The humid air hung between them like a fog. Jellal breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. The atmosphere of the sulfur springs deep in the caves near Mystogan's tree was so thick he had to focus almost all his energy on the effort to breathe. He knew this was part of the exercise but couldn't get rid of all his annoyance.

"Let it go," Mystogan murmured. Jellal cracked one eye and saw his companion sitting utterly, and identically, still across from him. "You can't command the magic if you don't understand the process."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Because you're distracted." Mystogan sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "This isn't innate magic, Jellal. It doesn't behave the way you are accustomed to magic behaving."

"Why?"

"This is outside magic. It is attached to an object with no origin. It has no master. If you want to command it, you must learn the paths within yourself to channel it."

"I still don't understand."

"Your family's magic was instilled in you before your birth. It was formed along with you in your mother's womb. The magic in my staves I channel through me and, because I understand the object the magic resides in and its purpose, I can command it."

"Like a celestial mage's contract with a spirit?"

"No. This is less sentient. More dangerous." Jellal huffed in frustration. Mystogan breathed in again and took his sweet time emptying his lungs. "Magic spelled into objects exists in a circle. Imagine an ouroboros. Unless disturbed, the serpent will continue to flow only in one direction and forever clamp its teeth into the flesh of its own tail. It cannot help this compulsion and lacks the cognescience to disengage. Once disturbed, the serpent needs direction. If there's no path, the magic will run wild and destroy both itself, and the mage attempting to wield it."

Jellal tried to reach inside of himself but all he could find was his empty origin – a vacuous hole that radiated despair.

"Outside magic will not fill your origin, Jellal. It will flow through your body but it can never touch that empty place inside you."

"I don't think I can do this," Jellal whispered.

"You can if you have the desire to learn and patience to apply."

"Magic always came so easy to me. Even magic that wasn't mine. I learned to master things that had nothing to do with the stars."

"For some, that understanding comes easy. This is another animal entirely. You will need to leave what you know behind."

"I don't know how." The silence in the cave stretched between them and Jellal found he had to work even harder to breathe. He couldn't tell if this was because the air grew thicker or because his throat was tighter.

"Focus."

"I can't focus when it's so hard to breathe."

"Then focus on that. Imagine the air filling your lungs and then flowing back out. Outside magic is the same. You will need to channel it. Unlike innate magic, it has no learned behavior. You must cut the path yourself and be prepared to withstand the force of it flowing through your body."

Jellal tore his conscience away from his empty origin and focused on his lungs. He imagined the air as thick smoke that he both pulled in and pushed out.

"This is good," Mystogan said finally. "Control is very important. Otherwise the magic will consume you."

When Jellal opened his eyes again, the air was cooler. Thinner. Mystogan had already covered himself in his cloak again and stood near the mouth of the tunnel that would take them back out into the forest. Jellal's stomach rumbled irritably. Beyond the cave was the night. He hadn't realized but they'd been shut away for the bulk of the day.


Erza's hair slid through his fingers like strands of silk. The bed they shared somewhere in the body of the tree-like vessel – Jellal was convinced the tree wasn't actually a tree at all but a magical entity entirely unto itself – was better than the rectory accommodations he'd all but forgotten now but not as nice as the room he kept in Crime Sorciere. Sharing a space with the princess, though, was something he enjoyed more than he was conditioned to think he should.

"Is he a difficult man?" she asked quietly, drawing circles on his chest with the tips of her fingers.

"Tedious, more like." Jellal turned his head toward her. "I am unused to what he calls outside magic."

"Your magical strength has always come from inside you, Jellal," Erza mused. "It's a different experience to command a power that is not your own." Jellal raised an eyebrow when she propped her chin on one closed fist and laughed softly. "Having to work so hard for something that's always come easy is new for you. This is a new vulnerability."

"What do you know of outside magic?"

"A few of my swords and armors are spelled. Some of their abilities require effort on my part. It's symbiotic in certain cases."

"I never realized."

Erza smiled and reached up to run her own fingers through his hair. "When they exist in my requip space, they close in on themselves and don't become active until I have the item in my hand again."

"Mystogan compared it to disturbing an ouroboros."

"Mm," she murmured. "I think that's an accurate comparison."

"Erza," he breathed. "I don't know if I can do this. I feel so detached from my origin and these items speak a language I do not."

"You can learn, Jellal," Erza whispered. "You would learn it easier if it weren't a necessity for you."

"What do you mean?"

She laughed and pressed a kiss to the edge of his jaw. "I mean if your back were not against a wall, you would have the skill already. Your hunger for understanding magic is ravenous. There are not so many in this world with an affinity for the knowledge. I think you, your friend Ultear, and my mother are the same." Erza rose above him and slid one leg over his hips. "But now that you have no options, no choices, other than to learn it, you struggle. Let go of the I must and focus on the I want."

Jellal's mind emptied when she grasped his erection and took him inside of her. Her words didn't return to him until he was spent and Erza slept beside him. The shape and meaning of them lingered and kept him awake long into the wee hours of the morning.


The first time Jellal's hand closed around a powerfully spelled object, he thought his skin would melt right off the bone. He yanked his hand back and scowled at Mystogan.

"I warned you," Mystogan said with a laugh.

"It burned me."

"Because it had nowhere to go. You cannot control this magic. Only channel it."

"This is dangerous," Jellal huffed indignantly.

"And commanding the heavens was not?"

"That's different."

"You're right. It is different." Mystogan closed his own hand around the artifact and it began to glow green. Shapes of animals projected on the wall and told a story for children. "And the difference is that you don't know how to control this magic yet."

"It's a children's toy?" Jellal had half a mind to snatch the object back from Mystogan and bend it to his will.

"We all start at the bottom, Your Highness," Mystogan quipped, ignoring the way Jellal's mouth flattened. He poked around on the shelves that had been carved into the walls of the tree. "Hm. Let's try this one."

Jellal took the smaller orb from Mystogan and stared down at it in the palm of his hand. "It's not doing anything."

"This particular object is a little different than the toy. The magic is less visual. Less volatile." Mystogan pulled out the chair across from him at the small table and pierced Jellal with a stare. "You need to draw the magic out."

"You said outside magic had no origin."

"It doesn't. But this orb is quite old and the magic is tired. You'll need to draw it out and let it flow into you."

"Is every spell different?"

"Yes."

"Complicated and messy," Jellal muttered, glaring at the orb.

"It is both of those things, yes, but not impossible." Mystogan leaned back in his creaking chair. "Reach into the orb the way you might reach into your own origin. Draw the magic out."

Jellal closed his eyes and his hand around the orb. He imagined Ultear in the hallway on the top floor of Crime Sorciere. She'd pressed her palm against his chest and tried to pluck at any trace of magic left inside of him. Jellal tried to remake that feeling of invasion as something corporeal – something he could see and touch. The orb began to warm and Jellal's mind drifted further back. He remembered all the times Meteor gathered in his knees before he'd leap, and the way Sema collected in the tips of his fingers.

Every part of his body vibrated and steadily grew hotter. It felt like the blood in his veins had been replaced with something molten but also feather light.

The sound of Erza's gasp broke his concentration and Jellal's eyes flew open. For a brief second he recognized Mystogan below him and found he was hovering near the ceiling of the room. Before he could regain any semblance of focus, he tumbled down to the floor.

"What the –"

"Do you understand what I'm telling you now?" Mystogan asked, now standing above him and offering a hand.

"Yeah," Jellal muttered, pulling himself back to his feet. "Yeah, I do. It's not a command," he whispered, gazing down at the now cold orb. "It's a flow."

Erza's hands closed around his arm. "I hate to interrupt but it's important."

Mystogan pursed his lips and Jellal felt uneasy. "What is it?"

"Foss is preparing for a blizzard. They say it's the first of the season and coming from the east. The reports say in two days time everything will be covered in a deep snow." Erza's eyes were sharply fixated on Jellal's. He already knew what she was trying to say. "If we don't head for the mountain pass now –"

"We'll be stuck in Fiore until spring," Jellal finished. He could feel Mystogan's disapproval.

"If you abandon these lessons now, you endanger yourself," he said plainly. Mystogan grabbed Jellal's other hand and poked at the singed skin along the side of his thumb. "You burned yourself not even an hour ago."

"I can't stay. I need –"

Mystogan's eyes cut to Erza. "Watch him," he said firmly. "He is easily frustrated and restless."

"I know these things," she said, leaning her head into Jellal's shoulder. "I am well used to the way he operates. I'll take him as a pupil."

Mystogan nodded once before disappearing into the stairwell that circled the tree muttering to himself. Jellal turned to Erza.

"I'm a horrible student."

"No worse than me trying to learn a curtsey." She smiled and squeezed his hand before following Mystogan into the stairwell. "I'll collect our things. We should leave before sunset if we are to make good time back to Foss and beat the storm."

Once alone, Jellal stared at the orb in his palm again. He thought he had a decent enough grasp on cutting a path but one look at the still red patch of burned skin on his opposite thumb gave him pause. He hoped the threat of remaining unmagical would help push him through the learning curve.


Mystogan did not see them off and Jellal couldn't find it in himself to care. The man was frustrating and he didn't care to hear another speech about origins and channels. Instead, Erza handed him a satchel filled with items Mystogan had, apparently, hand-picked. Jellal's frustration flared.

"So he'll wish you a good journey but not me?"

"You and he have more in common than I think the both of you care to acknowledge. He has concern for you."

"I'm sure," Jellal muttered.

The snow crunched under their boots and was the only sound they could hear. This time, Jellal spotted Mystogan's barriers easily. The silver pins wedged into the tree bark protected him from wayward travelers or roaming bandits. Just before passing through the barrier, Jellal glanced back over his shoulder and thought he saw the torn edges of Mystogan's cloak somewhere high up in the thick web of pine needles. The view was obscured once they left the pins behind. The sounds of the forest returned along with the high walls of Foss in the distance.


Note: I did my best to not have Mystogan sound like Yoda in this chapter but here we are.