Olly Briggs
“Did you know about any of this? Anything about my magic?” Olly demanded of Eli as they traveled back home after Lola’s reading. Now that the shock had worn off he was feeling downright irritable.
“I had suspicions, but no, I did not know about this,” Eli responded neutrally, “And keep your voice down.”
Olly ignored him and rounded on him, causing Eli to stop in his tracks and a look of annoyance to spread across his face. “Suspicions are enough. Your suspicions are usually dead on. It might have helped me through this mess,” Olly challenged.
Why can’t I be more like you? Why can’t I have your confidence and instincts? Why are you so good at trusting your feelings? What makes you so damn confident all the time? Olly thought desperately to himself.
“It’s nothing more than the wisdom that comes with age,” Eli murmured, lighting a cigarette, “That or I’m believably faking it.” He sidestepped Olly and continued walking.
“You’re not that old,” Olly grumbled, keeping pace and trying to maintain eye contact, “Back to my question. If you knew about, or suspected, any of this, why now, and why the rush? Why are you putting me through this against my will if my resistance is making me apparently unteachable?”
“I couldn't have known that you'd hate it so much, but this isn’t supposed to be distressing. Since your old tutor is surely long gone with my money we’ll get you one you like better. I don’t think you’re unteachable, and I do think you can find the motivation to find something in it for you. And if you’re questioning my suspicions, what they’re telling me right now is that we can make this timeline work.”
“But just… why? Do you really want me to be one of them? Someone like that asshole tutor? It feels like you’re trying to make me something I’m not.”
Eli was the one to stop this time, looking troubled. “I don’t want you to be like that, I would never want that of you. But the longer you stay here, with me, the harder it’s going to get for you. You could bring your perspective to a place like that and change it for the better; if you have a shot at getting in I’d be selfish to keep you cooped up here,” he explained, gentler.
Olly considered this in silence, unconvinced.
Eli sighed and dropped his voice to a whisper. “You’ve seen the news, yes? There’s chaos on the horizon, and I’m worried about what’s going to happen to a place like this. Shit rolls downhill, and places like this are always the first to descend into madness. They don’t care about the lower boroughs. Not in Occaigh, not in any other city. You’re just starting out your life, you’ll need all the help you can get to eventually escape the sixteenth. This is the best chance for you to get above the fray.”
Olly could see that there was worry in Eli’s eyes, he wasn’t lying to him. He bit his lip as he took it all in. “What happens to you then?” he asked, worriedly.
Eli shrugged, giving him a thin smile. “I’ll be fine kid, I always am. But I’m not letting you jeopardize your future.”
They resumed their trek home and remained silent for the rest of the journey. While Olly could accept his uncle’s concerns, though he still held onto his own reservations. None of it sat well with him. It was then that it hit him, his motive.
He was going to get in, and he was going to get them to teach him to control his magic so that he didn’t have to worry about losing control again. And then, once he was confident in himself and his abilities, he was going to quit.
Lola had told him that he had more choices than he thought, it was time that he started thinking about them more carefully. If there truly were bad times on the horizon then he wasn’t going to remain impassive any longer.
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True to his word, Eli found him a new tutor who wasn’t a horrible, pretentious prick. Eli pulled him aside before his first lesson with the new tutor and advised him not to disclose his ability to wield magic. It would be best to save that for the aptitude test, or at the very least much later in the lessons so that they could focus on the written component.
"Less information is always safer", Eli had told him. Olly still bristled at the apparent secret nature of this process but acquiesced to maintain the peace. Besides, he had his own goals now so he felt less resistant to his uncle’s plans for him.
His tutor’s name was Delilah and she was much softer in her approach than the last one. Come to think of it, Olly hadn’t even been told his name, that’s how little the tutor had wanted to do with him.
Despite his better judgment, he decided he liked her.
While he wondered if she were secretly judging him too, she at least had the sense to hide it better. One thing that he appreciated was that she didn’t punish failure, and instead rewarded success. He found himself looking forward to their sessions. His uncle seemed pleased with this turn of events and the distance that Olly had felt coming between them seemed to be once again closing.
One thing he didn’t look forward to now was his regular school classes. Before this, he tolerated school well enough, but things had only gone from bad to worse since the initial discovery that he was writing the aptitude test. They still jeered at him for believing himself to be better than them. It was jealousy, his uncle had told him. He had hoped people would lose interest but, unfortunately, this was not to be the case when a few of his classmates cornered him after school one day.
He eyed them warily. “I have to go to work, get out of my way,” he instructed them, moving towards the exit. He tried to remain direct and confident, hoping that it gave the appearance that bothering him wouldn’t be worth their while.
“Ah geez, what’s the rush? We just want to have a word. What’s it like thinking you’re above everyone here?” Leroy, the same one who had mocked Olly early on, drawled menacingly.
“Wouldn’t know, I’m still here, aren’t I?” Olly tried to diffuse the situation. He threw his bag over his shoulder and motioned to leave again, but the three boys stepped in his path yet again. He sighed and dropped his bag, knowing that they wouldn’t give up so easily.
“Yeah, but you don’t want to be, do you?” Leroy challenged, flanked by his friends.
“I think you’ve got it wrong. I like it here, it’s home to me,” Olly said with a shrug.
This seemed to surprise them slightly, so Olly took his chance to walk away. They shuffled aside and he thought he was free of their harassment until Leroy called at his retreating back.
“Home, huh? Guess your shyster Uncle doesn’t feel the same. Seems like he decided he was tired of carrying a useless orphan through life. Time for you to spread your wings and pay him back, huh?”
Olly froze, fists clenching at his sides. The other boys guffawed and he felt their eyes piercing the back of his skull. “At least my uncle doesn’t lose money hand over fist in games rooms when he should be paying his fucking rent,” he muttered lowly.
He turned around to see Leroy turning an ugly shade of red. Leroy strode up to him until they were almost nose to nose. “Take that back you orphan bastard,” he hissed, “If it weren’t for scum like your uncle, good, hard-working people like my father wouldn’t be struggling.”
“My uncle wouldn’t let people like your dad three steps in the doorway, the stink of desperation is bad for business,” Olly spat back viciously.
Leroy didn’t wait to respond and decided to start the fight he was apparently looking for. Olly was tired of being submissive and met him in kind. Olly felt the first blow connect with his jaw, but he was quick to hit Leroy with an uppercut to the stomach at the same time, leaving him wheezing.
That should have given him enough of an opening to flee but he was immediately mobbed by Leroy’s other two friends who dragged him to the ground. He grunted and tried to fight them off, but they had him outnumbered and pinned.
Leroy had regained his breath and raised his foot for a well-aimed kick, Olly closed his eyes, realizing how unprotected his head was. He tried to brace himself, tried to find any magic deep down inside that would respond to him and protect him before the kick connected with him, but found nothing.
Damn it… he thought desperately. What was the point of this, any of this, if it only got him into trouble and not out of it?
The blow never came, and he heard Leroy give a startled cry and wondered if his magic had finally kicked in. Opening his eyes he found that one of their teachers had appeared, breaking up the fight and wrenching Leroy backwards off of him.
“He started it!” Leroy hollered. His lackeys nodded.
Great… Just great. Olly thought as he rolled his eyes up at the ceiling.