New Friends(1)

The sun had shifted by the time Rion went for a walk to the Courtyard Annex. But there was a greater pull at him now which was not strain alone, but something like anticipation.

The lecture was to be given in a broad full arching amphitheater carved out of rock. There were tiers of benches around a platform.

Rion slipped into the second row and selected a seat at random. He barely registered the other students. He was concentrating on the teacher.

She stood alone in the middle of the platform. Small, old woman, bent and twisted as a crooked tree. Her dress flared softly, chasing loose rays of light. She had silver hair and eyes in the same color.

"I am Hedea Varenstia," she said, voice as dry as parchment, but as clear as a bell. "Some of you have heard the name. Most do not, that's not important, you are not here for stories."

She raised a single hand.

Magic flickered across the air, no word, no intricate motion. Only a wave and immediately the stone under her feet rippled like water, then flared into flame, then reformed into spiked spines before becoming normal again.

"You are here to understand this. What it is, where it comes from, and how to shape it."

Rion felt a flicker of presence beside him. A girl had just sat down two seats to his left. Her hair was long and flowed like soft feathers, every strand as light as down. She had sleek eyes with a golden tint. A beast mage, she saw him staring and smiled weakly at him. Then turned away.

Across the row from him was the obvious raged spirit mage of earlier. His expression was calm and detached. Rion hadn't even noticed when he'd walked in.

Hedea spoke once more. "Magic, in simplest terms, is conceived thought given form. That form is made up of traits. All spells you cast, all occurrences you create, are the result of mixing traits through your emission."

She struck her staff to the ground. Sparks leaped up, coalescing into a floating glyph.

"Want to create a flame? Burning, color, motion, heat, and all the other flame qualities." The glyph dissolved, each word becoming a blazing symbol.

"Want to create a rock that act like a liquid? Then add weight, mass, flow, direction, force. Blend liquid and solid qualities. Sound crazy? That it does. But it's not impossible."

Another series of symbols flew through the air, representing concepts instead of components.

"Magic has no care for what possible or impossible." Her eyes grew narrow, running her gaze over the students. "Which means you can make fire that burns with cold. Water that is as hard as stone, Or light that is denser than iron. So long as you have the characteristics and the will to apply them."

A murmur ran through the room.

"But beware," she went on. "Merging attributes that struggle against each other like silence and thunder, fire and ice is a risky business. Creation and destruction are cousins, but they will only respond to those who are worthy."

With a sweep of her hand, in front of each student was a little velvet bag holding a softly glowing magic gem, throbbing gently.

"These are contained with the basic properties of plain flame. Enough to make a flicker, nothing elaborate, but very safe. Something that you ought to be able to use without hurting yourself. Now, Pick them up."

Rion reached over and picked the gem.

"Center your emission," Hedea told the class. "Feel the flow of self. Then press it onto the gem and receive."

Rion closed his eyes. His emission such a ghostly hand that streamed, formed, then faded into the gem. His perception twisted, distorted, and shifted.

He was somewhere without a floor or ceiling. Only rivers of ink, countless flowing streams swept in all directions, each with different color like red, violet, and gold. They twisted in impossible bends, warped space, folded in upon themselves.

Nothing flowed easily. The rivers flowed at angles, turned around midstream, beat in sluggish rhythm. Some formed eyes for a blink and vanished.

He was drifting.

Droplets curled off from a few streams which flowed orange, spiked white and floated towards him. They fell upon his chest, and dissolved.

Then he was falling, and the blackness closed about him.

He gasped wide awake, clutching the gem so tightly it cracked

Eyes out of focus, and crazily shaking his head around. When his vision recovered, he finds himself, sitting back in his seat. Heart beating wildly, and the gem now dull in his hand.

Other students on the class blinked in shocked silence. Some were still not yet back. The beast mage girl beside him slowly breathed out.

Hedea's voice returned, clear and firm. "What you see is the Realm of Conception. Where ideas and thoughts of all things come together. Traits are the ink there, your emission is the brush, and the world is your canvas."

A flick of her wrist scattered motes of green light throughout the room.

"You now have flame's most basic attributes. Try to bring it forth, but remember these attributes form only a spark. You cannot throw it, nor can you shape it, not yet. You lack the rest.

Rion held out his hand.

He concentrated. Tactfully sensed the difference in his emission. His emission felt, changed. He'd always felt it as a river of flow outward. Now it contained something, a heat.

A flicker burst forth in his palm. A little flame, no bigger than a candle. But it existed.

The class was filled with soft whispers as kids stared at their tiny flames some burning a brilliant yellow, others little more than a puff of air. The spirit mage across the room had an ember above his spread out hand, his face calm and inscrutable. Rion let his own flame sputter down, releasing his hands to his knees.

"Yours was stable," whispered a soft voice beside him.

He turned his head. The beast mage girl's gaze was fixed on him, chin held at a gentle angle. Close up, he noticed that the hair of her head was shaped in narrow, curved plumes like feathers, but not quite feathers. They shone gently in the light, taking on colors like oil on water. Her eyes were subdued gold, reflective, contemplative.

"More control than most," she went on, swishing one of her hair feathers behind an ear.

"I just concentrated," Rion replied, not knowing what to say. "Didn't know if it would even work."

She smiled weakly. "That's the secret. Half of magic is not freaking out when it does."

Rion laughed once in his throat. "Thanks for telling me."

I'm Kaela," she said, holding out her hand. Her black nailed fingers were tipped like talons but were clean, precise. Another trait, perhaps.

"Rion." He shook her hand. Her grip was warm, light but firm.

They sat in silence for a moment, watching as Hedea dismissed students in small clumps, her voice too low to make out.

Kaela moved sideways, her voice barely above a whisper. "Did you see it too? In the gem?"

"The ink?" Rion asked. "The rivers?

Kaela nodded. "Yeah. I've only ever heard of it before. Never thought it'd feel so wrong. But in a lovely way, too. Like it's dreaming about reality, not actually being it."

Rion blinked. That was a far better description of it than anything he'd been able to think of.

"Do you know much about traits?" he asked.

"A bit. I grew up in a generation of regalia makers, so i know some theory of it. I like weaving better than blowing up things."

Rion tried to picture her fighting like Luciel had. He couldn't, but something cautioned him that Kaela was dangerous in a very different manner.

"I saw you emissions," she said while looking at his hand. "A little rough, but clean."

Rion shrugged his shoulder and say, "I am new to all this mage stuff."

"Then, that make two of us."

They stay there after Hedea sent the rest of the class away. A few students lingered, talking quietly or comparing fire size as if it mattered.

She gazed up at him with head slightly tilted on one side. "You have somewhere to go?"

"Not really. May just go for a stroll to get my head together. Or… get some food."

Kaela glanced at the door, then him. "You been to the dining hall?"

Rion nodded. "Yeah."

"Is it any good?

He shrugged with half a movement. "It's… so-so. They have stew, some kind of flatbread, and this nut sauce thingy that tries very hard to be spicy."

Kaela snorted for a moment. "That is an experience."

"Not bad," Rion thinking for a moment before continue said, "Well, just... don't go in expecting some fancy food"

"Fair enough."

She stopped short, and tipped her head. "Well, want to go with me there then?"

Rion paused for a moment before smiled faintly. "Sure."

Kaela stood up from her chair, grasping her satchel and forcing the dark gem into a side pocket. She stepped in behind him, one of her feather hairs shining, like sharpened onyx.

She did not seem to notice.

It was late afternoon outside, with orange light cutting through academy walkways. Students dispersed in small groups or went walking alone, their regalia softly aglow.

Together, they walking side by side toward the North Wing.