Yoraina and Viktor were nervous, for a good part of an hour or perhaps two now? Ludmilla had been perfectly still, seated in the circle of glowing azure hue as liquid forms of what was once her wands circulated over closed fists and in those fist's were bright red and deep ember.
They'd entered just about a few minutes after the process had started, Yoraina was worried sick. Was it right what they'd done? Both Viktor and Yoraina's minds would wander to this question, perhaps they should've placed a foot down, refused and increased her chances of becoming a successful Witch. Knowing Ludmilla, Viktor and Yoraina were certain she'd pass the preliminary trials without a hitch, qualifying to enter the tutorship of a senior witch from any academy of her choosing; depending on what she decided to master in.
Yet now? The chances were slim, albeit already zero, for Viktor and Yoraina already had the results of Ludmilla's actions set in stone; it'd be a failure. The fusion of two wands, contrary to its once popular beliefs as a process potentially pertaining the creation of perhaps the most perfect wand for wielders of dual affinities was a complete train smash. What had been birthed were defective wizards and Witches, fractured cores and sorrow.
The chances of wands successfully fusing into one, although having never been counted as zero due to the fact that the general consensus was, that if two wands were compatible and one successfully succeeded in having them fuse then it was possible, was still one in a billion. It was so appallingly rare that one might as well have called the entire process an impossible task set for fools, so knowing this, why had they allowed her? Why had they not placed their foot down and instead allowed her to throw her life away?
Yoraina glanced at the senior Wizard beside them who's expression was just as grim, from the looks of it he too had the same thoughts as them.
"What should be our course of action if she fails?" She asked Viktor whose gaze grew complicated.
"She'll still attend the preliminary Mage trials" He answered as Yoraina went pale in fright.
"Viktor! They'll kill her!!" She retorted.
The preliminary Mage trials were dangerous as is, a set of various mental and physically harrowing scenarios meant to test an upcoming Wizard or Witch's grit and tenacity were performed there. To that end, although no one had in fact died in a trial, the effects of failure were enough to turn many into empty husks no better described as dead.
"You know well that she'll be adamant"
"That doesn't mean we can't refuse anything she wants!!"
"We've given her the freedom to live her life as she so chooses, we're her parents and guiding her is our duty but the valley of magic is one that many should tread alone"
Yoraina made an expression of frustration but the words were hard to refute, there was indeed little that could be done in guiding someone on such a path and many more times than not, it usually ended up as hampers.
"I do believe that you've written off your daughter far too early, the process hasn't failed yet"
Viktor glanced at the man, "There is little hope for success"
"Miracles happen Lord Ludunhime, is it not in her best interest to hope for such?"
The man glanced at them, a broad smile creasing his face as the two parents grimaced in shame but such a thing was hard to instill in themselves when the chances were so low. It was at this point that bright tendrils of light began to seep through the cracks of Ludmilla's closed fists, Viktor and Yoraina who watched this looked on in surprise.
The tendrils of light were of the opposing colors ember and bright red, however, contrary to what they'd thought would occur, the two nature's began to search for each other as they drew nearer.
"This!" Viktor took a breath in shock, the two nature's, the two nature's were fusing!
When the tendrils met, there was a brief pause of hesitation as though in reluctance to what they were about to do but it wasn't a rejection. The signs of a rejection in a fusion process were obvious, the two nature's would never fuse, they'd force to share one vessel but to become one was out of the question. This showcase of rejection could be seen if instead of nature's fusing to become one, they instead took on separate sides of a singular core. They weren't fused, simply forced to share a space together.
This however was no such rejection, the tendrils of light coalesced and began changing color. As though both being corrupted, the ember light and its crimson counterpart began to fade into a bright, burning hue of amethyst till there was a burst of magical energy that assailed the room.
"It can't be!!!" Viktor cried, his face contorted in shock.
"I never thought it possible…"
The amethyst light that now floated In front of Ludmilla as a burning star began to take an almost liquid like ethereal form, it twisted, violently jutted tendrils and swayed as it began to harden into crystal form, creating what was a core as the liquid masses of her wand's were sucked towards it as though pulled by a vacuum. Viktor watched in not only astonishment but revery as the liquids shaped and twisted, surounding the core completely till it was shrouded in mystery. Soon the silvery shape, design and color of her silver wand was brought back to life but the black mass was still swirling around it, slowly did it make contact with the silver wand as it seeped over it with a coating of deep black, painting her silver wand a deep color of obsidian.
Then, there was a cease in magical energy.
The room grew quiet as Yoraina and Viktor stared in both worry and shock, til suddenly his attention was brought to the man's pleased expression and then—
"Haa" it was Ludmilla, her eyes opening groggily as the wand that had been floating in the air ahead of her had fallen and ended up by her feet with a small clatter of metal while her eyes lit up in wonder and joy.
"I'VE DONE IT!!" She shouted, her arm's raised to the air as she screamed in triumph, "THE DAMN ODDS WERE AGAINST ME BUT I DID IT!!"
Crusch looked at her wand with fervent excitement and clutched it tightly, it had seemed as though the two beast's had wanted to settle the rights of becoming the main body to a battle. Their intents for this had flared like fanning flames but Crusch felt as though a battle of that magnitude wouldn't end well, the two were supposed to start learning to work together and although she knew such a prospect wasn't possible, at least now, simply allowing their senseless provacations to one another wouldn't help the process.
'A game?' the woman had asked, 'You mean we settle this through a game?'
'Whatever do you have in mind?'
Crusch had a smile and said, with quite enthusiasm at that point, 'Rock, paper, Scissors'
She smiled, gazing at her wand with much more excitement than before; she'd actually done it. Viktor and Yoraina were dumbstruck, the sequence of events had simply occured way too fast. One moment there was bright light, then a violent feeling of wrath, evil, happiness and excitement till a purple light had coalesced in front of their daughter and no later than that was a wand born.
"L-Ludmilla?" Her mother stammered her name as Crusch glanced towards her and brandished the wand triumphantly.
"It's neat right?" A laugh couldn't help but escape her lips, one so heartily joyful and filled with emotions unexplainable to anyone but Crusch. Was it the wand's fused nature's now? Or her own feelings of achievement that Crusch felt as though shackles she never even knew were there had suddenly been broken, she felt happiness, unbridled, a flurry of emotions, she felt…free?
"A successful fusion I presume?" The man who Crusch had nearly forgotten was there, asked her as she turned his way.
"You have no idea"
**
From the moment the news had spread throughout the castle, there was no one whose gaze wasn't shrouded in a wave of shock. A successful fusion?! The likes of which no one had ever accomplished, not ever since the process had first been suggested, although coming from the main house itself and not simply a rumor from outside, many still couldn't believe it.
'the hermit Ludmilla succeeded? Impossible!!'
'The truth is no more blatant than the Lord and Lady's mood, it was most definitely a success'
'Even so!! S-Such an achievement…'
Could be written in legends, Crusch stood with her parents across from her in the distance, their attention drawn to her and the ever expansive snowy field while her wand stood at the ready by her side.
"Is there a reason for all this?" Crusch asked the man behind her.
"Of course, testing your new wand is the most exciting part of any Witches beginnings"
"T-Testing!? For real!?" Crusch asked, the excitement practically palpable.
"Hahaha, stay focused, your parents seem serious about testing whether that wand of yours actually works"
Crusch smiled and nodded, turning to her parents in readiness as Viktors hand flicked and a wand materialized in his grasp.
'Damn, can mine do that too?'
"Ludmilla!" Crusch stiffened, "Stay focused, this will be your first lesson and your first steps into the world of magic"
Hearing this and Crusch could feel her heart beat faster, practically forgetting all else around her and focusing her sights on nothing but her parents ahead.
"Teaching you how to properly use your affinities will take far too much time, however, there are spells capable of being used without an affinity and methods to force your use of an affinity without much effort" Her father's wand of which she now noticed was of the similar wooden material to her once evil twig was brought in front of him and held vertically in his grasp as yellow light began to coalesce at its tip, "Follow my steps closely" he said.
Viktor suddenly swung the wand as though striking at an enemy in front of him creating what was a thin line of yellow in the air, he then brought it back up, another line following, then there was an ark, a horizontal slash and before she knew it and what stood in front of her father was a large incomprehensible symbol written in the air.
'Wow…' she mouthed in her mind but the process wasn't done and Viktor pointed the tip of his wand towards her and into the symbol before saying something out loud.
"Délvãri"
BANG!
The symbol shot forward with incredible speed, charging towards Crusch that she instinctively panicked. From an obscure to incomprehensible sigil of sorts and it slowly formed to a beam of ligh and in light of this amazing show of magic did she nearly forget that she was supposed to respond in kind, yet Crusch had zero experience in magic, how the hell was she supposed to use her wand?
Obviously she could deduce that using a wand and just like any Magical item required her to apply her own mana into it in order to invoke something like a spell or a certain attack, yet how was she supposed to use her mana? Back in the books and shows she'd read and watched, controlling one's mana was an arduous task of focus, something that her father didn't seem to be in any mood to give so instead of responding with a spell did she dodge with a stagger and huff before the spell crashed into the ground, spewing large chunks of snow and sizzling the ground as she stared back with horror to which her father made a slightly horrified expression himself.
"VIKTOR!!! ARE YOU MAD?!" Yoraina looked back at her husband, shocked that the spell held so much power.
"T-That's not what I'd intended, it's been a long time alright!" Yoraina glared as Viktors face turned away in shame before looking back to Crusch, "Remember, a spells name can never be mispronounced, not even slightly"
Crusch dusted herself off of some of the snow, staring daggers but took the advice to heart before asking, "How exactly do I use mana though?"
Her father once again readied for another spell as Crusch's eyes widened in shock, "That's something a working wand should tell you"
'What!?'
The spell shot again, this time at a much slower speed that Crusch found no issue in avoiding, spiralling out of the way, rolling and so on but not an inkling to how she was supposed to use mana was being learnt.
"Should you have fused your wands properly then I'm sure you would've noticed by now" she dodged yet another yellow beam of light, panting profusely at the exercise, "A wand is no simple object, no inanimate tool"
She spun her body abruptly as a beam flew past her, of course she knew that, she was speaking to the damn things just a few minutes prior so what did her father want her do?
'It's a feeling' A voice in her head muttered, surprising Crusch at its sudden intrusion, 'A warmth if you'd like to call it that, to use it is to first invoke this feeling within you'
The voice seemed familiar, feminine yet with a sharp tone as though relaying this information through forced matters but it quickly clicked in her head.
'Is it you two? I didn't know you could speak outside the dreamscape'
The voice clicked a tongue, 'We're bound to you as your wand, is this so surprising?'
'Is there a reason to be so volatile?' Crusch yet again evaded another beam of yellow however the task had gone on for so long now that she found it tasking and occasionally staggered, dodging by a hair's breath.
'I apologize dear owner, the animal still holds a grudge over losing its match—ANIMAL!?'
Although the two were still fighting, Crusch couldn't help but find their ordeal a little amusing and the way in which fusion worked was indeed interesting, the bear had essentially become the woman's other conscious, like a split personality although not initiated by an emotional stimulation. She then however, quickly focused her attention back on invoking the so called feeling of warmth.
Was she supposed to think of something related to warmth?
'Mana is as connected to your emotional state as we are connected to you, it won't work if you're scared and panicked, confused and so on and it'll spiral out of control should you feel anger' the voice explained, 'Think of something that brings you warmth, a happy memory perhaps? A dream, a…How crude, have you forgotten the master's age? All I was gonna say is a person, that can be her parents for God's sake!! That is not what your thoughts told me—Tsk'
Crusch ignored the rambling, focusing more on the thought of using happy memories to invoke a warmth in her but were there really any? She tried to sift back through the past but found herself struggling to attain something of that sort, her father shot two beams in succession this time, surprising Crusch as she tried by all means to find a happy memory in her past, something that made her feel warmth, her parents perhaps? Her friend Hannah? None although quite happy they'd made her at the time didn't invoke a feeling of warmth.
'What am I missing?'
With her mind centered over brooding over a potential warm memory did she fail to notice her father's next attack, this time far more swift and precise that it struck Crusch square in the stomach and sent her crashing into the snow. The pain that assailed her was sharp and piercing, nothing like she'd ever experienced.
"Viktor! I thought you meant not to hurt her?" Yoraina made a show of reprimand but Viktor's response quickly sullened her irritation.
"There'll be far worse at the trials.." He looked over towards Ludmilla, frowning at his own actions although necessary, "Is that all? Do you give up?"
At the mention of that, Crusch's body quickly groaned itself back to life as shifted in the snow and staggered back to her feet. The pain had mostly subsided and her thoughts still centered around how to invoke her mana through her body, Viktor who noted this resolve half smiled but it made no effort to reach his eyes, "We can go only this far, there's no need for you to push yourself"
"I'm fine…"
"Mana Circulation isn't something to rush, we can take it one step at a time" Viktor said, "We've said it before but we only want the best for you, Ludy"
There was a heartbeat and a spark of amethyst that quickly became a haze of purple flames, Crusch lifted her wand, vertically placed in front of her and imitated the movements she'd seen before.
'Ludy…'
Of course, in the midsts of her own inner turmoils she'd forgotten that her mind wasn't harbored with memories of just one life but two, she'd forgotten that in this life filled with magic and wonders that she was a part of a family, she had parents with so much boundless love and enough time to spare it for her.
Love.
That was all the warmth she needed till the symbol stood ahead of Ludmilla in glimmering amethyst delight, creased in purple flames as she pointed forward.
"DÉLVÃRI!!!"
A flash and a stream of amethyst shot towards them, it was quick and quite obviously far more powerful than what her father showcased as practice but her parents were far too shocked at the sight to react any more than to stare at the attack blankly till a resounding bang rang throughout the field.