Kites Flew No More.

“Look, Mom! The kite Victor made for me flies so much higher! And it doesn’t fall!” She said while running towards her.

“Amazing! Maybe he’ll grow up to be an engineer.” Mom said, petting her hair.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It IS a big deal! Don’t you understand how important this is?” Tiara looked at me with those passionate eyes of hers—the ones I was never able to mimic.

“It just stays in the air a little longer.”

“You don't get it. Let your awesome sister show you how wrong you are, just look!”

She ran barefoot with the in-the-air kite—along the lakeshore, doing all sorts of tricks with it until she ran out of breath.

*Huff*

*Huff*

*Huff*

Bent down with hands on her knees she asked:

“Did you see it?”

“It’s just a kite flying.”

“Just a kite flying you say??? Take it back!” She magically recovered her breath, for the sole purpose of arguing.

“But it is”

“Mom! Tell him to take it back!” She said, turning to face mom, pointing her finger at me.

“Why don’t you better try to communicate to him why it’s not just a kite for you?”

“Words are not my thing… they’re difficult…” She said while kicking grass.

“Just try, and you’ll see that talking about yourself is not as bad as you think.”

“Ok… If you say so…

Listen Victor! What you saw just now is proof we can be free!”

“?”

“The wind doesn’t want the kite to fly, but we do! And with your head and my amazing kite abilities we’re able to fly! We’re able to tell the wind that we’re no different from birds! That wherever we want to go… We will! And that the only thing that matters is choosing wisely. So that the wind stops trying to stop us and instead… helps us!”

“But we can’t fly… Only the kite.”

“That’s not important, I’m sure you’ll be able to make us fly! So use that head of yours, and create a bigger kite! One which can fit us all! And take us to a world at the end of the rainbow!”

Ah yeah… I remember this day… Shortly after she said that—a storm struck, and our kite flew away, we never found it… and we never had the chance to use the new one I had made.

I had forgotten… It was supposed to be her birthday present—the birthday she left.

She cried over the kite all the way back. Until we reached the home where we weren’t allowed to cry.

“We losing our kite doesn’t mean that what I said earlier doesn’t stand! Our next kite will endure the wind! It will reach the end of the rainbow!”

I guess we’ll never know.

———————————————————————————————-

This time, instead of spreading across the bed, she’s clinging to me, head on my chest, drooling all over my shirt.

“Time to wake up, drooling beauty.”

“*Washa washa washa…*”

No use…?

“Aren’t you gonna teach me some new spells?”

“New spells?”

She sat up in a sudden motion.

“You’re still drooling.”

I wiped the drool with my shirt.

“What should you learn today? Should we focus on practicing the same spells? Should I teach you how to modify the other parts of the spell?”

“I’d like to learn new ones, learning how to modify them takes more time than just learning others.”

“Aw… You got me excited for a second…”

“You are the teacher, so whatever you consider more useful.”

“I really think perfecting the basics is key, especially since we have to return tomorrow…”

“Then we’ll do that. But first let’s have some breakfast.”

We were about to get downstairs, but halfway through the staircase—we saw wanted posters of ourselves hanging on the wall…

“This is bad…”

“Really bad…”

“What do we do?”

“Forget about eating, let’s get out of this town and continue the magic training in the same place as yesterday.”

“What If they follow us? This maid outfit is not gonna work as camouflage here…”

“We have to make a run for it… teach me the invisibility spell, we’ll use it to get out of this place before someone notices us.”

“Ok, then repeat after me: Oh spirit of knowledge! You who are energy itself! Will of Prometheus! I seek your salvation! I seek your path! Please, oh please! Don’t lay hand on me!”

After repeating the incantation, we ran until leaving the town, fortunately the hostel was close enough to the entrance to barely make it.

“We made it…”

She sighed in relief.

“And I learned a new spell! Which other variations of light magic are there?”

“Light magic, although easier to control than dark magic, is more difficult than wind magic, so don’t get ahead of yourself…”

“I first have to graduate from the four basic elements then?”

“Yeah.”

We reached our so called “training grounds” and she taught me how to shorten the incantations.

“As long as the activator is said, the spell will work, but if you only say for example: Burn! Then any of the spells that could be activated with it will be cast randomly, so it could result in any between a light, dark or a fire spell, as well as not being able to control the mana deployed of course.”

“Got it, so I should prioritize the element which I want to use right?”

“Bzzz. Wrong.”

“Eh? But it’s the only way of predicting what will happen.”

“In that you are right, but what happens if no mana is used? Or on the contrary… If all of your mana gets sucked out?”

“Oh…”

“Exactly. And it also applies to spell control. So the order to shorten incantations is: first priority—mana deployment, second priority—spell control, and lastly—element connection.”

“Got it. So the reason why I wasn’t able to fly yesterday was because the incantation was in base form, meaning both mana deployment and spell control weren’t adjusted properly?”

“That’s one of the reasons, yes.”

“The other ones being?”

“The four basic elements have a preference towards strikes, with water and wind being the most flexible respectively. Continuous and/or uniform actions are very difficult to control, even for the greatest magicians.”

“I see… it makes sense…”

“Anyway, I think it’s time for a duel!”

“A Duel? Against you?”

“Yes!”