Thoughts on magic

The dusty smell of the old tomes filled my nose, the air thick and humid. The book in front of me laid open on a section I had reread a few times and retained nothing. I leaned back and felt my back crack a few times and closed my eyes. Thinking back to the idea was beggining to form, an idea on magic, it didn't feel right anymore.
"Master" I said with my still closed.
"Yes, Emily?" Master said without ever looking up from his book, his pipe hanging losly from his teeth as he was trying to read out of few different tomes at once.
"About the battle..." I trailed off, not really wanting ask what I wanted. I heard Master's teeth click on his pipe. "That stone, that experience..."
"You still feel dirty about it, no?" He turned a page in one of the books. "I know you have your reservations, but you turned the tide of the battle, the war. You accomplished something very few have ever done. Why, the king is making a holiday after you!"
"No, its not that, I don't feel unclean about it anymore. Did" I hesitated but continued "did you see someone when you used the stone?"
I looked over at him. His monocle catching the light from the lantern on the desk, he was looking at me. Taking his old tattered hat, that he got from a witch decades ago, he sighed heavily. He ran his hand over his hair and set his elbows on the desk. He steepled his fingers and closed his eyes. "Yes, I did. felt as if someone grabbed my hand, though no one was there. A woman spoke into my ear and told me to remember the ones I'd leave behind if I failed. My vision faded and we were looking up at the sky as new constellations were being formed. The woman told me I was one of her own and flooded my mind with information. When my vision came back, I was able to crumble that mountain side." He paused and took a breath. "Emily, who did you see, and why do you ask?"
"I wasn't expecting it. She just appeared, she was simulatiuosly terrifying in her might, and as soothing as a mothers touch." I told him.
"I had that experience as well" he said, his teeth clacking against the pipe again.
"Its just after that something occurred to me, after all that power I had, after all I could do with it." My voice shook a little as I spoke.
He looked around, into the darkness just outside of our lantern light. I was only me and him here. "And what is that, pupil?"
"It just that I think we are not actually in control of magic, or maybe we are a much more marginal degree than we think. Everything I do with my magic now, it feels insubstantial. Almost like I'm asking for permission rather than being in control. That woman, who was she? I think she might be a god of some kind." I was breathless by the time I stopped talking, Master had that look in his eyes, the kind he only had when he felt a discussion was in order.
"Lets break this down, why do you feel like you aren't in control? Your magic is as flawless as it has ever been." He relit his pipe with a small stream of fire he conjured.
"Well, I." I began, but he only lifted one of his brows in an all too familiar expression. "Because now it feels like I'm asking the world and it's forces to obey, rather than a command. It feels looser, more like there is just a millisecond delay that I never noticed before. Like something is looking at my intent and then doing it for me."
"Hmm, and I suppose you feel this talk of gods is relevant because of this feeling? You think that the gods are this source of power?" He asked me.
"To a degree, we were always told that the gods fear the stones. Why?"
"I do not know. From my vast experience, no one has ever found where the stones come from. Or what they are actually made of, no-ones history goes back far enough to answer that. The only ones that might know are the Fae or their queen."
"You never told me the Fae and their GODDESS were real!" My eyes practically feel out of my head at that bit of news. "How do you know?"
"A young and interesting wayfarer named Odeza"
"That's it? You aren't going to tell me more?" I set my elbows on the table, staring at him with those puppydog eyes that made him melt.
"She would prefer I don't. She is a valuable resource to me an I won't betray her trust for this." He stated flatly, he lowered his gaze at me and that line of inquiry was over wordlessly.
"Well back to the original question" I said with a huff.
"Why do you think you are not in control?"
"It's all that woman. Her form was blurry to me, but she looked human enough."
"She was vaguely goblin-like to me." He said.
I stared at him, trying to see if his expression changed, but it didn't. "Goblin-like. What do you mean?"
"Very long ears, greenish tan skin. Only she had a tail and her eyes were a reflection of the night sky, stars and all. She was also taller than me from what I remember." He waved his hand at the question. "You're getting somewhere, We both had an experience with presumably the same woman. We were both given an extraordinary amount of power for a while. I still feel control over my magic, and you don't. You notice there is the smallest delay in your magic, and you think there are other forces at play here."
"The long and shorth of it yes. Do you know of any gods in any account being able to interact with the stones?" I asked, he was interested now.
"From every account we have of holy men trying to gift a stone to the gods, terrible things happen. Most of the time the holy man is burned alive or the building collapses, regardless of the god being prayed to. So, either they are afraid of them, or furious about them." He spoke in between puffs on his pipe.
"What did you do to make the stone work for you? I thought back to my father, and the training I had with you. Also" A slight tint to my face appeared "I thought about how you have become like a second father to me... the stone just sunk into my skin after that."
There was a very long silenced, a space where my words hung in the air. He wheeled his chair over to sit next to me. He straightened his back and rested his hand on mine. "You never told me you felt that way. Emily, I don't know what to say to that. I..." I hugged him and cut his words off.
He didn't need to say anything to it, he knew. He spoke again, letting go of my hand. "I thought of my family back home, and my students. Like you said, the stone just sank into my skin."
"So we have another commonality, thoughts of family seems to be related to the stones." I ran my hand through my hair.
"You know, in the Glaion region there is a smaller set of gods that doesn't get talked about much outside of funerals, even here in Huron they are spoken of a little. The Forgotten Family. They are a trio of gods, that are the gods of friendship and family. They might be worth some further study? Some lesser known gods that reflect something we went through." He stated pensively, scratching his chin.
"I think she is a god, of some kind. Very few have clearly ever seen her though. Not many who have ever used a stone successfully. But, to my last point. It doesn't really feel like I'm in control of magic, because I feel like I'm asking, not commanding. But, when I was using the stone, it was a definitive command. Like the world quite literally couldn't say no. So, I guess it feels more like a prayer than casting magic." I looked over at him to see him nodding.
He cast a spell that illuminated the dark library we were in, he frowned. "Maybe you are right in that delay theory. I notice it now too..."