Arcturus yelled as he was tossed backwards onto the sand. The magical explosion threw him back three feet on his ass, his outfit slightly singed from yet another failure on his part, and the rock he was practicing on showed no sign of damage. He sighed in exhaustion.

"Again." Came a deep rumble. His master, Atheron, laid off to the side with an observant eye, paws folded on themselves as he wait there for his student to get up.

"This isn't-"

"I said again." The dragon said more sternly this time. "A squire can not expect to have mastery of the sword in an instant and neither does the practician of magic."

"But I'm not of the arcane magic like you, how can you expect me to wield my oath magic in the same manner as you when they aren't even the same." Before flopping back down on the sand, tired and sore from his training.

A shadow was cast upon him as his master shielded him from the suns rays with a wing, the dragon's eye twinkling with wisdom, "And that is why you fail, you believe it can not happen, and thus prevent yourself from succeeding. The error lies in thinking magic is different just because it comes from different sources, for in truth magic is magic no matter where it comes from. True masters of the art learn to not only wield magic, but they let it become apart of their body, moving and changing to the casters will just as one would a blade. Now rise paladin of Bahamut, don't just harness your magic, feel it, let it flow through you and direct it."

Arcturus smiled from the motivational speech of the ancient dragon and got up and resumed his stance before the rock he was training with. He took a deep breath and released, he knew he was getting closer despite his many failed attempts. Putting his hands together he focused, it was a simple cantrip and yet it felt as if he was trying to will the world as a whole to move. He felt the magic within him yearn for release through but a simple incantation, but that wasn't the lesson. His spells were easy to cast with the correct words of power and symbols, it was getting the spell to cast without them was what he was trying to do.

The human struggled as the magic cascaded within him, worry began to brew he might have another magical explosion in his face again. But he continued to breath, remembering his training with his master, to ignore the differences and focus upon willing the magic through him like he would with his blade. First nothing, then a spark in front of his hands, soon divine energy began to swirl around him, but he did not lose control, he focused on that rock until finally within his minds eye, he gripped the magic and swung it as if it was a sword, and from it a beam of pure magic appeared an inch from his hands and blasted the rock in front of him breaking it in two.

Arcturus gasped as he breathed in heavily as he released his magic, he was exhausted, but he did it. A soft warble of approval came from his master as Atheron smiled with pride at his student. "I knew you had it in you."

This was a birthday gift given to me from my friend  TheUNSCforces Thank you so much from getting this for me, it looks amazing. <3

Atheron is a dragon character that will be appearing in my friends story Scales and Honor. It's a really good book series i've been enjoying and highly suggest reading it. The story can be found here: https://www.sofurry.com/browse/fold.....p;folder=81756

Artwork done by  Jotun22