Aida stared at Ezra with rounded eyes, dimly aware that her mouth had dropped open. “You - I don’t–” she took a deep breath. How much could she lean on Aida-the-character clearly not having any sort of mastery over basic skills in order to get as much information as possible to get up to speed? “Will you teach me from the beginning?”
Ezra nodded as he leapt down from the fork—a whole fifteen feet from the ground—landing neatly on his toes beside Aida. “I was planning to anyway. I never understood how anyone who tries as hard as you could have such a weak grasp on mana control.” Aida barely managed to keep her grimace from surfacing. At least her assessment about Aida-the-character’s abilities was spot on.
Ezra faced Aida, towering over her. They were only half a foot apart, if even that, making it very clear how much taller Ezra was than her. Aida fought to keep her heart steady—rampant teenage hormones plus whatever magical dating sim effects made it difficult to keep a clear head.
Ezra’s long fingers gently supported her wrists, lifting them until her hands hovered over his, their palms almost touching. Aida held the position, waiting for Ezra’s instructions.
“I’ll start by channeling my flow through you. You’ll feel perturbations in your own flow, but don’t fight to correct it. Just feel it, and let it happen.” They were standing so close, Aida could feel the deep breath Ezra took. She couldn’t help but notice Ezra’s chest expanding as well; if she leaned her head forward, her forehead would rest on his sternum.
“You’re agitated,” Ezra said softly, his voice breaking through Aida’s thoughts. “Ignore everything that’s happening outside, and focus on what’s happening inside.”
Aida bit her lip, then forced herself to take a breath, focusing on her breathing since she couldn’t push away thoughts and tingles about Ezra’s proximity. In through the nose, down the neck…inflate the lungs, then proceed to expand the diaphragm…
While tracing the breath’s return path through her exhalations, Aida noticed a pulsing - foreign? - traveling through her arms. Focusing on the feeling, Aida got the impression it was gold—although it didn’t make sense for an abstract feeling to look gold.
Curious, Aida followed the gold pulse. It traveled from her left hand, flowed to her heart, and seemed to seep through the entirety of her torso, before the bulk of the foreign substance flowed up to her head, seeming to clear her mind. It was almost as if the gold pushed the haphazard blue - TIL my own mana is blue - into orderly lines at the edges of the gold. Ezra’s mana performed a small parade through Aida’s head, then flowed back down her spine to join the mana that had been trickling down Aida’s legs the whole time, renewing the speed of the flow. After the flow performed its victory lap through her legs, the mass of gold congregated for a smooth exit through Aida’s right arm, and departed her palm back into Ezra’s.
Interestingly, Aida noticed none of her blue exited her palm with the gold’s exit. Aida imagined a bunch of little Ezra security guards (wearing little gold security vests) redirecting a bunch of little Aidas (wearing little blue dresses) to U-turn back into big Aida’s body.
The unbidden imagery broke Aida’s concentration entirely, and she found herself staring into Ezra’s pale eyes, barely able to suppress her grin.
“Sorry,” Aida whispered. She cleared her throat and then spoke at a normal volume. “I thought of something funny.” Ezra blinked, and the tint of blue that was in his eyes seemed to clear.
“I take it you felt how your mana should flow?”
Aida nodded slowly, pulling her gaze from Ezra’s eyes to collect her thoughts. “I didn’t feel how…chaotic it was inside until you spread your…mana…inside me.” Aida flushed, struggling to remain composed. She soldiered on. “I wouldn’t have realized I could move mana like that if it weren’t for you, so…thank you.” Aida still had a lot of questions (like would this exercise help her prevent her mana from blasting willy-nilly out of her wand), but she wanted to experiment on her own first before she made it obvious she was a complete newcomer to the world.
Ezra nodded, dropping his hands. He ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling it nicely. “I didn’t notice any particularly detrimental habits. It’s almost instinctual for mages to fight back against someone’s mana entering their system, but you seemed like you…” his voice trailed off. Aida smiled bitterly and completed his thought for him.
“It seemed like I didn’t even know how to move my mana?”
Ezra nodded, lowering his gaze to meet hers. He seemed to be probing her, questioning her identity without saying anything; questioning how she made it to the final year of this academy without knowing how to control her mana.
This was getting into dangerous territory. Ezra was kind, but she couldn’t trust him with her secret. She hadn’t considered what had happened to actual-Aida, but now that she started evaluating how Ezra might react to Aida being a completely different person (or how any normal person might react to an acquaintance being body-swapped), she had to concede it was better to keep up appearances for her own safety.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Fortunately, Ezra was gracious enough to invent an excuse for her. “Our texts really are useless. I never got much use out of them myself. They are full of theoretical philosophies, and don’t give enough guidance on how someone can put their theories into practice.”
Surprised, Aida nodded mutely. She hadn’t read any of the books yet, so couldn’t comment.
“If you have any more questions on mana control, feel free to ask me.” Ezra bit his lower lip thoughtfully, looking like he was trying to come up with appropriately diplomatic words. “...I imagine it isn’t easy to pick up nuances of our craft if you aren’t…fortuitous enough to have other…experienced people to help guide you.”
With a final nod at Aida, Ezra tucked his school bag underneath his arm and ambled towards the other end of the courtyard, in the opposite direction from the cafeteria - no doubt to find some other secluded location, less likely to be intruded upon. Aida looked after him with mixed feelings.
He was from a wealthy family. In Annie’s experience, children from privileged families tended to assume everybody had the same basic opportunities and upbringing, and would therefore judge people who took an undesirable and unconventional path as somehow morally corrupt—as if people who were forced to cut their potentials short in order to pick up jobs nobody in their right minds would do were choosing to throw away their opportunities to move up. Or worse, privileged children would assume they were on the lower end of the privilege spectrum, victims of their circumstances, while everybody else got lucky or found a benefactor’s coattails to ride on.
It was the first time Annie had met anyone so high up the food chain who acknowledged he had people help him attain his talent—and absolutely the first time someone admitted it without a good reason to fake humility.
Aida was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Caleb’s voice calling after Sue. She peeked around the willow.
Caleb was following Sue, who had a distraught look on her face.
“She’s been so upset since this morning,” Sue was telling Caleb. “She said she wasn’t ready to talk about it, but it must be really serious for her to act out - provoking Pritchard, skipping class…”
“I did notice she seemed different when I met with her outside of the healer’s,” Caleb agreed reluctantly.
“Right?! I know everything about her, so I can’t imagine what happened to her over the recess for her to become such a different person,” Sue said anxiously. Aida melted against the tree, trying to avoid being spotted by Sue or Caleb. She heard Caleb stop Sue from proceeding.
“Miss Heslia…” peeking around the trunk, Aida watched Caleb sheepishly release Sue’s wrist. He rubbed the back of his neck. “You seem to really care about Miss Loreh, and you also seem to be able to do everything you do very well…”
Sue tilted her head in the universal language of confusion as she waited for Caleb to form his thoughts. “...I was just wondering what your plans were after graduation. You have many career paths available to you, but you also seem to worry over Miss Loreh a lot. I wonder if you ever get confused about pursuing your passion over taking care of Miss Loreh.”
“Oh,” Sue said blankly. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about that at all. I just take one day at a time.”
Caleb’s brow wrinkled slightly. “Do you intend to keep Miss Loreh around in your life?”
“Yeah! I can’t imagine my life without her.”
“Are you ever worried she won’t be able to keep up with what you do in the future?”
Sue tilted her head in the other direction and tapped her lip. “Is there something you are worried about, Mister Tulver?” she snapped her fingers. “Do you like Aida?”
Caleb’s face flushed, highlighting his innocence. “I-it’s not that. She’s very nice, but I like–” he scrubbed a large hand down his face, breathing deeply. Aida bit her lip to keep her bitter laugh from alerting Sue and Caleb to her presence. He likes you, you dummy. A couple hours into the supporting character’s life, and she’d already witnessed two instances of the male leads flirting with the female lead.
“Professor Gemma was encouraging me to meet with some leading Earth practitioners when they visit the Academy in a few cycles, and she all but implied that they were coming specifically to meet me.” Caleb gazed intently at Sue. “Professor Gemma had been keeping me apprised of their correspondence over the holiday, and they promised my life would change significantly for the better if I were to agree to work with them…but I’m worried about how my family will fare once I leave.”
Sue wandered to a bench, motioning Caleb to sit down with her. From Aida’s vantage point, she could see both of their faces. “That’s a tough position to be in…I understand what you’re asking.” Sue turned toward Caleb, smiling softly at him. “I’m afraid I can’t really give you advice on what you should do for your situation, especially since I’m not sure how I would handle a similar situation with Aida. If I could have it my way…” Sue drifted off, tilting her head back to look up at the clouds floating dreamily overhead. “If I could have it my way, I would make my own adventuring group with me and Aida, and we would be joined by anyone else who wanted to follow us…” Sue laughed, and even though there was a note of melancholy in her laugh, it was still a laugh that made Aida want to listen for hours. “I know it’s impossible though. My family and district doesn’t have the resources to fund our own party, and no one with the capital to invest in a brand new unproven party would accept someone of her ranking…”
Aida’s eyes moved to Caleb’s reverent face as Sue trailed off. With the way the sun struck Sue’s face, Aida could see why Caleb was enamored. The sun glanced off her delicate cheekbones, and her pale hair blew gently in the wind, outlining Sue like a gentle halo. The wistful expression on her angelic face was enough to capture anybody’s heart and make them want to do everything in their power to give her what she wanted.
Aida slid around the tree, ducking behind bushes that would allow her to make her way out of the courtyard. As she stole away from the courtyard, she heard Caleb’s soft voice offer apologies for bringing such a heavy topic up.