Algernon Black || The Rise of a God ||

(Chapter 124) Destroyed Hope

It was the last class before the ball and Punditwood thought it a fitting idea for his students to work on forming balls of light synthesizers. It was a remarkably hard thing to accomplish for any practitioners and something he ordinarily introduced later in the year, but he had a few select students he liked to monitor as they kept surpassing his expectation.

One of these students was nowhere close today in forming her synthesizers, which he found strange as Lucy was usually the quickest of his students to learn a new skill.

Lucy frowned down at the minuscule amount of energy in her palms. The magic formed like two strands of yarn from each hand and when she tried to bind them together they would begin circling around each other until a small ball of light formed in the center of their chase, but she couldn't get far enough to knot them together as her mind trailed off into last night's fight with Algernon. Her hands were stung painfully by the magic as a consequence as it had countless other times today. Lucy looked down at the new burn marks. Still, there were the scars she had gotten on her first day of Attwood. She should have known then that scars would become a constant for her.

Punditwood was watching Lucy try and fail over and over again, though he actually knew it wasn't so much a failure of producing the magic but more like preventing her success by lose of concentration. He knew that mental roadblock well and how devastating it was to progress.

"Lucy," Punditwood said, strolling over to her side. "What has got your mind so muddled today?"

"What?" Lucy asked, getting flustered to think that everyone was watching her fail miserably.

"You're usually the one heading the class in synthesizing," Punditwood replied, peering down at her reddened hands. "But you're advancing nowhere today."

"I'm sorry, professor." Lucy breathed out, but her eyes trailed to Algernon where her stomach wrenched into sharp knots. "My thoughts don't seem to be in my control lately."

"Rarely do humans advance high enough to ever be in control of their thoughts," Punditwood explained. "A struggle we all have to get through." Even as he spoke he could see Lucy lose focus to not processe anything he said.

"Lucy?" He said, calling for her attention. Lucy snapped back to the conversation, but the professor saw her headspace completely elsewhere. Punditwood breathed a sigh of sympathy, perceiving that a different lesson was required for her. "Lucy, do you know what energy is?"

Lucy raked her mind, thinking it was such a simple answer, but it evaded her. She then questioned if she had ever learned it at all, staring blankly back at the professor.

"Energy is chaos," Punditwood explained, holding out his hand. "And it is that chaos that the entire world is built from." The professor's palms began casting magic, lighting up Lucy's face as it did. "What is often referred to as entropy. From the tips of your fingers to the edges of your toes, every particle in this entire world is in a constant state of disarray. A steady unseen vibration caused by the mass disorder that radiates at the center of all things." Lucy stared at the magic, inspecting closely for the first time all the shifting particles flying sporadically amongst one another. "It is no wonder why our lives seem to follow the same path." Punditwood smiled, seeing his student now fully invested in his lesson. "And it's the job of the practitioner to bring chaos under our control. That is what magic is. "

He opened Lucy's palms to reveal the burn marks from all her failed attempts and saw the old wounds too. "Control the chaos in your life and you'll be able to accomplish miracles."

Lucy looked to Algernon again and bit the inside of her cheeks. She turned away, and unblocking her mind with a deep breath. The strings of golden light started to chase each other once again until the ball in the middle grew to a size she could consistently control.

Pundiwood smiled at her success. She was probably his favorite student for that alone. No advice was ever lost on her as she listened intently to all he said. Over his 20 years as a teacher, he could reliably say that was the worst part of the job. Having perfect advice for people who simply didn't care enough to listen. Lucy always listened. It was the most basic form of mannerism but she was one of the few people who ever did. The professor gave his praise with a pat on her shoulder before moving on.

Lucy also decided then that she would be moving on, and made the first steps towards that decision by not showing up to practice. The ball was tomorrow night, and one more lesson wouldn't make a difference in her abilities anyways, but one more fight with Algernon might actually destroy her. She recalled Punditwood's warning of chaos. Algernon wasn't something she could control or even withstand, but she could avoid him. So she went straight to her room, thinking about not thinking about Algernon the entire time. She was only truly successful when she came home to see a dress laid out on her bed. Lucy recognized the gown instantly. It had been the one she was looking at in Aloysius's shop months ago.

A pinned note on it read,

I look forward to seeing you in something so beautiful Lucy. And your brother sends his love.

There was no signature but Lucy knew it must have been more charity from Aloysius. Tears came to her eyes as she clutched the dress to her chest. She needed her brother's love more than anything of the late. And she needed to remember who he'd had raised her to be. She swallowed her tears.