the second of NANOWRIMO

Chapter 2

It was already Thursday. Rork had only had a few days to practice, but he felt that he was making progress. He looked at his hand as it held the spoon which held his breakfast.

“Yes, you have pretty hands, but you really shouldn't be standing there, looking at yourself all mesmerized by your beauty.” Donnie was always there for Rork, and he knew that, but sometimes he was such a pain in the butt.

“No, you see... Augh, it'll be easier if I just show you.” Rork grabbed the knife off the table in the cafeteria and held it close to his hand. “Watch.”

Before he could do anything, Donnie quickly grabbed the knife out of his hand. “Sorry, but the sight of things cutting into flesh really doesn't make me hungry for my breakfast.”

Rork rolled his eyes, yet another one of Donnie's examples of friendship and trust, but one look at Donnie's face and Rork knew that he wasn't joking around.

“Fine.” Rork snatched the knife back from out of Donnie's hand and turned away from him, wincing slightly as he sliced open his hand. Turning to face Donnie again, he revealed the fresh wound, red, hot blood starting to pool in the palm of his hand.

“Ok,” Donnie said, wincing, and looking as though he were trying not to gag. “So you're a masochist now; you really shouldn't let these trivial matters of school affect you like that.” Rork wasn't ready for the condescending tone of voice, though the sly smirk that crept onto Donnie's face quickly told him that he wasn't being serious.

With a sigh, Rork closed his eyes and focused. Fortunately, today was Thursday, so it wasn't difficult for him to sense the life in the skin around the cut. He knew he could just move some of the energy from his body into the cut and use that to speed up the healing process, but that wasn't the point of the exercise. He delved deeper into the skin, beyond just the sense of knowing that it was there, he looked into the very spirit of his life, and sensed its essence. With a thought, he clumsily ordered the force within his skin to increase. Struggling for a bit to get some momentum started, he slowly opened his eyes and watched with delight as his wound slowly started closing.

Donnie stood there, mesmerized as well, eyes wide open in shock. After the wound had fully closed, he looked at Rork, and then back down at then hand, and then once more at Rork. “You can do that now?”

Rork just nodded his head as he reached for his napkin on the table, then thought better of it and grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping the still wet blood from his hand. I've been studying it for the past three days straight. Donnie looked at Rork's staff; a look of understanding washing over his face. Rork's staff, once just a branch with a few twigs and leaves on it, was now much sturdier than before and had so many branches intertwining together at the top, that it was impossible to tell how many there were. And now there weren't just leaves on it, but ivy had started climbing its way up the staff as well, making it a swirl of greens and dark browns mixing together.

“I take it that's what you've been working on these past several days?” Donnie asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, naturally.” Came Rork's short reply.

The brevity of his answer didn't go into the detail of how he had stayed awake for two of the past three nights sleepless, working on making his staff grow without taking from his own life energy. He had made his initital breakthrough several days ago, but he knew that more practice would be needed if he were going to be displaying this power on Friday. His staff had managed to grow to that size in this short amount of time without any help from his energy, but Rork didn't want to just stop there.

Just last night he decided to try and heal himself from a small, self-inflicted, wound, the Mokus were known for being healers after all, with their affinity for sensing and manipulating life energies, wonderful things came from their fingertips. It also wasn't uncommon for the masters Mokus to live long lives, usually healing others free of charge, just wandering about as they pleased. Rork really didn't understand that part, he would definitely make some serious money if he were ever able to make it to that level. Maybe he'd even join the king's army, those healers made some really nice gold.

Rork suddenly realized that Donnie was snapping his fingers in front of him. “Hello, anyone there? I said it's almost time for the arrival of the Grand Wizard, didn't you want to see him?”

“The Grand Wizard!” Rork had completely forgotten about his arrival. He was supposedly the only man who had ever mastered all six elements, light, darkness, fire, water, life, and metal. Ever since he had come to this school, Rork had hoped for a chance to catch a glimpse of him and write home to his mother and sister about it.

He quickly put down his dinnerware and got up so quickly that he rammed both of his knees into the table. Running with muffled groans of pain, he slung his bag over his shoulder, staff floating along beside him. Donnie was left in the dust, running behind him, trying to catch up with him. “Rork!” Rork was too busy running to slow down for Donnie, though. Again came his cry “Rork!” This time it was followed by, “the Grand Wizard will be coming in on the other side of the school. Donnie jumped at how quickly Rork responded to this new information and turned, causing quite a breeze as he flew by Donnie, staff following close behind. Again, Donnie was left in the dust.

Slightly out of breath as he reached the crowded other side of the school, Rork waited for a few seconds to let Donnie catch up with him before asking, “Why wouldn't the Grand Wizard come in at the front entrance?” with arms braced on his head to help open up his lungs so he could breathe more easily.

“I dunno,” came Donnie's reply between his own gasps for breath, “maybe he has and ego issue, and doesn't want to do things the normal way?”

“Or maybe his lack of an ego.” spoke up a nearby student, dressed in red robes.

“Oh, hi, Akara, I didn't expect to see you here, how are you doing?” Rork queried.

Her thick, straight, brown hair twirled with her robe, with its droopy arms, as she turned to look at them, the rest of the crowd behind her. “And just where have you guys been? You told me that we would all meet here at the same time, but I've been standing here for thirty minutes being shoved around by those rude upperclassmen, and almost didn't have a spot saved for you.”

“Sorry, but we didn't have much choice, seeing as Rork here decided to slice his hand open for his own amusement.”

“Donnie, when you put it that way, it makes it sounds like I've got a problem.”

“That's because you do, it's called working too hard.” Donnie shot him a knowing glance.

Rork really didn't want to take the subject further, so he just shrugged and turned his eyes to the entrance where the Grand Wizard was to arrive. Even though he was still breathing hard, he was glad that he ran, for he hadn't even stopped turning when the crowd started to break up as some of the professors and teachers motioned for the students to move away from the entrance and the carpet that led into the school. Some of the professors who were wearing white robes stepped into the walkway, and a shimmer went through the air as they created barriers of light to keep the students away from the Grand Wizards grand entrance.

Rork suddenly realized that it was silent now. His heart had been pounding so hard and loudly earlier that he hadn't even heard the murmur of the crowd around the entrance. But now, in it's absence, it was almost too loud. And that's when things got crazy.

With a boom, the back doors burst in, a giant fireball following the trail of the doors as they were blown off their hinges. Little automated vehicles were making a bunch of whirring and clicking noises as they zoomed into the room, crashing into each other and the barrier in their race to get to... somewhere very quickly. Then came the pigeons, fluttering about with a garland of pine branches held between them. They were followed closely by waves upon waves of water, which brought in a very old man, floating atop them. With not even a twitch, the entire quarantined area was filled with darkness, and then, with a bright flash, the darkness was dispelled, leaving the old man nowhere to be seen.

The claps were slow to come at first, mostly because most had never seen such a display of magical prowess before, but soon enough, the whole room was filled with cheers, whistles, and shouts as people realized just what a spectacle they had seen. For it definitely wasn't just anybody who could harness the power of all six elements. Rork was so dumbfounded by the complete control that the Grand Wizard had over the elements that he didn't even realize that he wasn't clapping. Donnie nudged him gently then looked at him, prodding him to show his appreciation of such a sight. Rork started clapping just after a moment when he regained his sentience again. He clapped harder and more quickly than anyone else in the entire room.

“Encore! Encore!” came the cries, but even though they cried out for minutes on end, there was no sight of the elderly man. The crowd slowly started to dissipate as those who realized that there would be no second display of such power started wandering off, followed by their friends, and those who didn't want to be left alone.

As the crowd dwindled down to just a few small groups of lingerers, Akara spoke up. “Alright, I think it's time to get back to the books, I've got my final coming up on Sunday. I want to make sure I'm ready.”

Rork, just realizing something, spoke up, “Hey, Akara, where's your staff? And your lantern?”

A small twinkle in her eye was all the answer that he got.

“Who does she think she is, just because she's one level ahead of us...” Rork let his voice trail off. She must be ready for her exam already, he thought, if she doesn't need her staff or source of fire. Fortunately for him his staff was his source of life force, seeing as it was a living branch, essentially. Donnie was special, as were all Kins, they worked with metal, crafting it, working it into mechanical gizmos and machines, they didn't really need a source of metal to do their magic, as they had their “magics” already built and prepared, for the most part.

(I know I restarted at the beginning of chapter two, but it's easier to read that way, right?  Also, hopefully you know this, but I'm not editing anything at all, except for one thing, the term "_______ year student" is now "_______ level student."  the way that the school works makes much more sense for you to graduate when you're ready, not necessarily from year to year.  Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and as always, I do enjoy feedback and fresh ideas of where the story can go.  What'll happen next time? WHO KNOWS!?  Let's find out tomorrow! :D~  PEACE!)