“Honey, I heard a little birdie saying you all were grilling Dave out in the mansion courtyard earlier. Is that the straight scoop?” Fae Aurora’s question caught me a bit off guard as I entered the Dwarf Altairs’ training chamber.
“Mom? What are you doing here?” I asked, unable to hide my surprise at seeing her up and about. “Shouldn’t you be resting up like Healer Cruz ordered after your latest spell?”
Fae Aurora waved off my concern with a warm smile. “Oh pish posh, you know this old fairy doesn’t like sitting still for too long. I wanted to catch my girl working her magic firsthand today.”
Despite her nonchalant tone, I could hear the slight rasp of fatigue lacing her usually melodic voice. The recent affliction had clearly taken its toll, no matter how valiantly she tried to downplay it.
Still, I knew better than to argue when my mother got that playfully stubborn glint in her eye. With an exaggerated sigh of resignation, I shook my head in bemusement.
“You’re a real handful sometimes, you know that?” I chuckled, wrapping an arm around her slender frame to guide her to a cozy window alcove. “But I suppose having my biggest cheerleader here couldn’t hurt. Just promise me you’ll pipe down if you start feeling punky, alright?”
Fae Aurora patted my hand affectionately as I helped her get situated among the plush cushions. “When have I ever not kept my word, duckling? Now quit your mother-henning and show this old brook fairy what you’ve got!”
As the dwarf tutors began calling out their arcane incantations and instructions, I couldn’t help but steal sidelong glances at Fae Aurora every so often. Though weariness still lingered in the slight downturn of her mouth, her eyes shone with undisguised delight and pride as she watched me channel the primal energies.
In that moment, seeing her full of such radiant life was all the motivation I needed to summon my most potent conjurings yet. Whatever darkness had momentarily tried to dim her brilliant essence, I vowed to help burn it away through sheer force of our accumulated power and perseverance.
The Dwarf Altairs beamed with pride as I successfully conjured a swirling orb of magical energy.
“Atta girl, Barbara! Now I want you to really flex those mental muscles,” he encouraged with an approving nod. “Picture yourself as the heavy-hitter, calling the shots with enough moxie to bend the whole darn cosmos to your will.”
I felt a surge of power ripple through me at his words, the hairs on my arms standing on end as I channeled that heady rush of possibility. Suddenly, the globe pulsed with a blinding luminescence, tendrils of crackling force undulating hypnotically within its celestial depths.
“That’s the ticket!” The dwarf exclaimed, rubbing his calloused hands together in excited approval. “You’re cooking with hellfire now, kiddo. Keep funneling that big magic through your spirit conduits!”
From the alcove, I heard Fae Aurora’s melodious laughter, rich with wonder and maternal pride. “My, my! Isn’t she just a regularlittle force of nature today?”
I couldn’t help but bask in her praise, confidence swelling in my chest as I continued pouring all my concentration into shaping and manipulating the roiling vortex before me. The air thrummed with electric potential, my very essence seeming to harmonize with the cosmic frequencies of the universe itself.
“Alright, new challenge - let’s put those mental muscles to the real test,” Dwarf Altairs barked out, his gruff exterior barely containing his evident glee at my rapid progression. “I want you to envision yerself as the ultimate magical heavyweight, baby! The kinda high-level spellcaster who could snap their fingers and reshape entire realms on a whim!”
My eyes slid shut as I centered myself, inhaling a slow, steadying breath. Almost immediately, I could sense the currents of primordial power undulating just beneath the surface of my consciousness, immense and terrible and absolutely intoxicating. Just a tiny metaphysical damn holding back a raging tsunami of pure, unadulterated might.
As visions of cosmic planes and impossible geometries kaleidoscoped behind my eyelids, I felt a gradual unclenching in the depths of my spirit. Like a blossom unfurling its petals to greet the newborn dawn, every leyline and mystical meridian in my body began to progressively relax and align with the eternal rhythms.
The energies I had been so furiously wrestling mere moments ago now flowed through me with the effortless grace of a meandering river’s course. My breathing stilled, body thrumming with heightened harmonic resonance as the tidal waves of infinite probability and raw cosmic force finally found....release.
When my eyes fluttered open again, I found myself momentarily disoriented - like awakening from a singularly vivid dream state. The Dwarf Altairs and Fae Aurora were staring, openmouthed in a mixture of awe and knee-knocking trepidation.
It was then that my gaze tracked downwards, registering the scene with complete astonishment. What had begun as a simple magic globe now resembled a miniature galaxy cluster, crackling with incandescent filaments of possibility that continually birthed, collapsed, and transcended all conceivable laws of physics.
“B-By the seven celestial planes...” The dwarf tutor stammered out, his voice seeming to echo from incomprehensibly vast distances. “She’s...she’s attained a whole other level of mastery!”
Fae Aurora smiled that enigmatic, all-knowing smile that seemed somehow distinctly out of place on our earthly plane of existence. As our eyes met, I sensed her unspoken acknowledgment and gratitude at having witnessed this pivotal awakening firsthand.
“You’re really cooking with gas now, sweetheart,” Fae Aurora whispered, beaming with equal parts wonder and motherly pride.
However, as my eyes roamed around the chamber, taking in the aftermath of my unrestrained mystical outpouring, I couldn’t help but grimace. “Oof, looks like I really went and made a whole barn storm of a mess, didn’t I Mom?”
The training room was in a state of utter disarray. Scorch marks emblazoned the stone walls where wayward tendrils of magic had lashed out. Priceless ancient tomes lay scattered and singed, their pages gently smoldering. Even the normally imperturbable Dwarf Altairs looked utterly discombobulated, his robes and beard standing on end as if struck by a metaphysical shockwave.
“Well, you can’t rightly expect to get that kind of magical horsepower revving without some collateral mayhem,” Fae Aurora chuckled, waving a dismissive hand. “Why, when I was cutting my own cosmic teeth, I darn near unmade reality a few times before I got a proper handle on things.”
I shot her an apologetic wince as a heavy marble pedestal came crashing down mere inches away, the resonant shockwave still rippling outwards. “Guess I may have gotten a little too big for my britches on that last pull from the aetheric wellspring, huh?”
The sound of raucous dwarf laughter caused me to start. Dwarf Altairs was absolutely besotten, wheezing with uncontrollable mirth as he surveyed the ruins of what was once his meticulously maintained training space.
“A little too big for your britches, she says!” He guffawed, having to brace himself on a half-demolished plinth. “Why, you’ve gone and opened up a whole new can of crazy worms, girl! Torn clean through into the big metaphysical sandboxes like a bull in a dimensional china shop!”
Despite his harsh words, the grizzled old mage’s eyes were alight with revelalatory glee. Shaking his head in disbelief, he turned to Fae Aurora with an expression of profound respect.
“Didn’t I tell you she was a real cosmic fireplug just waiting to be switched on? The kind of raw, unrefined magical force that could rewrite all our puny laws of probability?” He let out a long, appreciative whistle. “And here I was thinking I’d seen it all after sixty-three celestial rotations...”
Fae Aurora’s tinkling laugh was the musical counterpoint to the dwarf’s gruff wonderment. “Indeed you did, Altairs. Though I confess, even an old fairy like myself wasn’t prepared for the sheer scope of Barbara’s awakening today.”
Her eyes sparkled with cosmic mischief as they landed on me once more. “It would seem my little starheart has decided to kick things up a few infinities ahead of schedule. No more bucking small streams for you, my love - you’ve gone and punched a hole clean through into the big cosmic rivers!”
I couldn’t decide whether to be mortified or elated at her revelation. On one hand, I had just utterly demolished an ancient place of learning in a cataclysmic display of unrestrained power.
“Proof it to your Timmy.”