We were back in the warm confines of Marisa's hut, Reimu huddling over a glass of citrus, Marisa scribbling on a yellowing sheet of parchment. The effect of the ostensibly strong magic I had just used still lingered, a tingling, numbing current that made my fingers feel weightless and unburdened.
Marisa leaned back onto her rocking chair, deep in thought. I looked down at the parchment. On it was scrawled a single sentence.
"Magic is will made manifest," I recited.
"Correct." Marisa bit on the cap of her pen. "Magic is the channeling of a surfeit of life energy into the creation of an effect, made real by dint of a combination of willpower and imagination. Or at least, that's what one of my old friends used to say." She shrugged. "I can't say I've ever felt the need to be particularly willful or imaginative – I just have to think a little harder than usual. Maybe that's down to practice, maybe that's down to natural talent. That does bring us to you, though. You employed a piece of magic that the vast majority of people in this realm would never even dare dream of using. How did that happen?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"Well, we can start with what we know. You say that your meeting with Patchouli Knowledge was the spark that your pistons needed." She jotted a few words down.
"You know what cars are?" I asked, slightly taken aback.
"I do visit the Suzunaan from time to time. It's not far from here, after all, and Kosuzu is always willing to let me stick around. It's just that most people here choose not to enlighten themselves with the knowledge the outside world brings. They fear it, in a way, since they don't understand any of it."
"You don't fear it?"
"I'm the second strongest magic user in the realm. I need fear nothing." She glanced at the room's only other occupant. "Why aren't you helping me, number one?"
"Hm?" Reimu looked up, slightly bleary-eyed.
"Don't tell me you're tired already?"
"It's late," she mumbled. Though it was still technically afternoon, I couldn't help but agree - the sun streaming through the window had long taken its leave, and only a red glow, tinted with specks of blue and purple, remained to illuminate the hut's interior. In the dark hues of the waning sunlight, the only sustained source of brightness was the single candle flickering on the tabletop, nestled comfortably within a bronze cup.
"I suggest we stay the night here. The night is dark and full of terrors."
"I understood that reference," I quipped, and Marisa chuckled gently. "But what terrors are there to be found in this forest?"
"More than you might expect. The noxious mushrooms that cover the forest floor grow braver at night, since there's less magical presence to suppress it, and the poison could be a little much for you to bear as you are now. But it's not what lurks in the forest that you should be wary of – it's the forest itself."
"You mean the trees and the grass?"
"The Forest of Magic is more than just the vegetation that it comprises. It is the cesspool of magic, so concentrated that to us magicians it feels denser than air and damper than the morning dew, a magic of hallucination and illusion that drives even the strongest magic user mad. Our flights in and out of the forest were safe in the day because I knew which landmarks to hop between in terms of choosing the most secure passages for travel – at night, we will have no such luxury. We will be fine inside this hut, since I have spell cards embedded in the walls and we have the realm's two most powerful entities with us, but even Reimu hasn't tried walking the forest at night. So, we ought to stay here."
"I understand." I had always felt that there was something unsettling about the mildly suffocating density of ether that swirled around the forest air, but there was obviously more to this place than even Marisa might risk her own sanity to discover.
"I will make us some supper." Marisa pulled a thick wool blanket from behind the couch and placed it over the shoulders of Reimu, who had fallen back into slumber. She patted Reimu's head and smiled, then went off to the kitchen to start making food. I sank deeper into my seat, letting the warmth of the kitchen heat and the smell of fresh herbs wash over my psyche as I watched Reimu's head bob gently, up and down, up and down, until I, too, was hypnotized by the prospect of sleep, though I managed to battle its temptations until Marisa re-emerged with three bowls and a pot of stew.
Our dinner, a mix of boiled chopped cabbages and tofu, coupled with a few hunks of mystery meat and topped off with several sprigs of rosemary and lemongrass, was gulped down quickly – magic, after all, fed on the life energy of its user, and my own reserves had been sapped like never before – and we were soon back in our original positions, Marisa scratching at her parchment as Reimu, belly filled and hunger sated, continued to doze.
"So, you had a vision of your home in the outside world," Marisa said as she wrote down my recollection of the day's events.
"I did. But not just my home. I had a vision of magic itself, of my notion of magic. I did not think explicitly of my household, merely the idea of it."
"That vagueness is what brought you back inside the hut. Your current idea of home is my house, as this is where you've been staying for the past day and is where you'll probably expect to stay until further notice. That sort of vagueness may be dangerous, especially given the kind of ability that you seem to have gained – you might end up teleporting yourself into the ground, or into a tree, if you're not explicit with your visualizations."
"I see. Then I suppose I will require further training, as expected."
"Of course." Marisa winked at me. "That's what we're here for."
A question popped into my mind. "If you keep training me, will I be able to throw fireballs and spell cards in the way you two do? Or am I locked into my current form of teleportation magic?"
"You'll never be locked into a particular sort of magic. It's only a matter of what you find the most comfortable. If, for example, I started learning how to use spell cards in battle, I would only confuse myself if I had to decide between two very different forms of magic in a split second. That might mean the difference between life and death."
"I see. So, you're simply choosing a particular form to specialize in, for the sake of clarity."
"Exactly. The human mind is powerful, but it can only do so many things at once. Magic, in a way, is an art form – you must constantly paint your ideas in your head, until, one day, they become reality. The many situations that you may find yourself in may yield disparate magical results. If you fail to prepare adequately for every event that may possibly occur, your magic may never work at all."
"It seems there is much, much more to magic than simply thinking about it," I noted.
"There is indeed. But, like all art forms, it can be mastered, and you may develop a unique, distinctive style that distinguishes you from the rest. That's the beauty of it, don't you think?"
I smiled, and Marisa, seeing this, smiled as well.
"I suppose it is."