Zane Emerson and Julie Nguyen
Julie bit her lip and clutched her bag even closer to her chest. Her knuckles were almost white from where she was gripping it as though her life were on the line. She was seated in the dorm common rooms, trying not to imagine how she must look to all the jovial passersby. Many of them were heading out, either to the pool party that had been announced earlier that day, or just in general to spend their free time doing something either fun or productive.
And here she was, all alone and hunched over her bag, hilariously hyperaware of the otherwise innocuous swimsuit that she'd packed inside. She knew that she should just make up her mind; go to the pool and potentially make some new friends, or return to the relative safety of her room and work on not failing out of the school. The more she thought about going to the pool, however, the more her muscles seemed to lock into place. If anyone cared to look closely, they'd probably see the dazed panic splashed across her features as she tried to will herself to do anything at all.
"A bit nervous, huh?"
Julie looked up to see the origin of the words, seeing the blonde guy standing in front of her.
"So, I'm guessing you're planning on going to the pool party, right? At least, I'm guessing that's what the bag's for."
Julie could feel the blood rush to her face as she stammered, "I-I was... I was just... resting..." She trailed off lamely, unable to summon the ability to even finish the sentence. For a moment she simply stared at the other student. If a person could get a blue screen of death, that's what had just happened to Julie.
The boy just smiled back, or maybe it was a smirk. She was too preoccupied to really notice. In one quick motion, he slid into the chair across from her, finding a comfortable position before responding to her addled state.
"I know I'm beautiful, but you'll make me self-conscious if you keep staring at me so intensely."
Her eyes widened as she regained cognitive function, and she quickly looked down at her hands. "S-sorry. I just... wasn't expecting anyone to talk to me," she said, incredibly flustered. The blood rushing in her ears was almost deafening at this point, though a part of her was certain that she was being made fun of somehow. After a second, she peeked up at him through her bangs.
He laughed at her response, but the intonation seemed off. Was it mocking or was it more amused? It was hard to tell, but the boy definitely seemed entertained by Julie's nerves.
"How could I ignore someone who looked so lonely and in distress? Especially on a day where we're supposed to be having fun, meeting new people, and hopefully getting some magic practice."
Julie wasn't entirely sure how to react. It was somewhat disheartening to hear it confirmed how pathetic she looked, but he seemed quite nice, even if there was always that edge to his actions. Hesitantly, she smiled at him. It was partly an ingrained polite response, but partly because she really was grateful for some company after what felt like days of isolation.
"I-I suppose I might be a little nervous," she replied with some chagrin.
"And there's nothing wrong with that," he replied, still offering his amalgamation of a smile. He leaned towards Julie, closing the distance between them as much as he could while still appearing composed. "This is a new, unsettling experience for many. Most kids our age haven't ever been this far away from home, so everything feels magnified when our anxieties pop up. What matters is how we all decide to deal with them. What good is there in allowing our chances to fall to the wayside, all because we got scared? But feeling nervous is to be expected."
The smile froze a little bit on Julie's face and she had to consciously stop herself from physically leaning away a little bit at both the somewhat unexpected encroachment on her personal space and the very unexpected spiel of words that were sprung her way. Her eyes darted around surreptitiously to see if anyone was paying them any attention as her mom's voice echoed in her head with words of warning about boys.
But she didn't think he was trying to be threatening or anything. Really, he'd been nothing short of considerate. And she really,
really didn't want to do anything to hurt or offend him.
Slowly, because she'd gotten the feeling that his speech hadn't been entirely directed at her, she asked him, "...Are
you nervous?"
The look of his countenance changed, the playfulness shifting ever so slightly to something more serious.
"Right this second? No. But I have plenty to be worried about. The girl I was supposed to meet stood me up, and a little birdy told me something that might explain why she did. One of my sisters would have me dead if it meant she could take over the family business. And there's also all these expectations people place on me because I'm one of those lucky few who can use light magic, and yet I can't even beat this one girl. Still, I don't let my nerves stop me, I use them to sharpen myself."
Julie was almost speechless. Everything he'd said sounded like something out of a novel and made her own anxieties pale in comparison. "That's... I'm sorry," she said sympathetically. She couldn't help fidgeting a little as she struggled to find the right words. With no idea what would be appropriate in this situation and the mounting fear that silence was the worst possible decision, she blurted, "I can't even answer a question in class without feeling like I'm going to pass out."
Her whole being visibly cringed, a look of regret passing over her visage. Perhaps silence would have been better.
He laughed again, only this time there was no confusion to its nature. No, this laugh was clearly one born of mirth and amusement. The sound of it made Julie relax, if only ever so infinitesimally.
"With teachers like Mr. Fields being the norm around here, I can't blame you. And, just so you know, there's nothing to be sorry about. I wouldn't have mentioned my issues if I wasn't okay with talking about them."
"N-no, of course not," murmured Julie. "You're... really cool and I--I don't even know your name!" She gasped out the last part, flustered once more. "I'm so sorry, I should have asked earlier, can you tell me what...?"
"Zane," the boy replied with a grin. "Zane Emerson, to be a bit more precise. And you?"
"Julie Nguyen," she said with a strange earnestness. "I... did I just call you cool?"
It was Julie's only wish that the earth would swallow her up before she made even more of a fool of herself, but unfortunately for her, she only had an affinity for controlling air. In lieu of that, she had to cover her face with her hands, even as she knew that doing so was probably only serving to dig her hole even deeper.
"Yeah, but it's not like that's anything to be embarrassed about. Like, for example, what if I were to say 'I find how you get so flustered incredibly cute?' I'd just hope the other person appreciated the compliment."
It almost felt to Julie like her heart stopped for just a second. Her mind tried to frantically process that in such an obviously panicked way that small gremlins may as well have been waving big 'DOES NOT COMPUTE' signs above her head. There was a long pause where Julie simply sat frozen with her face in her hands. When she eventually raised her head, her face was beet red, but she looked determined.
"I'm sorry. You're right," she said, "I need to get a grip on myself."
Of course, being called something like 'incredibly cute' by a cool guy with apparently special light magic--which she still needed to ask more about--was so far out of the realms of possibility that she could only interpret it as him having gone back to making fun of her.
"Hmm, your determined face looks pretty good, too. And it's definitely a step in the right direction as far as attitude is concerned. But do me a favor and hold some of the apologies next time. You haven't done anything to me to warrant one, you know? But if you really think you need to make it up to me, then how about going to the pool party? Something tells me that it'll be fun. We could even go together, but only if you wanted to, of course."
Julie couldn't look more surprised if Zane had asked her if she could perform a religious ritual using goat innards. Her expression quickly returned to its usual worried frown. "Oh, because of..." She wasn't exactly sure how to say 'the girl who stood you up' in any delicate manner, so instead let her words drift off into nothingness.
With a glance to the bag that she was still clutching to her like some kind of shield against the world, and another one at Zane's expectant expression, she inclined her head just slightly. "I'd... like that. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go because I wouldn't really know anyone and, well, I'm not the most fun person ever." She grimaced a bit. "Probably why I hadn't really made any friends."
She looked back up at him, a shy but sincere grin curling her mouth. "So thanks for talking to me just now, and for inviting me."
Zane reciprocated her smile, taking note of her language. "The pleasure is all mine, really. This whole conversation has been a pleasant surprise from what was shaping up to be a massive disappointment of a day."
The pleasure that she felt from his approval shone through her in a way that must have been blindingly obvious to the other boy, though Julie herself thought she hid it quite well. Hefting her bag a little higher to draw attention to it, she said with a slight blush, "I guess I should probably go change, then."
"Probably wouldn't be a bad idea, unless you wanted to get your clothes wet. I'll wait here until you're ready."
Julie responded with a nod before scampering away, her step feeling somehow lighter than usual.
*
"My parents bought it for me a few years ago," Julie blurted almost as soon as she was within earshot of Zane again. She was tugging at her new outfit, her normal clothes now stowed away safely in her backpack. The one exception was her jacket, which she'd thrown over herself. The brightly colored swimming shorts and shirt that she was wearing only served to make her look younger and even somewhat boyish. "I brought it just in case, but I didn't think I'd actually end up wearing it."
He gave her a quick look over, making sure not to be impolite in his inspection of Julie's attire. "The look suits you, honestly. So, should we go? Oh, wait, almost forgot, I should probably change, too."
Instead of running off, like she expected him to do, his clothes just kinda changed in their appearance. His jeans melted away into purple trunks, with a large vertical white stripe down the left leg and his button-up morphed into a matching swim shirt.
"Fun thing about light magic, I can make my clothes look like just about anything as long as I focus a little."
Julie's startled look melted into one of awe. "I-I thought light magic would have just been, I don't know, illusions maybe. How do you make fabric out of it?"
He laughed. "No, you're right, it's an illusion. I just mess around with how the light around me is percieved so it looks like I'm wearing different clothes. It doesn't prevent me from feeling cold or anything, but it's a nice party trick. I bet I could even make the sky change colors if I wanted to."
"Oh, so you're not actually wearing swimming trunks, then?" she asked, curious, her own clothes now forgotten after being shown this new marvel. "So you're still wearing what you were before. Or was that an illusion too? You could be wearing anything, or I guess you could even be n--" Julie suddenly blushed a deep pumice and clamped her mouth shut so hard that he could probably hear her teeth clack.
"As funny as I think telling you 'I'm actually not wearing anything' would be, you can relax. The jeans and button-up were the illusion, but these are my actual clothes I was planning on wearing. I may come up with some crazy things, but I'm not
that crazy."
"Of course not, I didn't mean--" Julie protested miserably, kicking herself for even accidentally implying that Zane might be some kind of awful person who walked around naked. "...I'm sorry."
An ever so slight hint of frustration creaped its way onto Zane's face, but it disappeared into his composed and entertained look. "No worries," he joked. "It's an understandable misconception, a rather funny one at that. Besides, it's not like you've really been around light magic before, right?"
Julie felt almost like she'd failed a test somehow, and she remembered Zane's request that she stop apologising. She silently berated herself for her misstep. "No, I haven't actually been around magic much at all until the beginning of this weak." She looked up at him. "Have you?"
"Actually, I have, but not so much in the combative sense. My family actually runs a magic-based hydroeletrical company, so we do a lot of business in the magic world. My dad also has his hands in a lot of politics, so I grew up around magic."
Julie's eyes lit up. "So you've been able to perform light magic since you were young? Did you have teachers and such to help?"
"Nope. Light magic is actually fairly new for me. I grew up with water magic, like the rest of my family. On top of that, I was pretty good with ice magic. But a little while back I lost all of my magic and then I noticed I had developed light magic somehow. As for your second question, I guess the answer is 'sorta.' My parents and sisters are all proficient mages, so they helped out with magic, and most of my schooling was done privately through tutors."
"You can randomly lose your magic and develop other magic?" Julie looked shocked, and even a little disturbed, at the thought of someday waking up without being able to cause gusts of wind at will. She might not have been very good at it, but it had been part of her for so long that she couldn't imagine herself without it.
"Yeah, but it's really rare, from what I was told. And the only kinds of magic that I've heard of that have been known to cause those changes are light and dark magic. It's nice having something unique, but as much fun as it is to turn into light to blink away from someone, I do miss some of my old magic."
"Does anyone know why some people gain access to light or dark magic, then?" asked Julie, so enthralled that she barely registered the path that they were taking which lead to the portal. The wealth of new information that she was getting a glimpse into was exciting. As much time as she'd spent hiding in the library, much of her study was focused on the theory that she was required to know in order to pass her classes and some looks into the fundamentals of actually using magic. She hadn't had the time nor energy to look into anything about the actual world of magic that secretly weaved its way through the mundane society in which she was raised.
"Not that I know of. I've heard rumors of those elements having odd properties to them, allowing them to pick the mage as if those two elements were sentient, but that seems a bit crazy to me, even for magic."
"People are chosen by the magic," Julie breathed, the notion seeming quite romantic to her while providing her something like a sense of security since she didn't think she would ever get anything special like that. "Do you think your experience in magic before helped you at all when you had to learn light magic?"
"It's funny that you mention it, but one of my biggest boons in light magic has been my experience with ice magic. Thanks to it I was able to quickly figure out I could craft things out of hardlight. Oh, I guess you might not've heard of hardlight before, but it's basically freezing light to the point it becomes a solid. It's a weird concept, I know, but it's something I would've never thought up without ice magic."
"Freezing light..." Julie looked perplexed to the point of almost being perturbed. "So you can touch 'hardlight'? Does hardlight itself give off light? Does it... give off heat?" A part of her didn't think that she should be trying to apply so much logic to magic since it was, well
magic, but a bigger part of her wanted to solve the new puzzle with which it was being presented.
"Here, I think it might be better to show you," he said, his words trailing off as he started to conjure up a small octahedron of blue transluscent light. It gave off no heat, but it was firm to the touch. Weightless, yet it didn't float away. It's mere existence defied the laws of physics, but physics weren't exactly equipped to deal with static photons. "Make a bit more sense now? I make all sorts of things out of this stuff, and hardlight isn't even the craziest thing I can do with light magic."
The perfect captive audience, she asked, "What's the craziest thing you can do with light magic?"
"Believe it or not, but I can actually turn into light for a brief moment to move forward."
"Oh my god," said Julie. "Does that... hurt?" She wasn't quite sure how to describe the disbelief she felt about whether it was even possible for matter to transform into energy and then
back again. If she wasn't so busy overthinking all of her actions, she probably would have responded with something silly like 'That's impossible' when they were literally in a magic school heading to a magic portal.
"It feels weird, but it doesn't hurt. I guess you could say it's like taking an ethereal state, but only for a fraction of a moment. Though, I can hurt myself if I overuse the spell, but I practice quite a bit to prevent that from happening. It even seems like I'm starting to actually perceive things around me when I'm moving at light speed, but only barely."
"What happens if you accidentally try to go through a solid object?" frowned Julie.
"I'm just turning into light and flash towards a direction, really. I can't exactly go through walls or anything. Though, maybe if there was a thin crack, I might be able to squeeze through."
"So I guess you couldn't be physically stopped, then," Julie said wonderingly. Then she bit her lip. "I hope I'm not bothering you with all my questions, I just... want to know more. I feel like I have so much that I need to catch up on compared to a lot of the other students here."
"Not at all. Questions are the easiest way to gain new information from more experienced individuals. And asking them proves that you want to improve, which is something everyone should strive for."
Julie's hand tightened on the strap of her backpack. "I don't feel like I have been improving. I keep trying and trying, but I can't seem to do anything more with my magic than I have been." She looked down at her feet, her pace unconsciously slowing. "I don't really know why they accepted me here."
"Don't worry too much about it. Knowledge is useful to better your magic, but ultimately, practice and pushing your physical limits tends to be the key in accelerating one's magical ability. It also helps to absorb ether on missions, based on what my sister told me. Still, as frustrating as it may seem, there is no quick way to improve, only quicker ways."
A shiver worked its way down Julie's spine. "I haven't been assigned on a mission yet. Have you?" She looked back up at him, features tense.
He gave her a look of surprise, most likely wondering why she had been held back from a mission during the week. "Yeah, we were sent out on a Search and Destroy mission. I'd say it was fairly routine, but I think I broke my arm during the fight with one of the Knights of Ash. You wouldn't be able to tell, though, since healing magic works some miracles in repairing people."
The blood rushed from her face so fast that it probably set some kind of new record. With a gulp, she whispered, "You broke your arm?" Her breaths were coming faster now.
"I
think I broke it. One of the knights caught my arm with an attack after I thought I killed it. I didn't let it get a second hit in."
"Are the knights the... the monsters? The ones the headmaster talked about?"
"A species of them. Hulking knights made entirely of ash. They're slow, but they hit hard and take just as much as they give."
Her eyes went blank and she stopped walking. Her stomach roiled. "I don't think I can do this."
He turned around to look at her, letting out a light chuckle all the while. "You'd be surprised what you can do when you have a team to help you out. Or when your back is against the wall. If you're scared, just keep practicing and be ready when they call on your name."
For a split second, she wanted to scream at him. To tell him how she wasn't like everyone else here, that she couldn't
do anything; how she would probably screw up and get herself killed. Or worse, get someone
else killed, and it would be
entirely her fault. Instead, she swallowed and gave him a half-hearted smile. "No, you're right," she said, sounding as though she were trying to convince herself. She forced her feet to move forward again, though her breathing was still a little bit funny. "I shouldn't be complaining. Everyone else is going through the exact same thing that I am."
"Exactly! Almost everyone here is facing their fears and risking their lives, but it's not like you hear about people dying left and right. Only time that happens, it seems, is when people get careless. And something tells me that you wouldn't have an issue with carelessness."
Julie nodded and understood one thing: Zane obviously could never understand. He was confident and talented, and she was... Julie. But she did appreciate how much he was putting up with simply by talking to her, and she really just wanted to soak it up as much as she could while it lasted. "I'll do my best," she said, and pretended that she couldn't hear the sound of a coffin lid closing overhead.
"Good. As long as you do that, you'll be fine..." Before he could continue, they arrived at the portal stone. A few other students were there, too, none of which he recognized. "Looks like we're here. You ready to go through?"
"As ready as I am for anything." Which meant not at all. She tugged self-consciously at her clothes again and hoped she wouldn't break out into rashes. A vain hope, probably. She cautiously looked back at the portal. "How... how does this work? Do we just go through?"
He extended his hand to her before explaining, "Just grab on, I'll touch the stone, then 'poof' we're there."
She stared at his hand with trepidation and also a slight blush. Before that day, s he'd barely even spoken to a boy before, let alone held one's hand (at least, after grade school), even for practical purposes. It was almost as if she could feel the disapproving gaze of her parents even here in Wyoming. Quickly, and hopefully sneakily enough, she wiped her hand against her shorts in an attempt to wipe off any excess sweat, before placing her hand in Zane's. His grip was warm and dry.
It felt really... nice.
And before she could react to him touching the stone, they were gone. And then they were on the beach.