Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 1 - Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Apprentice Witch Elaina

My own story began with a conversation, and I think I remember how it went.

“Congratulations on passing the practical skills exam, Elaina.”

“You’ve become the youngest apprentice witch ever. That’s incredible! We’re so proud of you!” The two of them were visibly happy for me when I returned home with a bellflower corsage on my breast. But even now, I remember being in a strange state of mind at the time.

I probably sighed heavily and said something like, “But I don’t feel very accomplished.” I wasn’t hiding my embarrassment, I don’t think; I’m sure that was how I really felt. I didn’t feel like a winner—maybe it didn’t even feel real.

In short, I wasn’t all that happy.

“Did something happen?” my father asked.

“The others were too weak,” I answered. “So it was a bit of a letdown. Now becoming a witch is just a matter of time, I suppose.”

“……Oh.”

“My, my…”

They didn’t know what to say, I think.

I’m certain this conversation is where it started, and what happened afterward was at least partially the fault of my own boastfulness and pride. Those traits would lead me into some troubling situations.

But after all this time, those are all simply memories.

It happened about four years ago.

I was fourteen, and I wasn’t yet wearing the triangle hat and black robe like I am now. Back then, I usually wore a white blouse and black skirt.

After passing the practical magic exam on my first try, I had decided that I would immediately enter into an apprenticeship under a full-fledged witch. However, for various reasons, I couldn’t ask any of the witches who lived in my hometown in the Peaceful Country of Robetta. Well, to be specific, I asked, and they said no.

So I decided to use a secret trick… Well, all I did was listen to the gossip. And according to the rumors—

“I heard that there’s a mysterious woman called the Stardust Witch living in the forest near Robetta.”

As soon as I heard this, I took off on my broom. If she’s not from Robetta, then maybe she’ll accept me as her student, I thought.

According to the rumors, the Stardust Witch lived deep in the forest; she was a drifter who had settled down of her own accord in an abandoned house above the trees. I only half believed that she existed at all, which was why I was quite surprised when I spied a witch in the forest.

“Oh-ho-ho…ah-ha-ha…”

“……”

Her hair was as black as midnight, she wore a black robe and pointy hat to match, and on her breast was a star-shaped brooch. I could tell from her clothes that this woman living in her secluded forest treehouse was a witch, but not how old she was.

And she was playing with butterflies in the grass.

I gave some serious thought to turning back, but of all the witches I could ask, the strange person before me was the only one remaining. Finally, after some deliberation, I called out to her. “…Um, excuse me?”

She noticed me and tilted her head to the side, still smiling. “Oh-ho-ho… Huh? What’s that? Could you be…Elaina?”

I was surprised. We’d never met before; how could she know my name?

“Do you know about me?”

Considering who I was talking to, I had a sneaking suspicion as to the answer, and unfortunately, my hunch was correct.

“Yes, you’re rather famous. You’re the cheeky brat who completely overwhelmed the competition and passed the practical magic exam at only fourteen, aren’t you?”

“……”

“Of course, that’s not my opinion. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“…No, I’m used to it.”

Since the exam was so strict and only allowed one person to pass each time, as the youngest person ever to pass, I got a lot of attention—negative attention.

After making quick work of mages older than myself, I didn’t get along so well with the witches living in my hometown. After they had all turned down my apprenticeship requests, I was here, pinning my hopes on a mysterious witch who lived in the forest.

But if the gossip has made it this far, there’s no way she’ll accept me. I had already begun to give up.

“Well then, what do you want?”

“…Nothing.” I started to leave. I thought it was impossible for sure.

But she said to me, “Might you be here to request an apprenticeship? If so, then I don’t mind at all. I’ve got lots of free time.”

“Ah.” I was shocked—so much so that I didn’t immediately understand what she had said.

“Why are you surprised? Oh, did you come to ask for something else?”

“No, I definitely did want to ask about becoming your apprentice, but…”

“Well, well. Then it’s settled. Starting today, you’re my apprentice.”

“Oh, but…um, huh?” My brain hadn’t quite caught up with this strange development. I had expected that if she knew about me, she would refuse me just like the witches in Robetta.

“You seem to have complicated feelings about this. I know what you’re thinking, but relax. I’m not like the weak witches in your hometown. I don’t care whether my apprentice is a cheeky brat or not,” she said decisively.

Even now, I remember how her words touched my heart. Ah, I’ve finally managed to find someone who recognizes me for my true abilities, I thought.

“Well? Will you become my apprentice? Or will you go grovel to the weak witches at home?”

I bowed to her. “……I won’t be returning home. Please make me your apprentice.”

And that’s how I met the Stardust Witch—my teacher, Miss Fran.

Several days had passed since I began my training.

Normal training for an apprentice witch involves learning spells from her teacher and strengthening her technical skills. Naturally, I also thought that was what I would be doing.

But my relationship with Miss Fran was a little unusual.

…No, it was very unusual. A typical day for me back then went something like this:

“Good morning, Elaina. I’m hungry, so please make something to eat.”

“…What would you like?” Making Miss Fran’s meals for her became my daily lesson.

“Let’s see… I feel like eating steak.”

“Isn’t that too heavy for first thing in the morning?”

“In that case, those weeds over there will be fine.”

“Don’t you think that’s too far in the other direction?”

Eventually, we would settle on eating bread we had baked the previous day. Then I would study magic on my own until lunchtime. As for my teacher, she would do some kind of strange research, or go out to collect edible wild plants, or just generally do as she pleased.

“I’d really like to learn some magic today…,” I would say.

“Oh, sorry, I can’t step away from this just yet, so could we do it later?” Even when I asked for her help, she usually avoided the issue. Not once did she teach me any spells.

In fact, she encouraged the opposite.

“Elaina, you’ll get tired if you study too much. How about enjoying yourself once in a while?”

The conditions that an apprentice witch must meet to become a witch are set by the individual teacher, but exactly what I had to do to earn Miss Fran’s approval was completely unclear. She never told me.

All I could do as her apprentice was try my very best. Try what, you ask? Everything, apparently.

I decided that she might not be teaching me magic as a way to foster my independence, and I stopped asking her questions even when there was something I didn’t understand. But Miss Fran’s demands kept getting more extreme.

“Elaina, we don’t have any food. Go buy some.”

“Elaina, go into the forest and catch five lizards. I need them for my research.”

“Elaina, is dinner ready yet?”

“Elaina, there’s a spider in the bathroom. Exterminate it. They scare me.”

“Elaina, massage my shoulders.”

I told myself that these things were also necessary to become a witch, and day after day I complied with Miss Fran’s ridiculous requests like a servant. Looking back on it now, I think I put up with the situation pretty well.

I sometimes doubted her, wondering whether she had just wanted to use me as a servant. But even if I had my doubts, it’s not like I could run away. I could try going home, but no one there would become my teacher.

Patience, patience.

I just threw myself into studying and practicing.

One night, before I went to bed, I asked Miss Fran a question.

“Why aren’t you teaching me any magic?”

Miss Fran yawned and then answered me nonchalantly, “Because there’s no need to teach you.”

I didn’t understand what she was saying to me at the time.

I endured day after day, and before I knew it, I had spent a month as Miss Fran’s apprentice.

It happened while I was going through my nonsensical daily lesson, using wind magic to fell timber and cut it up for firewood, then burning it with fire magic, and finally dousing the fire with water.

“My, my. You’re quite reckless, aren’t you?”

Miss Fran was standing right behind me. As I recall, this was the first and last time she was ever nearby when I was practicing magic. I stopped what I was doing and rushed over to her. I thought maybe she had finally decided to teach me something.

However, my fleeting hope was smashed in an instant.

“What do you want? I don’t really have anything to teach you, you know.”

In the end, she really had no intention of teaching me any magic, and she just stayed there behind me watching me practice.

There has to be some meaning to this, I told myself over and over, chanting the words in my heard like an incantation, and earnestly continued my nonsensical routine.

“Before long, it’ll be time…,” I thought I heard her mumble.

In the afternoon on the following day, she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I’m going to test you now.”

I was taken aback by this sudden announcement and honestly wondered what she was even saying. But more than confused, I felt happy. I bet if I do well on this test, she’ll teach me some magic, I thought.

Miss Fran led me to a meadow. Lush green grass swayed in the breeze, as far as the eye could see. Standing across from me, she gripped her wand and smiled as she always did. “Starting now, you and I are going to battle.”

I was perplexed. Against someone like me, she would be invincible. I was sure of that.

“…Are you joking?”

“Now, now. Do you honestly think I would joke in such a serious situation?”

You haven’t taught me one bit of magic, and now suddenly we’re battling? This is absurd.

“But Miss Fran, no matter how you look at it, that’s…”

“Okay, let’s begin.”

My weak objections were promptly ignored.

She clapped her hands to give the starting signal and instantly closed the gap between us, where she unleashed a barrage of spells at point-blank range.

I was caught totally off guard and panicked.

The sudden test, the deliberate close-range attacks—thinking back on it now, Miss Fran must have done it on purpose to knock me out of my comfort zone.

It was an underhanded tactic.

“…Eek!” And the Elaina of those days was completely overwhelmed by underhanded tactics.

Spell after spell filled the air, each one a deadly hazard. Balls of magic. Streams of heat. Wind blades. Rock showers. Thunderbolts.

Naturally, I was at a disadvantage in the battle, and it was all I could do just to defend myself. Some of her spells sent me rolling across the grass, others flung me into the air, but all the while I just waited and watched for my chance to counterattack.

“What’s wrong? Is that the best you can do? I thought you overwhelmed the others in the practical exam. Not very impressive.” Fran spoke gently, smiling her usual smile, even as her relentless attack continued. It was very, very eerie.

It’s like she enjoys tormenting me, I thought. In the end, this woman and the witches back home are exactly the same… She let me become her apprentice just so she could crush me later, didn’t she? She didn’t teach me anything and neglected me, didn’t she?

During the previous month, I had held doubts in my heart the whole time, but I had deliberately ignored them. She’s different. I can believe in her, I had told myself so that I could persevere.

“……”

And then everything went black.

When I came to, I was standing still, in a daze. Miss Fran had stopped her attack and sneered at me. “My, my. Done already?”

That was the last straw. A mess of different emotions welled up inside me, and I couldn’t hold them in any longer: despair at her betrayal of my trust; frustration at my failure to land a single hit on a fellow witch; sadness at being shunned, avoided, and ignored despite all my work just because I was so young. I couldn’t stop them from pouring out of me and smothering my sense of reason. I couldn’t take any more of this.

“Urgh…uwaaaaaahhh…”

I cried. I slumped down right where I was standing and started sobbing. I wiped and wiped at my stinging eyes, but the large teardrops wouldn’t stop. I tried to bite my lip to keep from wailing and sounding even more pathetic, but I didn’t know how to make myself stop. I just sat in the middle of the meadow and cried. I’m sure I was hard to watch.

“Eh? Huh? Um…” Miss Fran looked at me as I cried, her eyes darting around in surprise and confusion. She approached me cautiously. “S-s-s-sorry! I wasn’t expecting you to cry…”

Both of her hands moved restlessly as she spoke.

“Waaaaaahhh…”

“Ahhhhhh…”

I didn’t want her to see me crying, so I hid my eyes with both hands. Of course, that didn’t stop the tears. I bit down extra hard on my lip this time, but I just trembled. Nothing I tried was working; I kept on crying despite my best efforts to stop.

And as for Miss Fran—who knows what she was thinking—she began to search here and there for some way to stem the flow of tears.

“O-okay! …Hey, look here, Elaina. I made one of those butterflies you love!” Fran conjured some ice, whittled it into the shape of a butterfly, and showed it to me. But I’m not even the one who likes butterflies.

I continued crying.

“Huh…? It didn’t work…? In that case, how about this? A crown made out of weeds!” In a single stroke, she had cut down the weeds growing around us using wind magic, rolled them up, and made them into a crown for me. She tried to put the crown on top of my pointy hat, and I did my best to avoid her.

“N-no good…? Well then, how about this? Look, a fireball!”

I had no idea what she thought that would accomplish.

“I’m running out of options… I’ll make funny faces! Look here, hey! Hey!”

I ignored her.

“Um, well then…in that case… Oh yeah!” Finally, after trying every method, she hugged me. It seemed like a desperate measure, something she would only do if there was absolutely nothing else left to try, but it had an instantaneous effect. The swell of my tears and emotions immediately began to recede.

“Mnnn…” I immediately tried to shove her away with all my strength.

“There, there. Calm down, Elaina.”

“Stop it…! What—what are you trying to do…?!”

She probably thought I was embarrassed, but that wasn’t even close. I was rejecting her embrace because I really, truly hated it. But her arms were coiled around me, squeezing me with surprising strength. There was no getting away.

“I’m sorry, really I am. I overdid it a little bit, didn’t I?”

“…Don’t joke around! You were having a great time bullying me, and now you want to play nice? You never had any intention of helping me become a witch!”

“Enjoying it? I never…”

“Let me go…! I hate it! I hate everybody! All the witches in Robetta, and you, too! You’re all the same! Ugh, and I believed you when you said you were different from the witches at home!”

“……”

“You don’t even know how hard I worked! You just see the end result and scoff at it! Why can’t just one person see me for who I am?! I’m—I just…I just want approval, but—”

The arms embracing me squeezed tighter.

“I really am sorry, Elaina. I truly understand how you feel.” She smoothed my hair. “You’ve endured everything so well.”

“I told you to stop it…! You’re trying to fool me again, aren’t you?” My voice was wavering.

“No, I’ll stop deceiving you. I’ll tell you everything. I can’t take any more of this, either,” she said, placing both hands on my shoulders and looking at me straight on. Her ever-present smile was tinged with sadness.

And then she slowly opened her mouth to speak.

“I did it because I was asked to…by your parents.”

After we went back to her house in the woods, Miss Fran told me everything.

“It was about a month ago when I met your parents. They handed me this request, along with a large sum of money. ‘Please put our daughter through extremely strict training,’ it said.

“I had absolutely no idea what they were trying to say, so I tried to ask. Your parents told me they were worried about how you would do going forward. They feared that if you surged ahead as you were, never learning failure, and then lost your way later on, you might find yourself in real trouble.

“Your parents deserve some credit; I want you to understand that they did not make up this plan because they wanted me to bully you, okay?

“They had their own reasons for bringing their plan all the way to someone like me. Your hometown, if I’m not mistaken, is in the Peaceful Country of Robetta, right? The witches who live there are intimidated by your abilities. I heard they all said they couldn’t teach a girl like you. After all, that country is very, well…peaceful, so there really aren’t any high-caliber witches around…

“So your parents predicted that all the witches in your country would reject you, and so they came to me. To make a long story short, they said you were too full of yourself, and so they thought up a plan to put you through a little hardship early on. Reluctantly, I agreed.

“And then you showed up. Your parents had given me the impression that you were a run-of-the-mill cheeky little brat, so my plan was to be really strict and break your strong will.

“However, when we actually started spending time together, you were nothing like I imagined. You don’t balk at whatever effort it takes to achieve your goals, and you have a brilliant and insatiable mind. And the ability to match your ambition. I could have given you my approval right away.

“Since you’ve been here with me, I’ve given up on trying to teach the ‘Arrogant Elaina’ about failure. I’m sure that your parents wanted me to teach you the lesson that ‘sometimes things don’t go the way you expected,’ but I realized that would be pointless.

“It didn’t matter how many failures I put you through; I could already see the result. Every single time, you would get back in the fight, and never give up. You would be able to endure any failure. There was no way I could break your will.

“And what’s more, there was another issue that I was only able to discover because I am your teacher.

“Elaina, you put up with too much. You’re keenly aware of your own youth and your true abilities, so you let me treat you unreasonably.

“No matter how ridiculous I acted, no matter what silly requests I made, you didn’t complain at all, did you? After all, you thought there was no one else you could ask to train you, right?

“When you were rejected by the witches of Robetta, what did you think? You gave up on them and set out on your own, didn’t you? Did you argue against those witches, even once?

“I decided to wait until you reached the limits of your endurance. And yesterday, when I saw your spells, I guessed it would come very soon. Today’s test was the finishing touch.

“By the way, I was expecting the exam to continue until I won, and then, if you still didn’t complain, I was planning to lecture you. That would be completely and obviously unfair.

“You can’t just hide your true feelings and carry on, because at some point you’re going to break. Now, I didn’t expect you to burst into tears…but I treated you terribly, didn’t I? You’re unusually mature, so I completely forgot that you’re still a fourteen-year-old girl. I’m truly sorry.”

And then Miss Fran added one more thing.

“You mustn’t just endure. If you can’t stomach it, fight it. Learn to take a stand and say when bad things are bad. Let off steam when you need to. Protect yourself.”

I can no longer recall how I felt, hearing my teacher’s words, but she told me things in that moment that I had never heard before in my life.

Don’t just endure it.

Those words are probably the reason I’m here now. I really think so. Well, even now I have a tendency to let stress build up, though.

I trained under Miss Fran for one year. After the warning about persevering too hard in my first month, the true training finally began.

“Good morning, Elaina. I’m hungry, so please make something to eat.”

“Here, have some weeds.”

“…Um, is this your way of giving me a hard time?”

“I was told not to endure too much abuse, so I decided to try being honest about my feelings. Specifically, the feeling that making breakfast for my teacher is a pain.”

“……”

“Just joking.”

Eventually, we settled on eating the bread that we had baked the previous day.

As before, I sometimes felt a bit like Miss Fran’s servant, but if I thought of it as compensation for all the magic she was finally teaching me, it wasn’t painful at all.

Oh-ho, this isn’t torture! It’s my tuition.

“You have skill and talent,” Miss Fran said. “If there’s one thing that you don’t have, it’s experience.”

And in order to rectify that, I sparred against Miss Fran over and over. Every day was very enriching.

The many days that I spent there afterward seemed far shorter than the hellish first month. Almost every day we would have intensive magic training, then return to the house in the forest for magic studies. It was so much fun.

During my training with Miss Fran, there was one incident that left an especially deep impression. I was practicing my magic in front of her house in the forest as always.

“Elaina,” Miss Fran said abruptly, “there are bottles sitting over there, right? Can you see them?” Sure enough, there were two wine bottles standing where she was pointing.

“Yes, I can see them, but…what about it?”

“Strike one side with a wind spell.”

“……”

The distance between the two bottles was about the width of one tree. To be clear, there was plenty of room. There was so much leeway that I thought she was making fun of me.

“Okay.” I waved my wand and manipulated the wind. The mass of air made a little hyoom! as it went straight for the bottles, hitting one directly, as I had aimed it to do. The bottle flew end over end and landed in the underbrush.

“Okay, I did it.”

But Miss Fran shrugged as if to say, “Good grief.” “Did I tell you to knock it away?”

“…Uh, but didn’t you say to strike it?”

“Let me tell you something. If you’re an apprentice witch, you pass the test by knocking it away. But full witches must have more reliable and precise skill than that.”

“…Huh.”

“A witch doesn’t knock down the bottle; she aims for the midway point between knocking it down and not. To put it simply, like this—”

Miss Fran waved her wand, and the wind headed straight for the remaining bottle and hit it directly. However, the bottle did not fall over. It just wobbled around and then stabilized.

Miss Fran smiled. “Oh, good, it worked… All right, just like that. Witches must learn to control their magic precisely. So no more knocking them down.”

“……”

I understand what you’re trying to say, and it sounds reasonable, but did you have to go out of your way to make me fail first…?

After I had spent about a year as her apprentice, I got to the point where I could begin to compete with Miss Fran.

And I was able to win against her—once. That day became the final day of my apprenticeship. Wearing her usual smile, she said, “There is nothing left that I can teach you. You’ve grown quite strong.”

To this day, I can’t recall how I was able to win that last time. It was probably just chance. Miss Fran removed the bellflower corsage from my breast and in its place pinned the proof that I was a full-fledged witch.

It was a star-shaped brooch.

“Congratulations, Elaina. The Stardust Witch recognizes you as an official witch… By the way, how do you feel about ‘the Ashen Witch’ for your witch title?”

“…Isn’t it a bit too simple?”

Did you decide just by looking at my hair?

“Huh? I thought it was really cool, though…”

“Come to think of it, how did you get the name Stardust Witch, Miss Fran?”

“I chose it because it sounds cool, of course!”

“……”

“Well, how about it? Ashen Witch.”

“Sure, that’s fine.” I didn’t particularly care.

“Then it’s decided. You are now the Ashen Witch, Elaina. Do your best from now on, okay?”

She clapped a hand on my shoulder.

I inhaled deeply and responded, “I will.”

Chatting about the memories we had made during my training, we returned to the house in the woods, and Miss Fran gathered up her luggage right away. She had been a drifter only in name, and in truth she was a distinguished witch from another country. That was the first I had heard of it.

It had been quite difficult to be away from home for a year, she told me with a smile.

That’s not really something to smile about…, I thought, but she was probably smiling for my sake.

“In that case, why did you come to the Peaceful Country of Robetta?” I tried to ask her.

“Because there was someone I had to see, no matter what,” she replied, refusing to say more. “I would very much like to take my time, but I must be going. There are many people waiting for me back home. That’s why this is good-bye.”

With that, she turned to leave from the same spot where I had found her chasing butterflies a year earlier.

“Good-bye, Miss Fran.” The farewell chilled my body like a glacial wind.

“Good-bye, Elaina. I’ll come see you again someday. Please look forward to it and wait for me.”

“…Okay!”

And then my teacher got on her broom and flew up into the sky.

I waved and waved as she slowly shrank into the distance, finally disappearing into the blue sky.

That time, I didn’t try to hold back my tears.