“Willow!” her aunt yelled in concern, breaking her concentration.

  “What is it?” the girl asked, now completely normal and unharmed, further baffling her teacher.

  The exasperated woman looked the child over with both her eyes and limited sensory capabilities. “What did you just do?”

  Willow tilted her head in confusion. “I just harmonized with Phoebe so I could try to make an earth ball like you asked.”

  Jieun pinched the bridge of her nose, a headache starting to form. “You turned yourself to stone from my perspective.”

  Had she? She hadn’t felt anything. Though she was focused on making extra sure she was harmonizing correctly, so she might not have noticed. She didn’t want to hurt her stone friend after all.

  “That was exceptionally dangerous to try without warning one of us first.” Harmony cautioned, suddenly appearing next to the girl.

  “Was it? I feel fine.” The girl asked, confused why everyone was making a big deal out of this.

  “Yup!” Chimed in Change, appearing on the other side of Willow so he mirrored his twin. “If you hadn’t been keeping up with those core exercises, you might not have been able to turn back.”

  “What do the exercises have to do with this?” Jieun asked, suddenly concerned. From what she had observed they were just rather crude core and body strengthening exercises. Yes the energies being used were rather unique, but she couldn’t see there being any correlation to what she had just witnessed.

  Both spirits seemed a bit hesitant to elaborate, but since Change already let the cat out of the bag he continued to explain.

  “I mean we both kinda already explained this to you guys, both when our good friend started the exercises and when you asked about them. They’re designed to get her body more used to channeling our energy types.”

  “I fail to see how that relates with her being able to turn to stone and back with no issue.” Her aunt grumbled, and Willow silently agreed with her, but was more content to let her friend finish explaining.

  “I’m getting to that, be patient why dontcha.” The child of light huffed. “So what we didn’t really mention was we’ve been letting through a trickle of our concepts whenever she uses our energies for the exercise.”

  The connection clicked for both aunt and niece.

  “So you’ve been making her flood her body with the concept of change.” Jieun said, anger building and eyes hardening.

  “Just a bit!” The spirit hurried to try and calm the potential wrath of Willow’s aunt. “And we always make sure to start with yin and harmony to ease the process.”

  “Why didn’t you at least tell me?” The girl asked, a little hurt by her friends hiding an aspect of her training from her. Although she didn’t fully understand why her aunt was so irate at the prospect.

  “We didn’t think it’d be that big of a deal?” Change argued, trying to downplay it.

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  Jieun wasn’t tolerating it. “The human body is a very complex and delicate thing. A concept like change could randomly alter something vital and kill her outright if you aren’t careful.” She was almost shouting at the small spirit by the end.

  Harmony tried to calm everyone down. “That is why we temper her body with my energies first. My brother and I are linked, and that includes our concepts. Any change that would be applied to her body would be a harmonious one due to my influence.” Her twinkling eyes stared into the human woman’s. “And with the amount of our concepts being used any change would be small.”

  “Besides!” Change chirped. “If we hadn’t done it then she would’ve hurt herself just now trying that silly stunt!” He puffed up, clearly proud of his argument.

  What little calm Jieun had reclaimed was now gone. “The only reason she was able to do that to herself was because of that insane technique you two taught her!”

  The yang spirit matched her anger. “Well, if you hadn’t shown her that exercise she wouldn’t have even thought to try such a potentially dangerous thing!”

  “Both of you stop yelling!” Willow cried, tired of everyone being so loud. So was the pebble in her palm if she was sensing their emotions correctly.

  The arguing group stared at the girl.

  The girl addressed her aunt first. “Please don’t yell at my friend, even if he’s being stupid and rude.” Before said rude friend could interrupt she continued, now directing her attention to the sibling spirits. “And friends shouldn’t keep secrets from each other, ‘specially when the secret could wind up with someone hurt.” She thought for a moment. “Doubly ‘specially when the person who could be hurt is your friend.”

  The twins looked as chagrined as they could with their somewhat lacking facial features.

  Willow continued, looking back to her aunt. “Nobodies hurt, and next time I try something new I’ll ask you guys first.” She looked down at the little rock in her palm and sent a hug to the flame in her heart. “We should all try to get along.”

  Jieun was quite miffed to be lectured at by a literal child, but she eventually conceded the point to her. Things could have gone catastrophically wrong, but they hadn’t and a lesson was learned regardless. Frankly the woman wished she could say the same about some of her childhood training sessions.

  Her aunt took a deep breath and the girl felt her anger levels go down on the exhale.

  “Very well.” She eventually said. “Let’s just continue the lesson.” Her gaze shifted to the yin spirit floating near her niece. “Is it safe for her to continue trying what she was doing before?”

  Harmony thought for a moment, her eyes dim, before eventually nodding. “She was able to shift to stone and back with no issues. The duration of the effect should not change the outcome, and because it is an effect she needs active concentration for there should be no risk even if her core is emptied.”

  The girl in question felt that was good to know, she didn’t like the idea of turning into a statue forever. Doing it for a little while could be pretty neat though.

  With permission given by both of her instructors Willow began harmonizing with Phoebe again. This time she kept her eyes open and stared as her flesh gained the appearance of stone. She opened and closed her free hand a few times, finding no impediment to her movements. A stony grin split the girl's rocklike face as she marveled at the transformation.

  At the sound of her aunt clearing her throat she was reminded of her original task, making a ball of earth.

  She had forgotten to make the ball of unattuned energy first, but she supposed it was worth a try to make it now that she was already harmonized and see if that was the only step required of her.

  To the child’s mild surprise it actually worked, although the shape of the conjured sphere left a lot to be desired. It was lumpy and misshapen, more like a collection of small rocks smashed together rather than the perfectly smooth sphere that her aunt had made of water.

  “Well it’s a start.” Jieun said, somewhat relieved that her niece didn’t do it perfectly the first time. Before she could get too comfortable however Willow decided to ask a terrifying question.

  “I wonder if I can do this with fire?”