"...But we will try.  And there is much to be said, for what we know of the people who will try, can pull off."

"Thank you."

"So - how does magic give rise to something that at least looks like the physics I'm familiar with, at least on the level of things I can see in this room?"

Belatedly, she remembers that with Tilda's counterpart here, and her talking to a Princess, there might be other duties interrupting.  Urgh, politics.

"-- er, feel free to give the short answer now if there's somewhere else you need to be."

"...Well.  On the one hand, with quite some effort.  But on the other hand, on the subatomic level - well, actually, given that the root of that is - atomos, I think it was, being a foreign word gratuitously butchered for its having been coined or involved in the first statement of the possibility of a smallest possible division of matter - anyway, technically if one is defining a physics from scratch one should make the atoms truly indivisible, but I am used to there being subatomic considerations - and I have gotten quite sidetracked -"

"...The physics you are observing only looks like it's like the physics you're used to, because underneath the existence of things like gravity, and various types of material, is elements.  Elements and forces, actually, that all derive from magics."

"...And, I am going to be busy with this for the near future.  Both by necessity and by choice, because this is...Really quite unexpected and important, and also a magical conundrum I really want to solve.  ...Ciara knows how to do what she needs to do, for that matter.  Not to mention that she runs a very tight ship, in general.  We'll be fine.  But your concern is appreciated."

Alicia promptly begins reproducing the diagrams and tables that she once wrote down for an angel.  (This time, they're 3D!)

Aeslin stares at the diagrams.

"I'm not used to most of these being fundamentally real rather than generalizations.  I'm not sure where to start asking questions.  Are they... fundamentally balanced, too?  On such a level that the world we're in can't ever, say, be burned up by light or dissolve into void?"

"...That's a more complicated question than you'd think.  Notwithstanding that The Light is not a very burny thing, taking your meaning instead of your words...

"It's not wrong to say that in the end, the three axes wrap around such that, say, an excess of Light will create the shadows of Void just as Order is technically a choice of how one experiences Chaos.  Just as Life does not exist without Death lurking within it."

"Yes, or as I would say it, the possibility of death..." she says thoughtfully.  "I've been rather familiar with that juxtaposition, with both my best collaborators - Svarendar and Elethy - essentially immortal save by hapless chance.

"I suppose if we extend the analogy, Light would mark out shadows?  But by that analogy, Order would rather demarcate Chaos rather than be a choice from within it...?"

"...Perhaps, but it's not particularly..."

"Getting too caught up in trying to pin down the manner in which things overflow is rather losing sight of the forest for the trees, even if they're really impressive trees.

"They'll wrap around whether you think that's how they should or not.  And it does cut both ways.  Even, or perhaps especially, the harshest Order will shatter from the introduction of something unexpected, and it's a long-held theory that Light arose from the Void to begin with.  And Life and Death...  Each ending is a beginning of something else."

"Each beginning is the ending of something else, for that matter."

Alicia murmurs something like 'can't keep up my foot'.

"Yes, quite, and I suppose you'd know."

"Yes... and every end is a beginning.  I've seen that much from my own life."  She nods.  "But that's philosophy, not practical magic or physics.  How do you get that from there?  Do you visualize points of philosophy as you cast?"

"...I mean.  Yes and no?  To cast magic is to act in accordance with or in counterpoint to a philosophy, but it's not...  About the philosophy like that.  Philosophy is too human^[1] to matter to magic."

[1]: "Human", in this case, being the best available translation of a word that means 'of or pertaining to the general sapient condition', not about specifically humans, in Villarosa's language.

"But surely you aren't casting magic every time you're acting - say, orderly?  Or I suppose maybe you are if physics is magic, but surely there's some difference between - say, picking a book up off the floor with your hands, and casting a spell to pick five books up from across the room?

"When I cast a spell, I visualize what I want, and guide the magical flow through my wand.  Do you do anything like that?"

(Aeslin understands the word perfectly.  It's not in everyday use in Suinel - almost everyone in the kingdom is a human - but it's still used in scholarship.  Even when there's one public Elf left in the world, when she's Queen, it does make an impact.)

"Magic is traditionally considered to be more of a 'move things with your mind' thing, so, yes, there's - visualization and suchlike."

"...That's not to say that magic can't be exceedingly subtle, but it does at least require an effort to establish in some sense, in my experience.  Even if it can become habit."

"...And I suppose there are the occasional focus components, too.  Depending on your casting paradigm.  But I can freehand arcane magic, for example; they're not...well, mandatory."

"But surely magic can do some things beyond what you can do with your hands?  I can imagine how you'd extend that to, say, lift something larger than you can lift.  But what about... making plants grow faster?  Or binding spells; I know you mentioned you had something like those?"

"Well, yes, that's what the visualization and the understanding the principle you're invoking is for."

"And as far as making plants grow...well, I'm pants at that, you'd want a druid.  But that's what I mean about the principles."

"Ah, 'move' in a symbolic sense...  So visualize something in line with one of these principles, and focus on the thing and the principle...  And you don't need a wand or any aids, since your soul is innately designed to use magic to interface with the world anyway?"

"I was also being a bit twee.  But yes, you've got the right of it.  Did you...not have that, yourself?"