From the travel journal of Merchant Gregor the Lesser, Year 18 After the First Gate
I have traveled the coastal roads for fifteen years. I know every village between here and the capital, know which ones water their wine and which ones will cheat you on the fish weight.
Pelenna is not one of those places. Pelenna is honest folk. Simple, good people who make their living from the sea. The fish are always fresh, the crabs always fat, and the welcome always warm. Their recipes remind me of my mother's cooking—the kind that sticks to your ribs and makes you remember why you keep traveling these roads despite the aches and the bandits and the interminable boredom.
I visited yesterday, expecting the same as always. Salt air, friendly faces, maybe some gossip about the neighbor's daughter and the fisherman's son.
I got more than I asked for.
There's a mage in Pelenna now. Leon, they call him.
I didn't believe it at first—what would a mage be doing in a fishing village? But they were insistent. Proud, even.
"Our mage," they said, like he was a prize catch. I laughed.
I shouldn't have laughed.
I was examining some craftwork in the market- beautiful pieces, clear as water, glass, the kind I'd never seen even in the capital.
I joked that it must be magic. The merchant's face went serious. "It is magic," she said. "The Magathar made them." I laughed again. Called it a clever sales pitch.
Then the air crackled. Lightning, under clear skies.
Not the violent kind that splits trees and sets thatch ablaze. Just a small bolt, arcing from somewhere behind me to strike the ground at my feet. The shock ran up through my boots - not enough to hurt, just enough to make every hair on my body stand on end. I turned. He was standing there - Leon, the mage - looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Not angry, exactly. More like... disappointed? As if I were a child who'd said something foolish at the dinner table.
"The lady's work is not a pitch," he said.
His voice was strange. An accent I'd never heard before. "You would do well to remember that."
I apologized. Stammered something about meaning no offense. He nodded, accepting it with a grace that made me feel even smaller, and walked away. I bought three pieces of glasswork. Paid double what she asked. My hands were still shaking.
The villagers told me later I got off easy. That the Magathar the "speaker of magic words" - was forgiving of ignorance. Magnanimous, they said, with the reverence usually reserved for saints.
I believe them.
I'll make sure people know. I'll tell every merchant, every traveler, every fool like me who thinks a coastal village is just a place to buy fish.
Leon of Pelenna is not to be taken lightly.
The glasswork sits on my shelf now. I look at it every morning and remember the feeling of lightning at my feet, and the calm in his eyes as he delivered it. Some magic, I think, is not meant to be laughed at.