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“The power behind that was good, but still unfocused,” Osvald instructed. He hoped he sounded patient. “We want the vortex to be tighter, more concentrated. That way its strength won’t dissipate around the target as much.”
Agnea’s brow furrowed in concentration. “I’m tryin’… it’s just so different from how I’ve used wind before.”
He wracked his mind for a real-world analogy, having had enough lessons with Agnea to know that going through the physical calculations was unlikely to help.
“Your father’s a tailor.” It came out more as a statement than a question, but Agnea nodded nonetheless. “Imagine a clump of thread sitting loose on a table and another wound tightly around a spool. If you were to set a book on top of each, what would happen?”
“Well, the loose thread would flatten right out,” she began, and he nodded encouragingly. “But the spool would probably hold it just fine.”
“Exactly.” Over the past few weeks, he’d gotten much better at adjusting his methods of instruction for his new student, with very positive results. “Giving the thread shape makes it stronger. You want to imagine your wind spiraling around an invisible spool in the center.”
“Ooh, okay, that makes sense!” she said with a bright smile. “Let me try again.”
He felt the telltale prickle of energy in the air as Agnea conjured a gust of wind and flung it towards her target. Her aim still needed some work, but the vortex was much more concentrated than before.
“Again,” he instructed, hoping she could replicate and refine her progress. He was not disappointed, as her next vortex as just as tight and a little closer to its intended destination.
In truth, Osvald had never fully mastered wind. He understood the principle of it well enough and could produce a passably strong gust when required of him. But it was finicky magic, emotional magic. He vastly preferred the predictability and scalability of the visible elements, and many scholars he knew felt the same.
Perhaps that’s why he took Agnea on a student. Teaching something he wasn’t fully adept at himself presented an intriguing challenge.
Osvald acknowledged that she was an odd choice of pupil for him. Agnea had little interest in or aptitude for the theory behind magic, vastly preferring its practical use. Where Osvald drew his magic from formulae, Agnea drew hers from feeling and instinct. Osvald’s traditional teaching style would have been much more suited for someone like the intellectually curious Temenos or the thoughtful and measured Hikari.
But the first time he saw Agnea’s wind magic, he immediately recognized raw, untapped potential.
He also recognized something he’d thought had died with his wife and daughter – his own excitement to teach.
In many ways, she was an excellent apprentice. Eager to please and not easily frustrated. Her mind just worked in a way very different than his own.
“Better.” It was simple praise, but Agnea beamed regardless.
“I won’t let ya down, Osvald!” she replied with a fierce but optimistic determination. “I’ll keep practicin’ until I get it right.”
Osvald’s breath caught as Agnea’s words brought forth the memory of another, much younger student of his.
“I’ve just gotta keep practicing, Papa!”
He closed his eyes for a moment as the echoes of Elena’s giggles faded, swallowing the lump in his throat.
“Never stop practicing.” It came out more gruffly than intended as he refocused on the young woman in front of him rather than the girl who lived only in his memories. More softly, he said, “Let’s try again.”
After several more attempts, Osvald saw the sheen of sweat on Agnea’s forehead along with the slight shake of her hands and realized it was time for a break. Gesturing for her to have a seat on a nearby log, he reached into his bag and handed her a plum.
“Thank you, Osvald!” she accepted the fruit with a laugh. “Magic is even more fun once you start getting good at it!”
He chuckled lowly at that. He’d never really considered his discipline to be fun, but he remembered another who did.
“Magic is so fun, Papa!” Elena had squealed, repeating the request for him to conjure lightning for the fifth time in a row.
“My daughter thought much the same,” he said quietly, and Agnea gave him a gentle smile.
In truth, Agnea was not much like Elena at all. Even at such a young age, Elena had been studious and patient, soaking up knowledge like a sponge. Agnea was impulsive and often unfocused. But they were both earnest, and eager, and so inherently sweet, that it was hard for him not to look at Agnea and imagine Elena in her place.
Sometimes it hurt to teach her. But it was a good hurt, one that reminded him he was still alive.
“Who taught you magic, Osvald?”
Her melodic voice cut through the quiet of the forest, startling him from his reverie. He felt her eyes on him, curious and bright. Picking at the skin of his own plum, he took his time answering, swallowing back the bittersweet emotion that memories of Elena always brought.
“I had a… mentor of sorts,” he explained. “He was a retired professor, living in Conning Creek when I was growing up. He saw some potential in me.”
Agnea was smiling when he looked up to meet her eyes. He was still getting used to carrying a conversation again, but he found her easy to talk to. She had all the patience in discourse that she lacked in their lessons.
“And yourself?” Her eyes widened in surprise, so he clarified. “When we met, you had more skill than I’d expect from someone self-taught.”
She dropped her gaze to her hands, a soft smile still pulling at her lips. “My mama did. She didn’t have no book learnin’ about it or anything, but she was a natural with wind too.”
As he took in her words, he again felt a spark he’d thought long gone – intellectual curiosity. The beginnings of a theory. A question to answer.
“Magic passed through family lineage has not been widely studied,” he told her. “Your experience may be evidence of its biological potency, particularly since wind affinities are so rare.”
“Oh, it ain’t all that rare,” she contradicted gently, and his brow furrowed in response.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Of all the scholars I’ve worked alongside, only a handful specialized in wind…”
“Well, sure, but you told me my style of magic’s different than yours, right?” she interrupted. “Lots of dancers have wind magic – it helps us jump higher and spin faster and things like that. And it ain’t uncommon in the country – people use it to dry clothes and dust and for all sorts of chores.” She laughed. “I used to blow gusts at a big pot of boilin’ water to make steam – helped Papa get wrinkles out of his fabirc!”
His eyes widened slightly as he took in this information. Perhaps there were entire facets of magical use that scholars overlooked because they seemed mundane at first glance. Although he knew it wasn’t her intent, Agnea had pushed against his own arrogant assumptions.
It was a challenge he didn’t necessarily find unpleasant. She’d taught him something. Teaching led to learning more often than not, and there was still so much for him to learn.
“You need to be careful with wind now,” he advised as he mulled over her words. “Your magic has grown in strength quite a bit. We’ll start working on regulating your power next.”
Agnea looked intrigued, but before they could continue their conversation, an interruption came in the form of their traveling companions.
“Whew, that was a long walk,” Ochette’s surprisingly loud voice drifted towards them, signaling the safe return of the other half of their group. They had split up nearly three weeks ago for efficiency, with half of them heading to Sai while the others took care of some business in Crackridge. “I’m starving!”
Agnea’s eyes lit up as she clasped her hands together in excitement, already running haphazardly back towards their campsite. “They’re back!”
Knowing it was a lost cause, Osvald sighed, already following Agnea down the forest path. “We were in the midst of a lesson…”
His pupil ignored him (or more likely didn’t hear him), and he couldn’t help the small, fond smile that lifted his lips.
Osvald entered the clearing where they’d set up camp just in time to see Agnea practically fly into Hikari’s arms with a squeal. He blushed but chuckled and spun her around, clearly as excited to see the dancer as she was to see him.
Hikari set Agnea back on the ground, leaning down to tenderly kiss her cheek, and Osvald felt a pang in his chest. Suddenly she didn’t remind him of Elena at all, but the echo of someone else just as dear.
Memories flooded him. The first time he held Rita’s hand, soft and small in his own. The first time he kissed her, hoping she wouldn’t think him improper as he watched the red of a shy blush bloom across her face. Teaching her a fire spell just strong enough to boil water for tea. Her teaching him to dance. Wrapping his arms around her as they pushed Elena on the swing in their front yard, Rita’s laughter blending with their daughter’s in the most beautiful of melodies.
Moments he took for granted at the time. Memories that haunted him during his five years of imprisonment. They now settled, bittersweet, painful, but comforting, somewhere deep in his chest.
“You okay, Pops?” Ochette’s voice asked from a spot around his elbow. Another pang.
Ochette was an adult, of course, but between her diminutive size, boundless energy, and surprising ability to always know when he needed cheering up, she did remind him vividly of his Elena.
“Yes,” he said gruffly. He dropped a hand on her shoulder lightly. “Glad you’re back.”
Ochette looked momentarily surprised, but recovered quickly, grinning up at him and grabbing his hand. He swallowed heavily as she dragged him towards their companions, recalling another small girl with ashy blonde hair whose hand was dwarfed by his.
The memories were just for him. But this odd, dysfunctional family of sorts he had found made the pain easier to bear.
It would be nice to have everyone around the campfire tonight.