Coldwillow looks around, perplexed and starting to be worried. The drake is about to volunteer to go look, when Larrikan calls down, “Trees look really different from the top.”
The drake bursts into laughter at this.
Larrikan comes drifting down outside the spread of the branches. He says, “What? They do!”
Schnell is chuckling, and ruffles her wings a little to help settle back down. She says, “It’s true! You’re right. But it isn’t the first thing I would expect someone flying for the first time to be looking at.”
Larrikan tells the drake, “No offense, but I’m looking at anything but the ground.”
The drake chuckles again, and is clearly not offended.
Coldwillow looks relieved, and says, “Would you like to know how to land any time soon?”
“Yes!” says the fox, “Please!”
Coldwillow grins, and explains it to him. It is simple, at least landing off the ground is.
Larrikan lands on the platform with no difficulty. He says, “The ground is harder to land on?”
Coldwillow says, “It is admittedly hard to miss the ground, but control is tricky.” She begins to point out the complexities of the earth’s influence while working Air magics.
Larrikan listens raptly. He asks a couple of questions. The drake tries to follow, but finds the details meaningless. She soon excuses herself and returns to the sunny upper branches.
The two wizards begin climbing down the spiral stair, Coldwillow still lecturing on the ground-sky interference problem.
At the bottom of the stairs Coldwillow tells Larrikan, “I am not going to tell you the solution. You figure it out.”
Used to this kind of work, Larrikan nods, “Yes, ma’am.”
Coldwillow adds, “Tomorrow you will demonstrate take off and landing from the ground.”
Larrikan looks a little surprised but says, “Okay.”
Coldwillow leaves him to work on this problem.
Larrikan goes off to think about the problem. It seems complex, as both elements have strong magic energy, but don’t get along well.
He makes little progress, and sleeps badly because he is worrying about it, and thinking instead of sleeping.
The morning brings light and the sounds of sunrise – birds singing, the wind shifting – but no insights.
Larrikan decides to go in to the town for a hot bath. He can be clean when he tells Coldwillow he has no idea.
This is the first time Larrikan can think that he has been unable to find an answer – even a partial answer – on his own, and it bothers him a lot.
He is no longer a spectacle to the people in town, and most give him no more attention than they would any other student. He can sit in the hot water and wrack his mind some more. He considers all he knows about air and Earth magic.
When he gets out of the tub and uses a tiny burst of magic to clear water from his fur, he gets it. And he laughs.