Melody of Mana

I was lead down to the training grounds, where I would surely die. Professor Endel led the way, a long metal rod hanging in the air behind him, some kind of spell to make it easier to transport. We got a few looks, as it wasn't often someone wore war gear just walking around and I probably looked like death.

Once we got there my teacher had the rod slam into the ground opposite us. It stood like a spear pointing upwards towards the sky. He turned to me with a bright smile.

"Okay Alana, this is going to go through a few steps. First, I want you to stand near me while I cast. Watch close, this might help you later on today."

I stood there. He was certainly going to do something with lightning, that was a given, but it seemed he wasn't going to point it at me, at least yet. He raised one hand to point at the spear and a bolt flew from it with a *Bzzt* sound. It was definitely lightning, albeit at a far, far lower intensity than I'd seen before. He let off several after seeing that I didn't bolt.

"Please don't shoot one of those at me professor." I said, shaking a bit as I'd watched him go a few times.

"Alana, please relax, I'm not going to shoot one of those at you today." He calmly stated, smiling.

"What do you mean 'today'!?"

"Here's what I want you to do. First I want you to sing us up a nice big storm." He totally ignored my question, and I got the feeling from the look on his face that I shouldn't keep pressing or I might find out.

"Okay..." I could do that, but I really didn't like where this was going.

"Then you're going to target that rod there with lightning."

"I've never done that before."

"First time for everything. I'm sure you'll be fine, just remember that I'm here with you, and that you'll be perfectly fine. If it helps that armor is made specifically to protect against lightning."

"It doesn't."

"That's a shame, begin then." He gave a gesture up towards the sky.

I didn't want to, but seeing as I wasn't actually being given too much of a choice I began to sing up a storm. I started small then slowly increased its power. I'd been doing these off and on for awhile now and had a decent handle on them, so while it was still expensive mana-wise, it was manageable. I kept it growing slowly because honestly I didn't want to go to the next step.

"That's enough Alana, target the rod and let's see it," Professor Endel yelled. My storm still wasn't big, only hovering over the arena, but it was strong, with winds whipping around us.

I waffled for a few moments, then began to think on how to do it. I knew that I needed to form a difference in charge so I tried to focus on the idea of pulling there. I also knew, far to well for my taste, exactly what lightning felt like. I knew the sound it made, the heat, the flash, the smell. I understood all of that and focused on it while I pulled the charge tight like a rubber band.

"Go on then!" I heard him, but I didn't want to, so I kept working on the spell, letting it take a little more mana, then a little more as I kept pulling. "Alana, do it!" I felt Professor Endel's hand on my shoulder again, pushing me forwards towards this.

I didn't want to, I didn't want to, why did he not understand that? Why couldn't he just let it go? Even my magic seemed to sense that this wasn't something I really wanted. That said with how much I was focusing and actually trying to set it up It was readying. Eventually the hand on my shoulder gripped, and I let it go. It was like the rubber band snapping, an almost physical sensation.

*KABOOM*

The arena shook at the force of the blast. My vision flashed just like one of those stupid bombs had gone off right in front of me. I of course panicked and screamed in terror at what should have been a significantly smaller strike, but some arm grabbed me and held me tight as the magic faded.

I tried to run, to pull mana for a scream to get this idiot professor off of me, but the magic didn't want to come. I felt almost faint and knew that if I cast again I'd be passing out. Even my body felt drained from the spell and I nearly fell as my strength fled from my limbs.

I wanted out of here, this was insane. I couldn't hear it, but I could feel the rumble of my teacher saying something. I was also trying to blink the large line out of my vision while he held me there. Struggle as I might though I couldn't get away, and there was no way I was letting myself pass out next to this guy, who knew what he'd do in the process of trying to *help* me.

"Calm down. You're okay, everything is perfectly fine." I heard him as my ears slowly stopped ringing.

"Let me go!" I yelled, still not sure how loud I would be.

"Once you're calm."

I tried, but it was honestly not all that easy to stay calm while someone significantly stronger than you was holding you in place. That alone would have been enough to have me a bit worried, but this whole mess was too much. This was my first time casting that spell and there was no way it should have been able to do that much.

"What... what was that!?"

"That was a lightning bolt. Are you okay?"

I spent a few moments thinking, checking myself over for injuries. I was unhurt, but I was still shaking a bit, and still weak from using too much mana.

"No, I'm almost out of mana. Why was it so big?"

"Because you put far too much mana into it."

That made sense. I'd messed around trying to find some way to avoid the exercise and put more and more power into it while doing so. That was dumb, it was possible to hold a spell, but for some reason I hadn't, maybe because I wasn't thinking? Or was it because I'd never done this one before? Whatever it was, it needed to never happen again.

"Can we at least go sit down?" I whined.

"Of course." Professor Endel led me over to one of the stands and let me plop down there.

From that vantage point I got a good view of what I'd done. The metal rod had of course taken the full blast and was partially melted. All around it I could see lines in the sand too, here and there where the power had fled through it, melting the particles to glass as it went.

It took some time but eventually I felt my heart stop pounding. The last of the ringing also faded and before long I didn't even have an afterimage in my view.

"I think I prefer tea and talking with Professor Rooke."

Professor Endel chuckled. "Oh? I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that. He seemed to think that you were still mad at him."

"I am."

"Well, would you like to go see the results?"

"No." I tried to stand up to leave, but my legs shook like a baby deer. "I want to go rest."

"I think you should stay sitting for a bit longer, you really put too much mana into that."

"I'm fine." I declared as I made my way to the exit, holding the wall the whole way. I needed to cut this short before he came up with any other good ideas.

"Really you should take a few moments to rest and think. Consider where things didn't go the way you wanted them to."

"Is there even a point to this?"

"Yes. That you don't need to be afraid. This isn't just their power, it's yours. You need to see it, understand it, and control it. Fear is what we feel when we think we can do nothing, but you can do something. You can fight back, in a way that many cannot. You can learn to control this, to make it your own, to use it against others, and to protect yourself from it."

That really, really implied that not only was he going to try and force me to do more of these sessions, he would actually be throwing lightning against me at some point. I considered telling him to shove off, but... but I did need to get over this, and this seemed the best way/only option. I couldn't just become a quivering wreck every time a storm rolled through.

I was a bit surprised that he didn't actually try to stop me from making my way to the exit, but he did not. He simply walked with me back to the doors of the school. I suppose that I'd actually participated in his little farce, so he was satisfied. You could couple that with the fact that there really wasn't enough mana left in me to do much, so we pretty much had to be done unless I was just going to watch him cast more.

Once I stumbled my way back to my room and Dora helped me remove the armor I basically just fell into bed and passed out. It was my firm opinion that there were far, far too many of my teachers demanding my time on what were supposed to be my off days, and I considered if there was anyone who would even read that particular complaint should I try to file it.

As it turned out nobody really cared when I pointed out that having me do actual work on our normal off days was insane. Professor Rooke did listen when I went to him finally, but there wasn't any result from that. It was through this that I ended up with another weekly obligation with Professor Endel, until such a time as he decided that I was no longer in need of his 'therapy'.

I heavily suspected that he was too interested in seeing how far I could take weather magic in this direction, and that this was influencing his judgment. That was because I spent several sessions just throwing lightning bolts at big metal rods. I did at least learn to control myself a bit better and not come close to passing out every time I did it. I was also getting more used to the lightning, at least when I was in control of it.

It was around mid-summer that he pulled me aside after one of our weekly thunderfests.

"Alana, you seem to be well in control now. We can move onto the next step."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What is the next step?"

He kept his smile big and bright. "Teaching you how to protect yourself against that which you fear."

Nope, no, no no, absolutely not. I turned on the spot and began moving as quickly as reasonably possible towards the exit, not even bothering to hear him out.

"Alana, I haven't harmed you so far have I? Surely I've earned enough of your trust for you to listen to what I have to say?" His guilt trip was not going to work. I was leaving. "If you succeed in learning this last bit we should be able to end these weekly meetings. I know you don't like having them." That caused me to hesitate.

"I'm listening." I turned to look at him with a full on glare.

"Good. There are a handful of techniques by which you can protect yourself from something like lightning, and I want you to learn them. The first is warding through magical items, much like the armor you wear when we do this."

I looked down at the armor. Professor Rooke had left this in my care since it was in fact made for me, and I suspected that it was rather valuable, even if it only really guarded against the effects of one element significantly. Learning to make that kind of thing wouldn't be too bad.

"Alright, I'm happy to learn to make more magical items."

"The other two are a bit more... personal. You already know how to protect yourself from harmful spells, and working on improving that will help you not only here, but in the long run. I'd also like you to learn a shield for this not unlike your current projectile shield. That's a bit advanced, as we normally don't work on putting anti-element shields up until your second year, and something as specialized as lightning would come in your third, but I think you can manage it."

I grit my teeth, those were in fact things that I wanted, it was just the idea of getting them that rankled. "I'm interested."

"Good."

I then wandered off to go find Kala and have her work on my ears. She did so on our evenings after these bits of training, so that I wouldn't lose my hearing. It was also our excuse to spend more time together during the very short periods we actually didn't have class.