Eternity Glass

XIII: Equals

The witchling completely lost it. She had absolutely no control or consistency in her practice. During meditation warm-ups, he'd catch her falling asleep or she couldn't sit still long enough to complete it. When he told her to practice centering her magic, sometimes she'd barely manage a flicker and other times, she'd send a blast of scorching white electricity in every which way. Whenever he tried to ask what had her so upset, she just scowled and resumed her training. During their hand to hand combat training, he'd gotten her flat on her back at a record time.

It was only when she started sucking up the life energy of every plant around here that Zafiro halted everything. The damn curse made it so that he couldn't touch her, but throwing small pebbles in her direction until she had no choice to snap out of it seemed to work.

"What?" Fallon hissed. The halo of white wisps flared around her—not quite a shield, but a ring of warning. She'd had similar displays of threatening with ice, but abandoned that outlet after the first few times Zafiro had simply melted them away.

He remained calm, allowing her silvery-grey eyes to bore into his, taking in his energy as her own. She pressed her lips together in a thin line before taking in a deep breath and relaxing her arms at her sides. Once she exhaled, she fixed her gaze on him dead on, as if to say, Alright. Speak.

Zafiro sighed, but tried to fight the smile on his lips. Lack of control aside, Fallon looked like a kid's crayon drawing. Blades of grass stuck to her white tunic and black leggings, and her coppery brown hair had fallen out of its bun a long time ago. Not to mention that the redness of her eyes could rival the damned souls of hell.

Her astral self shouldn't even look like her real self, not really. It could look like whatever the traveler wanted it to, so at least it showed that she trusted him enough to showcase how she really felt.

Meanwhile, he managed to become this universe's biggest jackass. She noticed how he kept a further distance than usual, and not just because he was the slightest bit fearful that she'd suck up all the energy right out of him. Again.

He crouched in front of her, maintaining a two feet distance. He realized that he could get about that close without having the cuffs singe his skin. "Are you sure you don't wanna talk?"

She looked up, pretending to think about it. "No, thanks." She started picking the dirt and grass from her clothes.

"Then don't let it get in the way of your training. You're excelling at an exponential rate, Phorisdottir, but... only at one or two things."

A muscle in her jaw twitched.

"All you're good at is understanding and absorbing energy. Despite what you know about energy magic, your power isn't unlimited. Neither were your father's. If you let yourself do only that, you're going to burst."

Her face fell, and he realized that the words he said somehow related to whatever got her so wound up. He clenched his fist, fighting the urge to reach out. "What you can't absorb, you deflect."

She held her hands up. "And how do I do that?"

"Shield yourself, Phorisdottir. Think of something that protects you, something that keeps you safe."

Her hand instinctively went to her sternum, where that labradorite used to sit. She took another deep breath, mulling over what she could think about. "What do you think about?"

Are you going to tell her about me?

Zafiro bit the inside of his cheek from giving a retort. "I, uh..." he scratched the back of his head, "I think of a wing."