Lily & Rose: Blossoming Magic

Overdraw

Evening classes, classroom, Teacher has just come in. Tarutaru is reading a book, Lily is furiously trying to finish yesterday's homework, Rose is sleeping. Teacher puts her bag down and addresses the class:

"Good morning, everyone. Today, we're talking about a slightly less known aspect of magic - drawing in too much when you don't need it, or 'Overflow' as some call it. It's not very common and is really hard to actually do - however it is really, really dangerous if you don't know what it is and what to do. To put it simply, it's like trying to drink from a hose and suddenly the water pressure is increased. If you know about it, you can just take the hose out of your mouth or stop swallowing. If you don't however, and it surprises you, it's possible for the water to go where it shouldn't. You can even drown from It - though it's exceedingly rare. We are going to try to deliberately do a small amount of overflow this time. And only one at a time and the others will observe. Each one of us should experience the feeling once and see from outside how it feels, so you can recognize it and help people when you see it happening in the real world. I'll show you first. Pay attention and also try to feel the surrounding magic."

The teacher walks to the middle of the classroom and sits on a spare chair. She then gathers magic with an incantation and deliberately makes a small mistake. Her eyes suddenly glow and there's a dim pulse on her skin.

"Ah!", Tarutaru exclaims, "I.. I can feel it." She makes a small gesture towards the teacher and speaks a word. The flow stops and teacher looks at Tarutaru questioningly.

"Enoka...? You've done this before? That was perfect intervention, you should do exactly what Enoka here did."

"Ah, no, Teacher, I just... I don't know, it just felt like the right thing to do." Tarutaru says slightly embarrassed.

"And it was, very good, Enoka. Nicely done. Okay. Now your turns, let's start from the front left this time..."

One by one, they try to slightly overdraw magic and feel the suffocating pressure. One of them makes a bigger mistake and suddenly, there's actual danger. Tarutaru hesitates, looks at the Teacher, who hasn't apparently noticed the actual danger. Rose looks at all of this slightly bored. Tarutaru jumps into action and blocks the flow and saves the student. She looks at Rose, who just shrugs.

"Caldwell, you're so cold, she might have died! You noticed it first, you could've done something!"

"Why?" Rose shrugs her shoulders and says indifferently, "It's not my problem."

"AAAh! why do I even try!"

They continue until it's Lily's turn. "Alright Martinson, carefully now." The teacher says to Lily.

Lily starts the incantation, but just as she's finishing, another student asks a question from the teacher. "Great, hold that thought Martinson, just a sec!" She says.

:: Wait hold? Doesn't that just draw more...? Isn't that what almost happened to—:: Lily thinks and then she feels it, the suffocating pressure of overflowing magic. It feels her head and her lungs. Her eyes feel dry and hot, her skin itches. She has trouble breathing until suddenly everything is fine. The flow is blocked, the feeling's gone. She feels better than normal. Lily whips her gaze to Tarutaru, who's looking behind her with a peculiar expression.

:: What..? How...? Who did...? ::

"C-Caldwell...?" Tarutaru stutter with an astonished expression]

"It might've been bad." Rose says, blushing slightly, trying to look away.

"But you just..."

"The teacher wasn't looking!" Rose yells, grabs her book, tosses it into her back, stands up and walks out of the class.

"What just happened?" Lily says, out of breath and dumbfounded, looking at Tarutaru

"I... I really don't know..." Tarutaru says. "Caldwell... Lily that was bad," she says. "I felt the flow, but I didn't have time to act, before... She must've been keeping an eye on you..." Tarutaru says and looks toward the door.

"On me? Why would...?" Lily asks and raises and eyebrow.

Tarutaru spins her head to look at Lily. "You don't know? Lily, really?" she says dumbfounded.

"What?" Lily says and spreads her hands and looks confused.

"You've such a thick head sometimes, Martinson!" Tarutaru says exasperatedly. 

"What?" Lily exclaims.