sol11 cloud

Emma pulled at her magic, raising her arms and bleeding magic out to saturate the air. A blue corona appeared on her palms, diffusing gently outwards until the space above Emma was tinged a gentle blue.

Emma paused and sniffed the air. It wasn't very humid today, but maybe she could get something to work. Licking her lips, Emma began to move air.

Storms could be generated in a number of ways, the most violent of which occurred in the presence of wind shear and updraft. Emma was not entirely sure how to do this, but she did know it involved pushing air high into the atmosphere and cooling it below the dew point.

Unfortunately, Emma didn't have the power to make it high enough from ground level. What she could do, however, was make winds going in various directions. Before starting, she took a moment to look up a schematic of a cumulonimbus supercell. It appeared she needed to get some sort of swirling thing going, before chilling everything as it was pushed upwards.

It couldn't be that difficult, right?

Lying on her back, Emma started by creating a steady wind going to her right, pulling in air from outside the bubble of magic and pushing it through to the other side. Once this was stable, she started making a stream wind going from her head towards her feet. The two spinning winds formed a horizontal vortex. Then she pushed, sending the spinning wind spiraling upwards. The key now was to somehow cool the top of the magic cloud as the wind swept through.

Emma blinked as she realized she hadn't particularly thought this part through. Well, magic was linked to her imagination, right? Poets always described wind as being particularly cold, so maybe…?

There was a perceptible change in temperature at the top of Emma's magic cloud. She couldn't feel it, of course, but someone with a thermometer could measure it. The temperature dropped, quickly going below freezing and forming a haze of water vapor. Emma held her hands in place, pushing her magic to go faster and colder. The incoming air moved rapidly to the top of the growing fog bank, rolling and tumbling and…

...turning into a cute, puffy, white cloud.

"Dammit," said Emma, letting her hands drop with a sigh. The cloud drifted away, dissipating as it heated back past the dew point. It was funny, she could pull off a tornado easily enough, but making anything else even vaguely dangerous was apparently beyond her.

(Solemnis, Chapter 11)