He doesn’t know why, but his young little heart is racing, his hands sweaty as he dared to ask her.

“Excuse me, Freesia, can you help me?”

She looked at him with no particular expression.

“Yes, what happened Ran? How are the magic lessons going? Lan tells me your teacher is a kind young man” Her voice sounded a little stiff and awkward.

“Ah, yeah, Mister Taft is really smart. He knows a lot about magic, but,”

“But?”

“I think he’s a genius,” She grinned at those words, “he told me he’s always been able to use magic with no problem, so I can’t understand when he tells me to feel the energy, I don’t understand it”

“I see,”

Freesia understood him, she herself had problems when first starting to learn magic back at the orphanage, and as she knew, this part was probably the most critical for any young mage to be, learning how to interact with mana, how to channel it in your body.

It’s like learning how to walk again as if you discovered an organ in your body. It’s always been there. You just didn’t need to use it. But now you are expected to use it as if you always had.

Interacting with something that’s as natural as it is abstract.

Normally, no one has to deal with mana in their day-to-day life. So, it’s pretty normal for a kid his age to have trouble grasping such a concept.

Now that she thought about it, her daughter Lantana didn’t have such difficulties. It took her just a few days to understand how to let the mana flow through her body. She still had had trouble sending it anywhere specific.

Have I raised a genius? She asked herself.

A few weeks ago, she was asked by her youngest daughter to teach her magic, so she did, it actually made her quite happy since her son Lucius wasn’t interested in anything but swordsmanship and being a hormonal pre-teen, but he would eventually come to her for advice, it was inevitable, just a matter of time.

She had lost herself in thought and was awakened by the sound of footsteps. Raanan was leaving, his shoulders in a slump.

He thought I was ignoring him?

“Wait” She called after him. The kid stood still as if frozen in place. “let’s go outside”

She remembered her younger days as an apprentice. “I know a way to help you”

So, both of them went outside the house, to the backyard, it was dark except for the torches mounted on the sides of the front door, the night sky covered in a splash of shining stars, not very cold since the summer months were still in place. Freesia led him to an old three on the back of the house near the woods. It was an old tree, its branches spreading in every direction. From where they stood, they seemed to hug the sky, reaching for the stars.

Years ago, now, when they arrived in town, Alden wanted to cut it down.

He called it an eyesore.

She protested against it, so the old tree stayed where it was. Even if her husband ridiculed her.

“It must be that elven blood acting out, making you want to start hugging trees? I sure hope I don’t have to eat bark and sap” Her husband had said that to her back then, his arms crossed in dissatisfaction, the ax on the floor at his side. But a shit-eating green on his face.

the very same rugged, asymmetric mug, she still couldn’t quite understand how it managed to make her fall so hard in love.

“Maybe I will. I feel like he deserves much more love than a certain brute and I’m sure this tree is a better place to sleep against,”

“Oh no! you wound me my love!” he replied mocking her “Alas I think if you ignore my kisses for too long, I may go crazy and chop this wife stealing tree out!” he closed the distance between them, he pushed her against her bark and wood lover “I guess I have to show him who’s the real man of the house here,”

Freesia Donn had many good memories near this tree, so she was fond of it. Who cares? Her feelings had never been caused by something as ridiculous as the blood that ran through her veins, compelling her to love trees. She hardly even knew anything about the true, nomadic Elven culture, only a language she could speak but not understand.

“What are we doing?” asked the dark-haired kid. He had been awfully quiet.

“You know, I used to study under a mage, she had been raised in the same orphanage as me, back in Assythia, she specialized in blood magic, so she taught me all she knew, back then I was really bad at it, I went through lots of pains to try to channel magic, and it took me weeks to even start the magic lessons properly,”

“And what happened? How did you do it?”

“It was actually my teacher, sit down over there” she pointed at a spot near the tree, they both took seats beneath its branches and leaves, the chill summer air blew a gentle breeze, it felt pleasant on their skins. “Back then, she got really mad at me”

“Why are you so useless at this? It’s not even funny. What kind of elf can’t chant a basic spell?" Even now, all those years after she could still remember clearly every single time her teacher cursed her, that person was the closest thing to the devil she knew and the mere thought of those days gave her goosebumps.

“She sat me one night, in a hill outside of town, o a three like this one, and after she cussed me out for a bit, we talked, just like this… close your eyes,”

He did as she asked and waited for the cussing part of the tale.

Am I going to get chewed out?

“What now?” he asked in an anxious voice

“Now try to breathe, relax” This is not too different from what he had been trying before, these kinds of exercises were getting on his nerves, but he chose to stay silent, even if he taught this was hopeless and wished to go back inside.

Meanwhile, the elven woman just sat there, thinking about what to say.

Now, what would she do? Funny how life works. She would probably laugh at me.

She remembered the words said to her back then.

“They say the world is covered with magic, spirit energy, mana, they all call it something different, they all say it came from a different source, but some agree that it feels like touching silk or whatever, to me, it feels like being stuck in a spider web, as if I’m connected to something bigger and I can feel every movement on it, if fly wiggles itself free or a kid throws a stone at it, I can feel it, I think that is what they mean by feel, that’s the emotion your teacher wants you to get, try to get your mind cleared, concentrate on an image, how do you feel when you are training with dad?”

“It’s painful most of the time. I always get my butt kicked…”

She let an amused small chuckle.

It’s fine, Ran, not all men have to be like their fathers. In your case, it’s probably better if you don’t resemble him any more than you already do.

“But I guess you feel something else besides that, maybe something like a rush?” She could tell he wasn’t understanding so she changed her approach “You know, your sister, sometimes she waits for me to get distracted, she always waits for the best and last possible moment to make her strike, she bangs on pans and pots to scare to an early grave, but recently she stopped, she also stopped putting bugs on Madina’s bed, we feel it’s like a calm before the storm, but how do you feel when you help her pull off one of your pranks? Since you are your sister’s favorite toy and all,”

It’s true he did enjoy participating in Lan’s antics, just a few days ago they went to her favorite victims’ room, found her favorite maid dress, and cut a heart-shaped hole in the back hoping she wouldn’t notice, she didn’t for a while until the cold in her back and giggles coming from the two trouble makers tipped her out to their evil plans.

As always, they ran scared for their lives, giggling all the way, Lan with a big wry smile and deadpan eyes.

“I do feel good, I guess,” he said, his cheeks blushing slightly

“Well, focus on that,”

She got closer to him, quietly, stealthily, setting her hand on the center of his back.

“I’m breathing and concentrating, but I don’t feel anything,” he sighed. “maybe it’s useless after all”

“Ran… you give up way too easily on things, it’s fine if you stop because you don’t like to something, but you should give it a fair try before, nothing good will come up if you just stop the first time you hit a wall, you have to see things through, I’m sure you can do it, so don’t give up, yes?”

“How are you sure?”

“Because if you can’t use magic, you would be an anomaly. I don’t think you’re that astronomically unlucky. As far as I know, you are a normal kid…” Her voice fell down a bit at the end.

Ed with his eyes still closed concentrated. Fog, spiderweb, running, pranks, something.

A funny feeling in my stomach. I feel something.

A certain discomfort, weird sensation, as if he had been holding his breath for a long time and someone was suddenly forcing him to breathe. It’s like when you feel you are falling from a great height in a dream, and you wake up with a shock, just that, the shocking sensation lasts for a long time afterward.

“It feels weird,”

“Like a little current flowing in your veins? As if you were getting heated from the inside out, right?”

“Something like that. It’s hard to say what it feels like. I feel bad for the teacher now,”

“Don’t lose it, focus on it. Can you move it? Even if only a little,”

Ran felt as if he was swimming in cold water with a fire lit on his stomach, he didn’t understand what she meant by moving it but, he somehow could do it, it was like noticing you’re breathing, he stopped doing it unconsciously.

“I think it’s moving; I feel it spreading,”

“that’s good too, just try not to lose it,"

They stood there. They refrained even from speaking, just living in the moment, flowing in time, like a drop of water in the ocean, like a gust of wind in the blizzard.

When it was all said and done, Raanan fell asleep, more like he passed out.

Maybe I went a little overboard. Well, it went fine…

She giggled to herself. “So this is how the field looks on the other side then?”

When they were still talking inside the house, she had remembered what her own teacher did when she was a young girl, around the same age as him, I think, maybe a bit older

“When someone is being a stubborn, scared little shit, you have to give them a little push or they won’t ever move!”

Her teacher had said back then. It turns out that, in order to tap into the mana, you have to relax your mind a lot, surrender yourself to something bigger, even if you’re not aware you are doing it. It gets a lot easier if you have a guide to help you, so that’s what Freesia did, channeled her own magic and forcibly let him feel it.

The result was that Raanan started to unconsciously channel magic until he passed out.

She removed her hand and stayed there, enjoying the summer breeze.

She took a better look at the kid sleeping at her side. He looked so much like his father.

So similar, so alike

So much so… that feelings better left ignored drowned her. She felt deep anger inside. But she was not about to let those thoughts win over her.

She steadied herself on the tree. After all that, even she had gotten tired.

I’ll rest for a while; Alden can carry him back to his bed.

“Maybe it really has something to do with my blood, Nah, this is a really comfy tree,"

She fell asleep