You can do magic
You can have anything that you desire
Magic, and you know
You're the one who can put out the fire
~You Can Do Magic-America~
He looked up from his tome towards Cordana who was polishing the blades on her cloak.
"Cordana, my dear," asked Khadgar. "I have some questions about your magic."
She stopped and looked over. "I am not a mage, Khadgar," she said.
He pushed his tome aside. "No, but you are able to draw power as I am, and I am curious on the methods you employ. Also, I feel that if you already have the affinity perhaps I can teach you some things that may help you."
He was not sure how she would receive the offer. Would she be insulted or intrigued by it?
Cordana rolled her eyes and went back to her polishing. "I don't do magic, Archmage," she said.
He flicked a small series of tiny missiles at her. She made a gesture with her hand and deflected them, ignoring him completely. When she turned her back, he sent a larger ball of lightning, and again she deflected it easily without a word.
"Oh, Cordana," he sighed. "You have such potential, why do you deny it to yourself? I can teach you marvellous things! Arcane magic is a wonderous skill to have!"
She turned suddenly and 4 stone blades manifested in the air and shot straight for him. They reached his wards and stopped, fizzling to a sparkling dust and disappearing at a gesture of her hand.
"Perhaps it is I who can teach you, Khadgar," said Cordana with a devilishly sweet smile on her face. She created the daggers again and this time they swirled around his head a few times before she recalled them, making them vanish into her hand.
He laughed and pointed at her, catching her in an invisible embrace, levitating her a few inches off the ground. He was certain she would hang there and be rather irritated with him, and he was surprised when she broke his hold and landed lightly on the ground.
"Remarkable!" he exclaimed. "Some of the arcanists I teach cannot even do that!"
Cordana sighed and turned, walking over to him and enfolding herself into his arms. He held onto her, his lips pressed to the side of her head.
"My so called magic is not as impressive as you may think, Khadgar," she said. "It is nice that I can do anything at all that impresses you, but my people do not have any true magical affinity. We left that behind generations ago. There are healing abilities and some offensive skills in some of us, and our druids can shapeshift but that is really the extent of it. As a Warden I was taught to enhance the dormant offensive skill I possess but it was never as strong as that of my sisters. The earth manipulation we are able to do is not considered magic. My gift is celerity. I possess that in greater abundance than the other Wardens do."
He questioned her on the technical aspects of her craft, how she manifested the blades, what she did to increase her speed, how she was able to hold onto stealth so long and how she was able to sense his attacks and deflect them so easily. He was truly amazed at her responses, but was unable to duplicate her methods.
In all his years, Khadgar had never found a magic he could not duplicate. Certainly he could manifest blades and other offensive spells of a non elemental nature, and create complex and powerful wards but he could not imitate Cordana's abilities. It seemed the earth magic used a different form of control than he was used to Even her stealth was foreign to him. He could render himself invisible for a short period of time, and teleport out of danger but to remain completely unseen for a limitless amount of time was a mystery to him. Cordana was even able to sleep in stealth!
"You are right, Cordana," he said looking into her eyes. "Perhaps you truly can teach me over time."
"Your magic is of a different nature, Khadgar," she responded, giving him a quick kiss. "You draw power from the twisting nether, the abilities I have come from the essence of life itself and is grounded on the earth we walk on, wherever that might be. There is no attunement required and we do not consider it magic at all. It simply...is. I cannot imitate what it is you do, although I would very much like to learn to ward myself in battle, and to teleport but I do not believe I would be able to."
He smiled. "Would you be willing to try, to both teach and to learn?"
She nodded. "Yes, with no expectations."
Khadgar had always thought that a mage had the quickest and finest mind, but as he worked with Cordana he realized he had been wrong. She closely matched him in intelligence, but she had a strong intuition that he felt he lacked. She could be single minded just as he could be, but she was able to sense and feel outside of that focus, changing her methods as needed to achieve the goal while he honestly felt he just tried to juggernaut through it to get to the end result. He admired her more and more, and his love for her grew even deeper.
For Cordana, untangling the mysteries of a mage's skill was fascinating. Khadgar was incredibly intelligent, but it was the strength of his power that astonished her. He could manipulate the arcane in ways she never knew existed. However, despite that, there was something lacking in him, that prevented him from being able to duplicate her methods. He was constantly trying to force the manifestations rather than drawing them out, encouraging them into being. When he got frustrated he grew even worse. Khadgar never outwardly showed his anger or frustration she discovered, but it released itself in his magic. This worried her. Negative energy attracted negative magic.
"Khadgar," she said after one of their practice sessions. "You cannot dominate power. You must allow it to manifest itself at your request, not at your demand. It will always be infinitely more powerful than you, and forcing it will lead to negative repercussions. Does this make sense to you?"
He tilted his head. "Yes...but I fail to understand what that has to do with me, Cordana. I have perfect control over the power I have."
She shook her head. "No...you demand its performance rather than requesting what you will of it, asking it to do your bidding. Let me demonstrate."
She looked around and spied a large boulder. She stood behind him and pushed him towards it. Confused and not expecting it, Khadgar stumbled.
"Cordana, what are you doing?" he asked.
She took him by the hand and forcibly dragged him over. Then she threw clumps of earth at him to make him move when he balked and stared at her in puzzlement.
She walked to the other side of the boulder and held her hand out.
"Khadgar," she asked softly. "Will you please climb the boulder and come to me?"
He easily crossed it and landed in front of her, taking her hand.
She smiled. "You just helped me demonstrate perfectly what I meant."
There was confusion in his eyes and he shook his head.
"You see," she said. "At first I forced you. I didn't ask, I just demanded that you go to the boulder. I pushed you, I pulled you, I threw things at you. You didn't understand. You balked and fought against me. However when I asked you kindly, you were instant to respond. That is how earth manipulation works also. You cannot demand response, you must ask. Gently, with respect."
"Do I...push and pull and throw?" he asked.
"Yes. You are very forceful with your magic. Very demanding and rigid. If I had stood there and just asked you to come to me, without instructing you explicitly, what would you have done?"
Khadgar thought about it. "I would have walked around you or teleported I suppose."
She nodded. "Exactly. I would make a request of you and you would decide how to carry it out. The end result is still the same. You do not need to be rigid in your handling of your power."
She turned to a tree that was covered in long, hanging vines. She held out her hand, and slowly one of the creepers began to move towards her. It entwined itself around her arm and snaked through her hair before gliding back towards the tree.
"You try it, Khadgar," she suggested.
He looked at the tree and held out his arm. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same results. She felt his frustration, and at that moment the same creeper began to thrash around. It lashed out angrily at him. She saw him draw power and prepare an offensive spell. She grabbed his arm.
"No! Khadgar! Stop!"
"It was attacking me, Cordana!" he exclaimed.
"Incorrect, Archmage. It was you who was attacking it! The tree was defending against your aggression. Think of it as a child, you would not shout or pull at a child would you? You would ask them kindly to do your bidding. " She considered a moment. "Think of this tree as your child. You wish them to come to you. Now ask."
Khadgar's eyes softened and he held out his hand. At first there was nothing, but then the creeper tentatively moved forward, paused, then glided forward again. It crept around his leg and up to his arm where it wrapped a few times around his wrist, then receded back to the tree.
Cordana clapped her hands. "Yes, Archmage, you understand now! Did it feel different at all? It must have!"
He looked at her. "It was what you said, Cordana. To think of the tree as my child. There was a shift in my power base...however...when I thought of it as our child everything changed. It came to me then."
He embraced her, his cheek resting against her head. "How I truly do wish it could be so, Cordana," he whispered almost inaudibly. A strange anxiety seized her inside and she pulled away, looking straight at him.
"Do what you must to refine your magic, Khadgar," she said. "But do not get any terrible ideas!"
His eyes saddened. "Would it truly be so terrible to carry my child, Cordana?"
She stared at him. "It has nothing whatsoever to do with you in particular. The entire notion is unappealing to me. I have never hidden my feelings on the subject. You know exactly where I stand on that, Khadgar. Now let us continue our training."
He backed up and sat down on the boulder he had just climbed over. "You can rest easy. Such a situation will not come to pass between us. It was simply a question, perhaps to reassure myself on the depth of your feelings towards me."
"You know I love you. How can you doubt that? I do not need to put myself through the 9 hells in that way to prove it to you, do I?"
He shook his head, his entire countenance appeared deflated. "No, you do not. Cordana, I should tell you that even if you had wanted to conceive...it would not happen."
She shrugged. "While the Kaldorei can be challenging in matters of conception, I would not say it was impossible. Just highly unlikely between a short lived species and my people."
"No Cordana. Not due to your race but my own infirmity on the matter. When my master cursed me and took my vitality and nearly my life from me, he also took away any chance that I would ever father a child."
That shocked her. "How could you know that, Khadgar? You told me you had never been with anyone before! "
"It is part of such a curse. For all intents and purposes it is meant to relegate you to the same level as an undead. Breathing, moving but not wholly alive, unable to grow and reproduce. It was through the grace of my magic that I was able to survive such an attack."
"You are far from an undead, Archmage. You are vibrant and warm and full of life and emotion. Quite the opposite of any Forsaken I have ever come into contact with."
He looked away. "Nevertheless...the outcome is the same. So you need not concern yourself with being put through the 9 hells as you said."
She was quiet, then came to stand before him, stroking his face gently. "I am sorry, Khadgar. It is terrible what your master did to you. But I will never lie to you. You can count on knowing where you stand with me in any matter. It might not be much but it is one thing I can give you. That, and my deep love for you."
She kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss. "We won't get much training done if we continue this," he said.
"I know, " Cordana responded. "There is a patch of lichen over there that looks rather soft and inviting however."
He stood and picked her up, carrying her over to it. It was soft and springy and smelled of the forest.
They made love tenderly and slowly, each hoping the other could feel exactly how deep their love ran.