“No, stop Lil!” I yelled. “There’s a skunk over there!” Luckily she heard me and stopped running, looking scared to death.

  I guess being sprayed by a skunk could feel like a fate worse than death. It never happened to me, but I had smelled skunk musk plenty of times. I didn’t want that smell anywhere near us.

  The skunk was just as surprised as we were, but was starting to turn around. “Quickly now, back up. If you aren’t close enough it can’t spray you.”

  It was watching her warily over its shoulder, with its tail up and back end high in the air.

  She backed away quickly until she reached where we had stopped. We were on our way to check on our Monster Bird, as we called the roc. She had been trying to look at some flowers down near the small river which wound through Clathar Valley. That’s the name we gave to our valley, ever since the merchants came by last month.

  It was early spring. The snow in the valley had mostly melted, there were buds on the trees and some beautiful spring flowers, like yellow crocuses and daffodils, and white snowdrops, were in bloom. Like Mom, Lil really loved collecting flowers. I secretly loved them too, but I let Lil take on the role of home decorator.

  When we arrived at the roc remains, the feathers had been scattered a fair distance away due to a recent wind storm. It took us a while to collect enough of them to use for our beds. Fin and I both collected several long wing bones as well. I also grabbed an upper leg bone, which looked like it would make a good staff, along with a few of the smaller bones from the claws. Most of these we had to carry in our arms, since our packs were stuffed with feathers.

  After we got back home and had lunch with Dad, he wanted Fin and me to start working on the bed frames. Mostly what we were doing was finding wood of the right size, then showing them to Dad. He would point out where to make the right cuts, and we would do the chopping and cutting. After we had all of the pieces cut to the right size, he helped us with the joints and to assemble the beds using nails and lengths of rope.

  By evening we each had a grass and feather bed to sleep on.

  The next day we worked on a kitchen table in the morning, but decided to take a break after lunch.

  “Hey I have an idea”, Fin said as we were looking around deciding what to do. “Let’s have a tree climbing race. We each get a different tree and see who can get to the top first.” We had climbed many of them in the past, since the branches were spaced about right.

  “Okay, I get this one,” Lil said, as she walked to a tree with an easy to reach bottom branch. Fin and I also picked a tree. Dad came out to see what we were doing.

  “I’ll give the signal to start,” Dad said. “Don’t go too high, though. The top branches are too weak. I’ll tell you when you are high enough.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “We are ready.”

  “Okay, Go!” He yelled.

  I jumped up and caught the bottom branch. This is going to be easy since I have the longest reach. I was concentrating on quickly climbing from branch to branch, working my way around the trunk so I could get to the best branches.

  I was just past half way up, when the branch I was standing on snapped as I tried to jump up to catch the next one above. I nearly missed, but managed to grab it and hold on. Looking down, I saw that I was getting pretty high up. This would be a bad time to fall.

  As I pulled myself up to the next branch, I heard Lil’s high pitched scream. Time seemed to slow down as several things happened at once.

  I looked over and watched helplessly as Lil, who had missed the branch she had tried to jump to, was falling out of the tree. Dad was rushing over to get under her.

  But then the strangest thing happened.

  Rather than falling as I would expect, Lil didn’t speed up (well down, I guess), but rather fell slowly. Earlier I said that time seemed to slow down. Well, that’s what it looked like. I don’t know any other way to describe it.

  Dad, who wasn’t slow at all, had plenty of time to get under and catch her, but it seemed that wasn’t even needed. She had wide eyes and a big smile on her face as she landed gently in his arms.

  Fin was just as stunned as I was. But enough of this climbing… we couldn’t climb down fast enough to find out what happened.

  “What happened,” Fin said, mirroring my thought, as he ran up to us.

  “I don’t know,” Lil said, shaking her head. “I was falling but then felt like I shouldn’t do that, so I didn’t. Or, at least I didn’t fall fast.”

  “I don’t know how you did it so early,” Dad said. “But it seems that you just manifested an affinity for time or gravity, or maybe both. We should do some tests to be sure, but that’s what I think happened.”

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  “So amazing,” Fin said. “I want to see you do that again.”

  Dad laughed, as he put her on the ground. “No, I forbid you all from climbing trees for now. I can think of much safer ways to test her affinity.”

  He reached down and picked up a small stick. “Here, see if you can drop this, but keep it from falling fast, like you just did.”

  “Alright,” she said as she held out the stick, then concentrated on it while she let go. It fell slowly at first, but about half way down, it picked up speed and fell normally.

  “I almost did it,” she said. “I think I lost control at the end.”

  “Yes,” Dad said. “You probably just need to practice. It’s only your first time. No one is good at first.”

  She picked up the stick and dropped it again, this time it floated slowly down the whole way.

  “Well done,” Dad said. “Anything you want to do better, just takes practice and determination. I’m not just talking about magic, either. I mean anything.”

  “What else can gravity magic do,” I asked.

  “Well, with practice she could make heavy things lighter, so she would be able to carry a bigger load. When she gets good enough she might even be able to make things float, or maybe throw things farther. I’m not really sure. I’ve heard of gravity mages before, but they’re extremely rare, so I don’t know much about them. I would dare say they are as rare as null mages.” He said that last part with a smile while looking at me.

  “Even more amazing,” Fin said. “Do you think I will manifest an affinity for magic soon too?”

  “There is no way to know until you do. But it seems as though you just might. Lil manifested far earlier that she should have, though. So you might have to wait a while.

  “Look at Jer. He is years older than you. What I’m really saying is, you need to be patient, but there is still a good chance.”

  Snap!

  “Wow! Did you see that?” Fin asked. It was the next day, and we were just starting to work on cutting lengths of wood to make chairs.

  I looked over at Fin, the piece that he was working on was cut all the way through, but I was just getting started.

  “How did you do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Huh… Let me try that again.” He moved the straight branch down a bit, so it was hanging off the saw horse, took the hatchet and swung.

  Snap! Another clean break.

  There was no way I could chop through the branch that easily. It took me at least eight or ten chops, at least, and it was never clean.

  “That’s how Dad would do it. Did you get stronger overnight?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe. I’m going to try it once more.”

  He did the same thing, and… Snap!

  “We have to tell Dad. It looks like you just manifested body forging, like him.”

  We ran out of the shed, yelling for Dad to come back. He had just left to go hunting, but we were hoping he hadn’t gone far enough yet. After waiting for a bit, Lil came out of the house.

  “What’s wrong?” She looked very worried.

  Fin and I just smiled.

  “Watch this!” Fin said. He walked over and picked up a branch from the pile, thicker than we had been using to make chair legs. He turned it vertical and put one end on the ground. While holding the top firmly with one hand, he kicked it.

  Crack! It snapped in half.

  “That was already broken, right?” Lil asked.

  “Nope.” He had a huge grin. “I’m stronger today, a lot stronger.”

  “Did you manifest, like Dad?”

  “I think so. Let’s see if I’m faster. Jer, do you want to race to that tree and back?” he asked, pointing to a tree in the distance.

  “Okay. Lil, you say go when we are ready.”

  We both lined up, and waited.

  “Go!” she yelled.

  We both took off running, with Lil cheering us on. Normally, I could easily beat Fin in a foot race, but not today. He was already to the tree before I was even half way there. By the time I touched the tree and turned around, he was back at the start.

  Fin punched the air and let out a big whoop. Lil was jumping up and down, then gave him a big hug in congratulations.

  When I got back, my lungs were burning but he didn’t seem winded at all.

  I didn’t feel bad about him easily beating me. Honest.

  Okay, maybe just a little.

  But I was happy he manifested early. Now he wouldn’t have to worry and wait.

  Was I envious? Maybe a little. Yeah, maybe a lot.

  I had to wait for years, hoping, worrying, agonizing.

  Life isn’t fair, as Dad would often say at the end of one of his stories. But, in my way of thinking, whoever says life isn’t fair isn’t the one who’s feeling unhappy.

  Alright. Enough self-pity. Let’s move on with the story.

  Dad returned from hunting, bringing home the mountain goat he had killed. After cooking and eating a nice supper, Fin had to show off his new strength and speed. When the two decided to have a race, Dad easily won. Fin still has a lot of growing and practicing to do before he will get close to Dad’s ability.

  However, Dad was extremely excited to have someone in the family inherit his affinity. I was sure this was going to help draw them even closer together. Now that I thought about it, Dad hadn’t really spent much time with Fin, up to this point.

  “Hey Dad,” I said. “What do you think about taking Fin with you on your next hunting trip?” I knew I wasn’t going to be a hunter, but I had no doubt that Fin would be, some day.

  “Well now. That’s an interesting thought. Normally, I’d say he is still too young. But with his affinity, that won’t matter as much. I think I will. Thank you for the suggestion.”

  The next day, Dad helped us finish the chairs. We finally had a proper place to sit as a family and eat our meals. We still used the campfire to cook on, since we didn’t have a stove.

  But it finally felt like a home.