>>5780056And so it went… For days, then weeks, then months. Not EVERY day, obviously, but at least one or two days each week, after classes, you would tuck yourselves away in some corner or other of the school and discuss the Easterlings and their strange, foreign magic. You understood at last what Logan Pearce must have felt like, hearing you talk about elven mysticism and the True Fey, when Izirina Henzler spoke. The motion came naturally to you—elven grace and poise, don’t forget—but the magical words of power and careful concentration on individual body parts in special sequence to direct power from one place to another… That did not.
“It’s a TONAL language,” Henzler reminded you one day, for what must have been the dozenth time.
“I know,” you growled.
“Are you bringing the qi up from the sacral locus to the throat and then letting the energies fall back into the heart, or are they STAYING in the throat?”
“Ass to mouth and back to chest,” you’d grumbled. “Yes. I get it.”
>7, 8>You gain a rank in Linguistics for the effort, but no Arcana and no new spell…But you did not get it. You had sharpened your linguistics somewhat, enough to pass the classes, but forming a <Jade Aura> or any other oriental spell remained utterly beyond you. Hel, even after all this, Global Magical Studies remained your single worst subject. What a waste of time!
“I guess I’m still not a very good teacher,” Henzler admitted, as the school year neared its end once more, seated beside you in that room.
“Or I’m not as good a student as you need for all this… High-level stuff,” you admitted.
“Don’t say that!” she said, looking almost afraid for you. “You’re a very good student! One of the best in our year!”
Behind her, of course, but at least she didn’t say it. Maybe some of your capacity for tact was rubbing off on her?
“Thanks,” you said, brusquely, because you still KNEW who was number one. “I guess we all have strengths and weaknesses. Like you, with Life Magic.”
She fell silent at that, and you regretted saying it aloud almost immediately. So much for your tact, huh?
How did you part company?
>You left, dissatisfied, and reminded her that you still had a debt to call in>You thanked her, and parted as something closer to friends>You asked her what her mother and her had been discussing, about something ‘wrong with’ Izirina>You reciprocate the lesson by beginning to teach her elven magic—Feycraft—to the best of your own understanding>Write-in[You can choose more than one]
