by Ben Marble
"Do you mind not tromping in here while I'm trying to fix your stupid friend?" She turned and started to work on mending Xander some more.
"Well, it's not like if you heal it crooked he can come out any worse now is it?" Michael started pacing back and forth in her room, his feet lightly clicking on the stone floor whenever he crossed a spot that wasn't covered by a rug.
"Well, I though after I finished here, I might work on fixing his brain which means you would be next on my list." She tried not to pay attention as he stopped and stared at her with those bright blue eyes. How could he be so dense? "I'm almost done but I would like to work in silence if you don't mind."
"Sure, I'll be quiet." Michael went and leaned against the wall just to the left of her vision. He could have chosen any spot in the room, and there were plenty as the dragons did not want their wards to live in spare hovels. When you shape the earth into your home using magic you have unlimited room on which to build. As it was, she was hard pressed not to pay attention to the fact he still hadn't changed into his apprentice robes and was still wearing tight jeans and a fitted T. It was enough to show that he not only stayed in shape, like all the apprentices were expected to, he took it to the next level and his body showed it. If it had been a one on one fist fight instead of magic, he probably could have taken the bully down without using any tricks.
"Eyes on your work," Xander whispered soft enough that she did not think Michael heard. Brianne snapped her focus back to Xander and fought to keep the red from showing in her cheeks. "I'll talk to him if you want." The dragon eyes regarded her curiously.
"You're done," She shook her head slightly as she helped Xander to his feet. Michael was still leaning against the wall with his eyes closed oblivious to the exchange between her and Xander. Brianne sighed inwardly with relief.
"So, did you get anything other than extra chores?" Xander asked Michael.
"Nope, good thing we don't have to muck the dragon's stalls 'eh? That would be a nightmare." Michael then turned to Brianne. "I think Ember is going to let the rest of you off the hook. I made it pretty clear it was my choice to use magic, and mine alone." Michael started pacing again, and Brianne noticed how the ceiling of her room always seemed shorter when his six-and-a-half-foot frame was in the room. "Sierra gave a rundown of events before Xander or I talked to Ember, so she may not even call you or Chandler in for an accounting. I imagine she's heard enough between the three of us."
"Well, you both could have walked away and saved us the trouble," Brianne turned and started straightening the sheets on her bed.
"We could have, but when ugly decided to sucker punch my friend here I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction." Michael had stopped pacing and crossed his arms again. "Besides, how else are you going to practice healing people? Life would get boring if we didn't give you something to do."
"Life would be boring, but we'd get more learning done." Brianne turned and stomped her foot.
"Oh, Brianne I find it so funny when you get fierce." A grin had split Michael's face and he was mocking her by putting his hands on his hips and taking a lecturing stance.
"If you two are done I think it's about time for dinner, and I still need to change." Xander seemed to be looking everywhere but at the two of them. "I think I need time to make sure that Sierra regrets ratting us out."
"To be fair I'm pretty sure she didn't need to with how quickly we cleared the mall." Michael nodded to Brianne and started opening the door.
"We are a team; we shouldn't undermine each other." Xander gave a bitter smile as he prepared to leave. "Thank you, Brianne, as always."
"Maybe before you start talking about being a team you shouldn't start pulling us into fights without asking. Or you could stop arguing with Chandler for the sake of riling him up." Brianne said softly.
"Chandler needs to learn to not see things through rose colored glasses," Xander smiled again and this time it was not bitter at all. "As for your second point I will take note for future fights, everyone will be notified I'm about to pick one before I start." He moved past Michael out the door, but his voice came back into the room bright and clear. "Now I need to go figure out what I'm going to do to Sierra in the name of teamwork."
"Already covered it," Michael said as he left. "I put red Kool-aid powder in her shower head while she was telling on us to Ember. You guys really should learn that not all tricks are magical."
Brianne tried not to smile as they left.
✽ ✽ ✽
The dining room was enormous and Xander suspected it was copied out from some ancient castle that Ember had either visited or seen. A large always burning hearth sat at one end of the room and a table that shifted size depending on how many were eating was placed in the middle. He was not sure how the table itself worked. Xander had watched it carefully his first year or so suspecting at any moment it might contract and drop half the food to the floor. When the table was at its smallest it seated four people and was perfectly square. He had seen it grow to a size where it fed 20 people on two sides though the ends always stayed about right for one person. Ember did not entertain very often, so normally it sat in a small rectangle like it was tonight. Ember at the head, Sierra at the other end Michael sat at his side and Chandler manned the other side with Brianne.
Dinner itself was not quiet tonight. It started with Sierra berating Michael for her fruit punch red hair While the tall apprentice had just laughed. Every time she held a strand of her formally blond hair in front of her face to make a point, his friend just chortled even harder. Eventually, Sierra had given up and instead of eating spent most of the meal glaring. Happy to be out of Sierra's crosshairs for once, Xander sipped his water and chewed his roast beef silently.
Ember herself had not stepped in or made comment. She was not opposed to the apprentices playing pranks on each other as long as they were harmless, and the group still worked together as needed. Xander personally thought Ember liked the apprentices pushing against each other here and there. That was not to say there were not some strict rules they had to follow, but if Sierra and Michael wanted to try to outwit each other and play pranks it was just fine. Well, Michael would play pranks and Sierra would yell a lot, but the point remained.
"Fuego will be here to address us after our Battle Training this weekend." Ember's voice broke through the muffled sound of chewing. It was still strange she appeared almost as young as her apprentices when in human form. "He wants to see how your training is coming along, and to see if there is anything we need to address with you all." Ember folder her hands over her bare spot at the table. She sat in with the students at dinner, but rarely shared the meals. Xander suspected they were better off that way as he had no desire to watch the dragon gulp down a Cow or Deer in her normal form. That is assuming that is what Ember ate when she was in her normal form. Dragon diets had never really been a discussion they had held, and Xander did not see it being an addressable subject any time soon.
"The lord and master of all is going to come visit us little people, I can't wait." Xander speared another piece of roast and shoved it in his mouth.
"I'd be embarrassed when he came as well if I were you," Sierra said as she sipped her water. "How will you ever dazzle Fuego with your dull wit and broken sarcasm. Maybe you should tell him stories about your battles against mere mortals. Be sure to mention you didn't even finish the fight you started."
Silence again ruled the table. Xander was irritated that Sierra would bring up the subject again after they had already been dressed down and punished for their actions. Once a punishment had been dealt out there was no reason to keep discussing it. Well unless he pulled them into another fight. If that happened, then there would be plenty reason to address the subject again. He looked at Ember to see if the dragon might say something, but their master seemed to be sitting with her eyes half closed all but sleeping through the conversation.
"Maybe Sierra, you can charm him with your tact and honesty so Xander doesn't have to
entertain him,” Brianne said as she lowered her eyes and slowly took another mouthful of food. "If you are going to keep bringing up mistakes it won't accomplish anything. Xander may be a surly, sarcastic, unlikable jerk, but he's still part of our team. It does no good to the rest of us if you don't let go of situations that have already passed." Brianne continued to eat calmly.
"Thank you, I think," Xander pushed his food back no longer hungry.
"You should thank her," Sierra gave Xander a dead stare. "Just like Michael, she is willing to pull you out of the messes that your mouth gets you into. Thank her, thank Michael, they both will allow you to keep dragging down this team rather than working on making you a team player. When we graduate we will be working together. We will be the ones that stop wars, feed the hungry, and enforce the laws. We don't have to like each other but we do have to trust each other. How do I trust you when you are too arrogant to correct the attitudes that will keep us from graduating?"
"Are you talking about my mouth or my attitude about our overlords?"
"Both, your anger holds the rest of us back every time we are pulled into a meaningless fight because you can't shut your mouth." Sierra had stood up and was leaning forward with her hands on both sides of her plate. "I am done with it after today. Tomorrow during battle training, you are my target. You will be my target every week when we train until your attitude changes and you stop causing us trouble."
"I will happily show you what I think of your concern." Xander stood himself, though he was not as tall as Sierra he looked her straight in the eye and did not back down. "I will be the last man standing this week, and every week from here on out. I know you think you’re going to be the leader when we are done here, and that may happen. Even so, I will remind you that you are not the lead apprentice here. I will keep reminding you every week you want to challenge me. I have no problem putting you in your place every time. We all have faults and I am aware that mine are more than a little glaring. You have no room to lecture me on arrogance when your ego is big enough to crush everyone in this cave."
Xander was blinded as something wet and thick hit his face causing him to fall back into his seat. A shriek from Sierra told him she was experiencing the same thing. Michael started laughing at his side, and with a thump, he heard his friend’s chair fall over and hit the ground. Chandler was coughing and trying not to laugh as well. That meant there was one person who could have done this as Ember would never stoop to throwing food.
"Brianne, what in the skies do you think you are doing?" Xander started wiping pudding from his eyes so he could see.
"I think I am trying to make you both stop sounding like idiots. Besides it's about time for dessert so I didn't think you both would mind if I served some up."
Xander cleared his vision and saw that Brianne had two more globs of pudding, one hovering over each hand and ready to go at will. He glanced at Ember who looked rather bored as she examined her fingernails. She was not going to intervene.
"I think I'll pass on dessert tonight, thank you." Xander sat back down and calmly started wiping his face with his napkin.
"I think I'm done as well." Sierra sat and matched Xander's stance.
"With that out of the way then, you are all excused. I will see you in the morning for battle practice." Ember did not leave. She simply faded from the spot where she had been sitting.
"Oh, I think I could stand for some more dessert," Michael laughed as he righted his chair. He was still laughing when two globs of pudding hit him in the face.
In Practice
The dark was comforting to Xander. The other apprentices had their own routines for preparing for battle practice. Xander preferred to sit in his darkened room reading his spellbook.
He had been up for a couple of hours. The old familiar nightmare had come again last night. His parents turning on the radio to hear the announcer talking about dragons of all things. Muffled discussion from the front seat that at eight-years-old he did not care to follow. Then came the monster.
Winging over the line of cars the beast had been a molten silver dragon. It was easily thirty feet long. People panicked, cars swerved, and brakes were hit. He was pretty sure that his parents never even saw the semi-truck as it moved into their lane crunching the side of the car sickeningly. The car itself was forced over to the edge of the road where it found the dip and rolled. His world started spinning and crashing all around him. Objects flew around the car and with a sudden thunk an object hit him in the right temple. Everything went dark.
The rest of the memory is all darkness and sound. Xander remembered screaming for help but the cars moving along the highway above could not hear him. The truck driver for whatever reason did not stop and no one else noticed they had been pushed off the side of the road. His hands fumbled to open doors or find a way out of the vehicle, but nothing seemed to work. The car was sitting upright when it came to rest, so his bearings were on, but one handle in the back was loose and had no resistance the other door just wouldn't open.
His parents were silent. Part of Xander was thankful he was blind before he could see what the accident had done to them. His hands running over their bodies had been enough. Doctors had said that both had snapped their necks in the spin and that he was lucky to not have had a similar fate. He wasn't sure if that was a lie or not as he remembered the blood on his hands, but he had been too young to figure out where it was coming from. Fear had kept him from close examination of the bodies, other than finding their doors in as useless a state as the ones in the backseat, he had avoided crawling up again.
The doctors told him he was in the car for two days before someone noticed the wrecked vehicle down the side of the road. All he remembered of the time was the eerie silence in the car interwoven with moments of his panic and screaming hoping that help would come. For a young Xander it had been and eternity.
He would never know who the truck driver was who had run them off the road. Too many years had gone by and if he had been silent all these years the chances of figuring out that mystery was low indeed. He always watched for that silver dragon though. Every time a dragon visited, every time Ember took them to a gathering, his eyes would watch for a flicker of molten silver so that he might find out which dragon had killed his parents.
When he was given vision again, Xander never had quite adjusted completely. His notes and spell books were all in braille. He had enchanted each book so as he wrote in them, the work translated into the format he was the most comfortable with. Xander would often study in the dark and being in a room far underground that dark was pretty absolute, even with the enhanced vision that his eyes had been gifted with. He still had to close his eyes to be completely blind, but it was close enough to how he remembered it. Hours would go by, and he would sit here comfortably letting his fingers tell him the words and images that most would read visually. He could study and learn with the normal methods as well, this just felt more natural to him.
Magic itself was simple and difficult at the same time. It was a matter of giving order to the energy of the universe. You also gave some of yourself when you created the effect you wanted in providing order. This meant that if you wanted to start a fire, there was more than one way to go about it. The hardest and quickest being convincing the energy that made up the world to become fire at the spot you wanted it to burn. Easier, but more time consuming would be to gather the energy of hot objects around the spot and centering that heat where you needed it to build into fire. This could become harder if you reached far enough away to gather heat, but for all intents and purposes, it would take a lot less energy out of someone.
A spell book simply noted on organizing the different methods one found for working the energy of the world into different spells. There were also spells that required different circles, symbols, or ingredients. Potions were a prime example of this, a potion was created by mixing the best ingredients to get the desired effect. Sometimes, to the naked eye, the ingredient would not make sense. Howeve
r, the item's energy might be closer to the desired effect than one would think. Take apples for instance. Apples and apple juice were a great base for invisibility potions, just because that fruit had an energy that was extremely conducive to invisibility effects.
There were other things no one seemed to be able to explain. You could create food out of thin air if you took the time and effort to shape your energy correctly. This was limited to basic foods. You could make apples and oranges all day. Bread, alcohol or anything else that was a mix of different foods or had a process to create was much more difficult.
There would be no potions today. Today it was all about casting spells and being quick on your feet. Part of what Xander was doing by studying and meditating before the practice was building an energy field around himself. By slowly building his shield while he studied, he could have it in place and ready to go before battle. Otherwise he would have to waste the energy on summoning one right before the fight. It could be argued as cheating since the battle practice was supposed to test your ability to throw up defenses and fight without warning, but this would be acceptable until Ember called him out on it. Xander was sure as soon as the others caught on it would be against the rules, but until then an advantage was not something to pass up.
There was never enough time on battle practice day. You could wake up early and end up being too tired to perform your best, or you could sleep later and not have enough time to prep yourself for battle. It was all kind of pointless anyway. As far as Xander figured, there was no way to walk into a battle practice without some preparation beforehand. You knew what was coming, so you spent the morning thinking about the fight. There were surprises, but you could even be prepared for those to a degree since you knew you would be fighting. If Ember really wanted to test them, she would randomly announce they were to go to battle practice without notice. That would have been too unplanned for her though. It was easy to predict that everything would have a time and place when your trainer put order before anything else.