They awoke to the sound of rain slashing against the exterior of their pavilion, sapping their heat and weighing down their air. Livia and Emilie were able to mitigate the mild headaches and sore throats they all had with their white magic, and they agreed to wait for the rain to pass before getting back on the road. They popped two of their lesser traveller motes in order to top up the energies of the pavilion, knowing it would’ve likely soon expired otherwise, leaving them to get drenched.

“Well,” Pippy piped up, “since we’re not going anywhere just yet, why don’t we try some more magic practice?”

“Sure,” Krey shrugged, shaking his head. “It’ll pass the time, if nothing else.”

“That’s the spirit, you miserable git,” Livia jabbed. “Maybe you won’t set fire to yourself this time.”

“And, maybe,” Krey retorted with a grin, “you’ll blow wind out of your hands instead of your arse this time.”

“And maybe, just maybe,” Emilie spoke over them, “we will actually take this exercise seriously.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Krey raised his hands, “we are. Aren’t we, Livia?”

“Absolutely,” she nodded stiffly. “Very seriously.”

“Hmm… very well.”

“Okay!” Pippy took control of the group. “Livia, why don’t we start with you? I think I’ve got a new approach to teaching you that’ll be much better than last time!”

“Oh yeah? And what might that b—” Livia’s sentence became a scream as she was suddenly flung up through the top of the pavilion, tearing a person-shaped hole in it. “—EEEEEEE?! AAAAAGH! PIPPYYYY!”

“Come on!” Pippy cried. “Stop yourself from falling! If you don’t, it’s gonna hurt!”

What goes up must come down, and so Livia did. However, as she was about to reenter the hole she’d punched in the pavilion’s ceiling… she felt a rush of momentum in her limbs. She let her legs close and straighten out, and let the currents rushing around her to draw her wrists together, straightening her arms out toward the ground. Right as she crossed the fabric threshold, she pulled her knees up to her chest and pushed her hands outward as hard as she could, closing her eyes. There should’ve been an impact… but there wasn’t… when she opened her eyes, she saw that she was keeping herself suspended just above the ground with a sustained blast of wispy luminescence. The wind magic blew what little warm air they had left out into the cold, and at this Livia shivered. This broke her concentration, causing her to lose the airomantic flow and drop onto her front… but from a much lower height than she would have without it. She stood up unharmed; she had saved herself in the heat of the moment.

“Holy shit!” both Livia’s body and voice were shaking. “Holy… holy… wow! What just happened? Did I…?”

“Yep!” Pippy cheered. “I knew you would!”

“But, next time, warn me before you catapult me into the air, damn it! I could’ve been killed!”

“If I warned you, then it would’ve defeated the whole point!”

“She’s right,” Emilie said. “You have an affinity for the paradigm of adapt-or-die, Livia; you actually perform better under duress, rather than buckling under the pressure. At least… I sense that I have observed so.”

Livia felt herself calming down. “I… y’know, that might not be inaccurate. Wow, Pippy… how did you know? We haven’t known each other that long, but you figured me out just like that.”

“Let’s just say I’m… a people person.”

“Uh huh…” Livia just let it go, accepting the oddities of this girl who’d dropped out of the proverbial sky and right into their laps like a gift from above.

“Krey!” Pippy burst. “You’re up next!”

“Oh boy,” he exhaled. “Got a crazy teaching strategy for me too, Pippy? I’d rather not put any more holes in our shelter.”

“Stop worrying so much!” Pippy slapped his armoured shoulder. “No, really, stop it; that’s the lesson for you today. Fire exists without a care in the world, a pure reverie of whimsy. So, if you want fire to be your friend, you’ve got to not be such a downer! Don’t be so controlling, fire hates that! When you use any given magic, you have to let its personality flourish.”

“Magic has… personality?”

“Not literally! Well, not literally for most magics, anyway.”

“What—?”

“Just do it! Just… flame! Don’t think about it! Go go go NOW!”

Krey couldn’t think with Pippy yapping in his ear… but, in the end, that proved to be the point. With his mind forcibly cleared, Krey could allow the undisciplined emotion buried deep down to rise to his surface. And, without forcing it, he simply let the fire ignite in his palm.

“See?” Pippy nearly whispered now, allowing Krey to gently cradle the flame in his hand. “When you free yourself, and let the fire be free, it will serve you. You must let the fire do things of its own volition— you cannot tame it. If it likes you, then it will indulge you, and pursue the fulfilment of your wishes.”

“So… fire is one of the magics with a real personality, huh?”

“What? No, haha, no! Well… maybe? No, I don’t think so.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Truth is, none of this makes any sense. You have to find the sense for yourself in the flame. Ever stared into a fire and gone into deep thought? That’s you and the fire bonding, melding in form and sensation.”

“You’re right… it doesn’t make sense, and yet it does. What splendid chaos.” The fireball in his hand suddenly extinguished. “Wha—! Hey! Where’d it go?”

“Don’t worry,” Pippy said, “it’ll be back. Keep practising, keep getting to know the fire, and it will lend itself to your will more and more. Realise the joy of indulging your inner flame, and it will indulge you in turn.”

“Now then!” Pippy clapped her hands. “Last, but not least, is our lovely lady of the cloth! Emilie!”

Emilie pinched the bridge of her nose and smiled. “Alright, Pippy, what baffling strategy do you plan to use on me?”

“A change in perspective!”

“I suppose I’m not going to get an explanation?”

“Nope! Not yet, anyway. Just be patient, and it’ll all make sense soon.”

“Very well. I am ready to begin.”

“Okay, first, give me a demo of your lumomancy.”

“My lumomancy?” Emilie scrutinised her. “But… am I not trying to learn cryomancy at the moment?”

“Please,” Pippy insisted. “Entertain me.”

Emilie nodded, and after a moment of silent focus, produced a faintly glowing sphere of white light in her hands, letting it float away from her and brighten up the pavilion.

Pippy stroked her chin and inspected the orb. “Hmm… when you use lumomancy, what do you think?”

“I think that I wish for light to appear. I call on the gods for light.”

“And what do you think when you try to use cryomancy?”

“I pray for the gods to extinguish the warmth before me, to rid my target of heat.”

“Aha! Okay, okay… I know what the problem is! Don’t try to get rid of the heat; call on the cold! Magic ice is not the same as mundane ice; it isn’t the lack of heat, but the presence of cold! Magic ice is a positive instead of a negative— not an absence, but a substance all its own. All traditional elemental magic works this way. Go on, try again!”

“Okay…” Emilie took a deep breath.

“One other thing,” Pippy said.

Emilie released her breath as a sigh. “Yes?”

“Don’t just reach out to the gods for the magic; reach into yourself! You’ve got to let the magic flow through you, your mana, not through something that isn’t here with you right now. Don’t just pray for the gods’ strength, pray for your own!”

“I…” Emilie squinted. “I… this is a very different approach for me… but I will try. Alright…” a deep breath again. “Here I go.”

Slowly, Emilie reached out with one hand while clutching her rosary to her chest with the other. For a few minutes, nothing occurred, and it seemed as if nothing would happen… but, then, her outstretched fingers became gradually coated in a pale, glimmering frost. “Ah!” Emilie recoiled from herself at first… but then brought her hand closer to her face, to get a better look. “How… how curious! It is cold, but… it is not unpleasant!”

“Your own serenity and grace manifest!” Pippy proclaimed. “At least, it might help to think of it that way. The gods inspire you, don’t they, Emilie?”

“Why, yes, of course they do.”

“And that’s what gives you this power. It’s not so simple as a direct transfer of power from the gods to you; it’s never so simple. The gods can give you power, but they cannot mould it for you. You have to do that yourself, and you have to have faith in yourself. Remember that the gods chose you, Emilie, because you are worthy in your own right; don’t think that you have no strength of your own; this frost on your fingers is proof.”

“I… thank you, Pippy. This has been a most rewarding experience… even if it is not all that impressive.”

“It’ll take time,” Pippy insisted. “For all of you, it’ll take time. But keep at it! We’ll be a rainbow of elements before long, I can feel it!”

The air fell silent around them, though they didn’t notice until shafts of light entered through the hole in the ceiling. The rain had passed; it was time to get back on the road.