The trip down the stairs. Through the narrow paths between the fields. The smell of smoke. Everything permeated Tinz’ senses like lightning, but he was unable to pay attention to anything besides keeping his legs going one after the other. They left Laura and the now-healed villager at the training grounds; hopefully they’d stay safe. 

    “The main priority is getting Ferry out of there, second is helping out with whatever else we can,” Tinz nodded at Magnolia. She nodded back. They reached the clearing where the houses were, and viewed the scene before them.

    Bandits. Bandits had ransacked the town. A couple were still there, fighting with the elder fairy, but he was clearly on his last leg. There were a few children behind him scared and huddling together. 

    Magnolia stepped forward in front of Tinz, raising an arm.

    “Hey, wait what are you planning to do, we can’t go at this without a plan–”

    Suddenly, as light lit up around Magnolia’s hand, a hoard of swallows swarmed around the bandits, pecking violently at them. They screeched, distracted enough for the elder fairy to knock out their knees with his cane. The birds kept at it, and the bandits quickly ran away in an attempt to get the birds off of them. Magnolia exhaled air from her nose proudly with hands on her hips as the light dimmed.

    “Sometimes you just gotta do, and not think,” she said, looking to Tinz. Tinz sighed with an exasperated expression before looking around. His ears were still ringing from the adrenaline. Most of the houses had damage done by fire somewhere on them, and a few of the villagers were hurt. Tinz frowned.

    “I don’t see Ferry,” he noted, looking around some more.

    “If you mean your… dog creature, she helped us ward off most of the bandits. She’s hiding in some bushes over there,” One of the fairies spoke up.

    Tinz looked over to see that Ferry was indeed hiding in a bush, her neck peeking up quite a bit from it.

    “Ah.”

    “WHOOO'S A GOOD GIRL!” Magnolia ran over to her and quickly scratched at her ears where she could reach. “You didn’t get hurt did you?”

    Ferry merely woofed. She seemed proud of herself.

    Tinz sighed and rubbed his arm. He was getting shaky; bandits were the last thing he wanted to see. “Do you guys need help with anything…?” He asked the elder fairy once he gained a bit more of his bearings. The elder fairy shook his head.

    “No. You two did enough by getting those remaining bandits to leave. I had no idea Magnolia was a summoner,” he said as he sat on the ground. Tinz peered over to Magnolia, who was still petting Ferry.

    “I. Uhm. Guess you could say that.”

    Then there was silence.

    “I think they broke a few of my bones, you see.”

    “Excuse me?” Tinz replied with a quirk of his brow.

    “I can’t heal myself, and Laura’s not at a level where she can heal living things besides plants. If I were to teach you healing, would you be able to help this village’s injuries for me?”

    Tinz blanked. “What? That’s. You were so adamant on it before–”

    “Yes, and now I realize there are more serious things like life and death to take into account. I nearly saw my family die today, and now I’m thinking more clearly,” he stated grimly. Tinz swallowed.

    “...Alright. I’ll learn and help you guys out. How long will it take?” he asked, sitting down in front of the elder fairy. The old man shuffled something in his cloak, and took out an old wooden wand.

    “Irrelevant. But I’m assuming they came here for this,” he started, “The crystal on the end is quite rare and sought after. I want you to have it in exchange for healing us. You’ll need a tool to use after all, your mana is quite weak,” he handed it to Tinz.

    “Uh,” he took it gently. “How did you know my mana is shit– bad? Ahem,” he shook his head.

    “Us fairies can sense the living power, mana, of all living things. Yours is quite weak, so you can’t use spells without a magical tool or weapon like a wand,” he nodded.

    Tinz sank with a sigh. “It’s always been like this, yeah. Even though I’m an elf,” he shrugged. “Still, I mean, thanks? For the wand. It must be real special if bandits. Uhm. Did all this for it,” his voice trailed off awkwardly. The elder fairy chuckled.

    “I’ll round everyone up and tend to their injuries as best I can with bandages, but after that we’ll get to your first lesson. We can’t waste any time,” he said as he struggled to get up. As he slowly walked off to gather up the villagers, Tinz looked down at his hands to the wand he was given.

    “First that pen, now a wand… I sure am obtaining useful things, huh,” he mused.