Why couldn't magic be fun? Vessa wondered, pushing a limp wisp of hair out of her face and glaring at the wax tablet in front of her. Rather than creative expression and instinct and play, as its most breath-stealing and beautiful acts always seemed to be, it was rules and formulae, symbols and numbers and precision. It was stomach-clutching tests and head-aching memorization and time-stealing homework.

"I am too lazy for magic," she announced, placing her stylus onto the floor with a deliberate click.

"The resona—what?" Jura stopped in the midst of her explanation of carnelian's spell properties to blink up at her.

"I should have apprenticed as an artist," Vessa elaborated. "I want to make beautiful things. I do not want to memorize and calculate and, and extrude magic like I'm...I'm—"

"A maker of magical sausages?" drawled Lhenu from where he was pretending to nap underneath a fold of his overtunic.

Jura snorted and Vessa laughed before nodding and saying, "Truly? Yes. I'm no good at this methodical, careful work. I want to create magic," her hands curled up into loose fists, as if she could clutch the substance of magic into her palms, "not build something that builds something that eventually spits magic out."