Growing Lilies

“What is it? What is it? Am I gonna die?”

Lily giggled.

“It’s just a voice. You’re fine.”

Star was huddled up next to her. He’d come to find her, frantically scratching at the door to the boat cabin when it had happened. A voice was occasionally playing through his bandana. It was extremely garbled, and Lily couldn’t make out what it said. It sounded like a girl? Honestly, it sounded like her. Lily was starting to think her translation spell was damaged.

“Hmm. This is weird though. It doesn’t look damaged, and it’s definitely a spell. If it’s not the bandana spell, how come there’s no spell circle? Where’s the effect coming from?”

“Master, I would prefer you study something when it’s not on me.”

“Hey! I’m workin’ on it! I mean, where do I even start? There’s no circle Star. That means, it’s either somewhere else or it’s a completely different kind of magic. Can I even target you with a spell circle that’s not connected to you directly? I usually just cast them directly onto the target. Hmm. I’ve pointed charging spells at items that were close by before. But it always looks like they get included in the spell matrix.”

Lily tapped her foot. This was very strange. If she didn’t know better, she’d think someone was messing with them. But it didn’t really fit the style of Entity A or Entity B, and she was pretty sure there was no one else around.

“Did I like, sleep cast a spell on you? … A spell that I can’t figure out? No, that makes no sense.”

“I don’t like it, Master. Why did it choose me?”

She pet him, and placed a hand on top of his head. He calmed somewhat.

“Does it feel like anything?”

“No. It is only sound.”

“Did you… see anyone nearby?”

“Master, there was no one.”

Lily frowned. This was definitely a spell effect, and it sounded a lot like her. Only drowned out and super far away. Of course, she wasn’t sure how she could do the targeting like this. The bandana had no new circle on it.

“Well, I can cast a spell on your head that would just eat the mana. But that would be treating a symptom, not fixing the problem you know? But, I really think you’re fine.”

“Just like all those other times you really thought something magical was safe?”

“Hey! That’s a low blow. I’m taking this seriously.”

She patted him again, and thought for a minute.

“I think I need to do a few spells and see if I can target a spell like this. Maybe there’s a glyph for it? I should go over my notes and check for any obvious contenders. Then we’ll try targeting a toy or something. Then we can move on to figuring out how to trace back this spell on your head, and remove the circle wherever it is. Sound good?”

“Would you like me to be honest, or lie to protect your feelings?”

Lily gave him a stare. His tail wagged.

“I never should have taught you how to be cheeky.”

“Taught?”

They laughed. Lily went to dig through her backpack for her notes. She took a few minutes to put on a cooking show for him to focus on while she worked, and then got to looking through her notes. As it was, she had a huge list of glyphs. Each one had a small section next to it with some words. What did the pictograph look like it was trying to communicate? What context did she find the glyph in within the larger circle? Any safety concerns that came to mind were also written nearby. 

Despite that, she was a little loathe to just go straight into testing new glyphs. She wanted to be working on safety. Maybe she could combine the experiments? The first safety experiment she wanted to do was pretty simple. She wanted a circle that could surround her test area that could be activated to simply draw all the mana out of that area as quickly as possible. 

There were other safety ideas she’d had, having spent some time thinking about it now. But the baseline ought to be a killswitch for whatever spell she was testing. It should also be pretty easy. The basement spell had used a unique activation sequence, which let it be fully charged and flicked on at a moment’s notice. She could combine that set up with glyphs that gathered up all the ambient mana super fast and vented it into a light spell. She really needed some new options for spending large amounts of mana quickly and safely. But for now, light was fine.

Star’s whine caught her attention. Suddenly her heart was pounding.

“Huh? Did it start to hurt? Are you okay?”

“Maddy got eliminated. She was my favorite.”

Lily stared at him uncomprehending for a moment. Then realized he was talking about the baking show he was watching. Relief washed over her, and she laughed.

“Master? What is wrong?”

“Hah, I guess I’m just a little more worried about you than I thought. Keep on your show. I’ve got some good ideas brewing.”

“Master, can I try baking soon?”

Lily grinned.

“I can move things into and out of the oven for you, if you can figure out how to arrange things to go in without putting them in your mouth first. Humans are particular about not eating food that’s been in someone else’s mouth already.”

His tail wagged. A garbled voice played from his bandana. It really ruined the mood.

---

 

An hour later they found themselves in the driveway in front of the pit that used to be their mansion. Lily had a short list of glyphs to try, and her safety spell to iterate on. She hadn’t made many spells that were nested inside each other without being part of the same spell yet. But, there’s no reason it shouldn’t work, and it’s how a safety spell ought to work. One big circle that made up the safety spell, then a workspace inside of that for testing. Ideally with a way to start the test from outside the safety circle, but she’d get to that with time.

This was going to be a process, but she’d meant what she told Star. This set of safety spells should be the last thing she experiments on without having safety spells as a precaution. No more flying blind, and just hoping it didn’t destroy her.

She looked down at her hands. It was strange, growing into someone who valued her life and safety. It wasn’t that long ago, she felt, she was mostly just avoiding death because it was scarier than life. Now, she had reasons to want to live. If nothing else, Star would be sad if she died in some stupid spell accident.

“Master, you are brooding.”

“Huh? Am not!”

“You have been sitting still and getting darker looks on your face for a while now.”

“It wasn’t that bad! I was just thinking, I’m really grateful to have you.”

Star’s tail wagged, and he gave her a dog smile.

“Oh? I am happy to have you too Master!”

“Yeah. It’s a little bittersweet. I was remembering how I was before I met you. It wasn’t great.”

“I am the best. Yes. Praise me more.”

She giggled and got back to drawing her safety circle prototype. It would sit there, charged and under tension until activated, and should be able to create a nearly null mana zone when switched on. It wasn’t exactly elegant. It mostly brute forced the issue. No mana in the circle means no dangerous spells in the circle. It’d probably erase any circles made of mana as well, but that was fine.

The first test went well. She created a simple light spell within the circle, and then activated her safety spell. It winked out like a light had switched off. If anything, the speed of it really surprised her. 

She smiled. It was nice when things just worked. But it couldn’t be that way all the time.

“I’d love to give it a stress test, but right now we gotta figure out your ghost voice. I don’t really want you to stand in the circle and see if we can make it shut up. I don’t actually know what will happen if all the mana is drained from your body. I think you’d just be tired, but let’s not find out huh?”

“Do you think it would work?”

“I think the sound would go away, and would come right back when you left the circle. Although, it might lose targeting. Not sure.”

“Hmm. Best not.”

“Yeah, I thought so too.”

So said, Lily moved onto her first glyph test. She edited her little light spell to include her new glyph, and then stepped outside her safety circle and watched.

The glyph that made her light a ball instead of just ambient light had failed. But nothing else happened. It was as if it was a single glyph spell with just the light glyph.

“Huh. Okaaaay. Well, I guess all there is to do is put something in the circle and try telling the new glyph to point at it, right?”

Lily went and got a cushion, and put it inside the circle. Then she felt out her test glyph, and focused. Focus. Just. Focus.

---

 

Hours later, Lily hadn’t gotten anywhere. She was exhausted. She was pretty sure the first glyph she had tested was capable of modifying and reversing another glyph. It could target! But only another node within the circle. Potentially useful, but not here.

The next one she tried had been a total nonstarter. It was doing something, but she couldn’t figure out what for the life of her. The third one made the light change colors, and she could set the color. That was pretty cool, she was going to have to play around with that one later. The fourth and final one seemed to make the circle stop working entirely, and broke it in the process. It was unclear if that’s what it was supposed to do, or if there was some issue. 

But, all that testing and Lily still had nothing to show for it. This was so frustrating when you were going for something specific! Up until now, all of her glyph exploration had been, well, exploration! To be looking for a specific glyph felt like searching for a needle in a stack of very useful and interesting hay.

The worst part was, she could swear the voice playing from Star’s bandana was getting louder with time. She still couldn’t make out a word though, and her translation spell didn’t seem to work on garbled nonsense. Maybe this was a spooky spot type naturally occurring effect? Like, it grabbed her voice somehow and just made sounds with it?

She shook her head.

“No, I don’t think so.”

It did get her thinking though. She really should invent a message spell that let her talk to Star from a range. It could play from his bandana, like this. Only, it’d be actual words. How would she do that if she was going to do it?

She flipped through her notebook absently. One way communication, or ideally even two way communication. Just an open sound channel. Were there glyphs that looked like they used the same radicals as the translation glyph? Something about sound?

If she wanted to make a simple phone, how would she do it? This was pointless. It’s not like there would be someone on the other end. But, she’d already tried and failed at her current problem for long enough, maybe working on this for a while would give her some fresh ideas.

“Oh! Star! Star! I found something!”

He ran over, excited.

“Yes? Master? What did you find?”

“I found a glyph that seems like it uses some of the same radicals as the translation glyph!”

He slumped.

“Lady Flamewalker, I thought you were working on fixing this voice.”

“I–. Well I was. Am. I am! But I got sidetracked thinking about how I would make that happen, and here we are. I think this might be it. I don’t know what it was doing in the basement glyph though. I don’t even think this sub-circle is in use. Why would it have vestigial pieces…?”

“Master.”

Lily shook her head.

“Yeah! Look, this is related, okay? If I’m right about this, that might be the naturally occurring version of this glyph you’re dealing with. So if I figure out how it works, we might solve your problem.”

Star stared at her flatly. She stuck out her tongue.

“Okay, and I’m curious. Is that so wrong?”

“Fine. Give it a try.”

Lily grinned at her companion. He couldn’t help but smile back.

---

Author Note:

Hey everyone! Just as a heads up, as prep for the published version I've re-written the very first chapter. The contents are basically the same, and you won't miss anything if you don't go back and read it. But the writing is, well, a lot better. I'm going to be publishing volume one pretty soon, and the first chapter of any story is important! It's what grabs attention and sets the tone. A lot of people will decide whether to read or not based entirely on a first chapter.

It was also by far my worst writing. After all, I've gotten a lot of practice since! I've improved a *lot* since I first started, and it really shows. Going back and reading the first few chapters of this story is a little painful for me as a result haha.

I think I'll be going through and making smaller edits to the first five or so chapters, up until Lily's first night on the boat. These changes will be focused on making the formatting and general pacing more consistent rather than a full re-write. But for the first chapter, it was really important to have that immediate quality.