"A semi-colon is inappropriate here. A period would accomplish the job."
Sasha suppressed the desire to groan. The Abbess was proofreading her piece on the specific nature of the dogwood tree in the courtyard. If she had thought it was boring to write, listening to the older woman correct it was agony.
"Why does it matter? I thought you liked it when I used the more difficult… things," she waved her hands about in the air for a moment, indicating all of the less common grammar she couldn’t quite put words to.
"I want you to use more complicated language and punctuation, when necessary, so that your meaning can be more precisely expressed," the Abbess corrected. That was pretty much what the Abbess did, in Sasha’s mind. It was ALL that she did. Corrected everything she said. "I do not like it when you randomly insert larger words or atypical punctuation just to impress me, especially when it is inaccurate or used improperly."
Now Sasha did groan. It had only been two weeks since she had been taken out of her classes with the other acolytes and started private sessions with the head of the Order. Only two weeks, but it felt like ten. So far, every day, this was all she did. The first half of the day dedicated to writing an essay on something. Perhaps the way the wind was moving the clouds that day, or the patterns the rain was making on the surface of the pond, or what order the cook added ingredients to the soup. The worst had been alternative composite materials for wood on planets where wood was scarce. Often, it was mind-numbingly dull. Some days it was actually hard. Her studies had never been hard before, and Sasha was not enjoying it.
"Difficult. Not hard. Challenging perhaps would be better, as none of this is actually difficult for you. Just that it requires more effort than you are accustomed to offering to your studies."
The Abbess looked over the rims of the spectacles at the ten-year-old across from her. Sasha returned the look, but with far less grace. She hated it when the Abbess did that. It was bad enough to have her constantly correcting her writing. That she needed to correct her thoughts was nearly unbearable.
"Nearly, just so," the Abbess said with a tiny smile.
It was too much. She stood up suddenly, pushing the chair back with a squeal across the wood floor. She had been stuffing down this growing feeling of resentment. This was such an incredible waste of her time when she could actually be learning. This wasn’t learning. This was busy work. Tedious busy work. And she wasn’t going to take it anymore. Forget Patience. If the Abbess wanted to lecture her on the Virtues of the Order she could stuff a sock in it. Sasha was out of Patience.
The Abbess just looked back down at the palm screen, casually scrolling to the next page of Sasha’s work while she waited. She’d been waiting thirteen days for the question. She could wait another moment or two.
"What’s the point?"
"The tip of your stylus, most likely."
Sasha nearly growled now with irritation. "You know what I meant! You know exactly what I mean! You always do!"
The older woman looked up again, calm in the face of a very angry girl. "Yes, but do you?"
Breathing in, deeply, perhaps a little raggedly, Sasha ordered her thoughts as she’d been taught.
"What does all of this- the writing, the constant revisions, correcting my words- have to do with magic?"
A real smile spread over the Abbess’s face as she nodded, satisfied.
"Just so. You have been at the Abbey for five years. And each year, you have learned more about magic, once you exhibited a talent for it."
"Everyone here has a talent for magic," Sasha interrupted, clearly annoyed. This wasn’t answering her question. She’d been waiting for two weeks to ask this, and now she couldn’t wait another heartbeat to understand why she’d been wasting her time.
"No," the Abbess corrected, her tone gentle. "No, everyone here has the capacity to learn it. But not all have a talent. Take Master of Novices. He can barely make a broom change colours, let alone altering anything to its core. And while I will not name anyone, not all of your classmates are gifted. All will leave here with certain ability, certain spells. But not all are destined to be great."
"But this isn’t magic," Sasha insisted stubbornly. "You took me out of real magic classes to come and do this. Even with a talent, I can’t learn magic like this." There was true derision in the child’s voice now. "This…. This just doesn’t MATTER."
"It all matters," the Abbess snapped. Sasha blinked and sat back down, surprised. She couldn’t remember a harsh tone ever coming out of her mouth, even when that group of pre-teen boys had flooded the bathrooms by freezing all of the pipes. That was a trick Sasha wouldn’t mind learning. But right now, the Abbess had her full attention.
"You have learned the basics. You have learned the how of the simple magics, but not the why of them. To ever be more than a dabbler, you must understand the nature of the Universe itself. When you want to change the clouds, you must understand the water and the wind. If you want to create a door in a wall where none was before, you must know what makes up the wall, so you can know how best to remove it. The Universe creates different ways, and so it will destroy in different ways. And you must then be able to accurately communicate your desires to the Universe you are attempting to alter."
Suddenly, the topics of her essays made more sense. They weren’t busy work. They were helping her understand so that she could better make- or unmake- the very things she was studying. Alright, that would help her with true magic! But the communication of those desires was already laid out for them.
"But we have-"
"The spells only get you so far, Sasha," she said, anticipating the girl’s complaint. They always said that. "As you watched in the kitchens, what did you notice?"
"Um. Food?" The look on the other woman’s face was enough to make her actually think about her answer. "Well, some of the cooks were faster than others. They had more practice, so they didn’t need to think about what they were doing. They just did it."
She warmed slightly to the subject. Watching people was something she always liked to do. She could remember details of the things around her better than anyone she knew. And when she noticed things, she could connect them.
"They also didn’t use recipes. The fast ones, I mean. Only the slower ones were using recipes. They had to think about what they were doing more and check every step."
The Abbess nodded. "Spells are like recipes. Even the greatest chef on Belphagor Major or Spire starts by learning recipes. And some people will always follow the recipes, never deviate. They may not need to check them to follow them correctly, just like you may memorize a spell, but the meal is the end result of the same recipe, no matter who has cooked it."
"But the great chefs don’t always have to follow recipes," Sasha murmured, looking thoughtful.
"They can create their own dishes." Raj, the Abbey’s head cook, didn’t use recipes. She’d noticed when she had written her essay. But, she realized with a touch of chagrin, she hadn’t written that part down.
"Precisely. And the great Mages don’t have to use spells that others have written. But only if they understand, truly understand, the nature of that which they are attempting to effect. And our language is how we communicate with the Universe."
"But you don’t have to talk to do magic, I’ve seen it!"
The Abbess chuckled. "No, but the language is still there, inside of my head. It’s how we humans think. Yes, some people can picture something so vividly that they can actually see it, but the Universe can’t pluck those images wholesale from our minds. We need to tell It. And that is where language is so very important. Every word has meaning. And many words have more than one meaning. The simpler that word is, the more likely it is to have multiple ways it can be used."
Sasha nodded, but the Abbess either didn’t notice (or didn’t care) that she was finally paying attention.
"Your complaint earlier that this was hard- the word is imprecise. Did you mean difficult? Challenging? Or might the Universe have interpreted it to mean actual hardness, like the surface of the floor? While trying to overcome an obstacle with the help of your magic, if you explain to the Universe that it is ‘hard’, the Universe might take you at your most literal. And to help you, it may attempt to make something soft, rather than easier. Can you see how that might be problematic?"
Sasha nodded. "And it’s not just the language I use," she said slowly, "it’s how I use it. If I want to make something easier, I should say that, rather than complaining that it’s hard. If I want a certain outcome, I need to name the outcome, not just bring attention to the problem?"
Smiling, the Abbess also nodded. "Yes, but the first step is the precision. And not just in your language, but also in your observation. Such as in your essay about the kitchens."
"I noticed that Raj didn’t use a recipe, but I didn’t write that down," Sasha admitted. Then she frowned. "You knew that I had noticed, even if I hadn’t realized it. That’s why you asked the question. So the Universe would know that I had noticed, even if I didn’t say it. You did."
The Abbess’s gaze bored in to the girl, trying to communicate more than just the words she was speaking. "Would It? Are you certain? The Universe is everything, yes. But is It omniscient? Many a mage has gone astray in that assumption."
That assertion was nearly heresy. No, not nearly. It was. But Sasha wasn’t given a chance to clarify if her teacher really meant or believed that. She was bringing the Universe as the ultimate God into question, the very premise of the last five hundred years of human civilization. Surely, she had meant it figuratively. Even knowing that the Abbess only spoke in the most precise manner she could, Sasha couldn’t credit it. Not at the age of ten. Someday she would understand the second, more subtle heresy in that statement, the heresy of what the Abbess had not corrected. But by then it would be too late to ask her what she meant. She’d have to figure it out herself.
The chime sounded, signaling the end of the day’s study period, calling the students to afternoon chores. Sasha stood and bowed to the Abbess, a reflexive action to that soft and pervasive bell. The Abbess inclined her head in return as she rose from her seat. She paused, looking carefully at her student.
"Why didn’t you ask me sooner?" She asked softly. "I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that question."
Sasha scuffed her bare toe against the grain of the floor boards.
"I thought it was a test."
"It was," Abbess Novalina nodded as she placed the palm screen and input pad back on the desk. "I just expected you to do better. I’m surprised you waited as long as you did."
Sasha just watched, open mouthed, as the other woman stood up and swept out of the room. If she hadn’t been testing her Patience, one of the primary virtues of their sect, what had she been testing for?
"Ear-sucking xerimorphs," Sasha cursed. At least the Abbess couldn’t hear her. She didn’t feel like having her profanities edited right now.
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