Seeing Magic in Simple Things

[Roridula Lunatus]

Rory choked back a laugh. ‘Rest’? The only reason she’d gotten any sleep was because her body had forced her to do so. “Um, I had some things I was looking over,” she replied, pulling out her notebook. She flipped the pages open, trying to find the one issue she had most wanted to fix.

“So - this exercise here on page - fifty eight,” she said, flipping through the book with practiced ease. “Ah. Okay.” She read over the page, trying to get her bearings.

“Did you write these all from memory? Impressive,” Harroc said with a chuckle.

“Uh,” Rory said intelligently. “Not exactly.” She didn’t want to say anything in case the borrowing was supposed to be a secret. She knew Colle pretty much ran the cafe, and they could kick her out if they wanted. “A-anyway, this floating disk spell, I was trying the concentrating thing from last time and it didn’t quite work.”

She slid her notebook over so that Harroc could see it. There were several scribbles to the side, but she’d managed to keep that part fairly clean and methodical. Even the sketches looked - well, not professional, but neat enough. “So I was trying to see if I could reinforce the carrying capacity, but it didn’t seem to affect the spell much, no matter what I tried.”

“I do not know this particular field at all, but I can see generally what you were striving for. Perhaps you could show me the spell, and I will see if anything stands out as odd?” Harroc said, poring over the information on the page with a look of concentration. “Are you attempting to strengthen through more power, or stronger connections? It looks like either could work.”

“Well the spell diagram looks like this-” she pointed to two interlaced diamond shapes she’d drawn at the top of the page. “So I tried the thing where you push more power into the nodes, like last time with the spark spell.”

She ran her finger down the list of experiments she’d tried. “I went with one node, then two, then three, and finally four. That affected it a little with three, so I tried different arrangements of the nodes to see if that changed anything, and it didn’t. Just in case, I went through all the arrangements of two and one node but it wasn’t really showing any change at all.”

[Harroc Crownegrove]

“I think I have an idea of the issue, but I would like to see you cast the spell. May I have Colle join us if they are free?” Harroc asked evenly, showing no obvious emotion in his voice beyond a keen interest in the spell.

Rory shrugged. “Sure, if they want.” Either they were probably going to be all giddy - which would be entertaining - or still in lovesick pining - which could also be amusing in its own way. Besides, Colle’s pastries were really tasty, and she hoped they’d bring some with them.

“I will be back soon,” Harroc said as he rose from the table and headed towards the kitchen. When he reached the front counter he grinned at Poppy. “I want to bring Colle out to see some magic. Would they have perhaps ten minutes?” he asked, hoping very much he could be with his Fae longer, but not wanting to interrupt their work.

“Ten minutes or pastries? I think I know which you really want,” Colle said, coming through the door and smiling happily. “Lucky for you, you can have both.” Turning to Poppy they continued. “I’ve got the elf ears that will need to come out soon, and then another tray of paws. Can you keep an eye on them for me?”

“Yep! Sure thing!” Poppy replied over-enthusiastically. “And maybe you can forget that whole Midsummer incident,” she continued quietly.

Colle gave her a mischievous smirk. “Not a chance.” Taking Harroc’s hand, they asked, “Your ten minutes first, and then I’ll give you a fresh cat’s-paw when they come out?” Harroc grinned and scooped Colle up into his arms.

“That sounds wonderful, soon-to-be-honey,” he purred into their ear as he squeezed them to his chest and turned towards the table Rory was at.

[Roridula Lunatus]

Rory saw Harroc talking to the girl at the counter and then Colle, who looked really happy. When he lifted the Fae baker into his arms and held them tightly, Rory had to stop herself from doing a victory dance. Whether Colle had actually taken her advice or not didn’t matter to her; what mattered was that she had been the one to set things in motion.

This was the aspect of experimenting with social interaction she enjoyed most - although some people called it ‘meddling’, she thought of it as carefully constructed field studies. She tried to paste on a face of polite interest, but her smile gave her away as Harroc carried the Fae over to the table. The battle was entirely lost when Harroc sat down and kept Colle sitting in their lap rather than letting them down to take a seat.

She grinned ferociously. “So I’m not going to bother asking how you are, Colle. I can hazard a guess.”

“I’m well, thanks,” Colle said, a slightly embarrassed smile on their face. “And tea and pastry is on me today.” They cleared their throat and looked back at Harroc. “What did you want me to see?”

“Rory will be casting a spell, one I believe is unique to wizards and their ilk. I wondered if you would understand it, and perhaps be able to learn it,” Harroc said, wrapping his arms around Colle’s waist and squeezing them gently as he settled himself more comfortably into the chair. “Also, look for possible improvements to the spell if you can.” Harroc nodded for Rory to begin when ready.

“Okay, so this one’s called a floating disk spell, and it’s supposed to give me - well, it’s like a bowl made of force. I can’t hold that much yet and I’m trying to make it stronger,” Rory explained. She slid her notebook over so that Colle could see the spell diagram and some of her experiment notes.

They studied the diagram intently. “I can watch, but I don’t have the power for more than that today.” Harroc squeezed their leg lightly and grinned. “And no, that’ll make me jittery, and I have more baking,” they said, bumping their shoulder lightly into Harroc’s chest.

“Let me know when you’ve cast detect, and then I’ll start,” Rory said. After a moment, Colle nodded and focused on Rory. She pulled the spell diagram to the front of her mind, watching it coalesce into being. She went ahead and pushed power into the nodes in the strongest pattern from last night before letting it go. The diagram flared slightly as she turned it loose, and she heard a soft thud as the magic snapped into place.

[Harroc Crownegrove]

Harroc watched the magic erupt from Rory and grinned as it coalesced into rigid structures. The cloud became lines, which became shapes, which joined to match the diagrams in the book. Three of the points where the lines joined were bright and brilliant, and Harroc nodded to himself as he traced the lines of essence that constructed the spell.

He could not understand the finer details, they would always elude him, but he could understand the general theory being applied. “What can you see of it Colle?” he asked nuzzling into the Fae’s neck.

“Not much, I’m afraid. I have a general sense of what’s there, that it uses wind magic, and I can sort of see a fuzziness where I think the disk is. That’s about it,” Colle admitted. Harroc nodded and frowned ever so slightly.

“You are not destined to be a wizard it seems, my Fae,” he said into Colle’s neck before lifting his head and looking at Rory. “Rory, I believe your difficulty is the points you are reinforcing strengthen the resilience of the force, but do not strengthen the bonds that hold it.”

Harroc entwined his fingers to emphasize his point. “The bindings are made heavier, making them more difficult to separate, but also increasing the gaps between them.” He moved his hands to cross each other instead.

“Perhaps try empowering the lines between the nodes, spending only as much as you need to on the nodes themselves?” he offered, hoping Rory would understand. It was difficult to fully convey ideas when you were effectively speaking separate languages.

[Roridula Lunatus]

Rory tried to parse what Harroc said about the lines. She wasn’t sure how to put power into the lines; the nodes were a fixed point and it was somehow easier for her to picture. Sitting back, she played with the image of taking a blob of magical energy and stretching it out to coat the line, like candy coating on a biscuit stick.

Absently, she started projecting the familiar diagram in her mind, this time trying to put the magic coating on the lines that connected the nodes. It felt odd, but sometimes experiments did feel odd. She let the construct go with an unsettling sense of foreboding.

Instead of the usual gentle glowing as the spell was turned loose, it blazed and an exploding sphere of wind sent everything on the table flying. Rory yelped as the book shot by her; she managed to catch it before the wind tore its pages. Her notebook had been shredded though. The pages flew around the cafe like a flock of unruly white birds.

Harroc caught several with a sweeping swat of his hand intended to protect Colle. He also pulsed with a small amount of power that was already fading. He was grinning broadly behind the faint shimmer of energy. Colle had instinctively buried their face in Harroc’s chest when the wind had slammed into them, and they were a little taken aback by the sudden force.

“That - was not what I meant to happen,” Rory said, a bit dazed.

“What did you attempt to do, because that was clearly an uncontrolled sphere, not a bowl of solid force as you described,” Harroc said with clear interest and amusement.

“Well,” Rory shuffled through the pages she’d managed to gather. Frowning, she realized that last night’s experiments were missing. “I did what you said. I covered the lines between the nodes with magic and not the nodes themselves. It felt weird, but that happens sometimes, you know?”

She looked around the cafe. The red-headed fae had grabbed a few more pages, it looked like. She’d have to go get the ones stuck above her by herself. Sighing, Rory stood up. “Give me a moment to get my stuff together.”

[Harroc Crownegrove]

As Rory moved to collect their notes Harroc stroked Colle’s hair and back with long firm caresses. “Are you alright my Fae? Nothing struck you? Simply a bit of surprise?” Harroc asked softly, squeezing his hand around their waist and curling his fingers in.

He felt just a little dizzy, having needed to harden his essence so suddenly was not dissimilar from sprinting up a large flight of stairs. He would hold the essence ready for the next attempt. A small amount of preparation would make the next shield significantly less taxing if it was required.

“I’m okay, it just startled me. Are you alright?” Colle looked up to Harroc. “I can check on those cat’s-paws for you and I’ll bring you any berries if I can find them.” They leaned into Harroc’s shoulder, gently pulling his arm around them tighter.

“I will never say no to your delicious fruits on my lips,” Harroc said softly, chuckling to himself before he slowly released Colle. “I will wait here, and catch my breath.”

“No promises on the berr- oh.” Colle’s eyes went wide for a moment and a faint blush spread on their cheeks. “I see this is a subject to explore later in your lessons,” they replied, grinning and slipping down from Harroc’s lap. They headed to the kitchen, disappearing behind the door.

[Roridula Lunatus]

Rory returned, pushing a stack of crumpled paper onto the table. She scowled. “I still can’t find last night’s notes. Do you think they might have gone over the platform?”

“I did not see any, but I was preoccupied with protecting Colle,” Harroc said with a small shrug. “Were any not something you can recreate?”

“If I want to waste time redoing all the experiments and recopying the book and losing a whole lot of time better spent on actually doing things, then yes, I can recreate them,” Rory said huffily, trying to organize the pages she did have. There were definitely some sections missing.

“I’m going to have to go downstairs to look for them. Hopefully they haven’t gone far.” She stomped toward the entrance and the stairs nearby.

“And you do not use those…” Harroc pointed to Rory’s wings and raised an eyebrow. “Why?” he asked with a clear note of confusion.

“Because! Flying takes time to learn and I can’t read doing it and I’m horrible at it anyway.” Rory crossed her arms over her chest. “Sure, it’d be nice sometimes but it takes so much time, every single day, to be able to do it, and I’d rather learn spells and eat pastry.” She huffed and continued her angry progression toward the stairs.

Harroc frowned as he watched Rory retreat. He would need to warn her when she returned. Magic was dangerous, and having a strong will was only part of what was needed to control it. There was no reason to hobble yourself by weakening the body early and relying purely on the power of the mind.

Rory made her way down to the bottom of the stairs - more winded than she’d like to admit. She found several of the papers directly below the cafe, and a few more at a helpful food cart, although there was some grease on a few pages from the meat the cart sold. She knew she was missing at least one more, and doubled back to check at the shops on the other side of the cafe.

Finally she tracked down the last pages. They had flown into a clothing shop and the assistants had tossed them in the trash. After telling them thank you as politely as she could, Rory headed for the stairs. Grumbling, she smoothed the pages as best she was able. Some of them she’d just have to recopy, but at least the information wasn’t lost.

She trudged up the stairs again, gasping a little at the top. Ajteire was still humid and sticky, even this late in the year, and she wished it would stop. Once back in the cafe, she pulled out the greasy papers and set them aside before arranging the others in rough order until she found the ones from last night.

[Harroc Crownegrove]

The cat’s-paws were out of the oven, and Colle was just waiting for them to be cool enough to not burn their fingertips. They smiled, an idea coming to their mind. They pulled down a small mug and set it on the plate waiting for the pastry, then took the bowl of glaze out of the cool storage. Sliding a pastry onto the plate, they drizzled the usual amount of glaze and then poured more into the small mug. They fixed another one, normally glazed, for Rory before carrying the plates to the table.

Colle set the plate for Harroc down and pointed to the mug. “That’s just glaze. I thought you could dip your pastry in it as you ate. I can get you a fork if you’d rather not get your hands messy,” they offered.

Harroc's eyes went wide and he grinned excitedly at the entire cup of sweet sticky glaze. "Can I convince you to help clean my fingers instead?" he asked, remembering Poppy mentioning something about Colle's mouth before.

“Um,” Colle said, thinking about how inappropriate that would be and how very much they would like to. “In the cafe is probably not a good idea - but at home, I would very much like to do just that.”

"I will look forward to that then," he said back as he picked up his pastry in a delicate grip and lifted it to drizzle into his mouth. He hummed happily as a last strand dropped down before dunking the small edge into the cup. Then the pastry went straight to his mouth to be bitten into with another pleased hum.

“You could tear off a piece and dunk it in the cup, like last night,” Colle reminded him. Leaning close to Harroc, they said, "I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be a pastry more in my entire life.” They winked at him before standing back up.

Rory strode back into the cafe, her annoyance mostly untouched. She had a pile of crumpled papers that she was attempting to organize. Thwacking the pile onto the table, she was entirely engrossed in sorting the remains of her notebook.

Harroc chuckled softly and tore off a small piece of the pastry to dip into the glaze. "What are the three methods described in the beginning of the book?" he asked, seemingly to his honey-covered morsel.

[Roridula Lunatus]

Rory frowned. She remembered there being some discussion about methods somewhere in the front of the book, but she couldn’t recall what they were. Grabbing the book she opened it to the right page almost immediately. “Um, empowering, reinforcing, and imbuing?” If Harroc was asking about this, maybe she should write it down somewhere.

She saw the other pastry and tugged the plate closer. The heat coming off the cat’s-paw was palpable and it gave the glaze a nice crust as it cooled. Rory tried not to drool while she waited.

Harroc popped the dripping piece of pastry into his mouth and chewed slowly to see if Rory required more prompting. When she became distracted by her own pastry, not at all unreasonably, he swallowed. "And what have you not tried yet?" He tore and dipped another morsel, swirling it to collect even more glaze this time.

Rory scrunched her face up, thinking hard. 'Wasn’t using the nodes empowering the spell construct?' “I think I was empowering when I focused on the nodes, and the lines must have been reinforcing, because I was basically wrapping the magic around the lines. So imbuing?” She gave in and ripped a chunk off the pastry to pop in her mouth.

Harroc simply nodded and did a small happy wiggle as he swallowed his second piece of pastry. He ripped a third piece off, getting something more like a scoop. He grinned and used it to collect some glaze that he proceeded to suck off the fluffy pastry before dipping it again.

“You really like the honey glaze, huh?” Rory remarked before taking another bite. “How about the baker who makes the glaze?” She grinned mischievously.

"They make me hungry, and offer to be eaten. What more could I want?" Harroc said as if he were simply discussing more of the method of magic. He popped the dripping scoop of pastry into his mouth and chewed slowly.

Rory giggled. This sort of unabashed adoration was so rare to actually see, and considering it was coming from a man much taller and much stronger than her, it was delightful. She was definitely counting this as a success. Now that this study of social bonds was following its course, it was time to get back to magic. “So, why’d you ask about imbuing?”

"I suggested you empower the construct, you reinforced it instead, so perhaps you should try what remains," Harroc said with a small shrug.

Thinking, Rory twisted her mouth to the side. “Imbuing is more - internal, right? How would you go about forcing more magic into something without making it-” she waved her hands vaguely, “bigger?”

"I have no idea," Harroc laughed as he said the words. "You are the wizard, not I. Speaking of, you should not so casually discard your endurance. A strong will cannot stand alone and a strong body can only help. Unless you expect all of your future knowledge to simply arrive in the comfort of the city's cafes."

[Roridula Lunatus]

Standing at the counter, Poppy leaned over to Colle, who had just returned from delivering two pastries. “Uh, is it just me or are we having a sudden heat wave?”

Colle chuckled. “Not just you, it’s Harroc. Something about his magic makes his temperature rise if he’s energetic or excited or something.”

Poppy glanced over at Colle. “What did you say to him when you gave him his pastry?” She raised her eyebrows.

Smirking, Colle turned to go back into the kitchen, but stopped. “That is for me to know, and you not to find out,” they said, and zipped into the kitchen before Poppy could react.

“Colle!” Poppy put her hands on her hips and shook her head as her friend disappeared.
~
Thinking about the spell construct, Rory couldn’t figure out a way to make the segments - well, more - without also making them bigger. That was stupid, though, because clearly, there was a way to do it, or else it wouldn’t have been put in a book with basic exercises. She tapped her fingertips on the table while she chewed another bite of pastry.

'Wait! What if the segments weren’t lines? What if they were tubes, like a piece of reed or straw? You could fill those with water or sand but it wouldn’t make the tube itself bigger.' Rory tipped her head to the side, trying to remap the diagrams as things with depth, rather than the flat drawings she usually saw.

She traced the construct in the air, trying to picture it how she wanted. Holding her straw-tube construct in her mind, she imagined her power as water that she filled each tube with in turn. Glancing up at Harroc, she tried to hold on to the spell’s form in her mind and tapped the tabletop in hopes of getting his attention.

The shield of earth snapped into place just as her finger landed. He nodded over another bite of pastry and focused on the space in front of Rory's forehead.

Rory let go of the spell, feeling it leave with much the same feeling as a held and exhaled breath. The construct turned slightly and glowed brightly like a firefly for a moment until it triggered with a slightly loud thud. She almost jumped, and would have had she not been expecting something.

Harroc grunted and the shield of essence loosened slightly but did not fade completely. Rory stuck out her finger and poked the disk; it felt strangely solid. Carefully, she picked up the book and set it on the disk, adjusting it slightly for balance. It held, but she felt it waver for a bare instant and threw power at it. “I think it worked,” she said, just above a whisper.

"Does it seem incomplete still? I recall my own spells requiring several stages of refinement and complexity before they were truly considered completed," Harroc said with a congratulatory smile.

“Well, it’s holding, although it’s not supporting very much, but it’s definitely more than I managed last night,” she said, not taking her eyes from the spell hanging there.

"What did you use as your representation for the imbuing? That is often the area of weaknesses according to the text."

“I was thinking - about reeds and straw, how they’re hollow on the inside, but you can fill them with water or sand and it doesn’t change their size. So I made all the lines be hollow, like a piece of straw, and filled them with my magic, like it was water,” she said, still somewhat distracted. She wasn’t sure how long the spell would last. Grimacing a little, she pulled the book off the disk and set it on the table. Poor thing didn’t need to be tossed around again today.

"Give the form you have constructed more thought as you practice it. Perhaps try envisioning different materials for both the container and the contained. Do not discount the purpose of pressure in the stored magic. That is mentioned at the end of the book as a future topic," Harroc said all of this in an even and faintly enthusiastic tone. He had clearly spent a good deal of time receiving similar instruction.

"I do not have the energy for more practice myself, and I believe our host would prefer you not practice overmuch here without consideration for the other patrons."

Rory frowned slightly. “Is there a place in Ajteire where I can just go practice and not have to worry about other people or breaking stuff? I mean, I think you’re right and I don’t want to mess up the cafe here, but the library doesn’t like me practicing either, and I’m not really sure where to go.”

"There are the practice groves, on the Eastern edge of the city, a series of interconnected places. I am sure several of them are friendly to magic exploration. I know one has a small stream nearby even for fires." Harroc certainly understood Rory's frustration. Even he was finding it difficult to keep all of his skills sharp inside the city.

Rory’s face lit up. “That sounds like just what I need. I’ll head over there first thing tomorrow, and I’m sure someone will be able to point me in the right direction.” She jammed her crumpled notebook into her bag. “Maybe I’ll even come back for a pastry in the afternoon, if I get tired.” She smiled at Harroc before leaving.