Blade Maidens: Closed Fist, Open Hand – 15

“I’ve made something of my own. A spell.

I didn’t even intend to! I was simply practicing my arcanistry in the garden. Professor Loren had scheduled yet another lecture on Kalvan’s Theorem and I elected to focus on more practical pursuits this afternoon. I ran through the fundamentals. Conjuration of flame, water and lightning. Manipulation of earth and wind. I’m getting quite good at the latter, I kept a leaf dancing in the air around Kaywen’s head for a good half-hour. She didn’t break her watch once, of course.

That may have been where the idea first struck. I finally lost concentration on the leaf’s parade when a small rabbit kit made its way into mother’s roses. I know she loathes the things, but I’m partial to the adorable little pests. And as the poor thing was too small to reach anything other than thick roots and sharp thorns, I decided to…provide it a new perspective.

Initially I considered flame but, as I’ve learned, fire burns longest but does not produce the most heat if efficiency in your casting is kept in mind. For that, lightning is your friend at hand. Next, I mimicked the leaf’s dance. Striking the kit would only harm it–or worse, kill the young thing–so the true trick was to surrounded it in a sort of cage of lightning, looping faster and faster while staying out of physical contact.

Sure enough, the heat from the lightning was enough to produce enough lift to raise the, understandably confused, rabbit a few inches off the ground. While it’s startled thrashing made for a fraught few moments at first, as soon as it realized that no actual harm was being done to it, and that a delicious rose was now right in front of it’s hungry mouth, it became focused on other matters.

I was so singularly driven on maintaining the spell, I didn’t notice Lys had joined me until afterwards. His silence and smirk had me expecting some sort of jab or cutting remark as I recovered my breath. But my brother only had a single question on his mind: “What would you like to name your spell?”

I got to name it. Lilaceae’s Lightning Lift. Lysander laughed but I couldn’t care less what he thinks of it. It’s mine. Magic from within me, made into a form that I crafted with my own mind and hands. Part of me as much as anything.

I suppose it will be the first of many.”

An entry in Rowan’s Journal, dated Sulna 17, 868