[center][h2][color=8585AD]Maxwell Alderman[/color] & [color=f7941d]Dakota Brookes[/color][/h2]
[sub]Collab with [@WeepingLiberty][/sub][/center][hr]
Max's eye was already twitching before the professor - what was his name? Ratshoe? - even finished his opening spiel. It can take a  whole [i]year[/i] to learn your affinity? Unacceptable. This school really must be garbage. The affinity is the basis of all magic, isn't it? What are they supposed to teach if the student can't even master that basic level? He eyed the awakening crystals on the tables disdainfully. Would he be stuck doing this same stupid exercise over and over again if he couldn't figure his affinity out? No, that didn't matter. He'd have his affinity down by the end of the week, tops. Let these losers wallow in mediocrity, he wasn't them. 

Max gave the TA a lidded stare as she handed him the slip. Too perky. Just hand them out and move on. He heard his name out of the other TA's mouth as he was heading for his table. Must've been talking to his partner. Max quirked his head backward for a quick glimpse. A... girl? Weirdly effeminate boy? Whatever it was, it looked annoying. Just his luck.

He sat down with a grunt, one hand propping his head up lazily while the other reached out to touch the crystal. At least he could feel the flow almost immediately, although the dim light the gem was now producing was hardly inspiring. Why did it look gray? Wasn't it supposed to be colorful? And the magic felt so... [i]rigid[/i]. The way everyone talked about it, it seemed like magic would be more comparable to a flowing river than a brick wall. It felt like he was pushing on something solid trying to pour more energy into the crystal. Naturally, his solution was to just scowl angrily at the poor crystal in hopes that he'd somehow intimidate it into working. 

Having received a table and partner assignment, Dakota stepped away from the wall and approached the scowling figure. The face was somewhat familiar but the young mage was certain there was no known name to accompany the image. The pair had crossed paths previously at the orientation when he had asked stopped to speak with Sariel. It seemed that little had changed about the boy's demeanor since their last encounter, but that wasn't going to stop Dakota from making an attempt to lighten the mood.

"[color=f7941d]Careful now, I think you're giving it stage fright.[/color]" The young mage spoke lightheartedly, a half-smile greeting meant to break the frigid ice surrounding the boy. Truth be told, though, Dakota was already beginning to feel nervous. This class was the first, not just of the day, but of the entire school career. And from the sound of things, the partnership formed at this table could make or break the scores moving forward.

"[color=f7941d]The name's Dakota... so how goes it? The crystal ball show you your future yet?[/color]" Glancing down at the activation crystal, Dakota ran through the instructions once more in their head. It seemed simple enough in theory: place hands on crystal and feed it some magic to change the brightness of the light. There was only one problem, unlike the activation ceremony, there was no outside force acting on the exercise. It wasn't about detection anymore, it was about control, and Dakota had no idea where to even start. The young mage slid into their seat opposite the boy hoping to learn something about the process before their turn came up.

Max's eyes trailed from the crystal to Dakota, although his gaze didn't soften much. As far as he was concerned, the jokes were unneeded but not horrible. He'd humor the other mage. [color=8585AD]"Max. And the only future I'm seeing is me throwing this useless thing across the room."[/color] He muttered as he took his hand off the crystal and sighed. The already-dim gray light faded to nothingness. He didn't see how he was supposed to alter the brightness if his max power wasn't even a nightlight. 

[color=8585AD]"You do it, tell me how it works."[/color] He needed a feeling to judge his own against. That would, at the very least, give him a frame of reference in which to form viable questions he could ask. This was assuming Ratshoe was a competent instructor, of course - which Max didn't. Despite all the turmoil in his life surrounding magic, he'd been given very little detail on what any of it actually entails. One would think the idiot class he'd gotten himself placed in would cover some basics. Leave it to a Noila institution to gloss over the less-fortunuate, he supposed. 

From an outside perspective, Max was just sourly glaring at the crystal while his mind raced with criticisms and postulations, awaiting Dakota to make their move.

Dakota understood the feeling of frustration of not getting the device to work as advertised. Many an object had ended up disassembled after boarding a one way flight to the wall. But to Dakota, it was all part of the process. Not everything was going to work as expected, that's when you had to take a step back and study it from a different angle. Learn how the device works to find the range of acceptable handling.

"[color=f7941d]I can try but I don't make any promises on something spectacular.[/color]" There was a moment of hesitation as the mage stared at the crystal, running through a mental picture of how the process was meant to function. Sitting forward, Dakota placed their hands gently on the crystal and waited to see what would happen. At first there was no change in either the way the crystal looked or how Dakota felt. Brown eyes shifting with determination, the mage tried shifting the thought process. Perhaps that was the problem, too much thought. But Dakota didn't understand the basics of magic, there was nothing concrete saying what it actually was. It was difficult to picture something that had so many different forms dependant on each individual. At best it could be considered a form of energy, a catalyst that just so happens to effect real world phenomena.

[color=f7941d][i]That's it![/i][/color] Dakota had been struggling to find something to equate the unknown to, but it had been staring right at them the entire time. Two hands placed on the crystal could allow for the current to flow not all that dissimilar to electricity, but that also meant there was little use in trying to control the movement of the magic. With this in mind Dakota set to stop thinking about how the magic moved and instead focused on generating some kind of pool of it. Within a few moments, Dakota began to feel strange. It was almost as if their arm had fallen alseep and was just waking back up, a tingling sensation that rattled its way down the mage's arm and into the awakening crystal. Watching with a small amount of delight, the crystal lit up as it had back at the ceremony.

There was something different this time about the light though... During the Awakening Ritual, Dakota's light had been a pure white with little indication as to what element the affinity would be towards. The light that Dakota now saw in the crystal was an off white, leaning in the direction of a pale, pastel yellow. So far, it was not enough information to discern an element but was enough for Dakota to feel like some progress had been made. The feeling was almost enough to make up for the disappointment in the consistency of the light. For whatever reason, Dakota could not maintain a glow of any sort, watching as the light flickered between varying intensities at random. As Dakota attempted to reign the light in to a dim to try again, the light blinked out as if a switch had been flipped. Another attempt was made but the light refused to turn on the second time despite the mage's best efforts to recreate the feeling from before. Removing their hands from the crystal, Dakota sat back in a huff and folded their arms.

"[color=f7941d]This is going to be a pain in the ass.[/color]"

Max watched the other mage work with rapt interest, although his cheek was still being propped up by his arm. He couldn't look too eager, of course. It took them a moment, but Dakota seemed to be faring better than him. They were even getting a colored light, if faint. Was two hands the trick? It seemed superficial to think of, but that would theoretically double the magic flow, right? Or was that a bad thing? Dakota's magic was all over the place; he was half-worried the blinking might make the other students think an alarm was going off somewhere. Max at least had stability, if not power. 

[color=8585AD]"Let me try again, then I think I have a plan."[/color] Max placed both hands on the crystal this time, flexing his forearms as he tried to push more energy into the crystal. Once again, he met that same solid resistance and only produced a dim gray glow. Or maybe it was just a really pathetic white. What kind of element was gray supposed to be, anyway? Maybe his affinity really was pocket lint. 

[color=8585AD]"Everytime I try this, I end up hitting some kind of... resistance,"[/color] Max started, agitation thinly veiled in his tone as he kept up the underwhelming light, [color=8585AD]"But, my glow's stable."[/color] Either that, or he couldn't even get enough energy into the awakening crystal to get to the point where the light [i]could[/i] fluctuate. They had opposite problems here, so it stands to reason that they could correct eachother's mistake. He'd have to just be one half of a whole idiot for now. [color=8585AD]"Since this is a team effort, I propose you focus on giving me a pool of energy to work with, and I'll try to keep it from... doing whatever the hell you just did."[/color]

The sullen mage took his hands off the crystal, flexing his fingers. Maybe he was brute forcing it too much, like shoving a square peg in a circular hole. It only fits in if the square is smaller than the circle. What a pain. Max shifted his gaze toward Dakota, silently gesturing toward the crystal as if to say 'Your turn.'

"[color=f7941d]Well, we don't have anything to lose. Here goes nothing.[/color]" Dakota shifted forward to place their hands on the crystal in an attempt to light up the device. Once again, the tingling sensation shot down the mage's arms and into the now lit apparatus. The look of determination bordered on pain as Dakota stared at the light, trying to force it to commit to a steady light. Unfortunately, it seemed the more Dakota tried to push it, the more sporadic the light became.

"[color=f7941d]Ugh, what do you think I'm doing wrong? I'm not feeling any sort of resistance like you did, but it's like it's got a mind of it's own. I can't get the light to chill.[/color]" The young mage simmered but refused to remove their hands from the crystal. There had to be some trick to it, something they were missing. 

Max brought his hands forward to rest on the crystal alongside Dakota, pushing his own magic into it with less fervor than before. The feeling of hitting a barrier didn't lessen at all, and from what he could tell inbetween flickers of Dakota's magic, his light hadn't improved either. There goes his square peg theory. Although, the immediate sensation of their magics interacting did confirm a number of things to him. 

First, magic was extremely varied. The other magic floating around in the crystal - Dakota's magic - did not feel anything like his. His had no motion or give to it, where this was animated, but ephemeral in nature. The feeling couldn't even be compared, it was like two completely different states of matter. He also decided he didn't like the way it reacted with his own; it was like Dakota's magic was dancing against his own, like a bunch of squirming worms or something. His hands started feeling tingly. Great. Lastly, was the revelation that he couldn't interact with others' magic as he does his own. Any attempts to reach out and wrangle the other mage's energy into obediance was left with even less cooperation than his own stubborn magic. 

Annoying, but he'd have to make do. 

[color=8585AD]"As far as I can rationalize it, magic... flows differently for each person. Yours is like a fast-moving river or something. It moves a lot and it's hard to make it stop. Mine's like a rock. It just sits there, but it's sturdy."[/color] Earth magic, maybe? Not his first choice - it's no fire, after all -but it beats [i]pocket lint[/i]. He instead tried to turn the rigidity of his magic to their advantage, shutting his eyes and visualizing the formation of a cube in his head, as if to contain the boundless motion of his partner's magic. His eyes immediately shot back open as he started feeling the earlier resistance giving way. 

Of course, he was still thinking of magic as a flowing stream. Solids don't flow, but they can bend; he just needed to fold it into a shape that would fit inside the crystal. Max's fingers twitched against the crystal, trying to shape his magic into a sort of framework for Dakota's to sit inside. It was no origami masterpiece, but it sort of [i]felt[/i] like he was making something coherent in there. This metaphor bullshit was really starting to get on his nerves. Why didn't they start with at least a quick lecture or something?

[color=8585AD]"How's that feel? Better? Worse?"[/color] The question was phrased innocently enough, but his voice was laced with a fair degree of hostility. Thankfully, it was aimed primarily at the crystal. And the professor. And the Noilas. And... lots of things, but not Dakota, surprisingly. 

"[color=f7941d]I'm not sure if it's better, but it doesn't feel any worse. Still doesn't feel like I have all that much control over my own magic, but maybe that'll come with practice. What are we going to do about this light though? The last time I tried to dim it just shut off.[/color]" From Dakota's perspective, all the pair had managed to accomplish was filling the crystal up with magic that seemed to work alright together but not on their own. Somehow, it didnt quite feel like they were on track with the assignment but how were they expected to brighten and dim a light if they didnt understand how the light worked in the first place. Dakota began to wonder if it might be time to call the TA over for assistance.

[color=f7941d][i]No... We can figure this out ourselves, we just need time.[/i][/color]

Max sighed at the question. Bending his magic into shape was more energy-intensive than he thought, and he was still nowhere near creating an efficient flow. He still wasn't even sure whatever he was feeling wasn't just a figment of his imagination. It didn't even make sense on a rational level. How did energy he put into a rock [i]feel[/i] like a cube? Still, he maintained his grip on the crystal, if only to not look hopeless should the professor walk past. 

[color=8585AD]"Don't look at me, I can't even get mine past dim."[/color] As it stood, the 'folding' he was feeling took way too long for him to actively modify how much energy he was feeding the crystal, and he hadn't even had a chance to see if it was actually making a significant difference with Dakota's glow mostly overshadowing his own.

His eyes flittered about the room in search of Ratshoe or the TAs. As incompetent as they seemed, they had to hold some kind of advice, right?If not, maybe one of those jackasses condescending him would make his magic flare up. That spark yesterday was definitely anger-induced, and that was the closest thing to a success he'd had so far.

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