Expectation || Variable thirty-five

Beech immediately became the favorite tutor of all the students of the class forty-four B. He wasn’t magic-talented, or knowledgeable in spells, but his words always left on them a deep impression.

After he had demonstrated his tutoring skills using Spruce's dagger, the students told him about the floating leaves exercise, which Juniper did on Monday. He quickly went out to gather some leaves, and brought them inside the classroom.

Afterward, the students took as many or as little leaves as they wanted. Beech sat down in the middle, closed his eyes, told the students to do the same, and then he calmly spoke, while the students listened to his words.

“The weather is warm and peaceful. The afternoon wind of the month of Byzh blows between the trees and swirls around the leaves. This wind steals the leaves from the trees, and heated up by the sun, it gains speed, and circles back to pick up more leaves, which have just begun falling down from the trees.”

Like this, Beech started to describe actions of a sun-warmed wind, which he continued to spin like a master storyteller. As he spoke on and on, students began floating their leaves. Those students, who opened their eyes, were amazed at the large number of leaves floating around. It looked almost as if the whole class was made out of geniuses, and all of it was due to a story, which they were listening to with their eyes closed.

Beech’s words had the power to attract, and they caused the students to unwillingly see the images of whatever he described. With such a clear image in their minds, concentration came naturally, and all of the students were able to float their leaves.

What only some accomplished on Monday, all of them have accomplished on Wednesday, including Spruce, who didn’t even understand how he had managed to levitate his leaf. Nonetheless, he was levitating the leaf in front of him. However, it only lasted for as long as he was concentrating, because at the moment, when he got distracted by his own success, his leaf fell to the ground.

Yew, who sat next to him, could clearly feel the warm air, which was blowing around Spruce’s leaf, while that leaf was still in the air. And he had no doubt that Beech intentionally included the temperature in his description of the wind.

Two hours passed, and all the students felt as if the Exercise class ended too soon. Beech left first, saying that he was pretty busy and he didn't have time to stay afterclass.

When the students were leaving the class, they already knew that none of them would be skipping Exercise on Wednesdays.

The Thursday passed without any major events. With Maca as their tutor, most students came, but some didn’t show up. Then came the Friday afternoon, and another Exercise class with yet another new tutor. By this time, all of the first year students had heard of the amazing Wednesday tutor, and not wanting to miss another amazing tutor, all of them, except Linden, arrived for the class.

The students of the class forty-four B were surprised from the beginning, because even though they came ahead of time their tutor was already inside the classroom. She was sitting by the wall, and doing her homework on the floor. She didn’t look up to greet them, but when the first students walked in, she did wave her hand and an arrow, directed at the center of the classroom, appeared above her head.

When the clock pointers met the hour to start the class, the thin girl with braided bright orange hair looked up at the students, and commanded, “wait two more minutes". Then she went back to doing her homework.

Exactly two minutes later, she closed her notebook and textbook, and put both books together in her backpack. Afterward, she put her backpack under the wall, where it was far away from being a bother.

Before she began talking to the students, she walked several steps forward.

“So, as you may have already heard, I’m Sage Solhatt Spurge Moss, and I’ll be your tutor for Fridays. Also, you may have wondered, why only your class has five tutors, whereas other classes have six tutors. Well, the answer to that is simple. The sixth tutor changed his mind right before the school started. The teachers are still looking for someone to replace him, but it’s unlikely to find one now, so I bet they won’t find another one until the end of this year. It’ll be either the five of us as your tutors, or that guy will change his mind once again. And I wouldn’t be surprised, if he did.”

She looked around the class, and scratched her hair. When she saw Spruce, she quickly approached him and asked, “why are YOU in Hecate? Everyone in the Fire household is magicless.” She sounded like she knew him.

“I want to be a wizard,” Spruce responded to the gal, showing no strangeness to the older student.

“Hmmmm…” she said for a long time before she looked at the other students. “There should be one more magicless student in this class.”

Yew raised his hand.

“I see,” she said. “So both of you are magicless. Well, in that case, I allow you two to skip my class forever. Because I don’t know anything about magicless people, and I have nothing to teach you. Your presence in this class will be nothing but a bother to me.”

Spruce got up, and spoke to Yew, “let’s go.”

Yew looked at him, then at the tutor, who nonchalantly turned around and spoke to others, “for your info, among all your tutors I am the most talented in magic.”

Spruce caught Yew by his arm, and dragged his friend toward the door, while Sage continued, “I have the highest scores among all the students of the fifth year, and I don’t have any patience for those, who are slow, so I hope all of you already know how to levitate objects.”

Spruce opened the door, pushed Yew out, then closed it behind them.

“What's going on?” Yew asked, confused by the odd initial interaction with the new tutor.

Spruce rolled his eyes before he gave him the explanation. “The Moss household used to be just a bunch of poor magicless nobles, but about four generations ago, a woman from the Sea household fell in love with a man from the Moss household. Then her descendants were born with quite a lot of magical talent. And ever since then, the Moss household has been full of those arrogant pricks.”

“So what do we do?” Yew further inquired.

“We do as she said. We skip Fridays,” Spruce answered as he began walking away, and Yew went along. “Anyway, let’s go downtown. I want to eat some of that tasty street food for dinner," Spruce proposed.

Yew nodded in agreement, and both boys walked away from the classroom.

Inside, Aspen sat quietly and observed the tutor, who wasn’t tutoring at all. She was bad at explanations. She didn’t understand how magic worked. She was only willing to assist those students, who were exceptionally talented just like her. However, nobody could deny that she had an outstanding magical talent, and she wasn’t hiding her contempt toward those students, who weren’t as talented.

At the end of the class, the opinion about her was divided. The more talented students saw her tutoring skills as average, but her talent as truly exceptional, and enjoyed watching her spell. On the other side, the less talented students saw her as a tutor far worse than Chervil Sun.

The class ended. Half of the students left immediately. The other half of the students were enamored with their new tutor, and stayed behind to ask her questions. She didn’t mind the attention at all. Quite the opposite, she liked to be the center of all that attention.

Aspen took a final look at her, and followed those, who had already left the classroom. Outside he headed toward the Western Park, where he found Chervil Sun sleeping on a bench with a book on her face. The title of the book was: Effects of Herbs on Magic Spells.

He took the book off her face, and looked at the content inside. Chervil grimaced, at the sudden sunlight hitting her face. She turned around, and sat on the bench, slowly opening her eyes and looking at the boy.

“This book looks interesting,” Aspen said. “I’ll be borrowing it.”

“Sure,” she agreed instantly. “Just mind that this is a book from a fourth year, so it may be a bit too hard for you.”

“It’s fine,” Aspen assured. He put his backpack on the ground, opened it, and put the book inside. Afterward he took out two other books from inside his backpack and passed them to Chervil, who took them back.

“Wow, you’re already done reading these?” she said, as she looked at the books. “You’re fast.”

Aspen closed his backpack, and threw it back on his shoulders. “Thanks for the books,” he said. “It’s really bothersome that I cannot borrow any of the library books, which I’m really interested in.”

“Have you even looked at the books in the first year section?” Chervil asked him.

“Yeah. I have already read most of them, before I came to Hecate.”

“Oh, that explains a lot,” she smiled. “So how are the classes? Boring?”

“Sometimes,” Aspen acknowledged.

“This is why I say, skip, skip, skip, skip the class,” she half-sung the second part of the sentence.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea," Aspen shook his head. "I’m only a first year student.”

“I assure you, nobody cares,” Chervil waved her hand. “And you get a lot more free time to study the stuff, which they don’t want to teach you.”

Aspen didn't even consider her words. “Thanks for the books, see you later,” he said as usual, then walked off, ending their conversation.

Chervil waved at him as he was walking away, but he didn’t look back.

Sky || Variable thirty-four

Within the first week of school, Yew learned that their class was commonly known as group forty-four B. In the second week, he learned the reason why.

The first two numbers came from the cottage numbers, and forty-four meant all the cottages starting with forty-four hundred. The final letter specified each group of twenty-five cottages. Letter A was for cottages from one to twenty-five. Letter B was for cottages labelled twenty-six thru fifty, and so on.

On the tenth day of Byzh, almost all the students in the group forty-four B came to the Exercise class. Linden was among those who didn’t. It was Wednesday and it was the first time, when they were going to meet the fourth one of their tutors.

The students came out of curiosity, with little expectations, based on their prior encounters.

Maca Waterfall was a nice tutor, who tried her best to be helpful, but she lacked flexibility in her own learning, and she couldn’t help with problems, which she herself never encountered.

Chervil Sun was mean and often made nasty comments, which was why only several students came to the Exercise class yesterday on Tuesday.

Juniper Root, who tutored on Mondays, was quite a friendly guy, but he never explained much, so it was always up to the students to figure things out.

And now, sitting on the floor in the gym and staring at the front door, the students of forty-four B, were wondering what kind of person was their Wednesday’s tutor.

When a guy walked through, they were surprised to see someone, who looked outstandingly average.

He wore grey pants on suspenders, blue shirt, and a greyish green cap. His light yellow hair was a bit longer than short, and he had a face, which made him look much younger than a fifth year student.

He walked in, staring at the floor in front of his feet. He didn’t stop walking until he arrived at the wall across from the door. He looked at the wall for a moment. Then his face brightened up, as if he recalled something nice, and he smiled to himself. Then he shook his head sideways, as if he was denying something in his thoughts before he looked again at the wall in front of him.

The students of the first year began looking at each other, and some were quietly laughing among themselves, while commenting about their tutor’s odd behavior.

The guy heard the laughs and turned his body toward the students. With his face full of confusion and embarrassment, he addressed the boys, “uh, nice to meet you. I’m Beech Sanawbar Umsintsi Meadow. Juniper told me that I’m supposed to tutor you on Wednesdays.”

The students began to laugh out loud. Many of them couldn’t believe that a guy with such an odd behavior could be their tutor. After all, Beech acted like he wasn’t even aware that he had arrived in the classroom, until he had heard the boys.

Ignoring the laughing students, he continued speaking, “Juniper never told me what he’s doing on Mondays, but tutoring is like teaching, so let me know, if there’s anything you want to learn from me.”

One boy raised his hand, and said with a smirk, “can you teach me how to levitate a pen?” His tone of voice was a bit more mocking than it should have been.

Other boys around the classroom began snickering, because the boy who asked the question already knew how to do it. Pretty much everyone was aware that the request was made to test the tutor, and not to learn.

Beech looked at the class with his innocent baby face, and agreed, “okay, so let me explain how to make things levitate.” He walked away from the wall and moved closer to the center of the classroom.

“So, levitating,” he started then looked at the ceiling, trying to gather his thoughts, “first, you need to feel the air. Oh right, maybe I’ll start from the beginning. Not everyone knows, where magic comes from, but it helps, if you know it, so let’s recall the story of creation. When God created the world, he created six elements: water, fire, earth, sky, day and night. All magic consists of taking control of one or more of these elements, for the purpose of attaining a specific goal.”

The students stopped smirking, and started listening. Even though most of them heard the story of creation, none of them knew it in details.

Beech spoke on. “So later on, when God created men, he gave men the power to control the world, and that power is known as magic. The first man had what we call the absolute magic. It means that his magic had no limit. He could use it all the time, and it wasn’t dependent on his stamina or concentration. He also didn’t have to learn it, as he knew all about it from the moment he was created.”

Some of the students already heard about this, but for others it was a brand new world.

“However,” Beech continued, “just six generations later, all men began to sin. Some sinned more, some less, but God took away magic from all of them. Soon afterward men regretted their actions, and God gave magic back to them, but no longer as the absolute magic. This new form of magic came with limitations to its usage, and it was treated like a talent, so only some received it, while many didn’t have it at all.”

“Why?" One of the students shouted out. "Were they too sinful, so God didn’t give them any?” he asked without raising a hand.

Beech smiled in response. “No,” his answer was short. “There are many magic-talented people, who aren’t using magic in a good way, so it has nothing to do with your sins and virtues. The magic, as it currently exists, is a talent, and like all talents it’s a bonus, and not a regular capability. That’s why you should always be thankful for any of your talents, because you never know – one day you may lose it.”

“That’s not true,” another boy shouted out. “My grandparents were magic-talented all their lives. They never lost their talent for magic!”

“Okay, okay. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Beech waved down his hand. “You’ll learn more about it in higher years. Anyway,” he changed the topic before anyone could say anything. “In order to levitate something, you need to control the air, which belongs to the sky element. Of all the elements, the sky element is the easiest one to control, because we know this element the most. The air,” he pointed his finger up and moved his hand in a circular motion, “is all around us. We breathe it in. We exhale it. We feel the wind. We look at the sky. This element is with us all the time.”

Beech closed his eyes, “if you want to levitate an object, first you should let your body feel the air. Close your eyes, take a deep breath in, then a deep breath out. Concentrate on the sensation of being touched by the air, as it travels through your nose and let all your senses be full of it. And then,” he took a deep breath in, and right then, he began levitating his own body in front of the students.

When he was already half a meter above the ground, he opened his eyes and asked, "do you have any questions?”

Spruce raised his hand, “but I’m magicless,” he said.

“Me, too,” Beech responded and all the students were simultaneously surprised.

Spruce was also amazed at those words, as he continued, “but my magical item is using a fire element, so I cannot levitate things.”

“Wrong,” Beech said and lowered himself down to the floor. Then he walked up to Spruce, stretched out his hand and commanded, “show me your magical item.”

Spruce handed him the dagger. Beech moved a bit away from the boys and once again he closed his eyes. A huge ball of fire, which looked like a bubble appeared around Beech, and lifted him up.

“How?” asked Aspen, who was sitting next to Spruce.

“All elements are interconnected, and they affect each other,” Beech explained from inside the fire bubble. “You’ll learn about that later, but in this case, I warmed up the air. The warmer air always moves upward and the colder air moves downward. The air under this bubble is fairly hot, so it lifted me up. The bubble walls are protecting me from the heat, so I’m fine.”

And it truly was just like he described. The heat was coming off from under the fire bubble, almost as if there was a campfire burning right underneath Beech. Some students tried coming nearer, but as the heat from up close was unbearably hot, they quickly backed out. Beech made the fire bubble disappear together with the hot air, and jumped back onto the floor.

He gave the dagger back to Spruce, who took it and stared at it, as if it was the rarest treasure in the world.