Ewan sighed in disgust and threw the letter he'd been reading over his shoulder. "Well, it seems that there is no conspiracy among the Association trying to weaken the kingdom's mages for some mad reason, so none of us have to worry about that."

  Sindri glanced up from where he was swallowing a boiled egg, which was a sight Dryth was still getting used to, while Dryth himself looked up from his fingers, which he'd been staring at while trying to make a magical ball of light. "What?"

  "The whole thing with you and your fellow students not being taught about pure casting at all? Your teachers acting like it was some fairy tale fluff and all that, you remember?"

  "Yes, I remember all that. I didn't mean what as in 'what are you talking about' I meant it as in 'please explain more'."

  "Well say that then don't assume I know what you mean from a one word question that could be interpreted in any of a number of ways."

  "My deepest apologies," Dryth said in his most genuine tone while rolling his eyes. "Could you please explain more of your statement."

  "Why certainly my dear student. I told you that I sent out a number of letters when you told me you didn't know what pure casting was and that I sent more after you told me about that thing with your previous teachers. Well I just got a response back from the Chairman of the Association telling me to stop bombarding him with messages and also explaining what he found out about what was going on." He waved his hand over his shoulder to indicate the letter he'd thrown that direction. "And while the actual reason he told me about is incredibly stupid and annoying, it's not my problem either."

  "You know, Dryth never explained to me what the Association is." Sindri complained, "I get that it's an organization and that they're important, but who are they?"

  "They're a part of the government of the kingdom," Ewan answered as he slipped into lecture mode for the moment, "They're in charge of everything magical, for the most part. Including the teaching of young mages and prospective mages. They're basically in charge of making sure people follow all the rules the kingdom has that apply to magical things and people."

  "Oh. Okay. Can you tell me more about them later?" A full half of the lessons they were now taking were aimed at Sindri and were all about the world that he now lived in, including general human sensibilities, the local culture and laws, how to be polite, and everything else he would need to know to thrive as a non-humanoid being living on a plane dominated by humanoids.

  "Of course, we have an entire chunk of lessons about government in general and the specifics of the kingdom's government, including the Association."

  Sindri happily thanked him and went back to swallowing an egg.

  "Now, where was I? Oh, right. So it turns out I wasn't the only person sending worried messages about what was happening and 'why weren't these students taught about pure casting?'" He said in a different voice, "But I was the one sending the most and also 'bothering the ever living daylights' out of the Chairman. Apparently it wasn't every class of prospective mages that didn't have any lessons on pure casting, just those from the Association region based from Stonebreak. A little more questioning and digging revealed that it happened because of Treegold." Ewan sneered as he said the name.

  Dryth frowned. "The mage who's in charge of inducting new mages into the Association? He did a speech on my Reveal day."

  "I'm sure he did. And he isn't just in charge of inductions, he's also the head of the Education Department for the Stonebreak Association region. He's the one who sets the curriculum given to prospective mages in their little area schools, and he decided to make a big change without saying anything to anyone about it." Ewan sneered again and made a gesture like he was brushing away trash. "He's been scolded for his idiotic decision and told quite firmly not to fuck with the curriculum like that in the future, but I'm sure there's someone watching him still."

  "Why'd he do it?" Sindri asked. "Isn't he a mage too? Why'd he want to make things harder for other mages?"

  "It's so weird to hear your voice completely normally like that when there's so many eggs in your mouth." Dryth muttered.

  "Hahaha! Telepathy beats mouth talking again!"

  "He said it was for safety reasons." Ewan said to answer Sindri's question. "He apparently wanted to limit the prospective mage's ability to cause harm or put themselves in danger by removing any way for them to pure cast. Same reasoning as why they don't teach about stealing cards directly from someone's deck or how you can kill someone and maybe get their cards, but completely ass backwards." He scowled deeply, "It's one thing to not teach children that they could someday commit actual crimes, it is a completely different thing to not even tell a child that a vital and important part of their development is even possible! He was potentially crippling the future of who knows how many mages to prevent accidents that were already being prevented!" He was almost shouting at this point, "You can't even pure cast without learning how to sense your mana! All you have to do is not teach them that and they can't cast!" He dropped down from his half standing position with one hand pressed against the dining table. "Do you know how many people can learn to sense their mana without instruction?" He asked Dryth.

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  "I have no idea."

  "Less than one in ten thousand. We haven't seen an example of it happening in over three decades, but now it's suddenly such a threat that we should change how we've been teaching students for generations?" Ewan angrily stabbed at his own scrambled eggs with his fork. "Moron."

  "So... we don't like Treegold?"

  "I don't like Treegold, you're capable of forming your own opinions of the man. I think he's an alarmist dipshit at best and something to be smeared off my shoe after I stomp on him at worst, but you're allowed to think whatever you like of him."

  "He's loud?" Dryth ventured after a moment, that being the only thing he really had thought about the man for the brief time spent in his presence.

  "He is loud." Ewan agreed. He paused in taking his next bite and frowned at Dryth's untouched plate. "Stop practicing and eat your breakfast. You have all day to work on making a little light but you'll run out of energy if you don't eat your food."

  Dryth sighed and let the little line of heat he'd been drawing out from the middle of his chest slip back into the mass of energy that sat there. After being shown how to feel his mana by Ewan during the lesson, which involved Ewan sending his own mana into Dryth and poking Dryth's mana until he noticed it, he'd been itching to successfully pure cast for the first time. His mana felt like a tangled coil of wires wrapped around the space in his chest where his soul space and his Soul Card sat, all of them glowing with faint heat that metaphysically warmed him when he concentrated on it. Pulling out a wire from the tangle had been difficult to grasp, drawing it along his body had been harder, and now doing something with the mana was proving to be the most difficult of the three. It was about visualization and making the mana match the image and feeling Dryth had in his head, but he hadn't gotten it right so far. Dryth was just grateful that Sindri hadn't surged ahead and beaten him at high speed, his partner was also struggling with getting it right.

  "Don't be stressed about it." Ewan told them both as Dryth started eating his breakfast. "Casting your first pure cast spell is the second hardest part of learning to do it."

  "What's the hardest part?"

  "Figuring out new spells from the different types of magic. They all feel a bit different from one another and all have their own little catches to casting them, which makes it difficult to go between different flavors. The first spell you two are learning is a simple evocation spell and once you get the trick of it you'll find learning new evocation spells a little bit easier than this first one. But the first spell you learn from any other kind of magic is going to be harder, because you'll know the trick to evocation spells but not ones from the new type, which makes it hard."

  "Oh. That sounds fun!"

  "Does anything not sound fun to you?" Dryth asked him.

  "Not if its a challenge! Challenges are for overcoming!"

  "That's a damn good attitude! Now finish your breakfasts. You two are going to be doing some self practice on your spells while I send a dozen more messages to the Chairman, then after that we'll do some more Sindri lessons."

  The two of them ended up going to the laboratory to practice, since it was also the classroom for lessons and Dryth didn't feel like tromping through the twisting magical halls more than necessary. Sindri was obviously up to it but since the coatl was more inclined to be carried around then moving on his own his vote didn't count.

  "Why am I carrying you everywhere?" Dryth demanded as he pulled Sindri off him and draped him on the back of his chair. "Can't you fly?"

  "I can!" Sindri proudly spread his wings, which glimmered in the light. "Aren't my wings pretty?"

  "They really are." Dryth acknowledged. He brushed his fingers along the bottom feathers. He could literally feel Sindri's pride in his wings and how much he appreciated the compliment. "But why aren't you using them?"

  "Because I'm small still! When I get bigger so will my wing muscles and also our inherent magic as coatl that lets us fly gets more powerful as we age, which will let me fly more without having to worry about anything. But right now because my flying magic isn't that strong and neither are my muscles, I need thermals to really fly by myself." He twisted his head around to look around the room. "There aren't any thermals indoors, so I'd have to flap my wings like a hummingbird to get anywhere! And that's really tiring."

  "I'm surprised that you have a reasonable answer, but that makes sense all the way through."

  "Why?"

  "What?"

  "Why are you surprised I have a good answer?"

  "I'm not actually surprised, I was just teasing you."

  "Oh! Uh... You should build up your muscles so you don't get so tired carrying me!"

  Dryth blinked at his friend. "That's not teasing, that's just true."

  "Then... You weakling!"

  "That's just an insult."

  "Awe, I don't want to do that. What's a good tease...?"

  "You can work on it later, teasing is as much about timing as it is about saying the right thing, like jokes. Let's practice pure casting like we're supposed to."

  "Okay! Bet you I get it right before you do! If I win you have to eat a mushroom!"

  "Uh... sure? I just had mushrooms with my eggs for breakfast though, that's not really a good bet."

  "What?" Sindri recoiled in disgust, "You eat mushrooms!? That's weird!"

  "The ones that are edible yeah, they're good for you. Well, maybe not for you because you're a magical feathered serpent, but they're good for humans." Dryth smiled even as he sighed at Sindri's irrepressible energy. "Let's practice, okay? We can figure out stakes for the loser later."

  "And work on my teasing!"

  "And we can work on your teasing too." Dryth agreed.