A new day, starting with the fresh smell of a summer night’s rain. Well, after a few good hours of sun it’s gone. But that’s fine, now we can move around in the forest without getting too wet.

“All right, you can land now.”

“Finally, I’m getting a headache.” Tom complains.

“Really? It’s not that hard.”

“No, he’s got a point.” I reply to Silje. “You’re using mana somewhat efficiently, while he’s just- y’know- throwing it out there.” Hmm…

“You’ve used much more mana than this, how come you don’t get headaches?” He asks, rubbing his temples.

“That’s a good question, actually. One thing is that I use mana like a million times more efficiently than you, though you do seem to be improving. I guess I just have more experience with you. [Meditation] helps too.”

He looks at me doubtingly, and Silje picks up the thread. “There’s an ability for that? What does it do?”

I explain the uses I’ve found so far, those being to regenerate mana and heighten concentration as well as passively decrease the mental load of using magic, especially for prolonged time. “Not sure how much is from the ability itself and how much is from me getting better at magic, though.”

It’s quickly decided that we should take a break from teaching them what I consider necessary for learning flying to let Tom’s headache fade. In the meanwhile I teach them [Meditation] (and have him equip it).

Silje lights up after figuring out how to do it. “Wow, that really makes you get mana faster.”

“If you just want to fill your mana fast [Mana Absorption] is faster. You have to ‘convert’ the mana to be able to use it, and it’s magic in itself so you can get a headache from using it.”

“That’s stupid, isn’t it useless then?” Tom grumbles.

“No, if you use both at the same time…”Silje says, looking at me.

“Yeah, that works wonders. I’d suggest not using all your mana, though. There may be… side-effects. Oh, and you don’t really need [Mana Absorption] ‘equipped’ for it to be useful. At least, I don’t.”

Hmm, ideally they should both have [Meditation] before we start the actual flying lessons, since a mana deficiency in the air might be very dangerous. I will shapeshift them, of course, so they could safely glide and land. But I don’t think it’s fair to assume that when I still have problems with landing without using magic or a very long landing strip.

Honestly their [Force Magic] is good enough that they can use it to take off and safely land, but it’s not quite enough to be a safety net. Well, we’ll take it in incremental steps, and I’ll be around to keep an eye out, but still. Maybe I should try to get some other safety measures… A feather fall enchantment would be great, but I wouldn’t trust my life to the version I have now.

“Hey Lars?”

I turn to Tom and he continues. “What’s up with those weird socks?”

“Hmm?” I look down. “Oh, my shoe-socks? Shoes don’t work well if I shapeshift, and take time to take on or off. These work fine even in wolfkin form. They’re enchanted and stuff, and have a slight sole, so they still protect my feet from getting hurt from all the running around on weird terrain I do.”

“When will you teach us enchanting?”

“Well, I think you have the necessary abilities now, but I can only teach you so much at once.”

“Oh. Can you teach us after shapeshifting and flying?”

“Sure. In fact, I can start with some tips now. First you want [Imbuing], which is putting magic, usually just mana, into an object. [Enchanting] is putting a spell into an object. Once you learn [Aspect Magic], you can try imbuing a stick or rock or something.”

“On that note, I’m still planning to teach you basic artificing and how to make wands and other foci. Imbuing a stick is how you make the most basic wand.”

“Can you teach us all that in two days?”

“Hm, probably not. At least not unless- no, nevermind.”

“I’m gonna ask dad to extend to time!” He pulls out his phone and walks a bit away from us.

“What are they even made of?”

“The socks?”

She nods.

“Manasilk.”

She blinks. “What’s that?”

I raise my right hand, “Silk.” then my left. “But magical. Y’know, mana.”

“Oh.”

She seems to think for a moment. “Where did you get it? Is it from the insects things that attacked in the eastern forest?”

I shake my head. “I make it.”

She stares at me in disbelief.

“No, really. Do you know of arachne? Driders?”

“Like centaurs, but with spider instead of horse for the lower body?”

“Yeah that. I can shapeshift into that. And those can make silk. If I imbue it with mana while making it, it becomes manasilk.”

“Can I see some?”

“Sure.” Actually, that’s perfect. I need to get their measurements to fit the flight-form clothes anyway.

“What are you doing?”

Oh, Tom is back. “Get over here so I can measure you.”

“Huh? Measure?” He questions, but still come over.

“Yeah, I need to fit the flight-form clothes to you guys. Well, it doesn’t really matter for you.” I hand him the one I made for him. “Put that on. Over your clothes is fine.”

He does as told. “Why does it matter for her and not me? Flight form? Are we learning to fly now?”

“Don’t move so much.”

“Answer my questions! Why does it matter for her and not me?”

I hold up a finger. “One moment.” I tighten the strap around Silje’s hips. “There. Should be fine, I can do minor adjustments then. Now, turn this way.”

With her turned to face both Tom and me I point at her chest. “Boobs.”

“What?” Tom exclaims with a dubious glare.

“That’s why she needs a flight-form top and it doesn’t matter for you.”

Still glaring, but it seems like the little cogs of his mind are moving. Let’s help him out before he gets some weird ideas about me. “I should probably expand on that.”

“You see, in order to fly you need really big wings. And I mean really big. They won’t just jut out of your back or be some feathers on your arm. Your arms will become the wings. If you actually want to be able to properly fly, at least. The wings will add an extra joint, sticking out from your wrist -which you won’t be able to move very much.”

“The wings will go from your arm-” I draw an imaginary line from my armpit to my waist. “To your waist.” From the look on his face I can tell he almost got it. “And that means you can’t use clothes made for comparatively small arms.”

“But why doesn’t it matter for me?”

“To repeat my previous answer: Boobs.”

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

“Oooh. Then why did you get one for me?”

“Ehh, just seems fair. Now stand still while I fit it. Besides, just because you can go barechested doesn’t mean you want to.”

“Alright, time for the tests. Don’t worry, you should be able to easily do them, the practice tasks were harder. However, I’ll be making the tests a competition as well. First off: Go from here to the tree over there-” I point at a tree maybe thirty meters away, creating a glowing sphere by it. “-without touching the ground, or the trees.” I make them take positions next to each other, above a glowing start line.

“Ready?” They lift a meter or so off the ground, mana more consistent and stable compared to when they first learned the ability.

“Set.” Tom leans slightly forwards, causing him to drift slowly from not applying force evenly.

“Go!”

Silje does a kick as if jumping off the air, gaining both altitude and speed, while Tom leans further forwards, into a sorta superman pose. I burst into a sprint to follow them, but quickly slow down to a rapid jog instead, seeing how they’re not exactly breaking the sound barrier.

Silje does a slight running motion, and Tom has his arms to his side as if to minimise air resistance, or doing planking in the air. With their relatively slow speed I’m happy I didn’t chose a longer distance.

Observing their mana use I quickly note that Silje is a lot more efficient in mana use. However, while pushing almost straight down makes her hovering very stable, she could go faster by instead pushing off the ground behind herself.

On the other hand, Tom is still doing what equates to turning the nozzle of a hose to a wide spray, wasting a lot of mana, but he’s not only pushing off the ground behind himself, but also to the sides, giving him a straight path with a slight up-and-down wobble.

For the last stretch I run ahead of them to the finish line, and seeing this they both redouble their effort, with Silje apparently taking a hint from Tom and pushing off behind herself. A moment before the finish line she catches up, and then Tom crashes into the ground before I have time to stop them.

While I am too slow to stop the accident (I hope it is one at least) I quickly lift Silje away from him, and gently raise him off the ground. “Woah there!”

Aside from a slightly bruised knee Tom is rather unhurt and his sister apologizes to him before I explain what happened. I apply a bit of [Healing Touch], adding yet another thing to the list of things the siblings want to learn.

They are undeterred by the accident and want to continue, but first I have them find one thing the other did better than themselves. Silje brings up the trick of pushing off the ground behind yourself to get more speed, and Tom plainly states that he’s bad at using the mana well, but also should’ve gone higher up.

With that done I quickly go over the physics at play and why it’s easier to push behind instead of pushing the ground below yourself backwards, then point out that they can push off more than just the ground, including rocks and trees. “Though, please don’t push each other.”

I make them repeat the race, and this time Silje is the clear winner, blazing ahead from the start. Then I make them repeat it again, but ‘three-legged race’ style, meaning they cooperate to do it as fast as possible. Two times without a mana link, the first to formulate a plan, then two times with a mana link, so they not only cooperate, but can easily sense how the other uses mana, and have to coordinate that.

The first mana link race was the slowest, thanks to interfering with each other. The second wasn’t much better, but they kept at it, and not too long after they decided to just keep going I had to hover to keep up with them. That just spurred them into trying harder, and they even followed me when raised my altitude.

“Okay, that’s enough. You succeed this test with flying colors.” I make an illusory rainbow swoosh past. “Now do the race against each other and no link.”

The next test is about grabbing strips of silk I hung in trees, and is done in the same process of ‘Competition→Feedback→Competition→Cooperation→Feedback→Mana link Cooperation→Competition’. They go through this much quicker, and after a couple more tests I give them the final challenge:

Keep up with me to my destination.

Now, I’m obviously not going to go full speed, and I told them to tell me if they can’t keep up or get a headache or low on mana or something. I will also make sure to pay attention to them in case anything goes wrong… Actually I should probably have asked their father if he was okay with the whole flying thing.

I mean, if something goes wrong, it could potentially be lethal. Of course, I’m trying to do it safely, and even if something did go wrong it probably wouldn’t be that bad, but still. Maybe I should make one of those ‘sign here and I take no responsibility for anything that happens’ things. Either way, I guess I’ll contact their father before we start the actual flying.

“You ready?”

“Yes.” “Yeah!”

“Alright, follow me, then. Don’t forget to tell me if you have to stop, land or slow down.”

With that, I lift off the ground. I sense the others lift of as well, and turn around to make sure, then start moving, cutting between trees instead of following the road. I weave lazily between trees, doing detours if the trees get too dense. I continue like that down a slight hill, then up another.

I’m not moving particularly fast, but they appear to follow me no problem, so I start increasing my altitude. “Use the trees for lift, but spread the force around!” I yell behind me.

Some time pass like that, and soon we’re hovering just above the forest. I check that they’re doing fine, then speed up. Soon we’re skimming over the trees, and my stomach lurches as we crest the hill and I -for a moment- drop with gravity. Then I again feel the pressure against my entire body as I stop myself from crashing into the trees.

At the bottom of the hill is a small lake, and I turn slightly to not go straight above the lake itself. Nearing the bottom of the hill I slow down, as the trees end to give way for a power tower corridor. I make sure to be visible to the others, stopping complete just where the trees end.

They don’t take long to catch up, and I yell a warning to watch the cable, then lower myself safely under it and continue the short distance to land by the beach. The siblings make it to me (completely un-electrocuted), and it’s time for a break combined with another test and also some teaching.

“I have two goals for this break. One, teach you some sort of air magic, which would be useful for flying. Two, see if you can hover over water.”