The Magic Of Pride: A Pride Month Anthology

In The Whispering Wood

Unlike most magicians, Winter hadn't been born to magic. That had been part of the reason why it had been so hard to find someone to teach them.

Winter's ascension had been largely an accident, and while the Council had allowed them to study and live among them, that didn't mean that everyone had been happy about it. Magic usually ran in bloodlines, and unlike most of the other people in Autumn Springs, the only magic in Winter's blood was their own. They'd gotten through their first few years of study, figuring out how to control their new magic and how this strange new world worked, catching up on everything everyone else their age had learned, and it had been amazing. The strange pocket-dimension of Autumn Springs, a bubble of space formed by the sheer magic of three converging ley lines, felt like somewhere they had always been meant to belong, and magic felt like something they'd been born to have, been born to study, born to love. But when Winter had started approaching their teachers to apprentice under them, all of them had been reluctant to take them.

All of them, that was, but Balthazar.

"Balthazar," Winter called, letting themselves into their mentor's study. The room was dimly-lit, full of slouching piles of spellbooks and paper turning the spacious room into a cramped maze, magical artifacts and ingredients and equipment balancing precariously on every available surface, books included. "I found the books you wanted!"

Their mentor was at his desk, bent over a scramble of papers, witchlight bobbing over his head to illuminate the yellowed pages. His suit was worn and patched in places, his hair greying and wild, and he didn't seem to notice his glasses sliding down his button of a nose.

"Oh?" he asked, then saw Winter. "Oh, thank you, Winter. Put them there, just there for me," he said, not actually giving Winter any indication as to where he wanted them.
They put them next to the desk, where there was a patch of floor that wasn't quite clear but flat, and where Balthazar wouldn't trip over them. Then again, Balthazar never seemed to have much trouble navigating his study, no matter how cluttered. "I'm busy right now, but I'll get started on those soon."

"They weren't easy to find. I spent most of the morning looking for that one on defunct rituals," they said. "I know why the Institute's library is the way it is, magic is unpredictable and magical texts being inherently magical and all, but really, isn't books rearranging themselves a little much?"

"You've been here three years now, Winter," Balthazar said, pulling another paper over to himself to examine, and scribbling something in his notes. Winter grinned.

"I know. But isn't books rearranging themselves really too much? You know, my own books are starting to do it too, and most of them are stuff from home. I don't know how Mistress Meriwether keeps her bookshelves organised."

"See if you can figure it out, ey?" Balthazar challenged, twinkle in his eye. "But make sure you don't fall behind in your own studies. How's that essay coming?"

Winter perked up. "Great! There's a book on prestidigitation mechanics in the Ludo hall somewhere I've got to find; I've got an idea about something I read last year, and using that in relation to what we were talking about yesterday. It's fascinating, actually--"

Balthazar chuckled. "I haven't had an apprentice as eager as you for a long, long time," he said. "I'm surprised none of the other sages wanted you as their student." He looked at Winter over the rims of his glasses, sympathetic. "Well, maybe not."

Winter had mostly finished formal classes at this point, and their study this year was largely self-directed, under Balthazar's guidance. Finding someone to mentor them had been important, and something Winter nearly hadn't been able to do.