Sympathetic Magic

The two fundamental laws that govern sympathetic magic are the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contact. Put informally, the Law of Similarity dictates that two objects which resemble each other will remain in a natural magical correspondence; the Law of Contact maintains that things which came in physical contact will continue to act on each other even after that contact had ceased. The most widely practised implication of these laws is that a magician can affect a person by acting on an effigy or a belonging of that person.

A magician may also project their senses out of their own body, as was the case with Marquess Gera's famous spying glass eyes.

Principles of Sympathetic Magic, Auring University Press, 7^th ed.

*

All great ideas seem totally obvious in retrospect. This is why Diane would later wonder why she only got this one so late into the class.

In my opinion, it's not really surprising. Sympathetic Magic is a demanding course, and effigymaking is its worst part. It requires all of your attention, and keeps your mind from wandering into risky grounds.

Before you try it, it sounds really simple. You put your hand in a box filled with claylike sludge. When it sets you pour mineral resin into this mould, and thus make a cast. As that is congealing, you establish a sympathetic link. It's a bit like telekinesis -- you seek the cast out and feel it with your mind, but instead of trying to shift it, you instead weave your awareness into the thing.

It is, in fact, not simple. It's a nightmare. It's a bitch and a half. It requires the precision of an alchemist and the inspiration of a mystic. Even in controlled lab environment, the students' casts often end up feeling numb, or barely responsive at all -- most are grateful to just get a passing grade. And to think that on the old days, all those woods witches and warlocks had to make it work with poppets made of twigs and rags. Insane stuff.

But Diane was not an average student. Again she pondered the cast on her desk -- a black and rubbery likeness of her left hand. Again she gave it a light stab with her pen. The prickling sensation on her actual skin was clear and exact. This was a final exam-grade work, and only mid-way through the trimester. She folded her hands and leaned back in her chair.

The second-floor laboratory was several times larger than an ordinary classroom, but somewhat dingy -- as was the entire building. The Department of Chemistry and Alchemy was separated from the main complex of the Vallnord Academy by a broad lawn, still apparently distrusted, despite only suffering three major fires in the previous twenty years. The day was overcast, and even though the gas lamps were on, the lab was dim. Diane's eyes wandered.

The shelves and counters by the walls were packed with vials, beakers, flasks, and test-tube racks. A massive, wide apothecary's cabinet walled off a storage area in the back of the room. A cast-iron industrial stove was audibly working right in the middle. Bare pipes ran through the ceiling towards the front of the lab, where the Archduke's portrait stared stern from above the door. The other students, seated in fours around the square tables, were all at work -- sticking their hands into the moulding forms or pouring the foaming mineral resin into them. Two tables over, bent down so that his brown hair hung over his eyes, sat Niko.

Like all public institutions in the country, the Vallnord Academy was expected to be a bastion of decorum and high moral standards. Having secret lovers here was exciting to be sure, but it was so difficult to actually get some quality time alone. You had to watch them furtively, picture their naked bodies underneath those black velvet uniforms, and suffer them to go unfucked for days, weeks even. Niko straightened up; his pretty lips pouted. Diane realized that she'd been staring, and that her own lips were slightly parted, and that she was licking her teeth. She quickly glanced around, and lowered her gaze to the table. She absent-mindedly ran her fingers through her cast, the touch relayed exactly to her hand. Once cooled, the resin was smooth, actually skin-like in touch.

And this, exactly then, was when she got the idea.

All the students were focused on their casts. The professor and her assistant were both near the front of the lab, giving advice and discussing the results. Diane hesitated for just a few seconds.

A standard moulding kit is a hinged wooden box with a missing top wall. She took a tin scoop and filled hers with the grey powder. She got up and walked to a sink by the window. She poured in water, and stirred until all the lumps disappeared and that thick, clayish sludge resulted. Nobody paid her any attention.

She did not go back to her table. She headed to the back of the room, where that great cabinet took up all its width except for a passage left off on one side. Behind it, additional perpendicular shelves created a small labyrinth of nooks, a genuine library for alchemical supplies. This late into the class there was nobody there.

She leaned against the cabinet's side and looked at Niko's back. He was fiddling with his cast. By his hand lay a pen. Quite a small object quite far away, but nothing that a survivor of Professor Ter Dekke's famous telekinesis course couldn't handle. She took a deep breath and sought it out with her mind. Steely nib, wooden holder, ink residue. She squinted. A little awkwardly, it lifted itself from the table, and poked Niko in the wrist.

He looked around, turned, and saw her. She gave him a quick little nod and disappeared into the backroom.

He made sure that nobody saw this and waited a full minute before he followed. The cabinet walled this place off from the windows, and so it was even dimmer here; a distant shadow of the sun aided by two gas lamps' worth of mellow light. Her blond hair was a rare bright spot in all this.

She was standing all the way back in the furthest corner, arms crossed. She smiled as he approached, one of her slight, mysterious smiles, and seized him up with those blue eyes. His heart rate picked up.

"How are your casts?" she asked. "Do they conduct well?"

"They're kinda good actually, yeah." He gave his words a nonchalant tone. She was obviously very talented, and comparing your results with hers was always a good way to make you really insecure about your magic. But his casts were kinda good. It was so nice to have no reason to be cowed by her. Yep, two very competent students casually discussing magic here.

"Good." She lifted up the moulding kit. "Will you make me a cast of your cock?"

Just... two competent students discussing magic.

"What."

"I miss your touch, Niko. If I can't have you whenever we want, I could at least have fun with your... likeness. And if you could feel me play with it, I think it would cheer you up as well."

The idea was definitely intriguing. Of course, casts imbued with sympathetic magic didn't last long -- the mental link would deteriorate after a day or so, and then the resin itself would crumble from the thaumaturgic stress -- but it could serve for one fun evening. Still, there was one little problem with the plan.

"Right here? Now?"

"Where else would you get the equipment? Besides," she dragged him by the elbow behind the furthest shelf, "in the unlikely event someone does come here, you will have time to pull up your pants." She shoved the moulding kit into his hands -- which meant that he couldn't prevent her from seizing his belt buckle.

He scowled, and she waited. This wasn't the first time that she proposed something risky like that. In fact, the only reason that they hadn't been expelled yet is that the school's golems apparently weren't programmed to act when discovering very naked students in very public places very late at night. It occurred to Niko that this risk of being caught was for Diane a big part of the thrill. It also occurred to him that he didn't disagree.

Lips parted, he nodded. She unbuckled him, unbuttoned him, and uncovered him.

His cock was fully on board -- semi-erect already, poking from under his white shirt. She gave it a few encouraging strokes. He looked at her, the awareness of being exposed in a classroom full of people tingling in the scruff of his neck. She went down to her knees and took him in her mouth.

"Oh, shit," he whispered. She met his eyes and smiled. She tickled his glans with her tongue. He grunted, his back bucking a little. He looked up. From the top shelf, a particularly stern plaster bust of a distinguished professor was looking right at him. He grinned at it. He got very hard, very fast.

Diane let herself just enjoy his arousal for a few moments, feel his heat and his firmness in her mouth. At this school, only she knew this side of him. Beyond the walnut barrier of the cabinet, the quiet din of thirty students and two faculty members at work blended in with the hum of the stove.

"Okay," she whispered, letting him go. "Now, push in!"

She shifted to stand up, but stopped and watched mesmerised as his glans sank into the grey mass. As more and more of his length went in, the sludge bulged out around him. It was extremely satisfying, watching his cock slide into things.

"All of it." She gently pushed the box onto him, until he was balls deep in the mould. "How does it feel?"

He frowned. It felt a little bit like fucking a mud puddle.

"It's kind of cold," he said.

Mm. Her work was not yet done. It's easy to get a boy hard. The trick was to keep him hard.

She stood up, unbuttoned her shirt, and pulled down her bra. It was so fun to see his wary eyes light up.

"Play with them," she whispered. "That ought to warm you up."

He was still listening, keenly, to the sounds from beyond the cabinet, for a slightest hint of steps going their way. But as he placed his hand on her skin -- well, his sense of touch now had his full attention.

Askew, sidestepping the box, she hugged him and kissed him. He sucked on her lip, and felt her play with his hair. The cold was suddenly not a concern.

"That's right, Niko. Be brave." She moved on to kiss his jaw. "Just two more minutes or so..." She kissed his neck. She felt the blood rush through his arteries -- clearly, if there was any risk right now, it was that of the box bursting open from the pressure. She cradled his head in her hands, and nibbled at his earlobe.

"Okay?"

"Yeah." He closed his eyes. He soaked in her warmth, her softness, the scent of her hair. Slowly but surely, the mould was setting around him.

*

Marcell and Anton were pretending to test their casts as specified in the textbook's guidelines, but their whispered conversation went entirely elsewhere.

"The Proctor Superior knows something's up. Maybe that damned raven snitched," Marcell said. Anton, as always, took this with a carefree shrug.

"Let's not have the meeting in the open, then. Let's have it in my room."

"And would your roommate be okay with that?"

"What, Niko?" Anton shoved his wavy hair behind his ear. "Of course he would. Niko's cool."

"But every new person that knows is an additional risk—"

"Oh, relax. Besides, know what, Niko's usually out hoverboating until late. So there's probably no need to even tell him—"

Anton paused. Niko returned to the table with a new mould and a pitcher of fresh resin. Anton finished the sentence at a whisper. "My room at nine. No worries."

A standard bit of grandma wisdom is that magic always comes out best when done on the spur of a moment, a bit recklessly and disregarding the consequences. Like most grandma wisdom, it's probably mostly true.

As soon as Niko started the work, tilting the mould's suspicious looking hole away from everyone's eyes, he already knew he'd do really well. His mind found the hot black liquid and nested itself within it seamlessly. It would take some time for the connection to awaken, but even as he poured, he thought he could already feel a faint heat in his cock. Though to be perfectly honest, that was almost certainly just the lingering effect of Diane.

*

The sky was still heavy and overcast when the students crowded out of the Department of Chemistry and Alchemy. Niko and Diane fell in with their usual groups. The Academy suffered for coeducation to take place, but the frivolity of unmarried young men and women communicating beyond what was strictly needed for schoolwork was obviously frowned upon.

Halfway to the main complex, where the gravel pathway entered among the sprawling old park junipers, they both skilfully tarried, sat down on separate benches to rummage through their bags and tie shoelaces, and as soon as there was nobody nearby -- ducked together among the conifers.

He opened his bag and carefully placed on the grass the mould that he'd smuggled out. It looked like a large, grey brick. They exchanged glances.

"Alright." She grabbed a rock and aimed. "Let's see how it turned out..."

He very firmly seized her wrist and dispossessed her of the rock. "I'll do it," he declared. Very carefully, he picked a spot where the cast shouldn't run underneath, cringed a little, and struck.

The mould went to pieces like porcelain, and at the same time he felt a jolt, a blunt dry shock in his pants.

"O... kay, it works," he gasped. She immediately reached for the wreckage, and he felt her hands as she seized the cast and lifted it up.

The black matte resin was still warm. It was an almost perfect likeness.

Her smile broadened. She ran her finger along the shaft, the sleek gentle curve that she liked so much. She took her eyes off the thing and onto him.

"You're a very handsome boy, Niko."

He blushed, stammered out some response, and took the cast himself. There could be no doubt, the attempt went really well. He could feel everything -- although the cast having been made when he was erect, now that he was soft the sensation was strangely scaled and offset.

"Alright." She opened her bag. "Put it in here, and..."

"What, here?!" He pointed to the unfriendly, angular books inside. "Among all this hard stuff? I swear, Diane, if you give it a paper cut..."

Unruffled, she took off her light scarf and wrapped the cast snug in.

"Is this okay?"

It felt like an additional pair of pants. When she hid it in her bag, he only felt a vague, muffled sensation. He cheered up.

"So, when are we doing this?" It was unusual to see his face wearing such an eager grin.

Both would have preferred to do the deed in the comfort of their own rooms, and luck was with them -- Diane's roommate, Yolanda, had an astronomy workshop that day at nine-thirty, while Niko's roommate, Anton, was involved in some club that held long evening meetings around the same time; they agreed to be in their rooms at that hour, and make the best of this opportunity.

Nobody would have suspected them of anything unseemly when, moments later, they walked down the gravel path, slightly apart and looking indifferent to each other. Far to the left and to the right, the sprawling main complex of the Academy encircled them with its wings: the squat medieval college with its hewn stone, and the comfortable modern addition with its arched windows, gables, balustrades, clock tower, and all the rest. The building housed the Academy's administration and its four core, cherished departments (Theoretical Metaphysics, Natural Magic, Summoning, and Mathematics). Away to the sides, pretty much on the opposite sides of the whole thing, were the men's and women's dorms. By the equestrian statue in the middle of the park, Diane and Niko had to part.

"You won't just satisfy yourself and leave me hanging, right?" he asked. She mildly raised her eyebrows.

"I'll take care of you. Just sever the link when you come, I will know that I can stop."

Those raised eyebrows, along with her slight smile, gave her face a slightly condescending expression. The cool air hued her pale skin pink, and her eyes were fiercely blue in contrast. He felt an overwhelming urge to just pin her to the statue's base and kiss her like an absolute savage.

"Okay then. Feel you in the evening, Diane."

"Feel you." She turned around and yanked the strap of her bag. Indistinctly, he felt the books jolt inside.

*

Thus began a very long afternoon. Her notes from the Intro to Thaumaturgy were a little less neat than usual. His from Elemental Theory were just a bunch of impatient scribbles. Later, they were in the canteen at the same time -- they both avoided looking at each other, as otherwise even Diane's exceptional poker face would be in danger. All the time, while talking casually with her friends, she was keenly aware of the cast in the bag by her feet. All the time, he felt her soft scarf wrapped around him. Every moment of this was unintended foreplay.

The sky cleared and sun shone on Vallnord. He went to the Great Conservatory to work on his Scrying group assignment. She went to her room in the southern wing, with its two beds, two writing desks, and one large window overlooking the lawn. She talked to Yolanda for a while; and when Yolanda left to fetch a book from the library, she finally fished out the bundle from the bag. She couldn't resist unwrapping it, to take a look before stowing it safely under her pillow.

The matte texture was skinlike, sleek and inviting. She felt his presence within; it was like that vague sensation that you're not alone in a room, barely perceptible if you don't know to look for it, unmistakable if you do. It was hefty, excitingly heavy on her hands, stiff, blunt, girthy.

"What a pretty thing you are," she whispered, and kissed it.

"What are you smiling at?" Yohann asked from across the table.

"Nothing," replied Niko, and leaned back in his chair. High above him, the giant brass armillary sphere of the Great Conservatory was ticking quietly under the glass ceiling. "I just remembered a joke."

Tick by tick, time went on, and eventually managed to bring on the evening. She got a grip on herself and stayed more or less focused on her Rituals seminar, on the tiny aged professor demonstrating dancelike motions in the warm gas light of the lecture hall. As the sky darkened he stepped out of the changing room and stood on the bank of the river downslope from the Academy, together with his six crewmates. Hoverboating is draining, both mentally and physically -- with your mind you try to levitate that heavy wooden boat as high in the water as possible, while all your muscles are strained from rowing hard -- and if anyone of the crew falls out of sync, the entire ensemble will almost certainly keel over. At least it kept him well occupied for an hour.

The moment he returned, soaked and winded, to the changing room, she pushed on the florid handle of her bedroom door. She made perfectly normal small talk with Yolanda, who soon got up from her bed and began to hunt for the astronomy tables she needed for the class. Diane sat by her desk, adjusted the kerosene lamp, and opened her Thaumaturgy textbook.

Niko excused himself from the usual lengthy after-training briefing and hurried upslope towards the main gate. It was full night time now. Above him, the great glass bulk of the Great Conservatory was illuminated like an enormous lantern.

Yolanda got all her things ready, reheated her coffee with a quick thermal spell, and talked a little bit more. Niko walked through the main door into the vast Entrance Hall, and his steps quickened to a trot on the glossy stone tiles which reflected the light from the chandeliers.

Yolanda closed the door behind her. Diane sat perfectly still, watching the corner of a page, and listened to the steps receding in the hallway. It was only a minute or so later that she calmly closed the book, got up, and locked the door.

He thought about his bed, he thought about Diane -- he felt the fabric of her pillow -- and he couldn't stop grinning. He jumped out of the back door, onto the inner lawn. He breathed in the crisp air, and the night, his physical tiredness, and his mounting arousal made him in that moment feel really great in his own body. Both moons were up, throwing twin shadows onto the grass.