Morning sunlight poured over the hills in layers, each ridge spilling gold onto the next. Dew clung to the grass, bending the blades into arcs that caught the light like threads of glass. Frieren stood in the clearing, her hair faintly moving in the breeze.
SpongeBob arrived late, again, not by much — just enough that Frieren had already drawn a small circle in the dirt with the tip of her boot. He carried his wooden spatula under one arm like a knight's sword, and his other arm held a bundle of wildflowers.
"They're for the training spot," he said quickly, as if this explained his delay. "You know… brighten the place up a bit."
Frieren didn't answer. She only tilted her head toward the circle.
They began, as always, with stance, not magic, not chanting, just standing, feet planted, shoulders square, weight balanced.
"It feels like I'm waiting for customers to line up for lunch," SpongeBob whispered after a while.
"Then wait," Frieren said.
The first lesson was Zoltrak — a simple piercing spell. Simple, but not easy, Frieren demonstrated once. A silver thread of light gathered at the tip of her staff, then shot forward with a soft hiss, striking a tree trunk with a small crack.
SpongeBob stared, then adjusted his grip on the spatula.
"You're not using that," Frieren said.
"I'm definitely using this," SpongeBob replied. "It's my… wandula."
Frieren paused. "Wandula?"
"Yes, wand plus spatula, Wandula."
She didn't argue.
The morning stretched, birds chattered in the trees a cart rattled along the dirt road below the hill, its driver calling out about fresh apples. SpongeBob kept glancing at the cart, frieren kept her eyes on his stance.
"Zoltrak, say it." She said.
He tried nothing happened.
Again.
A faint shimmer appeared at the spatula's edge — then popped like a soap bubble.
Again.
They stopped only when the apple seller himself wandered up the hill to offer them a fruit each. His hands were rough, his beard catching bits of leaf as he talked about a fox stealing hens in the next village. Frieren accepted the apple, SpongeBob bought two extra "for research," and somehow the conversation drifted to weather patterns near the river.
By the time the man left, SpongeBob had forgotten he was supposed to be training.
"Zoltrak," Frieren reminded him.
He tried again. This time, the shimmer lasted a heartbeat longer before fizzling out.
"That was progress," he said.
"No," Frieren said.
The rest of the day passed like that — slow, deliberate, interrupted by the world simply existing around them. Children chasing each other with sticks shaped like swords, Frieren barely spoke, SpongeBob spoke too much.
When the sun dipped low, they walked back together. He hadn't learned Zoltrak yet, but his grip on the wandula was steadier, and he thought maybe tomorrow, he'd get a spark to fly.
That night, the village was quieter than usual. The only sounds were the occasional bark of a dog and the creak of shutters in the wind. SpongeBob sat cross-legged on the small cot in the room Frieren had arranged for him at the inn. His spatula rested across his knees, polished so thoroughly that the candlelight danced across it.
He tried to whisper the word again.
"Zoltrak."
The spatula did nothing, of course, not even the shimmer from earlier.
From the floor below came the muffled voices of the inn's patrons — farmers mostly, their talk slow and unhurried. One man was telling a long story about an eel he'd caught, the other interrupting every few moments to correct the size.
SpongeBob leaned out his windows . A pair of children sat on the steps across the way, stringing beads together and laughing in that quiet, tired way children do after a long day.
The next morning, Frieren was already waiting in the clearing, her cloak catching droplets of mist. A crow hopped along the edge of the training circle, pecking idly at something.
"You didn't practice," she said when SpongeBob arrived.
"I did practice," he protested. "But I think the wandula's shy at night."
Frieren ignored that. "Again."
He stood in position, she watched in silence.
"Zol—"
A sudden rustle broke the stillness — the apple seller from yesterday was trudging up the slope, breathing hard, a wicker basket swinging from one hand.
"Not apples today," he called. "Turnips. Big ones."
SpongeBob immediately broke stance to peer into the basket. "Ooo, those would be great roasted with a bit of kelp seasoning—"
Frieren cleared her throat.
"Oh, right. Sorry." He returned to position.
Half an hour later, the fox thief made its appearance — a blur of orange darting along the ridge, ears sharp against the sky. The apple seller shouted, dropping his basket, and went after it. Turnips rolled down the slope in slow arcs, thudding into tufts of grass. SpongeBob bent to pick one up.
"You're… not going after the fox?" he asked Frieren.
"It's not my hen, why should I?" she replied.
Training resumed, but the interruptions became their own rhythm — a passing shepherd calling out to ask if Frieren had seen his missing goat, a breeze sending yellow leaves drifting into the circle, the distant clink of someone hammering new horseshoes at the forge.
By midday, SpongeBob had managed the shimmer again. Twice, each time, it fizzled before it could leave the wandula's tip.
"That's… partial progress," he said hopefully.
Frieren only adjusted her stance and demonstrated again.
As the sun lowered, the village bell rang once , not for danger, just to mark the hour before dusk. They walked back slowly, Frieren in her usual silence, SpongeBob humming a nonsense tune and occasionally trying "Zoltrak" under his breath, as if he might catch the magic by surprise.
Somewhere between the clearing and the inn, he realized he'd forgotten to ask Frieren how long it usually took to learn the spell.
-
The seasons shifted, one into another, like the turning of slow, heavy pages.
In spring, the clearing would be soft with new grass, the circle Frieren had drawn nearly hidden until she traced it again with the point of her boot. In summer, the air shimmered, and the spatula burned warm in SpongeBob's grip. Autumn brought the sound of carts loaded with apples rattling down the hill, and in winter, their breaths curled in the cold while the river below wore a skin of thin ice.
Year one was mostly failure. SpongeBob's "wandula" produced little more than the occasional glimmer, so faint it could have been sunlight catching on metal. Frieren corrected his stance so many times he began to dream about her tapping his ankle into place.
Year two, the interruptions had names and stories. The apple seller, whose real name was Durrin, lost his orchard to a storm but started keeping bees instead. The missing goat was found — only to go missing again the following winter, the fox thief grew bolder, leaving pawprints in the snow near the inn.
Sometimes, during breaks, Frieren would sit with the villagers while SpongeBob helped repair a fence or carry water. Nobody rushed him back to training; the work was part of life, and life was as much the lesson as Zoltrak.
By year three, he could form the spell properly — at least, the light of it. The actual piercing force remained elusive. The air would buzz faintly at the tip of his spatula, like it was holding its breath, then exhale into nothing.
"Don't push it," Frieren would say. "Don't force it."
"But it's piercing magic!" he'd argue.
She'd only shrug.
Life kept spilling into the training, the blacksmith's apprentice left for the capital, leaving the forge silent until a new one came. The village well collapsed one summer, and the entire community — Frieren included — spent days hauling buckets from the river. SpongeBob spent weeks afterwards doodling designs for a magical well pump that did not even make sense, which Frieren ignored completely.
Through it all, the wandula never left his side. He replaced its handle once, sanded it smooth each winter, and swore it felt "more magical" every year.
By the time five years had passed, the clearing had changed. Trees had grown taller, their shadows reaching further into the grass. Frieren's circle was worn deep into the earth now, and SpongeBob's stance — though still far from perfect — no longer wobbled after ten minutes.
One crisp morning, as frost still clung to the grass, he finally asked, "So… is it normal to take this long?"
Frieren took her time answering. The crow from years ago hopped into the circle, now older, feathers dulled.
"Yes," she said simply.
And that was the end of it.
By the seventh year, the clearing looked different, yet the same.
The circle Frieren had drawn on his first day was now a shallow groove in the dirt, packed hard from endless footsteps. Moss grew in patches along its edge, and a small ant colony had made its home right where SpongeBob always stood. He'd learned to shift his foot just enough so he wouldn't crush them.
His wandula had been repaired twice, the original handle was long gone — the current one carved from driftwood he'd found near the river. The wooden head had dulled with use, but he polished it every week until it gleamed like morning frost.
The day started like hundreds before it. The sky was pale, clouds stretched thin. Frieren arrived first, leaning on her staff as she watched him climb the hill, late again.
"You stopped to talk to the beekeeper," she said.
"They have a new queen," SpongeBob said quickly. "It's a big deal."
Frieren didn't argue. She only gestured to the circle.
His stance was better now — not perfect, but steady. He breathed in, letting the cold air fill him, and raised the wandula. Frieren's voice was calm, the same way it had been for seven years.
"Zoltrak."
He'd heard that word thousands of times. Said it thousands more, but this time, something felt… less forced.
"Zoltrak."
The air around the spatula's edge shimmered — not the fragile soap-bubble glint from the early years, but something denser, heavier. It hummed, almost impatient, he kept his grip loose, just as she had taught.
The silver thread formed, stretching forward, trembling — then with a sharp hiss it shot out, cutting through the air and striking a distant tree. Bark splintered in a clean, narrow line.
SpongeBob froze, spatula still raised.
Frieren only nodded once. "Again."
They practiced until the light began to fade. Each cast was different some weaker, some stronger, but they were real. By the time they stopped, SpongeBob's arms ached and the spatula was warm from the spell's energy.
Walking back down the hill, he kept glancing at the tree he'd struck first, as though making sure it was still there.
"Seven years," he said finally. "That's… a long time."
Frieren's eyes were on the road ahead. "Not really."