Originally Posted by Anna Banana

Uh oh.

As soon as she saw the look on Marie's face, Lexi knew she'd asked the wrong sort of question. Her question was about Carter, though, so why would it cause Marie to not smile? Wait, erm...what? Not speaking to each other? Eep, Lexi did ask the wrong sort of question.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That doesn't sound like you and Carter at all, though," she commented. She would ask what happened, but since she was an adult and Marie was a teenager, she refrained. In her year as a professor, she'd learned to stay out of the students' business unless they made an effort to involve her. Well, to a certain extent, of course. If that business involved education matters or rule-breaking, then there was no doubt Lexi had to be involved.

This...was not educational or a matter of rule-breaking, though. She just gave Marie a sympathetic look and waited to see if she'd explain further.



Hmm...alright, that sounded pretty reasonable. Plus, non-verbal spell casting was something nearly every witch and wizard wanted to master. Even Lexi herself had found a big interest in it during her school years. For those reasons, she decided to start this little mini-lesson with instruction on silent casting.

"Non-verbal spells," she said, looking at both Nymphy and Marie, "are very easy to learn how to do, but very difficult to actually do. You see, non-verbal spell casting relies mainly on concentration and intention." She gestured toward the dueling arena, motioning for Marie to join Nymphy, so that they could get the practicing underway.

"Since we're learning something new, I want you two to focus more on what you're learning and less on a fast-paced duel. You need to concentrate on your spell, what the spell does, and what you hope the spell will do for you," she said. "Once you're in a dueling stance, I want you to think about the first spell you'd like to cast. Focus on the things I mentioned---what the spell does and what you hope the spell will do for you."