Chapter Text
It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you should so salt your truth that it will no longer—quench thirst?
“I don’t understand why coach Vargas has to punish me for your failings.” Jamil shook his head as he and Azul walked towards the pitch. Magic, Azul presumed, kept it stagnant year round. Artificial grass that never died as seasons changed from late fall to early winter; as two students overblotted within the span of one month… it wasn’t alone in its unchangingness. Campus life had returned to a state of complete status quo as students returned from their breaks. Azul and Jamil were likely expected to do the same.
“Be glad, at least, that you are no longer forced to stay behind after class. I’ve been so kind as to let you choose your hours.” Azul did not enjoy the absolute humiliation ritual of receiving tutoring for flight class, but he truly had not been making any progress on his own. And regardless, it was nice to get an opportunity, multiple times a week, to speak to Jamil.
“It should be a piece of cake, so long as you listen to me this time.”
“I always listen to you!” Azul clasped his hands over his chest in a gesture of absolute sincerity. “Have I been anything but an obedient student under your tutelage?”
“Anything but. Get on your broom.”
Azul complied, sitting on his broom like one would sit on a chair, still staring at Jamil. Notably, Jamil always wore a sleeveless hoodie to PE, completely discarding the track jacket, but he stood before him with the jacket fully zipped. He seemed a bit curled in on himself.
“Cold?” Azul teased. It was fascinating how air often felt warmer than water. Temperatures could fall below freezing and he would be completely fine, despite water temperature never reaching such lows. He could tell this trait of his was to the envy of Jamil.
“Naturally.”
“I’ve never seen you wear any school issued uniform as intended! Why, this is remarkable!”
“Must we make small talk when I could be teaching you how to fly?”
“Must learning to fly and conversing with my dear classmate Jamil be in complete isolation of one another?” Azul drew a hand from his broomstick, towards his heart, though when the broom bobbed a bit underneath his movement, he snapped that hand firmly back into place.
“Yes. I cannot teach someone who constantly runs his mouth.”
“You’ve taught Kalim plenty!”
“You want Kalim grades?” Jamil was far worse at hiding his emotions than he liked to think he was. The mere mention of Kalim drove exhaustion into Jamil’s breath. “I suppose they would be an improvement over your grades at present, huh?”
“Ha ha, very funny.” Azul played up the dryness of his tone for some comedic effect. He quite enjoyed his banter with Jamil, never feeling as if it stemmed from a place of real cruelty. Jamil was more than capable of genuine cruelty, though, as every person was. For time immemorial, ritual cruelty—towards the self, towards the other, towards the world itself—had been celebrated. Perhaps it was practice, the mocking of one another, practice for the sharp tongue needed to navigate the cruelty of the real world. Perhaps it was just good fun. Azul leaned forward “Alright, Professor Jamil, teach me. I am your obedient student.”
“First of all, sit properly.”
“But it’s uncomfortable,” Azul whined. Jamil gave him a look of skepticism as he did as told. A broom was a truly ridiculous mechanism for flight. So flimsy under the weight of a human body; the thin, polished wood felt as if it could slip through one’s hands and out under their rear if they did not hold tightly enough. Not even to mention it being literal janitorial supplies. Airplanes were far more sensible.
Jamil stalked over towards Azul, observing him like some aquarium animal in a tank. It was unnerving. “Straighten your posture.” He placed his hand on Azul’s back, causing Azul to jolt up and his broom to fall out from underneath him. He crashed to the ground and Jamil laughed. “Jumpy much?”
Azul made a pained noise in response. “Can you not warn me before you lay your hands on me?” He assumed he must have been blushing from the heat of his face.
Jamil offered him a hand. “I haven’t ever known you to be particularly concerned with personal space.”
Azul got his broom to levitate and mounted it once again. “What was it you were saying?”
Jamil held up his hands, a nonverbal cue he intended to touch Azul. “You’re so tense.” He pushed Azul’s shoulders back, forcing him to sit taller. “I imagine it would benefit you to loosen up a bit. Your thoughts are weighing you down.”
“You sound like Kalim,” Azul remarked through gritted teeth. He didn’t mean it, but it was his turn to attempt a genuine cruelty.
“No I don’t. Are you embarrassed? It’s not the first time you’ve failed so catastrophically in front of me.” Jamil didn’t remove his hands from Azul’s shoulders.
“I can’t say I am. I was disoriented briefly, that’s all.”
“Well, for the advice I’ll give you now: straighten up, like I just made you. The way you were sitting before creates too much tension between your hands and shoulders. This is not only better for you, but also puts you in the right headspace for flight. You only ever need to lean like that to accelerate. You’re trying to levitate, so think high.”
“Think high?”
“Your posture.”
Azul’s broom bobbed again as he shifted slightly, causing him to let out a startled yelp.
“It’s more scared of you than you are of it.” Jamil was grinning.
“Be quiet.”
“I thought you wanted me to instruct you.” Azul kind of wanted to hit him. “You can fly well enough when you stay low to the ground. I don’t get why going up seems so difficult for you. Really, it seems less like a limitation with magic itself and more…”
“What?”
“You’re afraid of heights, aren’t you?”
Heights truly were not the issue. Azul could manage heights fine. He had taken an airplane once before and it was spectacular! Really, the idea of being suspended midair for anyone to observe or assail was the problem. Octopi were, by nature, ambush predators. Camouflage and disguise were the name of the game, and when they weren’t possible, it evoked an anxiety capable of inducing nausea. Nature was something that needed to be overcome, however. He who cannot overcome his nature can never hope to make anything of himself. Self-overcoming required struggle, and as such, Azul would learn to fly.
It was embarrassing to admit to, however. Even if Jamil was spot on.
“I am no such thing.”
“Then levitate. Go up, Azul.”
“How?”
“Straighten up and focus on your intention. You’d think someone so obsessed with climbing the social ladder would understand how to go up.”
Azul closed his eyes, attempting to envision his intention. He doubted it would work; that was what he had tried on his own time and gotten nowhere with. He imagined what it was like to float in open ocean. The terrible, unsettling feeling of being surrounded by nothing. His mind drifted to a human aphorism: a fish does not know that it is in water. Here it was literally applicable: Water was the normal, air the abnormal. When he thought of being in empty ocean he did not consider the water or its properties, he just considered the anticipation of a shark darting out from beyond his line of sight and eating him. Water was something with density, something he could move and maneuver within. Should he not freeze at just the thought of the shark, he could use the water around him to evade its jaws. Similarly, he could float in the air, he could maneuver in the air…
“Well, would you look at that.”
Azul opened his eyes. He was in the air. Surrounded by blue… sickeningly bright blue, nausea inducing blue. The air felt so thin as he forced himself to inhale. Air was different from water. It was thin, it lacked density, and oxygen absorption through it required effort. Air was unlike water, and more pressingly, it could not catch him as he began to fall through it. He couldn’t even bring himself to scream as that sickening blue blurred past him. All at once weightless, then heavy and hurtling to the oceans depths, then weightless again.
“An attempt was certainly made,” Jamil walked over to where he had suspended Azul, mere inches off the ground, with a wind spell. He ended the spell, and Azul was once again on the ground.
“Would you shut your mouth?” Azul couldn’t conceal the shakiness of his voice.
“So my theory is correct?”
“What theory?”
“That all you have to do to go up is let go.”