Ulric stood warily. "May" he intoned inside his head. She said "may" not "will". That no doubt deliberate choice of words was all that stood between his existence as a man and his existence as a puddle strewn about with bony chunks of odds and ends. Lady Vedyr Iriel was still smiling though and Ulric was suitably terrified, though he was somewhat certain that he was hiding it well.

  A few more tense moments passed though and the woman relaxed her threatening aura.

  "I have not abandoned that option, Glade Chief. It would cost me my husband not speaking to me for a few decades, but I could do it. As I bend my thoughts to it, perhaps that might even be an argument in favor, the man has been purely insufferable lately. It may well require bearing him another son to find peace." Vedyr groused, losing her malicious smile at memory of her husband's relentless teasing.

  "Even if taunting deliberately to put her off balance, those things you said about my daughter, you meant them?" She said sharply.

  Ulric decided immediately against lying. He'd said it and Brighteyes had recited it, word for word, to the entire hall. There was no chance even an attempt at misdirection would save his bacon. Besides which, Ulric hated deceit like a former electric car company owner turned failed astronaut hated paying taxes. Still though, Ulric couldn't meet a mother's eyes with the admission. This was already up there with the most uncomfortable conversations he'd had in his life.

  "Well, I wouldn't have put it so crudely if I had had any intention of going anywhere but to a deathmatch about it, but, yeah, I guess I did." He capitulated.

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest and, for some reason, seemed to relax a little. Even though she'd heard him admit that he found her daughter to be at maximum boinkage. Elves were an odd sort of people like that.

  "Just as well you would not attempt to try hiding it. Many of my Geyrt's suiters lost face, very literally, in some cases, for attempting to hide their intent in courting her. She is a brilliant flower amongst her people, just as her parents are." Said the elf woman with no shame whatsoever.

  "I will not have a questionable entity known to misdirect or dissemble have charge of her. Better to anger my husband and keep my daughter's honor intact; he would get over it soon enough if I had reason to suspect your intent. Know that if any such thing happens, I would stand no chance of finding you first if he learned of any acts that impugned her dignity. Bald'rt Iriel holds my daughter first amongst the stars in his eyes." Vedyr warned, the threat gaining magnitude for its nebulous lack of specificity.

  This was not news to Ulric, the Elven lord had admitted as much publicly so it was, apparently, common knowledge. It was also a good enough reason to consider his Shadow as eyes only. An unwelcome touch would probably mean she had justification to inform her father that Ulric's ass was grass. If the woman herself didn't pull his heart out of his urethra, let us not forget that part Old Man, he told himself.

  Ulric was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to pull off that trick from before, Geyrt would take things slow and steady and shave him apart by the centimeter if it came to it. He knew Brighteyes thought he could take Geyrt evenly but Ulric himself had no such certainty. If he got her good with a spell, maybe. He'd probably lost a great deal of that advantage recently, having shown her most of the spells he was capable of using effectively against her.

  "It is not a matter that will arise, I assure you Lady Vedyr. No matter how strangely it has come about, or how much I wish that some other arrangement had been made, the current situation finds me responsible for the care of your daughter and her responsible for my well-being, oddly enough. I will do everything I can to see that she remains hale and whole. Besides, Brighteyes would be hurt if anything happened to her and I like that kid." Ulric said with surety.

  Vedyr accepted Ulric's spoken word, her face returning to its passive coolness. At last, she turned the subject away from considerations of Ulric's pre-emptive honor killing and towards his betterment.

  "I see now that my husband did not exaggerate your status. You are an anomolous creature. Stats are far outside the norm for your people and a core far more well developed than its unawakened condition should lead me to believe. Tell me, what do you know of a core and of mana?" Lady Vedyr asked, ready at last to instruct.

  Holding back a sigh of pure relief Ulric told her what he had hypothesized and what he had been able to observe through his senses.

  "I may only speak from the perspective of what I know from my prior life and what I have learned by my own experimentation.” Ulric prefaced, suddenly nervous.

  Memories of a dissertation suddenly sprang to mind. However, instead of a group of stodgy old lifers in the engineering department, there stood a simultaneously intoxicatingly bewitching and flat-out terrifying fantasy woman. And she might choose to show him exactly why her mighty husband walked softly around her. What pressure? I don’t feel a thing, nope, cool as a frozen cucumber is Ulric Einar, the disgruntled man noted sarcastically to himself. He took a calming breath and carried on with all the fortitude of a cliff jumper daring the rocks below.

  “The core is a sort of living crystal, a semi biological condenser of magic. It tunes to the raw mana of the world and draws it in, somehow, converting it to the body's own mana which may then be used. The body has channels, like blood vessels, that seem to connect through-out the body, allowing mana to move through them, again, sort of like blood. When I first arrived on the plateau, I got some kind of fever from my body not being acclimated to mana circulating through it. After the first time I emptied my core and used magic, the sickness went away and my core status changed to "tempered" from "untempered". About mana, I know from the Watcher the main elemental compositions of the world, the gist of the primordial and basic elements. I can feel the different compositions of elements in things around me using my own mana but that's about it. Most of what I can do is based on things that I learned from my old world. It generally works but there are unintended outcomes, frequently."

  Vedyr pursed her lips at some of his description, thinking out his statements and turning them to her own interpretations. Eventually she set about explaining the core as the Elves understood it.

  "Your thoughts are not, wrong, necessarily. They are, however, highly incomplete, as is understandable for one who has not been given instruction. The core is, as you say, the part of one's body that reaches out to the world, touches the Great Field directly, gathers the ambient mana, refines it, and then stores that mana for use. Many do not learn to utilize that mana in the way that you have done, as a mage does, externally. Most circulate the mana within themselves, building the potency of their bodies, allowing them to be faster and stronger than otherwise, to execute skills of their classes. You know of classes, yes?" She finished, waiting for Ulric's confirmation.

  When he gave it, she continued her lesson her tone going to that of a wizened school marm making sure particularly troublesome lads and lasses knew that the paddle was close to hand if they stepped out of line.

  "Good. You have a novice class already, no doubt gained from your experiences touching mana on your own and hunting the beasts of the wood and those scum who harmed my son. The classes represent a sort of evolution of the self, a growth into more of what you are or, sometimes, a break from what you were into a new interpretation of yourself. There are traits and skills that are universal to classes, the common features that define this role you have fallen into. Others though are unique, the specific techniques and abilities honed by your particular insights and experiences. Know that the classes are nothing if not variable in nature. There are hundreds of known classes, thousands of permutations. Some are exceedingly common, especially those base classes such as Warrior, Hunter, Mage, and so forth. Some are known to have been held by only a rare few. My husband is one such. There have only been a handful of Moonlit Berserkers, the conditions to walk this path being stringent and specific. And also, hopelessly cruel. It is not a thing to wish on a loved one." Vedyr lectured.

  She was surprisingly clear and concise in her explanation, neither being overbroad nor running down rabbit holes that would confuse him with their detail. She continued on to explain the growth of a core, tiers of development, and to give Ulric a warning about his own fate.

  "You are at a dangerous place in your development, Ulric Glade Chief. You have learned to harness your core's power and wield it externally but have not reinforced yourself to any significant degree. Many mages do this, but only under the strictest of guidance. To be a feral mage, untrained, unguided, is to walk a razor's edge. It is easy to lose control, to guide mana into a binding, a knot of misconceived power and intent that causes a backlash. Such a backlash can destroy your core easily or turn the flesh to ash. Worse for you, you are drawing more mana in your unawakened core than is safe."

  The backlash thing Ulric had felt before, as a result of failing to effectively overcharge spells. Holding the mana that way was difficult and required a lot of focus as well as "stamina" from his core, he got tired and the mana got slippery. Failure sent a shockwave back into the core and had been one of the more distinctly uncomfortable experiences he'd had. Good to know that you could do the same thing when casting spells, it was sounding a lot like doing something about which you had insufficient knowledge was the main cause. So don't get fancy with experimenting unless you’re fresh, got it.

  "Safe or not, it appears you are not yet at the point where an awakening of your core to true tier three status is imminent. This you will know for sure, un-aspected mana is wildly reactive to the aspected mana around it. It will naturally seek to harmonize, and your core will want to harmonize with it. In its current state though, it cannot. This builds a tension between your internal mana and the world around you, as the density of the mana within you grows, so will the tension. If you continue to grow in strength your core will reach a threshold where it cannot contain the pure mana and must re-crystalize to a harmonic form, aspecting itself in the process to prevent catastrophic resonances. This is the process for awakening. You can control this process, to an extent, by intentionally tuning all of the mana in your body to a specific form, be it primordial, never do this, elemental, or something esoteric. Surrounding yourself in a place where this particular mana is dense assists greatly. Well. Enough of that, you can discuss elemental theory later with Sister Shor." Lectured the instructor who put Idra to shame for her intensity.

  “Now, Glade Chief, I would like to see these spells that you have in your status. Show me each one, in whatever order that you choose. You don't need to use much strength, I only want to see how you are utilizing your mana." His Ruby eyed Elf Queen requested, pointing to the center of the arena.

  Ulric focused on his core and pulled gently, not intending to go full power with anything, not yet. Concentrating Ulric pulled mana and harmonized it to Terra, solid and stationary, pulling it into a waste high barrier, that formed a circular ring with [Stone Wall]. The wash of ambient mana made it easier and harder. Easier since he felt like he wasn't needing to draw as much from himself, harder since it had a sort of wild feeling, a coltish excitation that accelerated the flow. He was glad he'd started with something a little on the slow and steady side of things, instead of one of his Ceraun experiments.

  Reaching again he tuned his mana towards Caelum, wind, and fired a [Windscythe] at the stone wall that bit out a thin slice of rock. At that short range the spell didn't have time to accelerate itself to true potency but this was just a demonstration of how he used the mana, not the total effectiveness of the spell. Similarly [Flame Crash] launched with low amounts of mana, was not impressive, merely blackening the stone as it washed over the wall in a small radius. The mana in the room really did take some getting used to, his spells, normally practiced into rote instinct, were squirrely.

  Holding both hands out Ulric channeled his core to shift from Incendere, fire, to Aquae, water, releasing a tightly focused [Hydrocutter] that scoured a gouge out of the burned stone. Having none of either of the two elemental manas freely available to him, unlike the stone and air, Ulric had pulled much more mana to achieve these last two spells. The ambient mana made that much easier he could almost feel his core breathing it in, the hot and cold pulses chewing it into his own un-aspected mana supply before bending it towards his mental constructs.

  Now they were coming to the hard part. Ulric started easy, Infrig coating his arm to form [Ice Blade] which he threw at the stone as he had the Beastkin marauder, what felt like years ago. The Cold blade bit into the stone and raised frost around its wound, cracking the rock as it erased the residual heat of the [Flame Crash] and expanded the water remaining inside the [Hydrocutter] hole freezing it.

  Ulric dropped his hands and inhaled deeply a few times, giving himself a moment to gather himself. He hadn't cast like this in a little while, and chaining spells was taxing. It inflicted a mental exhaustion on him and that was aside from the actual feeling of losing mana, which was a little like your brain being out of breath.

  He pushed on though and approached the stone keeping the feel of Infrig. This was going to be a hard one. Ulric put his hand on the top of the stone and concentrated, creating a marble sized sphere of [Absolute Zero] where his hand touched, for only a moment. Stone froze completely around it, as the small region of total cold was spread into the surrounding material, frozen mist poured away from the site and Ulric easily broke away the section of stone, though he dropped it immediately when he felt the burning cold of it on his skin. The stone disintegrated into dust as it fell, hitting the ground as a cloud of particles that poofed to join the fog around the cold mass.

  Vedyr had watched with an even expression thus far but when she saw [Absolute Zero] her eyes went wide and she nearly took a step forward before catching herself and settling back into her examination. If she liked that, she was about to get a real show.

  Placing his hands together, Ulric carefully drew his mana to tune Ceraun. It felt almost hungry in this environment, like the ambient mana made the very air more conductive. He trusted his instincts on this and spread his hands to allow [Voltaic Grip] to climb arcing between them. Concentrating hard he pulled the mana inwards and inflected [Voltaic Grip] into its newest form, the dozens of searing white arcs collapsing into a single thicker ribbon of flickering power that Ulric pushed to leap into the stone where it skipped, almost joyfully, to its own crackling song across the surface, leaving a bubbled, scorched, angry red molten trails at its touch, the manifestation of his [Voltaic Riot].

  On the home stretch now and feeling fairly good, almost like he had when he'd gone for his sprint earlier, Ulric bent down to pick up a small piece of broken rock. He was going to need a target for this next one. Vedyr was safely behind him so he wasn't as afraid of shrapnel this time, the small handful of stone didn't have enough mass to it to probably do much damage. Not in as many pieces as it was about to be.

  Again, Ulric imagined the whirling spiral, black following white, positive leading negative on a merry chase through the held stone, building the link between his budding lightning and its soon to be ground. The atmosphere changed as the charge built, even as hard as Ulric was fighting it to stay contained small arcs jumped from his hand into the air, the raw potential giving the air a nearly metallic flavor. Ceraun raced from his core through its tightening loop imposing his will on the physical forces of the world, bringing the electromagnetic to heel. It took less time now, here in this place, than it ever had and Ulric was glad to relieve the pressure as he flung the stone hard and released his grip.

  [Lightning Javelin] ripped a crackling line through the air to destroy the thrown rock. Tiny fragments pelted Ulric's blocking hand but were too small to do damage. Thunder roared through the arena echoing in the space aggressively. The air itself seemed to soak up some of the released energy deadening it or Ulric was pretty sure he would have had a blown ear drum.

  That last spell took all he had left, he was at mana exhaustion. Even in this place where the air hummed with magic, he couldn't run through his entire spell list without being completely drained, not as taxing as the advanced Infrig and Ceraun spells were on his mana supply. Outside of this wyrd amphitheater he doubted he could have managed these last two spells. Headache throbbing and the beating core fatigue dragging his energy down, Ulric turned to his instructor to give her a thumbs up.

  Vedyr Iriel looked like she was chewing the air, shock written across her face. Lady Bathe dropped from the air to land next to her sister-wife, looking for the source of the blast.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  From the air? Ulric questioned. Did she just jump from all the way over there? His mind was still trying to wrap itself around that when Shor approached in a stately saunter with a chastened Geyrt in tow.

  Ulric's shadow was mumbling behind her keeper in Elvish. Ulric couldn't quite catch it from that distance but he heard "Told you", "senseless", and "monster" in there somewhere. That was quite the complement if anybody asked him, especially in light of Brighteyes' mother Superman jumping around the place. As they closed in on him, Ulric noticed that he was distinctly outnumbered on the sexes front. If all four of them descended on him with their henpecking they'd make short work of him, and he committed to a tried and true strategy of nods and "Yes ma'm"s for the forseeable future.

  With the four of them gathered round and Ulric's head throbbing to the beat of mana exhaustion, now seemed like a good time to lay low and say nothing. Unfortunately, the Dragons of the castle were circling hungrily and they had a wayward mortal to consume, should he step out of place.

  "What do we have here? Has Winter's Herald found a way inside the Arcanum?" Shor spoke jokingly, her sphinxlike expression at odds with the playful tone of voice.

  Ulric shrugged lightly but said nothing.

  "It would appear that our wayward husband was not being facetious when he claimed our new guest to be a talent with whom we would be well to ally." Vedyr said, audibly impressed.

  "He has run through a set of most basic elemental forms, each an efficient weapon, and a few that I have never heard of, much less seen practiced by a rank novice." She told the crowd.

  "Tell me, how did you hold Ceraun like that without dying? I have seen master mages call lightning, create webs of power around themselves, and effect spells that dwarf what you did in sheer power but none of them could hold it in their hands or direct through themselves. So, what did you do?" his Red-haired enigma of a tutor inquired, violating his personal space in her enthusiasm.

  Ulric very decidedly found something interesting just behind her shoulder to look at and sort of sideways scooched, slowly, while he considered the question. This again, these people were really hung up on the whole directing currents problem. Even so, Ulric tried to keep a diplomatic attitude about it, everybody had something to learn from everybody. Besides, he was Playing Nice now.

  “Yes, ma’m, I’ll do my best to be clear ma’m.” Ulric started, "I explained it to your daughter last night, but it didn't seem to make much sense, and we were interrupted, so forgive me if my answer is lacking.”

  The serene expression did not alter a whit but her hand rolled in circles in that multidimensional gesture that said “get to the fucking point already”.

  “You don't really hold the energy, you just gather it and give it a path to follow. So long as Ceraun has a path that is favorable it will circulate happily through your core and mana channels, though you do need to insulate your mana channels or they can be damaged by residual energy. Ceraun is, inherently, a thing of balance. A binary force where positive and negative attract while positive and positive or negative and negative, repel. By using the push and pull it is easy to contain and direct the flow where you want it, if you can focus on keeping things isolated, which is the hard part. It likes to run away from you if you don't keep the circuit nice and clean, and once things hit a large enough concentration of power all bets are off without serious protection from breakdowns. But by leveraging its tendency to want to balance I can dictate where I want the grounding, the sink where I want the power to go." Ulric explained, trying to limit the use of technical terms and rambling slightly as he considered the vagaries of magic, yet again.

  Shor tapped her lips, deep in thought. Bathe and Vedyr looked at each other and then back at him. They spoke simultaneously.

  "That is insanity."

  "I'm afraid I don't follow."

  Ulric scratched his beard. The damned thing had grown out tremendously and he'd never worn one before. Unbelievable how much it itched on occasion. Or trapped food. Anyway, how to proceed? He wondered.

  "Hmm…" he pondered how to explain lightning and electricity to people who only thought about things in terms of mana. They were Elves, so they knew all about shooting bows right? Not racist at all there Ulric just painting a whole species of people with the same Tolkienesque brush. Ass. He pushed on past his own ignorance long enough to build a metaphor that might help him out of this conundrum.

  "So, you know how shooting a bow requires you to build energy in the bowstave by drawing the string right?" He started rhetorically, continuing before anyone could reply, "Well, all the energy you're giving to the arrow is right there in the bow, but it isn't dangerous to you because you aren't going to be where the arrow lands, the arrow is your vehicle, carrying your energy to the target and delivering it destructively at the arrow head. They way I've heard Geyrt talk about casting Ceraun it sounds like your mages require a catapult to launch their arrows, they can't simply be the bow themselves. Are you with me so far?" Ulric checked.

  Shor gestured for him to go on so he did.

  "The way I do it, there is very little danger to me, so long as I maintain the spell construct, the integrity of the bow, if you will. If that fails then, of course, the energy stored has to go somewhere and that would be my body, just as the bow could explode in your hands if the tensions are too high. If my concentration is firm and my spell form is correctly structured, I can simply make myself part of the circuit and pass the energy around. By denying it a ground within myself, a place where the energy might stagnate or end its flow and thereby deliver the mana to my own body, I can be, more or less, entirely safe. When I want to release the spell, I can simply make a path for it to travel along, using that same type of mana to build a bridge to my target and the Ceraun will happily flow along it, like water naturally running downhill along the path of least resistance." Ulric finished, hoping he was getting somewhere with this.

  Shor was nodding along occasionally but the other two did not look convinced of anything. Geyrt had assumed that previous blank expression that said he had long since lost her.

  Bathe eventually shook her head negatively.

  "Glade Chief I think that this thing you do, might be unique to your experience as a Reforged. There appears to be a realm of knowledge, a perspective that no Aes’r can have, which guides your spellcraft." The Golden Elf said slowly.

  Shor spoke up then, the only one who had been, near as Ulric could tell, following along.

  "Glade Chief you speak like one of the savants, those rare few who have a natural intuition about the ebb and weave of an element, who are so in tune with their instinctive knowledge that they cannot explain how or what they know. Your words have some logical pattern to them but behind them I feel there are a thousand details that you have not mentioned, each and every one necessary to build a comprehensive understanding of the whole. Any Elf who tried what you have described, lacking those details that are so ingrained in your paradigm as to not even be worth mention, would result in instant death."

  Lastly Vedyr put the final nail in the coffin of Ulric's ever teaching anyone how to apply his knowledge to control mana.

  "It is as my Sisters and my Son have said, though I would not have believed it until this point. Your people trained to see magic in a way that likely no others on this world have seen it, in a way that is impossible for us to reproduce without that experience, immersed as we are in our own traditions and lacking any of the requisite knowledge of yours. I can see how what you describe might be done, how I might modify some of my own spell casts to take advantage of the principle ideas. But I have no idea how to start with that Infrig spell that so violently froze stone. I cannot turn Ceraun inwards, not and survive my own magic's destructive action. It would seem that our lessons may not be as fruitful as I first thought, or that, perhaps, they will be more fruitful, if and only if you are able to adapt the way that we Elves have conceptualized magic, compared to the ways that your own people have taught you." Bald'rt's first wife concluded with finality.

  That there was a mouthful. But why? Why couldn't they do it, if someone showed them how?

  "Before I am ready to admit that you cannot reproduce my methods, I need to know how, exactly, is it that you make magic?" Ulric asked.

  Shor answered him immediately. Crisp words explaining with precision.

  "Magic is the manifestation of a caster's will on the world. Mana is the energy with which they enact that will, to use your earlier analogy, the vehicle of change. Differently to how you interpreted it though, mana is also the destination. To cause change you must use your mana to change the mana of the world. You have already experienced this, have you not?"

  "Yes ma’m, I have, please continue." He replied quickly, having a feeling that Lady Shor did not frequently give away so many of her thoughts freely.

  "Most mages of most disciplines have eventually arrived at the same three foundations of magic, even if their specific approaches to each vary wildly, to the point that they are incompatible to be transmitted from one tradition to another, the thought constructs not being compatible. Firstly, is the Will. The mage's desire to change the world, to reach out through themselves and take hold of the mana, forcing the world to mirror their desire. Without the Will there can be no change, the flows of mana, the state of being of the world, these are heavy and to change them takes conviction. This is the first barrier to most mages, they simply lack the Will to force the mana to hear their call. You have already breached this barrier so I will go on, yes?" Shor paused only briefly, like a stone gathering momentum as it fell.

  "Secondly there is the Way. The conceptual path that dictates how your Will is enacted, the attuning of the proper mana and its degree, the braiding of multiple flows if necessary to weave your path from beginning to destination. This is the second barrier, many mages who have the strength of will to take hold of their mana fail to produce change because they do not understand how to make that change. They lack knowledge, they lack vision. They cannot see the path so they wander blindly and this can lead them to their destruction. Many mages are killed because of the failure to fully forge the Way and the backlash of this failure slays them. This is where you and the Elves diverge in your casting. Your Way is not ours, your vision of reality is not how an Elf envisions reality and thus the path you follow is not one an Elf can follow, not without losing their Way. Shall I go on?"

  Ulric mulled it over briefly. He wanted to stop and chew on this, to ask a hundred questions; there was so much information so fast, Shor was describing the fundamental approach of the people of this world to magecraft. Yet, he also felt like the picture was incomplete and that stopping her before he had it all would lead him down rabbit holes that were not necessary to investigate. Patience, he decided.

  "Go on, I'm following you. I think. I have questions but you should finish your thoughts completely before I ask you something you were about to tell me anyway." Ulric told her.

  The other wives were paying more attention to Geyrt than they were to Ulric at this point, clearly this was something that they already knew without listening and just as clearly his Shadow did not. Ulric did note that Vedyr elbowed her daughter not gently in the arm with a hissed "Listen to Mother Shor. You will attend lessons properly or I will peel your rump, no matter your age." which made her scowl at Ulric, for some reason, and give the crimson haired woman her full attention.

  Ulric had long since given the enigmatic lady his full mind. He would have been embarrassed if he was aware of how intensely he was staring. Staring at her face, you goons.

  "Good. The last principle is the simplest but also the hardest to progress." Mother Shor spoke firmly, the weight of her words bearing down on him, "It is Might. Sheer strength. The power of your mana imposing itself on the world driven by your core, driven by the precision of your intent. What some may do through technique and refinement of their Way another may do through power alone. This is where the refinement of your body and of your core becomes crucial. There is only so much mana a physical body can channel before that mana impresses itself on the body and runs rampant, turning the form of the mage into the form of the mana. There are times, rarely and only for a mage powerfully in tune with their techniques, when this is a normal part of the spellcraft, but most often this is where a mage hits the third barrier and is destroyed.”

  Bathe stepped in, with a commentary that was a bit too matter of fact compared to how terrible its implications were.

  “Overtaxation of the core and its capacity can burn the flesh from within, can rupture the core or the conduits that carry its powers. This frequently cripples or kills the caster, or destroys the growth and combat potential of the classed warrior. Manaburn or a cracked core is not the worst outcome, however.”

  Shor nodded her agreement, sending a wave of crimson locks that nearly reached the floor before she continued scaring the shit out of him.

  “Worse is when the mana rules the mage. They become an elemental, a being consumed by their own mana. Instead of enacting their will on the mana it enacts its own on them, dominating them. The person who was the mage is gone, scoured clean. There can be no coming back from this, done is done. Therefore, you must refine your body, strengthening its ability to channel mana without being corrupted, reinforcing your core's ability to gather and refine that mana to purity and manipulating it with utmost precision. Only by using your core and refining your control can you gain in might, and resist the corruption of your own power, Glade Chief." Shor said with finality.

  This lesson was just chock full of neat little holes through which he might have fallen and game overed. Mages had a rough way to go, no wonder he hadn’t seen very many wondering around.

  They had also, at last, come down to the chief difference in how Ulric cast compared to the Elves. Ulric had access to information well beyond the experience of maybe any single person on this world, that wasn't like himself. He was significantly lacking in the oomph department compared to the more practiced mages, having had such limited time to train himself. He’d done alright for himself, given that the only time he had been able to do so was when the weather in the glade did not permit him to hunt or work on projects to improve his home. That is, aside from the few hours between dark and his bed. If not for his daily routine of exhausting his mana completely he probably wouldn't have come nearly as far as he had, so hooray for hard work. And, it was as he had hypothesized earlier when Geyrt described Elven spellcasting. Absent the understanding of foundational principles they were brute forcing certain things that ought not be forced, like electric discharge potentials of a couple of million volts. That meant they couldn't build in the safeguards that he could to protect himself. Similar to how he'd botched his first attempt at lightning by forgetting to set a specific target distance and neglecting to create a potential path before accumulating dangerous amounts of charge.

  So much was left out of Shor's lesson though. How did mana become matter? Was mana a form of matter itself, made ethereal and given focus by a mage's core? He had so many questions still. What was the deal with the primordial elements he'd been warned not to touch? Beyond the basic elements what other combinations could be achieved? He was sure lava or molten magic was possible through Incendere and Terra. He was likewise sure that Acquae and Caelum would allow a mage to create weather or storms. But what about lasers? Was it pure light only or could Ulric cheat with sufficiently controlled Ceraun pulses? These were the questions racing through his mind. Today would not be the day for answers however.

  Vedyr broke him free of his flitting thoughts on magic.

  "I can see our guest has much on his mind. As have we three been given much to think on. I would suggest a break from today's lesson, to give all parties a chance to ponder new information. It is best to build on solid foundations, driving any further will merely prevent sufficient progress. There is also the matter of Winter's Herald and the observances for the dead. Glade Chief you have given our daughter permission to stray from your side during this time and I thank you again for this consideration." Geyrt's dam said, gently now, and without any of her earlier veiled hostility.

  The three goddesses of Elvendom each gave a short bow with hands just touching forehead, a ritualistic gesture that Ulric hadn't seen before and left him standing there awkwardly.

  "It's nothing, really, family is family, the lass is welcome to join you, of course." Ulric stammered.

  "Tomorrow there will be no lessons, it is a day to weather the storm and remember kin absent this season's end. It is a fasting day for the Elves, Glade Chief so if you require nourishment it would be best that you visit the Meal Courts before you retire, if you so choose." Bathe informed him.

  "Fear not." Interjected Shor.

  "The day following Winter's Herald is a feast day and celebration of the year gone by. It will be a sight rarely seen by any otherkin, for only the Iriel'en celebrate in this manner. Most of the rest of Orlethrem will be having small family meetings or a gathering of small rings. A few will be having carnivals for the young men and women of marrying age. Here in Iriel though, at least in normal times, the unmarried would be going full tilt to tie themselves up a partner to ride out the winter cold. And I did mean ride--Oof! Forgiveness Bathe, a jest in poor taste." the Crimson woman finished, doubled over and wheezing.

  Shor's ribald preamble to gods knew what further debauchery was cut short by a not so gentle elbow to her solar plexus. Ulric was forced to turn his attention to the carved reliefs of the ceiling or fall into the precariously displayed cleavage of her dress.

  It figured. For all her exquisitely statuesque poker face she'd married Bald'rt so they had to have had something in common. Once again however, Brighteyes' mother came to the rescue and maintained her iron grip over her more roguish marital partners.

  Vedyr was smiling openly now. Whether at the joke, her Sister Wife's physical chastisement, or Bathe's eye rolling or all of them Ulric would only be guessing. Geyrt had an almost vanishing grin for her Aunt or Sister-Mother or however the fuck they did things in the Great House of Iriel.

  Bathe was clearly ready to get the show on the road before her kin did anything else to destroy the image of dignity held by the royal family, losing battle as that must have been given Bald'rt's observed behavior. Gathering up the still gasping Shor in a one-armed embrace that would hold as truly as anchor chain, Brighteyes’ dam brought the meeting to a close.

  "Let us adjourn here today. We have all learned things new and the day has been already full of happenings. We will retire to our quarters and leave you to spend what little day is left in peace Glade Chief. Do not dally before returning to your apartments though, you have a long path to travel and the storm is close. The winds have been known to gust strong enough to toss a careless one to the mercy of the tree tops below. May you enjoy a tranquil rest on the morrow."

  Ulric recognized a dismissal when he heard one, even as graceful a one as he'd been given. That bird was alright, no wonder Brighteyes turned out like he did, Ulric thought.

  "Thank you all for your instruction and for your hospitality. Like a second home I have. I will go now to my own devices. Happy holidays." Ulric told the room.

  Immediately, Ulric turned from the gathered women and fled the room in good order. Winds raced as he ascended staircases and wound through the empty streets. A particularly strong gust was nearly able lift him from his feet but he grabbed a roofless stall post to anchor himself and then made time to the cafeteria. A pair of plates loaded down with bread, meat, cheese, and jamfruit accompanied him back to his rooms without incident. Kicking the door closed behind him he set the plates down on his small table before sighing into a chair.

  "Now that was a godsdamn day." He told the empty room.