"And if the cave-sleeper kills someone, then the Hearth can't resurrect them?"

Aeslin sips her tea.

"What you're saying about the Hearth was making me wonder whether it's a person.  But... how is the Grass weird too?  Maybe your world really works differently?"

"Yeah. Bran things that the cave-sleeper can do something that interferes with the hearth when it tries to, uh, undo what the cave-sleeper has done, I think is how he said it? And the hearth might be a person, I know Bran would say that it is in some ways and isn't in others, though I couldn't give you any more explanation. The Grass though is, uh." She searches for words for a moment. "It's inconsistent? Earlier you said that the way the hearth works makes you think of dream symbolism, but the Grass is what really makes me think of dreams. When I go up to the roof to get fresh air during the summer, If I look out at a spot in the Grass, I might see a stream or a lone tree or some other thing, but if I turn around then look back, it might be gone or look different."

"Well, that's just shapeshifting...  Do you know what Bran says the cave-sleeper might be doing?"

"He mostly agrees with grandma and thinks that it's trying to get us to go away, either by killing us or getting us to run off into the Grass and disappear, so that it can take the hearth back."

"If your family's the only other people there...  Maybe?  It won't talk with you?  And the Hearth isn't clear?"

Ira shakes her head. "Bran has been working on figuring out a way for him to communicate with the hearth more easily, but he hasn't gotten anything yet, and trying to talk to the hearth-spirits when they come out during the answering doesn't work very well. We could use a wish for the answer, probably at least? Or maybe the same thing about the cave-sleeper that makes it so we can't revive my mother means the hearth can't answer questions about it. It's risky to use one of our wishes on something the hearth might not be able to do, especially the last few years when we've usually needed all three for other things."

""There has to be some other way to learn about your world.  Maybe if we can investigate it with our magic...

"And if you've just been by yourself - if there's no school - there must be so much you haven't learned!  You say you've got books, at least - is there anything particular you want to learn?"

"Maybe! Time starts again if I open the door, so maybe I could open it and you cast some kind of information-gathering spell through it? I don't really know what sort of things are achievable with your magic yet."

Ira gives Aeslin a slightly confused look at that question. "I don't know if there's anything in particular I don't want to learn, given the time and opportunity? I guess, there are some stories about concepts or ideas that are dangerous to have in your head, which I suppose if magic and elves and Milliways are all real might be real too, but otherwise I think I'd like to learn everything I can."

"I could teach you more magic!  Or I could tell you more about my country's history - well, you aren't on the same world, but you don't really have a country around you where you are!"

Ira nods delightedly. "Both of those sound good!" Her expression grows a little bashful. "I suppose I am a bit more interested in learning more magic. Casting that light spell was fascinating and it's exciting to hear that I have some kind of talent for it."

"The next exercises we normally do in school are just to make it reliable, to build up the habit of getting the magic to work every time - but I don't think you need to do that; you got it on the first time!  How about trying for finer control - make a red light this time?  Same as last time - make the magic flow through the wand to the tip, but this time, make sure you're imagining a red light.  And, maybe you can try for one a bit brighter too?"

Ira nods again, quietly reacquiring the wand and rebuilding her visualization. She imagines the flow of the vortex as being faster and harder and hotter, operating purely on intuition, to feed the light at the end of the wand more magic, as well as imagining the light as brighter and redder, more like the outer flames of the hearth than the dim yellow-white of a candle.

Once more, she feels in her hand the ghost of something like slush being sucked up - faster this time, rushing over and through her hand in the something-like-imagination that's the magic.  When she opens her eyes, she sees a big ball of red light standing on the end of her wand.

"You did it again!"

Ira laughs delightfully!

“Oh, I have an idea!” She exclaims, promptly closing her eyes again. She attempts to regain conscious control of her pseudo-imagination, and assuming she can, she’ll alter the visualization, changing it so that rather than immediately turning into light after leaving the top of the wand, it becomes a sort of intermediate thing, still invisible like the slush-magic is, but directed and purposeful, sort of shooting out from the top of her wand, traveling and heating up before sort of ‘evaporating’ into the same ball of red light, now separated from the wand by a significant distance and, hopefully, movable by changing the direction she points the wand in.

Having put that all together, she trepidatiously opens her eyes.

Even before she opens her eyes, she's feeling the magic stronger this time, and differently - like she's feeling it with her real senses as well as with her imagination.

When she opens her eyes, she sees the red ball is smashed against the ceiling of the bar, and her hands are red as if they're sunburned.

“Oh!” Even if her hands aren’t hurting like a sunburn it’s still quite surprising to see. She’ll quickly cut off the visualization, which will hopefully make the redness go away. Then she’ll look to Aeslin to check her reaction and maybe receive some guidance.

The sunburn subsides a little, but it doesn't fully subside.  (The red light against the ceiling does vanish.)

"Good work again - you got it to move!  A little too far and too fast, though, I'm thinking?  But that will come with practice.

"The first thing is, you're channeling too much magic too broadly.  When you're working with large amounts of magic - like I do a lot - you need to keep it really tightly focused on your wand because your hands aren't built to interact with that much.  We aren't Elves.  But then, you don't need all that much magic for something like this, so it's best to just summon less magic.  What were you trying to do there?"

“I was imagining it as a vortex feeding into the base of the wand, I guess just because that feels like a natural way for a fluid to flow. Before I was having the flowing magic just directly turn into light at the end of the wand, and then I had an idea for how to make extend further away, by having the magic turn into something sort of, half-way between the not-water and the light, something that’s invisible and that can still flow but will turn into light on its own. Since, the wand is how we control the magic right? So I figured once the magic flows out of the end, it needs to be set and ready to do what we want, since it’s going through the wand anymore and maybe isn’t totally under our control at that point?”

"Yes... but that shouldn't change the amount of magic at all.  Your burns, and the light going all the way against the ceiling are both pointing to your channeling too much magic.  Did you mean to be changing anything about that?"

"Oh, actually, yes, but just before, when I increased the brightness. I just, figured that more light would need more magic?"

"Yes, but your hands didn't get burned then.  It must've been something new this time..."

"Oh, I've got an idea!  Give me the wand to check something?"

Aeslin grabs the wand and waves it in a knot-like motion toward Ira.  Ira doesn't see any glow coming from the wand, but some sparks fly out of her own arms.

"Oh wow!" Aeslin exclaims.  "You actually do have some magic in you, just like Elves!  Maybe your uncle really is an Elf?  Or maybe the Hearth put something in you!?"

Ira is briefly fascinated by the sparks. "Maybe? We do also use it as a hearth, cook our food over it, boil our water with it, that sort of thing, so maybe the magics get into things and then into us?"

"Maybe?  I've used magic ovens - well, eaten food cooked with magic ovens - most of my life, and I'm still not magic.  Well, okay, I might as well check..."

She points the wand at herself and weaves it in the same knot, but no sparks are visible.