The next day passed without any significant events, merely involving a lot of practice.  The following day, when the first session with teachers would take place, however, found Dawn and Niphru splitting up.  Niphru stayed upstairs to practice his wind magic some more, with assistance from Richard.  Meanwhile, Dawn headed downstairs for the lessons.

She arrived while the apprentices were still gathering, finding that there was a significant gap between Lisryn and the others.  For several moments more, people trickled in to join the group, only a couple daring to go near Lisryn and her guardian.  Eventually, three of the older mages arrived and began the lesson.

Just as she had been told, Dawn found herself quite bored, often struggling not to answer questions before the teachers.  A fair amount of what was talked about she had actually learned back at her village from her mother’s teachings.

Everything changed, however, during one of the practice sessions.  One of the men practicing with earth magic lost control, sending a large rock flying.  To everyone’s horror, it bounced and flew directly into Lisryn’s weak leg, causing her to collapse to the floor.  As the teachers tensed up and all the students recoiled away, the man who had lost control stuttered that he didn’t mean to do it.

After a hiss of pain, Lisryn looked up and, upon seeing everyone’s reactions, sighed and exclaimed, “Oh, just cut it out already!”

Shaking her head, she gestured to her leg and continued, “Does this look like it might kill me?  No?  Then, my guardian has no reason to act.  Does it look like an attempt to kill me?  No?  Then, no one is in danger.  It does, of course, hurt immensely, however.”

The man finally finished his stuttered apology, and Lisyrn focused on him before stating, “You don’t need to apologize; I am well aware that accidents happen.  That said, I accept your apology, so you needn’t feel like I hold it against you.”

Struggling against the lingering fear, Dawn stepped forward and remarked, “Uh, I am a healer.  I can at least stop the pain, even if I can’t fix your limp.”

Lisryn turned to her from her position on the floor and replied, “Thank you, I would very much appreciate that.  It hurts too much to stand right now, so there might be a little new damage, if you could check that as well.  I do, however, actually want to keep the limp.  It helps me keep in mind that I am not better than anyone else, merely lucky enough to be chosen for an important role.”

“That is an unusual way to look at it, Lisryn, but I think I can understand,” Dawn responded, moving to crouch beside her, ignoring the stares of the others.

True to her guess, Dawn did find evidence of the injury worsening, and after a moment of consideration, worked to reduce it, leaving the older injury alone.  Following this, she numbed the area the rock had hit.

Lisryn breathed a sigh of relief as Dawn leaned back, and both stood back up as Lisryn said, “Thank you very much for your assistance, Dawn.  I was worried I’d have to leave due to that occurring.”

“I don’t mind, but it is a little scary being near your guardian, even if you say we have nothing to worry about.  In my mind, a healer should try to help in most situations, so I had to at least offer,” Dawn replied as she moved to the back of the group again.

The rest of the lesson proceeded without incident, and Dawn found herself headed back upstairs.  Upon arrival, she was almost bowled over by Niphru as he raced by, propelled by a strong gust of wind.  Rather than stop to turn around, he leapt into the air, flipping over and about as the gale pushed him to the ceiling, then lunged forward, flipping over again.  This just barely managed to stop him, and he began running towards Dawn, throwing himself into her arms now that she was prepared.

Having stabilized herself, Dawn laughed at Niphru’s antics as she swept him up into a hug.  Dawn took them to sit at one of the few tables on this level, and began explaining to Niphru how things had gone during the lesson.  As expected, Niphru found the lack of a reaction from the guardian surprising, though it did make him feel less scared as well.

While Dawn had been at the lesson downstairs, Niphru had met up with Richard, and they had focused on improving his control over his wind magic.  While he didn’t have much luck with force magic, it appeared that he had a reasonable amount of talent with wind, allowing him to rapidly learn how to properly speed himself up and extend his jumps.

Once they were done sharing their experiences, Dawn decided to meet with the others and talk with them for a while, but Niphru remarked, “I’m feeling exhausted after running around a lot, so I think I will go to bed, if you don’t mind.”

Answering him, Dawn replied, “I don’t mind, but I’ll be up for a while longer.  I hope you sleep well.”

Niphru nodded, then returned to their residence.  Following the instructions they had been given, he sent his mana into the door, which opened to allow him inside, then repeated the process to close the door again.  After a moment of consideration, he proceeded to a corner of the bed so that Dawn wouldn’t wake him when she arrived, and laid down to sleep.

Early next morning, Niphru awoke with Dawn still asleep beside him and jumped off the bed, heading to their balcony.  As he sat there, he focused on the ambient mana, carefully drawing more of it inward until he began to feel the sense of danger that overload brought him.  Now that he felt he had enough mana, it was time for more attempts at force magic.

Unlike Dawn, he did not have anything small and easy to control, so instead, he simply lifted a paw and tried to form a barrier underneath.  Dozens and dozens of times, he felt no resistance and slightly changed what he attempted, eventually feeling a tiny force against his paw as it dropped.  Focusing on repeating the same process, he could feel slight resistance, and barely contained a yip of joy, remembering that Dawn was still asleep nearby.

Since he seemed to still have spare time, he continued his practice, slightly varying his methods as he did so.  Slowly, he managed to refine his technique until he could very lightly rest his paw against the barrier without it breaking, though all the work had exhausted him.

Niphru decided he had made enough progress for now, so he drew in more ambient mana until he returned to where he was beforehand, then headed back inside.  Dawn was still asleep, and he did not want to wake her by jumping onto the bed, so instead, he went into the living room and leapt onto one of the chairs.  It took a few moments to find a comfortable position, and then he went back to sleep, happy that he had finally succeeded at managing to use force magic.

Shard

Feel free to join my discord server, I am on discord more often than here, and can more easily answer any potential questions.