Page 135 of To Fight and To Fold

"None of that has anything to do with how shit I am at explaining magic," she muttered, tilting her head up as if the sky would offer her clarity. How else could she explain something that came so naturally to her now?

Something that was always just out of reach, welling beneath the surface of the air itself. How had it been explained to her?

The memory came back to her with a grin. "When you have to sneeze, you know how you have to concentrate a little to actually do it?"

Aaryn's lips twitched. "Yes."

"It's kind of like that," Thea said, cheeks flushing for some reason. "It's always there, you just have to be a little more conscious of it to feel it. And when you do… you grab it. But like, with your whole…" Thea waved her hands as if to encompass the shape of Aaryn herself. "Essence."

"My essence?" she repeated, smiling.

"Oh, just shut your eyes," Thea urged with a playful snap. "Maybe sit down, actually."

Aaryn sank into a cross-legged position, and motioned for Thea to join her. The clover beneath her was soft, orange blooms casting Aaryn in a gentle, golden light. "Now what?"

"Hand," Thea prompted, and Aaryn lifted her right hand, the one unscarred.

Thea laid her left hand atop it, hovering palm to palm. A suggestion of contact, but not contact itself. Around them it was quiet except for the chirping of insects, the whisper of nature, and Starspark's lazy breaths.

"We're not touching," Thea said.

"Right…"

"But you can feel my hand there anyway, yeah? The warmth of it? You're… aware." Like Thea knew the weight of Aaryn's gaze, or the tightrope of tension between them that couldn't be ignored.

Aaryn blinked, staring at the hair's distance between their hands. "Yes."

"Try finding it like that, focusing, being aware of its presence." Their voices had softened as the night closed around them, cocooning them in this moment.

Thea slid her palm beneath Aaryn's hand, making room for her magic.

Aaryn's brow furrowed as she concentrated on the shape of her palm.

"When you feel it, just… tug. And bring it forth by repeating after me."

Exchanging whispers, Aaryn picked up the incantation—runes were more advanced, apparently—and echoed the words accurately.

And finally, moments later, after muttered complaints and hushed impatience, a flicker.

A gentle spark, a glow that twinkled and seemed to grow with Aaryn's inhale of delight.

They paused, admiring the magic, Thea so round with pride and full of affection and excitement for Aaryn⁠—

Aaryn, whose gaze caught with Thea's and lingered, her wonder and appreciation shining and lit by the shimmering of Aaryn's own magic for the first time.

A glow similar to that of the sky at dusk… decidedly purple.

Something just like magic itself seemed to swell in Thea’s chest, its presence just as unfelt, just as natural, until moments like this when it was large and took up space and couldn't be ignored, no matter how accustomed one had become to doing so.

Only just then did the light of the orb reflect off two large bright green eyes right beside them. Starspark, suddenly close and ever curious, sniffled at the magic, and promptly⁠—

Sneezed. The magic blinked out of Aaryn's hand at the gust of air, and her surprised and disappointed expression locked on Thea, full of humored betrayal.

Laughter burst and bubbled out of them, and they collapsed against Starspark in a fit of giggles.

And that so very un-ignorable feeling remained.

Thea decided somewhere between the next sunrise, when Aaryn bounced on her toes to get in the sky with Starspark, and near dusk, when Aaryn dragged her to their corner of Dragons’ Nest, that Vaelen must have it out for Thea.