"All I can say is - it depends.  On the force, on the person, on how it happens.  And...You are touching a primordial force of the universe.

"Of course it changes you."

"...Not that much.  This isn't going to do anything that just existing wouldn't.  But it can accumulate over time, sometimes.  And some people...Have tried to weaponize the injection of large amounts of aspected mana, before.  It's...Not usually effective."

"Not usually effective?  Why?  And what is this spirit magic I was using?"

"They can't control what it does.  And you aren't using spirit magic."

"You used arcane magic - order magic - kind of like you were trying to use spirit magic.  Or at least it felt like that, from the explanation you gave of what you did.  That, and the reliance upon - external mediation - is the thing spirit magic is known for, despite there being plenty of practitioners that use only their own spirits.  But your casting paradigm is not spirit magic, even if it looks very similar at a glance, because - well, if it had been spirit magic we wouldn't have had to abort."

"It really isn't either of our specialties, but - perhaps I could try and show you.  ...Though I'm not sure how, really, I don't - oh, but I could - give me just a minute, I'm going to make something for you so you can - see what I'm doing, I guess."

She's got pretty good magic senses, so it wasn't a priority - but now that someone needs it - well, she probably should have produced this a while ago anyway, really.

It takes her a few minutes to produce a single ?monocle?, the chain a strangely undefined metal that looks more golden than not while the glass is both a void-dark purple and utterly transparent.  Looking through it reveals lingering motes of...something, around Alicia and Ciara - assuming Aeslin actually tries to do so.  (They are, notably, different colors - and Alicia is a source of two kinds, with an occasional hint of two more.)

Ciara watches closely as Alicia does yet another stupidly complicated bullshit thing because she clearly doesn't know better than to think otherwise, the actinic purple of arcane magic transfixing the impossible shadow-radiance of voidstuff as she pulls yet another artifact out of pure possibility with sheer stubbornness.  It'll work like she intends, too.  This is the sort of thing she can't keep up with.

"Oh... so here we're all even more deeply magical than I thought?  And magic from most of the principles can be cast from inside my soul?  That throws off a lot of my guesses about how this could be a story and what whoever set it up could've done with souls -"

If someone's taking existing souls and making the magic currents respond to them, that's one thing.  If someone's making them generate magic inside themselves - how could that even begin to be?  Or are her theories about souls even farther off than she thought?

"And also I'm not sure - I don't think I've got the right reflexes to do that - how do you start?

"And what is soul magic after all, and why's it so special?"

"What?  I mean, I guess, but - no, souls are a different thing - I don't - Ciara, would you, casting, explanation - "

Alicia just...spins out, too many things fighting for her attention as Aeslin just says things.

...to say nothing of how some of what Aeslin said would be pressing rather many of her guilt buttons if she actually processed all of it in detail.

"...It's not actively a story.  Not anymore.  Not if I can fucking help it."

Oh dear.  This is going to get...a way, if it keeps going like this.  Hm.

"You... can maybe help it?"

Would she want to stop... this world... from being a story if she could?  Well, not if -

"Without destroying this system of magic, I hope?  Just... not anymore, you said?  Not having a story actively changing things beyond the system set up?"

... She hasn't even begun to think about a story maybe doing that.  At first taste it feels worse than a binding spell.

She cuts in, before Alicia can try to guilt herself over having let a plot exist in potentia.

"...As far as we know, Alicia has broken the chains of fate by existing, and that's already been and done.  I'll thank you to refrain from inquiring further.

"As far as magic goes, though...

"You've already called magic to yourself.  You just need to shift your focus outside of your body when you're realizing the effect.  ...Watch what I do through Alicia's...whatever she just made.  The focus of my will might reach from my body, but it doesn't - evert - it doesn't dip beneath the world - until my will has reached beyond myself."

...what -

Good explanation of the thing, she supposes, but -

Well, it is an opsec matter, she supposes -

But shouldn't she take on the burden of having allowed plotting?  Because she did!  Ciara, why are you defending her from what should be the consequences of her own actions!

Alicia, so help her, stop blaming yourself for acts of random omnipotent beings.  You don't control them!  It's in the name!

But how can she just stop asking questions about "chains of fate"!?  It's so fundamental!  So important!  Especially if a mage - like Alicia - or herself - might be able to impact them!

... Still, there's magic.

"So... don't summon the magical power through myself, but... through the air or objects around me?  Is that what you're trying to picture?"

She reaches out for Alicia's monocle.

Alicia hands her the monocle!

"...It's not...through, anything, except in very specific circumstances.  Basic spells like these...are not those circumstances.  If you - refract the magic you call up through something, the effects will be...  Unpredictable, unless you understand that something's behavior extremely well."

"That's part of why it's so impressive that her highness has mastered magic that taps into two principles simultaneously, as you've already seen here," she gestures at the λ-monocle demonstratively.

"I mean, I wouldn't --"

"You have, and you will be acknowledged as you deserve."

"Yes, mastering two principles like that sounds significant!  Especially as young as you look - not that I'm patronizing you at all; too many people were doing that to me when I was about your age - but how young are you?"

(Aeslin is still confused about a lot of other things, but she looks at Alicia through the monocle while waiting for an answer or demonstration or both.)

"...That is a question that, for various reasons, has no true answer.  And I'm cheating anyway."

"...You are not.  That your cleverness is backed by a solid understanding of the way magic works does not make it any less clever."