5 Minute Freewrite Day 578: Rote

At some point in the past, I did it for the marvel of it all, for helping. To feel worthy of praise.

Not everyone could understand the complicated equations and ciphers necessary to bend The Weave, and I wasn’t the exception. I heard tales of mages that froze entire rivers so they could be crossed, that ignited fires as many enough to cook for an entire army (or burn them). I could make a spark, and I felt it was the beginning of something greater, better, and my heart felt like understanding it all.

But time and the very particular necessities of my environment swallowed any chance of greatness. Time passes, the town, while small, still enjoyed a sustained burst of monetary income and with it, the need for specific spells.

Again and again, chill the beer, clean the stables, read the weather, and I was the only one there to do it. At some point, the big dreams were forgotten, the hunger for understanding was cast aside, and while I became an expert in simple things, that was just in name, because it was my body, just sometimes my brain, the one that remembered and acted, mechanically, for the sake of a normal life.

Day to day became a duty learned by rote.