Vignette- Kraftig Hold

“Settle down, Ya.” A middle aged man loomed over the class. At 7 feet in height and muscled like a greek god this wasn’t hard to do. Not when his ‘students’ were just barely approaching 14.

“Let’s get the hard words out of the way first. All 53 of you failed to self awaken. And it is a failure. A great pity for our hold. Accept it and move on. For one failure doesn’t make a life. You still have the opportunity to make something of yourselves.”

He glanced around with a hard eyed stare. “You are to be guardians of Kraftig hold but many of you will fail again. Each hold, no, it is not just the holds. Each Father offers a different path for Guardianship. Some will be suited to a path, many others won't. Those of you who fail here might find another path that suits you better. Or you might not and be relegated to the depths. The protected under cities where we throw our nearly worthless. Nearly because they can still rut like beasts and produce another generation. A generation that will hopefully be more useful than they were.”

Several youngsters stiffened at this, opening their mouths to object, only to snap them shut again as the middle aged man casually crushed an eight inch thick piece of hardwood between his fingers. “You don’t like it when I insult your parents? Good for you. A child should stick up for his parents. But you’ll need some strength to pull that off. Strength you can get by listening.”

His smile was positively wicked as he dared them to cause trouble.

Predictably, they declined.

“So, what is our path then?” He asked rhetorically, ignoring a few raised hands. “We are called bodybuilders. A not incorrect term, if one rather unpleasantly marred by its history. No, we do not spend our days in a weight room pumping iron. Instead we start in this classroom. Knowledge is the foundation of our art and art it is. Here you will learn about the human body in all its glory.” He took a flexed pose, fingers intertwined and palms touching while the heel of his hands faced upwards. “I was a doctor before the fall. I was not allowed to remember many things about my craft, but the mechanics of how the body was put together is still here.” He pointed to his temple. “And I had seven years to experiment on both my own body and golem provided ones. You are lucky, without that precious 7 years this path would not have been possible. At least not without being more monstrous than Dr. Mengele, Ya?” He paused for a few half hearted chuckles.

“I will teach you how humans are put together and in turn how to safely build on that foundation to become more than ‘normal’. It will take at least a year of hard studying from each of you followed by a lifetime of work. It takes dedication and a willingness to suffer pain and injury in pursuit of something better. In this first year if I feel you aren’t suited to this path I will promptly kick you out. It will be a kindness to you. Your ‘fit’ to the path will greatly affect how far you can walk down it. If you try hard but are unsuited I will attempt to find another pathfinder for you to awaken under. But only if you impress me with your efforts. I will not tarnish my reputation by recommending the lazy.”

Making eye contact with each of them in turn, he nodded and continued, “Today we are going to go over just the basics. The philosophy of how we proceed. It starts oh so simply with the complex understanding of what our bodies are and what magic is. To borrow from a friend upstream we can break this down into aspects and intent. A tree branch has an aspect that takes the magic from the field and gives it physical form. A rock does the same. All things have at least one aspect, or they would not be. Most have considerably more than one.

“Some of those aspects are inborn. A tree must have the aspect of a tree or it would not be a tree, ya? But then we get a variety of different trees. Why are they different? The great jungle trees might have aspects of hot, dark and humid, an evergreen might have cold and snow, or the mangrove with aquatic and sunny.”

“The environment in which it grows applies new aspects to these plants. If the plant cannot take on, at least in part, the aspects of its environment then what? Take a sunflower and plant it in the dark jungle depths and see for yourself. Without help, it will not survive.”

“Without help. This is key. With effort and skill plants can be adapted to different environments. Forcing a new aspect into its mix and allowing it to exist in a new place. This is a task that you will all take on. Only by understanding the transformations will you be able to progress on transforming yourself.”

“That is what this is about and it pulls in the other side, aspects are what we are made of. Intent is what we DO. With knowledge and the proper environment you can use your intent to create an aspect. With a powerful will I have seen a man tell dirt to become rock and it did.”

“You’re intent can slowly adapt a plant to have aspects that it would never have naturally. And in time you can adapt your body to have the aspects you choose. Strength? Flexibility? Durability? Skin as hard as iron, maybe fingernails as sharp as an eagles. You will decide what aspects to include, and you will suffer if you can’t blend them with the aspects you already have.

“Stepping back, you will start on plants because they are fairly simple. A limited number of aspects make adding or removing one a much easier task. Humans are very complex with perhaps hundreds of aspects in different amounts and locations through our bodies.”

“It sounds impossible to mess with that, ya? But we have some luck. What is the primary aspect of humanity? Chaos or perhaps adaptability. Take a hundred humans and you would find a hundred different combinations of aspects. This, I believe, is a side effect of sapience. We think, therefore we are different. The result is that we can live in any environment we choose to adapt ourselves to. This can be observed in our own little union. We have those who live in the canopies of the great trees, those who live underwater, high in the mountains, in the high planes amongst the dinosaurs or at the river mouth upon the great oceans.”

“We adapt and overcome. Even without my help this can be done. But with it?” He lightly jumped and reached more than 20 feet into the air. “I will teach you how to understand your body. Then from that understanding control your intent to build a body strong and adaptable enough to survive.

“And perhaps, even thrive!”

Chapter 10

The enchanting had been going rather well. The connecting lines and timing runes were completed. That only left the most difficult parts, Timothy reflected with a wry grin. The three cauldrons with 5 linked runes and the six linked rune combination placed on 6 different but connected brazers.

And that last one was going to suck. It wouldn’t be the first, or the last time he was laid up in bed with a migraine. That didn’t mean he was looking forward to it. He sighed, but neither would he flinch away from it. There were always costs to doing what you loved.

He remembered a company ski trip before the change. Five years without touching the damned things followed by a full day on the slopes. Even with a hot tub at the end of the evening he could barely get out of bed the next day. He snorted, comparing muscle aches to mental pain was like comparing a torch to a campfire. Even so, the essence of the thought remained. When the reward was worth it, pay the costs. Despite the pain, even if he could go back in time he wouldn’t change anything. The memory of light powder, speed and pure adrenaline pumping joy lingered with him even to this day.

A flutter of light at the corner of his eyes made him pause, hands mid reach for a note plaque. He turned to make sure, but the illusionary flag was raised beside the sealed ‘door’. It was a compromise he’d worked out. A polite request for his attention without the danger of interrupting him. With a few linked runes that was already exceedingly painful. But if he was in the middle of a 5-link combo, or even worse the 6? That would probably kill him.

Backlash was no small joke.

He’d already lost a few students to various forms of it. He grimaced, pushing that thought out of his mind. He’d already grieved enough. Time to move on, he reminded himself. For the umteenth time.

He stood up from his kneeling position on the floor, spending a few moments to stretch out his back and shake out his legs, then walked over to unseal and open the door. A not uncomplicated procedure. Still it was second nature at this point. Soon enough the various wards retracted and the stone opening parted down the middle with the two sides liquidly sliding backwards to thicken the walls on the exterior of the wall. The inside was covered in far too many small permanent runic enchantments.

He glanced out carefully, sweeping the full room with both his eyes and magic senses, before removing the final ward and stepping out into the workshop. A deceptively simple plaque waited for him on the closest worktable. The only one in the room of 6 such tables that wasn’t cluttered up with at least one in process project. Not to mention the long pipe of the shadow step experiment. It was annoyingly large and used up not only prime experimental space, but also made his sleeping arrangements rather awkward. He really needed to get rid of it. It was not progressing anywhere at the moment, if he had some inspiration he could always remake it.

Later, he promised himself.

The notifications took precedence. Just what new disaster had happened while he was working? Picking up the plaque he took a moment to scan the text below.

I request teachers' advice.

Thumper

He snorted wryly. Not an emergency, just a paying student asking for advice. Ah well, that was part of the job. Now which one was Thumper again? He spent a full minute scrolling through faces in his memory before finally settling on an extremely petite young lady with page cut black hair and a pronounced pair of front teeth. He snapped his fingers. He remembered now, the nick was an insult about her teeth when she was younger. Now at 15 it better fit her habit of smashing her sparring partners with a brutal application of motion spells. A pretty talented child, even if she wasted a lot of her time at that damn sparring ring.

Having all his ducks in a row (the all knowing teacher shouldn’t have to ask ‘what's your name again) he wrote a quick acceptance note of the plaque and directed a time in 15 minutes. Enough time to use the restroom and get a drink.

After providing for his bodily needs it was only a hop skip and a jump up the access shaft to the scrying room. He resolved the security wards deftly on the way. They were a familiar hassle. A constant delay that felt unwarranted at this point. And probably was, now at least. But you had to start good habits before they were needed. Who could say whether he would recognize when the world would change and these small security measures would become a deadly necessity.

At last he found his seat above the pool and began the usual activating chores, glancing at a cheat sheet of locations for a moment, then dialing in the pool to show a small stone room. Nothing complicated, it had a single sturdy door, closed, to the back with a large comfortable looking chair facing away from it, then a low stone table then another much smaller and less comfortable chair. The only other piece of furniture was a small sideboard with a couple pitchers and cups. That was a good thing because nothing else would have fit in the room. Cozy was underselling it. The larger chair was already filled, although that might be the wrong word for it. It had been built to house whoever needed it. And with augmented physiques that was decidedly on the large side. The young lady currently seated was positively swimming in the seat.

Swimming and looking decidedly petulant about it. He could relate but it seemed like a waste of magic to have the chair resize itself for each occupant. Although that could be interesting to try… Hmm, he shook off the temptation. No time now, and he had far to many other projects in the works to get to it anytime soon anyway.

A familiar twist slipped his will into the projection enchantment and suddenly he was comfortably occupying the perfectly sized smaller chair. Rank hath its privileges.

“Hello Thumper.” He kept a simple smile on his face, carefully not showing his amusement as she jumped slightly. That never got old.

“T-thank you for answering, Runefather. ”

“Well, you paid for this time. Let’s make sure you get your money’s worth. What can I help you with?”

She fidgeted for a moment, her face turning a bit red all the while. At last like an overblown balloon she couldn’t hold it in anymore and let it out in a burst. “... Ankara-” That one he had a good memory of. Dusky skin, tall but gangly and with a patchy hideous beard, not that Timothy was one to talk, Dammit! “- and I were at the sparring grounds …”

She sat on the smooth grass of the hill, eyes fixed on the fight going on below. She wasn't alone in this, the natural looking amphitheater was well occupied with observers. Many were her fellow students, but many more were Pardisians taking a bit of time for entertainment. Not free entertainment, Thumper groused. The bottom of the amphitheater, where an almost white haired girl in a matching light dress was sliding through a world of frozen perfection, creating and flinging jagged shards of ice at a mahogany skinned young with his arms extended straight out he stepped forward backward and side to side in time with a repetitive chant while beads and feathers flexed and jumped in a dizzying, mesmerizing patterns, stretching his body in kaleidoscoping blurs of color, was circled and bisected by multiple powerful wards. Isolating it from the spectators and ensuring the survival of the users. Those kinds of wards were not simple or cheap to make. Nor were they something that operated themselves. The Warden of the ring sat to the side in a seat polished into a boulder covered in arcane looking characters and pictures, maintaining the enchantments and observing the match itself.

She could almost hear the Runefather’s voice in her ears when she looked at it. ‘Everything you do has a cost, hiding that fact behind layers of sales, loss leaders or taxes just leads to misunderstandings and a sense of entitlement. It’s always been free, so why should I pay for it? No, recognize what the things around you are worth, and pay appropriately for their use.’ It sorta made sense, until it didn’t. Did you pay for food in your parents house? Did you pay for the air you breathed or the water that flowed freely in the river? According to the Runefather, YES. The casts just weren’t obvious. Food came at the expense of following the house’s rules. Water at the cost of purification and maintaining the waterways. Air in the cost of defense. But could you really put a price on every interaction? It felt like a pretty damn cold way to live.

She focused her gaze. No time for woolgathering, the fight below was really heating up! About time too, they had been at an impasse for most of the last minute, shards of ice lost their targets amid the flickering visual distortions while the world of frozen perfection was blocked sharply by the primal spiritual world of life in all its messey glory. In turn his Frosty (the ice bitch, though few called her the second part to her face. All she needed was a petrifying wand and a talking lion to complete the cliche.) was also untouched by her opponent. The grass and stones gave up spirits to attack, but none could close with her without freezing solid, then shattering into more shards to be flung back.

The moment had arrived though, Thumper could feel it, Sparkle’s chant had speeded up and its wording was changing to something she could definitely recognize. She could hardly fail to, considering it led to her last few losses to that asshole. Nightmare arts. It wasn’t just the natural world that he could bring to temporary spiritual life, emotions were also a favorite of his and there had been far too much death and dying in any surviving hold for that emotional charge not to provide ample fodder. She shuddered slightly. Bad enough that constant worry was almost palpable in some extensions of town, it took a real asshat to tap into it and use it as a weapon against other humans. A solid hit would leave her twitching and sobbing for hours, trapped in a nightmare supercharged with worry, depression and raw terror.

If it got through. Frosty was having none of it. The jagged pointlessly inaccurate shards of ice turned out not to be so pointless afterall. In a concerted flex that must have been days in the planning, thos disparate sparkles united into a near mirror, reflecting the noonday sunlight directly into her opponents eyes. At the height of his chant he had no time or ability to react. He lost track of his target but a large black spectral wolf was already manifesting. A wolf made from so many wretched emotions was not something that would stand by ideally. Evil intentions become evil actions. Since he couldn’t supply it with a target, it found its own. And what, or rather who, was closest? It was already inside his defenses and snapped slathering spectral jaws through his skull.

Served him right, Thumper figured, looking out at his crumpled and twitching form with a bit of schadenfreude. How many times had she been in that position? Her physical attacks and defenses were at the top of the class, but that came at the expense of some of the more esoteric attacks. About time he got some of his own ‘medicine’ she sniggered. Then again if Frosty had gotten it in the teeth that wouldn’t have been so bad either…

A spectral snake more than a dozen feet long and a foot and a half in diameter lunged out of the Wardens aura and coiled about Sparkles, In a mere moment the spectral wolf was gnawing on the snake instead of the boy. A nightmare, once spawned, would not disappear naturally. It was human emotions given form and would not dissipate without being experienced. It’s gnawing teeth and claws left visible wounds on the snake, at least for a few moments, then the snake shivered and slid free of its own skin.“The match goes to Frosty!” She called, getting up slowly from her seat and walking forward.

And that was why she was the Warden. A snake was a symbol of medicine for this very trait. To release the exterior and be born anew. The wolf continued to gnaw on the shed skin as it grew paler and paler, using up the emotional baggage that formed it until it at last faded away entirely. Sparkles was spared any additional emotional damage, but he still shook and twitched.

Small cut’s were something the Warden could heal in mere moments, her control more than tight enough to just affect the damaged areas. But nobody she knew of would be willing to mess with the mind. The smallest amount of uncontrolled intent there… she shuddered.

Still, she did shield him from most of it, he’d wake up shortly, though the shock of it might linger for quite some time. She leaned back on the grass, hands linked behind her head, next would be a couple minutes of cleaning up the ring then another five or so with the Warden going over the fight with the contestants, mistakes, areas for improvement and things to watch out for. It wasn’t free, but it was well worth the payment. She grimaced, the small state of her belt purse pressing on her mind. That was the problem, all the many temptations that drained her funds were all worth the money spent. But that meant she spent far more time doing chores or hunting then she might have wished.

“Heya Thump, did you enjoy the show?”

She didn’t bother to open her eyes, she’d recognize Ankara’s voice anywhere. He’d been a constant pain in her ass for months now. Wherever she went he was bound to pop up.

“It’s Thumper! What do you want, Ankara? I’m busy.” Like that was going to work, but she could hope.

“Ha, it’s between matches and you're lying down with your eyes closed. Very busy I can tell.”

“Napping seems like a better use of my time then chatting with you.”

“Ah come on, don’t be that way. I have a really cool new spell I want to show you.”

She gestured roughly towards the arena, “There’s your opportunity to show off. Don’t let me stop you.”

“Come on Thump-”

“Thumper!”

“But Thump sounds so much cuter!”

“Do you want to die?”

“How about you give it a try? I’ll show off my new spell and you can try to beat me up. Win win.”

She sat up abruptly and stared at him. “Was that a challenge?” He’d never gone this far before, not since she gave him a solid beating about a year ago. Sure she’d considered it more than a few times. Anything to make him go away. But challenging already defeated opponents felt like bullying. She’d dealt with enough of that. On the other hand, if he came asking for it… Who was she to turn down a free punching bag?

“Well-”

She cut him off, “I accept! I’ll put our names on the board, see you in the ring!” She sprinted away, even going so far as to augment her jumps, before he could change his mind. Oh this was going to be good!

As the day wasn’t anything special she only had to wait out one additional match before a time segment became available. Time flew when expectations were high and soon enough she was standing opposite Ankara on the packed earth of the arena.

“As always,” The Warden stood up and spoke, “fight to learn from each other, you are both human and might need to work together in the future. Act with dignity and with skill.”

She hadn’t seen him fight much in months. Or at least, she was ashamed to admit, she hadn’t paid any attention if he had. Still when she faced him last he’d gone for lots of illusionary doubles and illusions of fear. Nasty enough if given time to take effect. She would not give him that time.

She glanced at one, then the other before stepping back to her stone seat. “Begin!”

Thumper lunged forward, giving him no time for complicated spells. Manipulating her aura into a sudden slender fist like extension to snap into him. She called it ‘pushing’ and like most aura related skills, it took almost no time to generate. But it also wasn’t terribly powerful. It couldn’t be at this range and still leave enough aural thickness for defense. But she wasn’t trying to hurt him. Not yet. Just throw him off balance and disrupt whatever spell he was trying to cast.

Getting closer to his staggering form she began the quick chant, with accompanying hand gestures, to summon a force construct. The Dnders called this sort of thing a Biggbys, not that it mattered. She’d trained so very hard to combine this particular spell with her aura manipulation. With every finished gesture she threw out another distracting punch. If you practiced hard enough, and on just a few skills, it was possible to do two things at once.

Ankara was constantly staggering backwards, but still managed a quick couplet, spinning on his back foot as 3 versions of him spun out in various directions. Mirror images, freaking annoying but expected. She could drop her sight to the magic field and see which one was real… if she had several minutes to spare. It wasn’t easy picking things out of that chaotic swirl. No, instead she did the easy check. Snapping her little aura fists through each one if turn till all three flinched. Got you!

Bringing the chant to a close a glass like hand appeared in the air before smashing downward with authority. A last second ‘Deflect’ displaced the falling hand to the side in a cloud of dust. But ‘deflect’ was not ‘block’ or ‘disperse’, the hand went one way, his rolling figure went the other. Not as satisfying as a proper thumping, but it did mean she could smack him around a bit more.

She’d take it!

She spouted several quick words and spun her hands through the required gestures to redirect the glass hand sideways in a smashing blow that flung him sideways. Tougher than she’d remembered, but that just meant more fun for her. She lunged closer, aural punches didn’t do shit at long range. She kept up the pressure, flinging him backwards or sideways like a rag doll despite his increasingly desperate ‘deflects’ or ‘shields’. This was her arena, and she wasn’t about to give him any chances to turn things around.

But damn… it was really taking a while. Most wouldn’t be able to stand up after that kind of knock, she wondered as she redirected the glass hand yet again to smash into his cracking shield spells. Enjoying the way it flung his body backwards yet again. He flopped to the ground as she gasped for breath, nearly tapped out on mana. Still it was enough. She raised her hands in victory, relishing the moment as the Warden stood up and spoke.

“Match goes to Ankara!”

Wait, what?! The world twitched around her, instead of the middle of the ring she was standing near the edge, and Ankara’s body was not lying in font of her, just a few fading eddies in the arena’s isolating ward.

She turned in a panic to see Ankara smiling widely at her from a dozen paces behind… Illusions? She’d beaten the hell out of a wall while everyone watched? Her head snapped from his wretched smile to look around at a crowd who was watching on with wide smiles and no few chuckles at her expense…

She looked up, seeing her own fist still raised in a victory pose that was beyond comical and into flat out ridiculous. She looked like a clown.

It was too much. With a barely passable bow to the warden, she blitzed from the field in a run. Struggling to keep her face set and the water from leaking from her eyes. Did he need to humiliate her like this? A loss was one thing, but to let her beat on a wall whale everyone watched, let her think she won and even pose while everyone laughed? She hadn’t gone out of her way to bully him! Why?

She’d take the penalty for not sticking around for the after action review. She just needed some time. Away from the laughter.

If she had glanced behind, she might have seen Ankara with a face suddenly stricken with surprise and worry.

“Hmmm, so you got caught in an illusion and made a fool out of yourself?”

She fidgeted a bit, “... you didn’t have to put it quite so bluntly, teacher.”

“Pussyfooting around the issue won't make the pain any less. What in particular can I help you with? You know I don’t take sides between you youngsters. I’m not going to tell you exactly how his spells work.”

“I just want to know why my aura didn’t shield me from it! Every time I touched him with my aura it should have disrupted the illusion, and my aura was in more or less constant contact! It shouldn’t have happened this way!” Her voice was rising to a shrill pitch the entire time she spoke.

He sighed, and stood up, before walking over to the sideboard. Juggling the motion spells with practiced ease to give his illusionary footsteps an authentic sound. “Tea?”

He ignored her somewhat snotty response. Something about ‘not being British’. A few more delicate motion spells made his illusionary hands solid enough to pick up the pitcher and pour water into a pair of enchanted cups. The loose fill herbal mixture was quickly mixed in, and he passed her one of the cups on the way back to his chair. “Ah, dear me.” Saying he forgot would be a dirty lie, so instead- “Did you want that hot or cold? Never mind, hot as it is, I don't need to ask.” He didn’t give her time to object. Reaching over he ‘touched’ the cup and activated the chilling enchantment.

Sitting down he activated his own cup to heat up the water, a bit of heat let the tea brew better. In a minute or two he would activate the other enchantment to cool it back down for ‘ice’ tea. For now though, it was time for a lesson.

“Now why, do you suppose, that worked?” He pointed at her now chilled cup.

“Whaaa?” She started, glanced down in confusion.

“The cup was in your hand, well covered in your impressive aura. Why was I able to cast the spell?”

“..But, you're you. My aura’s never stopped you before.” She muttered, still confused.

“Don’t be lazy, child. Are you telling me that you don’t notice when I cast a spell through your aura?”

“I notice.” She muttered, her cheeks turning a bit red.

“Did you feel anything this time?”

“...No.” She spoke a bit louder, shame disbursed by curiosity. He doubted she fully got it yet, but at least she was starting to break free of the self pity and starting to think. He waited a minute or so, but as she didn’t speak he decided to prod her a bit more.

“Why didn’t you? Think! I’m not going to just hand it to you.”

He paused waiting again, lifting the tea cup to his mouth for a sip, but remembering at the last second that it was still blasted hot. Whew. Nothing like spitting out a mouthful of tea to ruin the mystique of the all knowing teacher. Instead he activated the cooling enchantment and continued the gesture naturally. The material removal enchantment brought the tea back to his mouth, watery mix and all. You couldn’t pulp a liquid after all, so the spacial turbulence that made intact teleportation impossible did nothing to harm his drink.

“..I… I don’t know, teacher. It’s normal though, right? I use simple utility enchants all the time right next to other people. If they didn’t work then half of cooking and cleaning wouldn’t work unless you were alone!”

He sighed, “So if I make a ‘utility’ enchant to clean you up in a fight, it will go right through your aura?” Despite his affected frustration, her suddenly downcast expression almost brought a chuckle out of him. She should have seen that one coming.

“..It doesn’t make sense.” She was almost crying, time to back off a bit.

“What did you expect to happen?” If she didn’t get it from that clue…

“Expect? Ahh…” She perked up a bit, though he had to ignore a bead of water at the corner of her eye.

He let her be for a bit. Drinking his watery tea. That’s what you get for showing off! Watery freaking tea. Bad enough to drink this herbal crap instead of something good and black. Not that earl grey was even a thing anymore. But when it was watery herbal BS? Bleh.

“...I expected it to happen so my aura didn’t block it?”

He reached over and touched her cup, waiting a moment for her to look down and see what he was doing. Instead of heating or cooling, a light motion enchant tried to shove the cup from her hand. She expected the temperature to change, but a sudden loss of control resulted in an entirely different set of instincts. Attempting to regain control. He could feel her will fighting against his, and with as light a touch as he was using it was relatively easy to let her win. The spell fizzled and he took the expected backlash without a change of expression. The things he did for his students' self esteem.

“Oh.” She stared down at her cup. Thoughts clearly going a mile a minute behind her hazel eyes.

He watched on, still sipping at his never to be sufficiently damned watery tea, giving her a chance to fully work it out.

“I wanted to beat on him, I expected it, so when his illusion showed me what I wanted to believe my aura didn’t react.” She didn’t sound completely sure though. Best to reinforce the lesson a bit. A couple quick activations of material removal removed a very small marble shaped piece of wood from the arm of his chair.

The ball darted in a quick showy circle in front of him. He made sure she was looking right at it, then a light flick bounced it off her forehead only to hover in front of him again.

“Ouch! Why?” Confusion returned, along with a bit of a pout.

“Why did you let it hit you?”

“...You threw it at me!”

“Yes, yes I threw it at you. But why did it hit?” With a gesture the marble flickered down to rap against her knee cap.

“Ouch!” She started to cock her hands, a defensive spell no doubt. He didn’t give her the time to complete it. The other knee cap was so close and vulnerable after all.

“Oww!”

Down to the shin as she tried to block it with hands that stopped short of casting.

“Teacher please!”

He paused the ball, hovering again. “Did you feel me intruding on your aura?

Her eyes bulged a bit, “No…” her voice rose in pitch.

“I used a spell to fling it at you, and a spell to catch it. But just because I’m not actively controlling it with a spell does that mean you can’t block it? You have one of the most well developed aura’s of any of my students, but what you do with it is like using high end silk to wipe your behind! It could be so much more if you just get over your own expectations.”

“Teacher... “ She muttered looking down, cheeks red again but with a bit of a pout on her lips.

“Catch,” He tossed her the ball, “Make it hover over your hand. Not with a spell, use your aura.” He quickly corrected as her off hand started to gesture.

She paused, shrugged then lifted it off her hand with a small scale punch, flinging the ball halfway to the ceiling.

“I did say hover, you need to work on some subtlety, but it’ll do for now. Your aura can move the ball easily, why can’t it stop the ball from hitting you?”

She looked down, the red spreading across her cheeks and down her neck. It looked almost painful at this point.

He sighed again. “We’re alone here, no reason to get embarrassed. Just stop feeling sorry for yourself. Yes, your boy Ankara managed to spank you in public. That you can be embarrassed about. You can go out and get embarrassed again, or you can acknowledge your loss and learn from it. Because this is a wonderful opportunity for you. If you can get over your own expectations, that lovely aura can become so much more. I suggest you start simple, and force yourself to realize that, despite 15 years of evidence, a thrown pebble doesn’t have to hit. That you can choose what your aura affects if you try.

She looked down, hands tightening into white knuckled grips. “...He’s not my ‘boy’.” She muttered.

“That’s what you're going to key on?” He looked at her in exasperation. “You know what? Nope!”

“...What do you mean ‘nope’ teacher?”

“It means nope! I’m not getting involved with your teenage romance drama.”

“Romance?” She muttered, suddenly curious.

“Nope! Go talk to your dorm mom for that sort of thing, not me!”

“...Come on teacher, what do you mean?”

He flicked the marble at her elbow this time.

“Owww.” She jumped up, rubbing her arm vigorously. Must have hit the funny bone.

“I think that’s plenty for now. You are sufficiently battered by the clue stick, or marble in this case, now it’s up to you where you go with it.” He paused, looking closely at her expression for a moment before nodding. “And Thumper?” He stared at her until she made eye contact. “I expect you to figure this out. I have high confidence in your intelligence and drive. Make sure you do as well.”

Before she could respond he disengaged the projection. This time his body seemed to turn to ink, twisting down a whirlpool into non-existence. He was going to have to come up with a few more of those in the near future. Cheesy though it was, it was a fun way to maintain respect. If he started repeating tricks it would fall straight off.

Now, he flicked the pool to show a sundial set on top of his tower, he might just have enough time to fit in the first cauldron enchant before a late dinner.