Alex waved her hand in a dismissive manner, and her two apprentices left her tent. She scratched her head in frustration, and tried the spell again.
"Eka Frekai!" She cast the spell at a flower, intent on draining the energy from the plant and directing it toward herself. As usual, the flower gave a spark of light, and then withered. Growling, she scratched down a few notes in a journal on a plain wood table, and then sat down.
Her tent was decorated like a shamans should, with bones, shells, and other unique items littered around the walls, perched up against walls, and hanging from the ceiling. From the back of the tent, (Which were her living carters, blocked from view by an extra flap of tent) a birds called. It was Taggerung, her pet white crow. Slowly getting up, she walked over, opened the flap, and went to lie on her bed. Holding out her hand, she let Taggerung flap onto it, where he perched for a good five minutes until flying out of the tent in search of extra food.
She pondered why she could not direct the plants energy to herself. Magic was a tricky business, but she almost always could move around the tears and find a way.
Ok, so I know how to take energy away from the plant, but why can't I give the energy to me? Maybe that's impossible… maybe I can only take away and not give. If that was the case, she would have to abandon this spell for the moment, and work on another spell that would give instant energy to those who needed it.
She jumped out of bed and ran outside when she heard a commotion outside. As she stood on her stilt porch, she saw Bardon, her apprentice, battling another shamans apprentice. The other kid was in the middle of casting a fire spell, when Bardon suddenly shot a small burst of lightning. It shot from his palms, and the other kid screamed in pain and fell to the floor. Quickly harnessing up the energy of the lightning, he shot the fireball. Bardon speedily jumped out of the way, the fire searing the side of his face. Growling, he gathered the energy for another lightning spell, when Alex suddenly walked in front of him, as speedy as an elf, and slapped Bardon in the face. Gasping, he spun around and was surprised to see his mentor.
"Fool!" She growled, "You know the penalty for dueling another apprentice without a mentor telling you too!" Moving out of reach of Alex's arms, he retorted,
"He was the one who started the fight! He said that I wasn't worthy of being an apprentice and that-"
"Stop!" Shouted Alex. "You apparently could fight him, by the looks of him." She pointed at the student who was trying to stand up. "Now quit trying to show your worthy by fighting kids weaker than you, and go fishing in the ocean for the village." Without waiting to see if he would follow her order, she stalked back inside to work on her spells.