Playing

Flay told his mother “I’m going out to play!” as he ran out of the house. Ever since he was finally able to use magic, his parents preferred him studying it for a while before telling anyone about it. As far as that was going, Flay’s progress was exceptional. Individually, he was rather slow with mastering spells, but he could work on multiple beginner spells at once because he was capable of using almost every type of Magic. It was unlike Glinst had ever seen before, and she’d mastered the weakest intermediate Water spell at an early age.

“I can’t wait to see the look on Histen’s face when I show him my magic.” He snickered, as he approached the group of kids playing with a ball of water like last time. Only this time, he waited until someone noticed him to avoid a situation like the last attempt. Unfortunately, Flay had to stand there for a solid three minutes before anyone actually said anything, much less acknowledge him.

“Hey, are you just gonna keep standing there or are you going to leave?” Histen said with disdain, keeping his eye on the ball. Suddenly, he had a cruel idea.

“Actually, catch!” He shouted, tossing the ball of water his way in an attempt to humiliate him. It backfired though, as he managed to catch it without problem.

“Ha! I caught it!” Flay exclaimed, excited at the prospect of finally being able to participate. Histen’s jaw dropped as the other kids had similar surprised expressions.

“Woah! Since when could you use magic?” One of the boys asked with genuine curiosity. Flay scratched his cheek, slightly uncomfortable with the look he was getting from Histen, who’d gotten over his shock and scowled at him.

“Just a few days ago, I kind of started using magic all of a sudden?” He shrugged awkwardly. “B-but enough about that, now that I can use magic, I’m able to play with you guys now… Right?” He asked. Three of the kids looked at each other, and silently agreed, but Histen was having none of that. How could he accept this? That explanation is way too vague, and the entire thing was just too sudden for him to believe.

“Now hold it Stubs, I’m the leader of this game, and I refuse to let you play with us.” Histen said, crossing his arms. The other three kids disagreed, however, and decided to walk away from Histen and towards Flay instead.

“Hey, he has magic now, he should be able to play this game now. If you won’t let him, then we’ll just have to play without you.” Histen glared at Flay, feeling betrayed by his friends.

“Ugh, whatever. I’m going home to practice my magic.” Histen said in defeat, flicking his parted hair back in a huff. Flay was too happy about the outcome to pay attention to Histen.

“So um, how do you play this game?” Flay asked. He’d only caught glimpses of the group playing with a ball of water, but he figured it would be wise to make sure.

“It’s not hard, you just need to use water magic to keep the ball of water from exploding either in your hands or on the ground. The last person to touch the ball before it explodes is the loser.” The boy with long black hair explained. Seemed pretty simple, but maybe there was too little to it. Flay had no ideas on how to make the game bigger though, but he didn’t mind as long as he was able to play too.

“By the way, my name is Alin, but my friends call me Al.” He continued. It never occurred to Flay that he didn’t even know the names of the boys who hung out around Histen.

“I’m Klint! Nice to meet you!” The boy with short blonde hair said. Flay recognized that that was the boy who he’d accidentally surprised last time he tried talking to them.

“And I am Harth. Pleased to make your, um… Acquaintance!” He introduced himself with a polite bow. Though he seemed a little awkward, Flay felt he’d get along well with him, as well as the Klint and Alin.

“Let’s get along!” He finished, with the three of them nodding. He then cast Aquorb and tossed towards Klint, who was directly in front of him. Klint then tossed it to Alin, who was to his right.

“Hup!” Alin then threw it forwards, as Harth caught it. The four of them continued to play like this, as a few other kids in the village gathered to watch, realizing that Flay was among the boys who once played with Histen. Flay heard some murmurs to his sides, talking about how they weren’t aware he could actually use magic now, but he was having too much fun to really think about that. He was grateful for that fruit.

His feelings of happiness manifested in the form of the ball wavering as it touched his hands, it even seemed to glow very slightly. Though it wavered, it never threatened to burst, and kept its form elegantly. As Harth touched it though, it looked like it was shaking, and then calming down again whenever Klint or Alin would touch it. Flay made sure to keep this in the back of his mind, before going right back to paying attention to the game.

Later that evening, Flay was sitting at the table and reading the book his mother gave him for learning magic. Among the types of magic that were found in the book, Water was his favourite to cast. In particular, Aquorb was a lot of fun to master. On the other hand, he’s less ecstatic about Fire magic. The first time he tried using Spark ended in burning his hand, but he was glad it turned out that way so he could discover he was also capable of healing magic, even if he wasn’t very good at it.

As of now, he was around 40% of the way into the book, but there was still quite a bit of material to get through. This pace came as a surprise to Glinst, but after she got over the initial surprise she decided to accept it.

“So Flay, I heard around town that you were seen playing with some boys and using magic.” Glinst began, grinning. He nodded vigorously, reminiscing about the day’s events. Not once did he lose at that Aquorb tossing game, but he did come close at one point. Thankfully, he wasn’t accused of cheating as a result of his performance. He had a strong feeling that would have been the case had Histen stuck around to play too, but he didn’t mind his absence.

“Oh yes, it was great! I played with these boys named Alin, Klint, and Harth. They were a lot of fun to play with.” Glinst smiled at how happy Flay had become recently. Frankly, she did not know what would have become of him had he kept living like he did prior to gaining magic. She didn’t know anyone close to her who was magic-less so to speak, not well enough to guess how Flay would have grown up like that anyway.

“You know Flay, I was thinking about something… Your 9th birthday is coming up soon, and we figured you’d enjoy going to a nearby magic school next year,” Grif said, watching Flay’s expression carefully to gauge how he felt about it. Flay’s eyes showed a hint of hope, but a hint of fear as well. “I think it’d be fun to go to a magic school, you could make all kinds of friends in a place like that, especially if it’s the one your mother went to when she was your age.”

It certainly sounded tempting to Flay, and he’d have a little over a year to think about it, but for now he was content with learning with his mother from her book and practicing magic on his own. He had to admit it did sound a little fun to imagine what kind of friends he would meet in magic school though.

“Will I still get to decide before I turn nine?” He asked, just to be sure.

“Well, that sounds good to us.” Grif said, with a nod of confirmation.

“Alright, with that settled, I’d like you to try out an intermediate Water spell I learned when I was your age.” Glinst requested. Flay was a little unsure of trying it. Sure, he’d gotten down quite a few basic Water spells, and mastered one, but he felt like it might be too soon for intermediate spells.

“Come on, I just want to see if you’re capable.” She gave him a smile of assurance, which he accepted.

“Okay. What does it look like?” He asked. In response, she motioned for him to hand her the book, which he did, so she could turn to a certain page.

“This is “Boil Shot”. It’s a special kind of offensive Water magic that uses scalding hot water instead, and it’s tricky to get just right. The first time I tried using it, I got the water all over my hand and had to get my mother to heal it for me.” She explained. “It’ll be fine though, I can use a pretty good healing spell myself.”

If she hadn’t mentioned what happened to her when trying to use it, he might have considered it, but he thought it’d be best to hold off until he masters more beginner Water spells first.

“Um, am I allowed to say no?” Flay asked.

“Of course you may. It’s rare for someone to be able to use intermediate spells at your age, I was just curious about whether you wanted to try it or not with your current training.” She explained.

“Maybe I’ll do it after I master more Water spells… For now I’ll keep practicing the easy stuff.” Flay thought that was a pretty reasonable condition, which Glinst seemed to agree with as she nodded.

“While you will be practicing various spells here thanks to that book, there’s plenty more stuff a magic school would be able to teach you that I couldn’t, so I hope you look forward to enrolment if you decide to go.” Grif spoke up. Flay nodded in response, before taking back the book and reading it.

A month had passed, and Flay was pretty close to mastering all of the beginner Water spells, but his birthday was also just around the corner, so he made the difficult decision to trade time to play for time to study as he felt he was falling behind a little.