Since discovering his magic he has been like a boy with a new toy. His talent is simply wonderful! Endless hours are spent honing his newfound skill, excluding everything and everyone with the force of his determination to discover every caveat of his ability. Poor Vérzés is feeling desperately neglected, so unused is he to not being the centre of his bonded's attention. The young monolith discovered his magic quite by chance, but he is leaving nothing else up to the gods as he familiarises himself with every single aspect of it. Days have passed since the incident with Isopia, and barely a minute has gone by that Volterra hasn't been testing the limits of his mind's magic.

The sun is dying in the skies above as the colt stands, yet again, above a bare smear of earth, his bloodied gaze narrowed and focused fully on the ground before him. He concentrates hard, muscles twitching as he sends spasms of power into the rock nestling beneath the sod, easing it upwards until it bubbles out of the ground in the form of small, fetlock-height spikes. He finds that making small structures like this is a good way to train his brain and increase how long he can keep them for, allowing him to build up his mental stamina as he had so painstakingly built up his physical body. Making larger creations like his accidental fire-stopping wall saps him of his energy and leaves him a wobbling wreck, so he tries to keep things small and strengthen his mind, in the hope that by the time he's older he will be able to throw around walls and hills like they're going out of fashion.

Vérzés is not best pleased with the blackened monolith for his ignorance, and he perches behind the colt with his claws resting in Volterra's tail. He tugs on the still-growing strands of it, chirping frantically as he desperately tries to wrest his bonded's attentions away from the damned ground and onto him. Volterra rolls his eyes and continues manipulating the rock, enjoying the challenge of trying to maintain his magic whilst distracted by the tugs on his tail; if he is to utilise his power in battle, he will have to become accustomed to doing it whilst being attacked or hurt. Inadvertantly, the red dragon is helping him train.

That is, until one especially vigorous tug on his tail snaps his concentration, and with a hiss he feels his bond with his magic fall apart. The spikes he created fall back into the ground with a thud, but in his distracted state he can't control the thread of energy that leads to the nub of power inside his mind, unable to cut it off as quickly as he wants. The leftover magic lurches into the ground beneath his feathered hooves, dragging the rock obstinately upwards in the form of a tiny hill with Volterra perched on top. He gives a startled yelp at the sudden sap on his strength, but mercifully the plateau he's accidentally created is only miniscule, about as high as his knee. Vérzés looks rather smugly up at him, chirping decisively, and Volterra sends a grumpy mental jab in his direction. Still, this can still aid his training, so he concentrates on trying to maintain the small lump he's made in the earth, finding it even more difficult to do so given the fact he's standing on top of it. All good practice, though. ""