Soul Narrative

Soul is the bond between one being and another. It lives only in the meeting of the two; remove either, and the soul between them dies.

The strengthening of the bond is what gives rise to magical effects. Levitation is the most prolific: a racquet held aloft, a ball held aloft, a player lifted off the ground for the length of a rally. Other effects sit alongside it, named where they appear.

Everyone holds an unlimited reserve of soul. The reserve only becomes usable through action. The more you do with another, the more soul that doing carries; the doing is the imbuing.

Imbued matter can be altered. A racquet or a ball can be reshaped to hold more soul than its plain form allowed, and the alteration can grant the object new powers, depending on the relationship the wielder holds with it.

Partners

In Construction, the partners across the court are constructs the protagonist makes from soul. They present as people for the length of the act. The construct-nature is a post-break reveal; until then, the partners rally, talk, and hold their own corner of the family ease.

Coaches and the wider world of Construction read on the same axis. What lives outside the protagonist's imbuing is open.

In reality

Soul is, in reality, a concept the protagonist made up to cover their grief. The vocabulary is theirs. The magic is also real, in a more measured way; how much, and from where, is an open question for the town and the protagonist both.