Practicing.

That very next Sunday I was home alone again. Isabelle went out with Alice and Noelle to watch a movie they’d been waiting for for a year and mom went out to have lunch with Diana and Maria. Grace was having lunch with her mother, showing her that the future house wasn’t some fever dream of mine, while both Mila and Sarah were on babysitting duty with their younger siblings, both at the latter’s house.

So yeah, I was left to take care of the pets, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have anything else to do. I had a lot of studying to do and practice to get on with.

What kind of practice, you ask? Well, bartending practice!

…

And magic practice.

Remember how I got super dizzy that time I tried to use magic to prepare a drink? Well, I couldn’t have that happening every time, so I had to practice. And if I was going to practice, I might as well practice some bartending skills, too.

Wasn’t gonna practice with liquor, though. I wasn’t gonna drink it and it’d go to waste, so I just poured water in plastic bottles as a substitute for that. I went to the kitchen and started.

Remembering some tips Diana gave me, I put some ice inside a tall, empty glass and practiced my stirring. I watched some videos while I did, and they even covered how to hold the spoon. Hold it between your thumb and your index finger, then get the middle finger behind it and to stir you actually want to push and pull before adding wrist motions.

This is where the magic comes in again. Stirring ice in an empty glass is done just to lower the temperature, but it was still a step I could add the magic touch to. I stirred the ice, pushing and pulling, then adding wrist movements. As I did, I felt the world spin along with the ice, heat moving in waves inside my very veins, my nose… clogging as if I was coming down with a cold.

I stopped and pulled away from the glass, sitting down on a chair I had close to me. Cake ran up to me, jumped on my lap and began to meow loudly while looking up at me, her eyes wide and her ears pointing straight up.

“I’m fine, I’m fine…” I told her, scratching her neck.

Both huskies ran after her and sat at my feet, staring and tilting their heads with lowered ears.

“Wow, did I worry you guys too or did you just follow Cake?”

After a moment’s rest, I stood up. Cake jumped on the table and actually meowed louder when I picked the spoon back up. It was… interesting.

“You… You’re not ACTUALLY able to sense magic, are you? No, you can just tell I’m not feeling well.” That had to be it. “Don’t worry, I’m better now and… I’ll be careful.”

I picked up the glass and poured the melted ice water into another glass before opening a water bottle and pouring it into the tall glass. I tried to be very conscious of my movements, trying to remember how Diana did things. The way she moved when making a drink was so smooth and elegant. That was the kind of bartender Luke wanted in his bar.

After filling half the glass, I took in a deep breath and began to stir again. I felt it all once more. The spinning, the nausea, the heat… I pushed through it for a bit longer this time before pulling away and sitting down with heavy breathing.

“Ahaha…” I couldn’t help but laugh when I realized something.

When I started working out, I did so with an unfair advantage. Frey gave me a strong body, gave me strength, agility and good health. This magic training… It felt like working out, in a way, only I was actually starting from level 1. No, level 0. In the same way I should’ve struggled to lift 70 kilos that first time, I was struggling to do something as basic as adding magical energy into water. Basic according to Frey, at least.

It felt… fair. Like I was getting my comeuppance, sort of. Magic gave me something before, now I had to earn the magic itself. Huh. When I thought of it that way, it really made me want to continue. Magic had given me, and is still giving me, way too much. Frey was giving me way too much. It was high time I earned it all.

Still, it was a slow process. I practiced stirring and drink-mixing using water as pretend-****. I did it over and over, taking breaks after every step while Cake watched my every movement with worry. Chip and Mint were playing by my feet, mostly unbothered. Made me believe it really was just Cake worrying about me rather than animals being able to sense magic. Although…Cake didn’t try to even smell the water I’d been mixing.

…

I was starting to get really tired and dizzy. Enough that resting a bit wasn’t making me any better. Maybe because of that strange stupor I wondered if drinking that water with sexual energy myself would be the equivalent of drinking my own piss.

…

OKAY! Enough for the day!

I dragged my feet over to the living room, sat on the couch and took a deep breath. I really did feel exhaustion not too dissimilar to a hard day of workout. In fact… I was starting to get sleepy. My eyelids were slowly starting to close…

…

…

…

And then they shot open when I realized the glasses with sexual energy water were still in the kitchen. I pushed through my exhaustion, went to the kitchen and drank those suckers myself, fearing what sending them down the drain might do.

…

Do NOT think about piss, Oliver! That tasted… salty, actually. Like water with a pinch of salt. Huh. I think I understood even more why Diana was fascinated by the possibilities.

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