"You are cleaning the mess in the trunk, dude." said Conrad, his eyes fixed on the road, hands on the wheel.

  "Yeah, yeah," Kurt answered, waving a hand dismissively at the blond driver sitting to his side, paying more attention to the flashing sea of trees at the other side of his window.

  "Hey, wait a minute," Mila called from the backseat. "I'm the one that insisted on taking Christopher Robin with us, and to bring him some nourishment. I'll be the one that cleans up the trunk."

  Conrad looked at the white-haired girl through the rearviw, smirking. "Christopher Robin?"

  "Well, he needed a name, right?" the girl said defensively. "It is a living creature, after all. Plus, he seems to respond really well to it. Look." She turned back, one hand reaching for the trunk. "Come, Christopher Robin! Come with mommy!"

  Not a moment later, the sound of clatering wood filled the car, matching the engine for a moment, and when Mila turned back she was holding the squirrel construct on her arms as if it were a baby, not seeming to mind the dirt covering it.

  "See?" she said in a tone that was probably meant to sound smug, but that came out too chipper to be anything but endearing. Kurt, for his part, was extremely thankful that she had managed to bounce back so fast after their heart-to-heart.

  Maybe the prospect of learning Pneuma from him, both in terms of the challenge it would present and the strength she could gain from it, were keeping her that way, in a sort of looking-forward-not back kind of way.

  Kurt kind of envied her for it, because in his own 'forward' lied but one question: How in God's name does one evn teach Pneuma?

  He had been so centered on not losing 'his thing' when Blair had come to him with her little project that he had never even considered if the thing was possible at all. Because, sure, he knew how Pneuma worked, and how to reach his current level of mastery over it, an if he managed to get Mila to grasp it, he would have no problem teaching her how to master it.

  But grasping it was the complicated part, the part that Kurt had been agonizing about all the way from their current situation to about ten seconds after he had made the offer to Mila. He had had to nearly die fighting a dragon (sure, it was a wyvern, the weakest type of dragon by a good amount, but it still counted) and get exposed to the roiling elemental magic that was covering it like a storm for his life force to jump into action on its own.

  How does one coax that kind of reaction without entering a life or death situation? He had never taken the time to really think about it. What did it matter to him either way? He had already grasped it, so any alternative way he could have, or, much less importantly, someone else could potentially reach that same grasp were inconsecuential to him. He had the power already, so learning how to obtain it instead of how to master it was but a loss of time.

  Urgh, he mentally groaned, Is every thing I used to think gonna come bite me in the ass in this quest?

  Whatever the case might have been, he needed to figure something out fast, before they made their next stop and Mila and him were to start their lessons, only for Kurt to clam up and she realized he had no fraking idea of what he was doing and she...

  No, stop that. No more keeping stuff to yourself.

  The command, though having come from himself, still felt like something a father may say to their child. Strong, firm, but immposible to truly refute because of how logically sound it was. If he keep this a secret, it would be for the benefit of no one, not even himself because, seriously, what would he even gain from this lie through ommision in the first place? Would Mila scorn him if she knew? No. Would he be able to come up with some answer to this riddle any faster if he keep the dilemma to himself, letting it boil his brain in a stew of stress and guilt? Hell. No. He was not going to fall back on that.

  Sighing, Kurt proceded to put his money were his internal ramblings about self-reflection were."We can talk about cleaning in other moment, guys. Right now though, there is another problem"

  The reaction was... something he probably should have expected.

  "What?!" exclaimed Conrad, loud enough to cause some pain to Kurt's left ear. "Holy shit, are we being ambushed?!"

  "Stop the car, Conrad!" yelled Mila in a manner more warlike than anything Kurt had ever heard from her. Hell, even Christopher Robin seemed reeved for battle, if his flashing of his wooden teeth was any indication. "I'm gonna take hold of every tree I can, and order them to skewer whoever is...!"

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  "There are no enemies!" Kurt exclaimed, his booming voice cutting through his companion's panic. "It is not that kind of problem! We are safe!"

  "Oh," came Conrad's voice from his left, suddenly rather soft. The blond swordsman's attention returned to his driving for a moment, and the car soon returned to its proper lane, from which they had departed without Kurt himself noticing. "You... should have phrased that better, dude."

  "Yeah," agreed Mila from her seat, sounding somewhat sick all of a sudden. "The 'problems' we've been facing up until now have... they have not been the kind of stuff not to get on killer mode about. We are a bit on edge right now."

  "I'm sorry," Kurt apologized, feeling rather embarrased. Particularly because he knew that, had one of his companions the ones to say what he had, he would have reacted much worse than they had. "I'll be more careful, promise."

  "It's fine, man," Conrad said. "But seriously now, what is the problem you were talking about?"

  "It's more of a problem for Mila and I than anything else," Kurt started. "About the whole 'learning Pneuma' thing." He sighed tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Namely, that I haven't got the first idea on how to start teaching it."

  "Excuse me?" asked Mila, leaning forward from her seat.

  "I know everything there is about developing," he quickly clarified. "It's just that I don't know how to grasp it in the first place. I know every step there is to take to reach my level by heart... minus the first one."

  "Oh," murmured Mila softly, her voice sounding somewhat flat. "I guess I really should have made some questions before getting all worked up." She laughed softly. Mirthlestly. "I mean, you probably just made the offer in the spur of the moment, to try and cheer me up. It's fine, though! We can probably just work on my natural magic instead."

  She was trying her best not to make him feel guilty about the whole thing. And failing, because he still felt quite terribly. She was right about something though; he had made a promise in a moment of passion that he had no way of fulfilling, and now that it was crashing down, he had nothing but the knowledge that he had, however unwittingly, done nothing but tantalize Mila.

  Without knowing why, he turned to look at Conrad, who was sporting a look of worry, his eyes going from Kurt, to Mila, and then to the road in succesion. He was the first to break the silence.

  "So what? Then you can just figure it out!"

  Kurt's brow scrunched in a frown, and he leaned a bit closer. "Excuse me?"

  "Just figure it out, you knuckle heads!" he exclaimed in a bombastic fashion, a wide, worriless smile on his face. "Come on, guys! Are you giving up just like that? You only have to figure out the first step, that's it! Just one thing to get out of the way and the rest will start flowing!" He turned to Kurt. "Dude, you figured out how to get Pneuma all the way to your current level! How many figurative steps was that, uh? A hundred? You figured them all out, and that was when you were doing it on your own! How difficult can it be to figure that one measly first step? Specially when you have Mila helping you!"

  He then turned towards the rearview mirror.

  "And you!" he exclaimed at Mila's reflection, making the real deal seat straight. "Don't you come giving us that demure 'It's okay to fail. I'm not mad.' Crap. Didn't you want to get stronger?"

  From her seat, and without breaking eye contact, Mila nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! I do!"

  "Then get greedy!" Conrad practically yelled. He sounded almost like one of those 'Thank the lord' type of priests. The ones that always look on the verge of a stroke while doing their sermons. "You wanted to learn Pneuma, you really did! Just look at how you deflated when you thought it wasn't possible. Well, it is possible, because Kurt did it. You guys are smart, you can figure out how. And you will! In fact, I bet you whatever you want that figuring it out is actually gonna be rather easy! So you..." He pointed sharply at Kurt, startling him. "...start thinking of ways to make that happen. Put those big brains to work. And you..." This time he pointed at Mila. "... stop skulking already. You haven't even tried yet, so you don't have the right to quit. You are not the giving up type, and neither is anyone in this car. We wouldn't have survived if we were. So quit frowning, start smiling like you were doing five minutes ago and, when the time comes, give your damn best to learning what Kurt wants to teach you and you want to learn, okay?"

  "Yes!" she answered, nodding and smiling. "Okay!"

  "Okay?!" Conrad repeated, this time looking at Kurt.

  "O-okay, yes," he answered, his surprise slightly overshadowing his genuine commitment at the 'plan'.

  Conrad smirked. "Fine then." His eyes turned to the road again, seemingly satisfied and done with the conversation.

  Kurt, however, was not.

  "You know, Conrad, I think it would be even easier to figure it out if..." He stopped for a moment to take a deep breath, steeling himself to finish. "If we all three worked on it."

  "Excuse me?" asked Conrad.

  "I mean that, if I'm gonna teach Pneuma, I'd rather do it to people I can trust," Kurt started explaining. "And, well... that includes you. What do you say, man? I could teach you both Mila and you. Can you imagine how the use of Pneuma would interact with your Aura? I'd bet it would be awesome!" He allowed a playfully smug smile to form on his lips. "Maybe awesome enough to start closing that gap that exists between us."

  "You little bitch," said Conrad, chuckling, before a slight frown settled on is brow. "But no, thank you."

  "No?" repeated Kurt in surprise. "But...why? I really think you could benefit from it. And a lot, at that."

  "I do too, buddy," Conrad said, his expression rather gravely now. He almost looked guilty to Kurt. "It's just that... I'm not sure if now is the time, y'know? Having to get used to using another body-reinforcing magic on top of the one I already have could be very problematic, and might even make me a less effective combatant while I'm figuring out. Not the kind of thing you want to happen in a quest, right?"

  "Well, no," Kurt agreed. "But Pneuma is entirely manual in its use, so you could simply choose not to use it until you have it mastered to some degree. I really want to teach you too! Conrad, I really think that you should reconsider. "

  "I said no!" Conrad suddenly exclaimed, making Kurt flinch back at the sudden agressiveness. Conrad took notice of this, and took a few seconds to calm down before continuing. "Sorry for screaming, man, I really am. It's just that..." He turned his head away for a moment, but not enough to avoid Kurt seeing the corner of his mouth tremble slightly. "Ahm, look, let's make a deal. When this quest is over, and we all go back home, you can teach me everything you want about Pneuma, ok? But until then, let's just park this issue." Conrad straightened on his seat, and turned towards Kurt. "Is that fine for you, buddy?"

  Still startled, Kurt could do nothing but nod, maintaining eye contact while doing so. This seemed to calm Conrad, and his attention turned towards his driving once more. The car soon fell in an uncomfortable silence that was only filled by the clicking noises that Christopher Robin's joints made with his every move.

  It would remain like that until their next stop, which was still two hours away.