As the Crown Prince and his Advisors and Counselors worked, the two oddball warriors Theo and Jana had nothing to do but wait. They slouched on the scattered couches with bored faces.
For warriors who were used to running and jumping about, sitting and doing nothing while waiting for orders was the hardest thing for them to endure.
Daran Duluth and Ziggy Astrid were seated at the table discussing best options for troop deployment once the orders came down from Prince Erick when they heard a loud yawn that came from Theo. They glanced at each other with merriment and turned towards him.
His body was so long that he could not completely fit his long limbs onto the chaise and was in imminent danger of falling off the couch. His eyes were completely closed.
Lying on an abutting chaise lounge, Jana shot them a look through barely veiled eyes. She was on the verge of falling asleep herself.
On a whim, Ziggy threw something at Theo's head.
Without even opening his eyes, Theo reached out a lazy claw and caught the objects in his large hand.
"What are you trying to do, break my skull?"
"Is your skull so fragile that a couple of hoverboards are going to crack it?"
Theo's eyes sprang open. In his hands were two tiny black wedges.
"How did you get your hands on these hoverboards?"
Ziggy shrugged. "I bought them off a street vendor. If you want to try them out, I can transmute them into full-size boards and you two can go explore around a bit."
"I'm not a wizard, Ziggy." Jana reminded him. Her temporary interest had waned to zero. "I can't do any of the fancy aeromancy needed to control the airflow."
"No, but isn't Theo a thaumaturge? He can do all that."
Theo nodded. A wicked smile began tugging at the corners of his lips.
"Well there you go," Ziggy Astrid rubbed his chin. "I can quickly show Theo how to--"
"No need dwarf," Theo laughed. "I know how to transmute this thing into a hoverboard."
"But I still have to show you how to windsurf. It's seriously challenging if you've never..."
"Who said I've never windsurfed before?" Theo's eyes were serious.
Daran Duluth cackled. "A bogwarg windsurfer. Hahaha. Now I've heard it all."
Theo took one of the wedges and threw the other one back at Ziggy Astrid. "Thanks for your loan but since Jana cannot windsurf on her own, it looks like I'll have to give her a lift."
"You can fly someone else on your board?" Daran's jaw dropped. "Now this, I gotta see." He dropped the documents they were discussing onto the table and rose.
"Come on Ziggy. I wanna see what Theo can do."
"I don't want to go," Jana covered her mouth as a yawn hit. "I think I'll just sit here and rest for a bit."
"You have to come with us. Get up soldier." Daran made a quick motion with his hand.
Jana stared at him with daggers in her eyes. If looks could kill, Daran would be lying on the floor.
"That's an order, warrior." Daran Duluth drawled. His voice was quiet but full of command. In this group of warriors, he easily outranked them all, including Ziggy Astrid.
Jana sighed and untangled her limbs from the chaise lounge. All she wanted to do was sleep, especially after an entire night of poring over countless logs of firefly visuals with the Queen, Gerald Pomfrey, and his entire celadon group of scri-visual mages.
But orders were orders.
The four of them trooped out of the caledonian tree fortress and found a clearing outside near the dwelling structures.
With practiced ease, Theo threw the wedge he had into the air.
"Mashangjokai!"
Instantly, it morphed into a full-sized hoverboard hanging two feet off the ground.
Jana's eyes were irreversibly caught. It was a thing of beauty. The black metallic board gleamed dully in the sunlight. It was light and strong at the same time.
A strong desire began burning within her to own and use this board at any cost.
It shone with barely constrained burnished power, but Jana knew that the power that it gave off was not inherent in its makeup. This was the power that Theo infused into it. The board and the man were linked via this power.
Suddenly, magik became something wholly desirable for Jana.
The catwoman who had eschewed magik all these years had suddenly developed a thirst for this knowledge. It was a burning desire that eclipsed anything she had ever felt before.
Jana vowed to herself that she would figure out a way to learn enough magik to get on this surfboard and ride this mutha till the cows came home.
And she would do it in her own way and on her own steam.
Theo grinned with delight and levitated up to the board, settling on it with the ease of a pro.
"When did you learn how to windsurf?" Ziggy's arms were crossed as he stood viewing Theo's simple light action of mounting the board. He made a mental note of Theo's method so he could try it at the next opportunity.
"I was at Crystal Academy learning thaumaturgy and saw the windsurfing team practicing. Since I wasn't allowed to be seen mingling with the students, I made my own board with scrap wood and practiced at night when no one was around."
"Is the windsurfing team at Crystal Academy on the same level as the one at Topaz Academy?" Ziggy asked.
"I don't know. I've never seen the Topaz windsurfing team. Crystal team seems to be pretty good though."
He reached his hand out to Jana. "Would you like to catch a ride with me?"
"Can you handle another person?" Jana eyed the board with suspicion."
Theo laughed. "Easily. Come."
Without any effort, Theo levitated her up onto his hover-board.
"Stand still and hang onto me."
Without hesitation, she reached out to hold onto Theo's waist.
"Careful where you put your claws. They're so long they are reaching towards private areas where I would rather keep private." Theo muttered quietly.
Behind him Ziggy Asrtrid and Daran Duluth snickered.
"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you." Jana grinned provocatively.
"Promises, promises…" Theo smiled and with a whoosh, the hoverboard lifted.
They levitated above Daran Duluth and Ziggy Astrid for a moment. And then with a quick raise of his arm, Theo commanded a gust of wind to propel his hoverboard straight up.
As Theo leaned into the ascend, the ground rushed away below them. The dwarves on the ground got smaller and finally disappeared.
Jana's stomach did a loop-de-loop, but she threw her body into the movement with a natural movement born from years of athletic training.
As Theo moved his body, she learned his motions through the visual dynamic movements of the currents. She noticed how he moved his arms and legs.
The movements were not that far off from all the various fighting movements that she had instinctively incorporated into her repertoire of movements. It was simply being deployed in a different manner and for a different purpose.
She saw how he turned his body, weaving and rolling through the warm muggy air and she started to follow his lead. Eventually, they began to move as one.
Jana lent her weight and mass to his, increasing their combined momentum. They became even more efficient and powerful, their speed doubling, then tripling normal air surfing speeds.
It was just too amazing!
She could barely believe that she was flying with a full-fledge mage on a surf-board made of dark metallic alloy and magik that Theo was controlling simply by throwing his energy this way and that.
He moved the eddies and currents of air to his advantage, and when available, he took advantage of the zephyrs blowing in the direction they needed to go.
When the winds were favorable, instead of expending energy moving air to create lift, they were actually surfing the winds and collecting the excess energies into themselves.
They were absorbing so much of the atmospheric forces that they could not effectively store it all. The excess energy blew off in whorls and vortices of energy swirling around them.
"Wow, you're a natural!" Theo laughed as they bounced off a crest and landed on another wave of air. "Wanna learn how to ride a board yourself?"
"I've never learned any magik." Jana responded into his shoulder blade. She was tall, but he made her feel small.
"I can teach you. It's not as hard as people make it out to be. We live in a land that is filled with the Universal Force. All we have to do is reach out and incorporate that force into our very being."
"Is it too late for me to learn? I thought this was something that had to be learned as a child."
"It certainly helps if you start off learning magik as a child, but half of magik is physical control, which you have mastered in spades." Theo tensed his body and concentrated on the oncoming airstream.
"You are a full-fledged warrior with physical skills most people, including mages, can only dream about. You only need to learn the magik part." He leaned into the swirl of air and dipped down onto another trough.
"Hang on. We're going to ride this micro dust devil." Instinctively the two moved as one, dipping into the whorl.
They shot out the other side, whooping with delight.
"Let's get back before the dwarves think we've taken off never to return again." Theo swerved around a bend in the air columns and onto a stable mass of air.
The ride back was quick. Within minutes, they could see the tiny figures of Daran Duluth and Ziggy Astrid at the center of the clearing.
Theo motioned with his arms, controlling the flow of the atmosphere around them as they swooped out of the air, landing with a smooth finish right in front of the dwarves.
"Whew! You guys look amazing surfing that blast as a couple. And oh my God, look at all the energy you accumulated just flying around!" Ziggy called out to the two.
Theo took hold of Jana's hand and gently led her off the board. Then, he snapped his fingers, returning the board to its tiny wedge size. With quick fingers, he grabbed the wedge out of the air and handed it back to Ziggy.
"Thank you for letting me borrow it for awhile. It's a good board. I truly appreciate it."
Ziggy threw the wedge back at Theo who deftly caught it.
"Keep it. I just put in an order for several hundreds of these. I'm going to try and train some of my men, those who know a bit of magik, to surf the blast. I think many of them will do well."
Ziggy turned to Jana. "Was it fun?"
"Absolutely."
"Is Theo going to teach you how to surf the blast?"
"Well he did promise me he would try."
"It's a promise I intend to keep." Theo placed a fist over his heart and bowed to the lioness.