Metamorphoses and Magic, Part Four

"What should I start with?" asked Abby. "Fire?"

Sophia shook her head. "Fire's unpredictable. Let's start with something simple and safe: air. I'm going to teach you a set of very simple words and gestures. Don't worry about what they mean -- not yet, anyway. The important part right now is for you to fill them with some of your own energy, and then release them into that space you sensed earlier." 

"Um," said Abby. "What's it do?" 

"Just a little puff of wind," Sophia told her. "Enough for me to feel it, though if you succeed we'll feel it in the magic itself."

"Okay," said Abby, relaxing slightly. "Okay, I can do that."

Sophia spoke the phrase and Abby did her best to echo it; it took several tries before she had it down. Then they went through the gestures, and  getting the timing to do them together. 

To Sophia's apparent surprise, a tiny gust of wind appeared on Abby's first try. She shook her head, grinning. "Lyceus was right. You're a prodigy. It takes most apprentice mages weeks to manage even that much -- to make that connection and push it out."

Abby felt herself grinning too. "It helps that I got to feel you and Lyceus doing it," she said. 

"It does," Sophia agreed.  "It helped me, too. But that kind of sensitivity... again, most apprentices will spend weeks -- if not months -- on basic workings like this before they even begin to develop some sensitivity to what they're doing."

"Huh," said Abby. "So my power isn't just changing me, it also makes me sensitive to magic."

"Changing you?" asked Sophia.

"Yeah." Abby looked away. "That's why I was in such a hurry to, um, be with your brother."

Sophia put a hand over her eyes. "I should not know this."

"While I'm still human, or human-looking, I mean. My power's changing me, transforming me into something else. It's slow, unless I get hurt. Then I heal fast, but instead of normal scars my flesh is different."

"Well, that's, um..." Sophia hesitated.

"Terrifying," Abby supplied. "I don't talk about it much. Cat knows, and I have a monthly checkup with Ms. Campbell, but... it would be really nice if it had an upside to it, like letting me do magic."

"Well," said Sophia, "I think we can safely say that it does that."