"Fieri" Miku said confidently.
The tealette immediately felt the familiar warming sensation she now looked forward to every time along with the surge of power moving through her body, channeling it into the simple looking wooden staff that she held in her hand.
The air in front of her, more specifically near the tip of her staff, began heating up rapidly until it burst into a floating sphere of flames about a foot in diameter. She then used the staff to launch the ball of fire at a practice dummy set up about fifty feet away.
The scorching ball of flame tore through the air with incredible speed until it smashed directly in the chest of the mannequin, setting it ablaze in an instant flash of fire. Miku smiled at her accomplishment, this being the first time she was actually able to hit her target, as the several charred spots of land on the hill behind it would attest to.
"Well done Miku," the elderly gentleman standing beside her said. He wore a simple brown robe-like garment, that would do little for protection but seemed easy to move in and looked quite comfortable. The only part of the man that one could really see was his face. He wore rounded glasses and bore the tell-tale wrinkles of his age. His eyes, however, looked to be filled with wisdom and experience that he no doubt had seen and experienced during his travels.
"Thank you, Teacher," Miku replied in a happy tone.
"Again," he stated as he waved his own more artistically carved staff in the direction of the burning dummy; the fire disappearing almost as quick as it had appeared.
Miku focused and attempted to repeat what she had just done. She created the fireball but just as she was about to throw it the target dummy began moving to the left at about a walking pace. She turned her head over to her teacher who was pointing his own staff at the dummy: he was obviously controlling its movements.
"Well, go on." He reminded, acting as if he wasn't really doing anything.
Miku steeled herself, eager to meet this new challenge of a moving target. She took aim and hurled the fire ball out in front of the moving dummy. A second later and they would hit, but just as they were about to the dummy changed directions causing her fire ball to miss and hit the hill, setting the ground on fire. The fire however, only lasted a moment before vanishing magically on its own, but not without leaving its mark on the hillside.
Again, she looked over at her teacher who still held the same expression on his face, as if he had done nothing. It slightly irritated her when he would do that, but she left the issue alone and refocused so that she could try again.
Over and over she would shoot flame balls at the dummy and every time she would miss at just the last moment as the target would wither change directions or slow down or speed up. It was incredibly frustrating and it started showing in her attacks. The fire balls began getting bigger each time. They had already grown to twice the size they were at first and she was shooting them in quicker succession. Yet still, she missed every time.
Miku had finally had enough. She called upon a vast amount of energy. Much more than she had before.
"Fieri!" Miku shouted; creating a fire ball of immense size, about as large as herself, in front of her. She was just about to hurl it with full force down range when suddenly she became very wet. The sudden shock of the cold water snapped her out of her focus and the fiery orb shrank and then disappeared as she stood motionless.
Immediately, she felt a mix of embarrassment and regret. She had let her emotions get the better of her once again, a problem that showed itself every now and then and when it did her teacher had a real literal way of cooling her off: dumping a large amount of water that he manifested out of thin air right on top of her.
She eventually felt her teachers' hand on her shoulder, pulling slightly to get her to follow him. She did so, her head hung low due to the shame she felt in disappointing not only her teacher but herself as well.
The two walked a short distance to a nearby lake where they had been practicing water magic during their training. Along the way Miku reached into her pack to grab a towel that she had packed ever since the first water-logging she had received and began drying herself as much as she could. In the end she was no longer wet, just damp. They reached a small clearing a short time later and took a seat next to the water's edge. The lake was surrounded almost entirely by trees. It was very tranquil, the only sounds that could be heard was the occasional bird chirping and a slight rustling as the wind blew through the leaves overhead.
"Miku, I want you to do the water exercise we worked on yesterday," he said calmly.
The tealette looked at him questionably. He responded by motioning towards the water with his eyes. Resigning to his request she[6] then proceeded to do as she was instructed reaching her staff out in front of her over the water, the top just inches from the surface. Miku relaxed, took a deep breath and began the routine.
"Aquia" as she spoke the word, she touched the tip of her staff to the water, and when she lifted it back up a string of water followed it up as if attached by an invisible hook.
She went through the motions that she had practiced every day: weaving the string of water through the air in front of her in various patterns and then over the top of her head and around before the water separated from her staff and circled around her magically on its own forming a ring of water.
Moments later the ring became a single line again and shot high up in the sky as Miku directed it upward with her staff. It disappeared into the blue of the sky but Miku knew exactly where it was; she could feel it up there. It then dropped in a straight line down towards the lake. It pierced through the surface becoming part of the larger body of water once again with just a single ripple.
"Flawless," Miku's teacher commented.
She was pleased to hear the praise but still was curious as to the purpose of the exercise in the first place. And as if he could read her mind he spoke again.
"Miku, what is the difference between fire and water?" he said this as he looked at their reflections in the lake.
The question puzzled her. They were so obviously different and yet she couldn't find the right words to explain. Her teacher could see this as her eyes were locked upwards as if trying to read answers off her brain. He waited a few more moments before continuing the lesson by answering his own question.
"Fire…" he spoke slowly, "is hot, destructive, it burns almost everything it touches, and without magic," he summoned a small flame in his open palm, "uncontrollable." The flame grew suddenly before disappearing as he reached his hand into the still water beside them, a puff of steam taking its place.
Miku made sure to pay attention to every word as her teacher explained.
"Water though, is cool, life-giving: it flows with the terrain and takes on different forms. But despite those differences and many others, there is a common trait that water and fire share." He saw the puzzled look on his student's face and continued. "Essentia… essentia is what they share. And it is not just fire and water. All things in this world have some form of essentia; the trees, the rocks, the air we breathe… even you and I."
"To be a mage is to manipulate this essentia and bend it to our will. So, when it comes to the difference between water and fire, for a mage, there is no difference. Just as you controlled the water so beautifully just now, so too can you control the fire."
She took to heart the revelation that had just been presented to her. The tealette had never thought of the world that way before. The fact that everything was connected was a lot to wrap her mind around. This 'Essentia,' it was the first time she had ever heard such a word. And yet somehow, it was everywhere…
"You have learned the words, Fieri for fire, Aquia for water, or Aerii for the air, but what do those words actually mean? This you must come to understand completely if you are to be a true mage."
Miku nodded in understanding but her face still showed the signs of confusion. "How though? How do such simple words allow us to do these things?"
It was a complicated question and her teacher took a moment to ponder before giving an answer. "These invocations we speak come from long ago, back to the very first magi, and call upon the Essentia in its purest form of energy. Just now when you invoked Aquia you spoke directly to the essentia in the water and it responded to you, doing what you wished."
Things had started to clear up for her, but it still didn't all make sense. "But when I invoke Fieri there is no fire around for me to call to."
"Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it is not there my student. As I said, Essentia is everywhere. All types, with some exceptions, can be found wherever you go. It is only when enough essentia of a similar type get together that they become visible to you and me. That is why magi use staves." He gestured theirs as he said this. "They act as a focus point for the essentia to collect so that we may use it for our purposes."
Miku picked up her staff and looked at it with a new respect. "So then without a staff, controlling the essentia is impossible?"
He stroked his beard and thought about the question. "Well, I've certainly never heard of any mage being able to do such a thing, but I've had a lot of surprises in my life, a few of them even coming from you my student, so I suppose it might be possible…" He stared off into the distance as he mulled it over in his head. "But that can be a topic for a later time."
He slowly started to stand up and when he saw that Miku was joining him in the action he motioned for her to stay put. "No, Miku. I want you to stay here and meditate on what we have just discussed. Think about the essentia and how it is interwoven throughout the world. I will be back in a little while." And then he left, leaving Miku alone with her thoughts.
She turned to face the water and sat cross-legged with her staff in her hands looking down the length of it with its modest carving and markings. Such a simple thing yet so powerful. What was it about a staff that made it able to aid in magic casting? She remembered when her teacher had given it to her when they started training that it had come from a distant land. In her mind she made a note to ask her teacher about it later.
A sudden urge came over her and she set the staff down on the grass next to her.
She reached her hand out over the water's surface, palm down and focused. "Aquia." The warm feeling returned and flowed down her arm to her outstretched hand and then... nothing. Not even the the slightest movement. With a sort of dejected smirk Miku retook the mediation pose and let out a sigh.
"Worth a shot."
A/N
What's up everybody! Its been a long time. 4 years I believe. wow...
A lot has changed in that time. Finished college moved across the country and getting started in my career.
One thing that hasn't change is my love for Vocaloid, and especially lately I've kinda rekindled my enjoyment from it.
So I hope to be updating this story and my others more often going forward.
That said, I hope you are intrigued by this first chapter. Ive had this story idea sitting unfinished on my pc for a while and finally getting some time and desire to get it going. I have a lot of big ideas for this story and its characters that I plan to bring in later chapters and while some of those ideas i have a solid handle on, others are still things that might change, especially when it comes to characters. Eventually I would really like to get readers' (you all) thoughts and ideas on how to integrate some of the other players into the story. But, I'm not there yet. I'll let you know when.
Now that this is published my immediate plan is to go and update my other stories before returning to continue this one. So if you're one of my old readers look forward to that. If you're new Please do go check out the other stories on my profile. They are MikuxLuka (Negitoro FTW) just so you are aware.
A huge thanks goes to IdrewAcow for her amazing support and friendship that goes far beyond just helping with this story. -THANK YOU-
So thank you for reading. Please leave a review and let me know what you think so far and I hope to be talking to you all again soon.
~Jak656