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Training was not going at all like Dora had expected.
Weeks had passed since Loki had first agreed to train her and all she had to show for it were a few simple parlour tricks. She could make a lone yellow snapdragon sprout from the hard ground and, on a good day, could just about levitate a pebble.
Her previous history with accidentally using her powers had left her with the distinct impression that magic was something she was just meant to do—destined to do—and that she would take to the discipline like a duck to water.
She had now been thoroughly cured of that notion.
Her powers were something that both confused and terrified her; give her a strong emotion—anger, fear, pain—and then summoning her magic was the easiest thing in the world, however, have her take a deep breath and be calm and she couldn’t so much as bend a pencil. Her magic was so intrinsically intertwined with her emotions, and every time she was reminded of that—with every shattered streetlight, or vibration of the earth below her feet—it made her breath catch in her throat. It would only take one bad day—one bit of bad news—for her to lose control.
The space they had chosen for training was a derelict building by the river. It looked like it might have been some kind of warehouse once with its grey corrugated metal walls that were starting to rust orange from rain and time. Patches of the steel sky were visible through a ceiling that was missing large swathes of it, exposing parts of it to the elements.
“Again,” Loki commanded as Dora once again failed to summon a shield in time to block the small red sand-filled bag he’d been magically catapulting at her for the last hour.
Dora let out an angry puff of air and turned her gaze to the god. He was oh-so-casually leant against a wall a few metres from her, tossing the beanbag up and down in his hand.
“When you said that we were going to start training, I expected a little bit more than blocking beanbags,” she said bitterly.
“I told you when I agreed to teach you that I would be the one deciding the pace and you agreed to that. Again.” With a flick of his wrist, the sand-filled sack he’d been throwing between his hands came whooshing at her. Thrusting her hand up in front of her, a small golden shield—the size of a dinnerplate—formed. It hovered there for several seconds before sparking and fizzing out. The small beanbag came to an abrupt stop just inches before her nose. “And you are dead. Go again.”
Once again the beanbag came hurtling towards her, propelled by Loki’s magic, and once again she failed to block it. Her faint shield flickered in and out of life so quickly that she would’ve missed it had she blinked. The red bag came to a stop directly in front of her face.
She let out a pent up growl of frustration. “This is a waste of time,” she said, smacking the beanbag out of the air. “Why can’t we learn something that would actually be useful?”
“Show me you can do this, and then we can move on,” said Loki, catching the bag with his magic before it hit the ground. He held a hand up in the air and the thing raced back to him.
Dora felt a flicker of jealousy at that—how was it so easy for him? He had so much control where she had so little.
“Well, when am I ever going to be deflecting beanbags, Loki?” she retorted.
“When are you ever going to be deflecting projectiles? When are you ever going to need a shield that will hold up for longer than a second?” Loki asked her with a tilt of his head and a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Are you really asking me that?”
Dora’s shoulders slumped. He had a point there. “Fine. Let’s go again.”
“Good girl,” said Loki as he pulled his thin lips into a smirk. “Remember, the aim is to actually deflect the thing hurtling towards you.”
Her face turned up and nose wrinkled at his tone; he was so annoying. “Yeah, I got it. Thanks.”
With that, the beanbag came whistling through the air like an arrow, sailing along a parabola aimed straight for her head again. This time, she closed her eyes and took in a slow breath. She felt the magic of her core bubbling and dancing as she reached for it. A lukewarm current pulsed through her nerves as she summoned it forth to her hand. She pictured the intricately woven golden disk in her mind’s eyes until it was all she could see. When she opened her eyes, the same golden disk was extended from her hand. And this time it held. The beanbag ricocheted off her shield with a ‘pong’ and crashed to the ground, splashing into a puddle.
The glorious warmth of triumph brought a beaming smile to her face. She pointed to the now soggy beanbag and looked at Loki. “I did it!”
“You did,” Loki replied, looking relieved. Even he had probably started to get a little impatient. Progress with the shield had been slow, even for her. “Again.”
Dora couldn’t stop the groan from escaping her mouth; she didn’t even try. She wanted him to know that she was bored. They been at this for hours. “Can’t we just move on to something else now? Please. I want to learn how to teleport or shapeshift or fireballs. Now that sounds useful!”
“No, we are going to continue doing that until we have some consistency,” said Loki, looking at her through his eyebrows in a stern manner.
And wasn’t that look so annoyingly scolding—so parental—that it took her aback. Her throat felt tight so she swallowed, trying to clear the lump. She looked away from him, distracting herself by watching a flock of birds fly overhead through one of the holes in the ceiling. She didn’t need to be thinking about Loki being parental. It’d make her lose focus, and then he’d know something was wrong and would interrogate her again. She needed to focus on training and that was it.
Once she trusted herself to speak, she said, “I don’t want to do this anymore. Why can’t we do the stuff I want to do?”
“Because, you precocious child, the spells you wish to learn require a lot more skill than you currently possess. We start small and build from there. You must learn patience.” His argument sounded so logical, and she hated it.
“But I’m ready!” she argued, willing him to understand that she knows what she’s doing. She knows herself. She’s ready for the harder stuff—the fun stuff.
Loki was not even slightly moved by her pleading. He simply shook his head at her, and then he said, “You are not ready, and that is my final word on the matter.”
Frustration boiled in her stomach as he rejected her pleas once again; he didn’t even know that he was her father and was already trying to boss her around. She couldn’t stop herself from lashing out. “Well, who died and made you the gatekeeper of magic?”
The angry swell of Loki’s magic was her only warning. The sand-filled bag moved too fast for her to even think about deflecting—one moment it was twitching on the ground, the next it was slapping into the fleshy part of her arm. The fact it was now saturated with water after having being sat in a puddle meant it was dense and it left a lingering sting in her arm like she been slapped.
“Ouch!” Dora rubbed her arm as she threw her teacher the dirtiest of looks. “Loki—that hurt!”
“You just said that you wanted fast-paced.” Loki replied, shrugging. There was a dark glint to his eyes. A harshness.
Her stomach rolled uncomfortably. She had misstepped here somewhere. She wasn’t entirely sure how but the tightness of his jaw and his clenched fists told her she had definitely done something wrong.
Loki twisted his hand and the beanbag went soaring up into the air before descending back towards her in a zig-zag like fashion, picking up speed as it descended. Dora just barely managed to dive out of its path.
“This isn’t exactly what I meant,” she cried as she scrambled to her feet. Her hands and knees were covered in muck from where she’d landed on them.
“If you don’t like it, then stop me,” said Loki, crossing his arms over his chest as he leant back against the wall.
The beanbag had looped round and was whooshing towards her. Once again, she attempted to jump out of its path, but Loki anticipated her movement and the bag still slammed into the back of her leg.
“Oww! Loki!” Dora hissed, rubbing her stinging calf as she turned to glower at her teacher.
“Make it stop then. Show me that you are ready to proceed as you so claim,” he demanded, fixing her with a stern glare. She was starting to regret challenging him at all.
“It’s too fast—I can’t!”
“Not with that attitude."
“This isn’t funny,” she scolded him. Her face had grown warm and her shirt collar felt too tight. She took a deep breath, trying to collect herself, but it failed.
“It is to me,” Loki responded.
From behind her she heard a familiar whistling noise. She turned and threw her magic out in front of her, successfully tugging it into a golden shield of protection. But the beanbag dived around the small shield she had conjured, whipping itself around as if it were a pendulum attached to a fixed point until it was behind her, where it proceeded to slam into her shoulder with a loud thwack.
“Okay, okay.” Dora held a hand up in a surrender whilst the other rubbed her stinging shoulder. It, however, stung considerably less than her wounded pride. “Fine. Okay. I get it. We’ll do things at your pace.”
The bean bag came from out of nowhere. It stopped a mere inch away from her face. Droplets of dirty street water dripped from it as it hovered threateningly in front of her.
“Are you sure?” Loki prompted.
Dora turned her head towards him and nodded quickly. She could feel her face burning from the embarrassment of being scolded like a child. “So sure. I’m sorry.”
“Good. You will not question me about this again.” With that, Loki let the projectile bounce off of her face to reinforce the lesson, leaving a wet patch on her nose.