Mother of Magic

Stacked

Stephanie took her turn as the focal point of the magic flow. She was not competitive with her husband. Their relationship as teammates worked more toward them being mutually supportive even before they were married. Now, for their marriage to survive the pressure of their old world with the pressures of professional sports, they worked even hard to not compete with each other. Focus all their energy outward, at the world. Besides all of that, while they were the best two players on the team, Stephanie was the more natural player and had been playing longer. Le was both an intellectual player and something of a savant since gaining his health, but neither of those things made him as good as she at the game.

At the same time, Le's current magical abilities exceeded hers, and she did not like that either. It was partly competitive, partly envy, and mostly what Stephanie expected out of herself. Ava had said they were the same. Implied the same magical abilities, the same aura, and all of that. Yet Stephanie was, at the beginning of this magical abilities practice day, not the same. Stephanie did not become the best at what she did merely by having organic talent. She also had expectations about herself. While she never really ever thought she might have magical expectations about herself, ... well. Here she was. A supposed witch in another world, and not able to do witchy things. That was not going to work for her.

Le had been able to manifest toothpicks and gold coins after being the focal point. She wanted to not only experience the knowledge that came from being where the magical energy flowed toward but also to be able to take things she considered and create them out of 'magical cloth'. It was not about toothpicks or riches. It was that she had a desire to create her own clothing. The clothing of her planet. Not merely to have jeans but to have them fit like hers had. Jackets that were tailored to her shape.

Stephanie had the money to make that happen of course. Not only gold from Ava but now Le could make as much precious metal as they would ever need. Money in this world, as in theirs, was not the issue. Well-paid baseball players or 'well-paid' inter-universe kidnap victims. They had money. Stephanie could get with a tailor in Collins and have whatever clothes she wanted to be made. She would prefer to support a craftsperson in doing exactly that. Creating things out of nothing felt like a cheat to her. Even her own natural talents she had worked at and honed. Making things appear in a flash of green was too easy. A cheat. A thing she had not earned. On the other hand, she could use the ability to make one set of things exactly as she wanted them. It would then be nice to have a set of clothing to hand the craftsperson and say 'Make more like this'. Her preferred cuts and styles were not here in this place. This would allow her to fix that and satisfy both her desire to feel normal — as normal as wearing her own clothes could make her feel in any case — and support others.

Then there were things like baseballs, bats. bases and gloves. If she and Le were stuck here, then Stephanie did not plan to not be able to stay in practice. She could recruit when spring came around and teach the game herself. That required Stephanie to be able to take what was in her mind and make it real.

Today her concerns about her abilities came to an end. As the magical loci of the creation process, Stephanie could use magic to create things. It was as Ava had said. Stephanie could do exactly what Le had. If she was honest with herself she felt relieved.

Stephanie was imagining all sorts of lumber, and channeling Ava and Le's input. The open space that was the driveway in their homeworld was full. A tumbledown of all sorts of processed wood. There was a huge stack of lumber, worthy of a lumber yard. There were 2 by 4's and 6 by 6's. 12 by 12's longer than any lumberyard could even get back in their world. Sizes and shapes that would require old-growth trees that did not exist anymore. Magic did not care. it did not need the beams to be based on real things. Only what Stephanie could imagine and picture. There were also the normal, run-of-the-mill sheets of 4x8 plywood. It was not only wood. Ceramic tiles sat in a second stack near the lumber.