"Really? ... Okay," he says, moving to grab the cards from his bag, and pulling out his key. "The Key which hides the powers of the Dark, show your true powers before me. I, Theo, command you under our contract. Release!"

It seems he has a new catch phrase.

"What does that even mean? 'Hides the powers of the Dark'?" he asks Cerberus, then sits on the floor, putting the cards on either side of him, and his staff across his legs, closing his eyes and trying to "focus on the magic" within him.

"Sun and Moon, Light and Dark, Western and Eastern magic," he explains. "All magic is under one or the other. Clow was under the Moon, so his staff has the power of the Dark."

"Oh, right," he says, and then continues to try to focus on the magic.

Is there some sort of feeling he should get? Or is he just going to be sitting here for 20 minutes, getting more and more bored?

It apparently starts out as the latter. "You're not doing it right. You need to empty your thoughts, focus on your breathing. Think about the feeling you got when you noticed the Fly was around."

"What, the surprise at seeing the huge bird?"

"No. The other feeling. Snark doesn't help with meditation, you know."

"Okay, okay. So I just... focus on my breathing, and try to think about nothing but the weird feeling. Got it."

He closes his eyes again and tries really hard to empty his mind. It's pretty difficult when his reaction to each thought is 'No, empty,' which is... making his mind still not empty. Eventually, though, he succeeds, and he then tries to focus on the feeling.

And unlike regular meditation, magical meditation has feedback. His eyes are still quite closed, but he can see:

There's nothing there, his room is gone. The magical circle is under him, where the ground should be, glowing white against the black void. Not even Cerberus is there, but his cards are, floating to either side of him.

Theo jerks a little, rather surprised that he's seeing things with his eyes shut.

Well, he's not anymore.

"You need to keep focused."

"Yeah, I was trying, but I didn't expect to see things."

He tries to focus again, this time prepared for seeing things. It takes him much less time to clear his mind, this time, and again he focuses on his magic.

The scene soon appears before his non-eyes again.

And as he spends more time in there, more details can be made out. The two cards aren't just cards, it's obvious they're not. He can see the cards, and he can see their true forms, Windy smiling softly at him and Fly perched regally on an unseen object, both occupying non-spaces both larger and smaller than anything else.

And they're not just that, either. They're so much more—magic, pure and shaped, potential and power. There are... emotions, feelings, beliefs, there...

That's... inspiring. Theo manages to keep focusing on the magic, just about, but is somewhat overwhelmed by the experience.

Fly... it's subdued, yes, but not by Theo. It respects Windy. And it's slightly hurt, emotionally.

Windy doesn't see Theo as her master either, but is willing to help. Her feelings for him are an alien, almost incomprehensible version of grandmotherly; she is the wind itself, powerful, big, all-encompassing, and she's bowing to him out of—pity? love?

Well, Theo feels a little guilty about Fly, but not enough to use it for a winged broomstick. And as before, Theo feels a bit sad about Windy, but doesn't linger on that too much.

He decides to wake out of the trance, focusing back on his breathing instead of the magic, then opening his eyes.

He doesn't even need to do that; the moment he drops out of relaxation, trance ends.

"Why'd you stop?"

"I don't know, really. I saw the cards, or, like... a weird version of them, and... I'm not sure?"

"What?"

"The point of meditating is getting better at perceiving magic, and developing a good relationship with it."

"Oh, right. I didn't realise. I thought you just wanted me to see what the cards were like."

He closes his eyes again and focuses again, since that's what he's supposed to do.

Yep, there the cards are again. It takes exactly the same amount of time it did before for the various layers of details to become apparent.

Theo keeps focusing on his magic, trying to take everything in.

And more details become apparent.

The first one is Cerberus, glowing golden where his physical body would be in relation to Theo, in the bedroom. It starts out small, winged-bear-shaped, but it—grows. There's a clear sense of great power, there, but it's dormant, its shape fuzzier. In the same way the cards are simultaneously card and something else, Cerberus is bear and something else, but the something else isn't crisp enough to be made out.

Well that's potentially worrying, but it's something to deal with later. Theo tries to put it out of his mind and waits for new details.