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[credere]

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[magician_king]

"Then just focus on imagining the feeling. A cool, quiet peacefulness, and with each breath, it fills you up a little more."

[credere]

He's still struggling to see the wisdom of this. It feels like an excuse to just sit around lazily, doing nothing, thinking nothing - he can hear his mother's voice distantly, chastising him whenever she caught him in an idle moment.

He tries to breathe deeply, to banish those thoughts.

What makes him happy? His little sister made him happy - but he'll probably never see her again. Mr Graves made him happy - but he'd only ever been lying to him.

What in his day makes him happy here? He doesn't know.

[magician_king]

"Now, imagine your life how it's going to be here for the next few months, maybe a year. The times you'll have in the Enclosure, the people you're going to know. The days you'll spend puttering with me. The nights spent in prayer. Imagine waking up in the morning, and going to the mess hall, and taking a cup of something warm-"

He instructs him, steady, and soothing.

"Think about the fact that you're going to work hard to make the Obscurus safe, that we trust you to put that hard work in, those long hours. Part of you will grapple with some magic, because part of being here, part of knowing me, will be letting go of that control, and that fear, and your mother's baseless prejudices."

[credere]

His eyes snap open.

"They weren't baseless. I killed her."

[magician_king]

"Yeah, but you could have beaten her head in with a brick, too."

He says, shaking his head, and then winces.

"Fuck- sorry, Credence." That was bad, even for Quentin. "My point is more, it's a tool, not a curse. All that happened was a product of her abuse, not a product of the magic."

[credere]

Visibly - inevitably - he flinches.

"She always said that sorcerers would be put to death," he mumbles. "And I'm dead. So she was right, wasn't she?"

[magician_king]

"I'm not."

Though.

"Doesn't that mean something?"

[credere]

"You're trapped here."

A quiet observation.

"Because of some magic you did."

Doesn't that mean something?

[magician_king]

"...yeah, I am."

He realizes, with a bit of a wince.

"I guess I don't have a leg to stand on."

[credere]

And then Credence winces, too.

"...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you."

[magician_king]

"It's not an insult."

He promises.

"It's just- a reality. Anyways. I think we've kind of- I think we should let that one sit. Except that, you obviously still have some worries about actually being a magic user."

[credere]

"I think it's just best if I don't," he concludes. It won't make him happy, but it won't make him unhappy, either.

[magician_king]

"Okay. Then we can do the pressure valve relief stuff without translating it into actions you're going to learn."

He says;

"It will involve casting periodically, but just enough to be safe."

[credere]

Though even that, visibly, makes him uncomfortable.

"What kind of casting?"

[magician_king]

"We go out to the Enclosure, make a reservoir, and cast 'boil water' at it. Stand in a field, and you raise your arms and summon the summer storm. If you're- right now a literal tempest in a literal teakettle, think of how you'd let that kind of force out safely."

[credere]

"I don't understand why I have to," Credence says, sounding faintly embarrassed, as if the answer's obvious and he's stupid for not knowing it.

"I've been fine for this long. Mostly."

[magician_king]

"Didn't you kill a bunch of people and then die in a magical explosion?"

Sorry, they're having a blunt day.

"That could happen again unless you deal with it."

[credere]

He flinches like he's been slapped.

"...The Admiral took so much. I can't do that again. Not here."

[magician_king]

"Unless our powers come back again. Unless there's a port- often when we go down to planets, our powers are returned- and many times we're kicked off the boat and don't get a choice about it. Unless you become a warden here and things are returned to you."

He reasons, gently.

"The magic hasn't stopped being a part of you, any more than it ever stopped being a part of me."

[credere]

"So I'm an abomination whether I use it or not," is Credence's quiet, baleful conclusion.

[magician_king]

"In your philosophy. In mine, you are a secret spring of potential in a desolation."

He tells him.

"You can change the world."

[credere]

"But I don't want to. What would I change?"

[magician_king]

"How much all this shit hurts."

Which it does, always has, in Quentin's experience.

[credere]

Of everything Quentin's ever said to him, it's this that actually gains a little traction.

"...Really?"

[magician_king]

"Yeah."

He says, and plucks his glasses off to polish them.

"Not always. But if everything in the world is a crushing battle, then magic is just- one tiny little edge over it."