Three days later in the Grouak Village.

Word had spread of my future departure. While I can’t say I left a lasting impression with the tribe, they seemed to feel quite the opposite. I had taken on about half a dozen magic students in the few weeks I had been here per the agreement. With the news that number more than tripled to nineteen in a matter of days. Students new and old treated me with an almost child-like reverence. The notion of an outsider teaching them arts they’d only heard in Mago’s tales apparently held quite the appeal. Normally we hosted magic lessons at Mago’s hut, but the influx required us to borrow the mangrove cluster which goes unused in the mornings. Out of the new recruits, Kigo is among their number. I have them divide into groups of 3-4 with at least one of my veteran students.

"Alright students, today we’re going to be doing a bit of a crash course to catch up our newer peers. Can anyone explain to me the number one rule of magic?”

A light green Grouak girl eagerly hops up. It’s Haro, the one who’s family jumped over me a few days prior. “Well, Abra, Rule Number One is that magic is extending our will!”

“Precisely Haro!” I praise her while pacing back and forth as a real teacher would. “For the tadpoles among us, we’re all born with some form of magic. For you Grouak’s, think of how you can jump. That is magic. Think of how you can extend your tongues. That is magic.” I pick up a stick laying on the floor. “Let me use this stick as an example.”

I steady my breath and feel the flow of power within my hand. From the tips of my fingers, I put all my mental focus into feeling the stick and understanding it’s weight. Suddenly the feeling of my arm extending shoots to my head, and I think of bending the stick like I would a wrist.

“CROOH,” several croaks of amazement escape the lips of my newer students as the once stiff wood writhes with life. It twists and turns almost as naturally as my arms would. I bend its length at a ninety-degree angle before letting it drop to the floor.

“All of you are capable of doing what I just did. It’s just a matter of mental training and understanding your own body. With enough concentration and understanding of the natural world, you can even do things like this!” like a magician entertaining a crowd I raise a rock and clench my fists. Again, the feeling of a connection hits before I send raw power into the stone. I focus on containing the energy, clenching metaphysical fingers as much as I am my real ones. When I open my fist, it glows a faint yellow. I toss the glowing rock to the crowd to examine. My newer students fall silent in amazement as they hold something impossible in their hands.

Breaking the silence I say, “For Grouak’s, it should be easily done because your race naturally does magic without thinking about it.”

Several students stare wide eyed and grab the nearest objects they can find. I catch Kigo hold a cattail and crush it in his webbed hands only to find white fluffy seeds exploding out of his palm.

Stifling back laughter I continue, “Now now students, just because I said it would come easily doesn’t mean you can do it without guidance. There’s one more important rule I should point out before I teach you anything substantial. Anyone know?”

“Oo! Haro knows! Rule Two: extend too far and you won’t be able to return!” Haro yet again jumps up excitedly.

“Precisely Haro thank you. As she said, if you did my stick trick for long enough, you would find yourself unable to open your palm and find it has become one with the wood. Remember, you are extending your will and mind onto the world. Another way to put it is that you are becoming the very magic you create. If I do tricks to make a stick act like my arm, eventually my arm and that stick would become one. So how do mages avoid this?” I quickly add, “Anyone but Haro please?”

The frog-girl looks ready to speak before shutting her mouth. A blue Grouak named Daru speaks up in her stead, “You use wands and other magic tools Abra! Instead of yourself being hurt from strong magics, the wands and tools get hurt.”

“Good job Daru,” I say in praise. At this point it seems I’ve lost some of my new students by being too wordy. “Let me put it another way. What would you rather throw at a crocodile? Your tongue or a spear?”

A green male speaks up, “It depends on if it’s ready to eat or not.” Croaking laughter spreads through the group.

A slight chuckle escapes my lips as I reply, “Heh, good point. No, the crocodile is not ready to eat. In fact, it’s swimming towards you with its jaws open. I ask you again, tongue or spear?”

Put on the spot with a reversal, he stammers, “Uh-uh…then I choose spear. My tongue would get bit.”

“Exactly. The same goes for magic. Instead of reaching out myself, I reach out to a wand which reaches out to perform what I really wish to do. That way, it’s the wand that gets hurt while my body is simply acting as an anchor.” I grab the same stick used prior and channel my energy into it until I connect. This time, instead of treating it as a longer part of my arm, I mentally feel further to its tip and channel more energy there. Like the rock, I focus on containing energy into a ball but this time using the air as the final medium. It takes more concentration than it did at the tips of my fingers, but before long a light flickers into existence.

More wide-eyed croaks ring from my audience. “The final part of my lecture should be obvious, but also know the farther away you send your magic, the weaker it gets. Nothing in this world can transcend space. More distance means more concentrating willpower on a harder to each destination. Keeping with our spear analogy, you cannot hope to throw it at our metaphorical crocodile if he’s too far away. But I stress again, with time, anything is possible.”

On cue I slowly send my ball of light hovering forward. My makeshift staff begins to slowly crumble apart starting from the tip as it gets farther away. The ball hovers about forty feet away before my stick fully crumbles apart and I cut the magic. My hands feel dry but are otherwise unharmed.

“Now then, let’s have us all begin by closing our eyes and really feeling the flow of our inner magic. We humans call that mana. Unlike us humans however, you’re all naturally born with the ability to manipulate it. Think of how you can extend your tongues or reach great heights with your legs. Even with your physique, your jumps should only reach 10-20 feet at most. It’s magic that lets people like the village’s Jambo go as high as 60 feet and land without so much as a scratch.” As I lecture, I carry over a bundle of broken hunting spears. “While these are worthless scraps after a hunt, their shape is actually ideal for magic practice. Everyone grab a half and really focus on making the spear part of your body and even extending it. It should feel the same as when you try to stretch your tongue long distances.”

The veteran students come in an orderly fashion and demonstrate. The ever-eager Haro easily turns a broken haft into a thin 10-ft pole. My newer recruits who were initially apprehensive follow suit and replicate it almost instantly. I sigh, muttering under my breath, “Something like that took me weeks to even extend an inch.”

The Grouak’s affinity for magic is almost terrifying from the perspective of a human teacher. In my academy days I’d always read about certain races born with affinity to certain types of magic, but it was my first time seeing it in person.

At this point all the once broken spears had now become thin polearms—or that’s what it was for my older students. My grasshoppers were holding long drooping branches. One of them calls out, “Uhh Abra I think we did it wrong.”

Walking up to examine his pole, I begin to explain, “No what you have now is correct but incomplete. It’s not enough to simply feel the magic and send it through. You need to reinforce it. Make it hard as if it was the tough hide of a snake.” I look to my veteran group, “Tell me, what’s the first thing you do before you land from a really high jump?”

An ebony Grouak male responds, “Pamo spreads the toes, balances Pamo’s chest, and feels strength well up in Pamo’s legs.”

I turn to the group with the sagging poles, “Imagine this: you’re falling at an alarming speed. The first thing that will hit the floor is your feet. Brace your sticks like you would your legs as you fall. Make it as dense as a snake!”

I can see their grips tighten and some even let out croaks as they put in all their focus. There are mixed results. Some took what I said literally and didn’t bother straightening out their poles before reinforcing, so they resembled thin wooden sickles instead. Others had to adjust the length or hold it on either end with two hands to straighten it out. Most peculiar was Kigo who took my analogies to another level and created a wooden corkscrew resembling a snake. He seems worried and stammers when I walk over to knock on his creation, “Ah-ah…Hold on let me t-try again.”

To my surprise his serpentine spiral is strong and solid. “No, you did fine.”

I look around to the others, “Congratulations everyone, you’ve all just casted magic. For your people, this type of physical magic should come as easily as swimming and jumping. As you may have noticed, you were all able to fundamentally able to do what I said, but the results varied. This is due to imagination. If you cannot think of what you want to create, the product will be just the details you envision.”

I hold up Kigo’s corkscrew as an example, “You’re all a gifted people, but the difference in your magic lies within each and every one of you. Simple physical magic is fast, and it is very practical. More complex elemental arts like my ball of light take more time, but nevertheless can be great assets. Don’t discriminate between one or the other because they all fill their own roles.”

I show my students a scar just above my wrist and below my thumb knuckle. There the skin appears leathery and brown. “And most importantly, don’t forget to stop your magic if you feel overwhelmed. Overexertion is how you get hurt. Don’t try to do anything you aren’t ready for.”

I take a small pause. All nineteen students break out in a cacophony, “GRO-KA-KA-KA.”

With this many Grouak around me, I yet again feel the adrenaline rush that hits me every night at dinner. It’s only now I realize that their war chants could possibly some type of magic that they don’t even realize. What a terrifying yet fascinating race of people, I think to myself.

As the croaking subsides, I look at them all in turn and send them off with a smile saying, “Class dismissed.”

~~~

“You know Kigo, as much as this place stinks, it’s got one hell of a view.”

Above me is an azure sky interspersed with white clouds. Below me, a leafy saucer serves as a thin layer between me and the swamp. I’d gotten into the habit of staring off and meditating after my magic lessons. There was something relaxing about staring off while being bounced by gentle waves. It reminded me of a certain boat that took me and a certain someone across the seas.

A small orange frog lays adjacent to me, “Yeah, Kigo agrees! Sometimes Kigo spends an hour just trying to jump high so Kigo can grab a cloud and pull it down. Mama says there’s giants up there you know. Kigo would love to meet one!”

His childish statements always bring memories of my past, “And my Mama told me that giants grind up your bones and eat you. They especially did it to naughty children that didn’t go to bed on time.”

“That doesn’t make any sense Abra. Bones taste pretty bad. Why would anyone want to eat them? You’re better off making armor or weapons out of them.”

“It’s just a story Kigo, don’t take it too seriously,” I reply. Sometimes the literal nature of Grouaks eludes me and catches me off guard. They’re such friendly folk that I forget they’re raised as warriors from a young age. It doesn’t help that they don’t measure age in years but hunting accomplishments. Kigo’s about at the level of an older teen.

We lay there silently watching the clouds move until Kigo breaks the silence once more, “Say Abra, tell Kigo a new story. The giant one just now sucked.”

“Sorry to disappoint, what do you want to hear?” I sit upright to speak easier. Knowing Kigo, he usually wants longer adventures involving dragons, kings, princesses, or anything in-between.

Kigo gets up as well, “Tell Kigo about your girlfriend. The one you write letters for every other day and sometimes scream about at night.”

I raise an eyebrow surprised. Normally his father was the one interested in my love life. “Are you sure? I don’t want to bore you with boring adult stuff.”

“No it’s fine,” Kigo shakes his head. “You’re about to leave in a few days so it feels weird not knowing that part about you. Like for one, how did you court her? Papa had to bring Mama the heads of ten snakes before she even so much as looked at him.”

A brief image flashes in my head of Gebo carting around several hundred feet of anaconda that I can’t help but find silly.

“Haha, no Kigo I didn’t have to do anything like that. My girlfriend—my fiancé Escyra—we were both born into noble families. Think of those as village elders but they have a lot more power and are a lot more mean.”

“Like a King?”

“Similar, but less power. They help the king and sometimes act like him if their countries are too big.”

The small frog nods along but clearly has a look of not understanding.

“Anyway, our families hated each other. They’d never crossed paths before, but they were both backed by two different kings, and those kings fought, so therefore our families were obligated to fight.”

“Now that’s just stupid. You can’t just attack people without them doing an attack first.”

“It’s…complicated. Skipping more of the boring details, our families wanted us, their firstborns to be useful to their kings. To do that, they gave us the best of training money could afford,” I pause remembering that the Grouak’s have no concept of money. “Oh and money is-…”

“Kigo knows what money is! Granpa Mago made a lot on his journey. Humans don’t hunt all the time, but when they do, they get more than what they need. So to trade, they ask for money from the people that don’t hunt and use that money when they don’t hunt themselves. That way, all humans get fed!” he says proudly and confidently.

My heart is too weak to correct him.

“You have it more or less correct…” I continue my story, “Using money you can also get training for magic, which is how both of us ended up at a school named Nianta Academy.” I flamboyantly say the school’s name in a mocking tone. “Me and Escyra met, and it was basically love at first sight for me. We learned magic together and eventually we were inseparable…”

I trail off as my current situation sends a pang through my heart. “Well, inseparable for as long as we could help it. On the day we graduated, both of us held hands in front of our families and renounced our ties with them and ran away. Our parents were livid, but we never turned back. Escyra and I bought a boat in hopes of seeing the world after that…”

Kigo listens intently but seeing as I go silent and keep trailing off, he reaches up to put a hand on my shoulder and speaks up, “And Kigo is going to assume shortly after that, you ended up here.”

The emotions of that day hit me all at once. The hopelessness, the desperation, and most of all—the fear. No words leave my mouth, and much less do I notice the two tears that trail down my cheeks. I begin to bawl for who knows how long.

When the tears stop, I wipe them off and force a smile at Kigo, “Sorry that story ended sad. Didn’t meant to cry in front of you like that.”

Kigo blinks looking astonished I even apologized and inflates his chin. “Kigo has made up Kigos’ mind, Kigo is going to help you get her back so we can make sure it’s a happy ending!”

Gratitude not to just Kigo, but the entire village washes over me. They really have been too kind to a stranger they knew nothing about. I will repay them in kind one day, I think to myself. I look at the young Grouak in front of me.

“I’ll take that as a promise then Kigo! In exchange, I’ll make sure my debts to your people don’t go unpaid.”

I hold out my hand for a handshake to which Kigo responds with latching his tongue to my palm. I reel back in disgust initially but then we both just break out in laughter.

"Hahahahaha!”

“CRO-KE-KE-KE!”

~~~

That night, Kigo and Uka sat away from us during dinner. Mago told me not to interfere. From the few glances I caught of them, they appeared to be arguing about something serious. Kigo seemed flustered with his mother before finally hopping away, spear in hand, without even touching his food.