Melons

It had been over six months since Mary had started her training, and each day offered new opportunities to learn and to explore the world. She discovered she had a craving for learning. The more she learnt, the more questions she had.

Her mentor, Procecsa, had picked up on this and gave Mary more and more books to read. Mary was helping her mentor with all sorts of experiments. Procecsa was good at explaining things in a way that Mary understood them.

In just a few weeks, the winter solstice was to take place and Mary was looking forward to it. Several of the experiments that Procecsa had Mary help with depended on it. In the class for basic magic, they had learned that certain celestial events could impact magic. The winter solstice was one of those.

Mary was to assist her mentor in trying to figure out just how much it affected certain types of magic. Mary found the whole thing fascinating and couldn’t wait to get to see the results.

After the solstice, they would have a two-week break. It was the second one they had had, and Mary was planning on spending it at home, just relaxing and maybe going on some client calls with Bettina.

The last break they had was only a week long and Firlea had felt it too short to go back home. Mary, therefore, had invited her to stay the week with Mary and her family. It had been a fun week, and they had met up with Hinat and the group of riders to explore the city some more.

Firlea and Jontak were now seen as an item and Mary couldn’t be happier. They seemed to complement each other. Whilst both were fun and had high energy, Firlea was more down to earth and thought things through. Jontak, on the other hand, was more impulsive and had a habit of acting on every idea that popped into his head.

Mary had continued with her riding lessons and had started weapon training. She still loved riding and Tenac had taken her out on trips on horseback. So far, they had kept inside the city. Mary trusted Buttercup and felt at ease on her back. Even though Tenac had told her repeatedly that she should switch to another horse, Mary had refused.

Weapons training was a different thing. Mary hated it. She truly did. She had finally found something that she had no talent in. Tenac had made her try all different weapons. Swords, bows, knifes, and spears. But it just felt awkward to Mary. In the end, Tenac admitted defeat and realized he would never turn her into a warrior.
He settled on teaching her self defence with a knife or with her own body strength. He just made sure that she knew the basic of the most common weapons in case she needed to use it. Mary did better after that. She recognized the need to be able to take care of herself.

Her least favourite part of weapons training was the fact that Tenac was adamant that she needed to improve her reflexes. His way of doing this was to pop up when she least expected it and throw a komqer melon at her. As she never saw them coming, they always left her drenched.

She had lost count of how many times she had had to run up to her room to change into a dry dress before rushing off to where she intended to go. Everyone except for Mary found this highly amusing. Even Kopa seemed to have no objection to this training. When Mary would complain, he would just chuckle and tell her that Tenac did it for her own good.

Sinhera had spent the summer teaching Mary to swim. Mary had a hard time relaxing in the water at first, but Sinhera had taught her how to float, and Mary had found out how relaxing it was. After that, she had looked forward to spending time in the water and swimming had become much easier.

Procecsa had noted that as Mary became more comfortable being in the water, her water magic seemed to develop as well. This pleased Procecsa, as she had always believed that Mary had water magic abilities, but that Mary somehow was suppressing them. Turns out she was right. The more relaxed Mary became around water, the more prominent her water magic became.

Procecsa told Mary that water magic was probably never going to be her main magic, but with the progress she was making, they could no longer call it her weakness. Mary was stunned. That had put her magic count up to four out of five.

As the class on basic magic had left the purely theoretical part behind, they had now started to slowly use magic. It wasn’t like what Mary had imagined. She had thought it would have been all about fireballs, tornadoes, and other flashy things.

To some part, she had been correct, but her assumption that these things were the height of magic use was wrong. In fact, they turned out to be the easiest type of magic the beginners take on magic. They required the user to focus on one element and just pour as much power as they could manage into it.

Therefor that is what they all did at first. Mary had filled up glasses with water, make earth move into new shapes, causing small wind gusts and even making seeds sprout.

The more advanced magic was almost invisible. It was the art of combining elements and draw essence from other objects and then infuse that into something else. When done correctly, there was no big, flashy finale. If you knew what was happening and were observant, you could hear a faint sizzle as the magic was released.

Mary was far away from sizzling magic. She was still at the big, flashy magic that goes boom. But she was just happy that she could use magic at all. She never would have expected that she could do so.

It was Friday afternoon, and Mary was heading to Procecsa’s office. They were going to go through the recent books that Procecsa had Mary reading. After getting Mary to recognize her water magic, Procecsa was now focusing on fire. Mary thought she had some fire magic in her, but she could never focus on it.

Not that Mary complained. Four types of magic were more than she could have ever hoped for, she thought as she rounded the last corner. From the corner of her eye, she saw a green object come flying. She instinctively held out her hand towards the object and turned her body away.

As the soft melon hit her hand, it dissolved, and Mary found her entire right sleeve and shoulder soaking wet. She could hear Tenac chuckle and then step out from his hiding spot.

“At least you see them coming now. I guess that is progress,” he said, fainting disappointment.

“Tenac! I’m drenched again,” Mary scolded him.

“You wouldn’t be if you moved out of the way,” he pointed out.

“Oh, thank you for that tip. I wouldn’t need to move out of the way if you just stopped throwing them at me,” she huffed.

“Mary, you need to be aware of your surroundings. Maybe not now, but in the future, you will be out in the field, and anything can happen. You need to be prepared,” he said, sounding serious.

“I haven’t seen a single one trainee get this training,” she objected.

“They don’t have me as a trainer,” Tenac said, shrugging. Mary sighed.

“I don’t have time to go back and change. I’ll just have to endure the wet clothing,” Mary said, shaking her head. “Goodbye Tenac, go do something useful.”

“Goodbye Mary, I’ll see you tomorrow for the riding lesson?” he asked. She just nodded. “Good, I think it’s time we get you on another horse.”

“Not going to happen Tenac” she said. He just smiled and waved as he walked away. Mary sighed again and headed to Procecsa’s office.

Mary knocked on the door, and Procecsa told her to enter. As she did, Procecsa looked at her dress and a small smile appeared on the mentor’s face.

“Another melon?” she inquired.

“Yes,” Mary sighed as she took her usual seat, opposite Procecsa.

“I would have thought you had learned to dodge them by now. How long has he been doing it? Three months?”

“Four” Mary corrected her. Procecsa raised an eyebrow as to ask why Mary still wasn’t able to dodge the melons.

“I have too many thoughts in my head,” Mary complained. “I’m so occupied with trying to figure them out I don’t pay attention to my surroundings,” she explained.

“You need to pay attention to what is happening around you,” Procecsa said.

“So I have heard” Mary nodded, making Procecsa laugh.

“Okay, I think we can move on to the topic of the day. I think I know why you don’t have your fire magic,” Procecsa then said.