Perfect Storm I Loki

Nine

"You're doing it wrong,"

Layla huffed. "I thought there was no right way of doing this,"

"I thought that too. Until you started doing it wrong,"

She closed her eyes for a moment as she reeled in a breath. They were training again. He was now asking her to conjure things that were away from her.

"I'm trying in the same way with that metal. Isn't the basics the same?"

Loki licked his lips. "Should be. But you're doing it wrong,"

"Yeah, yeah. Got that part,"

They had come to a clearing behind the village, on the top of the hill. He was asking her to conjure something from the village.

She could retrieve anything from distance with her magic if she did it the usual way. Send the green energy and make it fly to her. But he didn't want her to do it that way.

"Maybe you should think of stabbing me again. Conjure some knives," he grinned. She gave him a look. If she could, she probably would do just that.

She tried focusing again. Maybe if she tried on a more familiar object, she'd be able to do it. She thought of her computer, sitting in her room, and tried calling to it.

She really was a pathetic witch if she couldn't conjure something that close. People who mastered this could conjure things from other Realms as Loki had said. And she couldn't even do it from a reasonable distance.

"You're annoyed," he said.

She opened her eyes and turned to him. "Oh, what gave it away?"

"Your crease between your eyes, for a start," he smiled, "But I can also feel your energy getting restless,"

She cocked an eyebrow. "You could feel that?"

"Like calls to like. Magic calls to magic. You can call it whatever you like, witch, wizard, warlock, sorcerer, magician, enchantment. One simple thing they all have in common is the force. You probably felt it all your life too, just didn't know what it was,"

She thought of Wanda. She had been the person where Layla had been around longest who also had magic. She tried remembering if she felt something whenever they used their powers.

"How does it feel?"

He shrugged. "It's different for anyone. For some, it's like a tingling. Some say it's a buzz in your ear. Or a scratch on their skin. My... teacher, she said she heard music or harmony in the wind,"

"Oh, that sounds nice," she replied. His face changed when he started talking about his teacher. "Uhm, what do you feel?"

That got him to snap out of wherever he had gone. "I feel this rush in my blood. It doesn't feel like adrenaline but maybe more of a numbness?"

She pouted. She didn't remember feeling any of the things he had listed before. He started to walk toward her, closing their distance.

"It sometimes surprises me how little you know about all this, Wilson,"

Layla started feeling the same kind of warmth she felt for the past week whenever he was near. "Sorry if I'm not an expert on all of this,"

"Don't be," he replied and she felt her mouth getting dry. There was still a distance between them, at least a couple of steps distance and she didn't know why she was feeling like this all of a sudden. They had hugged the other day, it was more closer than this.

She tilted her head. "I enjoy teaching you," he then said. "I have always been the one to receive the information but never the giver. It is a nice kind of different,"