Wand is handed to her. There are definitely firemotes in it. And a lot of another kind of motes, which are probably metalmotes.

"The attitude that tends to work for me, is that those motes are yours by right. How dare they not be yours? Don't they know who you are? You have to remind them."

Yeah, you hear that, firemotes? BELLA'S firemotes now. She's here to do magic and live forever and forever will take a while to get here.

These firemotes: Are Bella's. They are all holding still together now. They are drawing a tiny amount of mana to stay hers-and-holding-still. It's just... Obvious, like recognizing an icon on a screen.

And the ones next to them and so on and so forth, also Bella's, and a few in the fire where she's poking the wand: also Bella's.

It's easy to claim along the wand. Claiming the ones in the fire, constantly appearing and moving upward and vanishing, is a bit trickier. Going for just a few is a better strategy; Some of them are hers, but more are rushing through that aren't hers, still.

"Good work," Loril drawls. "It can be tricky to learn how to enforce different bindings. The natural inclination of firewisps is to heat things up. Making them do the opposite can take several attempts."

"Should I try one of those now?"

"I want you to look very closely at a small segment of the firewisps. If you examine them closely enough, you should be able to tell more about them than where they are and where they're going. People see it differently sometimes. I hear them humming in different pure tones."

Bella zooms in on some of the motes. They're different... colors...?

They're different colors! They're mostly slightly different shades of green.

"They're different shades of green."

"You can change their colors. All along the rainbow. Each shade causes different behavior. Deep blue or violet for absorbing heat through firemotes. Gently. Condensed airs are unpleasant."

"Won't the fire heat it right back up if I absorb heat?"

"If you remove the heat, the fire will die. Fire requires fuel, air, and heat. Any of the three will collapse it if missing. However, removing the air is a more advanced technique. Anyway, the goal is learning basic manipulation. Not putting out a fire."

Huh, she thought heat was a product of fire more than a requirement but she can look it up later.

Deep blue, motes.

The fire goes dim around these motes, wavers, wobbles, then snuffs out. There also seems to be frost or something forming around it, on the torch and wand, and is drawing a lot of imbuement.

Huh, is there an exact color where it'll take less mana to maintain?

The mana use drops sharply when there's nothing nearby left to chill rapidly. Also, the wand is getting cold.

"Firemotes can increase heat, delete heat, radiate heat, move heat from place to place - often more efficient, prevent the movement of heat. Conditional bindings to react to stimulus we will cover later. Relight the flame."

She regreens the motes, pokes the torch - how does this part work -

Green doesn't seem to do anything. Green might be the 'do nothing' color.

Loril waits a moment before making a small 'ah' sound. "-Red or orange. Sorry."

Red!

The drain ticks upwards pretty sharply again, the frost vanishes with little wisps of water vapor, the black tip of the wick crumples slightly-

And fwoosh. The drain stops again, now that the temperature is high in the designated area already.

And she can let the motes do what they want colorwise from here. Eeee!

"May I?" Asks her teacher, extending a wand towards the torch.

"Sure?"

Loril pokes the wand. Suddenly, the wisps are not hers anymore. It feels like there was a brief moment where she could have contested it, but it was over before she knew it was happening.

She nods, smiling. "You will have to learn what shades, exactly, correspond to what temperature. And learn the other types of motes, before we move on to complex bindings. And practice. A lot. However. Congratulations, apprentice motemancer Bella."