Blue Routine

The days fell into an unsteady routine for young Amalie.
Amalies weekends were spent in diligent study under master smith Zahid, he gave her books to read, plans to study and plenty of hard work shoveling coals and moving red hot metal about. Amalie ended each day exhausted, burned, and yet satisfied at having done something productive and meaningful. Amalie enjoyed her weekends for the most part, mostly because the rest of her time was spent in misery.

Five days of every seven, Amalie spent utterly alone.
At first Amalie tried to make friends, she introduced herself to other girls as they gossiped about each other or spoke of boys. But they would just ignore her, she tried again and again until finally the girls would leave as one, or turn and stare her down until she left them.
The boys were no nicer, when she tried to befriend them they laughed, they called her names, and they insulted her lowborn status. Amalie learned to stop trying, and so they stopped paying attention to her. When she sat in class, the desks around her remained empty, when she walked the halls teachers and students alike moved a safe distance from her. Amalie lived her days in a bubble, the only times another came within arms distance of her, was when she was in the way and they needed to push her aside, they never asked her to move, for to them, she simply wasn't there.
Since she had no friends, and since the teachers only laughed at her or called her simple and lazy when she asked for help with that days lesson she took to reading.
Amalie read her notes, her book of runes, and the few books the woman in the small student library could not refuse her.
While the others jumped and played, threw balls around or laughed in big groups, Amalie read.
Within three weeks she had read everything she could get her hands on, including a book on minerals  borrowed from Zahid. The woman in the library refused to let Amalie touch any other books. So she read them all again, and again. Most of it made little sense to her, she needed more books to understand these, and likely more books to understand those books as well. It was frustrating, and lonely but Amalie had grown up working hard as a peasant, even as a child she knew how to button down and push through the days duties and do her best to ignore Chancy and Gerald, the dorm mistress and master, as they threw their verbal scorn upon her. Then came night.

Her sleep was fitful at best, nightmares haunted her and when she woke she would reach for the comforting presence of her older sister, but she found no comfort, only a cold wall and more silence. And a harsh reminder she was alone and no one would coddle her any longer.
She would then cry gently until she slipped back into her unremembered nightmares.

Amalie could leave at any time. It would make everyone extremely happy and end this loneliness, the church might take her back, at the least she could find work in the town for pennies a day, she could read and that helped. But if she gave up, or gave in, she would never again have the chance to learn magic. She knew there was more to it than pushing a few grains of sand, she knew the feeling inside her could be a thousand time stronger, she could change the world if only she could learn how, but she was stopped at every turn.

One thing kept her going, the now familiar warmth in her belly, the satisfying tug of raw energy forming to her will, growing stronger each day, it was exhilarating. The rush as all that potential magic rushed from her outstretched hand to collide with the barrel of absorbing sand, or when she slammed it into a target of hay, each time was easier, and each time just just as satisfying.
In those moments Amalie felt her pain slip away, her week was forgotten, her emotional torment healed, the loneliness vanished like magic. When the power flowed through her she was no longer alone, she felt part of a greater whole, she could almost hear friendly words of encouragement urging her forwards.
Of course when those moments ended the reality of her life slammed back into her with the force of a falling tree, or an unfriendly shoulder to her back. She would collapse, unnoticed by the teacher or her classmates, and be left gasping for air as her heart beat out a staccato rhythm.

She was torn between these feelings, she was alone and sad, but there was such joy in those moments as to make her doubt ever wanting to leave. Zahid was kind, he gave her purpose and direction, he let her accomplish the small tasks each apprentice must do to become a journeyman, he treated her like a person. Amalie learned what he taught and took it all to heart, the work was simple, physical and distracting. Zahid even pretended to not see Amalies tears as she worked the frustrations of the last few days from her mind and braced herself for the coming week.
Her blue jay waited for her as well, her one and only friend during the week. She gave it what food she could, and in turn it listened to her cry, or read her lessons aloud, or just sat and sang for her when she was down. It seemed to understand her in an animal way.

And so summer turned to autumn, and autumn turned to the first days of winter. The leaves turned from green to red almost overnight, and soon each morning the ground was covered in a thin frost.
The pond was beginning to freeze more each day. And Amalie endured the cold in her one old robe shivering as she moved from the dorm to her classes.
Cold, alone, and filled with magic Amalie heard the voice clearly for the first time.
It whispered words at her in the middle of her practice as she was struggling not to collapse from the chill.