It smelled like winter and smoked meat outside as a gray curtain of clouds shimmered across the naked night sky to veil the waning moon.  

“You need to relax and trust the process or it won’t work”

“I’m trying to, honest!”

“ I didn’t say ‘try’,  I said ‘trust’.  That means it's a surrender of will, not the enforcing of it.”

"Fine."

"All things have a sentience and a will. That includes the ability to trust or not. Magic is a conversation."

"I understand, Master"

"Show me."

A moment of stillness passed.

"What if Magic says no? What if magic doesn't trust me?"

"Then that spell or working may not be for you. And if Magic doesn't trust you, then you have to wait, til it has a reason to trust you. Like with anything or anyone. You cannot force trust. It is given or earned or it isn't trust but coercion."

The Elder Mage paused to sip from their mug before continuing.

"Trust is fragile and strong at the same time, like Nature, like Magic. Trust once broken ... sometimes cannot be healed, and if it can be, it is never the same. It carries the scar of betrayal like anyone would if their trust is broken."

"Is that why not everyone can practice magic?"

"In a way yes. Or they haven't bothered to reach out and start the conversation"

"Why not? Magic is everything, how could anyone not want to interact with it?"

"What is the inverse of curiosity and the inverse of trust?"

"Deception?"

"Fear."

________