Memory Bonds

The last stop on Harmoni’s tour was the library. Cooper really seemed to like that. He’d walked in with a smile, but he’d slowed to a stop once inside, and looked around with wide eyes.

He turned back to Harmoni. He bobbed up and down on the spot in excitement, but it was contained, and he kept his voice down when he spoke. “Do you understand how much magic stuff is here?” Well, it was a magic school. The library had more books than just that, obviously. But the magic stuff was front and center. “This stuff is-you don’t just find it just anywhere. There are people on Xentron who would sell their limbs on the black market for books like these.”

Harmoni sincerely hoped that was hyperbolic, but she was starting to think she should’ve looked at this library more.

Well, she'd only been on Iva, a month? Maybe? No time like now. Cooper wanted to read some of the books, so Harmoni sat down next to him, and grabbed another from the shelves.

Fleck and Moon, on the other hand, headed back out. Fleck was going to take her flying, see some of the his favorite spots from above.

“OK, but what about the other dragon?” Moon asked. “You mentioned there was one here.”

Fleck nodded. “And there is. And we’ll see him. At the end. You seriously want to be bothered by an adult right now?”

Harmoni tried not to laugh. Cooper, apparently, didn’t try. A little snort came from him even as he looked at an open book.

He was reading some sort of theory book. Ideas on what the power of the universe was. Where it came from. If it could be measured or explained in any way, other than handwaving it as magic.

Harmoni’s first thought was that you could measure it. After all, obviously some people and things attracted more of the flow than others. But she’d never heard of say, a unit of measurement, which seemed like it should come up in Ava’s class if it existed. Maybe it would? Further into the year?

Beside him, Cooper also had a book on natural magic. Places or items that had magic, that created magical effects without any input from sentient beings, like what Rasha had talked about. Then there was a book on potions, and one on the history of magic, all stacked up beside him.

Harmoni was glad Cooper found something that made him so happy, but she did wonder if he was really planning to read all of those, in their entirety. She was pretty sure they’d be kicked out for the day before he finished.

Well, she wouldn’t worry about that yet. If he wanted to take the books with them, she could always check them out for him.

She picked up the history book. Looking at the table of contents and flipping through some pages, it seemed to talk about magical history for all the species, and not exclusively the elves on Iva like History class had covered so far.

Fleck meanwhile, was having a great time giving Moon a tour of his own. He showed her his favorite places to hang out, both in the forest and the caves. Except the cave Asplenium slept in. He’d show her that later, when they were ready to bump into Asplenium. He showed her the lake on top of the cliff, and places he and Asplenium had worked on flight. He flew across the area he and Asplenium usually hunted in, further East, and the burbling stream that cut through the forest there.

He commented on what was good to eat around here, and shared stories of some adventures, both ones he’d had with Harmoni and on his own. He’d gone from so little talking to so much talking, his voice would probably hurt later.

He mentioned watching over Harmoni, and once again, got a bit more push back than he was expecting.

Moon rolled her eyes. And OK, that wasn’t much pushback. Fleck could’ve left it alone. He didn’t.

“What? You think I shouldn’t protect my rider?”

“You don’t see me protecting Copper, now do you? How many times has Harmoni actually been in danger.”

“Five.”

Moon stopped, drifting down and forward as her wings hung there. “What?”

“You heard me. Five times, in the three or so months that we’ve been bonded. And I could count more, I’m sticking to the simple and unambivalent times.”

For example he was counting the kidnapping as one continuous threat, and wasn’t counting the fact that Harmoni had been taught by an organ harvester for the past three weeks.

“That . . . that is unusually high,” Moon said. “Unless the number of times Copper is in danger is unusually low. I mean, we have a threat we’re looking out for, but it hasn’t come up often.”

“And you’re telling me you wouldn’t help if it did come up? That you’re not already actively helping him out?”

Moon finally remembered to flap, adjusting her wings before she plummeted. She looked away from Fleck as she worked. For a moment she did look like she felt bad. But she didn’t comment on it, instead sticking out her tongue at him.

Fleck laughed. He’d won.

Harmoni was reading her book, but she was also eavesdropping. Did it really count as eavesdropping if you were connected to someone?

She slouched. She felt a bit bad for always getting into trouble, even if Fleck didn’t blame her, even going so far as to blame himself for failing to protect her. It seemed he'd get less flack if that didn't happen.

She was still sitting like that when an excited gasp came from further down the aisle. “Harmoni, you have another friend?”

Harmoni frowned. Wesles was also her friend.

She and Cooper looked up, Cooper still holding his book upright, to see Rasha in the middle of the aisle. She was smiling very wide, pointy teeth on full display.

“You know this person?” Cooper asked Harmoni.

“She sure does,” Rasha answered before Harmoni could. “I’m Rasha.” She held out a hand. As Cooper shook it, she closed her mouth, smile dipping a bit. “You’re not a student here, right? I mean, I guess you could be joining late. I just . . . don’t think that’s likely.”

Cooper still smiled, but it looked a little strained. “You’re right, I guess. I’m Harmoni’s friend. I was just visiting. But I like magic, and this library’s impressive.”

“It is,” Rasha agreed, with a bit less enthusiasm.

“Anyway, my name’s Cooper. I came to visit for a week.”

“A whole week?!” Rasha gasped. “Oh man. There’s so much you can see.”

“Really? What else have you got?”

Rasha’s pointy teeth flashed as impressively as a shark. “There’s a cliff nearby that’s really good for star gazing. And you’ve probably seen the pink ocean, but there’s some cool caves there too, along the cliffside. Er. There’s cool caves if you’re there for low tide. They’re more, er, the putting you in danger of drowning type of caves during high tide.”

Cooper laughed, which did seem to be the goal.

“We’ve also got two towns nearby. The smaller one, Ovant, doesn’t have that much to see, but there is a fortune teller. I think she’s the real deal. I sensed her using magic one time.”

Rasha could just casually do that? It seemed she was ahead of Harmoni. Harmoni had to stop what she was doing and focus to feel magic, much the less the flow from someone using it.

‘Want to try feeling it right now?’ Fleck offered.

Harmoni shrugged, and gave it a try.

Rasha, meanwhile, had even more suggestions. “The other town near here, Edinar, is built into the trees. So that’s always cool to see. But it’s better to see at night. Some of the trees have these glowing lights, like if you hung glow worms from a tree. They’re not that. I checked. They seem to be a part of the tree.”

Rasha waved a hand. “Anyway, there’s also an invisible walkway. And at night there’s a dance near the center of Edinar. It’s supposed to strengthen your connection to magic. What looks like giant bubbles appear in the center of the circle, so I guess it’s working.”

Cooper was staring with his mouth in an ‘oh’ shape by the time Rasha was done.

Harmoni frowned. “I didn’t know about that,” she admitted quietly. “Or the caves. Or . . . a lot of those, actually.”

“Oh. Well. We haven’t been close friends very long. Otherwise, I probably would’ve shown you some of these. I guess you . . . haven’t been out much?”

Harmoni thought she had. She’d been to Ovant for shopping, and Edinar for the holiday, and she and Fleck had wandered around the forest a bit. But she supposed she did keep her head down and kept to herself a lot, including in the towns.

“Well then, you can show both of us,” Cooper suggested.

Harmoni smiled. “That sounds nice,” she agreed.

“Great! So, er, what are you doing now?”

Cooper lifted his book up higher. “Reading about magic. It’s really interesting. It seems like there’s a lot of naturally found magical items on Xentron.”

When Rasha tilted her head, not comprehending, Cooper elaborated. “Oh. That’s where I live. I’ve got some things to do when I get back.”

“You’re going to go looking for magical artifacts?” Rasha asked. “Won’t someone own most of them by now?”

Harmoni hadn’t had much success connecting to magic while she’d been talking. That was a bit much. But now that she was just listening, she was able to try a little harder, and get more results.

It was hard. The books in front of them blurred, and Rasha’s voice got farther away. Harmoni couldn’t really focus on the words and the magic at the same time.

She still angled her senses towards Rasha and Cooper. Both did technically have metaphorical light coming from them, the power of the universe spreading out. But compared to other people Harmoni had sensed, Cooper was like having a nightlight with a bit of fabric over it. The light existed, but Harmoni could understand why colbbers couldn’t use magic if this was normal.

Then she realized both of them were staring at her, and the magic went away like wisps of smoke.

Harmoni shook her head. “Sorry. I was practicing magic.”

Rasha nodded like she already knew that.

“Really?” Cooper asked. “Just like that?”

She supposed ignoring them to feel their magic was rude. “Sorry,” Harmoni said again. “What did I miss?”

“Since Cooper wants to keep reading, I’m going to leave you to it, and we can do something tonight. We were wondering what you’d like to do though.”

Out of the nighttime options, Fleck wanted stargazing. Moon did too.

Harmoni quickly relayed the vote.

Rasha frowned slightly. “What about your pick?”

“No. I think that sounds good too,” Harmoni assured her, tapping her fingertips together. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be around too many people, which the dancing would do.

“Sounds good,” Cooper said. “You can meet Moon then.”

“Who’s Moon?”

“She’s my dragon.”

Rasha smiled, slit pupils going round. “You have a dragon too?”