“Magic can grow in two ways: upwards or sideways.” Christena tried to begin.

“Wait!” Addie interrupted, “I thought we were going to do some practical magic, not talking!” Addie was adamant.

“Fine,” Christena said, bemused yet exasperated. “Observe.” She stated primly.

Colorful lights flooded through the sky: bubbles, butterflies, floating palm-sized rainbows, fluffy palm sized clouds, and multiple caricatures of Squishy and Fluffy pranced among the other illusions. Addie stood in amazement at the pretty colors and dancing lights. She had a particular fascination with the mini-Squishys and Fluffys. Christena did a fantastic job making all the slyfoxes move independently of one another. One Fluffy chased a floating bubble on the breeze, another Fluffy sniffed a rainbow, and yet another Fluffy swatted at a butterfly. Addie’s favorite illusionary Fluffy just jumped from tiny cloud to tiny cloud, seemingly making a game out of landing on each and every one. Once it made a circuit jumping between all of them, it started jumping on the bubbles, too. Each time it landed on a bubble, the bubble quickly popped, forcing the fake Fluffy to move on to the next. On its final bubble, it jumped over one of the miniature rainbows, landing on a cloud on the other side, then, seemed to preen with accomplishment. It just continued to float up in the air prim and proper, mirroring the real Fluffy.

The miniature Squishys, on the other hand, stood proud as warriors. One challenged an ethereal Fluffy to a duel, only to be danced around and ridiculed by the trickster fox. Another Squishy seemed to be having a silent debate with a bubble, seeming to decide if its presence offended him. None of the illusions compared to the real Squishy, though, who simply sat near Addie’s feet on the grass, amused by the display overhead.

“I am not so easily bothered by something as simple as a bubble,” Squishy complained, “But I suppose the impression is not too far off.” The words traveled to Addie through their bond, and, Christena seemed to smile in response, almost as though she had somehow predicted his criticism.

While Addie was distracted observing the display, Christena took the opportunity to go back into teacher-mode, “Like most all bonds between a bonded and a human, my powers manifest in precisely two admittedly simple ways.”

All of the rainbows near Addie began to shine brightly, which forced Addie to close her eyes. But, even that wasn’t enough, and she even had to put a hand over her eyes to shield herself.

“Light.” Christena said, with emphasis.

The shining stopped as suddenly as it started; and in its stead, all of the bubbles floating around Addie started popping, each one creating the sound of a thunderclap. Addie had to shove her fingers into her ears to drown out the explosive sound. It still wasn’t enough to stop her ears from ringing.

“And sound.” Christena finished.

The last bubble popped. The burst, even muffled as it was by Addie’s fingers, still made her jump. Such a tiny and silly thing like a bubble had no business being a targeted ear-weapon, or so Addie thought. She was impressed all the same.

After the last bubble popped, Addie couldn’t help herself, “Ow, Christena!” Addie didn’t even give Christena a chance to reply, “You have to teach me how to do that!”

“Well,” Christena tried to start.

“Teach me teach me teach me!” Addie’s exuberance became excessive, and she started jumping up and down in excitement.

“I’m sorry Addie, but,” Again, Christena didn’t get a chance to finish her thought.

Addie’s face threatened to turn into a pout, “You have to teach me that Christena! I want floating popping bubble weapons, too!” The little girl demanded.

Christena had to fight against her own instincts not to facepalm. “Addie, stop and listen for a second.” Christena paused for a moment. When she realized that she finally held Addie’s attention, she continued, “You’ll never be able to do this.”

Much to Christena’s horror, Addie’s face started to shift, the tells of a tantrum quickly and easily making their way across her face. Christena braced herself to withstand the oncoming storm, but through some miracle, Addie’s outburst didn’t come. Well, her face certainly contorted and twisted into an expression of barely concealed rage, but she managed to hold herself back from exploding.

Tentatively, as though trying to avoid disturbing a napping dragon, Christena continued her explanation, “Constructs of light and sound are the powers I gained from my bond with Fluffy when I was just a little girl. These are the two aspects absolutely quintessential to my magic.”

During Christena’s natural pause, Addie spoke up, and again, Addie noticed Christena seemed to be preparing for the verbal assault of the decade, but instead, Addie continued quietly, through clenched frustrated teeth, “I don’t know what quintessential means.”

“Oh,” Christena said carefully as she tried not to laugh, “It means that light and sound are my main sources of power.” Christena managed to relax a bit more after that, moving back into the role of a teacher.

“What I want to say, Addie, is that light and sound are the two aspects of my power, but that doesn’t mean your powers aren’t special on their own.

“What I would like you to do now is think about all the ways you’ve used your powers. Did you notice that there are only two things your magic lets you do? If so, what are they?”

At the impromptu quiz, Addie’s first instinct was to get frustrated, but it only took her a moment to realize that at least this quiz was about magic. Her magic. No one knew it better than she herself. Her second instinct was to look at Squishy, as though his canine face may hold the answers, but he seemed to follow her train of thought, and quickly clamped down on their soul bond, not allowing his answers to Christena’s questions to bias Addie’s own answers.

Her first instinct was to say that her first power was her ability to talk with Squishy through their bond, perhaps due to being reminded they could communicate telepathically just a moment ago. But Addie quickly realized that wasn’t right. She knew that all bonded and their partner humans could communicate, even if it was just rudimentary. Since Christena didn’t mention that part of her powers specifically, Addie knew she shouldn’t, either.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The correct answer in truth didn’t require much thinking, Addie realized. She was using one of her main two powers at this very moment.

“My spatial sense.” Addie declared.

Christena nodded her head as if to prompt Addie to continue.

“I can see all around me without my eyes.” She clarified, “That’s how I knew you were behind me when we were in the forest.”

In acknowledgment, Christena tilted her head. “And can you remember your second main power?”

“That one’s easy.” Addie declared. “When I go into Realmspace.”

“Realmspace?” Christena seemed confused at that terminology, “So that’s where you sent us before. But why do you call it Realmspace?”

“I don’t know, that’s just what Squishy calls it.”

“Indeed.” He chimed in through their bond. This time, Christena didn’t seem to notice his words.

“Fascinating. Fluffy can be quite clever, and definitely egotistical—

The aforementioned orange Slyfox seemed to preen due to the praise.

“But she definitely isn’t smart enough to communicate to me with actual human language.”

Addie giggled, as she saw Fluffy make a faux offended expression, she even put her right paw up in front of her chest in mock outrage, very much like an overdramatic actress in a play.

“I don’t know,” Addie giggled a bit more, “I think she’s pretty smart.”

The silly fox raised her chin up and grinned, ‘of course I am’ she seemed to say with body language.

Putting aside the temporary distraction, Christena continued her explanation, “So then, you have two main powers just as all bonded do. Your ability to enter Realmspace and your spatial sense,” Christena crossed her arms in thought. “Next, I’d like to teach you about how we can go about improving the magic you already have. Now, keep in mind, you’ll never be able to do anything significantly different from your main two power sets, like make illusions of bubbles for instance, but there are two ways to grow your current abilities. You even demonstrated these to me during, ‘our final confrontation,’ so to speak.

“Let’s start by having you demonstrate to me both of your current abilities in their base forms.”

“Well, moving into Realmspace would be pretty obvious, but how can I show you my spatial sense?” The question came out genuinely. It didn’t seem like Addie could easily showcase her spatial sense since that particular ability worked internally.

“Oh, that one is easy.” Addie didn’t like the smile on Christena’s face at all, it was the face of a plotter, “You, my dear, will wear this blindfold I just so happen to have conveniently in my pocket, and I will throw a pebble that you must dodge. You’ll have to make good use of your spatial sense.” Christena’s grin turned wicked, and Addie knew that this had to be revenge from when she threw all those rocks at Christena in the forest.

Hesitatingly, Addie walked up to Christena and grabbed the blindfold out of her hands. Then, she walked ten paces backward from Christena. It was interesting, to focus on her spatial sense like this. Just like in the forest, she could see everything around her within a ten or so-meter radius around herself. When she ‘relaxed’ her spatial sense, so to speak, she could see a high volume of the world around her, but she couldn’t make any one item out super clearly. When she ‘focused’ her spatial sense, she could see such fine details on a single object that she was constantly learning about how the things around her were made up of tiny little parts— parts so small her eyes alone had never noticed.

The rock came quicker than Addie expected. She thought Christena would at least give her a warning, even a simple, ‘I’m starting’, but nothing of the sort happened. Without preamble, Christena simply threw the pebble at Addie. Just as simply, Addie stepped a bit to the right and easily dodged the pebble. Christena had tossed it pretty lightly.

Addie was preparing herself to dodge another one when Christena said, “You can take the blindfold off, that’s enough for now.”

“That was quick,” Addie said in slight surprise, “I thought you would throw rocks at me all day!”

With a smile on her face, Christena replied, “Maybe another time, that would be fun, wouldn’t it?” Before Addie had a chance to answer the rhetorical question, Christena finished explaining, “Today I just need to get a quick sense of your base powers so we know how to move forward to develop them. That simple demonstration is enough for now.”

Then, Christena paused for a moment, considering. “No need to show me how you can traverse Realmspace today either. I got plenty of experience observing that one already.”

Disappointment started to flood through Addie at not being able to continue showing off her magic, but Christena’s next words mollified her.

“Instead, I’d like to move back to where we started talking today. Your magic can grow in one of two ways: Upwards and Sideways.” With a wave of Christena’s arms, the imaginary rainbows manifested above Addie’s head once again. “Upwards,” The rainbows once again grew in brightness, though, thankfully, not enough to blind Addie this time. “This is often the easiest way to grow one’s powers. You may use your soul bond with your bonded to brute force your magic’s output to a higher threshold.”

Christena paused as she noticed Addie raise her hand.

“Yes?”

“I’ve done that before, but I had a horrible pain in my soul when I did it too much.”

“I was going to bring that up, but yes, that’s correct. When brute forcing your magic like this, you must be careful not to overdo things, or else you can damage your soul-bond with Squishy. However, with careful practice, and so long as you don’t push yourself past that breaking point, you can reliably grow your soul with this method. Doing so will allow your total magical power output to grow.”

All of the rainbows around Christena winked out of existence, and in their stead, a single small illusory cloud poofed into existence next to her. Christena placed her hand directly underneath the cloud and spoke, “Sideways,” Rain began to fall from the cloud, and dripped onto Christena’s hand. When Christena moved her hand out from underneath the cloud she flicked her fingertips towards the ground. Her hand had been sopping wet, and Addie could see each droplet fly off her fingertips.

“Is that real?” Addie couldn’t help but ask.

“Nothing is ever truly real when it comes to my magic. That being said, come here.” Christena beckoned Addie over with her dry hand.

Once she stood in front of Christena, she grabbed Addie’s hand with her wet one. Christena’s hand felt far colder than Addie would have expected in this summer heat— the illusory rain having seemed to seep a frigidness deep into Christena’s hand.

Christena released Addie’s hand, causing Addie to look on at her own hand’s dampness in surprise. “Sideways is often harder to discover than upwards. Rather than using brute force, we must find clever ways to subtly shift our base two powers into something they are not. You can never force your two main magics to do something too inherently different than their base abilities, but you can branch out in a related way to give your magic more coverage than it normally can do naturally.

“The rain I summoned was illusory, yet I was able to manifest it as something ever so slightly more real. Now, if you were to put that water in a cup, you would learn within just a few minutes that the cup is empty. The water may be illusory, and as such, its effect on the real world only lasts for as long as I can focus my will. It also took me a long time to figure out that I could even do that. There are limits, of course. I could never make your hand wet with an illusion of a fireball, for example. Though, maybe I could convince your hand it had been burned. That burn, too, would only last as long as I could focus.”

“Magic is always give and take. Upwards is brute-force and its cost will tire your soul. Sideways is cleverness and its cost will tire your willpower. Not to mention it is generally much harder to figure out than simple brute force. You and I will explore both of these ways to expand your repertoire. By the end of our lessons together in a few years, someone like Hagal won’t even register as a threat.

“Let’s begin.”