Master-Level Skill Acquired: Pulling Water out of Thin-Air!

Ok Thalia, I'm ready. Where do we begin?”

“Hmm…” Thalia scratched her chin, “I think I need to see your true aptitude for water magic first. We are pretty far from the lake, so you won't be able to use that as a source. But there is always miniscule amounts of water in the air itself. Allow me to demonstrate.” Thalia's eyes flashed their familiar vibrant blue and she waved her hand around in the air as if gathering an invisible objects and scraping them into a bowl. After a few seconds, Thalia gathered enough humidity to make a small orb of water. She held it up for Alara to observe before freezing it and firing it at the ground. When the small orb struck the ground it left a dent. 

Thalia looked at Alara with a very serious expression on her face, brows flat and lips pursed without a hint of a smile. “Did you see what I did there?”

Alara shrugged, “ Honestly, not really. I saw the end, but I am confused how you drew the water out of thin air.”

Now Thalia was smiling, “I didn't do anything. When exposed to mana, water acts as a magnet towards itself. Meaning with a little bit of energy added, water attracts water,” 

Alara moved her hands and practiced the motion Thalia made a few times. It was an entirely different feeling than when she used healing magic before. When they were still in the cave, she had barely had to put in any effort into making the water appear, but here in the town she was struggling to form even a drop.  Thalia watched Alara struggle with tremendous effort for about 15 minutes. Her brow was dripping with sweat and her movements had slowed.  Thalia would have stepped in sooner, but learning when to ask for help was a lesson that her new student would have to learn on her own if she wanted to thrive in the dungeon. 

Thalia stepped in front of her struggling pupil and used her magic to remove the sweat from Alara's  glistening forehead. Even with her hair disheveled, and out of breath, Alara still looked regal which served as a reminder to Thalia of their difference in stature. The princess's shoulders slumped as she looked sadly at her teacher. 

“No matter what I do I just can't get this to work, but in the dungeon it felt almost natural. Can you give a girl a hint at where I'm failing?” Alara smiled sheepishly at Thalia. It was difficult for her to admit defeat, but she was exhausting herself without any results so she had no choice but to ask for help. 

Thalia stepped behind Alara and placed her hands on top of the princess's while peering around her back, Thalia commanded, “Use all of your senses to feel the way that my mana is moving. Like in the dungeon, imagine the ebb and flow of water, but on a smaller scale. Imagine a single drop of water gathering on the side of a glass. You want your mana to be the pool that those drops come together to form at the bottom of the glass. Do you feel my mana?”

With her eyes closed she could sense warmth emanating from Thalia's hands. Her mana felt different than Alara's and made her feel at ease somehow. But she could feel the difference in the way the mana moved, Thalia's was very smooth and even, while Alara's was less consistent and the strength would vary slightly as she moved. She was ready to try it on her own, but was secretly enjoying the proximity to the little woman pressed against her back. She secretly breathed in Thalia's sweet scent a final time before stepping away from her new teacher. 

With confidence she declared, “I think I get it now. Let me try it.” She copied the moves Thalia had shown her and tried to mimic the priestess's mana flow. To her delight, tiny droplets of water started to appear in the air and slowly were coming together into a large orb. Before she knew it the water grew to the size of Alara's own body.

Thalia couldn't help but smile. The princess didn't realize it, but she had just used high-level water magic for the second time. Thalia had never seen a more promising student, excluding herself of course. She figured she should congratulate her pupil rather than keep Alara's aptitude a secret from her like Thalia would have liked. She figured Alara would do some damn near impossible things if she didn't know the things she was doing were exceptional, but disliked dishonesty too much for that.

Thalia started clapping and when Alara turned to look over her shoulder, her gathered water fell to the dirt road. “Bravo my student. You have just learned master-level control of water magic. Healing magic and gathering water from the air are actually both master-level techniques. You have far exceeded my expectations. Now for your test. I want to take a bath, so I need you to bring the water to the bathhouse. I'll show you where it is.”  With a dramatic turn and twirl the little woman headed towards the building directly behind the statue bearing her countenance. 

Stunned by the words of praise from Thalia, Alara followed with a tense smile on her face.  She found it hard to believe that what she had just learned was advanced water magic since she had learned it in less than a day. Maybe she really was special, and if she was, she wondered if her family had known about this the entire time. She was finding out that they were keeping many secrets from her about the Eldings as a whole, so it wouldn't be out of the question for them to keep this a secret too. If they had told her, Alara was sure she would have had a much better life. 

She thought about how different things could have been. She was sure Thalia would have found her and maybe they could have mended the relationship between the Elding and the Isaz. She could have grown-up knowing the priestess, maybe even held her hand and clung to her. She could see in her mind, Thalia and herself holding hands and cuddling by the lake outside of the palace gates. But that was just a pipe dream. Alara wanted to make things better between the surface and the dungeon now though, so she would have to work hard to foster peace. 

Once she got to the large house she saw that  it was not a normal home, but a large communal bathhouse. It had shelves to stack clothes on and an area with stools to wash-up before getting into the bath. Beyond a curtain there was a  large, and empty, bath tub. 

Thalia laid on the ground and pointed to the tub.  “Use what you learned to fill that tub. I'll be here napping. Wake me when you get it full then I'll teach you how to heat it up. Wonder what Yotaro is doing? Anyways, night.” Thalia closed her eyes and as soon as she did, she was asleep. Her neck was at an uncomfortable angle, so Alara took off her riding jacket and folded it into a neat little pillow. She placed it under Thalia's head, before she got to work in her bra and riding pants. 

The priestess pretended to be asleep but cracked her eye open slightly. She got a perfect look at Alara, dripping with sweat in just her fancy bra. The sight immediately brought indecent thoughts into her mind. As she thought of all the ways she could make the princess sweat like that, Thalia was no longer tired. She felt herself filled with such strong desire that she started squirming. This was really bad. If just a bra had her going, Thalia was going to literally lose her mind when she saw Alara’s bare skin in the bath.

As Thalia had expected based on the girl's natural talents, within minutes she had already filled the large communal tub. Alara was surprised to find Thalia's gaze meet hers as she bent down to wake her master. 

“Oh! I thought you were asleep. The bath is all full now.”

With a dull and annoyed expression on her face Thalia muttered, “How was I supposed to sleep when you were looking like that… Nevermind. Well done. Time for temperature control training. How ya feeling about magical energy? Got enough?”

Alara let out a tired exhale, “Actually, I could use a bit of a break. Feeling pretty exhausted.”

Normally Thalia would just give any of her students some of her own mana when they were tired, but she was worried she would become engulfed in passion if she touched Alara right now. Instead she decided to show Alara what complete mastery of mana control actually looked like. 

“Hey princess, wanna see something cool?” Thalia asked, trying to conceal her excitement. 

Alara thought her travel companion looked best when she had a cute smile plastered on her face and was excited to see what kind of outrageous creation or skill Thalia was going to show her. She responded excitedly, “Hell yeah! You don't even have to ask!”