The Eye of Elicion: The Kinowenn Chronicles Vol 1 (10 page)

Lucy changed his pumpkin back into a fork, a green one though, just to show that she could. He raised his fork in a toast and continued eating. Lucy did not see it as showing off; Justin had a tendency to tease her in a way that wanted to make her prove to him that she was competent. She explained what had happened in class, and he laughed.

“Maryn is going to have quite the time keeping up with you.”

At this point they were joined by Maya and Gavin who wondered why Justin was eating with a green fork. Lucy had to explain all over again to more laughter. She also told them how a fun idea of hers had turned into homework.

As dinner finished, Darren walked up to Lucy’s table.

“Shall we find a room and practice?”

Lucy smiled up at him. “Hello, Darren, this is Justin, Gavin, and Maya.”

Everyone said hello and politely shook hands.

“We have a room we generally use after dinner if you’d care to join us,” said Justin. He gulped down the last of his dinner and stood up.

“Thank you,” replied Darren. “Lead on.”

“We’ll join you there in a moment,” added Maya, nodding at her half-finished chicken, cottage cheese salad, and Gavin’s full mouth. Looking like a chipmunk, Gavin nodded and half smiled.

Justin, Darren, and Lucy left the Dining Hall dodging a flying tray as they left. Justin led them down the hall, and Lucy noticed he was studying Darren out of the corner of his eye as they walked. Justin opened a door on the left and gestured them inside. Lucy had not been in any of the study rooms yet, and she liked them immediately. There was a crackling fire set in the fireplace, which at once made the room feel comfy. In one corner was a table surrounded by chairs. The rest of the room was filled with big poofy chairs and couches that one could curl up in. Many of these had blankets thrown over the arms.

Lucy looked longingly at the comfy chairs then moved over to the table and took out her matchbox. It would be easier to do their assignment on a table. Darren joined her. Justin flopped down in a chair by the fire and took out a book.

“Shall we start with what we were doing in class and then find a way to make it more interesting?” asked Lucy.

“Sounds good to me, on the count of three?” replied Darren.

They began flipping the matchboxes with their hands and changing colors with their voices. They started off slowly and worked faster as they proceeded. Lucy concentrated on what she was doing, but she could feel Justin’s eyes watching and wondered if he was reading at all or if it was just a pretense. After a while, they stopped flipping their matchboxes.

“This is too easy,” said Darren.

“Now it is,” added Lucy. “That’s generally the point of practice.”

“No, I mean that everyone in class should be able to do this by next class. I feel we should figure out something more impressive to do. Maryn has already seen us do this. We should have something better to show after practicing.”

“I agree, but what can we do? She warned us not to try anything in the book by ourselves. I’m not always a stickler for rules, but I don’t want to intentionally break them the first week here.”

“You’re right I suppose,” said Darren with a sigh.

“Justin, I don’t suppose you have any ideas?” asked Lucy. She would have felt bad interrupting him, but since his book was upside down she was sure she wasn’t.

“Hmmm?” asked Justin, looking up from his book. “What did you say?”

“Oh, come off it, next time you’re pretending to read, make sure your book isn’t upside down,” said Lucy.

Justin smiled and shrugged, not looking the least bit guilty or concerned. “The thing to remember in most of your classes is that they are not looking at how much you can do, but how well you can do each thing. Yes, you are using two simple spells so focus on them. Is there any way you can do things differently that will set you apart from the others?”

“We could do it all mentally,” suggested Darren.

“You could, but you are supposed to be learning three ways to do magic, that makes it look like you can only master one.”

“What if we did what we were doing, but changed each side of the matchbox to a different color instead of changing the whole thing?” asked Lucy.

“Now that shows attention to detail,” said Justin flipping over his book and glancing down at it.

Darren and Lucy conferred. If they continued to flip with their hands and changed half the color of the matchbox with words, they could change the other half with their minds. They decided to start with halves in this experiment so they only had two colors to deal with instead of sides, which would give them six. They might work their way up to that. They decided on a series of color combinations, counted to three and started.

They flipped the matchbox right, and half of it turned blue as the other half turned red. They flipped it forward, and the blue half turned green while the red half turned yellow. They flipped it left and changed it to purple and orange. They went slowly. This was much harder. It was difficult to say one color and think of a different color at the same time. It reminded Lucy of wallpaper she had seen once. The words for colors were written all over it in different fonts, but the color was never written in the color it was. For instance the word purple was written in pink, or red was written in gray.

Lucy and Darren ran through the drill again and again. Each time it got easier and they got faster. They took a break when Maya and Gavin entered the room. Lucy sank into a chair next to Justin.

“Show’s over already?” asked Gavin, looking crushed.

“We’re fast learners,” said Lucy, massaging her temples.

“Well if someone hadn’t gone back for seconds, we’d have been here earlier,” said Maya.

Darren picked up his things. “I have to go, but should we practice again tomorrow?”

“Sure, meet you here after dinner?” asked Lucy.

Darren nodded. “See you in weapons,” he said and left.

“Good,” said Gavin. “Tomorrow, I won’t go back for seconds and we can catch the show.”

“We don’t need an audience,” said Lucy slightly exasperated. She had never enjoyed being in the center of attention. “Besides, what can someone who’s only been here a week possibly do to impress you?”

“Oh, I’m not interested in being impressed,” said Gavin and he grinned. “I’m here to be entertained. I’ve noticed new people find ways of having entertaining accidents.”

“Gavin,” said Maya reproachfully, “that’s mean.”

“Perhaps, but honest and wonderfully true,” replied Gavin. “Just watch,” he told Lucy. “You never know what’s going to happen next. That’s half the fun around here.”

“Is it just beginners that make mistakes?” asked Lucy feeling self-conscious. The thought that older students might be waiting around to laugh at the mistakes of new students was something she hadn’t considered before.

“No,” said Maya, “but they do make a lot of mistakes right away. Many new students have yet to grasp the subtlety required to do everything. They don’t give things the attention to detail required, and they end up with entertaining results.”

“May I borrow your matchbox?” asked Justin. “If you move your hand like this, you can make an object do back flips. However, this slight variation can change your matchbox into a lizard.”

Lucy’s eyes widened. She had barely discerned any difference at all in the hand movements.

Justin smiled and handed her back her matchbox. “Until students learn to be specific, odd things happen. With older students it happens less often, but when it does, it is usually a bigger event. Students trying to do spells that turn out to be too advanced for them can cause problems. Also, there are always general things that plague students of all ranks, even teachers.”

“I saw someone try to do a vocal spell around hiccups,” said Maya. “She turned into a lovely violet by accident. It took the teacher twenty minutes to figure out exactly what she had done and switch her back. Teachers try to be very careful about correcting or reversing spells. They want to make sure they don’t make thing worse. Also, sometimes the spell is out of their area of expertise so they have to call one of the other teachers.”

“So, if you think you are going to sneeze, hiccup, or anything else that might interfere with a verbal spell, try a different way,” added Justin. “If you have a bad cold, don’t try any voice commands that are tonal.”

This was all good advice, and Lucy would have to remember it. So far she tried to be as precise as she could with her assignments, but her friends had some good points. This also reinforced why Maryn had advised them not to try unassigned spells on their own. You could sit on your bed as a violet all night or longer before someone found you. Which begs the question, could you die as that violet if you did not get enough light or water? Lucy was determined to be careful. Her pumpkin escapade earlier could have been much worse.

They made themselves comfortable and pulled out various books to read. Lucy learned all about different types of mint. Lucy began to yawn, but she only had a few pages left before she was finished. She was hoping to have most of her homework done by the weekend. Then maybe she could go for a ride, work on her bow shooting, or find out what people did around here for fun. Even though the school seemed to weed out troublemakers and most of the people there were dedicated to learning, everyone needed a break, and that usually involved a chance to let loose. As she finished the last line, she yawned again and closed her book.

“Well, I think it’s time for bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Ready for more shooting?” asked Gavin.

“Not really, ready for more healing?” she asked Justin.

“Any time,” he said with a smile.

“Then I’m about as ready as I can be,” said Lucy. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” they responded.

Lucy made her way to her room and went to bed. She was not looking forward to more shooting, but a good night’s sleep could only help… right? Besides, even if she was not looking forward to her morning class, she was definitely looking forward to her afternoon one. She hoped she could learn more about Ash. The good thing about the constant challenges of her classes and homework was that it often left her too tired to think about all the changes that had occurred so quickly in her life. She fell asleep.

Lucy awoke on time as usual. The inner alarm clock system was a little weird at first but really helpful. She enjoyed breakfast even though Gavin spent the morning teasing her about getting injured. She made her way to the practice yard a little early and sat down next to Darren as she stretched.

“Morning,” said a voice behind them as Grant sat down.

Chloe came next and smiled her greeting. Philip arrived looking nervous. Lucy couldn’t blame him. It was an intimidating class. More so because it was one that few of them had any prior experience or training in and it was not a class you could study for. At least not without a sparring partner or supervision in case you injured yourself. The rest of the class arrived shortly after Philip. Tannin and Orin appeared the moment the class had finished stretching.

“Today we are doing the obstacle course again, but there will be some conditions,” Orin jumped into the class without so much as a good morning. “You will be going through in pairs. You must work together as a team. We have paired you up by your times on Tuesday. For this exercise to work, you need someone who can go at your pace because you will do this with one partner blindfolded. This works on trust.”

Orin paired them up and gave each pair a blindfold. Lucy was glad to see she was paired with Darren. They were already becoming friends, and she thought it might be easier to trust a friend blindfolded. Although, she wasn’t sure that this was the best idea she’d ever heard of. It sounded downright dangerous.

“Are their any stipulations on how you get each other through?” asked Grant.

“No magic. Other than that, you can carry the blindfolded person if you wish. Just get through as quickly and as safely as you can. We will stagger you so you are not running into each other. The rest of the class will practice with their bows,” instructed Orin.

Tannin was going to be running though with them so they would be monitored part of the time. When the first pair got halfway through he was going to speed up to the end and enter with the next group. After that each time a pair came out the next pair came in. Tannin would keep running like he did yesterday. This was a good precaution, but somehow Lucy did not find it comforting. She was not the only one. The class looked at each other with worried expressions on their faces. This was going to be difficult. Besides, how did you choose who had to wear the blindfold? Orin looked at Lucy and Darren.

“Since you had the best times yesterday, you get to go first today.”

“Do you want to wear this or should I?” asked Darren, holding up the blindfold.

“Why not, I’ve already got a healing appointment with Justin for when I mutilate myself with my bowstring. I’m sure he won’t mind a few more bumps and bruises,” said Lucy, sounding much braver than she felt. “Besides, this means if we get paired up again for something worse, you’ll feel like you owe me,” she smiled.

Lucy and Darren walked to the start of the obstacle course and Lucy put on the blindfold. After checking to see that it was secure Orin told them to begin.

Darren took Lucy’s hand, and they began to jog. Darren set an easy pace, and Lucy appreciated it. It was unnerving running when you couldn’t see. She stumbled once, but Darren steadied her without letting her fall. It was a good thing they were holding hands.

“We’ve reached the logs,” Darren said, putting her hand on the first one.

“Ok, go one ahead of me. Once you are over or under take my hand, and on put it on the top of the log, and I’ll follow.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Darren hopped over the first log, put Lucy’s hand on top of it so she could gauge the height, and Lucy slid under it. Darren jumped over the next one, reached for Lucy’s hand and put it on top. Lucy climbed over that one. This worked well all the way through.

“We’re through,” said Darren. “Ready to run?”