where we keep the light

“How do you spend your days, then?”

“Reading. Walking. Going into town.” Phichit shrugged. “We help weatherproof the boats and such, read the winds for the fishermen. A little healing as well, here and there. You won’t lack for things to do, Yuuri.”

Hasetsu had been much the same, the magic built brick by brick into the walls of houses, sewn stitch by stitch into every cloak and boot—and while Yuuri had loved it from the first, that had not stopped him from wondering what more there might be, out in the wide world. What place there might be for him that was not simply the place where he’d been born. Phichit’s days, too, sounded like they were governed by an ordinary enough routine, prosaic and familiar, and yet his dark eyes were sparkling when they caught Yuuri’s sidelong, as if to say they were on the verge of a great adventure, and Yuuri simply did not know it yet.