“What is magic?” Beauty asked rhetorically. “How do we define it? Can we define it? Or, by its nature, is it even possible to completely define?” As he asked the questions, he walked across the front of the classroom—Beast immediately going over and taking his seat—to stop on the opposite side of the room. “Cadet Trium, if I were to ask you if Beast’s transformation is magical, what would you say?”

  “I’d say it’s terrifying,” the cadet said without thinking.

  Even from where Det sat, two rows back from the woman, he could see her ears redden in embarrassment at saying that out loud.

  “I mean, I’d say it’s that and magical,” Trium said, sitting up straighter in her chair. One look in Beast’s direction had her breaking immediately, curling up and looking at the top of her desk like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

  “Why would you say it’s magical?” Beauty pressed.

  “Be… cause…” Trium started, grasping for a reason. “Because I can’t logically explain how she did it? Somebody that small shouldn’t be able to become something that big.”

  “So, your definition of magic is something you can’t explain how it was done?”

  “Of course not,” Trium said, seeing the trap Beauty was laying. “There are plenty of things I can’t explain, and they aren’t magic. What’s the saying about sufficiently advanced science being akin to magic? I don’t know how cars work, but I don’t think they’re magic.”

  “Why not?” Beauty pressed.

  “Because somebody else knows how to make them run. And there are millions of them.”

  “Ah, so, to be magic, something needs to be rare, and inexplicable?” Beauty refined the definition.

  “I guess so,” Trium said.

  “You came to Mount Avalon on a mistship, did you not?” Beauty asked, though he had to know the answer to the question. Avalon was a pillar, like everything else, and the only way to travel between pillars was by mistship.

  “Yes, sir,” Trium said.

  “Are they magic? The mistships.”

  “Uh… no?” Trium said. “They’re just flying ships.”

  “How do they fly?”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Then how do you know they’re not magic?” Beauty pressed.

  “Fine, then they’re magic!”

  “Why?”

  “Because you just said…!”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Beauty interrupted. “I asked.”

  “What does it even matter?” Trium grumbled. “We’re not here to learn about mistships.”

  “That may be true for you,” Beauty said, but looked back to Sage and Eriba. “Is that true for everybody in this room?”

  “I’m really confused, sir,” Trium said, a hint of defeat in her voice. “What is magic then?”

  “Are you sure you’re ready for the answer already? You won’t like it,” Beauty said.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Magic is… magic.”

  Everybody in the room waited for more. It didn’t come.

  “You were right. I don’t like the answer,” Trium said.

  Beauty gave her a patient smile, the expression stretching the scar down his face, before he walked back to the center of the classroom.

  “Magic, here on Elestar, has too many forms to be easily defined. It’s not like the ‘magic’ we were exposed to on Earth. It is not slight of hand, deception, or distraction. It’s not spell slots, MP, mana, or chants and hand gestures. It isn’t equations of esoteric symbols, or geometric patterns of ether that alter reality.

  “It’s not any of those things, while at the same time it’s all of them.

  “Magic on Elestar takes many, many forms, with few of them repeating exactly. In this room alone, we have twenty-two ReSouled, with twenty-two unique forms of magic. I shall use myself as an example,” Beauty said, then lifted his arm to slowly draw a circle in the air in front of himself.

  More than seeing the simple gesture, Det heard music as the man moved. It was a simple, alternating sequence of notes, but as soon as Beauty’s hand reached its starting point, there was an invisible pulse, and Det sat up straighter. There was a vigour burning in his body, like he’d just chugged an energy drink, without any of the jittery buzz.

  “My magic,” Beauty said. “Allows me to create music by moving my body. This music in-turn grants buffs to my allies, or debuffs to my enemies.”

  “You could save the world through interpretive dance,” a cadet in the back corner said, earning a few chuckles from the rest of the class.

  “Who’s to say I haven’t already done that?” Beauty said, face straight.

  “Twice, I think,” Beast said from where she sat at the desk.

  The straight-man act between the pair had the chuckles nervously dying off. They couldn’t be serious, could they?

  “Back to my example,” Beauty said. “While I have met others who also used music as part of their magic, many of them required tools—instruments—to allow their magic to function. Consequently, this reliance on outside tools in fact made their magic directly stronger than my own.

  “On the topic of tools, we have several cadets in this room who also have that requirement,” Beauty said, before looking at the woman sitting directly in front of Det. “Cadet Aria, why don’t you give us a brief description of your magic, followed by a short demonstration.”

  “Sure, sure,” the woman said, nodding excitedly, which sent her way-off-centre-ponytail bobbing madly. “So, you see, my magic is about spirits. No, not ghosts, or those kind of spirits, you see. Not going to haunt you, don’t worry. Unless you steal my cheesecake, then I’m definitely haunting…”

  Beauty coughed gently at the front of the room.

  “Right, enough about my cheesecake and it getting stolen. You see,” Aria held up a palm-sized rock of some kind on the tips of her fingers. “Everything has a spirit in it. From the smallest grain of sand, to the biggest mountain. I can talk to those spirits. If I loan them some of my R-juice—oh, gawd, that sounds way worse when I say it out loud—when I give them some of my magic, yeah, much better, then sometimes I can ask those spirits to come out and help me, you see.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  “Just like this.”

  With the words, there was a dim glow around the stone, before something kind of unfurled from it. Standing up to about four inches tall, it was exactly what Det would picture an earth elemental to look like from a video game. Small stones piled on top of each other to form legs, a torso, arms, and even a head, though it was all a little transparent. It wasn’t entirely real. As it moved, the stones stayed connected to each other—despite there being no reason for it other than magic—and it looked expectantly up at Aria, like it was waiting for instructions.

  “Hey there,” Aria said to the little elemental. “Nope, I don’t need you to do anything this time, you see. How about you just giving us a pose?” she said as she held the stone higher up for everybody to see.

  Perched there on the top of the rock, with the whole class looking at it, the small, stone man, curled his rock-arms in a classic body-builder pose.

  “Yay, good job!” Aria told the elemental, then looked at her neighbour seated next to her, and hissed out. “Clap for him.”

  “Ah, sure,” the man said, quietly clapping three times before stopping.

  “How’s something like that going to be effective against Uncored?” a man on the far side of the room—seated behind baby-face—asked. “It’ll just get stepped on. That kind of magic is useless in a fight.”

  “That’s not very nice,” Aria said, pulling her stone—and the elemental on top of it closer to her chest—as she stared daggers at the man. “Nobody is going to step on him. And he can be very useful. He’s…”

  “Now, now,” Beauty interrupted. “While the final comment was unnecessary—and categorically false—the question which preceded it is valid.”

  More than false, it was just an asshole thing to say. I can think of a dozen ways it could be useful, depending on what it can actually do… which that other guy should’ve asked.

  “A large part of why we’re here together, in this room,” Beauty said. “Is to tease out of the possible applications of the varied magic we have at our disposal. Unlike a Bulwark who learns how to take a punch better, it’s sometimes the most unexpected use of our magic that becomes the most important. But, before we talk about how Cadet Aria’s magic will be anything but useless, Cadet Neferan, why don’t you give us the demonstration of yours.”

  “Of course,” Neferan said, standing up from where he sat. Since there wasn’t any equipment or supplies on his desk, he was one of the ones who didn’t require tools to use his ability. “My magic allows me to create up to two duplicates of myself.”

  Just like that, two more versions of the man stepped out from behind him, like they’d been hiding in his shadow the whole time. Appearing identical to the original man, the two looked around the room with uncanny coordination.

  “Hello,” they said in unison.

  “I bet he’s popular with the ladies at parties,” the man sitting behind Eriba said so low, it was likely only the people in the desks right around him heard. Well, other than Beast, whose snort was far too conveniently timed to be from anything else.

  “Do they have names?” Oligy said. “Like Left and…”

  “No,” Neferan said. “Those would be stupid names. I call them One and Two.”

  How is that any better or less stupid for names?

  “What can they do?” Aria asked.

  “Oh, I can guess…” the man behind Eriba said, and Beast snorted again.

  Neferan gave the instructor a bit of a confused look, but then addressed Aria, face smug. “Anything I can. They can fight with my strength. Run messages, without a limit of range. Safely scout out dangerous situations and report back to me. They are infinitely more useful than your little rock.”

  “That’s…” Beauty started, a frown on his face.

  “What happens if they die?” Det interrupted before he could catch himself, out of patience for the pre-school-level of bullying.

  “Excuse me?” Neferan said, as if he were insulted he’d been questioned.

  What is it with new ReSouled and their egos?

  “Not a trick question,” Det said, instead of voicing his internal query. “Say one of them is out scouting, like you said they could do. What happens if they get captured? Or killed? Do they know everything you do?”

  “Of course they do,” Neferan said. “That’s what makes them so powerful.”

  “So, they could be tortured and made to talk,” Det said.

  “I would never talk,” Neferan shot back. “So, they wouldn’t either.”

  “Mmm hmm, sure,” Det said, not even bothering to address that small bit of unfounded confidence. “And the dying thing? If Number Two there hasn’t reported back, but he gets offed, do you magically get the information in his head.”

  “… no,” Neferan admitted. “But, since Two—not number two, he’s not a bathroom analogy for children—has all my skills, he won’t get killed. He’ll be able to escape before anything even gets close to him.”

  “Uh huh, and what about that little stone spirit that’s got him by the ankle?” Det said, pointing down near the floor.

  “The what that’s… what!?” Neferan asked as he turned to look where Det had indicated, only to find Aria’s small elemental—who had snuck across the floor while they’d been talking—holding Number Two’s ankle. It wasn’t tight or effective, but it had a good, little grip on his boot.

  “Not so useless, you see?” Aria said, some of her own smugness leaking through.

  Right up until Number Two panicked, squealed—in a very not masculine way—and kicked his leg out, sending the little elemental soaring into the air.

  “Rocky!” Aria said, the stone dropping from her hand while the elemental arced gracefully over her head.

  “Got you, little guy,” Sage said from where he stood on his chair. The little elemental thumped into his chest hard enough he grunted, but didn’t lose his balance. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

  If an elemental could swoon at its knight in shining armor, that was exactly what happened.

  “Uh…” Sage said, before climbing down from his seat, and walking over to Aria’s desk to return her elemental. Even as he tried to put the small, stone creature back where it belonged, it held onto his wrist, and shook its head. It didn’t want to leave him.

  “Hey!” Aria said. “Don’t you want to come back to me?”

  The elemental’s head turned from Sage, to Aria, then back to Sage, like it was truly torn by the decision. The comfort of what it knew, versus the excitement of something novel.

  “It’s… uh… it’s okay,” Sage said to the elemental. “You can come visit my desk any time.”

  Again, the little elemental looked at Aria, seeking permission.

  “Yeah, you can have sleepovers sometimes, if you behave,” Aria said with a hint of strictness in her voice.

  A thankful nod from the elemental—as well as a hug of Sage’s wrist—and the thing hopped back down onto Aria’s desk, the stone feet making a small clip-clop-like noise as it walked over to sit on the rock it had been summoned from.

  At that point, Aria noticed every eye in the room was on her. Including two amused instructors, and three very annoyed versions of Neferan.

  “Ah, sorry about that,” Aria said.

  “Don’t be, cadet,” Beauty said. “That was an excellent example of why even the smallest form of magic can have uses we don’t immediately recognize. Also, how even two similar magics can display different strengths and weaknesses.

  “Cadet Neferan’s magic, for example, possesses the strength of communication, whereas Cadet Aria’s is more likely to be able to sneak in and out of situations.”

  “Number Two… I mean… Two,” Neferan said, and threw a harsh glare at Det. “He could sneak in just fine.”

  “In some situations, I have no doubt,” Beauty said. “For a task that requires something a bit more unexpected, such as weaving between the legs of distracted students, even you have to admit there may be a better choice.” Beauty made sure to look at the little elemental as he spoke.

  Not that it noticed, with its head firmly looking dreamily in Sage’s direction.

  “What if it’s a fight?” Neferan countered. “I have three of me. We all know exactly how the other thinks. We can work perfectly together against any opponent. You saw it in my duel. Something that small can’t…”

  “You believe the size of Cadet Aria’s magic is the weakness?” Beauty said.

  “Of course! Size matters.”

  “That’s too easy to even comment on…” the cadet behind Eriba said.

  “Size is power?” Beauty confirmed, and all three versions of Neferan nodded. “Then I believe you didn’t listen closely enough to Cadet Aria’s description of her magic. She said, and I quote, everything has a spirit in it. From the smallest grain of sand, to the biggest mountain. I can talk to those spirits. Correct me if I am wrong, but a mountain is quite large.”

  Det didn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face, something Number Two noticed. He didn’t care. The guy deserved it for trying to make himself look better by bullying somebody he didn’t even know.

  “Can you actually summon the spirit of a mountain?” Neferan finally asked, a challenge in his voice.

  “You see,” Aria started.

  “It doesn’t matter if she can now,” Beauty interrupted. “By the end of our lessons together, she will be able to.”

  “Hope a small mountain is okay,” Aria mumbled.

  Beauty clapped his hands together once in front of the class, drawing all attention back to himself. “Now that we’ve had those excellent displays of magic from Cadets Neferan and Aria, it’s time we get into the meat of today’s lesson, unless there are any questions…” he trailed off as Oligy’s hand went up. “Yes Cadet Oligy?”

  “I have a question,” Oligy said.

  “I assumed as much,” Beauty said. “This will be the last question before we move on to the lesson.”

  “Why are you calling us all by our first names?” Oligy said.

  “Until you all have appropriate monikers, it seems the best way to address you. I would like us to be friends,” Beauty said. “That way, you can feel comfortable and come to me whenever you have a quandary and need my assistance.”

  “He’s also too lazy to remember your last names,” Beast said while she finger-flicked a piece of dirt off the desk that must’ve smacked Number Two in the forehead by the way she winced. “What? He is.”

  “Be that as it may,” Beauty said without—at all—countering the point. “Let’s learn about how to use our magic better, so we can someday do something on the level of summoning spirits from mountains.”

  probably the first book i ever wrote, a very long time ago. Heck, it was even a trilogy... that will never be seen by the world ??. I've long since salvaged too many ideas from it (including character names), and continues to be a source for me to steal stuff from. Almost nostalgic in a way.