“To me,” the woman began as she stepped to the left of the podium while still staring up at her newly grown plant, “Plants hold a magic of their own unseen by all. They protect us from diseases and hold healing properties when ingested, they provide us with shade when we are under the effects of the burning sun, but most importantly, they are the easiest sign of nature’s own magic. My name is Professor Adaline Weatherwell.” She gave a quick bow before continuing, “My father is well known for his contributions to the early discoveries of the connections between magic and plants, and my mother is well known for putting up with my father.” A few giggles emitted from students about the room, drawing a smirk upon the Professor’s face that came and left like the wind. “As his only daughter, I have decided to continue the study of the interactions between magic and nature in order to figure out the benefits such a combination can offer our world. I specialize in Healing Magic and Plants and I am known for my own personal contributions of which… well… I won’t bore you with a listing of those. You can all read, so I’ll move on. You’ve come to my class to learn about the bond between nature and magic and so I thank you for choosing me to be one of your guides here during your first year of study.”

“I’m sure you all noticed that pots and seeds have been administered about the lecture hall for all of you. No two people received the same seed and no two of you are alike. So for our first meeting of the minds, I’d like to start this lecture off with a little test of your bond with nature.” At this, Professor Weatherwell lifted her right hand and directed it at the plant she had just magically caused to germinate. “I want you all to utilize your own magical talents to make the seed germinate. I don’t care how you do it. Speak soft words of praise to your seed, run out within this hour-long lecture and grab some fertilizer from the closest store, or even summon a demon for all I care. Though, if I were you all, I’d simply try to channel your own magical energy into the seed and see what happens. Though I’m not your parent, I am only your guide. But please, if you summon a demon, make sure it’s a nice one, okay? Now, begin and I will be about the room offering any guidance to those in need. And once again, my name is Professor Weatherwell.” With a nod of her head, the Professor was off, her pace taking her about the room slowly as she carefully watched and observed every student as they began to try their luck at making their own seeds grow.

With a clap of her hands together to psych herself up, Harriett began to think of the best way to approach her seed and pot. She reached over the pot and grabbed her apple seed first. Then, she gently tucked it under the top layer of the soil. So far, so good, she thought in her mind and nodded in unison. Now, the hard part would be in deciding how best to go about germinating her seed.

Her mind first thought of one of Professor Weatherwell’s more outlandishly sounding ideas: The summoning of a demon to help with the germination. Harriett noticed at that moment that several students near the front of the lecture hall had actually summoned the cat demons that they had learned how to reach in the Summoning course. She asked herself if she should try her luck at summoning a demon too, but without a second of hesitation, she shook her head of that idea. She knew for a fact that only Lord Aesir would respond and she did not feel like parting with her homemade brownies today. Deep within her mind, she heard a “Sigh” that was not her own but chose to ignore it.

The idea of running to the store to grab fertilizer was obviously a joke for although it would work after a great deal of time, it was definitely not a magical way of going about it. Plus, even if she wanted to choose that route, it would take her way too long to make her way to her car and travel to the closest store.

“Not necessarily,” Feron interjected, his words obviously showing that he had been reading Harriett’s mind this entire time, much to her usual dismay. Before she could scold him though, Feron held up a hand to stop her. “Now, before you say anything, know that as your tutor, it’s my job to always be looking for any way to help you in any way I can, even if that includes sometimes reading your thoughts.”

“Only sometimes?” Harriett asked with a sneer.

Feron smirked. “If it makes you feel better to hear sometimes, then sometimes it is. But I could go and obtain the fertilizer for you, ya know. If that was in fact the option you wanted to go with.”

“Teleportation?” Harriett asked.

Feron nodded and snapped his fingers at her. “It’s the only way to travel.”

“Thanks, but if I wanted to go about that route, I could try my hand at teleportation too.”

“You could,” Feron said with a nod of confirmation, “But we both know that that wouldn’t go well.”

Harriett puffed her cheeks up in Feron’s direction, but then relaxed them as agreement with his words overtook her.

“Let’s face it, you don’t need me rescuing you from some hell dimension because you wanted to prove me wrong, right?” Feron kindly asked.

“You’d do that for me?” Harriett childishly asked. “My hero.”

“But of course I would. I couldn’t possibly lose my best friend and only source of constant amusement because of her own stubbornness.” Harriett swatted him on the back of his head again, causing him to rub the spot she had hit with both hands while laughing to himself. “Hey hey hey, you know I was joking.”

“Yeah yeah, you’re quite the jokester, but I have to do this on my own.” Harriett looked back at her pot and began to think. “Summoning wouldn’t work for me and we are definitely not doing the most non-magical suggestion the Professor gave. So… the only option is…,” Harriett sighed.

However, Feron softly clapped as he floated a bit more over the table. “You have to try channeling your magic into it!”

“Don’t sound too excited, Feron,” Harriett puttered.

“How could I not be excited for this? Watching you perform magic is one of my top three things in life to see.”

“What are the other two?” Harriett asked with curiosity.

“One is sleeping,” Feron proudly stated.

Harriett was not surprised. “And the other boring thing?”

“Watching puppies and kittens interact for the first time,” Feron replied.

“I… I did not expect that from you,” Harriett said with honesty in her words.

“I’m full of surprises, Harriett,” Feron gleefully stated as he floated a little higher. “I’m not just a pretty, princely face.”

“Could have fooled me, Prince Feron,” Harriett said with a laugh, causing Feron to quickly float back down before her.

“You know I don’t like being called by my actual title, Harriett,” Feron embarrassingly stated to her. Harriett felt only a little bit bad about utilizing such a low blow on Feron since she knew it was a sore spot of his to be compared to his dad’s lineage or title in any way. She also knew that Feron wanted to make a name for himself outside of just being the son of the Vampire King.

“Yeah yeah, I’m sorry. But now we are even for the whole “Watching me perform magic is one of your top three forms of amusement.” Deal?”

The usual, childish smirk of Feron’s returned to his face. “Deal. So now, back to the matter at hand. Do you think you can do it?”

Harriett felt a frown come over her facial expression as her gaze returned to the pot before her. Sure, she could do it. That was never a question in her mind. The only lingering question in her mind though was what would happen when she did do it. Could she control her magic for once? Could she focus just enough of her own magical energy into the seed in order to get it to germinate just enough to impress the Professor? Beads of sweat began to form on her forehead, but a patting of a tissue against her forehead from the floating Feron took care of that.

The two friends connected eyes and nodded before both looking back at the pot. Harriett then nodded to herself and clapped her hands against her cheeks to psyche herself up once more. The force she used in her hands was a little more than she expected though as her face scrunched up slightly due to the sudden pain, but she did not care. She could do this. In fact, there was no doubt in her mind that she would fail this. As long as she believed in herself and maintained her concentration and intent within her power, it would work.

“Is something the matter over here?” All of Harriett’s gathered confidence immediately scattered for she hadn’t noticed that Professor Weatherwell had suddenly appeared directly opposite Harriett’s side of the table. Professor Weatherwell looked to Harriett, then to Feron, then back to the pot. “Everything appears to be adequately set up here. Is there a problem with the seed perhaps?”

Harriett shook away her nervousness with a small shake of her head to both sides before addressing Professor Weatherwell’s question. “No, ma’am,” she piped, “I was just trying to figure out the best way to go about germinating the seed based on your suggestions.”

“I see,” Professor Weatherwell replied. “Well, due to the class only having about 20 minutes left, I suggest you try something, or anything. Well… anything except the fertilizer route. You… you weren’t actually considering that one, were you?”

Harriett shook her head again. “Definitely not, ma’am!”

“I was,” Feron added.

“This isn’t your experiment, Feron,” Harriett chided his way.

“True, but I still was considering it,” Feron childishly replied.

“Do you mind?” Harriett asked Feron with a hint of anger in her words.

Feron casually lifted his hands into the air as if to say that he would hold his tongue for the remaining amount of class time, which Harriett didn’t believe for a second.

“Feron?” Professor Weatherwell suddenly stated, drawing both teenagers’ attention. “Feron Kingwield? The son of the Vampire King?”

Feron visibly cringed at hearing everything Professor Weatherwell had just said. Nevertheless, he floated downward until his feet touched the ground. Then, he gave a tilt of his head in Professor Weatherwell’s direction.

Professor Weatherwell also gave a nod of her head back towards Feron. “It is a pleasure to have you in my lecture today, Your Highness. I had heard that you would be tutoring a new student of mine. And for such a highly esteemed noble to take the time to tutor someone in my class, the student in question must be of the utmost in nobility as well.”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Feron said with a smirk.

“You just couldn’t hold it in for a few more minutes, could you?” Harriett asked, causing Feron to raise his hands up over his head in defeat once again. Annoyed, but attempting to survive the moment, let alone the day, Harriett turned back to address Professor Weatherwell. “I am Harriett, ma’am, Harriett Carefree.”

Professor Weatherwell’s face lit up a great deal more than when she had heard Feron’s name, which was highly surprising to both Harriett and Feron. “You mean, you are her? The daughter of the esteemed Roy Carefree and the legendary meditator that is Caroline Carefree?”

Harriett nodded.

“My word,” Professor Weatherwell exclaimed a bit loudly, drawing a few students’ gazes away from their own germinating plants and over to Harriett, Feron and the Professor. “Your father and I go way back, my dear. Why, the way your father could utilize magic to influence the reality of things was truly remarkable. It was a shame we didn’t have more time to research in the rainforests together when we were students.”

“You went to school with my father?” Harriett piped with curiosity.

“Went to school? Why, I was his research partner in many, many classes. In fact, if he hadn’t been obsessed with playing the hero of the world, I’m sure his magical contributions to the world of plant magic would have been extraordinarily brilliant.”

“Yeah, that sounds like my father,” Harriett coldly admitted with a sigh, “Choosing to save the world through flashy heroics rather than the real heroic ways of medicinal breakthroughs. But at least he stayed true to his word of becoming a hero.”

“True,” Professor Weatherwell stated with a slight nod of agreement, “But at the end of the semester, I hope to have revealed to you the many, more logical ways in which one can become a hero. Now, Miss Carefree, let us shelve the idle conversation until another time for you have yet to germinate your plant. For one of your lineage and with a tutor the likes of the Vampire King’s son at your side, you should have no problem with this task.”

“I’m… I’m not sure you are right in your analysis, Professor,” Harriett bashfully admitted. “I mean, you have heard my nickname about the college, haven’t you?”

“I have not, dear. You will find that I, like many of the professors here, are greatly entranced by our research outside of classroom hours. If I may ask, what do they call you?”

Harriett took a few moments to collect herself before admitting out loud the nickname that was both fitting and upsetting to her. “The… the Demon God Girl, ma’am.”

“The Demon… God Girl?” Professor Weatherwell repeated back in confusion. “I don’t understand. Is there a reason a young girl such as yourself would ever deserve being called such a deplorable name?”

“Well…,” Harriett wished she didn’t have to admit this again out loud, but she decided to get it over with quickly like how one would quickly pull a band-aid off to ease the pain of its removal (Note: Usually, the pain of removing a band-aid is excruciating at any rate of speed in which the band-aid is removed. However, the analogy won’t come full circle for Harriett for but a few more moments. Read on.). “You see, I have a knack for… well… my magic is a bit… powerful…”

“Oh, is that all?” Professor Weatherwell visibly relaxed and let out a sigh of relief. “I assure you, Harriett, that that is no reason not to practice magic. I promise you that I have met many students, professors and other magical entities that have been blessed with high affinities in their magical prowess and not once have I ever seen one of them not able to perform a magical endeavor successfully such as this. So you should not be worried about your magic failing, regardless of how potent it might be.”