Boy of Light and Dust

Dayin

Dayin admitted that sending air messages was pretty cool. He watched Ica send his message in awe and wondered if it was something that he could do, but decided not to ask, knowing that there were more important things for him to learn than that. Ica was impressively patient with him while he tried to conjure up the courage to test his magic out on him; knowing that Ica could manage himself and that Dayin wouldn't hurt him helped immensely. Dayin still worried that he would hurt him, but hoped in the case that he hurt Ica that he'd be able to heal himself.

He didn't immediately burn his hands as he had the last time he'd tried to heal himself with Ica's instruction, but after about fifteen minutes of continuously trying, his hands had begun to feel a little crispy. He continued on, trying his best to not flinch or cringe to hide it from Ica, who seemed to be relieved to be using his magic and physically being able to help instead of only encouraging Dayin.

"Did you just flinch?" Ica inquired with a quick glance at Dayin's hands that Dayin had curled into a fist as Ica peered over them. He ground his teeth together. Why did he have to notice everything?

Dayin scowled at him. "No."

"Dayin, if you're hurting yourself, we need to figure out a way to fix that."

"I'm not," Dayin argued, though his hands felt like someone was peeling the skin off them as he dug his stubby nails into the palms of his hands. His eyes burned as tears threatened to spill over. "It's fine. I promise." He was sure he didn't sound very convincing, but he was sure he could push past all the pain and figure it out.

"Let me see them then," Ica said steadily. Dayin knew from the expression that Ica wore that he didn't believe him. Of course not. "If your hands are okay, then we'll continue. If not, we're going to figure something out." Dayin bit his lip anxiously as he slowly unfurled his hands. Ica's expression changed from an "I told you so" sort of look to a frown. "Day..." he sighed as he reached his hands toward Dayin's.

"I told you. I'm fine," Dayin said through gritted teeth as Ica lightly pulled Dayin's fingers back where Dayin had left them slightly curled. He'd left them like that for a reason, though he doubted Ica had noticed that as he stared down at his hands.

Ica glanced up at him, his sky-blue eyes darkening in annoyance and concern. "I can see the tears in your eyes," Ica pointed out.

Dayin's scowl furthered as he rapidly blinked his eyes to make the tears vanish. "I can't just stop because I'm in pain," he pointed out as Ica continued to look his hands over.

"You can't practice your magic very well if you don't have hands," Ica grumbled, his annoyance not dissipating. He sighed and quickly waved his hand over Dayin's, casting a light blue aura over his hands, healing Dayin's hands. His hands immediately felt better, though not completely healed. "Next time, tell me. If you let it go too much, your hands will be scarred."

"If it's not going to keep me from being able to do magic, does it really matter?" It annoyed him that Ica was this concerned about his hands. What did it matter if they were a little scarred? He had heard somewhere that scars gave character or something like that.

Ica frowned again. "You don't need to hurt yourself to do magic, Day," he said. "We'll... Get you gloves or something." He cracked a smile.

Dayin squinted at him. Gloves? "I think I'll pass on the gloves." He doubted gloves would actually help him anyway.

Ica raised an eyebrow, apparently thinking his reaction was amusing. "Not your style?"

"No. I just don't like gloves."

"Noted. Not your style."

Dayin sighed. Why did Ica have to think the stupidest things were funny? "I don't want gloves, Ica." He had a feeling that Ica was going to show up at some point with a pair of gloves for him, just to spite him.

Ica sighed as he took a step back from him. "Well, you can't keep this up either." He shook his head as he glanced around the room for a second. "Do you want to keep practicing, or are you done for now?"

"Just a few more minutes?" Dayin asked. He needed to get the hang of this. "Unless you need to go." He knew Max was waiting for him to go to bed. Dayin didn't want Max staying up late just because Dayin kept Ica out to practice.

Ica shook his head again. "No. Max should be okay for a little while longer." He bit at his lip anxiously as he looked around again. "Would you like me to show you how a tracking spell works?"

Dayin considered it for a moment. It might come in handy if he needed to track William or one of the twins down. He doubted he'd ever need it to find Ica, given that he was almost always around. "Sure. Why not?"

Ica's lip twitched upward in the start of a smile. "Alright, so, in order to track someone, you need a personal item from the person you want to track... So, like when I tracked you the other morning... Your armour was sitting on the counter, so I used that. It was something that meant something to you, so it worked. For me... Using my lance might work. Maybe some of my clothes? One of my personal books?" He shrugged. "It won't work if you try to track someone using another person. So... If you tried to use Max to track me, it wouldn't work. You'd probably end up tracking Max because he has personal items on him."

Dayin nodded. Made sense. "Are there any... like restrictions?"

"Restrictions?"

"Like... Reasons someone wouldn't be able to track someone?"

"Ah," Ica said with a nod. "Yeah. You can hide yourself. Which is what we want to teach you to do. If you can hide yourself, nobody should be able to find you." He shrugged his shoulders. "Unless the spell you cast isn't strong enough, or someone's got some extremely powerful magic."

"Oh, so... Like a Turned warlock?" Dayin inquired. Weren't they trying to hide him from Turned warlocks?

"Probably not." Ica didn't sound so sure. "Not all of them are powerful. They're just letting themselves be controlled by others." He pulled something out of his pocket; a small silver bracelet. "This is Max's. So, if I cast a tracking spell on it..." he muttered, waving his left hand over the bracelet that laid in his slightly cupped right hand. "...I should be able to track him." A smile spread across Ica's face as a light blue trail glowed dimly from the bracelet to the door. "See?" He beamed. He then waved his left hand back over the bracelet and the trail vanished. "Wanna give it a try?"

Dayin rubbed at the back of his neck nervously as Ica picked the bracelet up delicately between his index finger and his thumb, offering it to him. "Why don't we save it for another time? I don't want to mess it up on accident."

Ica nodded as he pocketed the bracelet. He looked a little saddened that Dayin had turned down his offer to track Max, but didn't question him. "That's alright. You have time to learn. You'll be fine." He glanced at the door. "You need to work on hiding yourself anyway. You don't need to worry about the tracking part unless you'd like to."

Dayin nodded. "Alright. You can go see Max now. I'm sorry that I interrupted if I did."

"It's fine!" Ica promised. "I'm sure Max didn't mind. He was probably happy to have a bit of time to himself. If not, I'm sure he'll be so upset that he didn't get to spend time with you." He rolled his eyes but laughed. "Go get some sleep. You're no use to us if you're half asleep."