Chances for the Chanceless

Growing up, Jule had been surrounded by great feats of ingenuity and arcane inventions, as her family, parents, and grandparents, as well as her extended family, tirelessly created magical artifacts.

The large house had been filled with chatter and songs for as long as she could remember and Jule had been underfoot everywhere, for she was welcome anywhere she went.

She had gotten to peek over the edge of tables, watching leather getting carved, clothing embroidered, and gems carefully set into crowns. She had watched as hammers struck hot metal and cauldrons bubbled and scrolls were carefully written, magic shimmering in dark ink.

There had been a constant prickle of power in the air, magic shimmering and shifting and drifting, weaving into everything and soaking into what was being made.

She had loved everything her family had made so much and her family had been happy to teach her everything she wanted to know. They let her wear whatever they made before they sold it to heroes and archmages and mighty kings and queens – and the things they purposefully hid all across the world, so that people going through dark times or on impossible quests could find hope and light before they gave up.

They let her drape herself in oversized clothing and armor, rings slipping down her too small fingers as she basked in the weave of magic all around her.

Here, she had been at home. Here, with possibility at her fingertips, it felt like the whole world was open before her. As if she could do anything, and do it well, too. As if she could overcome any challenges laid before her, no matter how terrible and demanding.

It was, therefore, truly a shame that out of everyone in her family she had about as much capacity for magic as a dry, dead twig. It hadn't been as much of an issue when she had been a toddling, little thing, eager to learn everything and happy to watch her family craft and create.

But as she grew older, as she started to learn and understand that the world was so much bigger and more complicated than her happy, busy home, things changed.

No matter how hard she tried and no matter how hard she worked, magic refused to spark alive within her. Not even divine magic answered her call, the temples she visited lying still and silent and the priests and clerics who could perform magic gifted to them by the gods gave her pitying, sorry looks, waiting awkwardly until they could usher her back home again.

It happened sometimes that children were born without magic, her parents told her with soft voices and apologetic faces. Every so often, when a family possessed particularly strong magical bloodlines, a completely mundane child was born. It was a way for the universe to level itself out a little again, a price paid so the rest of the family could keep their magic. So the magic could still be passed on through the generations.

"You allow us to do amazing things," her uncle said, thick glasses perched on his nose that made his eyes huge and bug-eyed as he stared down at the tiny beads he sowed onto a shimmering cloak. "We'll take care of you, no matter what. It's alright, kiddo."

For them it might be. Jule never protested their reassurances and promises, because she didn't want to sound ungrateful and she didn't want them to lose their magic, either, just so she could have some of herr own. But deep down, she mourned. It wasn't fair, she thought, that she loved magic so very much and yet she would never be able to wield it.

Jule could only look at magic, but she couldn't use it. Not even the magical effects granted by the things her family made answered to her call. Mage staffs didn't conjure fire and storms, teleportation scrolls refused to work even when she read every word on them with careful, perfect pronunciation, something that even well-learned mages sometimes struggled with and still the spells worked for them.

Potions didn't heal her and protective wards slid right off of her.

Her touch didn't ruin magic, of course, so she still helped out around the various workshops. When her family was done enchanting things, she put the finishing touches on the project, polishing jewelry and putting a last protective coating on carved wooden pieces. Whatever could be done without magic, she took care of.

She could do prep work as well, sewing clothes out of enchanted fabric, using enchanted needles threaded with strings of magic her family conjured out of thin air. She knew how to spin yarn and weave cloth, how to prepare and cut leather, how to heat iron and sow neat, strong lines.

Whenever she wasn't needed by one of her relatives, Jule started to man the little shop-front where patrons could commission pieces, taking care of mages or royalty or powerful adventurers. Her family was only too happy to leave the paperwork of their business to her, trusting her with the haggling and arguing and deal-making in their name.

It was fine enough work overall and Jule knew she led a fortunate life. She had a stable income, a loving if sometimes bullheaded family and if she ever decided she wanted to so something else with her life they would support her every step of the way.

And still, in her heart of hearts, there was a little girl grieving the things she'd never have. To only see magic but never actually interact with it. To touch it but never feel its answering call. To never feel the very thing that made the eyes of all their patrons light up with sheer awe and elation whenever they donned what her family had made for them.

Sometimes Jule considered leaving. Traveling somewhere far away from here, to build a life that had nothing to do with her old one and the lingering pain of what was denied to her. But in the end, she loved magic too much to leave. She loved her family too much.

It wasn't their fault that they couldn't give her the one thing she wanted more than anything else in the world. If anything, they did their best to distract her and cheer her up, to make her laugh and they encouraged her to chase happiness at every turn.

So, in her free time, she went to events all over town, to theater performances and listened to traveling bards, she went to boxing matches and visited local taverns to play card and dice games. It helped, it eased the ache and almost made the wounded part of her childhood heal.

But then she came home and she looked at her family, at the wondrousness they created, the way magic danced around them, at the awe and wonder on their faces that never ceased, no matter how many magical artifacts they created.

She could not help but feel gray and meaningless beside that wonder. It hurt, it probably would never stop hurting, to know that she would never make something like this herself. That she would never be able to create something awe inspiring and wondrous with her own hands.

She never told her family about her troubling thoughts, made sure there was a smile on her face when they looked up to greet her, their loving warmth easing the ache and the hurt, even if it could never chase it away.

Her mundanity was the price, after all, for their joy and their magic and she would never be cruel enough to take that away from them just so she could have it instead.

And the world seemed to know it, too. The one time a curse master entered the shop, they took one look at her and she stared back at them, full of certain defiance and love that was stronger than pain and they left again silently, never to be seen again.

She would make no bargains, no deals, just to have what her family had. Not when she knew that they would end up paying the price, just like she currently paid it. She would not switch their fates. Besides, everyone knew that those kinds of magical bargains always ended in misery.

Sometimes, though, people came to her parents for help, but for all their capabilities, they were not healers, nor were they mages. Their magic had limits, too. All they could do was guide the people in need towards someone who might be able to help instead, sending them away with addresses and directions scribbled on little notes.

So when the door to the shop swung open and no one seemed to come in, Jule paused, standing up to peer past the front desk. She saw a palm-sized fairy walking towards her, trailing little glitters of magic in their wake, tear tracks down their cheeks. They held their big, butterfly wings in their arms.

"Please," the fairy said with a voice like summer breezes and gently rustling leaves. "I made... I made a terrible mistake. Can't you help?"

Jule swiftly rounded the table, opening a door at the side to call for her grandmother. Her grandma had worked with magical creatures the most over the years and likely knew best what ought to be done.

"Someone will be with you shortly," Jule told the fairy, who bowed their head with relieved gratitude.

The fairy waited in the middle of the room and it was, admittedly, strange to see them standing instead of flying, but Jule bit down on the urge to ask questions. The fairy was visibly distraught, after all, and it wouldn't do to poke at someone's wounds just to sate her curiosity. Besides, it was painfully obvious that they couldn't fly, considering they carried their wings.

Her grandmother appeared soon and Jule really tried not to eavesdrop as they conversed quietly, but it got impossible when the fairy broke out into keening cries.

"I'm sorry," her grandmother said with genuine regret in her voice, her face one of quiet sympathy. "There is nothing that can be done."

"By anyone?" the fairy sobbed and Jule's grandmother shook her head.

"I don't know of anyone who can reverse this, forgive me. But the world is a vast place and magic is an ever-shifting current, perhaps you can still find someone." She stepped back then and excused herself with soft words.

Jule sat there awkwardly for a long moment, the fairy crumpled to the floor in a tiny heap that would easily fit into the palm of her hand.

"What happened?" she couldn't help but ask, unsure how else to approach the fairy. It felt wrong to throw them out just because her family couldn't help them, but she had no idea how to comfort them, either.

"I was a fool," the fairy answered, voice thick with tears as they sat curled over their wings, cradling them close. "I thought I could make a deal with one of the hags."

Jule bit back the urge to grimace. Hags were not known for their kindness. There were stories of people outsmarting them and walking away with incredible prices and powers, but those stories sounded more like fairytales to Jule and were outweighed by far by those who failed. Who spent their lives cursed as a result of their attempted trickery, crawling through the days in endless servitude and agony.

In her opinion, nothing could be gained by making deals with entities, be it curse makers, fae, hags or witches and sorcerers or any of the other beings that liked trading a spell or a sliver of their power for something far more precious.

The problem with deals, compared to curses, was that they were incredibly finicky in how they could be undone again. "What did you ask for?" Jule asked.

The fairy released a hiccupy sort of humorless, exhausted laugh. "I wanted to be free, free of the burdens of my life, of the birthright that I never asked for and that I have hated for so many years." They looked up, tears glimmering like dewdrops on their cheeks. "In exchange for all the freedom I wanted, all I had to give up was one current freedom."

They held up their wings then and whispered, "I had no idea it would be my wings and the hag won't trade them back anymore, not even when I offered to give up everything I gained since. The hag said the only way for me to have it all, is to make my wings move out of my own free will once more."

Because their misery over losing their wings was greater than the misery earned by being forced into a life they didn't want or choose. And many deal-makers lived off of the deals they made, the things they could leech from them. This fairy had likely been incredibly unlucky and had run into one of the hags that lived off of misery.

"No one can help," the fairy whispered, curling up more over their wings. "It's all useless." Jule could see the devastation and the emptiness in their gaze as they stared into nothing. "I don't want to live like this."

Jule sat still and silent, unsure what to say, for there were no words that could possibly console someone in so much agony, when suddenly an idea found her. She pushed to her feet.

"Come with me," she said and the fairy's head snapped up. "I can't promise it will work, but I want to try something."

The fairy scrambled to their feet, rushing after her, holding their large, glittering butterfly wings in their arms. Jule waited by the door until they had caught up and they followed her into the hallway beyond.

She walked past the doors leading to the various workshops, magic gleaming and glimmering faintly in the air as her family worked. After all these years, she had learned the cadence of sounds their creations made, could tell what was being enchanted by the way magic shifted, by the very taste of it. Her mother was making a sword somewhere, her uncle a bracelet and her grandmother was making a gown worthy of an aspiring queen.

She reached the storage room a moment later, opening the door and carefully made sure she wasn't knocking it into the fairy. Everything her family had made that hadn't gotten used or used up was stored here. The room was so full of magic that it always stole her breath away a little.

This room felt a bit like a dream, as though she was drift-walking along the bottom of the ocean without much trouble, light dancing all around her and wondrousness brushing past the edges of her being. It was possibility in its purest form.

Jule looked through the boxes with fabric scraps, looking for that particular feel and taste of magic that she needed. She remembered her cousin once sewing a dragon-scale tunic for a noble, allowing them to transform into a dragon for hours at a time.

Her cousin had made a special fabric for that, one that Jule had sown dragon scales on top of afterwards. She swore a little leftover strip of that fabric had been stashed away somewhere around here.

There! She pulled the fine, thin strip free from the pile it was shoved beneath. It was far too little for a human to do anything with it, but it might just be enough to make something for the fairy.

Jule grabbed some magic-thread, as well, so fine and thin it was hard to see with the naked eye. Taking one of the sewing glasses reserved for that thread and a sewing kit for that particular fabric from the nearby tools room, she returned to the shop front and helped the fairy up on the desk.

She took their measurements and then got to work. It took nearly the entire rest of the day for her to sew the smallest of vests and to get the wings affixed to it, her fingers feeling big and clumsy in comparison. The wings especially had no desire to be sown onto anything at all, for a first stitch made them start to flap awkwardly.

The fairy, eyes widening, had quickly reached over and soothed them, so they settled and stopping their panicked flapping.

The fairy had stared up at her with such naked, impossible hope Jule knew it would destroy them completely if this didn't work.

At last she was done, offering the fairy the vest and they took it with trembling hands.

"Put it on," she encouraged them with a quiet voice, her fingers feeling rather cramped after making something so tiny. "Let's see if it works."

The fairy slipped the vest on with shaking hands, buttoning it up and then they took a deep breath, closing their eyes and focusing. There was a twitch in the wings and they gasped sharply as they took flight.

There were tears and laughter and Jule grinned as she watched the little fairy soar, zipping around the room and barrel-rolling through the air, whoops of joy in their wake.

The deal was not unmade, for the fairy wasn't using their wings out of their own free will, but they had gotten their wings back nonetheless.

They were, now, truly free.

*.*.*

Jule was surprised when the fairy kept visiting, sitting perched on her desk as they chatted. The vest was holding up very nicely and the fairy said that they felt almost normal again, that the gift of flight far outweighed the knowledge that their wings were still separate from their body.

It took Jule a little while to realize that she had made a friend. The fairy and she talked about anything and everything, meandering through town together and she had the fairy holding onto her hat when she rode to another town to deliver a package in the name of her family, their laughter mingling as the fairy urged her to ride faster. They had a truly fun time together.

Life wasn't so bad, she found herself thinking in those moments, sharing grins and stories and whispered secrets. The fairy seemed to know everything that happened in town and was not only the greatest gossip Jule had ever met, they were also an amazing storyteller.

And then, one day, they showed up with a blind wanderer.

"I gave up my eyes for clarity of mind," the wanderer told her, his voice soft with exhaustion, the slump of his shoulders one of grim, eternally miserable defeat. "I kept doubting my art, thinking it wasn't good enough, that I would never amount to anything. So I sought out a sorcerer and asked her to take those doubts."

A beat of heavy silence and he whispered, "She did. I cannot doubt what I can no longer see and nothing can give me my sight back, no magic, no enchanted glass eyes and no divine healing."

The fairy, standing at the edge of Jule's desk, stared up at her with big, hopeful eyes, one tiny hand holding onto a corner of the wanderer's sleeve.

Jule sat there in silence for a long moment, mind racing, until she pushed to her feet. "I'll see what I can do."

The fairy turned to the wanderer, wings perking up, telling him that it was going to be alright, their friend was going to figure something out. Jule didn't tell either of them that she had no idea if she'd actually succeed or not, but she was certainly going to try.

She rifled through the storage room – which was really more a storage hall – picking up and discarding enchanted leftover fabric and metal and glass and jewels and wood and clay. None of it would work the way she wanted it to.

It wasn't until she was about to give up when her gaze fell onto something her family had discarded because it had left the oven broken: a small clay tiger.

The enchantment on it still worked, of course, because her family never did anything by halves and she picked it up, looking at the cracks all over its body. It would never be able to serve the way other clay creatures would, for the damage made it to fragile.

But... it didn't have to. Not when it could serve in a different manner.

Grabbing tools, she sat down and very, very carefully etched delicate markings into the clay tiger. She couldn't enchant anything, but she could work with what was already there. She had watched her family ever since she could remember, sitting in their laps, peering over the edges of their desks, staring past their shoulders as she passed them by.

She knew how runes and sigils worked and what elements had to be connected to what. As long as she didn't ruin the old enchantment, but rather redirected it – like rivers getting split off to lead into lakes and the sea and human-made pools – it might just work.

She finished a few hours later, straightening from her hunched over posture, her spine popping in protest and she got to her feet with a groan.

The fairy and wanderer were where she had left them and she placed the tiger in the man's palm. "Tell it to serve as your eyes," she told him.

His lower lip trembled, breath caught in his throat and in a whisper, voice nearly breaking over the words, he did, "Please be my eyes."

The tiger's closed eyes popped open, glowing a soft gold as it came to life, leaping onto his shoulder, the cracks glowing a soft gold from within as well now.

"Its fragile," Jule warned the wanderer. "It can't withstand being a conduit for spells nor can it guard you or absorb harmful magic directed at you."

Tears fell down the wanderer's cheeks as he reached up to brush reverent fingertips over the tiger. "Oh, no, I don't need any of that," he whispered and then sobbed as a smile broke out across his face. "I can see again."

His new sight was unlikely to be perfect, Jule knew that. The tiger was still a cracked thing, after all, the vision he got from it was probably a little bit blurry, especially along the edges, but it worked.

"I can paint again," he whispered. "And who cares if my art doesn't come out perfect? I'd rather have it all imperfect than never paint again in my life. Thank you, thank you so much."

Jule just smiled at him, the little tiger shifting its head her way, wide, unblinking eyes staring at her. "You're welcome," she said. "Do invite me if you decide to do an exhibition, I'd like to come visit."

The wanderer grinned now, tears still rolling down his cheeks, but there was so much life and joy to him now, shoulders no longer slumped, and exhausted defeat had gotten wiped away by the searing brand of rejuvenated hope.

The wanderer left and the fairy took flight and rolled through the air with a victorious whoop. Jule lifted a hand and got the tiniest, most adorable high-five of her life, before she did some stretches to try and make up for her previous, hunched posture.

To her surprise, the wanderer came back a few days later, showing her what he had painted. It wasn't perfect and it wasn't flawless, but it was beautiful. It had character and life and looking at it lifted her spirits and brought a grin to her face.

"You know," she said as the wanderer beamed after she had praised his work. "I prefer this to perfection." After a pause, she added, "It feels more real this way. Like it's for people, rather than for something like the gods."

The wanderer's grin softened to a warm smile. The little clay tiger had a pink ribbon around its neck and was perched primly on his shoulder still. "Good," he said. "Because I made it for all who are like us. Imperfect and flawed and still striving to do what we can for us and others."

He had achieved that, Jule thought, as she looked back at the vibrant painting of people dancing, hands reaching for each other like they were finding salvation and joy with those around them, in front of them, rather than towards the sky in begging supplication.

And in that way, perhaps, it was a little perfect after all.

*.*.*

The wanderer got a little cottage at the edge of town and while he called that place home, he traveled often. To see the beauty the world offered, to gather ingredients for the paints he made himself and to visit other artists who shared his vision.

But he always came back and he always visited Jule and her fairy friend and soon the three of them had grown quite close.

Jule had found another friend, she realized, as art started to fill the shop and her own room. Colorful, paint-stained hands pulled her into warm, encompassing hugs whenever they met and her life grew all the more richer for it.

And then the wanderer brought a woman to her, who had gotten tricked by a witch into giving up her ability to dream. Her thoughts were bleak and her future dark. The witch had eaten all her hopes and dreams for the future, for her life, for love and happiness. The hope that dark days would end and light would return, so long as she persevered.

Jule retreated into the storeroom, staring around and feeling baffled and a little bit helpless. How could she return dreams to someone? What enchantment existed in the world that allowed another person the ability to envision a future for themselves?

She reached for the most obvious choice first, hoping that inspiration might strike her. She touched dream-fabric, but that was for actual sleep-dreams and not for the hopes and desires one had for the future.

Oh. Desire.

She stood still for a long moment, worrying the dream-fabric between her fingertips. The body desired things for it to function, water and food and rest. It would collapse otherwise and cease to be.

That the woman's mind still existed said that there were enough pieces left intact for her to still carry on. To keep walking through the days even if she no longer understood why or what for. If she introduced a hunger, a desire, to the woman's mind, perhaps that was the solution. Jule could give it a try, at the very least.

So she dug around the scraps and leftovers, the discarded and set-aside, until she found what she was looking for. Grabbing the tools she needed next, she settled down in the storage hall to carefully create a circlet. Once she had the circlet done, making it out of dreamer-metal, she reached for the jewels next.

She grabbed a golden jewel that was meant to inspire hope, but had ended up making people so over-confident, so sure that the future would turn out just right no matter what they did, that they had become utterly reckless and foolish as a result.

Beside it Jule placed two tarnished blue gems that had been made to let people project what they had seen out into the world so others could observe it, too. They had come out wrong, had turned into gems that let people envision whatever they wanted and consider it an unshakeable truth of the world. They would have messed with people's minds too much to ever use them anywhere. At least, until now.

At last, beside the tarnished blue gems, she added the tiniest of diamonds that refused to reflect light and therefor looked just like strange bits of glass. The diamonds were supposed to reflect what was priceless and irreplaceable in a big, flashy display as part of a public statue for a distant queen, but the moment her family had looked at the statue her parents had made and had tried too see those priceless things, they hadn't been able to.

There was no universal truth about worth, after all. Every person considered different things priceless and irreplaceable and it had been impossible for the gems to translate that into a vision that everyone around them could behold. It was the first and last time her parents had attempted such a broad, encompassing and open-to-all enchantment.

But, if put into the circlet in a correct manner, the gems wouldn't have to reveal what the world thought was worth everything, it just had to show the woman what was valuable to her. She still had her memories, after all, still remembered what she had once valued above all, even if the emotion was gone from the memories now.

If Jule had twisted the dreamer metal right, if the enchantment on the metal first flowed through and connected to hope and then visions before it landed on what was truly important, maybe that would work.

She returned to the shop with aching fingers and carefully placed the circlet on the woman's head. The woman inhaled sharply, her hands snapped up to grab Jule's wrists and Jule stilled in startled surprise. The next moment the woman burst into tears, clinging to Jule like she was salvation in the middle of a storm, a lone branch leaning down above a rushing river, offering a way out.

Jule grinned and the wanderer laughed and the fairy whooped and the woman laughed and wept, and for just a moment, Jule felt the magic in the air, a collection of three enchantments that brought joy and relief and hope to three different people.

It felt like a dream come true.

*.*.*

The woman, too, ended up becoming one of Jule's friends. They spent long afternoons talking about all sorts of philosophical topics, about the importance of dreaming and that no desire for gold could pay for something so irreplaceable.

The woman had started to teach at the local academy, sharing her experiences with her students and helping them find paths forward in life that didn't let them fall for the lies and tricks and pretty, poisonous words of magical strangers.

Because once that magic left the stranger's hands, it always and without fail turned to ruin in someone else's hands.

And bit by bit, more people sought Jule out. There were still plenty of commissions for her family, the powerful things they could make sought after all across the world, but now Jule had clients of her own.

People who had no riches, people who had lost more than they could ever hope to regain. One after another, she crafted things for them, finding ways to overcome their deals, their curses, their losses. To stitch them back up again, the way thread held split-open flesh closed. The wound wasn't gone, the missing limb not regrown, the lost senses not regained, but... it was the next best thing.

And in return, her own life grew richer and fuller for it. She finally felt like she had found her purpose in this life, in this world and it brightened her in ways she hadn't known she could glow. It made her feel like her life was truly worth living now.

And then the door to the shop swung open and she stared at the man who entered. Half fae, half sorcerer, he had gleaming, iridescent wings on his back and eyes that held an amethyst shimmer, human and fae magic entwined all around him.

But for all that his greeting smile was gentle and his gaze kind, his magic was dark. It settled over her like a cloak of doubt and grimness. It was made of loss and lack, making her feel like she'd never be enough, never be good enough.

Jule felt her old doubts rear their heads again in that moment, getting up on their hind legs like wild horses. She was only a burden to her family and they pitied her more than they loved her. Her lack of magic made her lesser.

On the heels of her doubts came little flickers of bitterness and hidden, silent anger. Why did she have to be the one burdened with paying the price for the magic her family used to liberally? Why was she the only one who had to suffer?

Why could they not trade all their magic in so she could have some of her own? If they really loved her, they would give themselves up for her.

She suddenly felt tiny hands settle atop her knuckles, a colorful, paint-stained hand reaching for her shoulder and warm, slender fingers entwining with her free hand. She blinked and jolted back to herself, staring at the stranger who had lost his kindness now as he stared her friends down.

Then his gaze fell back to her and his smile was gentle once more, gaze warm like he could give her everything she could ever ask for. He would be her salvation, her friend, her family, her lover, anything she desired. All she had to do was give a piece of herself to him.

"I heard about you," he said and his voice was promise and sin wrapped up into one thing, teasing at her dark thoughts and her hidden hopes. About being more, about being special like her family was special. It made her feel like being greedy and taking something for herself, to finally be something extraordinary, no matter the cost.

"I can't say the same," she answered, clinging to her friends, her true friends, who were the only ward she currently had against his overwhelming presence. "Who are you?"

"Hm... consider me a client." He smoothly sat down before her, shimmering robes spilling around him like his magic had gotten turned into fabric, but that hardly phased her. She had watched her aunt create more beautiful things than what he wore.

He leaned forward, gaze growing intense and his smile grew a little more, revealing a hint of sharp needle-like teeth. He revealed a glimpse of the monster beneath the veneer of beautiful savior.

"Say, Mundane Jule, can you save me like you saved them?" he asked and she blinked in surprise, taken aback by his words. He laughed quietly, but it wasn't a nice sound, it was sharp, like a predator lurking and knowing he was close to holding his prey between his teeth. "If you succeed, I will fulfill your wish."

Jule stared at him as he leaned back in the chair with beautiful grace, robes and wings shimmering and she took a deep breath and ignored all that. She focused on his magic instead, the thing she had learned to read more than anything else after she had grown up around her family.

She focused on how heavy it was, how it wanted her to feel hopeless and alone and abandoned, how it wanted to draw forth all her ugliness so she'd feel broken and would accept his hand and his gleaming, unspoken promises of haleness and healing and salvation.

"What did you trade away?" she asked and he waved an elegant hand through the air, creating a glimmer of magic that showed her what she had secretly desired for so many years. He showed her a vision of her wielding magic and being admired and adored and loved for it. To stand on equal ground with her family.

"Guess," he said and as the vision faded, she knew what he had done.

He had made a deal. With what or whom, if it had been someone just like him or even magic itself, she couldn't tell, nor did it matter. It had never mattered when she looked for a solution for the people who had found her.

She took a deep breath and pushed to her feet, her friends letting her step past and they shifted to close ranks behind her, blocking her from sight.

Jule went to the storage hall and stared at the scraps of creation around her. The leftovers of wondrousness and had to wrestle viciously with herself. It would be a dream come true if she got to have magic of her own. If she could do what her family could.

If she was wondrous herself, finally, after all these years of feeling like she didn't amount to much at all.

She looked at the things around her, at the various enchanted leftovers that could still serve a new purpose. She went and grabbed a number of them, thinking about what she could make for the fae-sorcerer in order to get her dream, when she stilled.

There was always a price. Dreams did not come true through magic without turning into a curse in the process. There was no shortcut to a happy, fulfilled life, after all, no matter how much she and others wished there was.

So she set her gathered supplies down and rubbed her hands over her face. Did she even want to help the fae-sorcerer? How many people had he hurt?

But, no, she always helped, without asking for anything in return, because... she inhaled sharply, her mind finally clearing again. Because this was her purpose. Because this brought her joy. Because taking what was left over and crafting something out of it and giving it to people who had no one else to turn to, who had gotten discarded by others, made her happy.

It made her feel special.

So she went to the very back of the storage hall, to the things her family had made and then locked away. Sometimes, magic got funky and sometimes, one of them was inattentive and that little moment, that little lack of focus, was all it took for the enchantment to change in their hands.

To turn into something wilder. Something darker. Something more unpredictable.

She hadn't touched those things because it hadn't been necessary and also because those creations were more volatile. But now... it felt right to reach for them now.

So she unlocked the chests and reached within, drawing out fabric that slid between her fingers like water, cold and still, with danger lurking beneath. She reached for a pouch of scales, tiny enchantments inscribed on the backs of all of them and they felt like destruction and entire towns toppling and falling. At last she grabbed leather that made her shiver, all her warmth leeching away to instead get replaced by a feeling of doom and death.

She was covered in cold sweat by the time she was done creating a pair of elegant vambraces that shimmered like a devouring end. Getting to her feet and taking a deep breath she returned to the shop, finding her friends in an intense stare-off with the fae-sorcerer.

"Put them on," she said, holding out the vambraces. His brows rose but he took them and did as she asked.

Jule held her breath and the moment he tightened the last strap, all the darkness, the heaviness, the ugliness, got sucked out of his magic, leaving it in its original state. It was nothing but pure, untouched and untainted power now, ready to be used for either good or bad.

The choice of how he was going to use his magic was back in his hands.

He stared at his hands, eyes wide and then he laughed and a moment later he was weeping, hands pressed over his face. "It's true," he said wetly, accepting the tissue Jule held out to him. "You really are something special." He looked up at her, eyes more like liquid purple now than hard, cold amethyst. "I can't offer you the promised deal, not anymore."

Because the ability to make deals had gotten devoured by the vambraces, because it was part of the dark ruin his magic had become.

"That's fine," Jule answered and was quietly surprised to find that she meant it. It truly was alright. This, right here, doing something worthwhile, was worth more than any deal in the world. Especially when any deal she might have made would have only caused her nothing but misery in the end.

The fae-sorcerer left with the promise to return, but there was nothing malicious about him anymore. He walked taller, freer, his magic coiling around him like a rushing current, eager to carry him to places he wanted to walk – without shortcuts this time.

"Lets go out," the wanderer offered in the wake of the fae-sorcerer's departure. "I want to celebrate with you all."

"Oh, what exactly?" the fairy asked and the wanderer smiled.

"Just life," he said and the fairy landed on his shoulder with a little whoop, the woman eager to follow along. They paused to look back at Jule, waiting for her to join them.

"I'll catch up with you shortly," Jule said. It was late enough that she could close the shop, but there was one more thing she wanted to do first.

Her friends filtered outside and she locked the shop up before she took a deep breath and sought out her family. She hadn't told them what she had been up to, because, before, it hadn't felt like she hadn't done that much. She was using their enchantments, after all, their products. In a way, it had felt like her family was saving those people more than she did.

But she no longer thought that. So she sat down in the workshop, her family settled around her with curiosity and she told them what she had been up to, what she had been doing in the hours when no one had come to visit the shop to commission a magical artifact.

And her family lit up. Before she knew it, Jule was buried in offers to make more things for her, to make her anything she needed and wanted, from fabric to armor to clay creatures.

"Don't use the scraps anymore," her uncle said, already rubbing his hands together. "Oh, I can't wait to make you new things!"

"But you're already so busy," Jule whispered and her mother pulled her into a warm, encompassing hug, her aunt patting her arm.

"Nonsense, dear," her mother said. "Besides, you're doing something we can't."

At this, Jule paused and her father gave her a gentle smile. "When we make something, Jule, it's done. We can't change it's nature anymore. An enchantment is an enchantment, why do you think we accept commissions all the time instead of remakings things we already have lying around?"

"But you're not bound to our limitations," her cousin cut in with a bright, wide grin. "You can take our enchantments and weave them together into something entirely new."

"Oh." Jule hadn't even been aware of that. She had thought her family simply hadn't known how to break curses or undo deals, that they had been so busy their minds had constantly been elsewhere.

Her mother pressed a kiss to her forehead and whispered, "My bright, lovely girl, I'm so glad you found your calling."

And she had, Jule realized. She couldn't help but burst into tears herself and immediately her family rushed to hug and hold her, promising that they were going to do everything they could to support her.

"You're not alone," her grandfather said, ruffling her hair gently. "We're family, we'll stick together."

More than ever, she was glad that she had never accepted a deal to get magic of her own. To be like her family. Not when... not when it was perfectly fine that she was herself. Ordinary, mundane Jule, who couldn't use magic at all, but who could do something else instead.

Something wondrous.

When she joined her waiting friends, they were glad to see her grinning so wide her cheeks hurt.

"Let's celebrate life," Jule said. "I think we deserve it."

And they did, with laughter and drinks and dancing and a fae-sorcerer joining them halfway through. By the end of the night, Jule could tell that he'd be another friend in given time and she found herself glad for it.

The next day, her parents closed the shop to remodel it, the rest of her relatives pitching in to make her a proper workplace for what she was doing. Jule wasn't sure what to call her job, she wasn't breaking curses after all or undoing deals, but something else altogether.

In the end, she called her workplace "Second Chance" and decided that this was what she was doing. She was giving people second chances to find themselves, to make something of their lives.

Just like she had found herself, and, truth be told? It wasn't always easy, life was a wild ride, after all, but she had things now she hadn't had before. She believed in herself, she had friends who valued her as much as she valued them and her family made things for her now.

As far as lives went, this one was a pretty damn good one.