The wind howled hard enough to knock the horns off a minotaur.
The plain stretched endlessly, scorched yellow, bristling with tufts of dry grass that looked ready to flee with every gust.
The sky, meanwhile, couldn’t decide whether to stay blue or split in two and unleash hell.

Floating in the middle of this wind-swept void was a teenager with messy black hair, twisted into an improbable posture.
Levitating, yes. But also upside down.

— "Straighten up, by Myrrgor’s celestial arse! You look like a dead fish in a bowl!"

The voice boomed from behind, rough, soaked in wine and bad faith.
Garlan took a deep breath.
He was supposed to be channeling his magical flow, not thinking about the stench of fermentation that clung to every shout from the old centaur.

— “I’m trying, Master Tharion… But the wind… It’s throwing me off…”

— “THE WIND?!”

A hoof smacked against the flat rock of a hill.
Tharion—demigod of the plains to some, four-legged scumbag to others—staggered forward with barely a wobble.
A small keg hung from his belt, which he fiddled with between survival tips.

— “The wind is your friend, you triple turd! It carries magic! Dance with it, fuse with it! Or its sister’s gonna come beat your kneecaps in with enchanted hail!”

Garlan closed his eyes.
He visualized the flow.
He visualized the plain.
And—unfortunately—he also visualized Marenna, the village healer’s apprentice, leaning over him two days ago after he fainted mid-incantation.

The image of her chest hovering above his face wasn’t helping.

He tried to shake it off.
Tried to think of something else.
Levitation spells. The breathing of the wind.
A rekta root. Even Tharion’s mug.

But no use.

His mind—traitor that it was—kept circling back:
Marenna, leaning in… her scent… the closeness…

And his body reacted before he could stop it.
As if it had its own agenda.
As if it didn’t quite agree with the “magical concentration” program.

He groaned under his breath, caught between frustration and despair:
— “Not now… not for this…”

A strange heat rose in his gut.
Then in his chest.
Then in his hand.

And his hand… caught fire.

Magic, for some, was a science.
For Garlan, it was a nerve impulse dressed up as a miracle.

The emotion surged.
Not quite fear.
A twisted cocktail: Marenna’s memory, her scent, her chest leaning close...

And naturally, his body chose to convert that into raw energy.
Heat flared through his torso.
Down his arm.
And then—

— “GARLAN, NO!” Tharion yelled, stumbling back.

Too late.

A fireball burst forth, massive and pulsing like a teenage heart attack.
It launched with all the grace of a wet poultice shot from a slingshot.
And it flew—
Straight at Tharion.

The centaur barely had time to duck.

Result:
The fireball didn’t gouge out his eye.
But it did sear off his left eyebrow with the tenderness of a lighter set to MAX.

The scream that followed was part horse, part human, and weirdly high-pitched.
— “BY ASTARION’S SCORCHED BUTTCRACK! MY EYEBROW! HE TORCHED MY BLOODY EYEBROW!”

Garlan didn’t hear a thing anymore.

The spell, aimless, carved a glowing path through the sky.
And far off, at that precise moment, a crow flapped by innocently…

BOOM.

The poor bird exploded in a burst of singed feathers, punctuated by an existential “caw!”

Silence.
Wind.

A charred feather floated gently down…
and landed on Garlan’s head.

Tharion, one eye closed, tapped the ashes of his lost brow with a trembling finger.
— “You’ve got no discipline.”
— “No control.”
— “But by the beard of a sterile goat…”
He sighed, grabbed his keg, and took a long swig.
— “You’ve got some bloody potential, kid.”

— “But… how did you know I was thinking about her?”

The question blurted out, like a nervous fart during a speech.

Tharion burst out laughing—a deep, raspy, nearly animalistic sound.
He almost spat wine onto his own hooves.
— “HA! You think I didn’t notice you two circling each other like flies on an overripe pudding?”

Garlan stammered, searching for words like someone hunting for a tissue in a tornado.
— “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about… Girls… Girls scare me.”

Tharion raised an eyebrow—the one that survived—then lowered it again with a smirk.
— “Sure. Girls, maybe.”
Another swig.
— “But not… perky pecs.”

He punctuated that with a double hoof motion mimicking a pair of juicy hills that could break a monk’s vow in seconds.

Garlan curled into himself, beet red, eyes glued to the ground like he hoped it might swallow him whole.
— “I swear, master… I don’t even know what’s happening in there…”

He gestured vaguely at his crotch, like the offending organ had committed high treason.

Tharion stared at him—serious, for once.

— “You’re growing up, kid. And your magic doesn’t just respond to spells or elements.
It reacts to all the stuff you’re too young to get.
Emotions. Urges. Instincts.”

He lifted his snout to the stormy sky.
— “One day, if you don’t learn to channel that…
you’re gonna blow up an entire village just because a fruit vendor looked you in the eyes too long.”

The rest of the training happened in sigh-punctuated silence.
One of them channeled his last drops of mana.
The other tested the limits of his keg.

When the sun started licking the hills to the west, Garlan hovered a few more seconds… then collapsed like a sausage skin after market day.

— “And that’s a K.O.!” declared Tharion, belching like a victory gong.

He hoisted his apprentice with a rough tenderness, slung him over his back, and started home.

The plain behind them fell quiet.
The kind of post-storm hush where even the grass seemed tired.

Tharion glanced at the sky.
— “Y’know… Some days I think maybe you’re not completely brain-dead.”
He looked over at the unconscious Garlan.
— “Today, I’m still not sure.”
He paused, sighed, and popped a dried plum seed into his mouth.

The wind rustled through the grasses like an old giant snoring.

— “But hey… you didn’t burn the whole plain.”
He smiled.
— “Just one crow. That’s a solid start.”

Vinsart unfolded below them, nestled between two wooded arms of rolling hills.
The village looked like it couldn’t quite decide which civilization to belong to.

The elven homes—woven into trees or carved from living stone—blended into the landscape with grace. Pale woods, braided leaf roofs, crystal lanterns hanging like sleepy fireflies.

But all around, human discipline made itself known: straight ramparts, a squat stone church rooted like a fortress, and a town hall shaped more like a barricade than a welcome.

Vinsart was a strange harmony.
A village-bridge between two legacies.

Tharion ambled through the streets without urgency.
The villagers greeted him with simple nods, unfazed by the unconscious teenager slung over his back.
In Vinsart, that was hardly out of the ordinary.

He stopped in front of a round little house, half-swallowed by climbing plants, strings of dried herbs, and colorful vials swinging from a cord. A lantern spun gently in the breeze, etched with a sage flower.

Two sharp hoof-taps on the doorstep.
— “Marenna? You home? Got a half-cooked vegetable for you. Perfectly tender.”

The door creaked open.
Marenna appeared.

And as always, Garlan’s heart—despite the exhaustion—attempted a somersault before tripping over his own ribs.

She wasn’t like the others.
Not quite human. Not quite elven.

Human in stature, yes, and she carried herself with an unconscious authority.
Her pointed ears hinted at her elven blood, as did that effortless beauty, fluid and natural—like she had stepped straight out of a forest ballad.

But the rest…

The rest was all human.
Especially that generous chest, which Garlan had mentally classified—against his will—as a level-three magical hazard.

She wore an apron hastily tied, brown strands slipping from her braid, with vials and herb sachets at her belt.
A healer.
And an alchemist.

She knew the body.
Knew the flows, the cures… and the silences no salve could fix.

— “Worn out again?” she asked without judgment.
— “Worn out, wrung out, dried out. But still a handsome devil,” Tharion replied, gently laying him down on a bed of fresh herbs. “Those genes are a menace.”

She gave a faint smile, already placing two fingers against Garlan’s temple.
— “I’ll prep him a rekta and yellow limbe infusion. Nothing too strong. Just enough to reboot his mana.”

— “No pure limbe, yeah? Last time he ended up on the town hall roof in his underwear.”
— “I remember. So does the mayor,” she replied, carefully measuring her doses.

Garlan cracked one eye open.
She was there.
Leaning over him. Focused. Gentle.

He felt her hand on his neck.
Her hair brushing against his skin.
The scent of mint, flowers, balm…

And his brain, in true survival fashion, did what it always did in these moments:

PANIC.

— “Sip slowly,” she said, holding a steaming cup to his lips.
He drank. He trembled.
— “You’re shivering…”
— “C-cold,” he stammered.

She looked at him, but didn’t press.
Tharion stretched in the corner, feigning a yawn.

— “He’s tense,” he noted.
— “It’s fine,” Marenna replied.

She caressed Garlan’s cheek.
— “He’s just… sensitive.”

She stood, rolled up a sleeve, and added:
— “Make sure he eats something before bed. Even a cold egg. I know you, Garlan.”

Then she left.
And in her wake remained only the scent, the confusion…
and a boy adrift.

He wandered home in a haze, swaying like a boat at sea.
You’d think he drank as much as his mentor—
but all he had in his belly was warm tea, an emotional overload, and the lingering perfume of Marenna in his nostrils.

Night fell on Vinsart—gentle, quiet, studded with hanging lanterns and the soft chirping of night insects.
Garlan stumbled, mind foggy with semi-epic thoughts, his heart thumping far too fast for someone who’d just sipped herbal tea.

He reached his house: a small wooden shack leaning to one side, moss-covered, with a roof that leaked when it rained sideways.
Two rooms. No basement. A lot of solitude.

He pushed the door open and collapsed directly onto the bed.
Wrinkled tunic, boots still on, limbs spread like some forgotten relic after a botched ritual.

He breathed in.

And still—Marenna’s scent clung to him.
In his hair, on his skin…
mint, flowers,
and that soft, woody warmth he couldn’t quite name.

— “I’m screwed,” he muttered into the pillow.

He knew it.
He knew he wanted her.
That he was drawn to her.
That he had no idea what he was feeling—
but his body had already delivered the verdict.

He sat up halfway. Then lay back down.
Then shifted. Again.
Then again.

— “By all the Saints of the Flow… Why does this make me so damn stupid?”

He shut his eyes.

And of course, dreamed of her.
Marenna.
Leaning over him.

But this time, no apron.
No moral barrier.

She was whispering things like:
— “You’re tense… I’ll have to loosen you up…”

Garlan whimpered softly, eyes closed, hugging his pillow like a linen shield.
Then—pop—something gave way.

And then—

SPLAT.

A sudden geyser of blood shot from his left nostril, arcing straight up to the ceiling like an overly emotional volcano.

A drop landed back on his forehead.

He froze.
— “…By all the Saints of the Flow. Even my nose is betraying me.”

He sighed.

And finally fell asleep.
Nose still twitching.