Theo found Sparrow in the park as always, and forced the frustration in his throat back down.

“Good, you’re here.” Sparrow commented, before sitting down and closing their eyes. Theo stared at them for a second, taken aback by the lack of support and instruction. Might as well ask again.

“Sparrow,” Theo tentatively interrupted, “I’ve been having trouble figuring out the second step. It feels very different to the first step, and I’m finding it hard to infuse the mana into the muscle. What am I doing wrong?” Theo asked. Sparrow nodded, pausing, deep in thought.

“You’re manipulating it like you’re still trying to move it around like the first step. Each step is a transformation and evolution, so it will naturally be something that isn’t done in the last step.” Sparrow returned to silence, and Theo tried to figure out if that was enough advice to figure out what he needed to do. It was still infuriatingly vague about what he had to do. Nonetheless, he tried to focus and see if that helped, as he moved the mana around his body.

An hour (and three muscle spasms) later, Theo’s patience wore thin, and he broke the silence again.

“Is there any exercise I can do, or any way to practice getting better at this?” Theo ventured. Surely there was a better way to understand this than just poking around his body.

“Yes.” Sparrow stated, and Theo waited for more of an explanation, but instead he returned to the quiet. At this point, Theo’s patience was (metaphorically) scattered across his mind in grains the size of sand. In other words, he was pissed.

“Then why aren’t you teaching me those?” Theo let go of the boiling anger inside, and even though he immediately regretted talking back, it was also very satisfying.

“That is the exercise I want you to do. This is the way I want you to practice.” Sparrow responded, curtly. Even so, their breathing was even, and there wasn’t even a flicker of irritation on their face.

This only pissed Theo off even more.

“Are you sure? Because it sounds like there are much easier ways to learn this. Why aren’t you teaching me those? You’ve left me to figure most of this shit out myself!” Theo raised his voice, and he found himself shouting by the end. A bird in a nearby tree flew away, and he immediately felt his face flush. Still, he puffed out his chest and stood by what he said (even if he was glad the park was large enough for them to not be overheard).

Sparrow finally opened their eyes, looked over at Theo, and sighed.

“I’m sorry that you feel frustrated at how I’m teaching you, however I will not apologise for the way that I have bee-let me finish.” Sparrow raised his hand and stopped Theo before he could even interrupt. “Thank you.”

“As I was saying, there is a reason I am teaching you this way. And you are right. There are many easier ways to teach you the second step. If I was teaching you to be a decent bard, I would have shown them to you. The problem is, you are not a decent bard.” Sparrow paused, and Theo started preparing himself for the harsh truth that he was just a project and not wor-

“You have the makings of a prodigy.” What. Theo’s internal monologue stopped and his brain was simultaneously empty of thoughts and full of questions. Sparrow continued to speak, even as Theo’s brain malfunctioned.

“I told you this last week. You are gifted. You are talented. And between your comprehension, and improvisation, and how fast you learn, it would be a shame to train you normally. I do not need to teach you the way I would someone with less creativity.” Sparrow said. Theo’s brain started to catch up.

“One day, you will reach the edge of what is known and be afraid of what you won’t find. And in that moment, every single time you took the easy way out and did what others told you to do will help you in no way. I need to teach you to trust your instincts.” Sparrow said. They sounded off, like something was stuck in their throat. Almost wistful. Sparrow stood up, and sat down beside Theo. They stared off together into the distance for some time, both lost in thought.

“Problem-solving is a muscle you have to build up. Thinking outside the box is something you have to practice. So I want the first gut instinct you have to be trying to figure things out yourself, not reaching for a teacher to find the answer.” Sparrow said, breaking the silence after a few minutes.

“You didn’t discover that secret because you followed how I do things exactly. You discovered it because you found your own understanding, and you pushed your limits. And then there’s the matter of improvisation!” Sparrow laughed, almost scoffing in incredulity. “You’re the best bet on exploring how improvisation could expand bardic magic. You could discover so much, and I refuse to let your talents go to waste.” Sparrow stared directly at Theo, and he swallowed from the intensity of his eyes. No words left his lips, and he was starting to wonder if he had suddenly lost his voice.

“It is going to be dangerous, and I am asking quite a lot of you. But I have a gut feeling that you’re going to do incredible things. Don’t you want to change the world?” Sparrow asked, and Theo found that the past few minutes weren’t the most silent he could be.

Sparrow stared at him, and waited patiently while Theo internally waged war with himself and lost. Did he want to change the world? He didn’t even know if he could. And frankly, looking back even just three weeks, he wouldn’t have thought that any of this could have been possible. His world had been turned upside down, and he still felt like the blood was rushing to his head.

Theo closed his eyes and pinched his arm hard. It hurt. He opened his eyes, and Sparrow was still there, trademark slight grin on their face. Okay, so this was real.

What did Theo want? He had thought he’d live a quiet life playing music at The Pub, maybe travelling around here and there, maybe learn a little bit of magic as he went. But learning at the College of Song? Meeting the Dancing Wind?

It struck him that he had no idea what he wanted any more. That his life had taken such a sudden turn that he was travelling as if it hadn’t happened. He’d closed his eyes, and he knew that if he didn’t open them now, he’d wake up in twenty years and realise he was lost.

Theo nodded at Sparrow.

“I don’t know if I can change the world,” Theo hedged, “But I’m going to give it a shot.” He grinned, and Sparrow smiled back.

“Wonderful!” Sparrow clapped their hands together, and continued. “Now, like I said, this is going to be a very dangerous road. But that’s why we’re starting with internal magic. Internal magic is free from backfires, and a slow but steady way to get stronger. The reason I’m starting you with Endless Song and Striding Wind is because of what they strengthen. You are going to backfire, with improvising. The road to figuring it out properly is going to be long and painful. So, Endless Song will make sure that you don’t blow out your throat every time you sing, and Striding Wind will make sure you still have fingers.

“With your proficiency with internal magic, and your mana capacity and control, I think you can get to a point where backfires are just an inconvenience instead of something debilitating. We’re going to cover many other internal magics, and I want you cycling those as much as you can, as often as you can, as many at once as you can.” Theo nodded, but a question came to mind.

“Sparrow, you’re teaching me all this internal magic, and I understand that it’s going to help me later on, but isn’t action magic what makes a bard a bard?” He asked, and Sparrow let out a knowing chuckle.

“Action magic is slow and inefficient compared to other forms of magic. It is worse at protecting or enhancing you than internal magic, worse at casting spells than focus magic, and worse at healing than offer magic. Do you know what it is good at?” They paused, and when Theo didn’t respond, they smiled and continued.

“Flexibility. Versatility. Action magic can do just about everything the other magics offer, just a bit weaker. It’s why I really want to see you understand improvisation, to see how it can advance action magic’s true advantage. We are able to fill any role, not as well as a fully-trained warrior, or mage, or priest, but we get the job done. So, when given the option to increase our versatility with training other magics, we take it. It’s optional for anyone at the other Colleges, but the College of Song mandates that you have to be undertaking some form of other magic training. So seeing as internal magic offers support that doesn’t require active focus, it’s often the obvious answer for bards.” Sparrow paused, realising they’d gone just a little bit off track.

“But to directly answer your question, no magic makes a bard a bard. Our charm is what makes us who we are. A good bard can get anyone to do anything they want without using a single drop of mana. We use words like weapons, and we can find information better than anyone. It’s why a lot of the best spies and informants are bards. You’ll find out more once you start at the College – almost half of all your classes will revolve around the social side of barding.” Sparrow pointed to themselves.

“I, for example, am a mystery to many. And that’s on purpose. It makes it easy for me to disguise who I am, to blend into a crowd just as easily as I can steal the limelight. This is deliberate. This is who we are as bards. Just as warriors are swords and shields, mages are fireballs, and priests are holy light, we are poison in teacups and stilettos at masquerades.” Sparrow started to ramble, as the serious façade they had kept up the past few days well and truly dropped away.

“Speaking of who we are as bards, who exactly are you? We did background checks. And all we could find was that you were on the streets since you were a lil kid, and nothing before then. Barely educated by regulars in The Pub. Nothing on your parents, nothing on where you came from, nothing explaining why you are – are you alright?”

As Sparrow started talking casually, Theo’s focus wandered, and he was finally able to process everything shared in the past few hours. Like a turtle dropped by an eagle, it took some time for everything to sink in, and then reality hit and splattered him across the ground.

It went without saying that Theo wasn’t alright.

He was wrestling with a lot of very important information, and yet the single thing that was still flooring him, was the fact that Sparrow well and truly believed in him.