Two weeks had blown right by Kira’s without her barely noticing, she was too wrapped up in learning magic to realize. The start of her Academy days was inching ever closer, only roughly a month away. Right now that felt like a decent amount of time to prepare, but she knew it would be upon her sooner than she thought. Excitement and anxiety mixed together inside her: she was both looking forward to learning even more about magic, but having to live away from home, away from Rynus, and meet new people, scared her a little more than she’d like to admit. Luckily, the positive feelings outweighed the negatives, so she wasn't losing sleep over worrying for no reason.

  “Whew.” She breathed out, and resumed her concentration. Two balls of white light, only a fingernail in diameter, hovered shakily over each of her hands. Her current task was to try and keep them there for 10 minutes, and after 9 minutes of holding steadfast, she was starting to struggle.

  It only took her one more day after her initial practice to be able to create a ball of mana from her wand. Rynus was happily surprised, and complimented her about the fact that most children of Thorn struggled with control and focus over their mana, but she had no such problems— well at least at first. By now, she was realizing that maybe she had a bit of beginner’s luck.

  It had been over a week since Rynus had given her the task of keeping two mana balls for 10 minutes, and she had been having a rough time the entire week. With her unnaturally large reserve of mana, and her growing mana ‘muscles’, she hadn’t run into mana exhaustion yet, instead she was struggling with control, like a child of Thorn was supposed to. Rynus showed her multiple different drills, and tried his best to aid her, but there was only so much he could do to help. Right now, the only thing she could do was keep trying!

  ‘30… 31… 32…’ She counted, only 28 seconds away from completing this training that had bugged her for too long. But, it wouldn't happen so easily would it?

  “...ahhhhh…” A buzzing noise, so quiet at first that Kira didn't even know what it was, but the sound only got louder and louder until the screaming voice of a girl was the only thing she could hear.

  “Ahhhh— oooof!!!” With a thump and a tumble, a familiar face crashed into the grass right in front of Kira, disturbing her focus, causing the mana in her hands to dissipate.

  Kira looked down at Abigail Frost Brinton, her only friend. Unlike Kira’s short smooth blonde hair, Abigail’s head was covered in curly icy blue locks that were riddled with flecks of dirt and grass. Her skin was pale, similar to a fresh piece of paper, and little blue freckles dotted her cheeks— if you could see them, she was currently face down in the ground after all. Dark gray wizard robes wrapped around her body, and Kira could spot her wizard's hat laying on the grass dozens of feet away, having been flung off during her tumble into the ground.

  “Er, you alive Abby?” She leaned over and asked her closest friend.

  “Hrurg.” Abby muttered, whatever that meant. She slowly lifted her face from the ground and looked up at Kira with watery eyes. Like an attacking snake, Abby lunged at Kira face first and tackled her to the ground in a constricting hug.

  “Kiraaaa!!” She cried out. “It’s been soooo long!”

  “It's barely been two weeks.”

  “Exactly, that’s too long!” Abby pouted and wouldn’t let go of her hug.

  “Yes yes, okay, let’s not keep crying, I’m right here.” Kira gently spoke while rubbing Abby’s back in slow circles. It took a few minutes before Abby calmed her sniffling. She sat a few feet away from Kira, her eyes still puffy and red, but now she was at least available for conversation.

  “I know we both promised that once you were able to use magic, we would focus on practising until the academy started, before we saw each other again… but that’s too looong Kira! I’m in desperate need of my Kira energy.”

  “Kira energy?” Kira questioned.

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  “Mm.” All Abby did was nod.

  “Sigh, okay fine, we can spend the day together— but after today, no more hanging out until the academy starts. I need to focus on my magic.”

  Wizards were allowed to start practising magic when they turned 13, but what about those whose birthdays were later in the year? Or in the worse case, those whose birthday fell after the Academy year started? Anyone who hadn’t turned 13 before attending the Wondrous Academy, was only allowed to start learning once the school year started.

  Kira had asked Rynus a few years back, wondering about those whose birthday fell in January. Did they just have a full 9 months more to learn magic then those born later? Yes, but no, was his answer. They were allowed to start learning magic earlier, sure, but that just meant they might get a little bored during the first few weeks of the school year. The academy didn’t want to give any unfair advantages to its students, so that precious first month of school was catered towards catching up anyone who hadn’t started magic yet, to those who have. Obviously the earlier birthday folks would still be learning new things, but there was a large focus on getting everyone to an even playing field before the real magic began.

  Abby was one of those who got a massive head start being a January baby. She had already awakened her first innate magic after 3 months, which was a pretty standard time to awaken it, and had been training it ever since.

  That’s why Kira was a little annoyed, but just a little though. She had been jealous that Abby got to use her magic for so long while all Kira could do was watch and wait, but now that she could learn magic, she wanted to catch up to her best friend as quickly as she could.

  Hopefully Kira could awaken her first innate magic before the academy year started. Anticipating what that magic could be was the thing exciting her the most. I mean look at her best friend, her innate magic allowed her to fly.

  One thing of note about innate magic that flashed through Kira’s brain, something she had read about briefly, was a term the Wondrous Society called ‘innate rarity’. Each and every magic that one awakened as their innate magic would be unique, something never seen before, but that didn’t mean its general use wasn't special. Kira was sure there were a dozen wizards that could fly, but all of their magics differed, some probably only slightly, while others there was sure to be a stark difference.

  “So how's your training? Did you mean to crash into my backyard or was it an accident?” Kira asked, eyeing the disheveled state of her best friend.

  “An accident.” Abby almost whimpered. “It's just sooo hard to control, I just can't seem to get the hang of it. And when I saw you below, I just… I… I lost control.”

  “Oh Abby, you'll get the hang of it in time!! I believe in you!” Kira cheered, doing her best to lighten Abby’s mood, and seeing the smile donning Abby’s face, it just might have worked. “Let's go take a bath so we can get that dirt off of you. Rynus can help with your clothes.”

  The two headed inside, and after handing their dirty clothes to Rynus’ unseen servants to go wash them, they plunged into a large wooden bathtub on the third floor together. It was wide enough to fit both of them without too much of a snug. Purple bubbles covered the surface of the water, created by a bath bomb someone had gotten her for her birthday.

  Realizing they didn't have any clean clothes to dress into, Kira was about to call for Rynus, when she saw two pairs of freshly folded clothes resting on a bench near the door to the bathing room. An unseen servant must have snuck the clothes in while she was distracted. It appeared her master was always one step ahead of them.

  “So do you girls want any snacks?” Rynus asked the two of them as they sat around the living room table, their hair still slightly damped from the bath. Of course, they nodded; who wouldn't at the notion of snacks?

  After a delightful munching session, Kira suddenly sat up from the couch with wide eyes. “I haven't shown you Caspian yet!!! Ah, come on, he’s sleeping outside!” She grabbed Abby’s wrist and yanked her off her butt, dragging her out into the backyard. She had to scan the area to find her familiar, but soon spotted Bunk’s chunky body peeking out from underneath the archway between her house. Both familiars lay on their backs sleepily soundly in the afternoon sun. A giggle escaped Kira’s lips from seeing Caspian on top of Bunks stomach as he snored.

  “Caspian, wakie wakie sleepyhead!” Kira patted Bunks massive body and stirred Caspian from his peaceful slumber.

  Hmmm, Kira? Caspian’s eyes tiredly blinked open.

  “You gotta meet my best friend Capsian, her name is Abby! I’ve told you about it before, do you remember?” Kira pulled Abby close. She was used to Bunks massive form from having seen him many times in their years being friends. “Abby, meet my familiar, Caspian the Capybara!”

  “Your familiar!?” Abby shouted and grabbed Kira’s shoulders. “Wa-wait why do you have your familiar already!??? He’s sooo freaking cute!” She let go and ran over to Caspian who had gotten down from Bunk, and squatted so she was on a closer level to him. “Hello Caspian, it's nice to meet you!”

  Hello Abby! Caspian waved a little arm, earning a squeal of delight from Abby.

  “He says hello.” Kira said, “Supposedly any child of Thorn gets to summon their familiar early, something about helping reduce the excess mana we produce.”

  Abby nodded, but her focus was purely on Capsian’s furry form.

  The summer heat was a great excuse for the two girls to head back inside, now with a third member gracefully being carried alongside them. They easily fell back into their old routine; playing card games, talking excitedly about the Academy, bothering Rynus for more treats, but now there was something even more interesting for them to discuss — magic. They of course would talk about magic lots of times in the past, but it was different now that they were both learning, and could now share stories of similar experiences. It was no longer Abby talking about using magic while Kira complained it was unfair she wasn’t allowed to start learning yet.

  Night came around, and after staying for a lovely dinner, Abby had to leave before her parents and her master got worried. With a farewell hug, and after awkwardly tripping at the front entrance, Abby ran off with a deep shade of pink blossoming on her cheeks. The next time they would see each other would be on the first day of the Academy, and Kira could barely wait for that day to come.