As Erwin and Odilia traveled their yearly route throughout the Kuriba Empire, Erwin taught everything he knew as promised, to Odilia.   

Odilia learned how to remove and return clothing with magic just as Erwin had done the night they met. She learned it using the stick he’d given her which Erwin instructed she call a wand. 

“The wand should be treated like an extension of your arm.” The doctor moved to stand behind Odilia, taking her wand hand. The two stood alone under the cover of a small woodland by the Makigawa plains, a land south of Hikizu village. 

In the dewy morning, the two had shared a simple breakfast of onigiri, rice-balls wrapped in seaweed, before setting to work. As a doctor, Erwin was constantly collecting herbs along their journey and Odilia would help. After filling a basket of Pinellia, Erwin stopped their work to continue teaching Odilia all he knew. 

Odilia’s hands were gloved despite the mid-spring air to hide the blackened flesh that remained an ugly reminder to the night her house went aflame and her sister flew. Only Erwin knew what was beneath those black gloves, and as far as Odilia knew, she was the only one who knew of Erwin’s own scars beneath his own gloved hands.

Erwin moved Odilia’s fingers so that the wand sat on her pinky and third finger while her thumb, middle, and forefinger cradled the sides. 

“Wands should be held as such so that the flow of magic remains stable and reaches your goal,” explained the doctor. Erwin pushed Odilia’s tense shoulders down and used his gloved forefinger to level her chin. “Aim it at that tree.” Erwin guided Odilia’s arm so that it shot outwards towards an oak in the distance. “I want you to kill it.”

Odilia stepped backwards in surprise, bumping up against her teacher in the process. “Why?” She craned her neck backwards to meet Erwin’s yellow eyes. Odilia shook her head, contemplating. “Actually, how?” she looked down at her arm holding the wand aloft. “With this wand? At a distance?”

Erwin looked up at the sky speckled with white clouds, thoughtfully. “Do you remember the feeling you felt when using magic? When you turned those girls into cranes?”

Odilia nodded her head. Her entire body had felt tense. Her palms and forehead had been sweaty. Her legs had cramped and her stomach ached. She remembered that when she’d released it all, her sister and friends had flown away. She also remembered the description she’d internalized to convey how she’d felt using magic.

Odilia peeked at Erwin and shyly covered her mouth. “Can I be honest with you?” she whispered.

Erwin smiled and encouragingly nodded his head.

Odilia took a deep breath and sharply turned towards him all serious and said, “It felt like taking a big dump.”

There was a pause where the doctor’s face contorted in a twist as if he were struggling to hold something in, then at once he burst into a laughter so great, it turned into coughing fits. 

Erwin held his abdomen, wheezing when he caught Odilia’s visage of mortification. “Felt like a…” he gasped through breaths.“Using magic did…!?”

Odilia reddened and stepped away from her teacher who looked about close to wanting to roll onto the ground, laughing. “Is that not normal?” 

Erwin slapped his knee as he straightened. “No, no. I’ve never heard anything more relatable in my life!” beamed the doctor. He gestured towards Odilia to follow him. “But now, my little nestling,” Erwin directed Odilia back towards the oak. “You need to learn how to aim that big dump.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

That willow lived. And so did the trees after that. 

A week later, Odilia collapsed onto her bed in an inn after failing to kill a potted plant. Her wand was still in her hand and seemed to hum in repeated disappointment. 

“Why do I even have to use a wand?” Odilia grumbled at the ceiling. She turned her head towards the wooden chair in which Erwin sat and quietly read a book. “I don’t remember seeing you use a wand when putting on your gloves.” Odilia said accusingly.

Erwin spoke without glancing up. “A beginner must always start with the basics.”

“Well I don’t have to,” Odilia sulked. “I was perfectly capable of turning my sister and her friends into birds without the help of a stick.” 

Erwin flipped the page of his book. “Yes, but without the wand, you wouldn’t know where to direct that big dump.”

Odilia’s cheeks heated. “Yes I do.” Odilia stuck her forefinger out in the direction of the potted plant. “At that. All I need to do is imagine the plant withering away and BOOM! The plant should die.”

Erwin settled his book on his knee and looked up at the girl sprawled across her bed. “Boom. Is that how it feels when you go take a shit?”

Odilia scowled.

Erwin chuckled. “That’s not how it works. Now you have to fit it in like a tube. Shwooop! Like this before the big bang. It should be easy since you have a wand.” Erwin took out his left arm and steadied it before him, his hand shaped like a gun towards the potted plant. Some energy sparked between the plant and Erwin, then the plant bubbled and caved in onto itself, rotten and dead to the core. “Aim it like a shot-gun.” Erwin blew imaginary smoke from his middle and forefinger. 

“Huh?” Odilia sat up. “Again, why do I have to use a wand? You made that look so easy.” 

Erwin interlocked his fingers over his lap. “When I don’t use a wand, I still imagine the shape of an elongated tube. Isn’t it much easier with a stick to serve as a visual for beginners?”

“It has to go through this stick?” Odilia slumped, looking at the spindly wand in her hand.

“Yes.” 

“Why?”

Erwin sighed and stood, taking the wand from Odilia’s hand. “Must I explain once more? Without it, you have no focus.” He used the wand this time and aimed once more at the potted plant. Energy crackled once more and the plant sprung up, healthy and green once more. “Without focus, the magic just goes.”

“Well like I said, I was perfectly capable of casting a spell on my sister and her friends.” Odilia protested.

“But were you able to reverse it?”

Odilia bit her lip. “Well, it's not like I exactly tried…” then she waved her palms out and hurriedly added, “but like you said, magic shouldn’t last so long. It should have faded so I didn’t even think to try.”

Erwin nodded his head. “Yes, but like how you’ve failed to kill all these plants along our journey, you would have failed to restore the girls’ human bodies.” Erwin began pacing in the small room, twirling the wand between nimble fingers as he walked. “You can’t just imagine in your head as to where you want the magic to go. You must first imagine the magic flow. Once you can visualize this imagery, then you’ll actually be able to see it.” Erwin stopped and leaned in so that he and Odilia were eye to eye. “The magic, it’s why I found you that night.” 

Odilia shivered as she felt a cold chill settle. “You… saw?”

“You told me that releasing magic feels like taking a big dump. Well, it looks like that too.” 

Odilia’s cheeks blotched red.

“Without focus, without the visual and sight of the true end goal,” Erwin continued, “the magic just goes.”

Odilia just continued staring at the doctor with her yellow eyes. He wasn’t explaining any better than she understood. She was focused! Odilia had many times closed her eyes, imagined the potted plant in front of her and imagined it wither and die. She’d visualized all of it. She’d had it explode in her brain too. Even had it burst into hot flames. Still nothing.

“You look confused.” says Erwin. 

She was. 

“How about this?” Erwin peeled off his gloves, receiving wide eyes from the girl because he rarely removed them, even in front of her. Black burn scars that would never fade flashed in the yellow lamplight. “I’m sure you’re wondering, why do we burn so easily? It’s as if the flames want to consume us, no?” 

Odilia blinked, eyeing Erwin’s exposed flesh with wary eyes. She fingered her own gloved hands. “It’s because we’re witches.”

“You say it like it’s bad,” Erwin laughed. “But you’re right, although I don’t think you know what that really means.” He grinned and leaned forwards so that his words could be heard in a whisper. “We have what the fae have.”

Odilia leaned back as if Erwin had just thrown salt at her, like Father Mich’yl had to ward off Odilia’s evil aura. Father Mich’yl and the shrine maidens of Aketsuru shrine would disapprove of what Erwin had just said. The fae were worshiped and revered by the humans as gods. The fae had everything the humans did not have. Power was in the hands of the fae as there was a clear hierarchy. Humans were beneath the fae and demons like Odilia and Erwin, were even further down below. 

“Magic. Is that not what the fae and we have in common?” Erwin’s grin grew wider. “I can see it in your eyes. You’ve been told lies like that you are a demon. That witches are evil. But witches, if not human, are just another type of fae.”

Odilia clutched her arm, saying nothing.

“People fear us because oxygen isn’t all that we breathe.” Erwin straightened and handed back the wand to Odilia. “We breathe magic too. Magic is in our blood, flowing throughout our entire body along with oxygen. So, when we use it, it sparks from all around and goes BOOM.”  

“Boom…” Odilia mumbled, feeling lightheaded from all the information and new questions forming in her mind. 

“Yes,” Erwin nodded his head slowly like a teacher to a pupil. “So that’s why when we draw close to fire, we go BOOM too. We’re highly flammable thanks to magic being a highly flammable substance.” He shrugged. “It can’t be helped, although I suppose the laws of nature needed some way to balance the forces of power.”

Erwin traced his obsidian scars. “And see here, this is the remnants of burned magic.”

“So the magic throughout my body…” Odilia spoke, thinking.

“You need to gather it and string it together into that one arm.” Erwin poked Odilia’s right arm that fisted her wand. “Let the energy go through the tube.” 

Odilia held the wand  just as the doctor had taught her and aimed it at the potted plant. She imagined a crackling cannon reading itself in her shoulder before releasing it out straight to her elbow and down her arm. In her mind she saw how it squarely left from between her first two fingers before flashing through the wand. Odilia’s butt clenched, her entire body warmed and her palms clammed beneath her gloves. A cloud of smoke consumed the potted plant and collapsed with the remainder being only ash.

“Well done.” Erwin clapped. 

Odilia dropped her wand and stared at her work. She’d done it. And the magic hadn’t gone BOOM. It’d gone shwooop as Erwin had told her it should. And Odilia had seen the magic line up and shoot out like a long web connecting her to the plant. Real static energy had coursed through there. 

Odilia had also realized something. Odilia held the wand out to Erwin. “This is just a stick, isn’t it? It’s not a wand.”

“Sure, it's a wand. Like any stick would do.” Erwin winked. “But you’re right, there’s nothing special about it, although I did not lie about its origin. I really did pick it from the heart of By’lyl. Although of course, By’lyl is just like any other forest. Normal. No magic or special tricks in there to help you.”

Odilia rolled her eyes. This! And after all the fuss he’d made about the stick’s importance. 

“It’s still important!” Erwin argued as if he’d read her mind. “It’s still needed to train your focus. Just because you can see magic now, doesn’t mean you’ll see it tomorrow.” 

Odilia sighed and flopped onto her back. Long hair, white as snow spilled out beneath her.

“Okay,” Odilia decided as she looked up at the wood ceiling above. “What’s next?” She craned her neck towards the chair where Erwin had returned to continue his book.

The doctor smiled at the yellow, bound pages of his book. 

“Now bring the plant back to life.”