Abrial’s eyes shot open.

What the heck was that about?

Immediately after, Finley’s calm voice came: “I see you have opened your eyes. Do you feel more tranquil at all?”

Abrial blinked, staring blankly at her surroundings. In a blink, the strange sound of a double heartbeat faded away and the chaos of the teaching clearing filled her vision. A drop of water splattered on her cheek from somewhere, jerking her into complete awareness. Someone was swearing nearby. The sound of her own breath slowly grew quieter and quieter, fading into the background.

“Abrial?” Finley asked, frowning slightly and leaning forward. “Are you all right?

Abrial swallowed slowly, like there was a bad taste in her mouth. “...Yeah. I’m fine. I thought I heard something weird, but it’s gone now. Finley, seriously—how am I supposed to feel calm in this kind of environment? That’s just crazy!”

Finley sighed. “It is quite loud here. Do you feel a little calmer, even in the slightest? Sometimes, it is a small amount of tranquility that can make a significant difference in magical performance.”

Abrial thought for a moment. Her mind did seem a little less jumpy after that slow breathing…right? A little, teeny tiny bit?

“Well…I feel a tiny bit calmer. I think.”

Finley nodded, seeming satisfied. “That should be enough for a beginning attempt. Let us begin.”

She instructed Abrial on how to visualize the water rising from the bowl. Abrial listened attentively. She’d always wanted to learn advanced magic, after all. Finley had always refused to teach her anything besides simple healing back at the house, and that barely counted as magic, since it didn’t require any manipulation and probably only needed a grain of spiritual energy to accomplish. Now, Finley was teaching her like a professional tutor, spilling magical secrets willingly all over the place! This was almost too good to be true, heh! Abrial’s excited eyes followed Finley’s every gesture, nodding over and over again so eagerly that black hair started to come down from her ponytail and bounce in front of her face.

“Now,” Finley finished, “Breathe a few more times slowly, and give it a try. Try it first with your eyes closed.”

“All right! This is gonna be awesome!”

Abrial squeezed her eyes shut and did as instructed, breathing in slowly and out even more slowly, her stomach itching with excitement. She was going to lift water! She was going to perform natural magic! A scream of excitement seemed to want to burst out of her throat, but she batted it back. She needed to stay calm. Calm, calm, calm. That was the way to do natural magic.

In her mind’s eye, she visualized the water lifting from the bowl in the form of a small, sleeping dragon. Finley had said it helped sometimes to visualize the element as a magical beast, as that gave it form and life and tended to help the magicians connect with the material. The dragon was pale and clear as the water itself, curled into a ball. It rose from the wooden bowl to float just above Abrial’s head, swirling like smooth glass in the sunlight.

Abrial opened her eyes, which were sparkling with anticipation.

Her expression flickered. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

…Nothing had happened.

The water still sat still in the bowl, its surface untouched and smooth as glass. It looked It hadn’t even rippled! The inside of the bowl above the water line wasn't even wet!

“Have you completed your visualization?” Finley asked carefully, watching Abrial’s face.

“Yeah, I did!” Abrial griped, frowning and hunching over with confusion. “I did everything you said. I breathed slowly three times and visualized it as clearly as I could. I even imagined the water as a water dragon! But nothing happened!!! ”

Finley raised her eyebrows slightly. If you looked closely enough, you could see a flash of shock flit through her hazel eyes, but it quickly dissipated into her usual calm expression. For a long moment, she simply stared at Abrial, eyes glittering with an unusual expression.

Abrial blinked back, feeling suddenly worried. Why was Finley’s expression…the most confused expression she’d ever seen on her always-unreadable face?

“What?” she asked, putting her hands on her own cheeks. “Is there something on my face? What’s wrong?!”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Finley shook her head, her eyes serious. “No…there is nothing wrong. Let us try another meditation exercise. Some calming exercises work better for some than others. Let us try this one…”

They tried another exercise, in which instead of simply focusing on her breath and her heartbeat, Abrial envisioned floating through an endless, soundless, peaceful ocean terrain, thoughts flitting past herself like insignificant silver flecks in the water.

Finley re-explained the visualization process, giving Abrial a few more tips to increase the flow of spiritual energy and the strength of the magical outcome. But when Abrial tried again, her forehead furrowing with concentration, the same freaking thing happened! The water remained perfectly still in the bowl, like it couldn’t be bothered to move for Abrial.

They tried another exercise, and another, and another. By now, Bi Gho had transitioned the class onto other activities, like how to summon a breeze and change the thickness of air through humidity. Abrial alone remained hunched over her bowl, her forehead sore from frowning, her jaw clenched tight enough that it made repeated cracking noises. A drop of sweat traced down her cheek, dripping off her chin, but she didn’t even notice it. All she could think about was this freaking stubborn water that didn’t listen no matter what she did!

Nothing moved the water. Not visualizing it as a magical creature; not visualizing herself lifting it; not spreading it over her hands before trying; not whispering at it to move; not lying down or standing up or trying Finley’s bowl instead or anything in between. Finley rubbed her forehead next to Abrial, her eyes darting as she tried to think of more methods she hadn’t instructed Abrial in yet. She watched Abrial with an increasingly perplexed look out of the corner of her eyes, pursing her lips slightly, which she only did when she was seriously troubled.

The water in the bowl, still as death, reflected Abrial’s face in a warped portrait back at her. It seemed to be laughing.

At last, Abrial couldn’t take it anymore. Enough was enough!

Her hand shot out to topple the bowl violently over, splashing out water fiercely over the table and the surrounding grass.

“Stupid fucking water!” she scowled, her fingers clenched into tight fists. “Stupid water, stupid magic, stupid meditation! I’m done! No more! If I couldn’t even make the water ripple after all that, it’s not gonna happen! Fuck this exercise! And fuck natural magic! ARGH!”

“Ha! Ahahaha! Ahaha!”

Someone burst into cackling laughter close to Abrial’s right.

Abrial choked—she knew that laugh! No way—had she really been sitting right next to her this whole time?! Dang—she’d really been too focused on her bowl to even glance at who was sitting there!

Abrial whirled her head to the right, eyes flashing dangerously.

“Bi Chanjuan!” she growled, her voice boiling with both irritation. When Abrial was in a bad mood, her mood dripped into her every word like red dye flooding into water. “What the fuck are you laughing at?”

Bi Chanjuan was sitting leisurely at the small table on Abrial’s right. She was leaning her cheek on one of her palms, her glittering golden nails resting against the pale skin of her face. Today, she wore a satinous, deep green robe that fell over her curves like drapes. The hem was slight all the way up to her waist this time, with her snowy leg peeking through. There was a leering cherry grin on her face, and her sharp white teeth shone through like fangs. There was a line of jet black vines covered in thorns snaking up her milky arm, the thorns pressing into her flesh but not breaking it.

With thorns wrapped around her index finger, Bi Chanjuan pointed lazily at Abrial. Her long, golden nails glittered irritatingly.

“Mmm…You must be what they used to call ‘spiritually dumb’...” Her voice was like honey, so sweet — and yet it also gave Abrial the uncontrollable urge to vomit. Bi Chanjuan’s smile widened at Abrial’s expression of disgust. “So, you don’t have the ability to perform magic after all?”

“That is not acceptable.” A cold voice came from behind Abrial before Abrial could so much as open her mouth. Abrial turned around, caught off guard. She had never heard Finley sound so cold before. Now, Finley’s hazel eyes seemed strangely dark as she stared frostily at Bi Chanjuan. “It is unacceptable to refer to anyone as ‘spiritually dumb’. It is an outdated and oppressive term. Aside from that, it does not even apply to Abrial in its base meaning.”

Bi Chanjuan’s grin turned into a scowl. She rolled her eyes enormously at Finley and curled her red lips. “Mm, okay. Whatever the camp saint prodigy says. Don’t get too angry, or you might soil your clean reputation. Are you mad because I called someone ‘spiritually dumb’? Or because I insulted your…close companion?”

Finley’s eyes flashed, then dimmed.

Abrial watched their exchange, puzzled.

“I’ve heard that term before,” she jumped in, frowning in thought. Where had she heard it? “‘Spiritually dumb’. What does that even mean?”

Bi Chanjuan licked her cherry lips, examining her nails boredly. “Wow, you really are the most uneducated person I’ve ever met. It’s an ancient term. People used it a couple hundred years ago, back before the Emperor fucked everything up. Magical people used to be in power, and the non-magical were oppressed and driven out. That was the term used to insult people who couldn’t perform magic—‘spiritually dumb’. ‘Spiritually stupid’. Magic is performed through the release of spiritual energy, so it only makes sense to think something’s wrong with a person’s spiritual energy if they can’t do magic. Hence, ‘spiritually dumb’. Makes perfect sense to me.”

“That is not true,” Finley muttered. Abrial noticed that Finley’s fists had clenched, gathering in fistfuls of her pale robe.

“What’s that, little camp saint?”

“That is not true,” Finley repeated, louder this time. She looked up coldly, glaring at Bi Chanjuan right in the eyes. “Many people are simply born without the ability to perform magic. It is a matter of luck. Just as some people are born with red eyes and white hair, some people are born without enough spiritual energy to perform magic, or without access to their spiritual energy reservoirs.”

“Mm…My opinion is mine, your opinion is yours,” Bi Chanjuan replied sweetly, tapping her cheek with golden nails. “Now, as I was saying before, isn’t it interesting that our Han Abrial Chae-young here can’t seem to affect that bowl of water no matter what she tries? Don’t you think that suggests you’re actually…spiritually dumb? That you can’t perform magic at all? And, tell me — how does that feel, for someone so arrogant, to know that you’re unlucky enough to not have the ability to perform magic?”