My parents may be smart, but magical prodigies they are not. Their first attempts at healing were completely unsuccessful. They just could not get into the meditative state. I didn’t know how to help them, either. Someone once told me that it’s hard for you to take advice or instruction from someone whose diaper you’ve changed. This has held true for me in two worlds and on both sides of the tuition. As far as I can tell, my parents haven’t done intentional magic for several decadiums, perhaps longer.
“Look, I know it’s not the healing action, but perhaps you could both try the rock trick you saw me do in my room. I don’t want to keep trying healing until you’re not so completely out of practice of actually bringing up and using your powers. Visualize the arm and the hand. Be the hand.” Great. Magic advice from an old golfing comedy. I’m totally scraping the bottom of the educational barrel.
“Try to remember what it feels like to connect with your power, to feel the pull on your reserves. Spend the day practicing on small rocks. Imagine it with detail, feel the rock in your imaginary hand. Pick it up and move it around gently.”
It’s not working. I’m either a horrible teacher or they are bad students, or even all of the above.
“OK, let’s take a break. Make some lunch and eat. Maybe hit the market, I think that’s what your plans were before you walked in on me. Do normal things then come back to this tonight. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry, and we’re just getting more frustrated. I think that may be impeding any progress. The calmer and more focused I am, the more easily I can access and use my energy.”
About half an hour later, they finally decided I might have a point. We got a couple baskets and we went off to the market as a family. I had a few thalers extra burning a hole in my pocket, so I indulged in a few extras for the tenday, several largish bundles of various dried herbs. I paid a bit extra to have them provide muslin sacks for those. I also found some wax-sealed pint jars of slow-roasted garleek confit. With all three of us here, the bulk wasn’t an issue, dad was here and he could be the produce hauler this time. I eyeballed some gourmet herbed oils, but I was out of room, and Henrig carried similar in his store since they didn’t spoil quickly, so I could bring those home after work if I decided I wanted them later.
Mom had found all the ingredients she wanted, so we headed home, victorious in this at least, if not in the whole teaching process.
The evening was not any more successful than the morning. Either I wasn’t communicating clearly, or perhaps I was among the rare ones. I didn’t know what to do. I’d taught skills before, but never ones that had to be practiced only internally. There was always some kind of feedback mechanism. We finally gave up for the day. I could demonstrate that it was possible, but they couldn’t make it happen. Perhaps it was only possible after you had enough control and power? I don’t know. So many unknowns makes this frustrating. I can’t see where their skills are, but I suspect they’d be in the low tenths… maybe even 0.500 maximally.
Perhaps tomorrow I’ll time their flame bursts and see how long it takes and roughly how big they are, then use my own as a comparison, and calculate from there. I’ll have to think about how to measure the size of them though. I’m sure there was some kind of equipment for that in Holmberg. If I had a good thermometer and an accurate scale, I could use the water heat method to determine energy. I’d have to look up what 1 calorie per gram degree celsius translated to, but the math would be simple enough.
----------------------------------------
Another day spent, and we’ve discovered another seven ways that don’t work for them. It’s totally not a failure. Several hours in the morning, followed by a meal of quick bread and sausage. After the meal, we spent several more hours on additional methods in the afternoon before we called a halt to the attempts to use the mental hand techniques.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“I don’t know why this isn’t working.”
It had become so simple for me to do, but they couldn’t even make the smallest rock wiggle. I was so frustrated I wanted to scream. How can it be this impossible to teach!
“Somehow I’m not communicating the idea, or perhaps your capabilities are not high enough to use my methods, or maybe some combination of both of those. We’re just not getting anywhere.”
I have an idea about using flame burst creation speed and size as a metric for comparison. I just don’t know how to go about measuring the size or energy of the burst. I don’t even know if that would help.
“Do we want to risk outside involvement? Perhaps just the mental hand trick? It’s not as game-changing of a discovery.”
“Why don’t we give it more than one enddays? I’m willing to keep trying, given what I’ve seen you do, and I’m sure your mother would love to be able to ease her back after a long day working on the books. It’s possible that a younger person or someone who has continued to develop their magic would be faster, but I don’t want to give up yet. Bringing in someone else at this point is premature.”
“Patience with failure never was a strong area for you, Grint. We’re willing to keep working. You need to remember that we have spent the last several decadiums intentionally keeping our magic suppressed. Please trust us, the risks of exposure increase rapidly the more people involved.”
Well, if mom was in and dad was in, and they were both resorting to the evils of rational argument, then it seemed a fair point to let them take some time to unlearn old habits. After all, I’d been content just a few days ago working on this all by myself. Why should I be so impatient now, just because I couldn’t teach them the technique in a few hours? I still had my own work I could do.
“You’re right. I’m wanting instant results, and I let my excitement get away with me. I’ll practice on my skills then, and leave you to your own. Perhaps just practicing the magic you are already familiar with will help you, or perhaps just meditation?”
We ate supper quietly together as a very informal affair. We had basic bread with the confit I had purchased the day before as a spread, and split the leftover sausage from lunch.
I spent the remainder of the evening diligently working on my skills, using the heavy rock until I was feeling the onset of chills, then the lightest one to work on improving my control and focus while drained.
After a few hours of this, I checked my status, noting that only my skills had changed, with the main gains in control and channeling. One new skill that seemed worth putting here was added to the list. I clearly wasn’t a great teacher. I might be good at figuring stuff out on my own, but explaining it in a way others can understand wasn’t in my wheelhouse. It just might be almost completely my fault that they aren’t getting either of my discovered abilities to work.
{
Skills:
Energy Conversion
2.921
Energy Emission
2.576
Energy Control
2.163
Channeling
0.061
Instructor
0.013
Meditation
2.567
Walking
5.018
}
Tomorrow was back to the normal work schedule for us all, so I cut it short earlier than I really wanted to and laid down to try for sleep.