Lady's Water Magic Class: Arctic Circle

Lady groaned as Angus laid out the rules for the second week of magic class. Teammates again! Couldn’t they have a magic class where they could all just work by themselves?

Slowly, Lady shuffled over to where her assigned group was starting to gather. The Lime Team, as they were called. While Angus started handing out the team flags, Lady took the moment to study her teammates. Two of them were much larger than the others - possibly because of that moon Blight or whatever it was called she had heard about - and had four arms instead of two. The similarities ended there. One was mainly a light purple with sparkles and large wings while the other was mostly green and white. Her other teammates consisted of a mostly blue Folk with a skull tail tip, an orange Folk with… hand ears? And another that was yellow and blue with large feathered wings.

Despite Angus having called out the names of everyone just moments prior, Lady found she couldn’t recall any of their names. Already off to a great start.

The crotchety old Folk handed the lime flag over to the giant purple Folk and pointed towards a corner of the cave. Guess that’s where they were going to make their fortress. Hefting the flag in her extra arms, the purple Folk lead the way. Lady made sure to stay well away from the group lest someone try to talk with her.

—-

The walk over to their corner consisted of going over a plan of action. The team agreed to start the fortress over by the cave walls and make it arc around their flag, ending it at the wall again. Then three of them could go out and try to capture the other team’s flags while the other three stayed behind to keep the fortress up and to defend their own flag.

Lady wanted to be excited about this. She was a little surprised to find that she actually thought the game of capture the flag sounded fun. Despite not remembering much about herself, this seemed to be right up her alley.

But she didn’t want to play this game with a bunch of Folk she didn’t know or even cared to know. The only Folk she could ever recall being excited to hang out with was… Lady shook her head violently as the image of the tall dark gray Folk entered her mind. No! Don’t think about him. Whatever it was they had back in their old world, it was clearly gone. Now the sight of him only angered her.

Just focus on this Lady, she thought to herself. The quicker they got this done then the quicker she could go home. Maybe next week wouldn’t require teamwork.

—-

As soon as their flag was planted, Lady shuffled away from the group to work on her own section of wall in peace. She had no problem with the previous spell she learned - in fact, she liked to think she mastered it pretty quickly - so this would surely be no different. She didn’t need to work with the others.

She placed her paws on the wet rock and concentrated. Shiny black mist - the only sign she was even using magic - started gathering around her paws. She could feel the cold grip of ice building up underneath. She smirked. See? No problem at all. She glanced back at her teammates. They were all working on the same section and had already managed to start on a sizable piece of ice that jutted from the cave walls.

Hmph, well, that was easy enough to do when there were five of them all working in the same area. She turned back to her own area and continued her own work.

It didn’t take Lady long to realize no matter how much effort she was putting in, her mound of ice she had managed to create just wasn’t getting any bigger. How was that possible? She concentrated even harder, eyes scrunching shut. C’mon, c’mon!

She kept going until she could feel a slight pounding around her temples. If she kept up like this she was going to get a massive headache. She cut off her magic and opened her eyes. She was a little surprised with how blurry things looked. The glow from the mushrooms was almost too bright, even though she had no problem with them before.

“Ugh,” she groaned out as her eyes landed on her ice mound. It was still no bigger than what it was before. In fact… Lady leaned in closer. The ice was already starting to melt, little rivulets running down through the cracks in the stone. “Come on!” She shouted, slamming her fist down on the ice. It offered no resistance and shattered under her force. The bits of ice melted almost immediately when they hit the ground.

She planted both paws on the rock and stared at the ground, sighing. What to do, what to do. The sound of footsteps approaching brought her attention back. She pinned her ears back as whoever it was planted themselves directly next to her. She didn’t look up, hoping they would get the message and leave her alone.

“Having trouble?” The Folk asked.

“I’m doing just fine actually,” Lady said, head snapping up. She glared at the Folk speaking with her.

It was the large purple one. Her gaze didn’t falter under Lady’s glare in the slightest. “It doesn’t seem like you’re doing fine,” she said. She gestured to their other teammates with her arms. They were all watching intently. “This is supposed to be a team exercise, you know. Things would go a lot more smoothly - for you and for us - if we all worked together.”

Lady pushed away from the rocks and turned to face her other teammates, arms crossed. “I already said I’m fine. And you all- “she gestured towards the ice wall the others had built - “seem to be doing well without me.”

The purple Folk leaned down closer to Lady. “You keep saying you’re fine, but I don’t think you actually know what that word means.” She stood back up to her full height. “It’s okay to work with others you know. Not going to hurt you.”

“If you say so,” Lady replied. She already knew that wasn’t true. She had worked with Beacon, hadn’t she? In some way shape or form anyways. They had known each other, she was pretty sure they were even close with each other. And yet when she finally saw him again, all she could feel was anger. At what, however, she didn’t know. But he felt the same way. Whatever it was they had was gone and neither could even remember why.

Which did hurt. A lot in fact, as much as Lady didn’t want to admit it. Part of her desperately missed what once was and what could’ve been.

The purple Folk sighed. “Look, I don’t know what exactly is going on with you but the fact of the matter is, we need everyone to help out with this or we’ll be the first team to lose. Just help us with the fort at least. You might actually have fun” She smirked slightly. “And if you want, after we’re done, you can try and capture the other flags. That would be fun for you right? Attacking other Folk with snow and ice?”

“Hmph, that would be a little fun,” Lady said. She sighed. “Fine. I’ll help. But only because I don’t want any of the other teams winning!”

“Whatever helps you,” the purple Folk said. “Your name is Lady, correct?” She asked as both Folk headed towards the already started ice wall.

Lady grimaced. “I guess,” she said. “That name doesn’t really feel right but it’s the only one I have.” She glanced up at the other Folk. “And your name is… um, it’s…”

“Didn’t catch it while we were being yelled at?” The purple Folk asked, an amused look on her face. “Ah, don’t worry about it, just trying to lighten the mood a little,” she continued as Lady frowned. “My name is Bell.”

“Good to know.”

Both Folk joined the rest of the group and started work on their wall again, Bell and Lady planted on both sides of the other large Folk. The black mist gathered around Lady’s paws again as she got to work. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, it definitely was easier to work on this thing with a team. They were actually able to keep up with it.

“Glad to see you wanted to join us!” The other large Folk said, reaching out one of his extra paws for Lady to shake. “I’m Tenko by the way.”

“Yeah, so happy to be here,” Lady replied, voice laced with sarcasm. “I’m Lady,” she continued, shaking his hand.

The team continued with their work, building up the walls of their fortress. Tenko and the blue Folk - Lan Zhan as he introduced himself - broke off to reinforce an ice wall directly around the flag. If someone wanted their flag they were going to have to work for it!

It didn’t take them long to complete their fortress, a wall of thick ice blotting out the rest of the cave. Just as they finished on the last section, battle cries from the other teams rang out across the cave.

Time for battle!