A Gods Favor

Let Me Show You

Later that afternoon Elora sat in the room where Frigga taught her and Loki, looking over her notes from the last few days, when she heard the door open and she looked up to find the prince entering. His usual cold demeanor, which had been missing for the last few days, had returned with a vengeance and she could almost feel the temperature in the room drop as he came up beside her.

"Lady Elora," his words were sharp as he took the seat across from her. A few moments of silence passed before he asked, "Did you overexert yourself when healing that slash?"

She furrowed her brow. "No, why?"

He jerked his chin towards her hands where she had been tugging the sleeves of her dress down over her fingers. "Looks like you're still a bit chilled. I thought maybe it was from using your magic this morning."

"Oh, no, just fidgeting. Fandral's wound wasn't deep, I was fine by the time I got back to my rooms."

"May I ask you something?" Loki leaned forward, resting his elbow on the table as he glared at her and she nodded tentatively. "If using your healing magic takes something from you then why do you do it? Especially so freely. Eir and the other healers who have the gift rarely use their magic unless it's life or death but I've seen you take care of cuts and bruises for years as if it were nothing."

Elora smiled at him. "When I started training with Eir I once read a passage about all hurts being easier to bear when the pain is shared. In the context of the book it meant more being there for your patient to support them but it made me think 'why not use my magic whenever I can'. Sure Fandral would have been fine in a few hours but by healing him and taking some of his pain we were both fine in a matter of minutes and your mother always says magic is like a muscle, you have to work it to make it stronger. I think by using my gift more regularly one day I might be able to heal others at a greater capacity or even those who are close to death."

Loki grunted as he sat back, shaking his head.

"Now if you don't mind, may I ask you something?" He waved a hand for her to go on. "How did you pull off an illusion and presence manipulation at the same time while still fighting and with so many people around? I can barely hold a duplicate up or conceal myself for more than a few minutes and it takes all my concentration."

"I'm better than you." He said with a laugh but when he saw her face fall as she dipped her head he regretted the barb. "Stand up." He said, coming around the table and offering her a hand. When she only looked at it cautiously he prodded. "If you'd like to learn you're going to have to hurry up, mother will be here any minute."

Elora rose slowly, placing her hand in Loki's and he led her across the room to a large mirror. She'd expected some long explanation about concentration and enchantment that she might have been able to pull scraps of information from, not an actual lesson.

"Now," he said, positioning her to stand in front of the mirror as he stood behind her. "When you create a duplicate, where do you anchor yourself?"

Elora stared at him like he was speaking a different language before she shook her head, not understanding the question.

"Oh for Valhalla's sake," he rolled his eyes. "When you create a duplication of yourself you have to start at one point and build out, feeling the magic more from a central location to all your ends so it can know what it's trying to create in order, like following a pattern or a recipe. Have you never done that?"

She shook her head softly. "I always just try to imagine a second version of myself looking back at me."

"Well there's your problem, when you are trying to duplicate something you need to know what it's made of. The more intimately you know it the better the duplication will be. What you're doing is basically trying to make bread from looking at a loaf you've never tasted. Even our external magical effects need to come from within and I find the easiest way to start any spell or illusion is to pick a starting point, always the same and work out from there." He looked into the mirror to meet her gaze and could see she was still struggling to envision what he ment and he sighed. "I'd like you to try something for me but it will require you to close your eyes and I'll need to...touch you, if that's alright? Just along your back and arms."