What the fuck does that mean - what the fuck does the Princess mean - What?

"...Ma'am, I would appreciate an explanation of this that makes sense."

"...Now is not the time for continuing cultural education, Ms. Wildbloom.  But rest assured that that was good news, as ominous as it may have sounded."  Killing everyone (or trying to, at least,) was always an option on the table.  That Deskyl would prefer to take it off the table - or at least, avoid it - despite a lifetime of acculturation to not do that, is an unutterably positive sign.  Really, she could have just said that, if it weren't for...

Well, she's trying to not know too much, even if that's probably a lost cause because she knows anything whatsoever.

"Master Deskyl says that she doesn't expect to kill anyone today at any rate, and that she or I can explain later but she'd rather we get started with the magic lessons before she needs to sleep."

"Yes, quite.  So."

She pauses, taking a breath, and feeling a tension that she should probably feel starting, stop.

"Magic."

"Magic, in general, is the art of utilizing one of the six primordial forces, or the two composite forces, to affect the world or yourself."

"Today, we're learning Arcane magic, which touches the primordial force of Order - or Meaning, or Definition, or...Well.  There are a lot of things it could be."  Control, she doesn't add.

"The names we assign to the primordial forces are petty approximations of their natures, which...they are not intended," she says with far more certainty than she really should have about the world, "to be fully comprehensible to any of us mere mortals.  But each one has things it is more suited for, and - ways of approaching the magic, that they respond better to."

"Both Arcane magic and its counterpart, chaos magic, sometimes called fel magic for legacy reasons, deal most directly with the Twisting Nether - the primordial chaos that this reality is merely a bubble of stability within."

"Order magic...Hmm.  Draws forth a carefully selected partition of the infinite possibility the Twisting Nether represents.  Chaos magic...draws forth the energies of the Twisting Nether in much the same way, but does not care so much to constrain which ones - letting the possibilities run wild, in a sense."

"...In other senses, looking at what we pretend is chaos magic is looking at a kiddie pool and calling it the ocean, because in practice chaos magic is all about restraining the magic's degrees of freedom - in the opposite way of order magic, where you start from a framework that permits nothing and broaden its limits until the magic does what you want - but still, with intent to cause the same effect of not having Literally Anything happen.  Literally Anything happening is not good for continued existence."

"...Chaos magic is not something the Kingdom of Villarosa trusts in the hands of many - the Kingdom issues licenses to a select few proven casters, or for a select few purposes under strict supervision by royal agents, and will pursue anyone who thinks to flaunt those laws under the assumption that they are a threat to the kingdom.  It takes, I am told, incredible discipline to wield remotely safely - not in that any given spell will inevitably fail, but because chaos magic leaves everything up to chance, and letting the things it will chance be things you can't risk chancing if you want the world around you to be livable afterwards, is all too easy."

"...Yeah.  While some things can be - overblown, sometimes...  Don't do chaos magic.  It's not good for you or for anybody else, because if you roll enough dice, you'll roll a critical failure soon enough.  And it's certainly not good for household chores."

"Yes ma'am." She's curious if having an affinity toward Order magic means she'd be worse at Chaos magic, but it doesn't matter if she's not going to do it and it seems impolitic to ask.

(Alicia had been thinking about whether DZ would be a good Chaos mage earlier, as it happens, but the limited parallel processing seemed to indicate that she'd be no better than anyone else, and DZ's construction would not be as resilient against any missteps, so that idea was scrapped.)

"...And I've gone and gotten distracted by magic theory when we want magic practice.  My apologies, again.  I am not a trained instructor.

"Okay.  So.  Actually doing magic."

Alicia hesitating a bit too long is Maria's cue, apparently.

"The experience of casting a spell varies, from practitioner to practitioner.  The one constant is that one must tap the Twisting Nether, and one must impress, well, order, upon it."

"It's...

"Well.  It's kind of like the Force, really.  If the Force was - feral, and hidden beneath the fabric of the universe such that one has to draw it out.  Does that - make sense whatsoever?  Or should I try a different explanation?"

"...I imagine it'll make sense once I see it, ma'am?"

"...I mean.  You have seen it.  The framework for that ritual was Order, even if it did - poke at - the other forces a bit.

"We're trying to prepare you to do it.  To -" she stops, and makes a frustrated nonsound.

"The idea here is that we explain how to actually perform the action of gathering thaumic flux with one's soul, except that nobody knows how to do that because it's ultimately a deeply personal metaphor."

Hm. "Is there something I ought to be able to notice when someone else does magic near me?"

"It...depends?  Like, on the magic, on the someone, and on you.  But, yes, generally."

"Would it help for me to look for that in my memory of the spell you just did? It'll be easiest if I have some idea of what I'm looking for."

"I mean...It certainly wouldn't hurt any."

...Though she's not sure it'll help all that much.

"...I really don't know how to communicate what I feel from my magic, let alone how that might manifest to your sensorium.  It's..."

"Ooh.  Ooh I might, actually."

"If 'walking into a holographic display to find out that you're part of the display' is a feeling, like that?"

That makes no sense whatsoever.

"How do most people learn this, ma'am?"

"...With effort.  It's..."

"I really don't know how to explain it without a shared context you don't have," because if she said 'it's a very literal "get out of the car" type of mental operation to get started' everyone in this room would think she was insane, "but I could try and walk you through it more - tactile-ly, if that wouldn't get me stabbed?"

"Master Deskyl says that's fine, ma'am."

"Allrighty then, let's...see if I can do this."

She walks up close to DZ, extends a hand, and -

Earlier, DZ felt a forceful nudge to a sense that she may not have prior had.  Now, she feels - a presence twining itself into hers, in a similar sense she might not have.

"Can you feel this?"

"Yes ma'am." Huh, she doesn't like that.

"...Yeah.  Alright.  Now.  Uh.  Try to - keep feeling - me, what I'm doing - while I do the thing?"

And Alicia...does the thing, pulling on the fabric of the universe with the gravity of her soul just enough to cast a simple magelight.

"Yes ma'am, I saw that." How to do it is a separate question, of course.

"...Right.  Now the question is, do you think you can replicate this."