The main concepts this narrative was structured around was 1. a 'free spirit' character like in Mushishi or Wandering Emanon (see the bookshelf page); 2. a 'cursed' character, who's curse involves attraction (my aromanticism feeding the negativity around this, lol); 3. an interesting and original magic system; and 4. how that magic system is taught academically, and how this differs from how the 'free spirit' character may think about it. So in essence, I wanted a magic system that had multiple layers to its spellcasting, in order for me to display how different characters think about it and how that affects their spellcasting. It kind of feels to me like it could be a multiple-book series, following the 'free spirit' character (Raz) and her 'cursed' apprentice (Avon), and their travels throughout the world I've created. It's in very early stages, because I have no time and too many projects, but it's fun to come back to every once in a while and add to the worldbuilding. 2nd excerpt
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Raz takes a long, slow drag from her pipe. The smoke she exhales is bright blue.
"Okay, seriously, what is that?" Avon asks. "Blueberry flavoured?"
Raz huffs in response, a blue cloud puffing up around her face as she does. "Hmm. That would be a good idea."
"You were meant to be teaching me something."
Raz sighs, and this time the smoke is less blue and thinner, a steady stream slipping out that she angles away from Avon and downwind. "What spell do you wanna learn?"
"Huh? Isn't there, like, an order to this? Or limits on what spells you can teach me?"
Raz shrugs. "Just answer the question." She takes another drag.
"Uhh," Avon watches the blue smoke fade away this time, as the sailboat leaves it behind, moving swiftly, with the current and the wind working together to push the boat ever forwards. "One to stop the wind," he says, turning back with a smirk.
Raz's eyebrow twitches. When she exhales this time, she doesnt bother to angle it away from him. The wind catches it before it can reach him anyway. "Okay.
"The first rule of magic," she says, putting her pipe out, "is that creation or complete destruction is an absolute no. The only thing you can do with magic is alter. So 'stopping' the wind will only be possible if you think of it as altering the flow of air rather than culling a wind current.
"The second rule of magic is belief." Raz takes ahold of the tiller with a steady hand, the line for the jib in her other as she untangles it from where it was fastened to the side. She tosses it, careless, into the air; Avon watches as it falls untethered. The jib sail doesn't flap uncontrollably, however, like Avon knows it should, and he realises the boat itself is barely moving.
The wind has died.
Raz raises an eyebrow at him. "Did you feel anything? Like sense that at all?"
Avon shakes his head.
Raz huffs again. "Pick the jib line up and try it youself."
Avon can hear the jib starting to flap and feel the wind picking up, so he scrambles to catch the rope before he loses it. soon he is almost struggling with keeping the sail under control.
"Now alter the wind current. If you need to picture something, just move the wind a little so it misses the boat." Raz leans back in her seat, arms behind her over the railing and eyes closes against the sunlight.
Avon tries to ignore her. Holding the line tight, he concentrates on shifting the wind with his mind. He tries moving it, twisting it, dispersing it... when he glances over at raz, a little fed up, she's cracked one eye open and is watching him with faint amusement. He scowls.
"Don't think about it." Raz says then, closing her eye again.
"But you said you have to believe it will work."
"The most powerful kind of belief is unconscious and unquestioned. You don't understand exactly what makes grass grow, but you know that it does anyway."
"But that's not something I have control over. Grass grows and I have nothing to do with it."
"That's not true. You could pull the grass out, or cover it with something to kill it. You could water it regularly or trim it consistently. Those things have an effect and you believe they will change the grass's growth in some way."
"But they're direct, physical actions. Magic is all in my head."
Raz tilts her head forward to eye Avon with a raised eyebrow. "Says who? The third rule of magic is some kind of ritual. Wave your hand, say a word, blink. It helps you focus and channel the power better."
"You don't normally move to cast," Avon points out.
"I'm better at it than you are." Raz's tone is flat and unimpressed. It makes Avon laugh.
This time, when he focuses, he doesn't worry about how the wind will change, just that it will, as unthinking as breathing. He flicks his wrist, making a motion as if to wave the wind off. It drops almost immediately, the jib sheet sitting almost perfectly still and the hull crawling forwards at a snails pace with the gentle current of the river.
Turning to face raz, he sees a glimmer of something in her eyes, and then she smirks. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"How did it feel?"
Avon glances down at his hand, the one he used for his 'ritual'. He opens and closes his fist. "Like pulling out grass."
Raz nods. "You can apply the same principle to basically any other action you want to do. As long as it doesn't go against all laws of logic, like making things levitate or become invisible, but moving things is really simple. changing forms also, depending on the materials and their purity."
"Like magic weapons?"
Raz nods. "we should probably get you one of those, actually. A wand or something malleable, and some small objects to practice enchantments."
Avon twists and falls back along the length of his seat, head propped up on the back of the boat. Above, clouds are moving fast, and he can feel the wind coming back slowly. Raz picks up the jib line from where he's dropped it on the floor of the cockpit, and loops it back around the side and fastens it so it can't come loose when the sail catches the wind again. He sighs into the wind, and closes his eyes against the glaring sun.
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Avon feels like he's dreaming.
The building stretches on into the sky, sparkling glass-panelled sun rooms breaking up the monotony of the bricks and concrete, walkways and stairs open to the air and weather, glittering arched windows offset by smaller ones with grills instead of panes. There's stained glass windows too- circular and fantastic, each at least two or three stories tall, facing every direction, and he assumes there's more on the sides of the building he can't see. Each is patterned differently, the closest displaying an enlarged sprout in a mosaic of vibrant greens. He can see a few silhouettes beyond the glass, people hurrying back and forth through the building, trying to get to their classes.
The sign hanging above the ornate gate directly opposite him on the street tells him it's the state university, named after the Empress, Ophelia. He can read the fine print of a panel to one side of the gate, embossed gold, explaining her tragic life and the way the Emperor dedicated the newly-built university to his late wife after conquering Avestia.
The bell of the cafe door next to him rings abruptly, and he's pulled from his thoughts. Raz steps out, handing him a baked good wrapped in brown paper. The door swings closed behind her as she steps down onto the cobblestone street.
'This thing gets bigger every time I come back,' she muses, gaze leading up to the tallest spires of the university, piercing the clouds above. Avon turns back to gaze some more, note the embellished gold details of the framing for a lot of the lower sun rooms and spires, the way the limestone bricks become less worn down and weathered closer to the top and the copper roofs lower down are mostly fully oxidised compared to those higher up.
'Did you go here?' Avon finds himself asking her.
'For a while,' she replies, the response vague enough he knows she doesn't feel like talking about it. 'Eat your lunch as we walk.'
She sets off, Avon hurrying after her, unwrapping the warm bagel she's bought him from the cafe and eating it gratefully. It might be the best one he's ever had. His hometown certainly doesn't sell bagels often.
They enter the university through the open gates, Raz striding straight in confidently, Avon close behind as he attempts to take in everything he's seeing while also eating and keeping track of his mentor. The front courtyard is small but spacious, paved with the same cobblestones of the street beyond, but here littered with tables and benches, the shaded ones still damp from this morning's brief rain but the ones in the sun housing students and locals; chatting, eating and studying. The real entrance to the university is an enormous arched doorway, and as they walk through onto marble-tiled floors, Avon notes the intricacies in the gold embellishments on the dark wood doors, thrown open for students and faculty to come and go as they please. The doorway is smaller than the gated entrance outside, being maybe five strides across- but only by a few small steps.
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