The Red Pendant

Chapter 2

After several more minutes of silent walking passed, Aaron and Maryanne finally arrived at the old wizard's cottage. They were, as per usual, the only ones there. There were not very many people in their small town of Flowlit that were capable of doing magic. In fact, so far Maryanne, Aaron, and Marcus were the only ones in Flowlit who could do magic, but most larger cities had many more.

As they entered Marcus's cottage, the door silently having come to a close behind them, they noticed a few differences in the decor; the old chipped wooden table was now at the center of the room, and his spare chair was in the back left corner. Papers lay scattered across the floor in senseless disarray, and the old grandfather clock had ceased its insufferable ticking. There was an indent in the wall close by the rickety chair as if something had been thrust upon it. The old man himself was pacing the room, a rather worried expression shown on his face.

"Where have you been?" Marcus asked, stopping suddenly to look at them. "You are seventeen minutes late, and I was getting worried. As you know, you are the only ones who ever come."

"We are sorry, Marcus," Aaron apologized, slightly bowing his head. "We got a little carried away on the way here..."

"Well, now that you're here, we might as well get started," Marcus sighed, running a wrinkled hand through his ruffled gray hair. "There's no need to waste any more time. Now, do either of you remember what magic you learned last week?"

"We learned the history of portal making, and also learned how to create a basic portal to portal a small object across the room," Aaron recalled, pleased with himself for always having pinpoint accuracy and astounding memory.

"Very good, Aaron. Maryanne, do you remember what you learned in the other half of the lesson?" Marcus asked, moving his gaze to her.

"Ehehe, um, what was it on again?" Maryanne sheepishly shrugged.

"Well, you never listen that much anyway," Marcus sighed, deflated. "But you do have great power and talent, and you should learn to use it. You never know what the future holds."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's just get today's lesson started," Maryanne suggested impatiently.

"Ok, Maryanne. Last week, along with learning about portals, we learned about magical plants, and their qualities. Today, we are going to continue on herbology, and start on animology, and learn about magical animals and what you can use them for."

As Marcus lectured on and on, Maryanne's focus fluttered around the air upon several random subjects, not paying attention until he mentioned water lilies.

"Marcus," Maryanne interrupted, "I grew a water lily on the way here, it was only a bud, and I grew into a beautiful flower," Maryanne continued, proudly saying, "it was white, blue, and purple!" 

"Well done!" Marcus announced, proud of his second pupil. "You are more skilled with plants, excuse me, herbs, than you know. Water lilies, being magical plants, are more difficult to grow using magic than normal plants. They are the homes of water sprites if they grow near rivers or lakes."

"Yes," said Aaron, "they are, but only if there are no humans around. Water sprites prefer to live in places hidden from humankind."

"Very well, Aaron!" Marcus praised, Maryanne's success fading slightly. "You do know your herbology facts very well, while Maryanne can use it very well. We may just start on animology."
Aaron and Maryanne smiled; they liked to be complimented, especially by Marcus. 

"Ok, to start on animology, you will learn how to tame a magical animal. You must offer them their favorite magical plant, then perform a taming spell," Marcus explained, pulling out a small cage hidden behind him. "This is a grewhog. Their favorite magical plant is the maniple, the fruit of a Manny tree. Each of you will calmly offer the grewhog a maniple, and if it takes it, you will perform the taming spell while it eats the fruit. Now each of you go take a maniple, and pick a grewhog to tame."