A story start....because I didn't feel like studying for a midterm

Can you make miracles happen?

A glistening bead of sweat meandered its way down the face of the young apprentice staring intently at a pot of soil.  Crinkles of frustration and concentration appeared on her face as she raised her hands delicately gesturing gently at the still barren plot of dirt.  Tenderly, a little plant pushes its way through the dirt and coyly emerges out of the encased ground.  A cautious smile gradually appears on the apprentice’s face as the sprout grows gradually developing branches and leaves.   Gesticulating in a highly coordinated fashion, the apprentice persuades the plant to grow in specific ways that are beginning to look reminiscent of a shape.  Soon the plant takes the shape of what could be construed as a dragon, albiet a dragon who might have snacked on one too many knights.  Horror strikes her face as small black berries begin to sprout from the branches and she throws her hands up in frustration. “Damn it!” She exclaims.

She hears a small chuckle behind her in the doorway.  She jolts around and sees Vagari standing in the doorway giving her a mocking applause, smiling playfully at her.

 “Well done” He says.  “Were you trying to create food for pigs?”

 The apprentice looked at him in indignantly and turns and yanks a berry off the branch of her failed plant and throws it him.  He stood still following the trajectory of the berry with his eyes as the berry goes sailing past him. 

“I hope your spells aren’t as bad as your aim.” He says jokingly.   She glares at him and turns back to her plant. 

“Don’t you have some rabbits to catch, forest boy?” She says brusquely.

 “Not at the moment no” he says still smiling at her.

She turns back to him still in her chair.

 “you mean to tell me, you have nothing better to do than stand there and watch me practice my art?”   “I’d hardly call what you were doing art…” he says. 

She gasps indignantly and grabs another berry and throws it at him.  This time he shields his face as the berry hits his hands softly.

  “I’m just kidding”  He says laughing.  “What where you trying to make anyway?”.

The apprentice looks down at the floor.  “I was trying to make a dragon tree”.

 Vagari laughs out loud.  “Why did you want to do that?  It serves no purpose! We don’t keep dragons so why would you want to create a bush to feed them?”. 

She sneers.  “See what you know!  I wasn’t tried to fix the food crisis for dragons, I was practicing some difficult magic techniques.  My master wanted me to create something in which all the elements were used.  A dragon tree fits the bill as you might imagine”.

 Vagari raises his eyebrows.  “Hm, impressive, that is very creative”.  She rolls her eyes.  “I mean it” Vagari claims.

 “But as you can see…” she explains “I am still in need of practice.  Clearly I haven’t grasped the concepts of manipulating the living elements of earth.”  She brushes at the air with her hand at the plant and the little bush freezes solid.

 As she breaks the pieces of plants and throws them into a jar she notices Vagari staring in amazement.  “What?” She asks. 

“I see you clearly have grasped how to manipulate water”.he says.

 “Heh, that’s easy, I’ve been playing with water since I was a young girl.  Besides, you think that is impressive?  Check this out.”

She stares at his hands intently and makes makes a line through the air with her hand flat.  Vagari’s hands glow red for a moment and then he all of a sudden yelps out in pain. 

“OW!”  He exclaims “How did you do that?”. 

This time the apprentice smiled and giggled.

 “My master says I have a talent for the fire arts.  Maybe so since I find it so easy to do.  Just don’t tell anyone about that, I’m not supposed to use magic to hurt people”.

 Vagari smiled, obviously impressed.  “It’ll be our little secret” he said. 

She turned to clean up the rest of her failed plant and Vagari’s gazed lingered a little longer at her long golden brown hair and how it fell like a waterfall from her head.  He snapped himself back to composure and decided that he should probably get back to his duties teaching new soldiers how to survive in the woods. 

“Well, I shall take my leave and allow you to get back to practicing.” He said to her back.  She stopped and looked back at him with a sassy glint in her eye. 

“Great, now that I have your permission!” she said playfully.  She chuckled and turned back to her table and reached over to grab another pot from her shelf.

 As Vagari turned to leave he shouted back “always a pleasure to get to know some of the castles sorcerers!  I’ll visit you again sometime Eclissi.” 

She spun around wide eyed after him.

 “How did he know my name?” she wondered to herself. 

She’d been watching him for weeks. It just so happened that Eclissi was assigned the tower that overlooked the forest next to the castle.  This was Vagari’s favorite place to escape from the world, where he felt free to try new ideas and to feel more at home.  Eclissi, From the first time she layed eyes on him from the tower window, she’d watch him hiding in the trees, making strange contraptions he used as ingenious survival tools.  She found his mastery of moving through the woods, sometimes disappearing in the bush fascinating.  It was as if he was raised by trees and taught to speak by the wild animals in the forest.  In her times watching him from her window she learned his name by hearing soldiers call out for him and commanders of the forest guard bark out orders to him.

 “VAGARI!” They would shout.  “Its time for forest training!”.

 “Vagari…” she wondered.  “I wonder what that means.”

A sorceror, that is what Eclissi was born to be.  Not many in the realm are blessed with the natural powers of magic, but Eclissi was one of the few born with abilities that few have and are unattainable by most.  She grew up in a village that was fairly close to the palace and as such she never quite wanted for anything and grew up largely as a normal girl, albeit a little strange.  Having only her parents and her brother as reference Eclissi believed that she was just like them and always kept her differences to herself.  She never wanted to risk her parents finding out that she was actually remarkably different than they were.  Thus,  her parents never quite saw the development of her powers of sorcery.  Not many did in fact. She never practiced her magic at all save for her own personal amusement.

When she found herself alone, she would walk down to the streams and play with the water.  She’d delight herself by shaping bubbles of solid water, occaisionally trapping a fish in it and watching it swim, trapped in its new spherical world.  During the evenings when she wanted to escape from the dramatic antics of her family she would lock herself in her room and turn all the lights out.  Snapping her fingers she would create a small little burst of flame that would light up her face.  She would play with that little flame as if it were a coin that one would turn out their fingers.  Concentrating for a second would make the flames change color.  Then over the din of noise coming from the other rooms in the house, she learned to make miniature fireworks displays in her room.