Chapter Text
Light Spinner's reputation precedes her. Micah isn't allowed onto the training grounds of Mystacor quite yet, but he sees birds of fire and flashes of electricity climb over the rooftops. He hears whispers of piercing green eyes. His parents tell him, pulling him close one day, that she'd been the first to meet him, pushing through the healer's building to stare at him like a wolf does meat. Micah doesn't understand, then, why they seem scared of that.
From the branch he's sitting, she looks like a normal woman to him. Her fingers diligently work over bushels of herbs, snipping and tugging and dropping them into the cauldron.
"Child," she says, startling him. "Your mother and father will worry if you wander from them too long."
Micah let himself hang backwards off the branch, legs snug to the bark. His shirt falls upwards naturally. "Whatcha making? Poison?"
Her eyes crinkled with something like humor. "Stew."
"Aww, that's boring. How'd you know I was up here, anyway?"
"You have a very unique magical signature, Micah." Light Spinner dipped a spoon into the broth while Micah tried to decipher who told her his name. "You'd have to be blind to the other senses to not know you were coming."
Micah frowned. "So I'm, like, magic stinky?"
"More or less," she hummed. It made Micah's tummy feel warm- he didn't think many people made Light Spinner happy. "Go home, child. You'll be in my class soon enough."
He stuck his tongue out but sat up regardless, inching down the tree. Micah chewed on the question that hounded many of the people in his life. It felt rude. But he didn't think it was any ruder than spying. "How come you keep your mouth covered, Light Spinner?"
Light Spinner set her spoon down with a definite thunk. She turned to him, brows furrowing. "Habit, I suppose."
"Habit?"
"Yes. I could be quite the liar as a child." She lifted a finger to her lips. Micah thought she might be smiling as she divulged the secret. "My smile was always my worst tell."