Call dipped his bare feet into the cool water. Summer vacation had just started and Tamara had offered to have both him and Aaron over for the week.
Their copper year had been fairly uneventful, the stuff they learned was interesting though. Call thought about a previous lecture they had just before break. Some of the older students had shown how to blend things together to create something new with earth magic. Like a pear that tastes like cheese, or a rose that smelled like lavendar.
Call had almost asked if anyone had ever tried to combine two humans before, but then he thought about having two heads, or four arms and ended up creeping himself out.
He and Tamara were currently relaxing by the pool waiting for Aaron to arrive.
He'd been playing with Havoc while Tamara did a few laps, but then Havoc had left him and wandered into the house to escape the hot sun.
"What's wrong? Come on in, I promise not to splash you. Much."
Call shrugged, "I was just thinking."
"About what?" Tamara asked, now curious.
"About our last class, the one where the older students talked about blending the different elements and combining items.
"Yeah? What about it?You want to put an apple and an orange together?"
Call hesitated, "Actually I was thinking of something a bit more difficult." He rushed on not wanting to lose his nerve. "I was thinking, what if you could combine people? You'd get twice the magic, and their experience and everything. Like... like a fusion of two people. Y'know from that cartoon?"
Tamara was thoughtful for a minute. Call fidgeted. Was his idea too creepy? Combining food items was one thing, people were another. Experimenting with people was dangerous. Call had heard horror stores at school that the older students liked to tell of people getting stuck in rock walls, or losing a hand or a foot. And hadn't Constantine been into human experimentation? Call didn't want to be anything like that. Maybe this was a terrible idea, maybe...
Tamara cut into his thoughts, "Let's do it," she decided.
"What?"
"Let me dry off and think for a while, the principles are all pretty much the same. Blending things together is earth magic, but since it's us we're blending together I'm not sure what to focus our magic on."
"Well if we're using earth magic how about some rocks?" Call felt stupid for suggesting it, he really had no idea what to use for a focus.
Tamara looked at him slyly, "like on a certain TV show we both watch?"
Call shrugged, smiling.
"That's actually a good idea, we can use gemstones as focus points. I'm pretty sure my parents have some." She lifted herself out of the pool and grabbed a towl. "I'll be right back." She went into the house and soon returned with a ring and a bracelet both with blue stones in them.
"Are these sapphires?" Call asked.
"Not sure. Maybe. Anyway, stand closer to me." Tamara grasped his hand and put the bracelet on him. It was a chain of silver leaves with small gemstones between each one. she had the ring which was a simple band with a mounted stone.
"Now what?" Call asked. "The stones focus the magic but where should we spread it to?"
Tamara chewed her lip for a moment. "Let's try our hands first, that way if something goes wrong we can easily undo it."
Call started to feel queasy at the words 'something goes wrong', he pulled his hand away. "Uh... Tamara, maybe this isn't such a good idea."
"We'll be fine, don't worry! If you feel like something is going wrong just use air magic to break the binding."
Call took a deep breath, "Okay, I'm ready," he nervously took her hand.
They both focused on the gemstones trying to use earth magic to push them together. Call kept getting distracted, he'd never held hands with anyone except his dad when he was little. His cheeks grew warm. Tamara's hand was soft, and her hair was still damp and smelled of chlorine from the pool. He wondered what it'd be like as an amalgam with her? Would he forget he was Call? Would he be able to know what Tamara was thinking? Would it be anything like on TV?
"Nothing's happening!" Tamara said, frustrated.
"Maybe we should dance?" Call jokingly asked.
Tamara rolled her eyes, "Are you sure you're concentrating?"
"Yeah, maybe it's just not possible to fuse two people together?"
Tamara looked disappointed, "I guess," she sighed. "Mabye it's for the best, we could really mess this up if we're not careful." Call felt a twinge of guilt, he hadn't really been focusing on binding their gems together, and Tamara seemed like she really wanted it to work. It had been his idea after all, he should have tried harder.
He took a deep breath, "Let's try it one more time. I wasn't as focused as I could have been." Tamara grunted and sat down on a chair by the pool, drying her braids down with a towl. Her enthusiasm was somewhat depleted. "Maybe we can try it differently this time," he continued. "Like...instead of starting with the jewelry we start with ourselves and then focus the binding onto the stones. Make sense?"
"I guess..." she said slowly, still unwilling to give up on the idea. Nodding once she stood up, "okay we'll give it one more try before Aaron gets here." She dropped the towel, "You want to try dancing this time?"
"What?"
"I think your suggestion was actually good, dancing does involve patterns and timing and stuff like magic does," she explained. "Maybe if we coordinate the two we can make a solid binding?" She walked over to her speaker dock they'd been listening to earlier. Tamara had tons of playlists, and most of them Call had discovered, were either in Japanese or Korean. She picked a song that had a steady calm beat.
"You just want to see me embarrass myself by trying to dance," Call accused.
Tamara smirked and grabbed his hand. He stumbled forward as she pulled him along and he felt his face grow hot again when she put her hand on his back. Call thought about the cartoon they both watched while they danced. The characters had merged and formed into something different when they danced together maybe the same could happen for him and Tamara? Call could feel the bracelet growing warm on his arm.
'Maybe this will actually work!' He thought and grinned as Tamara picked him up and twirled him around. Then he blacked out.
