The Dragon Stone ↣ Riven ↢

06: Is My Face What Heaven Looks Like To You?

''I could fall or I could fly''

The day had started off with fly training. Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. This training was all about using your wings with exercises in altitude, speed and agility.

While Rose was lined up with the other students in the courtyard, her mind wandered off. This morning the thought of telling headmistress Dowling about the big spider had crept into her head. It seemed like a bad idea, since she might think Rose was crazy, but on the other hand, the spider could also be a danger to the school and its students since it isn't a natural inhabitant of the forest. As she pondered it over, a voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

'Miss Lindor, do you understand the exercise?', Professor Green asked her, clearly noticing Rose was not paying any attention to the instructions she'd been giving.

The question had caught her off guard, and she dug around her brain for a response.

'We're supposed to fly.', she sheepishly stated, causing laughter to erupt from the other students.

'That is a grave understatement, but yes, you're supposed to fly. I suggest you transform and join your fellow students for the first exercise.', Professor Green responded dryly.

As Rose took a look around, she noticed that she was indeed the only one who hadn't transformed yet. With a look of embarrassment on her face, she quickly transformed and joined the other fairies in the air.

The first exercise was all about using magic while being up high in the air. The point was to take into account the risks of high altitude, such as exhaustion and hypothermia, while battling.

The benefit of battling your fellow students was that their blows were just as likely to miss as your own and though Rose didn't particularly enjoy the battling, the exercise went fine.

The second exercise was about speed. It was quite simple, fly from one point to another and arrive there earlier than the others. It was a race and in this case, the starting point was the courtyard, and the finish line was just above the specialists training area.

Rose wasn't too confident in her endurance abilities, which made her doubtful she was going to be a fast flyer.

While getting into starting position, she tried to remember what professor Green had told them earlier about speed.

'Connection, mind, magic...' rose mumbled to herself, trying to make sense of the words.

'If the connection between your mind and magic is strong, it will allow you to focus your power into different tasks such as speed.', Aisha explained to her.

Rose nodded gratefully, while mumbling a thank you. She closed her eyes to try and focus on the connection between her mind and her magic and was surprised when she actually started to feel something. It was as if she could feel the magic cursing through her body. It was warm, buzzing and it felt restless, as if waiting for instructions.

As professor Green gave the signal to start the race, Rose willed her magic to focus on her wings as if to power them.

'It's working!', Rose gushed to herself as she almost immediately obtained a leading position in the race.

Her sudden outburst of happiness and surprise caused her to fall back in speed, but she quickly recovered and surprised herself even more when she got to the, invisible, finish line first.

'Well done, Rose.', Professor Green complimented her as the others had arrived as well.

'That was amazing!', Musa cheered while approaching Rose. 'How did you do that?'