His Apprentice (The Dragon Prince Fanfiction)

Ch. 13 Discovery

"Now say; crescere," Aaravos instructed as his lime green rune made the tiny stem in his mini mountain of dirt grow in his hand, blooming into a fiery orange flower.

Heather glanced at her own pile of soil and sad little stem. "Crescere," she echoed in a quieter voice than Aaravos. Her stem grew stronger and higher, its leaf rising towards the blue sky. A bubble of joy inflated inside of her as a bud formed and bloomed into a tiny blue flower, no bigger than the pad of her thumb. But then her bubble popped and the blue flower withered, fading to grey. Its leaves crumpled up, and they drifted to the grassy forest floor with the petals.

Heather sighed, her ears drooping. She brushed the dirt off of her hand and looked at her crossed legs.

Aaravos placed his hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Heather. It was only a first try," he reassured.

Though Heather didn't find it very reassuring. She felt so bad about the death of a tiny flower; it almost made her feel silly. But inside she felt as if that plant had been part of her, like a child-that thought was repulsive; she hated children. Yet she felt so fond of it.

"Why didn't it work?" she asked, looking at Aaravos. She had been practising her Draconic with Khonsu diligently, building up her vocabulary and grammar, not to mention how hard she'd been studying the books of the arcana Aaravos had given her, and all the meditation she'd been doing. Heather was so sure it would work, so confident that her work had paid off.

This was why she hated magic. Unlike fighting, it required so much knowledge about so many things she didn't deem practical, and meditation, and understanding. And even after all that, it didn't work.

Aaravos glanced at her hands. "If I could have a guess, it's that you haven't built up enough magic to hold the spell and project enough into the plant to keep it alive."

Heather sighed. It was logical at least, but it just made her feel angry that magic was like fighting. She'd thought of them as completely different; one you were born with, the other you worked for. And the more she went into her training, the more incorrect her idea became.

What troubled her was why she disliked magic so much; it had never harmed her, not to mention Khonsu-a battlemage-was her best friend. Yet she always disliked it, thinking it was something mages inherited. Not trained on-simply thinking they were just 'born lucky' with an immense skill that just grew as they did, never having to work on it. But as her lessons went on, she realised it was very different. So much work went into studying the language and learning the runes and building up the endurance to use the magic in the way she needed to use it-just like fighting.

Fighting required knowledge of the many forms to fight with many weapons and building up the strength, agility, and endurance to use the forms in the way she needed to use them.

So why did she still dislike magic?

Heather had lay awake the past few nights thinking about it. The only plausible reason she could come up with was that she, for some reason, associated magic with elves-beings who had brought her nothing but misery throughout her life. And she had to get out of that way of thinking because there was dragon magic, often referred to a mimicking-using the elements in what way they needed-fire for light and warmth, water for healing, earth for building and movement, and air for enhanced flying; and all could be used for fighting.

She shook her thoughts away and glanced around at the tall trees and lush undergrowth in the clearing. How much energy had they needed to grow? She could feel their primal energy all around her; a calm current of life that circled her, Aaravos, and Khonsu in this clearing under the pale morning sun.