Grey lay covered in the warmth of his green blankets, the sun peeked through the curtains but his current sleeping state could not sense it. His entire face was covered in the darkness underneath his pillow and his body enveloped by the covers.
“Grey, it’s time to wake up,” his mother said, knocking on the door then entering the room. She was a tall lady with long auburn hair, even though she was in her mid-fifties her face was wrinkle-less. She was known as the Seera Ethel –the second most powerful Mage.
She lifted the pillow from her son’s face, “You’ll suffocate stuffed under there,” she said, ruffling his brown hair as his closed eyes sensed the sunlight on his face. “Hurry and wake up.“.
“Five more minutes, Mother. Please just five more minutes,” murmured Grey, replacing the pillow with the blankets over his head.
“If you don’t wake up, you’ll be late and Mrs Wretchered will not forgive you,” she warned.
“Don’t mention Mrs Wretchered,” said Grey, immediately sitting up from his bed, almost knocking the pot plant off his bedside table. “She already punished me for the entire year, do you think she could do much worse?”
“I think she might make you clean the entire school ground, that’s what I would do,” his mother replied, sitting beside him. “You should be more agreeable, you are already thirteen,” she scolded, centering the pot plant on his bedside table. “And Grey, this year is different from the previous years, this year you become an acknowledged Mage. You start to learn the truth of the power of the Mage.”
Grey yawned, stretching his arms. “I haven’t learnt any of that from the past two days. I think it’s fine if they won’t teach me anything out of the ordinary. It would be too bothersome to learn something from the beginning, I don’t think I have the energy to learn anything new.”
His mother laughed and ruffled his hair again. “You say this now, but I think you’ll enjoy the Mage lessons. They only start on the third day. But since you’re my favourite and only son I’ll show you a glimpse of what you will be learning,” she said, opening the palm of her hand. “Grey, firstly you need to extract your inner energy that you possess within your bloodline, it’s only because you are from the bloodline of the Mages that you are able do this.”
His mother’s veins lit up through her skin, an electric current rapidly passed through her arm and bundled within the palm of her hand, her face stared at the electrical voltage in concentration ensuring the ball of electricity would not erupt.
“You need to stay focused; this is the energy from my body. It is part of my life-source. Do you see it try to rotate in different directions?”
Grey studied the glowing white- reddish light in his mother’s palm, it tried to swirl and rotate.
“Why is that electricity ball unstable?” Grey asked.
Grey’s mother smiled at his curiosity. “It’s unstable because I am not controlling it properly, I have to focus and control the energy. Look, this is what I mean,” she said, showing him her explanation in her palm.
The white- reddish energy ball began to still, it did not erupt like before, it was a fixed circular shape and was clear as water.
“How did you make it stop spinning?” asked Grey.
“The secret is in the control, this is the first lesson you will learn in school today,” said his mother, smiling. “Aren’t you interested in what you can do with this energy?”
Grey blinked at the clear electric ball. “Well,” he paused, trying to think about it, but thinking about being interested in Mage powers seemed rather difficult, and if he had to actually extract energy from his inner self and from his bloodline that would seem more difficult than thinking about it. “I... I...” he started.
“Before your brain bursts in thought,” interrupted his mother, pointing to the potted plant on his table side. “Watch carefully, Grey.”
Within his mother’s palm, the white-reddish electric circular ball split in half, the second half of the ball seemed to follow his mother’s unspoken command and collided into the plant. After the collision, the once green pot plant leaves changed to a drained yellow, as if the life of the plant had been absorbed.
Then, instead of the crescent white-reddish energy it once was, a green energy ignited from the plant, it absorbed the plants life force and was a glowing bright green ball of energy. It swirled from the plant and hovered for a second in the air then, spiralled around the crescent white-reddish energy in his mother’s palm.
It seeped into the white-reddish electric half, increasing the white-reddish energy to twice its original size and changing the colour to a lighter shade of green.
“Do you understand what happened?” his mother asked, controlling the light green energy within her hand.
“Well, it seems that you told the white-reddish energy from your body to split into two. You sent the first half to get the energy of the plant?” Grey answered in a question.
“Correct!” She sounded impressed. “You were always smart, Grey. I needed to transfer half the energy I extracted from my own body to the plant in order for withdrawal of energy from the plant.”
“That’s why the plant turned yellow. It lost some of its energy,” Grey said, thinking about the transaction.
“Correct again!” She grinned and closed her palm, then opened it again, the light green energy had dissipated. “It’s almost like a balanced equation. You need to give energy to gain energy,” she said.
“That sounds far too complicated, Mother,” said Grey. He looked at her exhausted although, he had just woken up. “Why are Mage powers complicated? I don’t want to think or know about Mage powers.” Grey shrugged and caved his body back into his covers. “Look at my pot plant, it’s going to hate me every morning. I swear I can hear it complain about the energy that it lost.”
“Oh, Grey!” his mother sighed, hugged him and kissed him on the forehead. “You understand the theory too well. You’ll make the best Mage.”
Grey closed his eyes in his mother’s embrace. “I don’t want to be the best,” Grey murmured. “Being the best is distressing.”
“Distressing?” exclaimed his mother, laughing. “You are only thirteen and are worried about being distressed. What am I going to do with you? My dearest Grey Ethel.” She kissed his forehead again, “You might be separated from Finnegan, in a different class today.”
“Separated from Finnegan? Thank goodness,” said Grey, relieved. He looked up at his mother, still dazed in tiredness. “All he does is complain. Finnegan is like a hen, he complains about the smallest things.”
She laughed.
“Your relationship with Finnegan is far different from your father’s relationship with the King.” His mother spoke, thoughtfully. “But it will change with age. But then again, your father and Finnegan’s father were always so serious even when they were thirteen.”
“Father looks like the serious type, I can never picture him having fun and smiling,” Grey agreed..
“You’ll be surprised about your father. He might not show the fun side to you but it is there, you just need to catch him off guard.” His mother smirked secretly.
“Catch him off-guard? Mom, that sounds more difficult than the Mage powers,” Grey said troubled.
His mother laughed lightly. “Grey, how does Finnegan take you seriously?”
“Finnegan? I can’t take Finnegan seriously; I mean no one can take him seriously. You said the King is serious, but Finnegan is far from the serious type, Mother. I don’t think you can compare him to the King, he is far too...” Grey tried to find the word.
“Childish?” his mother suggested.
“Yes, childish!” Grey agreed.
“And what of you?”
“Me? I never thought about myself.” He pursed his lips in thought.
“Do you think you’ll ever be like your father?”
Grey’s eyes widened. “Argh, I don’t know. It’s too difficult to process, mother. My brain won’t compute. It keeps drawing a blank.”
Grey’s mother laughed again. “I know you hate to think, but maybe one day you should spend the entire day thinking on this. For now you should hurry and brush your teeth.” She quickly kissed him on the cheek and left him alone in his room with his yellow pot plant.
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