The Yellow Mage looked at a page in front of him. He dipped a quill into ink and wrote.
He wrote a lot, and never once had he crossed out anything. He always thought about what exactly he would write before putting it down on paper.
Even the thought of besmirching a page like that bothered him.
When he was finished writing, it was a medical note; he made an even smaller, but very neat, note in the margin explaining why he thought what he thought.
Precision mattered.
Sometimes the villagers requested things of him, and he always kept notes on what they wanted and how it turned out.
Sometimes he handed it to them instead of bothering to travel all the way to their homes.
Everything they would need to know, everything the Yellow Mage knew, was in those notes.
He never handed off the original, only copies.
He never received any notes back, except for a thank-you here or there.
He kept them. It wasn't like he hadn't found the time to throw them out, but he wanted to keep them, to keep record.
Again, just because he wanted to.
He never did anything he didn't really want to. Why should he?
His current task, his most pressing one and most intense for quite some time, was caring for Vellichor, the Dread Mage, or the Black Mage.
He had helped him a great deal in the past, long ago, before he had lain down all the dread that was his namesake.
The Yellow Mage didn't particularly care for the mortality of the Dread Mage's past, only the results he had brought forth.
And he was quite effective in bringing those in.
Outside, the village carried on as it always had.
There were ordinary sounds: arguments, laughing, crying, and the hammering of metal by a smith.
Ordinary sounds, though they lessened as it was beginning to be evening.
The Yellow Mage dipped his quill once more.
Then stopped. His hand froze. The ink dripped back into the bottle.
Something had changed. Not just nearby, but seemingly everywhere.
He lifted his head, and the glow behind his face wraps warbled.
The light that was shining through the windows dimmed. Not because of the time, or the clouds passing overhead.
It seemed to withdraw against its will.
Color faded and warmth followed.
The cheerful sounds from outside vanished almost instantly.
Silence spread through the village with unsettling speed.
The Yellow mage rose from his chair and walked to the window.
Outside, the villagers were already hurrying home as they felt the same thing.
Doors slammed shut and window shutters closed one after the other.
Parents hurried children indoors without needing to explain why.
There was no panic, no screaming; they simply knew that something was coming.
The Yellow Mage rested one hand upon the windowsill.
"Curious," he thought.
He could feel it. A power, immense but not yet violent, was coming.
It was heavy, and the shadows between the houses deepened. Night was arriving far too early.
Grass bent beneath wind that had no sound, but the Yellow Mage remained where he was.
He was no fighter; his magic always favored healing, protection, and knowledge.
He had spent far more years curing wounds than inflicting them, but that did not make him weak. Far from it.
Power and violence had never been synonymous.
If the need came, he could defend himself.