When her kinetic hand construct violently imploded for the nth time, Talia watched the ripples of force shatter another series of beryllium crystals. Little aquamarine shards halted their flight midway to the floor, as if deciding that, no, they did not want to leave their larger brethren.

I don’t get it. Osra doesn’t need to shape her magic into a hand for it to work, so why do…

“I’m an idiot.”

Osra looked over at Talia inquisitively. The girl’s tears had run dry, and she’d returned to her carvings—though the mood had gotten a touch more sombre, afterward. They’d mostly been sitting in companionable silence for the past hour, Talia working on her magic, and Osra working on her sculptures.

“Erm—why?” Osra hazarded.

Talia shook her head, flinching when her right arm twinged painfully as she tried to rub the bridge of her nose. Thinking back to something Lazarus had mentioned, Talia forced her left to take up the slack.

“Ouch,” she hissed, “I’m going about this the wrong way. A hand is well and good, but why does it need to be a hand?”

Osra frowned in thought but then shrugged.

“Because…that’s what your fancy book said?”

“You’re right, but Magic for the Newly Awakened has loads of exercises. It’s a…catch-all for any type of mage, and the foreword explicitly says it expects you to have a master mage looking over you as you learn. Probably just for this reason!”

Osra gave her a blank look.

“I guess…?”

Talia shook her head, and instead of struggling to explain her idea, she closed her eyes and put it to the test. First, she erased the ‘hand’ shape from her mind. As useful as hands were, physically, nothing dictated that her construct had to have that shape. In fact…

“When you shape stone,” Talia began, “Are you picking the rock up, or are you just…moving it?”

“Er—just moving it,” Osra answered, only hesitating briefly, “Master Zaric always said to treat the stone like just another limb.”

“Exactly!”

“I’m…not sure I follow…”

“So, hear me out. So far, I’ve been trying to ‘pick up’ things with kinetics. Creating a force that moves another object.”

“Uhuh…”

“But! What I could have been doing, is just…controlling the kinetic energy already around an object, and moving it that way. The same way you’re moving stone or metal,” Talia explained excitedly.

Osra’s face screwed up as she processed what Talia had just said.

“Uhm…Talia?”

“Mhmm?”

“That makes no sense. If something isn’t moving, then it has no—”

“But it is moving. All the time. Gravity, for one, is constantly pushing this piece of clay down. The only reason it’s not actually moving is because I’m holding it up. There’s the spinning of the planet, if you believe in that, and the movement of the universe around us. Everything. Everywhere. Is always. Moving!” Talia whisper-shouted at the end, aware that there was likely a manic gleam in her eye.

Osra pursed her lips, looking ready to refute her, but Talia overrode her.

“I can’t believe I haven’t thought about this before!”

“Talia, I don’t think this is going to work the way you—”

“Shhh, don’t ruin it. I need to focus.”

Setting the clay on the ground, Talia placed her hand on the little ball and closed her eyes. In her mind, she banished all thoughts of creating force, instead focusing on connecting with what was already there.

Eventually, she felt like she was touching on…something, though she wasn’t sure if it was what she’d intended.

When Talia felt like she’d gotten close enough, she bit the proverbial bolt and sent a tiny fragment of mana into the construct in her mind, focusing on moving the ball of green clay.

Nothing happened.

“Don’t strain, yourself,” Osra whispered, otherwise allowing her to focus.

Talia frowned and pushed more mana into the construct. When nothing happened again, she doubled it. Another third made no difference, nor did another doubling. Sighing, she dropped the working before it could eat too much into her Core’s reserves. Her Capacity had come a long way in the months since she’d started cycling, but she was far from even the level Zaric had reached.

I thought for sure I was on to something.

Talia picked up the ball and tossed it into the air growling as she fumbled the catch and it flopped into the puddle. Her eyes widened.

Wait.

Quickly recreating the construct, Talia tossed the ball up into the air again, but this time, in the split second before it fell to the ground, she flooded the Image with mana.

Osra sucked in a breath.

The pair stared at the floating ball as it hung suspended in the air above the shallow pool of water. It didn’t bob or wobble. It just floated there.

“H-How…?” Osra muttered.

The ball fell, the brief lapse of concentration brought on by the girl’s voice all it took for the construct to fail.

But Talia didn’t care.

All the practice and training since she’d first started seemed to come together for the first time. It didn’t even make sense. By rights, she was destroying energy. Which was impossible. Was it being turned into mana? The spell did seem to take less from her than she’d expected—after the initial burst at least. She’d still thought that at the very least, she’d have to redirect the object’s kinetic force elsewhere—

“Catch,” Osra whispered impishly, tossing something at her.

Talia cast the spell again, and the hunk of crystal came to a halt halfway off the ground. She watched it float above her lap, grinning madly.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. A really good start.

She may have lost her arm, but she would never be powerless again. Not if she had anything to say about it.

Mastering her telekinesis was just the first step.

“I’ll need practice,” she muttered speculatively, “and tests, lots of tests.”

But after such a…heavy day, she decided to allow herself to be proud for a moment. Her plans to learn toolless arcanistry, at the very least, were appearing more and more feasible.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Osra smiled at her, a hint of something devious in her eyes.

----------------------------------------

“Break,” Talia huffed, slumping back against the pillar at her back.

The hunk of beryl floating between her and Osra slithered back to its pillar, melting away into it like it had never even existed. Osra had been the one to suggest the exercise once Talia had done some tests and tweaks on her new spell.

The game was simple—apparently, one that the girl had practiced with Zaric. The pair would pit their Wills against each other, fighting a sort of magical, reverse tug-o-war. The objective being to push the crystal back toward the opponent with only their minds.

Talia failed, of course, miserably. Osra’s experience with her own element was too overwhelming. But it had been good practice. Her new spell—as of yet unnamed—didn’t really allow her to exert any kind of force on an object. It simply robbed it of its kinetic energy, forcing it to stop in place.

Talia chuckled at the unintentional pun.

She’d had to figure out ways to push the orb forward with the use of other spells, while also being careful not to blast the crystal to smithereens from the inherent contradiction of both stopping and moving. A frustrating conundrum, but one that bore fruit when Talia figured out that she could, with difficulty, split her mind between two Images. One for her ‘push’ spell, and one for her ‘stop’ spell.

The moment she’d realized that, was, of course, heralded by a complete loss of concentration, whereby the shard of crystal thunked squarely into the centre of her forehead. The blinding headache and Osra’s fussy worrying had brought a blush to her cheeks, one not helped by the fit of giggles the other girl fell into once Talia explained what had happened.

Still, for all her nominal failures, Talia was happy with her progress. The…kinetic theft…spell wasn’t exactly what she’d been looking for, but it was close enough, and leagues more efficient than throwing around waves or bubbles of force. Combined with the other spell she’d been working on, which she’d been calling her kinetic needle, she had all the tools she needed. A vise, and a chisel—the only things a true arcanist needed to ply their craft.

Now it just comes down to refinement and practice. Lots, and lots of practice.

Talia sat up with her legs crossed.

“I can see why you like that game,” she said, “it was tough, but fun. I think I’d have enjoyed it more with someone a little closer to my level, though…”

Osra rolled her eyes and took a swig of her waterskin, offering it to Talia before responding.

“Master Zaric took way too much pleasure in smacking me in the face when he felt I wasn’t trying hard enough. Said I’d never get to the instinctive level if I didn’t give it my all.”

Talia didn’t miss the note of grief in her friend’s voice, but seeing as she wasn’t breaking down, decided not to prod at healing wounds. Osra knew that she was there for support, and that was enough.

She rubbed her forehead where, sure enough, a welt was forming, and smiled ruefully.

“I think you took his lessons a little too literally,” she joked, drawing a melancholic chuckle from the girl. Spotting the glassy look, Talia switched topics before they fell back into the beckoning pit of grief. “I heard him talk about ‘instinctive’ casting before, but he never really explained it in detail. We…uh, never had the time. Did he give you a better definition? I, uh— If you’d rather talk about something else, I can—”

Osra waved her off.

“No, no, it’s fine,” she said, frowning, “Showing you this place was meant to cheer you up, and instead you’re tip-toeing around my feelings…”

Talia made a self-conscious grunt-gargling sound, caught between feeling bad and not knowing how to feel. In response, Osra gave her a look that lingered somewhere within the range of peeved and amused.

It’s a wonder how much she’s changed since we first met.

“You’ve changed too, haven’t you? Whipcrack wit replaced with—”

A pulse of psionics was all it took to banish the dead delvemaster back into the depths of her mind. But the frequency at which they’d been returning was beginning to concern her.

“…it’s almost like—Talia? Are you listening?” Osra asked, concern glistening in her amber eyes.

“Hmm? Oh sorry, lost in thought. You were saying?”

A narrowing of the eyes made Talia think that perhaps her excuse had been ill-received, but Osra started over as if nothing had happened.

“I was saying that instinctive casting is when the Image becomes an extension of yourself. It’s specific to a type of spell, but also not.”

Talia’s eyebrows rose into her hair.

“Enlightening.”

Osra threw up her hands. Talia absently noted that she’d put her gloves back on.

“I-I’m not a teacher, Talia, I—ah—look, when you’re…designing an enchantment, do you think of every single detail? Do you have to consciously focus on what every rune looks like?”

“Well, yes. Not doing that would be bad, as in Bad, bad.”

Osra let loose a long-suffering sigh, glaring at her.

“Really? Every little detail requires your utmost focus? No, don’t just answer, think it through.”

Frowning, Talia did as Osra asked and pondered it.

I come up with the base sequence, then add in connectors, amplifiers, arrays and then the channels. But the angles, the geometry, the layering and etching. Those…those have become…

“Huh.”

Osra grinned, nodding at something she saw on Talia’s face.

“Now you get it, or at least you’re starting to. Eventually, the Image construct becomes less a rulebook, and more a loose set of guidelines you can modify on the fly. It becomes more natural, less conscious,” she explained, her voice petering off as she remembered something, “Master Zaric used to say that there are four stages of mastery. Stage one is unconscious incompetence, when you don’t know what you don’t know. That turns into conscious incompetence, when you know what you don’t know. Then there’s conscious competence, when you do know, but it takes a focused effort. Finally, the last step was unconscious competence, where you don’t even fully realize everything that you know, you just do. I figure instinctive casting falls somewhere between the last two.”

Talia mulled over the words, much as Osra had fumbled them somewhat. Nonetheless, there was truth in there somewhere. It was only overshadowed by the death of the man who’d shared the wisdom to begin with.

Heat flared in Talia’s chest as she resolved to never let the memory of him die. A dark part of her whispered that feeling him die was something she wouldn’t be able to forget, even if she tried.

“He had layers to him,” Talia mused, “Sombre and serious one minute, and joking and jovial the next.”

“A real b-b—” Osra choked, looking like the word was painful to get out, “B-Bastard too sometimes.”

Talia didn’t know whether to be shocked or amused. She settled on a little of both.

“That took a lot out of you, didn’t it?” she teased.

Osra’s face flushed burnt red as she bobbed her head hands clenched in her lap. Talia shook her head and chuckled. Moments like these reminded her that some things didn’t change.

There’s a part of us that always stays the same, no matter what.

The thought was a comfort. That somehow, even through the darkness of the past weeks, some part of her, surely, would remain static.

----------------------------------------

The pair chatted about nothing for a while, letting the tension leech from the atmosphere. Osra finished her carving, and Talia even made an attempt herself, using her kinetic needle to sheer off bits of clay and carve jagged lines into place. The misshapen result was gleefully re-crystallized by Osra, looking almost nothing like the mirage-lynx Talia had been aiming for.

That decision had brought up some questions, and for a moment, Talia had considered introducing Osra to the unruly kit, but a quick check of her mindsense confirmed that Menace was prowling the top of the walls, chasing after mice and roaches.

She’d decided that that introduction, in particular, wasn’t pressing, and mumbled something suitably cryptic, promising to explain later. The prodding and pestering that followed petered off when Osra realized Talia wasn’t budging.

Finally, they’d realized that they’d essentially wasted the day away and that unless they planned on being exhausted the next day, they’d better head off to bed. Talia, especially, had a hunt to consider.

----------------------------------------

Talia left Osra in front of her barrack and made her way back to her bunk, the haven dead and quiet around her, the firepit but smouldering embers. Her stomach growled viciously, as it always seemed to these days, as her talent struggled to heal her mangled arm, only succeeding to make it worse, and draining her of nutrients to do so.

Apart from the pit in her stomach though, Talia felt…good. More at peace than she had in a while. The time spent with Osra and Lazarus had been well worth it. The anger that had been simmering within her, working up to a boil the longer the expedition wallowed in their misery, had cooled somewhat.

A whiff of smoke was all it took.

Screeches of agony pierced her ears, burnt hair and smoking flesh and alien, malevolent eyes that raged at her—discordant screams of aberrant monstrosities, blood cooling across their silver bones, mixing with oily tar that squirmed, pressing in on her—

“You’re going to die, just like me,” Zaric whispered, “Did you think they were gone? They chased you this far. Why would they stop? You’re all just sitting here, cowering like whipped hounds, meanwhile, they’re creeping through the rock—”

“You’re having a panic attack, Tals,” Torval said simultaneously in her other ear, “Breathe. You know what to do. Breathe. Let it pass—”

—like a blaze of actinic light that ripped through stone and metal and flesh like it was nothing—a mistake—her mistake—her deadly, horrid mistake—

“—reathe, Tals, breathe—”

“—all going to die and it’s what you deserve—”

Talia’s chest felt like it was being crushed by a wyrm.

Her need to scream came out as whimpers.

Accusing faces flickered before her, the eye-sockets empty. Filled with malice. Hate.

Zaric’s maddened glare as she cut the life from him. The expression floating above her face as he pushed her deeper into the panic.

It’s too much. Make it stop. Make it STOP. Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop—

Distantly, she felt someone grab her. Her whole being screamed at her to hit them, to defend herself, to do something. But her mind was a wicked mess of panic and whispers. Her body refused to listen, shaking and aching as if Ishmael herself had come to claim her soul.

A gruff voice sounded out soothingly as she felt herself rolled onto her side, her head held up by rough hands, the grip firm but gentle.

“Da?” she whimpered, “Is that you?”

“Nah, girly, I ain’t your father, but don’t you worry about that, just breathe, kiddo. You’re alright. You’re safe. Ain’t no one in here gonna hurt you. I gotcha’.”

Talia jerked her head, snot and tears running down her face. Her lungs flapped in ragged gasps. Her heartbeat pounded like a drum in her ears.

It felt like hours, but eventually, it faded. The kernel of panic was still in there, a seed of powerlessness that refused to die.