I wrote a fanfictiony thing, featuring a character I play, and my significant other plays. I’m seeing things I can do better, but if I don’t write more I won’t get better - so, finish what I started, put it out there, and move on to the next.

Story tucked behind the “read more” break to save your scroll wheel

———-

Liragren threw the curtains open, midday sun piercing through the gloom, shining bright upon the grumbling and complaining form of her teacher.

“I don’t know how in the world you expect me to learn anything if you sleep well past noon every day,” Lira complained, moving to the bed to peel the woman out of her bedsheets. “Ilithia Hale, get up!”

She fell out of bed, a heaping pile of blankets falling upon her. Finally poking her head up from the covers, shaking them free, she yawned, squinting through the sunlight breaking through the glass window of the Pandarian inn.

Her hair mussed and twisted, her eyes half-lidded. She coughed and blinked, peering about the room as one arm weakly reached out to grasp the glass of water still set upon the nightstand. She drank deep and eager, setting an empty glass back upon the nightstand. “Lira,” she finally croaked, clearing her throat and continuing, “Let the Innkeeper know I’ll be taking breakfa- …lunch, won’t you? I’m a tad hungry.”

“I’m supposed to be learning from you.”

“I refuse to teach on an empty stomach. I’ll lecture as I eat. Make sure they include those little cakes I like,” she spoke, rising up wrapped in the blankets.

“Like the elf conjures?”

Ilithia’s eyes go wide, and her attentions fix on Lira, “Thats not a bad idea. Find her, have HER conjure those little cakes instead.”

———

Time passed, and Ilithia sat before the lunch spread, her hands moving quick from plate to bowl to shoveling the food to her mouth, pausing frequently to drink of the tea offered, smiling for each refill the Pandaren waitress brought, and even offering a saucy wink, “Keep the eggrolls coming, and I’ll make it worthwhile.”

Turning to Lira, she gestured, “Help yourself, there’s enough!”

“No, thank you, I’d like to keep my hand, Illy, thanks,” she grumbled, “You’re supposed to be teaching me, remember?”

She paused, mouth agape, food hanging from the fork she held in her hand and nodding quietly, setting it down. “Well, I did promise a lecture, didn’t I? Take notes if you must. Ready?”

“Right now?” Liragren scrambled, pulling the notebook from her satchel, and flinging it open eagerly.

“Power has a cost. We know half of it: magic, requires mana,” she moves, filling a glass with orange juice, gesturing to demonstrate.

“Every patron of the magical arts has a limit of mana to themselves: if you were to conjure a soul stone right now, you’d spend some,” she pauses, drinking from the glass. “And slowly, naturally, it would refill, as you rest and let your focus recollect itself - as if you were to refill the glass, poured from a pitcher!”

“And if I were to continue spending mana, I’d eventually run out, and tire myself, yes?” Lira asks.

“Well, certainly. This is how mana works, in a nutshell.”

“I know that.”

“I know that,  but you’re interrupting,” she frowns before shovelling another bit of rice out of a bowl into her mouth, setting the empty dish aside, and grabbing an orange, holding it forth to Lira.

“Look at this, pretend this orange is you.”

“It’s very lumpy, I don’t think that me at all.”

“I’m going to pretend this orange is you, then. There’s all sorts of juice inside. All that mana. But, if you run out of mana, you’re as good as a lumpy fruit.”

She squeezes. The juice leaks through the peel, draining between her fingers, making a mess as well as filling the glass.

“You’re out of mana. You aren’t done. The task is still incomplete. What do you do?”

Liragren pauses, and her brow furrows. Her hair was improbably white for her young age, and the act made her look more wisp-y than she’d intend, as she speaks, “I don’t know. Hope I can calm myself long enough to recharge quickly?”

“Not a wrong answer,” she nods, musing, “You might take to alchemy, perhaps find potions to try and kick start yourself. If you survive, you may find ways to find more efficient ways to use your mana. But, all of these answers are very passive!”

“A more active answer is to use yourself. Your mana is finite, but as long as you live, you have the means to “recharge” - or, you could,” she strains, squeezing the orange harder, the peel breaking, the pulpy mess falling from her fist and splashing the juice about messily. “You could simply use yourself - this is called “Life Tap,” Liragren.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Have I taught you ANYTHING safe?”

“Point taken.”

“Your mana is finite. You are finite. If you have a glass of orange juice for your mana, and an orange for your life, you have two glasses of orange juice for mana.”

“This is a kind of scary analogy,” Liragren said, after a moment of silent pondering.

“You’re the one who woke me up demanding a lecture,” Ilithia said, dropping the orange into an empty bowl, licking the juice from her hand, and offering an exagerrated shrug.