletop. He admired his work for a moment, only then realizing that his friends had gone quiet.

“It’s still freaky every time I see it,” said Cath, not bothering to try hiding his words from Liam. Liam didn’t mind, obviously. It wasn’t meant maliciously.

Bernard chimed in as well. “Seriously, how do you do that without even looking at what you’re doing? You were just zoned out looking at nothing for a few minutes and then wham! A tree!”

Liam chuckled, fingers already dancing again along the wire. “I’ve been doing this for years. Eventually, you just stop needing to pay too much mind to what you’re doing. It’s like magic.” as he spoke, tiny sprouts grew out of the table surrounding the newly planted tree. A small grove formed in a matter of seconds, illustrating Liam’s point as he began zoning out again.

“You’re right, Bernard,” Jess spoke this time. “It is freaky. Anyone who can be that nonchalant about magic has got to have something wrong in the head.”

Liam enjoyed his life here. After becoming a mage, people had distanced themselves from him. It didn’t matter that he was still young when all that began, or that he had to go another eleven years and change before he was whisked away to the Collective. That decade had surrounded him in a solitude normally reserved for lords, ladies, and priests. People had tiptoed around him as if he might decide their fates at any given moment on a whim. The fact that he was a child never seemed to factor into their thoughts. He was like a tiny god. 

A secluded little boy in a secluded little town.

But here at the Collective he was just another student. An exceptional one to be sure, but still a student. He was given special privileges due to his ability and skill born from an astoundingly early awakening, two such perks being his generous stipend and his access to a seemingly endless amount of expensive wire. But he had friends here, which was more than he could say of his hometown. He was an anomaly here, not a freak.

That was an important distinction to him. He might draw strange looks here or whispers, but not in the way one treats someone they are trying to appease. Instead, some students even openly resented him. He had been pranked, made fun of, even challenged to duels. It was wonderful! His generally quiet demeanor kept it from ever becoming too big of a situation, but he still cherished the interaction.

His life here was comfortable. Exciting, even. He had kind teachers, loving friends, and a community around him that he could truly belong to. He could go to festivals like this one, gossip after class, and hone his skills without fear of scaring someone half to death.

Truly, what a life.

In his hands now rested a small replica of one of the many Academy towers in which classes were held. Fine crawlers of copper ivy stood out against the copper brick exterior and a small doorway waited open at the bottom. After studying it for a moment, he clipped this one as well and buried it in the table a short distance from the tree. Extending the small grove, he sent a couple of tiny green vines up the exterior of the tower to join their copper counterparts before pulling more wire from the spool and continuing his idle twisting and shaping.

Liam’s thoughts now turned to the future and whatever it may bring. He had fewer concrete thoughts about this topic however, so his mind began wandering.

As a mage of the Collective, he would likely be sent out into the world on some assignment or another after graduation. Serve as a peacekeeper for some county in one of the kingdoms, join a patrol, study with a court mage, protect merchant ships. There were as many jobs for mages as there were for non-mages it seemed. Given his affinity with plants, it was possible he would be sent on a sort of tour to assist farmers. It was equally possible that his talent would land him a cushy research gig here at the academy. 

There was also the distinct yet unlikely scenario in which he would be made a soldier.

Liam wasn’t specialized in combat. That wasn’t to say he couldn’t fight, but rather that his skills were better suited to other things. He had never lost the duels he had been challenged to, but that was equally the fault of his opponents for failing to remember that plants grew out of the ground. They had all been so focused on him that they didn’t watch for the roots wrapping around their ankles. It was a little funny the first time, but it quickly got old when they kept making the same mistakes. 

Shaking his head to reign in his ever-digressing thoughts, Liam looked down one last time to see a human figure in his hand. It was a woman, tall and slender, and she was posed perfectly to sit on one of the protruding roots of his copper tree. Wondering who this figure was–he didn’t recognize her, yet he had crafted her with his own hands–he set her in place and gently shaped the wood to hold her still just by the sole of her boot that touched the surface. 

He leaned back in his booth and admired his work, allowing his focus to return to the present just in time to hear his friends telling him to get rid of his sculptures with panicked voices. A moment later, he heard someone clear their throat next to their table and turned to see the proprietor of the tavern with a scowl on her face.

Art is truly a wonderful thing.