Kitsune in the Shadows

Chapter 112 – What Does a Shadow Feel Like?

Days just continued like that for a while, with us getting a request from Elenia to go find something, then us taking a day or two after that to do so. One time, she asked us to find a few unique rocks, and even an even more specific seashell… though we were much worse at finding those, ultimately missing most of them. However, I did think that the seashell might have been impossible to find, given how granular she was with the description… There wasn’t even much of a beach to look for them on, well, not a sandy beach anyway, just lots of gravel. There was a point during that trip where Ava suggested going for a swim, but Cattleya adamantly refused… and I wasn’t all too keen to get into the water with what I had seen in the water before.

I also took the chance to adjust more of Cattleya’s clothing, although I didn’t take the same liberties as I did the first time with the skirt, instead focusing purely on resizing. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get through everything, but after a week, Cattleya at least had a few different outfits to choose from.

On one day in particular, Cattleya dragged us out to go watch another ship, but it didn’t actually arrive. We asked Elenia about what had happened the day after, but all she said was that the shipment was deemed non-essential and was delayed. This did put Cattleya on edge, as it meant that the next ship coming in would be the one carrying whatever it was she was waiting for. Not that it changed too much. There wasn’t really much we could do if there weren’t going to be any more ships of interest coming in.

By the next morning, Cattleya was back to her normal self, saying that she’d just have to watch the new ship as it came in and take action before something happened… whatever that meant.

In other news, Cattleya started teaching me more about magic again, although the lessons were a little different. Instead of Cattleya demonstrating for me, she would ask Ava to do so instead, for some reason. There were occasions when she did a little magic herself, but they were few and far between.

In those lessons, I had gotten much better at manipulating my mana, being able to release it at will, and even being able to make it hold its shape. It felt like a big accomplishment, but only for a moment. It didn’t seem to matter what shape I made my mana; it never seemed to do much of anything, only siphoning a slight amount of mana from those who moved through it.

Today was another one of those lessons, with the three of us sitting in a small clearing within the forest, accompanied only by the sound of a slight breeze as it fluttered through the leaves up above. Although the instructions I was given for this lesson were a bit… unusual… to say the least.

The only instruction I was given was to just try whatever came to mind. Cattleya explained that magic was heavily reliant on your imagination and intuition, so somewhere inside of me should already have a base level understanding of how my magic works instinctively… though I had more than just a few doubts about that. If what she said was true, all it did was make it seem all the more likely that the extent of my magic was just to make shadows move around a little and nothing more.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to do some other things with it before, at one point I had tried to copy the tendrils that I had seen Ovia use in her domain, but the one I managed to form was tiny, and I struggled to keep its form together the whole time; not that it mattered, as when I tried to move something with it it just passed through… which I probably should have expected.

There was even a point where I asked Ava if she could give me some advice, but she actually just told me to follow Cattleya’s instructions. Apparently, one day, Ava just realised she could use magic, so she agreed with what was being said… though she strangely avoided going into any more detail about what had actually happened in the past.

…

That all led to my current situation, with both Ava and Cattleya off having their own conversation while I was left to myself, lazily passing my hand through a sphere of my mana, hoping that something might just happen… not that it did.

Why are there no instructions for this?

Even Aria hasn’t been able to tell me what I’m supposed to do with my mana…

…

Ovia’s magic doesn’t look that different to mine, but I can’t do anything she can… I can’t even copy what Umbra does with the way they’re able to hide things inside my shadow…

…

I just don’t understand it.

What are they doing that’s different to me?

I passed my hand through the sphere of mana again, watching closely as my hand passed through it without disturbing it in the slightest, not even a faint ripple across the surface.

…

I wonder what a shadow is supposed to feel like?

It was a bit of a silly question, all things considered, but that didn’t stop it from crossing my mind. Ovia used Dark magic, which also wouldn’t normally be able to be physically toughed, yet I’d seen it happen, so… why shouldn’t it be possible for me to do the same?

…

My mind was gradually cast back to the past, trying to piece together what a shadow felt like, but the only sensation that came to mind was a slight chill, not something that was necessarily cold itself, but something that just helped cool you down a little… but that wasn’t something physical that you could grab onto.

As if hoping for a miracle to happen, I clutched at my mana, hoping for even the slightest movement, yet once again, nothing happened.

Would it be soft?

Whenever I had moved my shadow before, it almost looked alive with the way it would crawl along the ground, sometimes even seeming like it was pulsing with its own heartbeat. Yet at the same time, when Umbra dived into my shadows, it didn’t seem quite so viscous; it was more like a liquid instead, just a large puddle.

…

But all of that was when magic was involved, when something else was giving it a purpose. Without any other influences, the shadow of a building would look just as sturdy as the building casting it. I found it hard to imagine that shadow feeling like anything other than stone. Yet at the same time, the shadow cast by a bird in the sky would be full of life and movement, just as the bird itself.

No matter how I tried to reason it, there wasn’t one single thing I could imagine a shadow feeling like. Not that it seemed to matter. The best I could do was pretend to hold the dark orb of mana, instead just making it float close to my hand through sheer concentration alone.

My magic has to do something, doesn’t it?

All the other magic I’ve seen has been able to do much more than this.

In that moment, a realisation came over me.

There was actually a point in time before where I had felt bare mana make contact with my skin. During the first lesson with Cattleya, when she had asked me to absorb my mana back into myself, there was this resistance. There was something inside my mana that pressed against my hand.

“Cattleya?” I called out quietly, not wanting to be too disruptive.

“Yes?” She called back.

“Can you help me with something?” I asked, feeling a strange sense of embarrassment come over me as I did, “I-I think I have an idea.”

Instead of saying anything else, Cattleya came and sat down in front of me, with Ava standing close behind her, watching on.

“Can you put your hand inside?” I gestured towards the small ball of mana.

“I-” She hesitated, though not for long, “Okay, I will oblige this time. But only because I am curious as to what you have come up with.”

As she did, I saw the faint green wisps of her mana leave her hands inside the dark grey orb, quickly dispersing to the point that they could no longer be seen. Cattleya then quickly pulled her hand out after no more than three seconds.

“I hope that is enough for you.”

I didn’t reply, instead slowly reaching my own hand out towards my mana, feeling a little nervous about whether what I had in mind even had a chance of working.

Soon, my palm made contact with the edge of the ball.

I could actually feel something, even if it was hard to describe. It definitely felt like a physical object, and a solid one at that, but at the same time, it wasn’t quite right, almost like an imitation of a physical ball rather than an actual ball… which I guess made some kind of sense.

I slowly curled my fingers around it, latching on to make sure that I wasn’t just imagining it.

…

“I-…” I was left speechless as I secured my grip on the orb, pulling it towards myself.

It felt even stranger than just making contact. It had no give whatsoever, the complete opposite of when my hand was able to pass through it just moments before. It was undeniable that there was something there; the sensations on my hand were telling me that, yet it was entirely weightless, just floating in place as I loosened my grip.

“What did you just-?” Cattleya reached out for the orb as it hovered in front of me.

I instinctively pulled back a little, though the orb stayed in place. But as Cattleya’s had reached the surface, instead of making contact like I had, it just went through as it did before.

Before even having the chance to say anything, I grabbed the orb again to make sure that moving away hadn’t unintentionally done something to it. Which it clearly hadn’t, as I easily secured my grip on it.

“What? Are you just playing some kind of trick on me?” Cattleya asked as she reached out again, her hand once again passing through despite the fact that I was still holding onto it.

“Do you mind if I also give it a try?” Ava crouched down, holding her hand out.

“O-okay,” My nerves were getting the better of me, even though there wasn’t any real reason for it.

I placed the ball of mana on Ava’s palm, letting go as Ava closed her fingers around it.

“Oh? It’s surprisingly soft,” She said.

“Soft?”

“Mhm,” As if trying to prove her point, she squeezed the ball, effortlessly changing its shape.

What? I don’t understand.

I once again reached for the ball, but before I could grab onto it, Umbra jumped out from my shadow.

“*Yip!*” They cried out as they looked off into the forest.

“Umbr-” I immediately tried to call them back.

‘Kierra!’ This time it was Ovia, ‘There’s something going on near you. I don’t know what it is, but-’

“Get out of here!” Someone shouted from deeper inside the forest, forcibly tearing my attention away from Ovia as my ears swivelled around, “Anyone who is still out here, make your way to the gates immediately!”

Without saying anything else, Ava grabbed onto my shoulder and pulled me to my feet while scanning the surrounding bushes.

“Run!” Someone else yelled from a different direction, “Leave everything if you have to!”

“Wh-”

“I think we’re leaving early today,” Ava said as she threw her cloak on over her shoulders, “Get your cloaks on right now, I think we’ll be running into some people real soon, whether we want to or not.”