“You’re trying too hard.” Daniel said.
“How am I trying to hard?” a frustrated Mandy asked.
“You’re thinking about it too hard. Relax – try to feel where the book is, but don’t think too hard. Just let things come to you.”
Mandy grumbled inwardly. She knew she was doing well – she was being told as much on a regular basis – but why did it have to be so hard? She worked hard to shut out stray thoughts, and just let things flow, and run on instinct. After several minutes, she could feel a guiding hand, lifting up her arm and reaching over to the right, and pulling back a book that had been sitting in her car, which was parked in front of her teacher’s house. It wasn’t Daniel’s guiding hand, she knew. It was what he said was her avatar – whom she had never yet met. Still, in her head she kept picturing Korra because of the term ‘avatar’, and she just let herself be guided.
She set the book down next to her feet (she was sitting cross-legged on the rug that covered part of the hardwood floor), and decided to play with the force that she could feel – and by that, she treated it a little like play-doh, thickening it and stretching it and scrunching it, just a little, as she went – though she stopped when her head started to throb. Daniel let her rest for a bit, but she knew he wouldn’t let her be done for the day. No, she’d only practiced one sphere of magic…there were yet more to go. She looked up when she heard some rattling – Daniel had dice. With a sigh she watched as he shook.
“What will it come up as?”
“Four.” she replied. The dice were rolled, and indeed, they were four. This went through several more iterations, with her always manipulating the outcome of the dice. Thus, she was steadily improving with the sphere of entropy. Forces, Matter and Time were different entirely – she struggled so much harder with those three spheres, that Daniel kept trying to keep her spirits up by saying that it took a lot of effort from any mage, though there were times she seriously doubted that.
With Mind she had zone an amazing job, almost right away, of shielding her mind from other’s trying to read or manipulate it. She was supposed to progress to trying to read surface thoughts, but she purposefully failed every time. Knowing what everyone was thinking at the time and not being able to control it scared her; there was more than enough in pop culture to let her know that it would drive a person insane. So usually, what she focused on instead was trying to get Daniel to feel pity for her, and move to another sphere. It worked about half the time.
Daniel had also been trying to get her to learn the rest of the spheres, in order to try and see what she was more adept at. She never got anywhere with Spirit. Prime? Well, she could sense when others in her vicinity were using magic, but that was really about it as far as that goes. And with Life? Well, she hadn’t gotten anywhere with that yet, either. After another hour, she was sweaty, tired, and her head was throbbing something fierce.
“Can I please go home now?”
“Alright. But – ”
“Come back in two days, yeah, I know.” she said, picking herself up off the floor and grabbed her purse and keys. She said goodbye to her teacher and got into the car, and headed in the direction of home. Halfway there she decided she really didn’t want to go home, and deal with questions from her Dad or Jacqueline just then, so she drove to Brandon’s instead. More than likely, the only one there and awake was Emilio, and the idea of relaxing in sauna, hot tub or pool was far too appealing to her just then. Emilio welcomed her in, and she made her way to one of the spare rooms that she typically used if she were over.
She set her purse and keys on the bed, then changed into a flattering two-piece suit, and grabbed a towel Emilio had brought for her, and headed down to the hot tub first. Her plan was to soak in the tub, visit the sauna, and cool off in the pool before drying off and heading home – at least, provided Brandon didn’t need her for anything. When the hot tub was ready to go, she slipped in and leaned back, letting the bubbles take away the stress. Afterward she let the sauna ease away the rest of the tension and ease the pounding in her head, before finally getting a swim. The swim was followed by a quick shower to rinse off the chlorine and she re-dressed.
Emilio brought her to the dining room, where a dinner had been prepared for her. Gratefully, she ate what she could of the generous meal before retreating to the entertainment room. Once there she flipped through options until she found something she liked, though gradually exhaustion took over and she laid on the couch for a hopefully quick nap.
Magic was hard work, dammit.