My hands feel like lead. Heavy and stiff they rest in my lap, a pair of useless rusted heaps that have fallen into disrepair. Look at them. Pale. Weak.

I can barely move them.

“My hands...” Welled wetness dawdles down my cheeks.

“Oh, hush! Nothin’ wrong with dem hands. Pink and ‘ealthy as ever.”

My focus stays on my powerless fingers. I do not address the ceaseless positivity of my moronic mentor. How could he know? How dare he even try to placate me with words. I have lost everything.

Everything. That dumb bastard has—

“Ya sniffin ya lip again, Lad! Don’t you go finkin’ meanly of me or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?”

“Ah, got ya eyes on me now does ya?” I hate to admit it but his threat had earned my ire and my attention. He brought his pink, bulbous, dark-pored, hairy-nostrelled nose to mine. A yellow toothed grin glinted out of his grey and frazzled beard. “You always pout and pucker and snorts and huffs when ya thinkin’ angry meannesses at me. You does it more and I’ll turn you frog-wise, I will.”

“I’d like to see you—”

“Ye can’t block me at the moment, Lad. Thinks on that. Not a ants hatful of magic in ye at the moment. Is why ye’ve been mopin’ about, remember? So! Cut. Your. Crap.”

I bite my lip to stay the words. Not because they would have been mean. Not because I am afraid of him. It is because they would have been spells and...and they wouldn’t have worked. Not now. Not ever again. Three days now and I haven’t been able to so much as conjure a spark, every potion I have stirred has turned to an inedible soup.

A pair of pale palms and wilted grey fingers stare up at me from my lap. Why are they so heavy?

“My hands...”

“Oh, fer Liam’s Rake! Yer hands are fine! You. Are. Fine!”

“I can’t use magic!” I am standing and screaming down at the hunched and squat creature that has failed to teach me anything of magic. It’s his fault. It’s his fault that I’ve lost my gift! “Magic! Everything I am and was and would have been, Gerbond! All of it gone. You have no idea — no idea at all — what that means to me. I. I.”

He’s taller than me again. My knees had given way. I am sat and my hands are in my lap and they are so very heavy.

“I. I am...weak.”

“Lad. Jass, listen. Yer feelin’ weak cause ya magic is...see, we Mage-folk, we uses magics e’en when we don’t wants ta! Is in our blood the stuff is. Gives us pep. Makes us live longer.”

“And mine is gone...forever.”

“What is magics, Lad?”

“Power—Ack!” I grabbed my ear and glared at him...but whats the point of anger. Having my ears twisted by stronger people was the way of my life now.

“Magics can gets ye power, Lad, but it ain’t power itself. Yer a smart one, talented e’en, but ye always rushed through the basics.”

“I know the basics...”

“Puh! What ye knows is basic spells. Hey! Look at me, Lad!”

He does not, can not, understand. I am nothing now. Less than nothing.

A splotchy, ugly face fills my view. He has crouched and practically put his head into my hands so he could star up at me. His glassy, liver-yellowed eyes are...he seems to...

I feel a hand gloved in callouses take mine.

“Lad. Magics ain’t power. Its energy. Takes magics to do spells and make potions and enchantses.”

“And what?” My cheeks are wet and he had blurred. “I’m out of magic, now?”

“For the moment, yeah. And I ain’ts surprised! You’ve been spellin’ and castin’ and brewin’ a storm since ye got ‘ere! Surprised ye didn’t go dry earlier.”

“...wait. Wait, It’ll...will it come back?”

“Puh! Yeah, ye bloody idgit! If ye stop tryin’ to force it. If ye actually rest. If ye stop worryin' and whinin' and wait...wait in peace and quiet...and do ye damned bloody chores!”

“It’ll come back!”

“I means...y'chores won’t actually help, but—”

“When? How long does it take?”

“Well, ye has a big tank, Lad. Is why they's all impressed wit ye. So...a whiles, I'd say. I comes good after a nap and a sandwhich. Maybes a quiet weekend if I'd been busy-like. Just, relax and don’t rush it. Plenty to read up on and learn whiles ye wait.”

My hands. Pink. Boring. Free of magical pep...but only for a moment. I just have to wait.

“I...suppose I should start at the basics, then. Where...where do I start?”

“Ah, well! Would ye look at that. I has an apprentice instead of a bloody prodigy. Come on, Lad. To the garden.”

“Meditation?”

“Puh! Slugs in the ‘erb patch, Lad.” He stands and walks away. “’spose I might as teach ye about there uses. ‘Erbs and the slugs, that is.”

What is magic?

Staring at the thatched roof of his bedchamber, Norin pondered his master's words.

What.

Is.

Magic?

Then it hit him with the force of an earthquake. And Norin smiled.

I can't wait to tell Master that.

Osao almost dropped his tea when Norin barrelled into the garden, panting and out of breath. The sun was barely up, and he chuckled at the excitement written on his apprentice's face.

"Master! I know it!"

"Know that I gave you the day off?" Osao teased. Norin, always serious, straightened up and nodded.

"Apologies for interrupting, Master, but I know the answer to your riddle."

The mage chuckled again and raised the cup to his lips. "It wasn't quite a riddle, my young apprentice, but continue. You know what magic is?"

"I believe so, Master."

For a moment, all was silent, except the chirping of the earliest birds. Osao raised an eyebrow with a cheeky smile. "Is that your answer? Well, I'm afraid you aren't-"

"Magic is belief!" he blurted out. Osao's smile grew wider. "Is it? Is magic belief?"

"What makes you think that?"

Norin visibly drooped. "So. . . it isn't?"

"Now, I didn't say that." The mage set his cup back down on the tray. "But why do you think that? What makes magic belief?"

"Well. . ." Norin scratched the back of his neck nervously; Osao noted that he was still in his pajamas. Eager today, aren't we? "Well, Master. . . I stopped. . . I stopped believing I could do it," he admitted, hanging his head in shame. "I stopped believing I could make the fire listen. I stopped believing the water would change direction. I stopped believing the earth would open up for me. And it didn't."

Osao smiled warmly. "So you've learned the lesson."

Norin looked up, confusion written across his tired-looking face. When was the last time you got a full night's sleep.

"It took me many years to realize that I could only do magic if I believed I could," he continued. "Many long, painful years. I could make the air to move around me, and I got so good at it that I could fly like a bird! But then. . . then I fell. Fell right out of the sky!

"I broke my leg, but most of all, I broke my pride and my trust in myself. I kept thinking 'Why then? What did I do wrong right then?' My master gave me a riddle, when I asked him why. What gives power and takes it, makes right and makes wrong?"

Norin's expression only grew more confused. Osao gestured to the other chair, and his apprentice sat without complaint.

"At first, I answer that magic did. Magic gives power and takes it, and it makes right the wrongs and wrong the rights. See?"

He nodded.

"But my master told me "Keep trying, apprentice. That's not it."

"So I did. I guess all kinds of things! truth, hope, love. . . then, finally, I guessed belief. And you know what my master did?"

Norin shook his head.

"He looked me dead in the eye and said: 'That's what you're missing, my young apprentice. You're missing your belief.'"

"Is that what I'm missing, master?"

Osao nodded. "Magic is belief, Norin. If you believe you can, then you can. If you don't, you won't. It's as simple as that. But you have to really, truly believe it. You can't just say "I believe this flood will go the other way!" and it will. You have to truly believe you can make it. That's where most people falter. They don't believe in themselves. That's just as important as anything else you've learned.

"Now!" Osao stood up. "I believe we have some confidence building to do!"

Norin smiled, and nodded.

(Apologies for any errors or incoherency! It's eleven at night where I am and I'm tired.)

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