Ollie sputtered as Jahla snatched his phone from his hand when they came to a stop. “Ma’am, stop playing. You know good and well that your company reuses tracking numbers, and sometimes fails to clear, scan, or update them. Drop the script and put in the inquiry, or pass me over to someone who can,” she said calmly but firmly, staying silent for a moment after, obviously listening to the whatever nonsense the woman wassaying now, before adding, “No, no, I’m one hundred percent positive you are wrong, as that is not how time works.”
Huffing, he slowly deflated as his friend continued the conversation. It was somehow less aggravating now that he couldn’t hear the other side of it—just a little bit.
Noble tugged him to his side, before starting to rub his back. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure the books will turn up eventually.”
He sighed. “Yeah, but the question is…how damaged will they be when they do? I don’t doubt this means the boxes took a damn detour because someone placed them where they shouldn’t.”
“They could just be stacked in the original post office somewhere?”
“That’s not much better,” he grunted.
His gaze flicked around the area. They were about a quarter of a mile behind the clearing, and even further away from the library. The moon was large in the sky, and there were no clouds blocking it, giving them plenty of moonlight to see by. Annabel and Red waited nearby for the phone call to end, so they could start that night’s magic practice.
Yay, magic…he thought sarcastically as the throbbing in his head slid tightly behind his eyes.
“You too, you braindead cog,” Jahla said stiffly as she hung up before she'd finished talking. At least, he hoped she had…
Though, if she hadn’t, as mean as it was, he wasn’t sure he completely cared. Okay, he cared a little bit, because it was not nice to call someone a braindead cog. Yet, at the same time, maybe the woman shouldn’t act like a braindead cog if she in fact didn’t want to be called one!?
“An inquiry has been put in. Don’t ask me when we’ll hear back, as she didn’t say, and I couldn’t stand talking to her any longer. I figured we can bug them again in a few days if we don’t hear anything,” Jahla said as she handed his phone back.
Ollie took a deep, calming breath as he pocketed it, before eyeing Red and Annabel and asking, “What are we doing today?”
“Today is all about control. In this case, maintaining control of the spread of fire,” Annabel explained.
Instead of pointing out that his control had been poor at best, he just said, “Okay,” with very little enthusiasm.
Red let out a disapproving meow that likely was a statement about his attitude, but Ollie just couldn’t find it in himself to care thanks to his throbbing head. “Want me to pick a tree and set it on fire?” As that was pretty much all there was to burn…trees.
Red sighed. “Yes. But what we want you to do is start with fire in your hand, and as you place it on the tree, try to control it and keep it localized to just under your palm.”
“Palm, fire, tree, localized, understood.”
Stepping away from Noble, as he was always hesitant to touch anyone else while starting fires, he moved to a tree further away from the others, and took a deep breath. Having gotten at least the act of calling fire to his palm down fairly well, he mentally pictured the fire in his hand, feeling the first traces of warmth as he said aloud, “Flickers, flames, the spark of it all, come to me, fire. You are mine to call.” A flame sparked to life quickly after the last word left his lips, heat spreading from his center and directly to his left hand.
He whispered, “Okay,” to himself as he eyed the nearest tree. Carefully placing his fire-holding hand onto the trunk, Ollie winced as the flames instantly started to rapidly spread.
“Ollie,control, not wildfire!” Red snapped.
“I’m trying,” he snapped back, the flames flared a bit as the throbbing in his head worsened, becoming a loud, constant thumping.
“Yelling the word control at him isn’t exactly helpful, familiar!” Noble growled.
Thump.
“Rather than thinking you want to control it, Ollie, try to create a ball under your hand,” Annabel said.
Thump!
He barely suppressed his panic when the ball that appeared in his mind happened to be a giant fireball, like in the tabletop games of Pathfinder or DND. The fire beneath his hand flared larger with the image, and the sound of the wood cracking under heat filled the air.
“That would be the opposite of what we want you to do!” his cat hissed. “Stop thinking of a ball and just pull back! There's no point in you trying to make something you haven’t even managed to do without touching anything.”
“I’m trying,” he ground out.
Thump! Thump!
“Maybe you should have had him learn how to make a ball in his hand first?” Jahla grumbled.
