Basic Prompts

Natasha was about seven years old when her sister happened upon a man who seemed to be magic with a lathe. He was quiet, mostly keeping to himself. He had others to sell his wares, beautiful wooden bowls and chairs and tables and cutlery. He had been friends with a bladesmith years ago, and, while no one knew where the bladesmith went, he had knives that he'd make hilts for when the mood felt right. His was a popular shop, but few people in the town would talk to him, and it was unheard of to give him a commission. Asha wasn't sure why, but her grandma said it was people spreading rumors that he was a mage. Even if he was, why was that a problem and, specifically, why was it their problem? But her grandmother didn't interact with him, either.

Eventually she got up the courage to go into his workshop, standing in the doorway and just watching. He knew she was there, of course - he'd seen her watching through the window, and she cast a shadow through the door. But he waited, quiet, content to keep to himself without startling her. After another several days, while he was putting finish on the back of a chair, she asked, "Do you ever make toys?"

"Toys?" he responded, pausing. "What kind of toys would you be looking for?"

She was quiet long enough that he would have thought she left if he hadn't been able to see her out of the corner of his eye. "I don't need any," she finally responded, voice softer. "I have enough. But can you make toys, like you make chairs, and tables, and doors?"

He thought a minute, and then shook his head. She visibly deflated, a small mewing sound escaping her mouth at her disappointment. "Toys are more specialized, and they're smaller. They need different tools, which I have, but I can't make them like the chairs, and tables and doors." He turned away, smiling to himself, before counting one, two, three.

"So you can make toys?!" A small sputter of laughter burst out. "You were lying."

"I wasn't lying. You asked if I could make them like I make those other things, and I can't! Not unless I was making toys for giants. But I can make smaller toys with smaller tools. If you don't need toys, why do you want them?"

She looked down, scuffing her feet sheepishly. "My neighbor. They just had a new baby, and I want to make something for the toddler because everyone seems to just care about the baby, and he looks lonely. Can you teach me to make something?"

Well, if that's the reasoning, there really was little way to say no. They made a family of wooden camels, two parents, a toddler, and a baby, and she painted them in colors he would likely not have chosen. Somehow, magic came up - probably something about the magical colors she chose - and she admitted to hearing he was a mage. "That's true," he conceded, "but my magecraft doesn't help me much. I can survive poisonings, and that helped when I was younger, in the Order, but I don't need it now because it doesn't help with woodworking."

"Do you wish you weren't a mage?" Natasha asked, forward as children are allowed to be but adults rarely are.

He laughed, shaking his head. "No, not at all - having magic is a wonderful thing, and I'm lucky to have it. But I am more than my magic - every mage is. We are people, first off, and are magic is just a piece of us. Just like how having black eyes is a piece of you, or having a twinkly tail. Do you think people should be judged because of their eye color?"

She shook her head vehemently. "No. But eye color doesn't sometimes hurt other people!"

"This is true. But people with certain eye colors sometimes hurt people. Sometimes mages hurt people, but not every mage. Probably not even most mages. I don't think you can judge someone just on what they have - judge them on what they do with what they have!"

"Oh. Okay, that makes sense. Grandma says basically the same thing." She grumbled some other things under her breath, but he pretended not to hear

Smiling to himself, he added, "She's a smart woman, your grandma."

The grumbles stopped immediately, and, instead, a mischievous light came to her eyes. "You should meet her. I think you'd like her - you might even want to marry her." He laughed, but didn't respond, and instead taught her how to make puzzles, bringing out his pencils so she could practice drawing and painting them herself. She was a quick study, but he would admit to himself that it was a relief that she was easily distracted by things that matter "more."