Unlikely Tutor

  Sitting atop a wooden sapling curved like a chair, the master dozed, snoring softly. He’d grown the little tree himself, shaping its wood with his cane, and growing a thick mattress of leaves that looked inviting. The sun was two-thirds of the way across the sky, and though Skye felt lightheaded and sleepy, he also grinned ear-to-ear.

  Above his palm, the pebble spun lazily, bobbing up and down as he directed gusts beneath it. Straining with effort, he guided the stone along the length of his arm, back and forth, using only twitches of his fingers. Not only had he learned to maintain a steady stream of wind, but he’d also cracked the master’s pulling trick. The secret was all in altering the wind’s direction with precise hand movements. Easier than he’d thought.

  It was a great leap for him, but something inside nagged that it wasn’t nearly enough.

  “Woohoo!” Redeyes hollered. “If an elexos ever charges at us, you can show it this trick. Maybe it’ll think you’re too dumb to kill and leave you out of pity!”

  “You did it!” Rico exclaimed, fluttering to his side with Luccello. “I’ll wake the master!”

  “No, wait!” Skye called, halting him. “I want to finish the test first.”

  Plucking a blade of grass, Skye placed it on his palm, applying the same technique. Gradually, he adjusted his strength until he got it to hover in place, but before he could celebrate, a natural breeze swept it away.

  He groaned in frustration.

  “When windriding, you have to consider many factors in your environment,” Rico said. “Location, altitude, air pressure, heat, humidity—everything that can affect wind patterns. Even gas compositions can affect your accuracy.”

  “That sounds way too hard,” Skye grumbled. “How can anyone fight and calculate all that at the same time?”

  “With practice, it becomes second nature,” Rico said.

  Skye scoffed. “You talk like you know much about windriding!”

  “I am a windrider! I’ve told you many times. Here, let me prove it.”

  From beneath his neck feathers, Rico retrieved a small pouch with his beak. Pinning it down with his talons, he extracted a piece of white meat and tossed it into the air. In a swift motion, he snatched it mid-flight and swallowed it whole.

  “Neat trick,” Skye said, crossing his arms. “But it’s not windriding.”

  “Wait and see.”

  Moments later, Rico’s shimmering feathers turned golden bright, their tips razor-sharp. Puffing out his chest, the parrot unleashed a gust of wind that sent Skye stumbling backward.

  “How did you do that?” Skye gasped.

  “My powers are like yours,” Rico explained. “While you gain abilities from the astra you merge with, I have to consume them. But unlike you, my powers don’t work on flora-based astra.”

  Skye’s jaw dropped. “You’re a prism too?”

  “Not quite,” Rico said. “My range is much smaller than yours or the master’s. I can channel elementalist and naturalist fantasia, but nothing else.”

  “So how do you grow in size?”

  “That’s a power I got from a creature called a dropbear. They climb trees and enlarge themselves before ambushing their prey. It’s a handy power, and they’re tasty, too. I always keep some of their meat on hand. The windrider meat is from a yellow-feathered sparrow that augments its speed with wind, called ‘Golden Ray’. It’s so fast, it looks like a flash of light when flying.”

  “That’s incredible! How many kinds of meat do you carry?”

  Rico snickered. “That’s my secret.”

  Skye’s eyes sparkled with excitement. Despite their arguments, if the master, Rico, and Pairi could learn multiple denominations, so could he.

  “Can you switch between the two powers at will?” Skye asked.

  “Unfortunately, no. I can only use the last thing I ate.”

  “How long have you been training?”

  “Since I hatched,” Rico replied, puffing out his chest. “But I’ve been practicing other elements too. And since I can already fly, I didn’t focus much on windriding.”

  Wood creaked behind. The master rose all of a sudden, a blood-chilling glare on his face. “I have to leave,” he announced, striding towards the treehouse.

  Luccello fluttered after him. “I’ll come with you. You need—”

  “No,” Master Ku interrupted sharply. “Stay here. You’re in charge of Skye’s training until I return. If Pairi or Ka’ib shows, send them to me.”

  Skye suspected what this was about, and seeing the uneasy looks on the birds’ faces confirmed his guess: another ghost was coming.

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  As the master disappeared into the treehouse, Luccello sighed, landing on a light pole beside Skye. “No one said you could stop. Continue your training.”

  “Can I go inside the treehouse?” Skye asked. “There’s something I want to test.”

  “No, you may not. We stay here.”

  “But the winds are too strong out here! I want to try the master’s challenge indoors.”

  “And I want to be by my master’s side,” Luccello retorted, tone sharp. “But here I am, stuck with you. We don’t always get what we want.”

  “But—”

  “Enough squawking!” Luccello cut in sharply. He then drew a long breath, sighed, and continued calmly. “You need to focus on learning how to maintain a calm bubble, and you can do that only here. Multi-flow channeling and mass control will come naturally later.”

  Skye bit back his frustration. Despite what happened last night, Luccello must still think of him as a hindrance, though it was unlikely that the ruff would sabotage his training. Begrudgingly, he decided to follow the bird’s instructions, hoping he’d eventually understand some of the terms Luccello kept throwing around.

  “Luccello’s right,” Rico chimed in. “Training indoors will only give you bad habits. Watch, I’ll show you how to make a calm bubble.”

  Plucking a few blades of grass with his claw, Rico tossed them into the air and flapped his wings, channeling winds, keeping the blades suspended. Even as he summoned more violent gales, the grass hardly swayed, unaffected by the gusts that pushed Skye back.

  Rico huffed, his balance wavering. “I usually have better control, but I’m still digesting the dropbear meat. It’s messing with my fantasia flow.” He released the spell at last, panting hard. “Did you see how the leaves weren’t disturbed by the breeze? You can do this by either forming a wind-shield or redirecting outside currents around your leaves.”

  For the next several minutes, Rico demonstrated techniques for creating the calm bubble. Skye tried to copy him, experimenting with various approaches, but he only succeeded in tiring himself. After failing for the eighteenth time, he slumped to the ground, plucking angrily at the grass. “This is impossible.”

  “You’re still giving conflicting commands with your fingers,” Rico said. “Each movement causes an effect; one unnecessary twitch can undo all your efforts. You have to scoop your fingers like you’re holding sand and don’t want to spill it. Then wave slowly, as though you’re swimming through water. Like this.”

  A breeze arrived from afar, ruffling Skye’s hair.

  He closed his eyes, imagining himself swimming in the lake back in the Aquanturine District, racing Lyonel and Rierana. As he stroked, winds answered his call, gathering around his arms. For the first time, he understood how the master had performed his dance.

  Channeling Aero wasn’t about forcing the winds into compliance; he had to share his vision with it, convince it to go along.

  “Stop deluding yourself. The master had controlled thousands of leaves with simple flicks of his hands, while you’re fighting to blow a fart,” Redeyes sneered.

  Skye tried to focus on vacuuming the winds from an imaginary sphere before him, but soon his arms went numb, and he could hardly breathe. Panting, he collapsed on the ground, unable to continue. “I can’t keep this up.”

  “Hmm, I have an idea!” Rico chirped. “Let’s play stormball.”

  “Stormball?” Skye asked.

  “Yes, It’ll teach you how to convey your mindset to the wind quickly. Luccello, can we?”

  The ruff didn’t respond, his eyes fixed on the treehouse, beak clicking impatiently.

  “Luccello!” Rico called again.

  “What?” Luccello snapped towards them. “Fine. Do what you want.”

  “Yay! Wait here. I’ll grab the ball!” Rico said, darting toward the treehouse.

  Left alone with the ruff, Skye resumed practicing his hand movements. He concentrated on guiding the flow of fantasia from his chest to his arms, then through the melodic astrum out into the winds. Fascinating couldn’t describe it. He had the power to shape his will into reality. To control an aspect of this world.

  Behind, Luccello muttered to himself, too loud for Skye to focus.

  “Is something the matter?” Skye asked.

  “Pairi and Ka’ib should’ve returned by now,” Luccello grumbled. “I can’t leave the master alone. What if he needs something urgently? Moving fast wears him out, and he shouldn’t carry heavy things. I have to be there; I have to help him.”

  Skye shrugged. “Then go. Rico’s doing a great job teaching me.”

  “Hah! If I leave you two rascals unsupervised, you’ll find a way to set the whole yard on fire.”

  “Well, you’re not doing much standing there, staring at the treehouse. Rico and I will practice with stormball, and stick to training.”

  Luccello scowled. “You won’t get into mischief? You won’t run into the forest or do anything dangerous, stupid, or both?”

  “No,” Skye replied earnestly. “I want to finish my training so I can leave as fast as possible.”

  Luccello hesitated, then nodded. “That’s what I want too. Fine. Tell Rico he’s in charge until I return. And if either of those two blockheads show up, send them straight to the vault.”

  As Luccello flew off, he crossed paths with Rico, who was carrying a large leather ball. They exchanged a few words midair before Rico landed beside Skye, bouncing with joy, tail wagging.

  “Did you hear? We get to play together, alone!” Rico exclaimed, tossing the ball into the air and blasting it around with gusts of wind.

  “What are the rules of this stormball?” Skye asked.

  “Dodge!” Rico shouted, shooting the ball with bursting force like a cannonball.

  It slammed into Skye’s face, a hard, leather-packed punch that knocked him off his feet. He spun in the air and crashed to the ground, groaning as pain radiated through his cheek.

  “You were supposed to dodge!” Rico squawked, rushing to his side. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry!”

  Skye blinked, rubbing his abraded cheek as he sat up. “I’m fine.” He grabbed the ball, leaned back, and hurled it with all the wind he could muster. “Dodge!”

  The ball struck Rico squarely in the face with an audible thump, sending him tumbling. “Ow! You’re not supposed to touch the ball, and you’re way too close!”

  “Well then, explain the rules properly,” Skye said, stretching for the match. “And don’t start until I’m ready.”

  He’d played a game like this with Lyonel before, but they hadn’t channeled. This match sounded much more exciting and painful to boot.

  “The game’s usually played by two teams of windriders with multiple balls,” Rico explained, flipping a wing to make the ball bounce in midair. “If you’re hit, you’re out. The first team to lose all players loses. Since it’s just us, we’ll use scores instead. You can only affect the ball when it’s on your side of the field, and only with your channeling. Got it?”

  Skye nodded.

  “Alright! Ready or not, here I come!”

  With a flip, Rico launched the ball at an astonishing speed. Mightily it flew straight at Skye’s face, who dodged at the last moment.

  “You almost took my head off!” Skye protested. “Go easy, it’s my first time!”

  “Aw, is little baby scared of big bad ball?” Rico mocked. “Want me to play blindfolded or with my wings tied behind my back?”

  Skye’s face flushed with heat; if that’s how Rico wanted to play, so be it. He gathered currents around his arm, summoning strength until he was numb while the iris sang in his ear. Jumping high, he launched the ball with so much power he almost felt sorry for Rico.

  Rico simply puffed out his chest and blew at the ball, halting it midair.

  “That’s not fair!” Skye cried.

  “Then you won’t like this!” Rico shouted. He sent the ball ricocheting around his half of the field, bouncing against invisible walls before it abruptly shot toward Skye, striking him in the stomach.

  Skye doubled over, groaning in pain, clutching his midsection. When he finally managed to stand straight, the ball bounced against his cheek again, knocking him over.

  “You can throw the ball again if it rebounds into your field!” Rico called cheerfully.