Learning Experience

Loali and I didn’t say much as we quickly finished eating. She didn’t seem to want to talk about anything her dad had brought up, and I wasn’t about to ask.

I do want to know, though.

It was only after we were both safely back in the workshop that we started up a conversation again, out of earshot of Itelber quietly working at the other end of the workshop, and of course it had to do with our greatest common interest; magic devices.

“Danny, how far did you get with making a barrier with the materials I gave you before we went to the forest?”

“I’m still having a hard time with space magic, so not very far. You’re probably going to have to recharge the fur again soon, I’ve already wasted a lot trying to make the device.”

“That’s fine, I’ll go ahead and do that before I get started with my things.”

“You want me to work on that for now?”

“Yeah. You need to let your magic recharge, and there aren’t any devices you can make that we need to trade with the merchants at the moment anyway, so you might as well experiment. You’ve already got all the materials we need to trade ready, right?”

I took a moment to confirm as much in my head, glanced around the workshop, and nodded.

“I do- but shouldn’t I just focus on ice magic?”

“I don’t know if there’s much room for you to improve with ice magic anymore, unfortunately, and space magic is useful enough for us that it’ll be good if you can get the hang of it.”

Over the past few years I’d practiced manipulating a couple affinities to make simple devices, the most prominent one being ice magic. It took me several years to get the hang of it, but like Loali had when she was a kid I had eventually started to feel the new affinity of magic responding to me more strongly. I still couldn’t create ice magic myself, obviously, and I needed to be more cautious than the others when making a device of an affinity I didn’t have, but I had been able to make rudimentary devices and maintain the condition of some of our necessary ice magic devices.

At Loali’s request, I’d also tried my hand at making simple electric magic devices, and had slightly more limited success. Again, I could only create fairly simple devices with electric magic itself, though I’d learned and adapted just a bit of my own knowledge to make somewhat useful physical circuits. All that being said, Loali and Fridle still far exceeded my own skill at making such devices, so they didn’t need me to make any.

For the past half year or so, when I wasn’t focused on my usual jobs maintaining and using organic devices around the village, I’d been trying my hand at manipulating space magic, again at Loali’s request. It’d been as frustrating as each of the other affinities, but I was slowly starting to understand this type of magic like the others.

“I’ll do that, then.” I responded, and moved to get a particular nullifying box from the shelves that contained my work in progress. Loali followed just behind me, and when I handed the box down to her she wasted no time opening it and starting the process of transferring magic to it.

“It is still early days,” she noted, and something about her furrowed brows felt off to me. “I can’t really feel that the magic has changed all that much, but I can tell there is progress.”

“It's just a matter of time until I can make a tiny little barrier.” I chuckled, and she shook her head.

“I agree that it's just a matter of time, but I know you can do better than that. Remember what I said, alright?”

“Doubt is a killer, I know. I’m just keeping my expectations realistic.” I responded, and as I watched her I continued to take note of the way she stared at the fur. I couldn’t quite place my finger on it at first but eventually I realized that, for some reason, she seemed less excited about my progress than usual. When I was developing my abilities to manipulate ice and electric magic, each milestone inevitably meant I’d see Loali’s bright eyes congratulating me.

I didn’t need her approval, so that wasn’t the issue. It was seeing her react to magic with something other than excitement that left me with an odd feeling.

“How much work do you still have to do?” I asked, though I’d wanted to ask if she needed to rest. I knew by now that she’d never abandon her work when there was something she still had to or wanted to get done.

“I just need to finish off two devices for the merchant, and they’re already fully charged. After that I’m going to experiment for a while.”

“You’ve been using a lot of magic the past few days though, haven’t you?” She shrugged, so I decided to bring up another thing I’d noticed earlier to hopefully subtly convince her to rest sooner. “I know what you said to your mom, but I’m pretty sure you’re underselling the amount of magic you’ve been burning through. Norte seems to have a lot.”

“I’m doing alright.”

“You’re not tired at all?”

“Not really. I’ve been pretty motivated recently, and I promise I’m not wearing myself out too much.” She assured me, and handed me the fully charged fur. I didn’t exactly believe her, given how exhausting magic use could be, but I figured I’d just stick around for a while in the workshop tonight to keep an eye on her. I could recall more than a few times where she’d fallen asleep at her workstation, luckily only after she’d finished the devices she was working on, and how we’d carried her inside to rest in one of Itelber’s rooms.

“What idea are you working on?” I questioned, considering her comment about her motivation, but she waited a few seconds before she answered.

“I’m... not completely sure yet, but I have a few ideas.”

“Like what?”

“It’s a personal project- for now I need to finish up the devices that need to get done, so you should start working on your space magic again.”

Loali wasted no time returning to her workstation, leaving me to stare at the teal fuzz in my hand for a few moments, likely with an expression similar to the one Loali had on earlier.

This wasn’t exactly the first time that she went to work on an experiment that she didn’t want to talk to me about, and usually I brushed it off as a project for Kogen’s sake, probably at her mom or someone else’s request. At most, I’d been a bit curious about these projects, and sad we couldn’t discuss them like all the other devices we worked on, but other than that I didn’t put much thought into those experiments. There wasn’t much of anything different about her atmosphere this time if I really thought about it, as she’d been secretive and a bit conflicted before, but for some reason this instance particularly caught me off guard.

Does she seem... sad?

I couldn’t say for sure that she was, but unlike the times before where she just appeared a bit unsure I could swear, this time, that something more had seeped in. Her eyes had been duller and her whole body slower. Sad, distressed, disheartened, gloomy, whatever it was in those veins, I didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Asking her about it probably wouldn’t yield any answers, and I wasn’t about to go snooping on projects she didn’t want to show me.

I don’t like seeing her like this.

My stomach, hands, and feet all stung with pain and discomfort, but I eventually just moved to my workstation and forced myself to let it be. She didn’t need me annoying her with questions or watching over her when she wanted to work. She’d already given me something to work on.