"I'm so sorry, I really am!"
B was apologizing profusely to me. I extinguished my fireball. "Huh? What's wrong?"
"You're not supposed to go that far with the fireball yet! You're supposed to make sure it doesn't create any heat, as that requires significantly more energy than if you were to only project it!" He raised his hands to his head and groaned. "Some teacher I am!"
I looked back in shock, realizing that the neverending training session I had with Boingo was all for naught, and I had completely missed the point of all his rambling. Still, I simply closed my eyes and sighed before my gaze returned to the self-shaming beast. "It's alright."
B finally got over his burst of emotions and looked towards me, his eyes still stained red from tears. "You sure? You're not even mad? It must've been really hard to finally learn that, not many people are able to skip the first step when it comes to learning that stuff."
"No, it's fine. I've got it all under control."
B, seeing my expressionless face, also seemed to move on. "You know what? There's a new group that formed just this year that focuses on teaching people that are complete beginners to magic."
I opened my eyes a bit more. "And you want me to join it?"
"I was going to ask that, yes," B replied.
"Well, I'll accept then. It's best if I get some supplemental training." Even though I hadn't said it explicitly, I wanted to get away from B for a while and learn from someone that knew the way to train inexperienced students like me inside out instead of focusing on intermediate strategies and spells.
"Really? You'll go?" B seemed satisfied with my reaction. He caught onto my hidden train of thought fairly quickly, though. Whatever smile he previously expressed disappeared completely. "Hang on, you just want to abandon me, do you?"
I shook my head, practically forcing my heart to stop beating out of my chest. Who knows what might happen if I disrespected the teacher?
"Well, we'll see about that." B huffed, then coughed into a massive fist. "Anyways, the second least taxing spell you can cast is one that temporarily lets you control the current of air or any sort of gas. If you develop it enough, you will eventually be able to control liquids and even objects, and when you get to that point it'll be known as 'telekinesis.'"
I started to listen intently to the lecture.
I walked around with my tin tray, gazing over the numerous rows of seats. I prepped myself to approach Boingo when I finally saw him sitting down in a relatively isolated section of a bench, deep in thought. Slowly, I began to come close to him, eventually greeting him when I was close enough. "Boingo."
He looked up at me. "Feste..." I could see from his face that something out of the ordinary had happened with him. Did he experience the dream after all? Was it all real? I sat down next to him and began to poke at my food with a fork.
"Boingo..." I stammered, not knowing quite how to start the conversation. It fell flat after a few seconds, deafening silence falling over both of us. I eventually looked over at the small creature and began to talk once more. "Boingo, are you okay?"
Without even making eye contact with me, Boingo maintained his expression short of his teeth becoming somewhat exposed. "I'm fine."
Anyone would know that Boingo had been upset by something. After giving him a few seconds, I pushed. "Are you sure?"
Just as I expected, he starts to break. "It's just... Something happened while I was sleeping. I... It's weird. I saw you, and..." He began to describe all of the events that happened in my dream, but all in his perspective. I had scooted away from him a bit, I was so startled. My eyes were as wide as the plates by the time he was done his recounting. I caught him looking up at me. "Feste?"
I finally shook my head, actually glad that I didn't need to ask Boingo outright. "No, I mean yes, I'm fine. It's just that... we had the same dream, Boingo. At least, I believe we did."
Boingo immediately jumped next to me, gnashing his teeth. "Don't say stuff like that again! I know you're lying! P-Prove it!"
I was at a loss for words. After a few seconds of thinking, though, I decided that next time, if there even was one, I was going to say something that I would easily be able to reference the next day. For now, however, I switched the subject a tad. "You said you hadn't experienced a dream before?"
Boingo started to make his way back to his meal. "So that's what they're called..." He pushed a piece of meat around his plate in circles. "I just remember trying to sleep, then waking up in that weird hallway... Then... After all that, I started to wake up again." He hung his head. "It's so weird..."
"Yes, most of the people that I've talked to have those sometimes, some almost every night. And me..." I stopped myself. There was no way he was going to believe me if I revealed this just after claiming that we had both shared dreams. Or was he? I decided to keep going. "I have been having that dream with the labyrinth for all my life. Since before I can remember, anyway."
Boingo started to look uninterested. I decided to keep talking, though. I didn't want the silence to linger all through the day. "It hasn't happened before. You're the first person besides me to know that that place even exists. Everyone I've talked to about it has believed that I was simply daydreaming or that it was something that I should've just dismissed. They thought it wasn't important at all." I sighed, peering at Boingo. One of his long ears were trained on me. "I think it is, though. There's something about it, especially that lower level we uncovered... I think I can get something out of it."
Boingo was unable to respond. Instead, he kept eating out of the tray, licking up bits of sauce along the way. I nodded and too decided to eat. That was enough information for today, and my servings were starting to get cold.