Loop Two - Chapter Twenty-Seven - Soul Loving Soul

Amber felt that it would be nice to go to a class that she hadn’t been to in another past. An actual learning opportunity.

She woke at the crack of dawn, ran out to get to the shower before anyone else, discovered that Morgan was using it already, then waited for a while for her turn.

Once she was ready for the day, Amber banged on Cassy’s door until Cassy protested from the other side, then she gave Jade’s door a far more polite knock.

They actually had breakfast as a team for once, though Amber had to help Cassy keep her face out of her bowl of cereal as the girl kept nodding off. Half an hour later, the four of them were walking to class. The first class of the morning was Magical Theory, with a Seelie teacher and Professor Ploof overlooking things.

Team Svalinn slipped in and found a lab station near the back of the room in the same place they’d stood in the day before.

The rest of the class filed in with clearly different levels of readiness for the day. Amber noticed team Helskor coming in, still with just three members. It looked like none of them had slept last night.

Class started when Professor Ploof picked up a Seelie and put it on a podium at the front of the class. This time the wizard’s hat it wore was blue with little moons sewn into it, instead of purple with stars.

“Hello everyone,” Professor Ploof said.

“Greetings,” the Seelie said. It spun around once, tails trailing behind it before it settled down. Its hat tilted dangerously to one side. “This is our second Magic Theory class together. Today we will go over why the name of this class is misleading.”

“What the Seelie mean, is that magic theory is something of a misnomer,” Professor Ploof said. “Magic has some theoretical portions, of course, but in several real ways, magic is a solved subject.”

The Seelie nodded its little head. “The professor is correct. Magic has rules. Rules which you can learn and which are absolute.”

Professor Ploof sighed, then walked over to her desk. She reached down behind it, then grunted to lift a large tome.

It deserved the name tome. It was a book with a spine that was as thick as Amber’s hand was long. When the professor dumped the book onto the podium next to the Seelie, the thump of it could be felt all across the room.

“This is volume one of thirty-seven of the annotated rules of magic,” Professor Ploof said. “When the Seelie say that magic has fixed rules, what they omit is that magic’s rules take into account exceptions, areas of conflict between rule sets, contradictions and even some rule segments which are simply not understood.”

Someone raised a hand, and the professor pointed to them. “Not understood?” they asked.

“Ah, a good question. There are three broad reasons why some magical rules aren’t understood. First, there are several volumes that used to detail rules which took decades or even centuries to uncover and test which have been lost. Some in colonies that were destroyed, others in fires and just through neglect. Second, there are some rules that are written in languages that are no longer spoken. Researchers are often well-versed in dead languages for that reason. And finally, because of certain rules, other rules might no longer apply, but it’s hard to judge that without knowing those rules well.”

The Seelie seemed particularly pleased with itself. “Magic itself is a contract between the will of the world and its inhabitants. It is influenced by perceptions and the movement of the powerful and shaped by thoughts and resolve. It is power personified, and it is only restrained by the rules it has imposed upon itself.”

Amber shivered.

“Now, trying to teach you the rules of magic,” Professor Ploof said with a tap to the cover of the tome. “Would be a waste of time and would likely drive a few of you mad. Perhaps even literally. We also don’t have the years it would take you to learn all there is to know. Though you should count yourselves lucky. The known rules of magic have been transcribed digitally, and there’s a body of researchers working to untangle them and create databases that are easier to cross reference than one of these ancient books.”

“Wikipedia for magic,” Cassy muttered. “Neat.”

“It’s a little early in the year, but we’ll be starting an individual project today,” Professor Ploof said. “The Seelie, who are aware of your individual magics, have suggested a single magical rule for you to study. The project is to read the rule and write a short essay about it.”

Professor Ploof went back to her desk and retrieved a small stack of papers. Then she flicked it to the side and the papers flew across the classroom, landing in front of each student face-down. There was a name at the top of each page.

Amber flipped hers over. “Rule 501-6854b,” she read. The rest of the page had details on how to formulate the essay and questions to answer within it about the magical rule.

“One thing you might learn,” the Seelie said, “Is that while magical rules are often strict in their implementation, their reading can be open to interpretation.”

“You’ll be able to find the rule itself in one of the databases. Feel free to ask your teammates for help. There are laptops under your desk connected to the school wi-fi. They are being observed,” Professor Ploof said with the tone of someone aware of what would happen if she gave a lot of young adults unrestricted internet access. “You will have the rest of this period to work on your essay. It will be due at the start of next class where we will be discussing your findings publicly. If you have an issue with that, come and see me.” She clapped. “Get started!”

Amber jumped, then started to look for the aforementioned laptop.

Morgan found it first, but Amber crowded in next to her to see the screen. “Who wants to go first?” Morgan asked.

“Hey, take mine,” Cassy said. She waved her page around, then stopped when Morgan tried to read it.

There was a link to the school’s magic rule database, and from there, Morgan just had to type in the number and subsection of the rule Cassy had.

“Here we go, Rule 948-5468a, the contest of will between mind and gravity shall not disperse with the fundamental aspects of the natural force,” Morgan read. “And there’s a list of exceptions.”

“That’s… not helpful at all, what the heck,” Cassy said.

“You can pull up the database on your phone,” Jade said as she raised hers. “There’s more details. Some science stuff too.”

“Man, cribbing from Wiki for essays was easier back home,” Cassy grumbled.

“Can you punch mine in?” Amber asked Morgan.

The taller girl nodded, then did just that. “Rule 501-6854b, Soul loving souls unlock greater potential, and can be returned by soul loving soul.”

“What?” Amber asked. What does that even mean?

“I’m going to be honest, I have no idea what that means,” Morgan said. “This might be a tough one. Cassy’s just seems to be about gravity control not undoing fundamental forces, but this is touching soul magic, which is a whole thing.”

“Mine’s about pocket spaces,” Jade said. “I think… don’t put a pocket space inside another, basically.”

“I was expecting time magic stuff,” Amber admitted.

Morgan shrugged, and soon she had her own rule out. “Huh, something about willpower empowering potential? Seems like an easy one. If any of you need help, then I can help once I’m done.”

“Thanks,” Amber said. “I’ll figure this one out.” She pulled out her phone and set it on the desk, then found some paper to pen a rough draft of an essay on. Fortunately, the essay didn’t have to be persuasive or anything, it just had to explain the rule.

Unfortunately, I still have no idea what any of this means.

The additional data she had on the subject was sparse. Cassy’s rule had tons of additional information, and it seemed like a few scientists had played around with trying to understand it. Jade’s had even more information, even links to videos that seemed like they were half a decade old of magicals trying to do stuff with pocket spaces. Amber had nothing.

Frustrated, she looked around, then spotted the tip of a wizard’s hat moving by. She reached out and tapped it, and it stopped, then a moment later the Seelie jumped onto her desk. “Can we help you?” it asked.

“I… yes, you can, or I hope you can. I don’t understand this rule. Soul loving souls unlock greater potential, and can be returned by soul loving soul. It’s super cryptic, and I don’t see the relation with my magic.”

The Seelie looked at Amber, its eyes locked with hers. “Blessed by time you may be, Amber Green, but the ancient mother Lillith has gifted you with more than just her living flame.”

“Uh,” Amber said. “Still entirely unhelpful.”

The Seelie blinked. “We can try to explain it better, then. The rule, in simpler terms, says that loving someone means that you will grow more, and that with love, your own potential can be returned to the lover.”

“Oh, thanks, I think?” Amber said. “I’m still a little confused.”

“We have been told that love is often that way,” the Seelie said, then it jumped off the table and trotted off, wizard’s hat bouncing.

Amber quickly wrote down what the Seelie had told her, then filled out the essay with speculation. She didn’t know why this rule was chosen for her though, and no matter what, her thoughts kept turning back to that. It might have been why she didn’t finish her essay before class ended.

She shoved her rough draft away and decided that she’d practise the scholarly art of making shit up later.

“Lunch?” Cassy asked.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah,” Amber said.

“You alright?” the blonde asked.

Amber nodded. “Just annoyed by this one.”

“Well, I’d offer to help, but my essay’s trash and I don’t really care, so my help would mostly come in the form of fun distractions,” Cassy said.

“I’m sure Amber wouldn’t mind you distracting her,” Jade said.

***