Three days had passed since Shannon came to the village.
Today, at Shannon’s request, she and Kyle were heading out to the shops in town. Apparently, she wanted to know if there was anything else interesting to see in the village. Kyle cheerfully agreed to her suggestion, and they left the house together early enough to pick up breakfast.
It was common to see them walking together. By this point, few people in the village didn’t know Shannon; she had become a bit of a local celebrity, and the villagers had really taken to her easygoing nature.
“Ahhh, we’ve got good weather again today,” Shannon said, stretching.
“You’re right,” Kyle replied. “We’ve had clear skies ever since you got here, Ms. Shannon. Do you just bring good weather with you wherever you go?”
“Bring good weather? Of course not. I’ve also been in some truly miserable sandstorms, blizzards, thunderstorms, and tornadoes on my journey.”
“Ah, I see. I can’t imagine what it’s like to travel to so many different places, but it must be hard.” Kyle both envied and admired Shannon for traveling the world with just one bag in tow even though she was so close to Kyle in age. Before meeting her, he had never even thought about leaving the village to go on a journey by himself.
“Not really. And in any case, it’s fun!” Shannon grinned. “This village is so interesting, and everyone is nice.”
Abruptly, the shrill, lively voices of children filled the air:
“Oh, the mage is here! She’s wearing a black robe again!”
“Let’s go! Defeat her!”
Hearing them, Shannon snickered evilly. “They’re back, huh?”
She was staring at some nearby bushes. Caught up in the moment, Kyle looked too, and he spotted small body parts and weapons sticking out of the foliage. Quietly, he murmured to Shannon, “It’s the village kids.”
“Yup. It’s great that they’ve got so much energy.”
The children leaped from the bushes all at once. Brandishing branches as if they were swords or bows, they pounced at Shannon, who nimbly dodged.
“Heh heh heh, you won’t get me that easily!” she said, pulling a wand from her fluttering robes and giving it a light wave.
The children erupted in astonished shouts.
“Wh-What? What happened?!”
“M-My sword!”
“She did it again?!”
In the blink of an eye, their weapons had left their hands and floated up into the air, where they now hung suspended. Only Shannon’s magic could pull off such a feat! With a quick swish of her wand, she gathered the floating weapons in front of her.
“Wow,” Kyle breathed. Things just floating in the air, right in front of his eyes—this was the kind of thing he had never seen before he met Shannon. “Your magic’s as amazing as always.”
He knew that magic defied the laws of nature. Furthermore, Shannon’s ability to take away her opponents’ means of attack was intimidating. The children, however, either didn’t realize that the scene unfolding before their eyes was unthinkable for most people or didn’t understand just how great a feat it was. At the sight of Shannon’s magic, they laughed and shrieked playfully, chattering as they ran around.
Shannon chuckled, a dark, impish smile on her lips. “Do you want these back?”
“Y-You evil witch!” one of the kids cried out. “Give us back our weapons!”
“Yeah!” yelled another.
The small children frantically ran after Shannon, who rushed to escape them. As one might expect from a person who was accustomed to traveling by herself, she was quite nimble.
“Hey, Kyle! Catch!” she called.
“Wh-What?!” Kyle screamed.
Somehow, Kyle caught the weapons Shannon threw at him without dropping them—and the moment he did so, the children stopped chasing Shannon and set their sights on him.
“Kyle’s got ’em! We can beat him for sure!” one of the kids yelled.
“Wh-What?!” Kyle screamed again.
“Get him!”
All at once, the children set after him.
“H-Hey! Ms. Shannon, what do I do?!” Kyle called.
Shannon laughed heartily. “Run away! Run away! They’ll catch you!”
“But these kids are too rowdy!”
A kid shouted, “Hey, wait up!”
“They’re scary!” Kyle continued. “Are all kids this crazy?!”
The children laughed with glee as they chased him. Some of them looked terrifying to Kyle; he had never seen them like this before. Strangely, though, delight welled up inside him as they pursued him; somehow, this had become fun for Kyle. A ghost of a smile spread over his face.
Still, he ran, desperate and panting, away from the children.
“Whoa! I didn’t know Kyle was so fast!”
“He’s only fast at running away!”
“Dang it, I thought he’d be easier to get than the mage!”
Shannon was watching with her arms crossed and a cheerful look on her face. After he’d run around for a while, Kyle gave her the weapons.
“Hah...hah...” he panted. “Here... I’m exhausted...”
Shannon chuckled. “You’ve still got a ways to go, kids!”
“N-No fair!” one of them whined. “You two’re taking turns!”
“That’s just how mages operate,” Shannon said, happy to play the role of the villain. “If you’re annoyed by it, all you gotta do is get your stuff back.”
“You’re actually pretty strong, Kyle,” one of the kids admitted, breathless.
“Ugh, we’ll beat you tomorrow for sure!” another declared. “We’ll retreat for now!”
With that, most of the children ran off. One boy, left behind, cried, “Whoa, wait up, big brother!” and rushed after them in a panic.
“Oh, hey!” Shannon called, holding out the weapons she had confiscated. “Don’t you want these? Take ’em home!”
The kids approached her little by little, cautious and silent, then quickly snatched up their sticks. They fled again, and Shannon fondly watched them go.
“They really like you, Ms. Shannon,” Kyle noted. “Those kids are known for being pretty bratty.”
“Oh, really? They’re good kids. It’s nice for them to have lots of energy. Kids are supposed to be like that.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure they’re only a couple years younger than me.” He paused, thinking. “They might be pretty bored, stuck in the village. They seem to have been having a lot more fun than usual since you arrived, Ms. Shannon.”
She laughed. “I’m glad.”
As they walked through the village, people kept approaching Shannon. It was rare enough for a traveler to visit the village, and on top of that, Shannon was a mage. No wonder the villagers were drawn to her—they were starved for entertainment.
“You know, compared to when you first got here, things have calmed down a lot,” Kyle noted.
The day after Shannon’s arrival, Kyle had shown Shannon around the village. The news of a curious mage in town had spread quickly, of course, and before long, Shannon had found herself surrounded by a huge crowd of villagers. They asked a wealth of questions—Why’d you come to the village? What do mages do? Why’d you become a mage?—and badgered her with requests—Could you show us some magic? Would ya do a spell to help me with my work?
The crowd had included men and women of all ages. Most of the villagers had never seen a mage before, not to mention the fact such a cute girl had never come to the village before. In their excitement, they were quite rude to Shannon, but she didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. She was all smiles as she responded to them, and she effortlessly brushed aside any annoying topics of conversation. Because of that, Kyle had worried she might grow tired of the village and zip off somewhere else, but it seemed that worry was unfounded.
“It’s natural for people to be drawn to rare things, you know. I guess that means people are more used to me being here now?” Shannon mused.
“That’s pretty mature of you to say, Ms. Shannon.”
“All of the people in this village—those kids included—are good people. I’m really happy that they came up to talk to me and approached me with open arms. Depending on the place or the time period, you know, people can be narrow-minded and shout all kinds of nasty stuff at you, like ‘outsider,’ ‘heathen,’ or ‘wicked witch’! I guess that can be an interesting experience in its own right, though, and even that’s heaven compared to having stones thrown at you.”
“Th-That’s happened to you?” Kyle frowned, taken aback by the serious things she’d experienced. It seemed inconceivable to him. He just couldn’t believe that there were places in the outside world where a girl like Shannon would be ostracized. “There are really places like that? Where people would throw stones at you?”