Tin Cups - New Short Story!

New addition to the Everealm Chronicles! Also, check out the poll on the right side of the page and vote for who/what you want to see in future short stories. Thanks!

~J.D.

Tin Cups Do Not Just Disappear

“Ugh. I can’t do it, Dagan. It isn’t working.”

“Keep trying.”

“I am trying. Maybe we should wait to practice until the rest of my magic has been unlocked.”

“Sid, that’s too dangerous. We don’t know when or if your magic will ever be fully released.” He could understand her frustration and he remembered feeling just as annoyed when he was learning to use his own magic. Only, he had been a child then and his grandfather had been a much better teacher.

Not only that, but Dagan could access all of his magic from the moment he was born. He only had to learn how to develop it. Sidonie was a grown woman who just found out she was a sorceress and could only really use about half of the magic in her blood.

“What if I don’t use my magic? Until then?” she asked.

Dagan shook his head. “If you can’t control it when you want to use it, what makes you think you can when you don’t want to use it? Our magic is affected by our emotions, Sid. You know that. You could hurt someone, even if you don’t mean to.”

“Fine,” Sidonie said, sighing.

She turned back to the tin cup on the table and tried to focus, again. First, she attempted to summon fire. A tiny flame lit up in one of her palms and she turned her hand toward the cup. All she had to do was flick the small ball of fire to send it over to the cup. In her mind, it was a simple task as she imagined the fire leaving her palm. But suddenly the flame exploded into a gigantic ball of fire, sending sparks in every direction.

Immediately, Sidonie extinguished the fire in her hand. But that wasn’t the end of her problems because now she had to help Dagan to put out almost half a dozen small fires starting around the casting room.

“I think that’s the last one,” she said. She was thankful that water magic was the only type of magic she had been able to use without incident. So far, at least.

Dagan ran a hand over his face, obviously frustrated, but he tried to hide it. It wasn’t her fault. None of it was her fault. He just had to remind himself… over and over again.

“Wait,” he said. “I still smell something burning.” He turned and looked around the room, again.

“Oh, no.”

He stopped moving when he heard her but didn’t have time to ask where the fire was before he found his entire backside soaked by her water magic. Slowly, he turned around. His white hair was dripping as he held the back of his robes up and revealed a large hole where the fire had burned through. Any longer and it might have gotten through his trousers, as well. That would have been painful.

Sidonie tried not to laugh but was unable to contain herself.

“I think, perhaps, that is enough fire magic for today,” he said. “Try air magic, instead.”

Still smiling, Sidonie turned back to the cup. She took a deep breath, reached her arm out, and focused her mind on the air around the cup. She squeezed her fingers together while imagining the air squeezing the cup and lifting it into the air. And just as she pictured it, the cup rose up and hovered above the table.

Sidonie’s eyes widened. She couldn’t believe she got it on the first try. Air magic may be the one elemental magic that she could control. But her joy was short lived because the cup suddenly disappeared. When the cup was gone, there was nothing for her magic to hold on to so she stumbled forward, falling toward the table.

“Whoa!” Dagan used his own air magic to freeze her body mid-fall. Then he put his arm around her waist before unfreezing her, to prevent her from hitting the table.

“Where did it go?” she asked, searching around the room. “It just disappeared. I didn’t know I could make it disappear!”

“I didn’t either… Teleportation is difficult, even for the most experienced wizard. Where did you send it?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t send it anywhere. It just disappeared.”

“Sid, tin cups do not just disappear. They have to go somewhere.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know, then.”

Dagan looked down at his robes, still soaked and charred. They decided to stop for the day as supper was already being served in the hall. Sidonie went ahead while Dagan changed into dry clothes.

He found her sitting beside Sarita. She and the young princess were deep in conversation. He took a seat across from them and started eating his bowl of lamb and leek stew. It wasn’t his favorite, but with all of the magic he had been using lately, he had to eat to keep his strength up.

“And the cup just disappeared!” Sidonie said to Sarita.

“Into the air?” Sarita was mesmerized by the story. Her blonde curls shook as she bounced in her seat from the excitement. “Just like… poof?”

“Yes, poof!”

Sarita giggled, delighted. She had watched Elric doing magic many times but had never seen him make an object disappear. This magic was brand new and fascinating.

Dagan chuckled to himself and took another bite. While there wasn’t much progress made today, at least Sidonie had an amusing story to tell. He continued eating while Sid and Sarita moved on to other topics of discussion, mostly gossip. The tin cup was forgotten. Dagan finished his first bowl and got another one. He had just sat down with the steaming bowl of stew when Sidonie got thirsty and picked up her goblet. She frowned.

“Oh, no. I’m out of wine,” she thought aloud.

She looked around for a kitchen maid and spotted one behind Dagan. But before she could signal to the girl, Sidonie froze. There, hovering in front of Dagan’s face, was the tin cup. Surprised, Dagan pulled his head back and stared at it, slowly spinning in the air. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the cup appeared just when she had wanted a drink.

“Hey! There it is!” Sidonie said, almost shouting.

Before either of them could reach out to grab it, the cup suddenly dropped straight into Dagan’s bowl, splashing hot lamb and leek stew onto his robes, hair, face, and the table. Sarita burst into laughter. Dagan didn’t need to open his eyes to know that he was covered in stew. He could feel it all over him. And just after he had put on fresh wizard robes, too.

Sidonie winced. She thought about offering to use water magic to wash him off, but decided that he had probably seen enough of her magic for one day…