Sarah wandered through the dwarven city somewhat aimlessly for a few hours after Sebastian woke up, lost in her thoughts. She had no idea how he was able to cope with everything that had happened so well. It seemed that, no matter what was thrown at him, he just shrugged it off, and so far he came out the other side stronger than ever. She, on the other hand was barely holding herself together. She found a bench after a while and decided to sit down and rest a bit, it wasn’t far from a strange maze-like array of bars, platforms, and chutes. She studied it curiously for a few moments before her mind wandered back through the mess her life had turned into.

At first, when it was revealed that she might be the most powerful new mage discovered in her generation so far, she wasn’t sure what to think. It was an entirely different world compared to what she was familiar with, and when she had seen Sebastian in the tower she fell into old habits and teased him relentlessly. Growing up, Sebastian hadn’t really been seen around town very often, which led the more popular kids she had always been around to pick on him. His tendency to not react to anything they said had gotten him labeled as weird, and eventually ignored for the most part. In the tower, she had immediately seen Master Owdel’s seeming disdain for his chosen path of magic, and looking back on it now, it was clear that had influenced her behavior towards him. She had thought she was better than him in every way, and arrogantly flaunted her superiority.

Yet, after a while, she had realized that all of her friends had vanished. Her change in status made her too special to socialize with them. Thomas, the boy she had thought she was in love with and that was supposed to marry her, had immediately run off with Samantha without a second thought. Without any friends, and only one person in the entire town that might possibly spend time with her, she had tried to befriend Sebastian solely because she desperately needed someone her age to talk with.

She chuckled a bit at how very wrong she had been about him in those days. Contrary to what everyone in town had always believed, he wasn’t a coward, or an emotionless monster. No, he simply didn’t care what anyone else thought. Beneath that indifferent exterior she had discovered a kind and gentle soul, with an impossibly brilliant mind and a wonderful sense of humor. That reminds me, I need to slap him a few more times for that proposal prank. For such a smart person he can be pretty damned stupid sometimes. He seemed to forgive her for the years of childish torment flung his way by her and her friends, and spent hours in the library helping her study without complaint. Well, mostly without complaint anyways.

Of course, her fantastic luck struck again the very moment she realized she finally had a friend again, and she was forced to watch helplessly as his magic tried to kill him or drive him insane with impossible amounts of agony. Tears welled up in her eyes as the unearthly screams he had unleashed that day echoed through her mind again. At every turn, with every new crisis, Sebastian seemed to grow stronger and stronger, relentlessly powering through everything the world threw at him, while she failed time and time again. The tears started to run down her face, as she couldn’t help but think that at each of those turns, with every new crisis, the very best she had managed to do was not be a burden. Most of the time she was far from her very best. She couldn’t help but feel like most of the time all she could do was get in the way, and usually Sebastian was the one that suffered when that happened.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a chiming of bells, followed shortly after by a screaming and laughing swarm of children pouring out of a nearby building and flooding into the strange structure she had sat across from. They clambered up the bars, slid down the chutes, and chased each other across the platforms. Suddenly something red and slightly squishy hit the ground at her feet and bounced up to crash into her nose, startling her far worse than the bells had.

A little dwarven girl ran up to her, catching the ball on her way. “I’m sorry pretty lady! It was an aximadent! Oh! Was you crying? My brothers always make fun of me when I cry, but my mommy says it’s good to cry sometimes. Do you want a hug, pretty lady? Hugs make me feel better when I’m sad, it might make you feel better too!”

Sarah didn’t move for a long moment. Then the floodgates opened, and she knelt down and hugged the little girl fiercely, tears streaming from her eyes as she just let herself go. She let the girl go after a minute or two and wiped her eyes. The little girl looked up at her with the pure and innocent concern for a complete stranger that only a child could have. “Do you feel better now, pretty lady?”

Sarah nodded. “I do. Thank you for the hug, I needed that very much.” She realized something at that moment. “I want you to have something.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a disk that everyone else had either forgotten, or simply not bothered to take. “Do me a favor and tap it here, in the middle?” The little girl complied, and clapped her hands in joy as the small stone disk lit up with a bright white light. Sarah handed it to her. “This little disk is magic, the first magic item ever made by Mage Sebastian, keep it safe for me?” The little girl nodded vigorously, clutching the glowing disk to her chest. Sarah laughed and shooed her towards the playground. She stood up and brushed herself off. It was time to stop pitying herself and get to work. Her weakness had costed Sebastian an arm. She refused to let him pay the price for her weakness ever again. She made her way back towards the Forge, surely Jake would know a place she could use to train.