🐈🐈🐈
THAT night, after getting ready for bed—just me and Seren in the room—I casually asked her how things were going.
“So, how did it go? Flight training, I mean.”
“Well, of course everyone grasped the basic concepts quickly. It won’t be long until everyone’s airborne.”
“Indeed?” I felt relieved, but at the same time, a little jealous. “Seren… I couldn’t say this out loud in front of everyone, but…”
“Yes?”
“Actually, I want to fly, too.”
“Oh, my.”
Seren looked at me, wide-eyed. It wasn’t like it was such a big deal since Seren was always happy to fly me around in the cart, but seeing her fly so freely through the air made me want to try flying for myself. Surely that’s just human nature?
“Could you teach me?” I asked.
“Of course. I don’t think you need my instruction to learn to fly, though, Lord Viol… But it might cut down on the amount of trial and error involved in learning independently…” Smiling, Seren walked over to the cart sitting in the corner of the room. Or, more like looming in the corner.
With a light step, she was aboard, then floating in the air in front of my eyes. I could only admire her skill.
“Okay, now I’ll get down, so after that, please climb aboard, Lord Viol.”
“Ah…I’m a little nervous.”
“You get nervous, Lord Viol?” She sounded truly surprised.
“Learning new magic is always exciting and a little nerve-wracking, but always fun.”
“Oh, yes! I completely get that!” Seren nodded vigorously.
I clambered onto the cart while Seren moved to stand in front of me, and she looked up at me somberly.
“So, here is how to float.”
“Right.”
“The cart has wheels, so there’s a gap between the bottom of the wooden box and the floor, right?”
“Yes, there is.”
“First, we begin visualizing a light wind. Direct the airflow into the gaps on all four sides to make the cart float. Adjust the airflow so that it’s even underneath.”
“Whoa…”
Spreading the airflow evenly underneath was difficult. If I didn’t balance it perfectly, the cart would tip this way and that like a ship bobbing on the waves.
“And direct another gust of wind from above, pressing down.”
“Ah, I get it. That stabilizes it. It’s stopped lurching about.”
“To float, all you have to do is balance the airflow coming from above and below. Then you focus on balancing on the cart yourself.”
“I get it now. You’re a good teacher, Seren.”
“When I first started researching how to fly, I used all kinds of strong gusts and toppled out of the cart multiple times.”
I pictured Seren tumbling out of the cart. Such a tomboy move. Unexpected of a duke’s daughter. Although, it didn’t seem so strange to me now that I knew her. Hearing about her early tumbling failures surprised me, but what surprised me more was how good Seren was at instructing.
“You explain thoroughly, and that handy tip about wind stabilizing makes it hard for me to make any egregious balancing mistakes. Maybe you’d do well as a magical instructor.” When I praised her so earnestly, she blushed a little.
“Thank you… Well, shall we move on to the next step?” Seren seemed embarrassed by my praise as she continued with her instructions. “Now direct another gust of air at your back. Just like how we use wind magic to boost our speed while running, you know?”
“I don’t just direct the wind gusts at the cart?”
“That’s easier with slow-speed flying. But if you start going fast, the wind will push your upper body back. So I found it’s better to direct airflow at your back as well.”
“I see. So, traveling is the same concept as just floating, but you need to stabilize yourself and use wind gusts at your back to counter the wind flow pushing you back, right?”
“Exactly!”
Seren looked pleased, but I sighed a little.
This is all quite nerve-wracking, indeed. Right now, it’s all right since we’re indoors, but outside will be a different story. Outside, all kinds of wind currents are blowing around. Making fine adjustments to my own wind gusts while accounting for random gusts… was going to be an extremely difficult task.
When I tried pushing the cart from behind a little harder, the cart started moving easily and smoothly.
“Oh! It’s moving quite a bit!”
“Great job, Lord Viol!” Seren’s earnest praise filled me with joy. “It looks like you’ve got the basics down, so as a final lesson, let’s try changing directions.”
“All right.”
“The general concept is the same, but when turning, you need to be aware of the wind blowing from a diagonal direction. When turning to the left, the wind hitting the left side is weaker in front and stronger behind. The opposite is true for wind hitting from the right…”
“Whoa…”
“It’s quite wobbly until you get used to it, so you have to figure out at what point you’ll start losing your balance and then make adjustments taking that into account.”
“Yikes… Even just rotating on the spot at one height is difficult.”
“But your balance is improving every minute… You’re doing so good!”
“But I’m moving at a snail’s pace.”
“Well, it’s harder indoors, but out in the open sky, you can easily swoop and rise and weave between trees just by adjusting the wind.”
“I don’t think ‘easily’ is the right word to use here.” As I spoke, I glanced up at the ceiling. Since I’m definitely floating, it figures that the ceiling would be quite close. “This might come in handy for cleaning.”
“Oh, yes.”
Even as we were talking, I was flying slowly in circles around the room. Then, I realized that if I had more vertical space, I’d be able to practice much easier.
“Right. I’m standing up, so I’m running out of space here.”
I sat down on the cart and tried to float upwards. Going up and down vertically was relatively easy, but I couldn’t get the hang of going up and down while rotating the cart at all.
“I understand the concept, but it’s surprisingly difficult. I don’t think I’ve got it down yet.”
“If you mastered it right away, I’d be feeling pretty down on myself… It took me ages and countless falls before I got the hang of flying. So, please try a little harder for my sake.” Seren smiled mischievously.
“Countless falls, you say…?” I shot her a sharp look, and Seren blinked in alarm for a moment before shrugging.
“Just a few falls. And only from a low height. It really didn’t hurt all that much.” She was muttering excuses in a small voice.
“I suppose it’s par for the course when it comes to developing one’s magical techniques… But don’t push yourself too hard,” I stressed. “As your superior… And, I mean, as your husband, of course… I don’t want you ever getting hurt.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“All right, I trust you.”
“Thanks!”
“That bright smile makes me feel uneasy, though…”
“I’m smiling because I’m happy. I never thought the day would come when I would be able to teach YOU magic, Lord Viol!”
Typical Seren. Brushing aside my worries and beaming away with uncomplicated joy.
Is it really so exciting? Instructing me?
Since I have an aptitude for all elemental attributes, I can generally perform all types of magic to a functional level. But there are actually quite a few types of magic that only mages who specialize in a particular attribute can truly master. So I often outsource instruction from others, like right now.
For me, there’s still an infinite amount to be learned from other mages. But for Seren, still so new to magic, being able to teach a superior of hers was probably quite the thrill.
“All that’s left now is to practice until you can fly while using other types of magic.” My instructor beamed, and I nodded thoughtfully.
Right. Seren flew with total control, while also casting magical attacks. She was speaking from a place of experience.
Seren did it with such a confident, unhurried air that I’d underestimated her. But her precision was amazing. No wonder even seasoned wind mages acknowledged her skills.
And this sort of thing was more than one could ask of a wind mage who’d only recently learned how to fly.
For the survey we were going on, it would be more logical to have the wind mages focus on transporting the team via flying while the other members focused on defense and fighting off monsters. Originally, we planned to have one wind mage carry several people, but we should probably avoid having unseasoned pilots carry too many people at once until they’d gained more experience in the air.
Trying it out myself gave me a better understanding of what was involved.
“Thank you, Seren. Thanks to you, I feel like I can fly if I just practice.”
“Hehe, I’m sure you’ll be a pro in no time, Lord Viol. Maybe it would be good for us to try flying in separate carts sometime. It would be fun to compete.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Ah, Seren really knows how to have fun.
“Trying it out myself gave me a good idea of how difficult it actually is. I think we can divide up the survey team responsibilities most efficiently.”
“Oh, I’m glad.”
“It was a great lesson. I’d expect nothing less from MY wife!”
My tone was jokey. Seren blushed a little and looked up at me.
“So… Is there a fee for this lesson?”
“Hmm, is there… Perhaps you want to be indulged once again?” I ventured.
“No, today I want to indulge YOU.”
“…Hmm?”
Seren smiled brightly, a very lovely smile. It was a smile that I’d seen somewhere before.
…A few moments later, I had transformed into a small black cat. It seemed that Seren was in the mood to pet Vi. I looked up at Seren’s smile as she held me against her chest and allowed her to cuddle me.
But then…
“Guh…! Your petting skills have gotten even better!” I lamented.
“Hehehe! This softness! I haven’t felt it in a while!”
Laughing naughtily, Seren stroked and petted my body. Then, her warm hands parted my fur and tickled my skin beneath. Yikes, it felt so good.
“I can’t… I can’t even think about resisting.”
“Well, good. I haven’t been able to pet you in so long. I’ve been reading books and visualizing instead.”
“Please, no weird visualizations…” As I spoke, my tail unconsciously flapped against Seren’s arm.
Now that I could openly be with Seren in human form, I’d been Viol since our marriage. But it seemed from this display that Seren had been craving the touch of Vi. If it makes her happy, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t let her have some playful fun with me as Vi once in a while.
…And it feels pretty darn good.
I planned to let Seren pet me until she was satisfied, but we both ended up falling asleep that night.