Restraint

You don't understand; you don't know how it feels.

I remember the first magic I worked. It was small, it was nothing. A compressed-time spell on a minute scale: forcing a dandelion to go to seed after it's been picked still-yellow and held pinched between forefinger and thumb. I remember the other students watching the seeds blow away in the wind, but the teacher, she was watching my face.

They say warlocks go mad because of the power, but I think it's the high. I think they're addicts, hooked on a more potent strain than the rest of us can procure, and they burn themselves from the inside-out chasing that euphoria.

That's why all my magic is small, subtle, gentle; every high is like that first hit. They can call me a hedge magician all they want, I'll still be here when they're a smoking ruin in a tattered robe.