Dinner finished, Terciel stands, his mind on the recent reports of a strange Free Magic creature near the small seaside town of Callibe.
Something brushes past his legs and he looks down to see the small form of his daughter running past him towards the stairs.
"Sabriel! Where do you think you're going?"
She skids to a stop and turns, eyes wide.
"To the dragons!"
He knew it was a mistake to show her the dragon desk in the study. Between that table, the secret passages and the sendings, he would never be able to get Sabriel to go to sleep.
He sighs. Let her tire herself out a bit in the study. At least there he could keep an eye on her.
"Alright. Just for a short while. You need to go to bed soon."
Her face immediately brightens.
"Alright!"
She darts backs off, clambering up the stairs as quickly as her small legs will allow.
He follows her through to the study where she is running around the soft carpet, ostensibly pretending to be a dragon.
A sending enters through the door at the other end of the room.
"Hello shimmery helper friend!" Sabriel calls out happily. "I'm a dragon!"
The sending cocks its head to one side before swiftly going to retrieve a large book from the shelf. Sabriel goes over, curious. The sending kneels down and hands her the book. She gasps and turns to him.
"Father look! The shimmery helper friend gave me a dragon book!"
Indeed, the book did seem to be a large volume on the history of dragons.
"What do we say to people who help us?" he prompts.
"THANK YOU!" she yells to the startled sending. She races to a large chair and props the book up against the back, kneeling in front on the chair to read it. Or, at least, try to read it, but mostly look at the pictures. Though he often showed her letters he received calling him away to battle the dead, she was only four, and could only read little snippets.
She turns "Will you read it to me?" she asks hopefully.
"Sorry love," he replies sadly, "I have to read up about a creature that's been hurting people."
She nods and quickly turns back to her book. A jolt of sorrow shoots through him. Though he hated it when she cried, he was saddened to think that she had accepted that he was, and ever would be, at best an infrequent parent. Although at least he was with her, as he would not be this time next year, he reflected. He hoped she would like the school he had chosen for her. It was close enough to the Old Kingdom that she would learn Charter Magic, but away from the dangers that she knew nothing about, those that lurked in their home country. Besides, he rationalized further, the Clayr had told him just last month that they had Seen that she would need to know Ancelstierre. He would visit as often as he could and he remembered reading about a spell to make a sending of oneself appear where the sender desired at the full moon… another thing to look up.
Leaving her to her scaly friends, he turned to the sending.
"Apparently a Free Magic being that mimics a person's shadow for a day or so before being able to obtain enough of their Life to become corporeal is harming people in a nearby village. Have you heard of this before?"
The sending swiftly returns to the bookshelves, searching, Terciel going over to sit at the Dragon Desk to await the results of the sending's search.
…
The book kept Sabriel engaged for a little over an hour. Impressive, as her attention didn't usually hold for so long a time. It was, however, past the tenth hour. He should be getting her to bed.
Turning to check on her, he notices that her spot by the chair is empty. Frantically he looks around.
"Sabriel?" he calls anxiously.
A small giggle came from under the table.
He knelt down. He had been so absorbed in his research he had not noticed that she had snuck under the table. She was now wrapped around one of the dragon legs, her head not quite touching the underside of the table.
"When I grow up. I'm going to be a dragon." She said, with all the serious she could muster.
He nods as though this were a suitable aspiration for a human child, but says
"Ah but love, dragons breathe fire."
"Me too!" She says, eager to prove that interspecies transfer was within her small grasp.
Freeing her hands from their hold on the carved dragons' elaborate horns, she traces the simple mark for fire… and promptly lights his beard on fire.
He yells and jumps back, smacking his head on the underside of the table.
"FATHER!" she screams.
He quickly pats the small fire out with his hands.
"I'm fine." He says, perhaps too sharply.
"Sorry." She whispers, voice laced with guilt and the threat of imminent tears.
He kneels down and sighs, yet again.
"It's alright, love. This time. You have to be careful with magic. Using it when you don't understand it could lead you to hurt others or yourself."
She bows her head and bites her trembling lip. He pulls her to him.
"Look." He says simply.
She obediently looks up. He casts a simple spell to heal minor burns, the patch of lightly burnt skin once again becoming pale. He would still have a large bald patch in his beard, but he thought, he might as well just shave it all. He had not done that since before his wife died. Before Sabriel was born.
"Are you healed now?" Sabriel asked timidly, bringing him away from his dark memories and back to the present.
He smiles.
"The magic is healing me now." He answers, "Where did you learn to do that?"
She reddens. "I saw Jame doing it to light the cooking fire." She said, eyes still on the ground. Jame was one of the travellers they had been voyaging with for since Sabriel's birth.
"You're going to need a bit more practice before you start playing with fire," he says sternly. "I'll teach you some other marks tomorrow though, alright?"
She smiles, instantly perking up at the idea of learning more of the mysterious marks.
"Yes Father!"
He runs a hand through her hair, dark as his own, as she looks back up at him.
She throws her little arms around him and he kisses her forehead, Charter Mark glowing briefly.
"Time for dragons to sleep."
"No! Dragons don't need to sleep at night, they're day sleepers!" She protests, guilt gone and eyes wide, looking devastated as only a small child can when faced with bedtime.
"And I haven't even gone through a passage or gone to the big library with the shimmery helper friends!"
He scoops her up.
"Nocturnal. Dragons are nocturnal. And stop looking at me like I've ruined your world. There are a few shimmery helper friends, also called sendings, in your room that will help you get ready for bed. As for the dragons and the passages, they will still be here tomorrow."
She squirms and burrows her head against his shoulder.
"But that's so far away!" She exclaims sadly, pulling back to look at him, assesses whether he was really going to make her sleep. Seeing his No Argument Face, she acquiesces, lying her head back on his shoulder.
"Tomorrow I get to explore and learn magic though." She says grumpily.
He buries his face in her hair and agrees.
"Tomorrow."