Practice || Variable twenty-nine

A knock on the door was followed by Spruce’s voice calling the name, “Linden!”

“What does he want?” Linden spoke to himself and walked to the entry room. Yew also went to see what was the issue.

Spruce was waiting in the entrance. “How does this work?” he asked, pointing at his newly acquired dagger, which he held in the other hand.

“This is something you should have asked before you bought it," Linden snarled back.

“Just tell me," Spruce half-begged and half-demanded.

“Give it to me,” Linden stretched out his hand and Spruce put the dagger onto his open palm.

Holding the dagger, Linden stepped outside and away from the cottage entrance. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, the simple dagger turned into a long sword. It had detailed golden decorations carved on the blackest handle, and white shining decorations on the smoothest metal, which any of them ever saw.

Furthermore, the sword was surrounded by raging flames of bright orange-red fire, which also surrounded Linden and circled around him like guard dogs. The sudden spectacle brought attention from those of their neighbors, who were outside, and those who at the time looked out through the windows.

“What was that?” one of them asked, after all the flames disappeared and the sword turned back into a dagger.

“His magical item,” Linden gave the dagger back to Spruce, before he re-entered his cottage.

“Wait, how did you do it? Do it one more time!” Spruce begged and ran after Linden, who ignored him and walked into the restroom, where Spruce couldn’t follow him.

Yew looked around at the people present in the neighborhood, many of whom were also his classmates. He saw that some of them were clearly amazed and jealous of the magic, which they just saw. Surely many of them had changed their opinions regarding magical items.

Seeing that Linden wouldn’t help him anymore, Spruce returned back to his cottage. He was nonetheless feeling overjoyed at the possibility that one day he’d also be able to do the same.

Later that day, Yew went to do his homework, while Linden totally dismissed his. Instead, the beautiful boy was reading a book about the oldest jokes of the world. His occasional laughing bothered Yew, who nevertheless managed to concentrate and complete his assignments.

Afterward, Yew ate supper and went to take a shower. Once he was done showering, it was already fairly late, so he planned to go to bed. However, when Linden went to take the shower after him, Yew saw it as an opportunity to check his magical talents in secret.

While Linden was taking his shower, Yew took a pen and put it on the table in the living room. He focused his eyes on the item, and imagined the pen moving up and levitating above the table. Instantly, just like he imagined it, the pen began to move up, then it stopped midair roughly half a meter above the table.

Yew looked around, afraid of being noticed, but there was no one else to see his magic. Linden was still taking his shower, and the closed curtains on the windows were blocking the view of anyone, who’d still be out at this late hour.

In the same manner as before, Yew imagined the pen slowly falling back onto the desk and the pen did just that.

Yew decided to test the brooch next.

Linden said that he could use it to fly, so he decided to try levitating. While holding the brooch in his hand, he imagined himself levitating. He couldn’t remember exactly what he looked like, because there were just too many details, but even without an exact image, he slowly lifted off and levitated about a meter above the floor.

He was euphoric at his success to the point, that he wanted to scream in joy, but the fear of being discovered kept a tight muzzle on his other emotions. Slowly he levitated himself down and onto the floor. He didn’t want to accidentally get caught by Linden, who could finish his shower at any moment now, so Yew decided that he wouldn’t test the limits of his magic or his magical tool anymore for today.

Suddenly, the front door opened with an extremely loud bang and Spruce, dressed in pajamas, ran inside, screaming, “did you fly?”

Totally confused and terrified, Yew only stared back. Next, Linden stepped out of the shower completely naked and looked at Yew, “did you use the brooch?” he asked nonchalantly.

Yew instinctively shook his head to mean ‘no’.

Linden looked at Yew, then at Spruce, then went back to the shower room.

“It’s insane,” Spruce continued, “we all flew!”

“Levitated is the correct term,” Aspen, also dressed in pajamas, said after coming a bit later. “There’s quite a big commotion outside. It looks like we weren’t the only ones, who experienced that. The people in the neighboring cottages also levitated.”

“I wonder what caused that?” Spruce said excitedly, and ran out to talk with the others, who gathered outside.

Yew almost certainly knew, what caused that, but deep inside he prayed that it would forever remain a secret.

“Anyway, it looks like it’s over, so I’m going back to sleep,” Aspen said and left.

Yew also went to bed, and even though the commotion outside continued for a long time, somehow he quickly fell asleep, glad that nobody suspected him.

By the morning of the third day of Byzh, everyone in Hecate had heard about the late night occurrence in the hamlet of the first year students. Most teachers assumed it to be a joke by some students from the higher years, and this had become the official explanation of the event.

Other than that, nothing had changed from the previous days. Linden lost points for not doing his homework in the History class. In the Process class, they trained in magic, except for Yew, who was just sitting there staring at a pen, making the teacher think that he was simply that talentless.

Only fourteen people showed up to the Exercise class, including Yew, Spruce and Aspen. Maca was the only person present there. She wanted to help, but her explanations were too clumsy to be useful.

After returning back home on the third day of Byzh, Yew saw that his stuff had arrived from home, and his father wrote him a letter. He received an additional four thousand syfras to his money card, and Kapok asked him to notify him again, if Yew needed anything else.

The fourth and fifth days of Byzh were the same, with the exception that instead of going to the Exercise class, the boys went to Sheepcrown to eat, and to save money buying the cheaper food.

On the sixth day of Byzh, Linden walked into the History class, all in a good mood. There was no homework the day before. Instead Cacao announced that they will have their first test. Most students wondered why Linden, who already had a negative hundred twenty five points could be in such a good mood, but some just assumed that he was crazy.

The test started and they had an hour to finish. But not even half an hour passed, when Linden stood up, walked over to the teacher and turned in his answer sheet. Cacao took his answer sheet and began reading it with furrowed eyebrows. Meanwhile Linden quietly left the classroom.

The teacher sighed as he put the answer sheet upside down on his desk.

After finishing the test in the History class, the students moved on to the Process class, where the day went on as usual. Except, at the end of the class, Sorrel announced that those students, who wouldn’t be able to at least shake the pen by Monday would have a mandatory afternoon meeting with her.

So when Saturday classes came to an end, many students went to the Exercise class to get help from Maca, who was the only tutor available. Surprisingly, even with her clumsy, but well-meant help, almost all of them succeeded at least shaking the pen. The only two students, who couldn’t do it, were Yew, who knowingly did nothing, and Spruce, who tried hard but couldn’t do it at all.

Unfortunately for them, Maca was magic-talented and she had no idea how to help magicless students. The two boys learned that their magicless tutor was Beech Meadow, who had yet to show himself.

Spruce and Yew spent the rest of the day reviewing the textbook and looking for clues on how to use magic.

The next day Aspen went to the city of Sheepcrown early in the morning before the sunrise, and Linden also did the same but closer to the noontime. Spruce spent the whole day trying hard to move the pen in his cottage, so Yew had his cottage all to himself.

To Yew, this was a perfect timing to practice moving the pen. He didn’t want to shock everyone by making the pen float, but he didn’t want to have a meeting with the teacheress. So he concentrated on subduing his magic.

On his first try, the pen shook quickly and many times. This was very different from the skill level of his classmates. So he tried again and again until the pen slowly shook once, just like it did for the majority of students in his class.

When he accomplished that, he took a break, and afterward, he continued to try to do the same, while holding a brooch. He couldn’t spell without it, if he wanted to keep his disguise as a magicless student. So he touched the brooch and did exactly the same as before, but the pen shot up into the air then fell onto the floor.

Yew bit his lower lip upon realizing how much more difficult it would be to control the magic in the brooch.

He picked up the pen from the floor, and put it back on the table. He already had a lot of magical talent, and the powerful brooch unnecessarily amplified his magic. He knew that it was going to be hard, but nonetheless he continued.

After severalteen failed attempts, he recalled the time, when Wasabi showed them the magical battle of the ninth year students. The magicless student from that battle didn’t hold his rings, instead he only touched them for a brief moment.

Yew clipped his brooch onto his shirt. Afterward, he tapped it and used the spell right after tapping it. This time the pen only jumped up a little bit.

“Now this is doable,” he said to himself and continued to train.