Disclaimer:I don't own anything!
Author's Note: Forgot to point out that now that Martel and Mithos are in the picture, there may be some references to my stories Dreams, Conversations with a Thirteen Year Old and As Only a John Can Be For a Jane, but you don't really need to read those in order to understand.
From the way the damn math class is going—and the only reason I'm writing right now is because there's only so many times you can fail the same test before you want to pound your head against the wall. I found a slightly safer outlet for the frustration—I'm not going to be able to do Dual Enrollment for the architectural drafting class. I needed to get my GPA up to be able to take it—two points! That's all!—and because math is evil and the bane of my existence, it looks like that's not happening.
Sorry for the rant. Needed to get it out somehow.
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The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate "apparently ordinary" people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people.
~K. Patricia Cross
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"So, wait, you know how to use magic already?" Yuan asked, looking at Martel. They had all decided that it was probably better that they not travel when the sun was highest in the sky due to the sheer heat in this area and they'd found a stream—half dried up, but still some relief from the heat.
Martel tucked a lock of hair behind a triangular ear. "Yes. All elven children are taught the very basics." She refused to think about the education that Mithos never had as she glanced at her little brother, floating on the water, dozing lightly.
"So how did you learn?" Kratos asked. Despite his manners, whenever he asked a question, he was very straightforward and occasionally even blunt. Martel rather appreciated it. At the current moment, Kratos was lounging on the ground, leaning back against Noishe, who Martel still wasn't accustomed to seeing. "I mean, I didn't think that the elves were very fond of half-elves."
He and Yuan addressed the race issue between them easily, without hesitation. As though the difference in race wasn't even an issue for them. And, from the way they acted, it wasn't. The regarded it casually and they even teased each other about it. It was strange to Martel, but she liked it.
"They're not." Martel slid her bare feet into the water. "I…I had a good friend growing up that was an elf. She taught me what magic she learned in school."
Yuan-and-Kratos didn't ask after what happened to that friend. They can imagine. After all, that situation was not so different from them and they'd imagined all of the scenarios that could have taken them apart.
Yuan leaned forward, slipping a little off the bwarm boulder he was resting on. "Could you teach me?"
"I thought you knew how to do magic. All the sailors were talking about how you used it on the soldiers."
Yuan avoided her eyes. "Well…I can't really use it on purpose yet. I know the theory, but I can't seem to actually…do it."
Martel saw it on his face, how ashamed he was of his lack of control of his own skills and how very much he wanted to relieve himself of the magic that, from the look of it, seemed to constantly be itching itself beneath his skin. "I'm no teacher, but I would be willing to try."
Yuan beamed brightly at her. "You're an angel."