Dreams And Nightmares 1

Author's Note: My first attempt at a magic school type story. All characters over eighteen.

****

I was exhausted, sweaty, hungry, and frustrated beyond all belief. The pile of scrap metal in front of me resisted my every effort. I could figure it out. I knew I could. I always managed it eventually. But I wasn't sure anything else I'd learned had resisted me quite so implacably before. It was like my mind couldn't find even the smallest grip or leverage.

"Hey."

I started, nearly tripping over my own damn feet. A girl was watching me bemusedly. One of my classmates. Serana, maybe?

"Uh, hey," I said, pushing my hair back and belatedly trying to make myself presentable without appearing to do so.

"Cafeteria's gonna close soon," Serana said. "I was working late too. But, you know, if you want to eat tonight...."

"Yeah. Yeah thanks," I said.

I gave my pile of scrap a look of disgust, then started packing up my things. Surprisingly, Serana waited for me until I was ready to go. We'd incidentally walked together before, usually as part of a group being let out of class at the same time, but never deliberately that I could recall.

"Rough one, huh?" Serana asked as we strode down the corridors together.

We were nearly alone. Traffic in this area was low this late in the day. Classes were long since over, as well as most students' coursework and practice. Just us slow-asses still working on lessons, or homework, or projects, or whatever we were behind on.

"It could have been better," I mumbled.

"I mean, we've all been there," Serana said, giving me a sidelong half-smile.

I shook my head, letting my hair fall back to partially cover my face. "Not as pathetic as me today," I said. "I couldn't make it work. Not even a little." I clenched my fingers and released them a few times, feeling the frustration well up again. "It should be so basic. I read the text over and over. It's not complicated flows at all. I should--"

Serana bumped me playfully as we walked, and distracted as I was I nearly crashed into the wall as a result.

"Lighten up, Mags," she said. "So you didn't get it the first day. So what?"

"It's a failure," I said. "It's shit."

Serana shrugged. "It's education. It's all shit."

****

For reasons unknown to me, Serana sat with me while we ate. Granted, it was slim pickings for companions at that time of the evening, and it was arguably better than sitting alone. I wasn't in an overly sociable mood though, and was surprised my grumbling hadn't chased her off already.

Serana left my failure alone for a time, chatting away intermittently about other subjects, most of which I only half heard or half cared about. I focused on mechanically eating my supper, knowing I'd regret it if I didn't get enough food in me. Magic took a toll at the best of times, let alone when one had spent hours pouring energy into accomplishing absolutely nothing. The fact that I owed my meal this evening to Serana giving at least a little bit of a shit about me was both a small comfort, and a further dose of salt in the wound of my unproductive day.

"So what were you working on anyway?" Serana asked me. "I never did ask. I mean metallurgy of some kind, I could see that. Alloying? I've been having trouble with that too."

I frowned and stayed silent, even glaring back down at my food instead of responding with the basics of human civility. Serana, though, didn't let it slide this time. I found myself utterly baffled as the better part of a full roll bounced off my face.

"You're supposed to answer when someone asks you a question," Serana informed me politely.

"You're not supposed to throw food," I replied.

"I would never," she said, batting her eyes winsomely.

I snorted in something like actual amusement. She could be charming enough, I supposed. In a better mood, I probably would even have enjoyed sitting and talking with her.

"It was just the basics," said, giving in. "Elementary manipulation of metallic elements. Magic for babies. No matter how long I tried, I couldn't even get it to budge."

Serana's face went through a small cascade of emotions, and I definitely caught her trying very hard not to laugh.

"Oh," she said.

"I know," I said. "Terrible."

"Well I mean it's not fun being there, but you know everyone has their weaknesses," Serana said. "I've struggled with basic stuff. Everyone else has at some point or other. Some of us struggle with everything."

I nodded, clenching and unclenching my hands under the table, trying to blink back frustration and the possibility of tears. "Yeah," I said. "Like me."

Serana gaped at me. "You do not!"

"Listen, Serana--"

"Sera."

I stopped short. "What?"

"My name's Sera." Her lips quirked in amusement. "Where did you get Serana from?"

"I... oh god, really? I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Sera chuckled softly. "I guess we haven't talked much before just the two of us. We've been in class together for years though. You realize that, yes?"

I covered my increasingly red face with my hands. At least the tears had been held back, but I wasn't sure that utter social mortification was an improvement.

"Sorry!" I repeated.

"It's fine. It's kind of funny," Sera said.

"So glad you think so." I forced my hands to drop and looked at the remains of my meal. I didn't much feel like finishing any more of it, though I wasn't really full either. "Are you done?"

Sera nodded. "Yep. Let's go."

We walked back to our rooms together, the halls even more deserted than before. It was nice to have company. The whole place got downright spooky in the late hours. I just wished I hadn't made a total fool of myself in front of said company.

"I do struggle with everything," I finally said, pulling us back to our conversation. "You can't say I don't."

"I've seen you practice," Sera said. "You're always practicing. And you've done stuff no one else in our classes can pull off. I've seen it."

"That's just it," I said. "I have to practice. All the time. I can't keep up otherwise. And this isn't like non-magic school used to be, where the teachers could give some guidance or assistance. This stupid school just pops out next weeks lessons whether I'm ready or not, and you know as well as I do it doesn't give credit for 'trying really hard'." I sighed. "I get so frustrated sometimes when I watch other people just glide through stuff that takes me weeks to master."

"Yeah," Sera said. "But you do master it."

"Well--"

"Do you know I can barely do fire?" she said. "Like just barely enough to not fail those lessons entirely. And I've watched you sometimes, like during your free time in the gym when--"

"You watch me during free time?"

"Incidentally. Not on purpose. I'm not stalking you." Sera took a breath. "Sorry, that sounded like what a stalker would say. I just meant that I noticed you and yes maybe once I noticed I couldn't stop watching. You were doing practice combat. Against illusory targets. You were absolutely destroying them."

I smiled despite myself and turned my head to hide it. "Fire's one I can do," I admitted. "It's always come easy. Just push it where you want it to go. Not like some other stupid magics."

"Easy for you," Sera corrected. "Not for everyone. Not for me."

"Oh. Right. Sorry, that was stupid."

Sera punched my arm, and for a moment I was too stunned to be sulky, mad, embarrassed, or anything in particular. "You don't gotta be sorry for everything, you know."

"Right. Sorry."

She glared at me, and I failed to hide a cheeky little smile. "Was that a joke just now?"

"Maybe."

Sera slowly smiled back. "Well well, there is a sense of humour in there somewhere."

"Thanks?"

"Look, Mags, all I was trying to get at is you can do things with fire I can only dream of. And make it look effortless, like choreographed dance even. The stuff you don't take to so quickly you still get eventually."

"So much practice," I sighed.

"Well so what?" Sera demanded. "Why is that a bad thing?"

"It means I'm barely adequate to the task," I said. "I thought that was obvious."

"No, you shit, it means you're going to be better than them all when you get out of here," Sera said. "You really think hard work is inferior to natural talent?"

I blinked. "I mean, not when you put it that way, I guess."

"Damn right. So how about, just as a proposal, think about it. What if we worked together, hm? I'll help you practice metallurgy, you bump up my pyro game?"

"I--"

"Think about it," Sera said. "This is your stop, yes?"

We were indeed standing next to my door. "You sure you're not stalking me?"

"Our names are written on our doors, Mags. If doesn't take a stalker to find your room."

"That wasn't a no," I called after her as she turned and headed back the way we'd come.

It occurred to me as I reached the safety of my bed that Sera had deliberately continued past her own room to walk me to mine. Maybe just because we hadn't finished our conversation yet. Maybe.

****

I spent the rest of my evening and the next morning distracted as all hell. My usual routine was to study up some more without any actual practice, really getting as much theory crammed into my brain as I could manage. Sometimes I was exhausted and just took all the sleep I could muster. This time was a bizarre instance of neither in particular.

How long had it been since I'd lain awake in bed just thinking and fretting? Part of the beauty of always wearing myself out was that sleep came easily when it was time. This was the first night in a while where my system failed me a little.

I was nervous about seeing Sera again the next day. Not for any specific reason I could articulate, but the feeling was there nonetheless.

Lessons were painful that morning. More so than usual. Partly because of more metallurgy time, which I was no closer to grasping than yesterday, but even stuff I could somewhat grasp was a struggle. I wasn't focused.

Lunch time was an opportunity to recharge some, and a guilt-free chance to zone out for a bit without consequences. Or at least it should have been. Sera slid into the seat across the table from me as casually as if we'd been eating together for years, rather than once.

"How's it going?" Sera asked.

I hesitated a moment before answering. "Fine," I said. "You?"

"Not so bad," Sera said. "Want to practice together this afternoon? I mean, I have some work I have to finish first, but after that I'm pretty open schedule-wise."

I looked down at my food. "I feel like that might just be embarrassing having you watch."

"Not watching," Sera corrected. "Helping."

"You have to watch to help."

"Technically true," she sighed. "Are you going to be deliberately difficult?"

I blinked in surprise. "No? No. That's not--"

"Good. You're gonna make me better at fire, by the way, in case that wasn't clear. We're not just working on you."

"That would be better," I said. "Maybe we should just do that, so I regain some self-esteem."

"Nope," Sera said simply, as though that was the end to it.

"Nope?"

"We're going to be a team. We're going to work on both."

"We are?"

"We are."

I sighed and toyed with my food some more. "Ok," I gave in. "But let's start with you."

"Are you only saying that in hopes that I'll forget about you afterward?" Sera asked.

"... no?"

"Liar."

****

I took Sera to the practice gym after lunch. Parts of it were actually like a regular gymnasium for exercise, but mostly it was a large area for practicing magic where the consequences of getting something disastrously wrong were lessened.

It was an impossibly large room that was cunningly set up to not feel so intimidatingly large when one was in there. I'd thought about the space it must actually occupy a few times and had become too anxious to keep pondering upon it. I knew the magic infusing the walls and roof was as secure as any physical engineering, yet the lack of any visible support for such a huge ceiling still made me nervous if I thought about it for too long.

The good news, and the thing I very much trusted the room for, was that it could absorb stray magic like no one's business. I'd tried it out once, throwing energy at one of the walls as hard as I could. Not so much as a scorch mark afterward. Classrooms and labs could be delicate at times, but this room could take anything anyone threw at it, deliberately or otherwise.

I led Sera to a corner dubbed the firing range. It was specifically laid out with individual sections to be used, and magic nullifying barriers between them. Much like somewhere that people could go shoot guns at paper targets for practice. Only in this case it was magical energies that could potentially hurt just as much if something went wrong.

"Going hard straight off, huh Mags?" Sera said. "You know, I really can't achieve enough strength to be dangerous."

I shrugged. "Best to be safe. Sometimes someone figures something out and there are... incidents, shall we say, before they get control."

"Ha, yeah. I remember our class getting frozen over that time last year when Jason suddenly figured out temperature manipulation."

"Exactly. Chilly as that was, it could have been an inferno instead."

Sera cocked her head at me thoughtfully. "The school has precautions against most potential cataclysms, you know."

"Yeah," I said. "Most. You want to work together or not?"

"I do. Sorry. You're right, this is smart." Sera took a breath. "I think I'm just nervous and stalling."

I blinked. "Why nervous?"

"Same reason you're nervous to try metallurgy again, I suspect. Being bad at something right next to someone who's pretty good at it."

I shrugged uncomfortably. "At least you're not totally hopeless. Might as well show me what you can do, anyway. It'd be a start."

Sera nodded and stretched out her palm. She concentrated for a moment, eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly, and a small ball of flame came into being. Once it was active in her hand, Sera released some of her tension and looked back to me.

"Ok," I said. "How big can you make it?"

Sera's eyes flicked from her hand back to me. "About that big."

"... what?"

"I told you I'm not very good at it. On a good day I can make it dance." She concentrated again, and the flame began a careful spin, then bobbed around a bit between her fingers.

I scratched my head. "So, like, some decent control, but not much power? That's not so bad."

Sera nodded and let the flam go back to a still ball in her palm. "That's me. Sheer power is not my strength at the best of times." She poked me with her free hand. "That's why I get so jealous of you sometimes."

I blushed and fiddled with my shirt. "Thanks?"

"So?" Sera prompted. "Teach me to do better."

"I don't really know how to teach," I said. "But what about... well, let's just try some things. Can you throw fire down to that target over there?"

"Nope," Sera replied cheerfully.

"Great."

****

Teaching Sera was as much a lesson for me as for her, though in very different ways. Her learning was in the more traditional sense, where we were trying to help her be better at something. In my case, I was having to learn how to approach someone's understanding and ability with a subject--which could diverge wildly from mine--and unpack it in a way we could both follow, and that would be helpful too. It almost made me regret not spending my afternoon staring uselessly at scraps of metal.

Sera, having started out far more optimistic than me, came down to my level after a while. Our lack of any progress at all was hard to ignore, emotionally speaking. However it didn't turn out to all be a waste of time. It was just that we had to slowly and inefficiently work our way toward something productive and useful.

I found I wasn't really understanding what was happening until I tried something new, standing behind her and placing my hands over hers while she manipulated magical forces. With some time and effort, I was able to sense the flows at play without actually affecting them directly.

Despite myself, I felt a certain sense of pride and relief as I was able to do something I hadn't before. Even if, in a sense, it wasn't really me doing anything. Being able to watch someone else's work still counted, I decided. It was similar to lessons where rough demonstrations of the flows were made into visual props, but sensing it actually happening was significantly more visceral and useful for our purposes.

"Ok, I see what you're doing," I murmured, eyes mostly closed as I concentrated on information coming from my other senses. "Seems like the easiest step is just make it bigger. Push more energy through the flow."

"Can't," Sera said, her breathing coming just a little stilted.

"What do you mean can't?" I asked. "Just... you know, the same as you're doing. But more. Bigger."

"I mean I can't," Sera said. "I've tried that. It was the most obvious option even before now. Didn't work."

Before I could utter any sort of confusion, she showed me what she meant. She increased energy and....

"Why's it all scattering?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"That's what happens," Sera said, a tad impatiently. "That's what always happens when you try to push more energy than you can handle in the flow. You seriously going to tell me you've never had it happen to you?"

"No, it has," I said. "But with, you know, bigger amounts."

Sera sighed and released her flame. "I struggle with fire. I told you. Like you with metal."

I bit my lip, chagrined. She was right. In theory I knew what to do in my own struggle, but my utter lack of success left my impatience with her as something hypocritical at best.

"You're right," I said. "Sorry. I'm new at this."

"That's ok," Sera said. "We can take a break and--"

"Not yet," I said. "I've got another idea. Maybe even a good one. Or maybe not."

"You have my interest."

"Let's switch," I said. "I'll do some exercises, you just watch the flow."

"You say that like it's easy," Sera grumbled.

"I mean, if you don't think--"

"No no," she said quickly. "Let's try it."

Sera glommed on to me from behind. Perhaps a little too tightly, if anything. I wasn't used to that level of contact, and at least when I'd been the big spoon, as it were, I had control of the situation. It was very different having to stand still and let her wrap her arms around me, delicately covering my hands with hers.

"Is that ok?" she asked softly.

"Yeah," I croaked.

"Good. Only you trembled a little just then."

"Did I?" I asked vaguely, trying to deflect from how I was definitely feeling a bit uncomfortable with the situation. I didn't want her to realize it. It wasn't even discomfort in a bad way, exactly. Just an awkwardness of not knowing what to do with someone pressed up against me so firmly.

I sparked life into the air in front of me as a further distraction. I deliberately went as slowly as I reasonably could, letting a ball of fire spin into being between my hands. It was genuinely difficult not to go bigger and faster, and not even just to show off. Fire was comfortable and it was nice to do something I was good at after so much frustration.

"You feel that?" I asked.

"Not... exactly," Sera said, sounding strained. "Keep going. I can't quite feel the flow yet like I can when I'm casting."

I nodded. I weaved patterns in the air in front of us, zipping fire around and leaving short-trails behind it. It was similar to a warm-up exercise I might do some days, just to get the mind focused. Maybe a tad showier than normal despite how I insisted to myself that I wasn't trying to brag. It was different with an audience at any rate, and maybe it felt nice to know that Sera appreciated my talents. Maybe I wanted a little more of that. So what?

My playfulness was probably for naught, as it happened. Sera felt increasingly tense, and I realized her efforts were going into sensing what I was doing rather than watching my easy acrobatics. Which was the right thing to do, sure, but still stung a little.