If Wishes Were Horses

Ambrosine didn’t look up until Helene proudly laid the contents of the death knight’s pockets out on the table. “Look, you didn’t even notice.”

The numbers and tax forms were making her head swim, so Ambrosine didn’t whine about the interruption as much as she could have. She’d been stoically plowing through her records for hours. “When you can do that to Jaffar, I’ll be impressed.”

“But I can’t, he’s much harder!”

“Which is exactly why you should be pestering him and not me. I’m not good practice. Also, that’s my dummy wallet, you missed the real one. I’m not a complete idiot, Hel.” Ambrosine waggled her finger, smiling.

The girl huffed. Girl. No girl, not anymore. Ostensibly, Helene and Josiah had been taken in as Ambrosine’s students. Teenaged orphans of Gilneas, adrift and in need of a trade, and hadn’t she one or two to teach? Extra hands around the farm and the brewery never hurt.

But it took a complete idiot to not realize that as far as Ambrosine was concerned, they were her children. No one batted an eye at the fact that Josiah basically ran Darkhorse now, despite being barely into adulthood. Ambrosine had been doing no less at his age, groomed since a wee tot to take over her father’s horse breeding enterprises.

…what a strange series of turns life had taken.

Helene had slumped down in another chair while Ambrosine woolgathered. She plucked a book out her rucksack but was mostly turning it over in her hands, rather than reading it.

“Hey, Ambro?”

“…yes?” She should probably get back to the taxes (Josiah had, wisely, deferred those to her) and yet…

…taxes were boring.

“What would you do if you had a wish?”

Ambrosine raised one eyebrow, slowly. She didn’t bother the answer; it was an obvious choice. Not being a death knight would sure be nice.

Helene rolled her eyes. “What id you had a wish but it couldn’t benefit you? Like, it had to be for the good of someone else.”

“What if it benefits me, also? I mean, I could wish the Legion banished from Azeroth forever. But I’d benefit from that as much as anyone.”

“That’s too easy,” Helene scoffed. “Think smaller! That’s more interesting.”

I wish you didn’t want to become an adventurer. I wish you’d pick something safer, like Josiah, and just stay home and run the farm or the business.

But those wishes, too, were selfish.

“I wish you’d go pester Jaffar so he’d come home and start dinner. He was out fishing, I think. You’re hungry, right? So that’s not just for my own good.”

“Ugh,” Helene said, but she laughed as she stood up. “Work has turned your brain to mush. Come on, come bother him with me.”

“I guess that’s more entertaining than numbers.” She got up and walked over to the door, grabbing a battered straw hat.