How Mercury managed to get through the rest of the class she didn't remember. For once she didn't space out in class, but her body and mind were so tense, so anxious that she couldn't take in a single word Ms. Solstice said, and what she had written down in her notes one minute she couldn't remember the next. Raoul had been awake for a change; he had even paid attention, but only to throw in stupid remarks and silly questions until Ms. Solstice threatened to throw him out.
"That was fun," he said, stretching as they finally, finally left that accursed classroom. "I hope this class gets canceled for the whole year."
Mercury sighed. "And the next."
"I know, right? Not much fun learning with Ms. Soulless."
Mercury burst out laughing. She couldn't have thought of a more accurate nickname if she tried. "Ms. Soulless!" she repeated, the stress and exhaustion falling off her shoulders in a fit of giggles. "Let's call her that, it's great!"
Raoul pulled his face into a comically scary grimace as if he was telling a mock-horror story. "The demon teacher, Ms. Soulless. She eats your soul 'cause she doesn't got one herself..."
They both made their way down the hallway, laughing and clutching their sides. Mercury felt much lighter already, lighter and a little wistful. How long had it been since she had walked down a school hallway with someone like that, laughing and talking and not hiding from the crowd, feeling comfortable and at ease and not just like the helpless tag-along? It must have been ages.
Something must have shown on her face, because Raoul's laugh faded into a curious half-smile, brown eyes peering down at her with mild concern. "What's wrong?"
"N-Nothing!" Mercury felt her face heat up and cursed her nerves for freaking out like this. "No, really. I'm just...happy."
Raoul tilted his head. "Happy?"
"Yeah. This...probably sounds a bit weird, but..." Mercury wondered if she should stop, if she would sound like a weirdo if she kept talking, but Raoul was still looking at her with those eyes, so she kept going. "I've never really had this. This, this walking down the hallway with somebody, talking, making jokes, you know, that thing...I'm not really good with people, so nobody ever wanted me around before..."
Raoul continued to look at her, and Mercury dropped her eyes. She was probably oversharing, she realized. She was making this sound like a sob story, pitying herself when she didn't even have the right... "I mean...Forget what I just said. It's just..." What was she trying to say? "You're so funny and cool and confident, I'm sure you're popular and you still hang around with me and..."
"Mercy..."
Mercury blinked and looked up, right into Raoul's widened eyes. His expression was surprised, a little sad, somehow...almost...moved?
"I had no clue," he said softly, and for a second Mercury was reminded of the look on his face when she had come out of the Otherworld and collapsed in his arms. Then he smiled, reaching down to ruffle her hair with an affectionate grin. "I guess I figured you were kinda shy, but you're still really nice! Can't see why people wouldn't want you around." He shrugged and grinned. "Guess that means more Mercy for me, huh?"
Mercury looked up at him and resisted the urge to tackle him with a hug on the spot. Looking at Raoul's smile, she wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe that she really had a chance to be liked by people, people who wouldn't get fed up with her awkwardness after a day or two. People who chose her, not just as a last resort, but because they genuinely enjoyed being with her as a person.
"I guess," she said softly. "Thank you."
Raoul looked at her like he'd rather be thanking her instead.
~ ~ ~
"Some of you might already know me," Mr. Salvatore said as they sat gathered in telekinetics class, in a smaller science classroom that looked more like a chemistry lab than anything else. "For the rest of you, my name is on the board. This is a practical class, but you can all read, can't you?"
Nods and chuckles from the class. Mr. Salvatore looked over the students, then he floated his chalk again, letting it scribble over the board once more. "We don't have too much time, so let's get straight to the point. This class is all about making elements do what you want from them. Even, say, bending physics a little every once in a while." He smiled mischievously. "That's why Ms. Solstice hates telekinesis, she says it's irrational."
More chuckles from the class. Mercury and Raoul nudged each other and grinned. They could definitely see the demon teacher saying that.
"At the core," Mr. Salvatore continued, "telekinesis is all about communication. You make elements do what you like by telling them what to do. That's what I'm going to teach you, because even if it's not as complex as other topics it's very practical, isn't it?"
He pointed to the glass of water on the table, looking so ordinary and inconspicuous that none of them had paid any attention to it yet. "We'll be starting with water," he said. "Each one of you will get a drop of water to experiment on, to keep things small."
Raoul grinned. "Nice, time to show off. Telekinesis is my thing."
One of the kids in the back row, a bored-looking boy with dyed black hair, raised his hand. "Why drops of water?" he asked. "Couldn't we start with anything small?"
"Because a drop of water's the most harmless," Mr. Salvatore replied in a voice that made it all too clear he had been expecting this question. "If anything goes wrong, the worst that could happen is that a drop of water in the glass is now a drop of water in your face."
"In whose face though?" Raoul whispered, trying not to laugh.
"Assuming, of course," the teacher continued, turning back to the board, "that none of you can do expansion spells yet."
Raoul's grin disappeared in an instant.
Before Mercury could ask him what was wrong, Salvatore went on, letting the chalk scribble instructions on the board. "All of you, get a glass from the shelf over there." A pair of doors that Mercury had barely noticed slid open to reveal rows of empty glasses on a shelf. "Then come to me to get a drop of water and follow the tips up here, will you? I'll be going around helping you if you need it."
There was a clatter of movement. Fifteen people got up from their desks, picking up a glass and a water drop each. Mercury watched as hers rolled around the bottom of the glass, looking decidedly un-magical.
"This is supposed to work?" she asked doubtfully as she sat back down next to Raoul. His water drop was already doing strange things inside the glass, bouncing from side to side and taking wobbly shapes as if trying to catch his attention.
"Yup!" Raoul grinned and waved at the glass, making his droplet do a somersault. "You just kinda...go swoosh like this, and then...Hey, stay down!" He pushed down the droplet as it tried to escape from the glass.
"Swoosh, huh," Mercury repeated, staring at her milky reflection in the glass. She didn't really know how to tell Raoul that she had no idea what he meant by that.
"Yeah, pretty much! Although, wait, you don't gotta go swoosh. You gotta make it swoosh." Raoul gestured vaguely. "It's gotta have that...swooshy feeling, ya know?"
Mercury made a helpless gesture, still unable to admit that she didn't have the slightest clue what on earth Raoul was going on about.
"Don't mind him, Mercury," a voice said over her head. She jumped. In all the confusion she hadn't noticed Mr. Salvatore approaching at all.
"He's a natural. Verbal explanations can be hard for people like him...it's the centipede's dilemma, you know?" He tapped Mercury's glass. "You have to talk to it," he said. "Don't be disappointed if it doesn't listen at once, it might take its time."
He moved on, not without another word of praise for Raoul, and Mercury stared at the water drop once more. Talk to it? A drop of water? How was that supposed to work?
"Um..." Her eyes flitted around, her face feeling uncomfortably warm. "Talk to it...Let's see, um..."
What the hell was she supposed to tell a water drop? She couldn't think of a single thing to say!
"Um...Hello there," she said quietly, tapping the outside of the glass with her finger. "So you're...my water drop, huh?" She laughed nervously. Even in her own ears she sounded like an idiot. "I'm...Mercury Day. I'm trying to learn magic, so...you know..."
Awkward silence. The water drop showed no response.
What am I doing? Mercury thought, staring at her reflection. This was a water drop. Why was she trying to strike up a conversation as if this was another person?
"I've never talked to a water drop before," she mused as she gazed at the glass, half to herself. "I don't even know what to talk to you about. But you're pretty." She smiled at the glistening water. "I wonder what you've seen as a water drop...Probably a lot of water, right? Lakes or rivers...Have you seen lots of fish? Oh, maybe you've seen mermaids. If they're real, I mean...And you fell from the sky as rain too, right? I bet the view from the clouds was really pretty..."
Without any motion from outside, the water drop started moving, wobbled, and trickled up the inside of the glass to the spot closest to Mercury's hand.
Mercury stared. The drop of water stayed in its spot, defying all gravity, wobbling ever so slightly and giving off the notion of an impatient dog waiting for a command.
"Raoul!" she whispered, pointing excitedly at the glass. "Raoul, look what's happening!"
Raoul left his own water drop frozen in the shape of a mini palm tree to peer over Mercury's shoulder. He looked from her surprised face to the glass and back, then the biggest, most amazed smile spread all over his features.
"Mercy," he exclaimed, "it likes you!"
Mercury tapped the side of the glass, making the water droplet bounce on the spot. Her cheeks were flushed. "I-It does?"
"Yup! Hold it in your hand, you can make it do cool stuff now!" Raoul pointed to his water palm tree, which was starting to shake painfully and lose balance. "Like this, look?"
Mercury looked back at the glass, turned it upside down, and let the water drop plop in her hand, wondering what she was supposed to do now. She probably couldn't pull the same stunts as Raoul yet. Something simpler, maybe...
"Say, um–" Her eyes darted about to see what the others in the class were doing. "Could you maybe...uh..." Crap, asking things from people really wasn't her forte...well, in all honesty this wasn't a person, but it was still out of her comfort zone, way out of it! "C-Could you...make a star shape in my palm?" She couldn't think of anything better.
The water drop bounced in the air and fell back on her palm, showing no signs of following her request.
"A star shape!" Mercury repeated, a little more pleading now. "You know, simple, five points...What everyone doodles when they think of a star! It doesn't have to be big, just..." She smiled nervously. "Please?"
The water drop bounced stupidly in her hand. Mercury couldn't stop the mental image of a clueless dog looking excited and wagging its tail as a command flew straight over its head.
She sighed. "Something else then? What can you do? Come on, please!"
The water drop did two bounces and made itself comfortable inside her palm.
"Oh Mercy, you're too nice!" Raoul laughed next to her. "It loves you, but it doesn't listen..."
Mercury turned around to watch Raoul's droplet, which had now formed an odd smiley face. "How do you do it?"
"Me? Uh." Raoul made a noncommittal gesture as the smiley face turned into a frown. "Kinda...somehow."
"...Okay..."
"Hey, I can't explain stuff. I dunno how I do it, I just kinda wing it and it works."
Mercury sighed and continued to watch as Raoul made the frowning face float, wobbling awkwardly in midair and shifting into a grade schooler's attempt at a dragon. It looked a bit bigger now, she noticed. Was that just an optical illusion, or had Raoul actually increased his amount of water?
Mr. Salvatore's words shot through her head. Expansion spells...
Could Raoul do these expansion spells? If he was a natural telekinetic, it wasn't a stretch. He might actually be changing the amount of water at will as she watched him right now. Changing it in midair, without letting it fall apart...She wondered how hard that was?
Something floated through her field of vision. Mercury blinked and realized that her water drop was no longer in her palm, gliding up through the air to hover above her head, feather-light and tiny.
She was making it float. She hadn't even said anything, and yet–
She was floating it. She was floating it! She was making it float, just like Raoul...She had no idea how, but it was working!
But then...maybe she could make it expand too?
No. Of course not, that had to be advanced magic. She had no clue how to do that, and she shouldn't even try. And yet, as she gazed up at the tiny droplet, she couldn't stop the mental image of it growing bigger and bigger, a big blue bubble hovering in midair...
The water droplet changed. A ripple went through its surface, it started spinning, and then, little by little, it began to grow.
The world went quiet. Mesmerized, Mercury stared up at the bubble of water above her head, the large, shimmering, transparent shape floating above, wobbling and surreal. Her reflection stared down at her from its surface with wide, awe-struck eyes.
The water...Had she just done that?
The bubble floated above her head, huge, bluish and glistening, as if waiting for another command. Mercury reached out her hand, tapping the surface with the tips of her fingers. A ripple of tiny waves went through the water, and her fingertips came back feeling cool and wet.
Take a shape, she thought, cupping the water bubble with her hands without touching the surface. You're floating...now try to fly.
The image of a bird crossed her mind, and the bubble changed shape. Within moments it shrank in some places, grew in others, the shapeless blob growing a head, a tail, wings, and detailed feathers until it looked like a live, shimmering, semi-transparent bird.
The bird flapped its wings and started moving, light and powerful, circling over the classroom, soaring high, then diving so dangerously low that people had to duck. It beat its wings, and a shower of water drops came raining down until it finally glided back to Mercury and shrank back down into a tiny droplet that slowly fell into Mercury's outstretched hand.
For a moment the entire classroom was silent.
All eyes rested on Mercury. Mercury stared at the water drop in her palm, trying to comprehend what in the world had just happened. Had this been real? Had she just...?!
"What..." Her voice came out hoarse, a shaky, awe-struck whisper. "What...was that?"
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