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If only he’d known what the morning would bring, he would have rested himself from magic use for several days.

As it was, Nico now found himself in the catacombs beneath the Academy’s East Wing, standing in the middle of a spiral of mystic sand, arms spread, purple energy surging from his aura, his eyes closed tight in concentration.

“Now, Mr. Shawshank, release.”

Professor Mars’ voice was like a surgeon’s scalpel perfectly, painlessly cutting away at his mind. Was it only in his mind? Was it spoken out loud at all? Nico couldn’t tell anymore. He obeyed the teacher’s command and lowered his arms, retracting his aura and opening his eyes. Immediately, his whole body shook with pain and fatigue.

In front of him, impassively, stood the professor, arms folded up in his billowing black cloak. No expression could be discerned on his face because no face could be seen. Every inch of the man’s body was tightly wrapped in bluish-gray bandages. Only the burning rubies of his eyes shone through.

“You have an admirable spirit, Mr. Shawshank,” Mars said. It was a nice compliment, though the tone of his voice suggested otherwise — Nico was quickly learning that it never varied from a steady, dispassionate monotone. “It is clear to me, however, that you are in danger of developing some bad habits. You have allowed your aura to become loose and unwieldy.”

“I am sorry, my master,” Nico said, staring hard at the spiral of sand on the floor, sweat dripping freely down his face. It was unusual for students of magic to use such formality these days, but Nico was deeply impressed with his personal tutor assigned by the school. Professor Mars was well known in the magic community, on loan to the Academy from a Wee Folk college down south. In fact, it was rumored he was one of the wee folk himself, but no one really knew. Nico tended to believe one hypothesis: that he was a reformed unseelie faerie, a will-o’-the-wisp specifically, inhabiting a body husk. He felt this hypothesis was supported by the fact that Mars’ personal aura gleamed a bloody red.

“There is little to apologize for,” Mars said. “Your talent and dedication show in the spiral. Even with your aura stretched, the sand did not warp even slightly. You have developed an excellent degree of control.”

In a flash, Mars appeared right in front of his face. He reached out a bandaged hand and touched his palm to Nico’s heart. A surge of coolness spread through the boy’s blood vessels. He felt relaxed, and then energized. His eyes widened, and he gasped.

“Thank you, master!”

Mars turned away. “Any other student would be content to call me ‘sir,’” he said. “I appreciate your sense of decorum, but you must beware the excessive use of spells, especially those outside your range.”

Nico’s brow furrowed. “I am sorry, master, but I do not think I know what you mean.”

“It is understandable.” The professor turned his shining eyes onto the youth. “Range is a concept not normally explained to sorcerers of your age. You have superb control — you can cast spells with precision, but you lack control over how those spells take their cost from your body and soul. You are young, and your range of outward control is far above average, but every magic user must develop inward control naturally. Your inner focus is in flux, as is your growing body. This means that if you want to spend every day …”

He paused, and his eyes glimmered.

“… conjuring keyboards …”

They glowed again.

“… enlarging yourself …”

He turned away.

“… and especially if you surreptitiously place a protection spell on yourself every day, you need to stretch your outer aura and meditate to feed your inner strength.”

Nico’s mouth hung open. He had told his professor nothing about the spells he had cast the previous day. And nobody knew about his daily protection spell, which, as the older brother of a giant, he did as a reasonable precaution.

“Do not be alarmed. I do not mean to invade your privacy,” Mars said. “I simply wanted to demonstrate to you that I will be able to discern the nature of your recent incantations from the shape of your aura, and whether or not they were performed recklessly.”

“I … I understand, master,” Nico said, his voice cracking a bit. He was surprised one more time when the professor took his left hand and placed a small blue stone in his palm.

“This stone will help you meditate and get used to the level of mystic stillness you should be feeling,” Mars said. “Keep it to yourself, however, and bring it back to me tomorrow. Non-magic users who come into contact with the stone will experience detrimental effects. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my master.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The stone had not left his hand when Nico exited the catacombs and strode, refreshed, through the sunbeams illuminating the East Wing halls. On the human-scaled walkways, he relaxed and contemplated his first special magic tutoring session. It had been more intense and challenging than he would have ever expected. He smiled to himself, thoroughly satisfied. It was a perfect way to begin the day.

He was expecting to see some of his new giant friends around, but he didn’t encounter any of them until 11 o’clock math, (a class he only took on Tuesdays and Thursdays), when he entered the classroom and immediately found Malik and Rich both standing up to greet him.

Rich, upon seeing the human, went red-faced, and Malik grinned, crouched and reached forward with an extended finger. Nico put out his hand and shook it casually, glancing between the two giants in front of him, noticing Rich’s blush, but feeling unaffected. With the stone in his hand, after having exerted himself for magic tutoring and relaxing through 10 a.m. history, he felt calm and refreshed, as though he’d been cooling down after an invigorating workout.

“Great to see you, little Knight!” Malik said, his deep voice startling the small crowd of human-scaled students gathering nearer to the front of the room. He and Rich were the only giants in that class, and like in most classes, the smaller species were unaccustomed to very much giant/human interaction. It wasn’t that they were afraid of the giants, necessarily — it was just contrary to their instincts to get close.

Nico had suppressed that instinct long ago, and it was obvious as he said, “So … can I sit with you and Rich?”

Both giants smiled as Malik laid out his hand and allowed the tiny guy to climb aboard before he and Rich walked back and sat down at their shared table — an oblong, short-legged granite desk, behind which the giants sat criss-cross on cushions.

“We were just talking about you,” Rich said, as Malik gently set Nico down on the table top. Sadly, he too would have to sit on his rump, but at least he had an enormous amount of desk space.

“Yeah, dude, Rich said you passed out at his house yesterday? Are you OK?” Malik asked. Rich elbowed him in his beefy arm. “Man, that isn’t how I said it! I promise, I’m not just telling everyone you passed out …”

“That’s OK!” Nico said, chuckling and shaking his head. “No, I just cast too many spells yesterday. I had my first Academy magic lesson this morning and I learned why it happened so unexpectedly. Hopefully, it won’t happen again.”

“Yeah, I hope not,” Rich said, smiling and leaning forward, crossing his muscular forearms on the desk. “Your little brother kind of snapped a little bit when he saw you.” He pointed to a faint mark still on his right wrist. “The little punk is strong! He was turning red and gripped me real hard.”

This news almost made Nico’s magic-induced tranquility waver. “Yeah, he gets really protective,” he said, but his eyes darkened. It was not good for his brother to get angry, especially around non-family. He would have to talk to him about this later.

“Maybe you could come over to my house some time, Nico,” Malik said as he pulled a basketball-court-sized notebook out of a bag and plopped it on the table. Rich narrowed his eyes a bit at this statement.

Nico was about to agree that visiting would be cool, but the boys’ conversation was cut short as the class began.

The instructor was a middle aged lizardwoman named Mrs. Grazinka, and she managed to make the subject of trigonometry more or less understandable, if not especially exciting, for Nico. Math had never been one of his talents, and as he glanced over to Rich, he saw a facial expression full of deep concentration and partial confusion, recognizing those feelings easily. However, when he looked over at Malik, he saw a calm face focusing on both the teacher and what looked like very organized notes. Malik caught him looking, though, and smiled, putting his free hand up next to the human. Very gently, he used his index finger to stroke Nico’s back.

For Nico, this felt nice, but it made him a little uneasy. It was obvious Malik had little experience with humans, because this would have normally been considered inappropriate. Still, his calmness won out — he had figured out that the stone he was holding seemed to be keeping him in a semi-meditative state. He would let Malik treat him like a desktop pet for now and set things straight later.

As the minutes ticked by, he tried to focus on the lesson, but this kind of math was just odd. He knew that math was useful for advanced levels of magic, especially in transmutation and levitation, but otherwise he had no idea how he would practically use sine and cosine in his life. He leaned back and accidentally collided with Malik’s relaxed hand. Unconsciously, the giant opened up and wrapped a couple of his fingers around the human.

It was honestly pretty comfortable, so Nico allowed himself to recline for a bit. Without thinking, he reached out his left hand and rolled the magic stone around on Malik’s skin while he listened to the teacher drone on. He then threw it up and caught it a couple times.

Malik felt a strange sensation wash over him as he was focusing on the lesson. It was nice, but he couldn’t place it.

Nico and Malik both had another section of gym after math, so Malik gave the little guy a ride in his palm, and both boys said “Seeya” to Rich as they headed for the athletic center. Nico noticed Rich’s footsteps, unlike Malik’s, were registering no noise as they made impact with the floors. ”He must have learned the soft step spell,” Nico thought as he was carried into the huge locker room. Absent-mindedly, he once again rolled the magic stone around between his palm and Malik’s.

”Something feels funny,” Malik thought, but shrugged it off. He was going to drop Nico off at the human-scaled changing area, but now he was feeling a little befuddled. A little woozy. Following muscle memory, he just went to his own giant locker.

Nico was about to say something, but yelped instead as he suddenly felt himself jostled around and tucked into the sleeve of Malik’s colossal T-shirt, smelling the huge teen’s underarm deodorant for a moment. The billowing meters of fabric slid past him and disappeared as Malik cast the garment off his body. Looking up, Nico took in the view — he was up close and personal with the buff giant’s immensely developed pectorals, which flexed as he used his free hand to open his massive locker.

“Um … uh … Malik? Can you take me over to my locker?” Nico said, as he felt the giant hand’s grip get unusually tight.

“Huh? Oh yeah, little guy,” Malik said, and looked down, but didn’t stop rummaging around in his own space with his free hand. Nico was alarmed to see a pair of strangely dilated eyes peering through the giant’s round glasses. His private delight at seeing Malik’s shirtless form was eclipsed by a creeping fear for his safety, as well as sudden shame as he slowly realized what may be going on.

I touched his skin with the stone. Malik’s not a magic user,” Nico thought.

Malik gripped a pair of titanic nylon shorts, but as he was looking at his little friend, he suddenly forgot what he was doing with them. He dropped them to the locker room floor and instead reached up and gently stroked the tiny human with his finger. No one was around to see — a couple other giants had entered to get ready, but they had quickly dressed out and left almost as soon as Nico and Malik had come in.

“You know, Nico, you’re really cute,” he said. “I like your music, but its your smile and personality that get to me the most.” He brought the boy up to his face to examine him closely. “I was a little surprised to find out you were a human, but I think it makes you even cuter.” He chuckled deeply, and, to Nico’s alarm, lightly wetted his full lips with his tongue.

In any other circumstance, Nico would have been blushing with embarrassment and romantic butterflies, but now he was legitimately worried that Malik had been mentally affected, and his mind raced for a solution. He didn’t know how far the giant’s behavior would go, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“I’ve seen you looking at my muscles, y’know,” Malik said, and grinned. “I work out a lot. I’m the giant team’s star linebacker.”

He held Nico out to look as he raised his other arm and flexed his humongous bicep. It contracted into a beautiful, powerful ball of mocha-hued flesh — a rock hard peak.

“You should feel this gun’s power up close!”

He gently placed Nico onto his bicep, sprawled out on the taut skin. Slowly, deliberately, he flexed the rock hard muscle under the human. It bulged, warm and virile, bouncing him upward.

As entertaining as this new development was, Nico had to put the show to an end.

“Malik, I’m sorry, but … somnati somnah,” he said. And then his perch fell out from under him.

Malik collapsed to the floor in a thunderous crash, deeply asleep. In the nick of time, Nico was able to magically prevent himself from tumbling to his death and landed gently on the giant’s muscular abs. He couldn’t pause to take in their awesomeness, though. He was wracked with guilt and needed to figure out his next step.

”I can’t believe this,” he thought. “Just hours … HOURS after getting the stone, I managed to turn one of my new friends into some kind of maniac.” He imagined he was going to learn very soon just how scary Professor Mars could be.

Luckily, Malik ended up reviving just a few minutes later, and he remembered nothing of the incident, though Nico knew he would have to do some explaining one-on-one. The human boy went ahead and told both their gym teacher and an assistant principal about what had happened. Surprisingly enough, neither teacher assigned a punishment for him, nor did they confiscate the stone. Instead, they told him he would answer to his magic teacher at his next lesson — Mars had already left the campus for the day.

So I have that to look forward to. Wonderful,” Nico thought. But it wasn’t a total bummer. Using spells while holding the stone, he had already noticed that his inner grasp of magical energy seemed clearer, more directed, somehow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the day went by normally, with Nico once again enjoying the company of Rich and all the other giant jocks at lunch, but when he rode in his little brother’s hand on the way home, he noticed Finnian seemed kind of distant.

“Did you have an OK day at school, Finny?” he asked.

The boy shrugged his massive shoulders, rustling his long locks of red hair. “Yeah, I guess. I made a new friend today.” Finnian had a smile on his face, but the look he was giving Nico was neutral in the eyes.

Nico raised one eyebrow as his giant brother’s thundering steps crested their hill. “That’s good. But … is something wrong? Did I do something?”

Finny glanced down at his human brother and, expressionless, said, “No. Everything’s fine.”

Nico decided not to press, but he guessed he knew how he could lighten the 10-year-old’s mood. “Well, y’know, I still owe you a foot rub from yesterday, right? I’m sorry I bailed on it then, but I was really tired.”

Suddenly, Finnian’s bright blue eyes lit up. He held his tiny big brother up and smiled. “You’ll really do it?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Nico said, smiling back. “I promised to do it, didn’t I?”

Finny blushed, but started running and almost busted down the door into his personal building, which comprised his bedroom and bathroom. He lobbed his huge backpack into a corner with a deafening PLOK! and sat down heavily onto his public-park-sized futon. “I was worried you really didn’t want to,” he said shyly.

“No! Of course, Fin! It’s like our tradition,” Nico said, and it was true. Since Finnian’s toddler years, it had been Nico’s best way to calm him and forge the bond of brotherhood. “You’re my little brother, and I’ll always like spending time with you, though as you grow up a little more, rubbing your feet might get too gross or stinky. We’ll have to figure out something else when that time comes.” Both boys laughed.

Finnian set his brother down on the bedcovers, took off his socks and shoes, and reclined his 65-foot-long body, resting his head back on his hands. He closed his eyes and smiled in anticipation. “My feet won’t stink. I take a bath every day,” he said.

Yeah, right. Just wait until your teen years. I won’t be touching these things with a hundred-foot pole,” Nico thought as he approached the pale, soft soles looming over him. The feet were twice as tall as he was, and the toes wiggled playfully. He instructed Finnian to lean them down so he could reach, and he began drawing his clenched fists along the skin, paying special attention to tenseness in the muscles. The magic stone was safely in his pocket this time.

“Finnian, I did something pretty stupid at school today, but everything turned out all right. Are you sure your day went fine?” Nico asked. He felt that his brother’s quietness had been related to more than just the fear of a broken foot rub promise.

Finny sighed in contentment as he felt his brother knead the spot above his right heel. But he opened his eyes and his smile briefly turned into a look of regret.

“I … got pretty mad at school today,” he said.

Nico stopped, his brow furrowing in concern. “What happened?”

“Nothing too bad happened,” Finnian explained, propping himself up a little. “Like I said before, I made a new friend. He’s a werewolf. He’s the first little friend I’ve ever made.” He sighed again, this time with melancholy. “At recess, another werewolf kid was being mean to him, and I walked over … and … I got so mad …”

Nico froze. This could be serious. Though, of course, if it had grown too serious, he was sure they wouldn’t have left school so peacefully.

“I … didn’t do anything, but I came kind of close. I went into the bathroom and I … broke a little piece of the sink when I punched it,” Finny said, and then whispered. “Please don’t tell anybody.”

Nico looked up into his brother’s eyes. “I won’t,” he said. “You did a good job controlling yourself, and we need to just be more careful and not break anything.”

Finnian sat up and gently put Nico between both of his feet, surrounding him like a small canyon of flesh. “Can you rub in between my toes?” he reluctantly asked.

“Yeah, buddy, I can do that,” Nico said, and walked over to the gently flexing appendages. “I don’t know how you can stand it, though. It would tickle me to death.”

“It does tickle a little bit, but I like it,” Finny said, and made a noise of approval when his tiny brother started.

“Fin … did you grab Rich’s arm when I passed out at his house yesterday?” Nico asked.

The huge boy hesitated before answering. His face was a deep red. “I didn’t hurt him, did I?” he whispered.

“No. He’s OK, but I think you freaked him out a little,” Nico answered.

“Charlie … was kind of weird around me today,” Finnian said. “At their house yesterday, I … I almost turned.”

Nico stopped what he was doing and stared up at his brother’s face, shocked. Finnian, gazing down at his tiny brother, started to quietly cry. Silent tears started trickling down his face.

“What if it keeps happening, Nico? What if it’s happening more?” he asked.

Nico instructed Finny to pick him up and bring him in for a hug. As tight as he could he spread his arms over his brother’s dampening cheek. Finny closed his eyes and held his little big brother close. He breathed heavily, trying to calm his emotions down.

Nico, too, was full of worry and holding back emotion as he said, in a quavering voice, “You’re growing up, Finny, and your life is going to change, but we’ll get used to it. You are a gentle and good person. If you start to change, I will do my best to be there and help you, OK?”

“OK,” Finnian whispered, and used his free hand to wipe his eyes.

“As long as I’m around, you’ll never be alone, OK, Fin?” Nico said, still squeezing what he could of his giant brother’s face tightly.

“OK,” Finnian said as he pulled his brother away and looked down at him lovingly. “Thanks, Nico.”

“No worries,” Nico said, and smiled. “Now take me to the kitchen, kid. It’s been a long day, and I’m starving!”

At that, Finny chuckled and got up, holding his brother close to his chest.