“This will feel extremely strange I imagine,” I wish I could focus my power into a tiny scale, to just make her an apprentice in the normal way but the gap between earth and outside the galaxy is like a single step to me how do you do millimeters with that?

“I am ready,” Adaira is putting on a brave face but I can read her like a book with all my magic senses and she is terrified. I make a realm binding trying to limit it a bit more but my power has been a bit too contained recently and the realm binding is larger than a country in all directions.

“AHHH,” she cries out until it is almost a moan and with that, she stumbles a bit. I catch her effortlessly and help her keep standing I am doing so much at once while trying not to hurt her. Time is still stopped.

No apprentice phase just a full witch. I have no idea what that will be like. I don’t think anyone has skipped the apprentice stage without being a celestial being or developing into one as they grew up. I keep her steady as she adapts, she seems to be shuddering and having sensory overload but I just keep supporting her as she takes it all in.

I finally release her when manages to adapt, her irises are shaking as she tries to understand it all.

Shit, she tried out a teleport and I expand the protected area dramatically to make sure to keep her safe. She didn’t go too far but at least there is no harm as she teleports back wordlessly.

“This is crazy and ...”

“It is okay to take it slow but you might have to not teleport when you are on earth well at least when you have your phone with you,”

She tests her limits a bit, fire, lightning, floating, and everything that comes to mind. I would guess maybe a ten year fully trained witch from her levels before she has to stop. I am starting to feel the universe protesting at time being stopped.

“Quite a lot to take in, I wish I could show you a bit more but if I don’t remove the time pausing then things might get a little off,” I grab her, and instantly we are back outside the graveyard, her phone still falling.

“Grab your phone, go home without any magic and I will meet you there,”

“No magic at all?”

“Just for now when you get home I will meet you there ok?” She gives a nod and I teleport back to my favourite spot, to the house I kept hidden there. I take a seat keeping focused on her.

Tick, tick, tick…

Time continues as she grabs her phone, the guard seems to notice her almost drop it but mostly ignores her. I don’t know what it is about her but just seeing her makes me want to just run away with her. I don’t really watch her normally, we arrange times to do things together but now I am seeing her without being there. She is slightly clumsy, seems she is doing better at recovering from it with her magic awakened but there is a charm in her little stumbles. She takes public transport and seems a little restless. I don’t know what it is like to never feel magic but from my understanding, it is like another sense being gained on awakening. She manages to stumble home almost drunks it looks like before she closes the door, I wait for no one to be in view and appear knocking on her door. It opens.

“You are so old fashioned with your knocking,”

“Just how I grew up without all these fancy gadgets,” I give a little smirk and since she has become a witch I actively want her more. Not just friendship or something seeming to be in the center of my galaxy seeming to hold it all together but a more primal desire.

“So what now?”

“Now you leave all your gadgets and we go for another round,”

She quickly strips all her device leaving them on her coffee table before giving a slight nod. Back to my little spot I make sure to give her a full solar system of protection in all directions, can’t have her hurting herself.

“Push your magic out of yourself a bit in all directions to make a realm binding,”

She is focusing, trying to but she has never had that feeling like an apprentice nor has she ever had to for other reasons like when I was making them before I was even aware. Is she actually a witch with this?

I let her keep trying but after exhausting herself she gives up.

“Sorry I don’t know how to,”

“No it is my fault I am a bit abnormal, apprentices tend to get magic activated with a forced realm binding but I didn’t want your magic to pop. Small scale can be hard for me,”

“Just how strong are you? I mean you look in your early twenties but if that gravestone is accurate you are thousands of years old,”

“Since some events that happened with mum and since then I haven’t met anyone stronger than myself and I have actively met some of the most powerful beings out there,”

“I must be like an amoeba compared to you, what do you even find interesting about me when you have the whole galaxy to yourself,”

“I can go anywhere in existence except outside the realms but I know what you mean. When I look at you you might be a small point but it is like a black hole that I can’t help circle around, it is like I am the galaxy and you are the center. When I saw you it just seemed to click into place and I wanted to meet you. In you, I see my eternity not being dark or alone anymore,”

“Why me?”

“I don’t know, just like mama used to say things just seemed to click. I have never felt love before but I guess that is what this is, it is almost like we are magnets,”

She is looking at me oddly, did I go too far? She teleports next to me and kisses my cheek and I feel warm.

I guess she feels it too...