William's Week One Water Class

William had been listening to the large angry possum leading the class in the same way he had his professors in his human college: as much focus as he could, but distracted nonetheless. It didn’t help that his curiosity of this world he found himself in was still fresh despite nearly a year of living here, and his eyes began to wander the classroom at all the folk of different sizes and colors and shapes around him. Especially on one particular folk towards the front, his back mostly towards William. If he still had his heart, it surely would have stopped or skipped a beat then and there. “Is that… Damien?” He couldn’t help but wonder-

“BRUH, hellooooooooo?” The folk seated beside William snapped his fingers in William’s face, breaking him out of his thoughts, and shocking him so suddenly his chair wobbled, threatening to drop him to the floor. He gripped the table until he was once again steady, then gave the other folk beside him a sheepish smile.

“Sorry… uh, what were we doing again?” He pretended not to hear the other scoff in annoyance and picked up the page, giving it a quick glance over. He could feel the tan folk watching him, maybe even looking over his shoulder at the paper as well despite probably having heard more about their assignment than he did. He wanted to peek at the maybe-Damien-folk again, but instead put the paper back down and smiled at his desk partner. “I’m William, by the way. Figured we might want to know each other if we’ll be partners in this class. Do you know anything about…” he hesitated out of habit, or perhaps from long abandoned apprehensions. “…Magic?”

“Breve, and no I don’t. I don’t even want to be here, and yet I have to.” Breve huffed before pouting at him. “Stupid weenie water magic! Can we start now and get this over with?” He whined, narrowing his eyes at William a little. It’s because of this that William began to hold up his hand for a handshake (again, out of habit) and immediately decided against it part way through the motion. He looked at the paper again, this time without picking it up. The screen they were provided had gone up at the front of the table, blocking his view of the rest of the class; When did Breve put that up? Or maybe it was someone else? It was a relief and a disappointment to William either way.

“Ah.” Was all he said as he now looked at the rest of the things they were given, his eyes landing on the glass bottle in particular. “I think I have an idea…” he said and he picked it up as though he was going to look at it closer.

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Breve sarcastically replied.

“Wow, I’ve never heard that one before.” William responded in kind with a smile, then carefully poured a small puddle of water onto the tabletop, making sure not to use too much of their water in case he made a mistake or they needed it for their other ice assignments.

“Okay, you got the table wet. Now what?” William put the glass bottle down a little harsher than he meant to, the glass clinking loudly on the surface, then he grabbed the two spoons and handed one to Breve.

“Now, we take our spoons” he continued, letting Breve’s passive aggression go for now, “separate the water into tinier puddles… think… cold thoughts-“

“Think what?” Breve looked at William with that look of “you’re kidding me, right?” that William was far too familiar with from others, the tip of the spoon against the table. He’d frozen his class partner without any ice, he mused to himself; the two of them should get a gold star.

“Just- bear with me.” He said, as he had so many times before being brought to this world, and again continued. He put his spoon back down after getting his round water shape, then picked up the strangely carved rock that was meant to help them with their magic. “Cold, icey thoughts.” He mumbled to himself as he examined the rock, unsure if the new, cool feeling gently winding its way through him was from the magic of the weird rock or from himself. He once again felt Breve’s gaze on him, visibly trying hard not to seem curious, as he shifted his attention to the water on the table. Unsure of what was expected of him beyond that, and only having experience with a different kind of magic from his previous life (if you could call it experience), he leaned down and hesitantly reached his free hand out towards the water, pointer finger extended.

As he awkwardly poked the water droplet, it seemed to hiss, then slowly became less and less see-through starting from the tip of his finger and spreading throughout the droplet. The hiss faded into a soft fizzing noise until it seemed to finish freezing over fully. William breathed out a small chuckle in amazement, lifting his finger (and having to gently push the now small bit of ice off his finger and back onto the table) and said “Oh, shit, it actually worked…”

“Poggers.” Breve responded. He’d apparently been leaning in close to watch when William wasn’t looking. “ I mean-” He shot back up in his seat. “That’s pretty cool I guess.”