A Song for Winter: Tutor

    “I don’t care how much money you are offering, I am not teaching you the Wintersong,” William growled in annoyance at the male ocelot in front of him.

   

    “Please, I'm desperate,” the ocelot begged as he dropped to his knees, “my magic is out of control and you’re the only registered air magic user on the planet.”

 

    The ocelot was making a scene in the adventurers’ guild hall and attracting a lot of unwanted looks from others. Ever since William registered with the guild every other day it was someone new asking for magical help or to hire him as a bodyguard or to fight him. It was really starting to annoy him to the point of wanting to burn the whole place down. As he was about to just push the sobbing cat out of his way an idea struck William. If he helped this ocelot maybe he could finally get off probation and off this planet.

 

    “Get up Xen,” William ordered, pulling the wild cat to its feet, “I’ll teach you to rune cast. It's not the fastest way to cast spells but it’ll get you started. Meet me out on the training field with your talisman in an hour.”

 

    Xen met William on the training field carrying the hand-carved paintbrush that served as his talisman. The ocelot explained that since he was an artist he thought he could draw his spells and have them just work. With no other spellcasters from his home to train him, Xen quickly found that trying to utilize magic in that manner was disastrous. Ostracized from his village after destroying several homes with a failed spell, Xen was forced to try to set off on his own.

 

    “Here take this,” William instructed the ocelot while handing him a thin notebook, “I put a basic rune on each page. Once you can use each of them over time you can start combining them for different effects.”

 

    First, William taught Xen how to focus raw magic on the tip of his paintbrush. It took a bit of time as Xen wanted to rush through to the casting part but after a little bit, he finally got it. Next, was a lesson on how to draw the runes in the air by leaving small bits of magic hanging in the air. Once again Xen wanted to rush through it but after a misdrawn rune caused a cutting wind to slash through part of his shirt the ocelot calmed down a bit. Finally, now competent at drawing the runes in the air William showed him how to empower them correctly to activate their effects.

 

    “So are these runes from the Winter Song,” Xen asked as he continued to practice drawing.

 

    “While each note of the Winter Song effectively acts as a rune there is no direct runic translation,” William explained watching Xen use a rune to make a pebble hover in the air. “As for these runes, I made them up. With magic, it's not really about what the rune really means but what you think it means. They just give you a focusing medium for the spell to take shape.”