Ranara and her little daughter Azabel move to Urtho's Tower when the latter can say six words ("up", "mama", "milk", "no", "now", and "please") and hasn't started to walk yet. Ranara sets up to teach little children to read, ones who don't have evident Gifts yet - Ranara herself has Mindspeech, is all, with about a classroom's worth of range. Azabel sits in on classes, worn on her mother's back or later plopped in a corner with toys or, when she's only four, plopped in a corner with a book, younger than the other kids in the class. When Azabel has in fact sat through her mother's curriculum she is turned somewhat loose, to walk very carefully up and down and around the Tower, exploring.
"...Huh. You figured out close personal shields on your own? It is worth knowing this kind of mage-barrier as well, since sometimes you want to cover something other than yourself, but generally this is also considered easiest. Show me the kind you usually do?"
He stares intently at her for thirty seconds. "Interesting! That is rather good, I am impressed, and you will have a head start when we reach that lesson. For now I think you had better practice the barrier, though."
"Okay." And she makes a barrier, like a shield - a thin, wooden shield - only one that grew that way, not boards with cracks between - hm, not wood, it doesn't have to be thick. A leaf.
Ma'ar watches her intently. "...Are you ready?" He holds up the little leather ball.
He tosses it. Gently, the first time, barely enough to strain her shield at all. It bounces off and rolls. "Was that all right?" he asks, anxious.
"Yeah, that was fine - you can probably throw harder if you have decent aim, so we can see if it's good if something hits it real good -"
She keeps a close eye on her shield to see what it does - does it flex or shudder in place or hold perfectly still -
Huh. Can she - plant the leaf on a stem in the ground, so it'll sway back into place - she nudges the ball back to him. "Try again?"
He throws it again, bam right at the middle of the shield (he has very good aim). The shield flexes again but this time sways back, and Ma'ar smiles at her. "That was better!"
She giggles - but she wants to fly, and to be able to do all her stuff up there, what if the stem doesn't actually touch the ground and she just insists to it that it can still do its job -
If she just leaves it hanging, this does not work. She can - anchor the stem to herself, sort of, focus in particular on the power flowing from her to the shield, let the shield share in her sense of being grounded in something solid - which, in fact, is only metaphorically about what her feet are resting on...
"Hang on a sec." Can she make a shield parallel to the ground just ohhh an inch up or so and STAND ON IT.
It's definitely a lot weirder to try that; the thing that happens by default is that she stops being grounded properly and then wobbles a lot and expends a lot of energy. If she focuses in just the right way, though, she can center and ground and then stay 'grounded' even as she steps onto the barrier.
"Eeeeeheehee!" she cackles. Who needs to be physically on the ground, there is air between her and the ground, that's good enough - who needs the actual ground, even, what she's doing is organizing her thoughts, making those gears click that way, that has nothing to do with the ground at all and she can do it in the air!
Ma'ar smiles too, the most natural and real smile she's seen from him so far; mostly he's just delighted to see her so excited. "- Are you trying to fly?"
"I can't actually fly like this, I'm still standing on something and I'll fall if I zoom it around much, but I'm putting together the bits I'll need!" She steps off the shield. "D'you want a turn?"
"Sure! Uh, I should try the normal shield first before I see if I can stand on it too." He rolls the ball back to her, rather than throwing it for her to catch - it seems very likely it'd just hit her - and then whips together a shield. He does it very fast, in well under a second, and it's more powerful and springy than hers, but also sloppier and seems to use at least three times as much mage-energy.
His shield blocks it without difficulty; it seems to do a mix of flexing a little and also sort of absorbing the force, like soft clay or putty, the shield moves but not in a way that reaches Ma'ar, and the ball falls limply to the ground rather than bouncing off.
"Sure." He rolls the ball back to her. Puts a tiny bit more power into his shield. "You can do it harder."