20 - Rain

The walls of Celestia were behind her.

Luna did not look back. She had said her goodbyes, hugged Anna so tightly the girl had squealed, and promised William she would return to visit. 

The bustling city, with its noise and order and watchful eyes, had grown too small for her restless heart. She wanted the horizon, the unknown path, the wandering freedom of roads unmeasured.

So she walked.

The main highway stretching from Celestia to the neighboring towns was broad, pressed flat by centuries of travelers, and lined with the occasional mile marker. 

Merchants’ wagons creaked past at intervals, and caravans escorted by guards kicked up clouds of dust in the late summer sun.

But Luna ignored them all, strolling along with her hood drawn low, a pouch of sweets bouncing at her hip, and no destination in mind.

“Fate will decide,” she murmured, crunching into a honey candy.

The first few days were blissfully simple.

The skies were a brilliant blue, unmarred by even a feather of cloud. Birds wheeled above fields of grain ready for harvest, and in the far distance, hills swelled like the backs of sleeping giants.

The heat bore down relentlessly, though. By noon on the second day, her brow was damp, her cheeks flushed. But where another traveler might have wilted, Luna simply whispered a word and spread her fingers.

Cool air flowed around her like an invisible cloak, spun from threads of her ice magic. The oppressive sun became merely a warm light, her body refreshed as though shaded by a forest canopy.

“Better,” she muttered, tugging her hood lower against the glare. “I’d melt into a puddle otherwise.”

Her steps remained light, her breathing steady. High stats were a wonderful thing, she could walk from dawn to dusk and feel only the mildest tug of fatigue. Still, she allowed herself pauses. Not out of necessity, but out of choice.

During these breaks she would perch on a rock or a fallen log, summon water with a flick of her wrist, and prepare instant noodles in a small metal tin she carried. She liked to crouch over them as the steam curled upward, inhaling deeply.

“Best invention of my old world,” she whispered once, blowing across the broth before sipping. “No grand feast in Celestia beats this.”

Sometimes she gnawed on jerky while admiring the sway of wildflowers in the breeze. More often, she indulged in candies.

Her favorite were the sugar drops—bright, fruit-flavored spheres that rattled merrily in their tin. She popped them into her mouth whenever the silence of the road felt too vast.

“Traveling alone isn’t so bad,” she told herself, crunching down on a green one. “As long as I’ve got these.”

On the third afternoon, while gazing at the golden horizon, Luna remembered.

She remembered another road, another time, when she had trudged beneath a different sun. That was when she had met Anna, the anxious young noble in her grand carriage.

Luna chuckled softly, shaking her head. “That thing was way too comfy. Like being wrapped in a pillow.” She wrinkled her nose. “But it was also… boring.”

The carriage had been cushioned, the seats velvet-soft. But it had also been enclosed, the scenery reduced to framed glimpses through a window.

“This way’s better,” she declared to no one, stretching her arms wide as if to embrace the open fields.

Her boots pressed into the earth, her hands free to feel the wind, her eyes able to drink in the shifting landscapes with no barrier. She belonged to the road, not to a box on wheels.

She kicked a pebble ahead of her and smirked. “Bet Anna would call me crazy for choosing dirt over cushion.”

On the fourth day, the weather changed.

It began with a thin curtain of mist at dawn. The air smelled damp, heavy with the promise of rain. By midmorning, droplets had begun to fall—delicate at first, more like a caress than an intrusion.

Luna tugged her hood lower, unconcerned. “Hah, that’s nothing,” she murmured, flicking her fingers. A thin veil of water magic shimmered around her pack, keeping her snacks safe. Priorities.

But the heavens opened by afternoon. Sheets of rain hammered the road, drumming on the earth until it turned to mud.

Travelers hurried to cover, merchants cursing as they wrestled with tarps, wagon wheels sinking in the mire.

Luna, however, laughed. “What a mess,” she said, twirling a finger. Above her, a translucent umbrella of water curved into place, shimmering like glass. Droplets spattered harmlessly against it, sliding away in rivulets. “Problem solved.”

She slowed her pace, smiling faintly as memories tugged at her heart.

When she was a little girl—in the other world—rain had never been an inconvenience. It had been joy.

Her grandparents’ countryside home had a wide veranda where she would sit with them, sipping hot cocoa, watching the downpour blur the fields into a watercolor wash.

She smiled at the memory. Grandma always told me to stay put. As if that ever worked.

The moment their backs turned, she would dash barefoot into the storm, shrieking with laughter as the cold drenched her hair and clothes.

She had twirled, danced, and splashed through puddles, her tiny hands raised as though she could catch the rain itself.

And now, standing once more in a downpour, Luna felt the same impulse rise within her. “Why not?” she whispered, a grin tugging at her lips.

With a flick, she erected a small dome of ice beside the road, tucking her bag safely inside. “Stay there, snacks. Don’t drown on me.” Then, with her hands free, she stepped out from under her watery umbrella.

The rain soaked her immediately, plastering her bangs to her forehead, rolling down her cheeks. She tilted her head back, letting it splash against her skin, eyes closed.

Then she spun.

Her boots kicked up water as she danced across the mud, arms outstretched. She twirled, leapt, and laughed aloud, unrestrained.

“Take that!” she shouted at no one in particular, stomping through a puddle and sending water flying.

To any who might have glimpsed her then, she would have seemed an ethereal sprite, her laughter carried on the storm’s roar.

Half an hour passed before she slowed, chest heaving with exhilaration. Her smile lingered even as she conjured another dome of ice, this one for herself.

Inside, she stripped off her drenched cloak and used her magic to draw the water from her clothes and hair, evaporating it into mist. Warmth returned to her skin, leaving her cozy and dry.

“Convenient, isn’t it?” she murmured with satisfaction. “Rain can play all it wants—I win anyway.” Water magic was a gift she never ceased to marvel at.

Still, she needed a better method. Umbrellas and shelters were fine, but they required effort, attention. She wanted something… self-sustaining.

Her eyes narrowed with thought. She summoned a shard of ice, no larger than her forearm, and set it just beyond the shelter. Rain spattered against it, clinging in rivulets.

“What if…”

She envisioned water surrounding the ice, not as a drenching flow but as a barrier. A protective skin, impervious to intrusion.

Her first attempt was clumsy—the ice submerged into a spinning orb of water. Not what she wanted.

She exhaled, adjusted her vision, and tried again. This time she pictured the water as a membrane, pliable yet firm, repelling anything unwanted. She focused harder, her will sharpening.

A shimmer. A ripple. Then—success.

The ice floated within a bubble of water, the raindrops sliding down its surface without touching the core.

Luna’s eyes widened. “Oh…”

A grin split her face. “Oh, that’s good.”

She dissolved the ice and repeated the spell around herself. In an instant, she stood encased within a translucent sphere, raindrops cascading harmlessly away. The world outside was blurred, refracted through liquid glass.

“‘Water Bubble,’” she named it proudly.

The bubble moved with her as she stepped onto the road again. She marveled at how dry it kept her, how natural it felt. The rhythm of rain on the surface became a song as she walked.

Yet Luna was never content with just invention.

Her mind turned immediately to possibilities. Could this bubble serve not only as shelter but as shield?

She began to test.

At first, though, her experiments had nothing to do with defense—just idle amusements to pass the rainy monotony.

She conjured floating spheres of water, letting them orbit her within the bubble. They spun like a constellation of liquid moons.

When that bored her, she crafted tiny golems, no larger than her palm, sculpted from water before freezing them into icy figurines. She studied them with fascination before dissolving them back to formless liquid.

But the real challenge came when she recalled William Terra’s “Cocoon” spell—his earthen armor that had deflected her magic in their spar.

Could I make something like that?

She focused, thickening the membrane of her Water Bubble, layering it with intent, repel force, absorb impact, hold steady. Then she conjured a two-meter ball of water above herself and froze it solid.

The massive chunk of ice plummeted, crashing onto her bubble.

For a heartbeat, pressure pushed in from all sides. The bubble trembled. Then the ice shattered into shards, spraying outward harmlessly.

Luna gasped, then laughed, smugness radiating from her small frame. “Ha! Perfect!”

Not just an umbrella. Not just a toy. A shield—360 degrees of protection.

Her Water Bubble was a fortress in liquid form.

Buoyed by triumph, she continued down the rain-drenched road. That was when she spotted it, a makeshift shelter ahead, formed from compacted earth, crude but sturdy.

Curiosity prickled. She drew closer, her Water Bubble shimmering faintly around her.

Inside the shelter, five figures huddled together, two female knights and three males, their armor dull with rain, cloaks heavy with damp. They glanced up as Luna approached, surprise flickering across their faces.

A child, alone on the road. And dry, despite the storm.

Luna slowed, tilting her head, her eyes bright with intrigue.

The rain hammered down around them, but within her bubble, she remained untouched.

The earth shelter was hardly more than a crude dome, the kind soldiers built in a hurry when weather turned against them. It sagged in places, and though it kept the worst of the rain from pouring in, the inside smelled of wet leather and mud.

Five knights huddled shoulder to shoulder within, pressed so close their elbows dug into each other’s ribs.

One of the female knights let out an irritated sigh, glaring at her companion.

“Sir Daven, truly? Could you not have made it bigger?”

The man she accused—thick-necked, broad as an ox—scowled back at her. “What do you expect me to do, Liora? You think I’m a mage? That’s all the space the ground gave me.”

“That’s all the space you took,” she shot back. “You barely tried. Now look at us, cramped like salted fish in a barrel.”

Another knight, younger and wiry, leaned against the earthen wall and let his eyes drift to the rain outside. His mind seemed elsewhere, glazed over by the endless curtain of water.

The fourth, a steady man with weathered lines at the corners of his eyes, folded his arms and simply watched the quarrel, a trace of humor tugging at his lips. He had long given up intervening in the squabbles of his comrades, it was, he believed, as inevitable as thunder following lightning.

Only the second woman, smaller in stature with calm hazel eyes, tried to play mediator. “Please, both of you, enough,” she urged softly. “Arguing won’t make the shelter grow.”

But her words fell flat. The bickering continued, echoing dully inside the compact earthen dome.

They were still in the middle of their squabble when silence fell. Not among them, but from the outside.

Daven, distracted, happened to glance up. His eyes widened.

A child stood before the entrance.

At once, the atmosphere shifted. The cramped discomfort, the petty arguments—all of it bled away into tense vigilance. The five knights straightened as though drawn taut by a string.

None of them had noticed her approach. That alone was enough to set nerves jangling. They were all trained, each one at least a Level 4 knight—warriors who prided themselves on sharp senses and battlefield awareness. For a child to slip so close without them realizing… it implied she was something far beyond ordinary.

Their gazes sharpened, scanning her from head to toe.

Small frame. Hood pulled low, shadows hiding her face. And yet, even with the rain hammering down in sheets, she was dry.

It took them a moment to see why. Around her shimmered a strange, translucent shell, spherical in shape. The rain did not touch her. Each droplet slid across the surface and tumbled away, as though the storm itself refused to cross the barrier.

Their throats went dry.

“A mage…” one of them whispered.

No one denied it.

But the question that rose in each of their minds was far harder to swallow, what kind of mage looks like a little girl?

Luna, for her part, studied them with the same curiosity they offered her. Her eyes lingered on their cramped posture, their mud-stained boots, their damp hair plastered to their brows. They reminded her of sardines in a tin, squashed together with barely room to breathe.

Her lips pursed thoughtfully.

The knights, under the intensity of her gaze, felt their skin crawl. It was not the glare of a child—it was assessing, weighty, as though they were insects beneath glass. A shiver passed through the group, unbidden.

Before anyone could speak, the girl lifted a hand.

A soft flick rang out, her finger snapping against her thumb.

The world shifted.

The drumming roar of the rain vanished, cut off so suddenly it was as though someone had muffled their ears with thick cloth. The knights stiffened, exchanging looks of alarm.

“What—?” one began, but his voice trailed into silence as his eyes registered the impossible.

The sphere of water surrounding the girl expanded outward in an instant, blossoming like a flower until it enveloped not only her but their entire earthen shelter as well. The sound of the storm ceased entirely within its embrace.

They stared upward. Rain struck the bubble and slid harmlessly down its curved surface, leaving the interior utterly untouched.

The five knights, moments ago drenched and irritable, now found themselves standing in a dry, hushed world.

Luna tilted her head, watching them squirm. Her plan had been simple, share her bubble, grant them relief, perhaps ease their obvious discomfort. Yet their eyes still brimmed with wariness, hands twitching toward sword hilts, bodies angled as if to spring.

She frowned inwardly.

What now?

Words pressed at her lips, but she couldn’t find the right ones. She had never been good at this—small talk, introductions, breaking tension. Anna had always filled the gaps for her, smoothing over silences, coaxing her into comfort.

Here, without Anna, Luna felt the hollowness keenly.

She chewed on her lower lip. Her heart beat faster, not from fear of the knights but from the weight of their stares.

If Anna were here…

The thought stabbed sharper than she expected. She wished, suddenly and fiercely, that her friend could appear at her side, bright and talkative, laughing away their suspicion.

But Anna wasn’t here. And Luna was too tired of the strained silence to keep trying.

Decision hardened in her.

She lifted her hand again. Another flick.

A crystalline dome of ice sprouted beside the bubble, its surface gleaming faintly blue even in the gray light. It was large enough for all five knights to sit comfortably within, a structure stronger and wider than their miserable mud hut.

Gasps rang out.

Before they could recover, Luna flicked her fingers a second time. Warmth rushed over them, subtle and seamless. The damp heaviness in their clothes lifted, hair drying in a breath, armor shedding its water as though newly polished.

They blinked, bewildered.

Luna, unfazed, tucked her hands back into her cloak. Her voice—soft, almost detached—broke the silence for the first time.

“The ice will melt in an hour.”

Her tone was matter-of-fact, neither boastful nor commanding. Simply informative, like a craftsman explaining the limit of a tool.

Then she turned.

The bubble shrank with another flick, contracting until it hugged only her once more. The sound of the rain returned in a crashing wave, pelting the earthen roof, rushing over the ice shelter with relentless fury.

And the girl was gone, vanishing into the storm with unhurried steps, her hood low, her bubble carrying her away like a wandering spirit.

For several heartbeats, the five knights said nothing.

Only the drumming of rain against the new ice dome filled the silence.

Finally, Daven swallowed hard, the sound loud in the hush. “What… in all the gods’ names just happened?”

“She… she made this.” Liora touched the smooth ice, her palm trembling slightly. The surface was cold, firm, solid enough to withstand a siege hammer. “In an instant.”

“And dried us,” added the younger knight, staring down at his immaculate boots. “I didn’t even feel it happen.”

“The sound,” murmured the calm woman, brow furrowed. “When she snapped her fingers, the storm vanished. No rain. No thunder. Nothing. And then it came back.”

They exchanged glances, each one mirroring the others’ confusion.

It defied sense. Children did not wield such power. Even seasoned mages struggled with the feats they had witnessed—instant construction of a shelter, large-scale manipulation of weather, seamless manipulation of moisture.

The oldest of them, the steady-eyed knight, finally voiced the thought none dared say. “A spirit.”

The word hung in the air, heavy and dangerous.

The others stiffened. Yet slowly, one by one, they nodded. What else could it be?

No human child could weave magic like that. Not without years of training, not without the burden of age and experience. Spirits, though—spirits were born of the world itself, ageless and capricious, often taking on forms both beautiful and misleading.

And hadn’t she looked like one? Hooded, silent, eyes that seemed too knowing for her small face.

“A water spirit,” Liora whispered. “Or ice.”

“She looked human,” the younger knight countered, hesitant.

“Many spirits do.”

They sat in uneasy quiet, listening to the rain cascade down their crystalline refuge.

At length, the steady knight sighed. “Speculation won’t help us. Whatever she was, she meant us no harm. Quite the opposite.”

That truth settled into them. They were warm, dry, and safe now, far more comfortable than they had been in their earthen hovel. And all because of her.

Gratitude mingled with their confusion.

“Then we’ll thank her,” the calm woman said firmly. “Even if she can’t hear it. She gave us shelter, and that deserves respect.”

One by one, the knights inclined their heads, murmuring their thanks into the cold air as though offering prayers.

Their patrol, meant to be a simple circuit, had turned into something they would never forget.

When they returned to their lord, they agreed, they would report what had happened. Their words might sound like madness, but they could not remain silent. To encounter a spirit—or something like it—was no small thing.

For now, though, they leaned back against the gleaming walls of ice, listening to the rain’s steady percussion, warmed by the memory of the child who had walked into their storm and left them with a miracle.