As Anyia reached her room, she saw it had a small little window with a view of the fountain and ivy hanging over it. She opened it and stuck her head out. She hadn’t realized it before, but ivy swayed down the side of the stone building, moss jammed into the little corners of stone as the ivy swirled around it, like a painting, with touches here and there to make it ever so more beautiful.
Anyia was once again pulled out of thought by Falita, who was knocking on the door in her urgent way.
“Come in.” Anyia sang out before Falita opened the door with a bundle of skirts draping out of her arms.
“Here,” Falita said as she dropped the things on the bed. “I think you can tell the work clothes apart from the others. I need you to help me clean up the kitchen and give the guests a mug of tea, and anything else they want, just bring a pitcher of tea, it will be waiting for you in the main room, on the bar, and some glasses. If they don’t want it, ask if they want anything else, if they do, tell me. Got that?”
Anyia nodded slowly, thinking about it.
“Oh, and there’s going to be a fair in town tomorrow, if you help out enough, you may go to it the next day. Now, get dressed and meet me in the main room, alright?"
She nodded once again but this time asked, “What’s the fair being celebrated for?”
“Mmmm… some king or another. I’m not quite sure. I’ve a bad memory.”
Anyia just shrugged as Falita walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. Then she turned to the bed where Falita had dropped the clothes and began searching through them. Finally, she came up with a bundle of new underskirts, a red overskirt, a white cotton chemise, and a black bodice. She walked behind the dressing curtain, and pulled these on. Then came out and folded and put away the rest of the clothes into the trunk at the foot of the bed, leaving the corsets in a pile on the bed.
She simply hated them. They were stupid, she couldn’t breathe in them, and she obviously couldn’t lace them by herself. Staring at the corsets, she decided to just leave them there, maybe someone would take them or something.
Anyia just shrugged again and walked happily down the hall, back to the main room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Mossflower paced up and down the room as Skyfrost sat staring at her skeptically.
“I don’t know Mossflower.” Skyfrost said as he casually leaned over to one side of his chair. “You don’t just find mages like the four at Winding at an Inn, especially one by a temple! You’d have thought someone would of known she had magic by now, even more so if it was as strong as you say.”
“Well, you have to remember Niklaren Goldeye found Briar in a prison, Daja was half drowned, and Sandry stuck in a cellar without light for days. Tris was the only one in a normal predicament! I don’t see why this should be any different; no one noticed their magic before! And we already have two of her kind at Endless, your own charge, Kestrel or Kessie, the air mage. And Bronzefire has that girl Eisam! Then Rosewater’s teaching Amber, that water one! Get it? Water, Air, Fire…. What else is there? Earth!” Mossflower finished with an air of triumph.
Skyfrost sighed and got out of his chair to walk towards Mossflower. “Right. I know all that. But I didn’t see her. You’re the only one who did. It could have just been something wrong with your eyes-“
“There’s nothing in the world wrong with my eyes!” Mossflower yelled, cutting Skyfrost off. “Maybe it’s you. Maybe you just can’t see it because you’re an air mage-“
This time Skyfrost cut her off, “You know that doesn’t limit my seeing ability! Really Mossflower, what’s gotten into you?”
Mossflower was about to burst into a yelling fit again when someone knocked on the door. She stared at Skyfrost, who sighed and shrugged, then sat back down. Mossflower rolled her eyes and started muttering under her breath as she opened the door.
Green light streamed into the room, followed by a rather tall girl, that looked about 16, with long flowing dark brown hair, and eyes to match. She had sort of a wild, pretty look to her.
Skyfrost gasped as he stared at the girl standing there with a tray full of a pitcher and mugs topped on it. Mossflower smiled smugly as Skyfrost’s awed expression.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Anyia looked from the tall graceful woman, to the sturdily built man. Blinking questionably as they both stared at her as though she were a fairy. Finally, Anyia got tired of holding the tray, and letting the tray go, she also let her patience go.
“Excuse me, but why are you staring at me as though I’m some kind of god?” She said loud and irritably.
The man raised his eyebrow and stared at the woman expectantly. The woman sighed and turned back to Anyia. “Won’t you please sit down?”
This time Anyia was more confused than before, she raised an eyebrow, “What?! I mean, I’ve got work to do, I-“
“I’m sure Falita will let you off for now since we would like to speak with you.” The woman replied, looking anxious. The man looked so anxious he was almost completely off his seat.
“Yes, um, Pato, please go and tell Mistress Falita that we’ll be in the company of Anyia for tonight.” The man said, looking as though he had come out of a daze.
The boy Pato got up and walked to the door, his light yellow cape billowing behind him. Then it struck her, the third thing that had struck her that day, both the man and the woman were wearing capes too. Or, more like robes but…
Anyia shook her head, confused as she was; she wasn’t going to go into idle musings. The man’s cape was light yellow too, like the boys; the woman’s was green…
“Here miss, sit down.” The man swept his hand in the direction of a chair in the middle of him and the woman.
Anyia cautiously walked over to the chair and sat down. They were both staring at her. Was this some sort of joke? No, it couldn’t be, who’d play a joke on her? And if it was, these two were horrible at making them. Maybe they were sent from Sarcrius, no, that was impossible too; they’d be dressed as warriors, and they wouldn’t stay at an Inn to get Anyia. Sarcrius liked to move swift and fast, he didn’t care for full on, well thought of educated strategies, he’d just come in here, grab her, and be off. So who were they?
The woman stopped staring, and seemed to come to her senses, “Oh, pardon me, I’m Dedicate Mossflower of the Earth Temple, and he’s,” she said, pointing to the man, who seemed to have recovered from his little awed expression, … “Dedicate Skyfrost of the Air Temple at Endless Circle.” She finished, as if this explained everything.
It didn’t really. When Anyia heard “temple”, she thought priests, fat bald guys. But they weren’t fat or bald, and she didn’t know of any gods especially for Earth or Air. So what other temples were there?
“Alright, that’s very interesting and everything, but I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean by “temple”, you don’t look like priests to me.” Anyia asked with just a hint of sarcasm, she was too curious and confused to pay much need to rudeness.
Both the man and woman looked shocked, as if Endless Circle was the middle of the universe and everyone should know about it.
“Well… Endless Circle is a temple for the study of magic, not the worship of gods.” The woman, Mossflower said softly, aware now that the girl didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Oh,” Anyia said, she’d heard of those temples, she hadn’t thought of it then though, she didn’t have any magic, none of her ancestors did either, it wasn’t proper in the Clement family, so there wasn’t anyone related to her that had any, not even by marriage. “Well, so what does that have to do with me, here, and you two, gawking at me?”
“Tell me miss, where do you come from?” The man, Skyfrost said curiously.
Anyia just blinked at him, like an observant cat. She couldn’t say she came from Clement, word might get around and someone might put two and two together, figure out she was Lady Anyia of Clement, and Sarcrius would hear of it. No, she couldn’t say that, but if not, where could she say she was from? And why was she alone? Raiders. There, perfect: raiders had destroyed her family and home, so she’d traveled here, to find work. Now about where she was from. She remembered a town the Resistance had passed once, a small quiet village, not very well known at all, called Ranown. That’d do.
Anyia put on her best acting face, and told him this, trying to look slightly sad, and slightly absentminded, like she was remembering the past. After she was done, she looked up at Skyfrost and he looked convinced enough, but there was a bit of doubt as he looked at her perfect way of sitting, and educated speaking. Anyia didn’t care much about this though, she wasn’t going to start talking like a peasant, and if someone asked, she’d say she just liked to listen to the scribe in town, and learned how to speak properly.
Mossflower and Skyfrost exchanged looks, then Mossflower sighed yet again, and blurted out, “Well then, did you know you have magic? And if so have you been trained?”
“Trained? Magic? I do not, I… it isn’t…” Anyia babbled off. How could she have magic? She couldn’t, no one in her family did, no one. Besides, she’d been tested before, just because there was some legend about the second born in Clement may have magic. She didn’t though, she couldn’t have!
“So no one knows you have it, hmm? Figures. Mossflower, if you really think her magic is like one of the Winding’s four, then this might actually be another mage like the three others at Endless!” Skyfrost completely ignored Anyia and was talking to Mossflower excitedly.
“Skyfrost, don’t you realize it can be bigger than that? The four Elements, four girls, strange magic…” Mossflower exclaimed back at him.
“Oh no. You’re not thinking about… It’s just a legend…"
“Exactly! And what happens when these things from legends happen? They’re probably true! If this world was ever in despair…”
“Yes but we’re not, and she’s not. Neither are the others, it just can’t…”
