She looked beside her, to the graceful wind sprite that was her constant companion. “What do you think?” she asked, referring to the strange jewels that floated around her lab. “Think they’re dangerous or anything?”
The wind sprite shrugged, her silver wings beating frantically to keep her hovering by the mage’s shoulder. “You expect me to know? You’re the one that summoned them.”
“I told you, I had nothing to do with this!”
The sprite looked at her sceptically. “Of course not. It’s just coincidence that yesterday you were talking about running out of funding and suddenly you have all sorts of precious jewels floating around the place.”
She was quickly running out of patience. Tapping her toe impatiently, with her arms folded across her chest, she said irritably, “Look, I just want to know if they’re going to explode or anything like that.”
“Fine, fine. I’m just saying it’s a little suspicious. Near as I can tell, they’re harmless. And valuable, if you can stop them from floating around like that.”
She blew her silver hair away from her face, annoyed. It had been such a nice day, a normal day. Now she had to deal with these mysterious stones appearing out of nowhere. Never mind the fact that she had a meeting with the man who provided her and her fellow white mages with money. No money means no new equipment or materials, which means no experiments. No experiments means no work, which means she’d be off to the poor house again.
Sighing heavily, she regarded the floating stone with a wary eye. Money is money, she supposed. She reached out, her hand shaking, and poked one of the jewels, a deep, rich sapphire. While she braced for some kind of explosion, the sapphire simply rocked back and forth, as if suspended by an invisible thread. Ignoring the wind sprite’s laughter, she opened her eyes and gazed at the sapphire again. It certainly seemed harmless.
“Told you,” the wind sprite mocked, earning her a dagger-filled glare.
This time, she plucked the sapphire from the air. Again, she braced for some kind of explosion, but nothing happened, aside from more laughter from the sprite. “One of these days, I’m going to banish you,” the white mage muttered, gaining the satisfying result of a dumbstruck sprite.
She examined the sapphire in her hand, and the precious gold that embraced it. No matter how hard she looked at it, nor from what angle, she couldn’t tell where it came from or who had forged the gold.
The wind sprite, knowing that the threat was empty, drifted around the room, gathering up the remaining jewels. As she pulled the last one from its place, a note popped into existence and floated down to land at her feet. “Hey, uh, mistress....”
Curious, the white mage turned and picked up the note. And she burst into laughter. The wind sprite floated around her, intrigued, and read the letter herself. Both of them laughed until tears streamed down their cheeks.
“A secret admirer? Seriously?” the white mage exclaimed, still chuckling. “Ah, whatever. Money is money, and right now we need as much as we can.”
She tossed the love note into the air and it burst into flame with a thought.
