Everytime he said those magic words he'd shut his eyes tight, when he opened them again the world around him had changed. Cracks formed, windows opened, a great big dragon was peeking through it and there was a huge diamond floating in front of him.

"That? It's the diamond from the ruins, it just shows up everytime I say the magic words. Do you...see anything else?" Henri looked over to the window and Aurelius, wondering if he was the only one who could see it.

They're not magic words, Aurelius' corrected with narrowed eyes and was almost daring Henri to say it again. Not that Aurelius could fault the boy for his conclusion, of course, but, all the same, he had a strong dislike for magic and he was not going to have it associated with him. Shrugging invisibly, Aurelius’ eye blinked and disappeared from sight, and, shortly after, the more humanoid appearance from before came into view.

Enough, he snapped, I want you to keep your focus and take out a match, Aurelius instructed and then gave a brief pause before continuing: Now take out a match.

“That’s not a diamond,” Roland offered helpfully. “Have you never seen a diamond before? They don’t look like that at all. Even in the rough,” he shrugged and looked hard at the hovering object.

“Bet you couldn’t even sell the ugly thing,” he added under his breath. "--And no, I don't see nothin' else. Why? What is there?"

Henri rolled his eyes and ignored Aurelius the way he'd learn to do when he got into a mood, since the lessons about watching his mouth went right over his head he just assumed he was being grumpy and didn't dare say anything about it because he still wanted and needed his assistance with these strange magic tricks.

"Okay okay!" Aurelius's sudden human appearance and outburst noticeably startled Henri into speaking aloud rushing to grab a match. Without Aurelius in the picture, it was just him and Roland in the room, it would look like the outburst was directed towarda Roland, and even though Aurelius had demanded concentration and focus, he'd have to correct that.

"Oh sorry. Aurelius, uh..." That and that diamond was actually a rock, if Henri actually bothered to look he'd notice that instead of just assuming it was the shiney stone from the caves. "Y-yeah that's a rock, usually there is a diamond...."

"Looks like quartz to me," Roland shrugged and idly stretched his hand out to tap it; he didn't even come close as the thing changed its direction and avoided him entirely. "Huh, maybe you could sell it," he admitted and then returned his attention back to Henri with a bored expression.

Quiet - regain your focus, Aurelius commanded sternly. Use your mind, he instructed, and connect the match's head with the candle's wick. Let a bond grow between them, tether them together, and consider them one and the same.

Aurelius’ voice faded into silence as he awaited Henri’s efforts; it was good that his host could get this far without any of the urgency from last time, but this was where things would get tricky, it was going to be harder to maintain focus once his mind split itself into parts again. Fortunately, he needn’t use any large subjects this time - the ocean was, for all intents and purposes, a much harder thing to influence than anything on today’s menu.

"Heh maybe, I have no idea why it does that or what it's for. Oh uh, Aurelius wants to me focus." He said putting on his mock serious face.

But then his face straightened out into a serious honest to goodness serious face. Connect the match and the wick. Last time he connected the ocean and the fire, the fire turned into ice, or at least got very cold, was he trying to turn the wick...into the match? Or was he trying to light it? If he wanted to light it he'd have said so.

So there was the match, a small wooden stick, sulphides at the tip and then there was the wick, some wacky yarn, both those bonds had to be the same. One in the same...come on...

Even a stopped clock was right twice a day and, once in a while, even Henri had to guess something right - and this was one such time! Had Aurelius wanted the match and wick lit he would have instructed the boy to do so, but he hadn't; indeed, the exercise's goal was not to cause a physical change in either of the two objects at all! Instead, the more Henri focused and applied his will, the stronger the ethereal threads - the bonds - between the objects became. Originally, they were thin, no more wider than a needle, maybe, and not at all easy to see; however, time passed and reality appeared to accept Henri’s imposed will - the idea that the match and candle’s wick were, in fact, one and the same - and the bonds changed to reflect that: They were soon thicker and more robust than before, and, eventually, moving one item also meant moving the other. Tilting the match would make the wick bend and vice versa.

Good! Yes, that’s right - now light the match.

There was tension in the air so thick that it could be cut with a knife. Roland was leaning forward, he didn’t know why, but he was and he couldn’t stop staring; he was sure the wick had just moved slightly by itself. It was subtle, but was this what he was supposed to see? Or was his eyes playing tricks on him . . .

In the end the match remained a wooden stick with sulphides at the tip and the candle remained a waxy cylinder with yarn anchored in the middle of it but they were now the same thing. They served the same purpose and even acted alike, when the match moved, the wick moved. Henri even turned the match in large circles to watch the wick move with it.


"I'm gonna light the candle now." He told Roland as a warning to keep his face away from the candle, since he suspected that when he lit the match the wick would be lit as well. Taking the match, he ran it across the red strip on the matchbox, and lit it.

A small flame enveloped the head of the match and, just as Henri said, the candle, too, held flame, and much to Roland’s surprise, did so without any physical effort on his friend’s part; in fact, had Henri done a slight flourish when lighting the match, he could have passed it off as a cool trick, probably. Regardless, provided he was observant enough, Henri would be able to note that the bond was now flushed with energy, he could feel it, in fact, and, if he was sufficiently focused, even see it as a streak of gentle orange going between the match and the candle’s wick.

Extinguish the match, Aurelius instructed, gruff as usual, but there was a hint of approval, too. But do not extinguish the candle’s flame.

This would (probably) be the last and most important form of ‘control’ for Henri to learn: Intent. So far, Henri’s use of Aurelius, limited though it was, dealt mostly with willpower and focus, but that would not always yield the best results. Intent, on the other hand, would allow for a bit more precision; fortunately, as its name implied, intent had already been present in all of Henri’s attempts at using Aurelius before, and he simply needed to recognize its importance.

The transfer of energy between the match and the candle was the first step. Without extinguishing the candle, Henri needed to put out the match, but, obviously, he couldn’t just break the bond, either, because that would have left the candle’s flame too weak and, even if he succeeded, that was too easy a route to take.

There were a few options open for Henri, but, if pressed, Aurelius was not giving any hints; in the end, Henri would have as many chances as there were matches in the match box.

Up until now all Henri had ever used his power for was to make two become one, which he seemed to had the knack for pretty well. During the fire he fused fire with water to save his lighthouse, by putting the two together, but how was he supposed to only extinguish ONE thing when they were BOTH linked? There was even an orange firey glow between the two bonds.

He'd have to do it the same way he did anything else. He extinguished about a hundred and one matches before so why should now be any different, matches or not? They were both connected sure, but he was only going to put one out, he only wanted one out.

Only way to know what to find out, if this failed he still had a whole box of matches and then some. He shoook the match,

For all of a second, the match did, in fact, extinguish; unfortunately, because of the bond between it and the candle, the match just would not stay unlit; all the same, whenever the match was out, however short a time that was, Henri would be able to note that the candle’s flame grew a fair bit stronger. Indeed, the tether’s orange glow definitely favored the candle’s side during these brief moments of only a single flame being active.

“So . . . What’re you doing now?” Roland asked.

"AH!"

The match wouldn't stay unlit, and the more the wood kept burning the closer the flame got to Henri's fingers until finally, he was burnt. Between hisses of pain and flailing of his hand he tried to explain to his friend.

"SSs! Ah damnit! Well, the candle and the match are connected, that's how I lit the candle by only lighting the match but now Aurelius wants me to put out the match without extinguishing the candle and...it's harder than I thought."

He grabbed another match, andf observed the layout before him. Candle match bond flame between the two, everything that tied the two together was there, nbut he couldnt just dismiss the match's bond or else the candlelight would go out. Maybe he needed to add something to the mix, like if his intent was something you threw into there.

How you would do that was beyond him. But he focused on the triangle, thought about his intent as hard as he could, lot another match, and tries to put it out.

Unfortunately, without sufficient, conscious manipulation by Henri's intent, nothing occurred, and the match stayed lit. Sure, he had his goal down, he needed to extinguish the match and keep the candle burning, but simply thinking about it wasn't going to get anything done! At the very least, because Henri redoubled his efforts, the bond between the new match and the candle's wick intensified, and the orange glow blossomed into a blazing, eye catching red as the energy shared between the two objects became more efficient.

“Connected?” Roland asked out loud. “How’re they connected?”

The full impact of Henri’s conundrum was lost on Roland, of course, but he was genuinely interested in what was happening if only because the alternative was being bored out of his mind.

"Well, it looks like there's a line or cable between the two, like they are literally connected to be the same thing, and when I lit the match there was fire traveling between that line connect-SSSOWCH!"

Sometimes Henri just never learned. He left the match burning again and again it burnt right down to his fingers, which blistered from the heat the second time around. Intelligence wasn't the issue, he was a bright kid and could probably accomplish a great deal if he applied himself, but Henri's bigger issue was focus.

His mind was everywhere at once, even while performing super human feats he couldn't quite focus on the main picture. He;d focus on everything around it, on the connection, on the space around the connection, reading between the lines at what INTENT could possibly mean, how one applied intent, what intent was, but this wasn't about that.

Henri scolded himself for his own stupidity while he sucked on his fingers.

"Fuck, that's it!" He said through mouthfuls. Aurelius didn't mean he needed to work on his intention, he knew what that was already. He wanted to extinguish the match but not the candle, it was HOW he intended to do it, not THAT he intended to do it, and hadn't he just explained to Roland that there was a bond between the two objects with energy flowing through it that he could manipulate?

Then why not just manipulate them? Geezes! He'd have to thank Roland for forcing him to explain the obvious.

"Okay I think I got it."

He lit another match, this time he was gonna do it. Match, candle, bonded? Check. Fire flowing between the two bonds? Check. Now for the real performance, come on now. He thought hard, looked at the bond, and the energy flowing through it, if he could just maybe, stop the energy in the middle from flowing to the match, that would be great.

And so he tried it.

The harder Henri focused, the stronger the connection became, and the stronger the connection, the more power his will had over the two objects and the energy shared between them; indeed, his attempt at halting flow of energy at the middle was successful and no more was the energy shared between the two objects. Furthermore, the candle, still part of Henri's focus and tethered to the match, had been neglected, and because of that, was growing stronger by drawing on the heat energy held captive by the bond. It was fortunate that only so much energy was provided in this exercise or Henri would have quite a problem on his hands.

The match’s flame flickered and then extinguished.

You did well, Aurelius complimented Henri. He had been expecting at least half of the matches to be used. This was good progress!
Concentration is important and you mustn't let a single thing slip your mind, from his window - the portrait that framed his silhouetted form - Aurelius gestured towards the candle and then brought his hand back down to his side.
No need to worry about the other lessons. For the time being, we'll skip them. Maybe a reward is in order? What do you think?

Truth be told, the other lessons were much of the same, just more ways to utilize Aurelius’ power, really, but Aurelius would leave further experimentation up to Henri and Roland. Surely, they could find something to destroy, blow up, or otherwise obliterate. Aurelius was sure that’s what young mortal men did in their free time.

Henri's eyes lit up along with the candle. It worked, he actually completed the exercise and even earned a compliment from Aurelius. He, the village idiot, was told he did well by what was probably an ageless god with unlimited power, and it felt pretty good! Maybe if he kept applying himself he could achieve more than he expected, ha! Henri would enjoy this feeling until his next big failure, for now.

"Thanks Aurelius, that sounds like a great idea." Now it was Roland's turn for an explanation.

"Okay sorry. I was saying uuuh....right! Okay so the match and the candle were connected by like a bond or cable or something right? Nonono like, a hose! Yeah a hose, and when I lit the match the fire was like an energy between the hose to the candle so I didn't need to physically like light the candle I just needed to light the match, and to put out the match without ACTUALLY putting it out I had to just pinch the hose in the middle so none of the fire was going to the match, get it? Actually I bet if I pinch it closer to the candle I could make the fire bigger."

Only by a little bit of course, he wouldn't let it get too out of hand, not after he just replaced his door from a fire, last thing he needed was another.