Jasmine and I arrived at the forge, and met with Mr. Darius. He was cleaning up the forge for the night, getting ready to go home at the end of a long day of work, when he noticed us walking in.

  "To what do I owe this pleasure, Jasmine? I thought you were teaching Amara to use her mana tonight." Mr. Darius asked, clearly curious.

  "Well, in order to awaken her skills, we needed a place attuned to her aspects, and it seems like this is the very best place in town for it. If you don't mind, we're going to go sit by the forge and have her do her best to use the mana here, as long as you'd allow it." Ms. Jasmine explained the plan to Mr. Darius.

  "Well, I don't see why not. There isn't much left for me to do here, so you won't be in my way. Just make sure you lock up afterwards." Mr. Darius tossed me a key to the smithy. "I was planning on giving this to you soon anyways, this just makes it more convenient."

  "Thank you so much Master!" I teared up a little bit at Mr. Darius' trust in me. "I won't let you down. Thanks for the help."

  "Well, this is all very touching, but we should get on with it before it gets any later than it already is." Ms. Jasmine started pushing me towards the forge as Mr. Darius started cleaning the last of the scraps off the ground.

  "Alright, so first off, find the place that feels like it's the most comfortable for you, that's likely to be the place with the most even mix of your aspect mana. After that, begin to calm your mind, breathe slowly, and focus on the comfortable feeling surrounding you." Ms. Jasmine directed me, and then took a step back towards the door. "I'll stay here, out of your way. Me being in the room may disrupt the mana."

  I walked to the side of the anvil, then moved a bit towards the fire of the forge. This is the place I felt most comfortable. It always had been, though until recently, I didn't have the opportunity to stand in this exact place. I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing, basking in the heat and light of the forge, and the warmth of the heated stones around it. I sat down, crossing my legs. As I focused, on the feelings, I could separate them out. The heat of the forge itself, flowing around and over me. The light, bouncing off of my skin and scattering, and the cooling stones pressing against me. And as I focused more on each one, I felt the feelings begin to seep into me. The heat, flowing into me instead of around, the light sticking to my skin instead of scattering, and the stone merging with the parts of me in contact with it.

  Then I felt a lightness. Like something I had been missing had come back to me. A feeling of completeness, and warmth. And I opened my eyes to see more than I did before. Streams of heat flowing through the air, flashes of light from the scattering flames, and a smoky grey drifting off of all the stone. It wasn't invasive, I could easily tune it out if I wanted to. But knowing it was there brought a comfort to me that I didn't know I wanted.

  I felt amazing in that moment.

  "It's beautiful." I said, in awe.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Wait, you've already done it?" Jasmine was astounded. " I expected us to need at least a few more nights in here. It took me half a day to attune to just my fire when I began, and that wasn't slow by any means. Just what kind of little monster are you gonna be?"

  "I just did what felt natural, and everything feels so right right now. Like I should have always had this. Is that normal?" I was worried that something was wrong with how easily it came to me.

  "That sounds about right. A little more pronounced than most people I've seen or heard of doing this, but with you spending so much time in proximity to what is essentially a perfect environment for your mana, you may have subconsciously attuned yourself over the years. And being so submerged in just your aspect's mana may have also created a feeling of home in it. I'll have to look into it. But now, we need to teach you control before you burn something down." Jasmine rambled a bit, but surprisingly got back on track on her own.

  "Of course. Where do I start?" I was eager to learn this lesson, which would open so many new abilities to use.

  "First, focus on the mana you're wanting to control, then think about gathering it together in your hand. Don't gather too much, just a little is okay for your first time. Fire is the most dangerous if left uncontrolled, so we'll start with that." Jasmine started directing me.

  I did as she said, and tried to gather the streams of heat into my palm, picturing a candle's flame, small and flickering.

  And as I did, one appeared floating over my hand. "I did it!" I was almost vibrating with happiness.

  Jasmine's jaw dropped. "I didn't even get to the next part, how did you do that? You didn't even have to use a focus word!"

  "I just gathered the streams together and pictured a flame, and it appeared. What's a focus word?" I was confused at why Ms. Jasmine was so surprised.

  "Focus words are the way most people are able to create effects with magic. They allow the mana to know what it's supposed to do. What you just did usually uses the focus word 'flame'. I've heard of higher leveled mages not needing them, but never a beginner like you doing that. Now I wonder what's different between you and other people. Something has to be, for you to be this good at everything you try. Before we finish up for the night, I'm going to ask you to collect as much fire mana as you can, then hold it stable. After that, we'll leave off until tomorrow night." Ms. Jasmine explained why what I did was weird, and I suddenly thought that mages might not be the brightest people. I didn't even do anything special, just thought about what I wanted to happen. I can't be the first person to try that, so maybe there was something special about me, but I wasn't convinced.

  I began drawing as many of the streams towards my hand as I could, and I saw the forge's fire start to flicker. The room started to get colder, and the streams condensed into a ball. As it condensed more and more, it got brighter and brighter. The forge flickered out, and the room grew chilly.

  Ms. Jasmine started to panic. "Amara, that's enough, you need to do something with that mana before you lose control!"

  I didn't feel like I would lose control over this ball of heat, but Ms. Jasmine was clearly uncomfortable, so I focused on relighting the forge, as it usually doesn't go out overnight in order to speed up work in the morning.

  As I focused, I felt I made a mistake, as all the heat I had gathered shot into the forge and ignited. Ms. Jasmine grabbed me and jumped away from the forge. We barely got out of the door before the flames rushed over us. Luckily, as she was a fire mage, we weren't burned, but the force of the blast was enough to throw us across the ground, scraping us up quite a bit.

  The explosion seemed to draw some attention from the surrounding homes, and I also saw Mr. Darius rushing back to the smithy with a worried look on his face.

  I messed up, and I'm sure just about everyone already knew it.