It bounces to the floor.
Tasa shakes with laughter.
“My point,” she manages between breaths, “is that thereisstill magic, and you know spells, right? The thing that Crystal Hollow is currently in dire need of, since no priests are willing to risk being powerless to come help? Some magic still works at the base of the mountain, albeit inconsistently. You specificallycouldactually help people in a practical way by doing sage work.”
I blink.
Blink again.
“A nice thought,” I say, “but sages are rarely called upon to participate in spellwork, and in those cases it’s only for very specific, serious workings. I know more principles than anything else. I wouldn’t know how to set up a plumbing system.”
“We don’t need fancy things. Crystal Hollow already has plumbing, remember? Principles might be enough.”
I frown, considering that as I turn away and begin to knead the dough again.
“If you don’t like that idea, that’s fine,” Tasa says. “I didn’t want to be a plumber, remember. It’s just an idea.”
I already knew, but her need to justify makes it clear that it is not, in fact, just an idea.
“It’s an idea that makes me feel both more and less useful,” I explain. “Most of what I can do, what I excel at,iswhat you would call the fancy things. And I think what is meaningful to me about the work of a sage is the ability to do work on a grand scale. So trying to instead do something small—to figure outhowto do small things, and—” I gesture ineffectually at the dough now coating my hands. “—failing, feels like... not enough. Or not...”
“Worthy of a sage?” Tasa asks.
I glance at her sidelong, expecting to see judgment, but she only looks thoughtful, so I nod, a quick jerk.
My identityisinextricably tied to being a sage. I don’t think Iwantto separate it.
If anything, I want to bemoreof a sage, because since the Sage of Wrath’s detonation, I’ve come to believe that I am less.
“Well,” Tasa finally says, “I am for sure not an expert in living a worthwhile life, but I do know it’s better to do something than nothing. And if you’re already moving, it’s easier to keep moving. So you might as well start with something small, where it’ll be easier, and see where that takes you.”
“I don’t think smallwillbe easier for me,” I mutter, “which perhaps supports your point that I will learn something useful from it. But it doesn’t change that Ishouldbe able to do big things. Especially since I could—or I could have before I came to this place—if—”
If I had the resolve.
If I knew what to do.
“Do you know what to do, though?” Tasa asks.
No judgment in her tone; just query, as though she’s one of the Learneds who trained me, but with her there’s no wrong answer.
It’s like her gaze sees through me—seesme, like no one else has, never so clearly.
And it occurs to me that this is also, perhaps, part of what she means by wanting a space to be herself.
She meant being alone, but to me, who has effectively been alone while surrounded by people my whole life, beingwithsomeone who sees me, andisn’tjudging me—
That’s a wholeness I’ve never experienced until this moment.
“If not,” Tasa says into my reeling thoughts, “then you might as well try something small while you figure it out. In fairness, I have never figured it out, but I believe you can!”
That gets an unexpected laugh from me, erupting like a crack in her cozy home.
It apparently catches Tasa off guard, too, because her mouth falls open slightly.
And perhaps that’s valid, because I’m honestly not sure when I last laughed.
Sages are expected to be serious.
