Nine-year-old Brina glared with mismatched eyes at the evanescing magic over her hand. The inert attempt at a spell swirled into mint-smelling vapor, then dissipated until the den was once again dominated by aromas of salted meat and woodsmoke.
The girl dropped her hand to her lap and slumped, burrowing into the back of her teacher's futon with a groan.
"You can do it," Daemon assured from the next seat. The flesh-crafted tiefling was reading his book instead of watching the miscasting, but the rising blood still burned Brina's face, and she struggled to hide her tears. The young human's magic was usually unruly, but at least the spells would pretend to work before they exploded. Today, Brina wasn't even sure she had magic. The magic's home in her heart was locked shut from the inside.
"It's not working," she complained quietly, hoping for mercy this time. It felt like they'd been at this for hours. The sun said it was barely through morning, but that had to be wrong.
Daemon's book hid everything except the smooth black horns encircling his head, hiding his face. He was probably trying to avoid seeing the pout. The little girl wallowed limply on the couch, defeated. Daemon still didn't look at her, but his tail tapped impatiently. She knew she earned it, but it still bothered her.
It also bothered her that she didn't want to do this! It wasn't working! She tried meditating twice already, Daemon even led her through the steps the second try!
The hellspawn closed the book and rested it on his lap, revealing the scrutinous glare. His pointed features were good for looks like this– his eyes, his lips, even the viper pits on his nose were all narrowed. He'd probably get thinner all the way around if he could.
Teacher and student gazed at each other for several long moments, solid black eyes meeting mismatched brown and purple, before he finally said, "We will take an intermission at lunch," and lifted his book once more.
Brina threw her head back and kicked her feet. Her heel connected with a wooden box under the daybed, and she shot upright to see Daemon's piercing black eyes boring into her. The rest of his face was stern, but fiery horns wreathed his eerily blank stare. "I understand this is difficult, but it is also an opportunity to practice, and we cannot know if you will get the chance again. Throwing a fit isn't going to help. Take your time, meditate again. Gather everything you can and grow it."
He was right, of course– her magic 'growing' when it wasn't acting like this would have been horrible and terrifying, and was the exact opposite of what they wanted it to do. This was a great opportunity, he was right.
And it was awful. It was hard and she felt like she lost something.
The den showed no sign of the morning's struggle. The stone cottage in the Haunted Forest of Tinian was peaceful and quiet, aside from the occasional whining. The fire burned low for now, a pot of water hung over it with small cooking pots on grates off the sides; the kitchen was clean with Ro-Ro's latest kill still freshly salted on the work table, with dried herbs hanging overhead. Aunt Eupa's knife was on the mantle. Daddy was going to be mad about that.
Brina checked Daemon, then let her eyes wander past the open wood-and-canvas screens walling off Daemon's corner to the window across the room. She could see Daddy's red braids outside, past the vines dying on the trellis. The big man preferred to work in the garden while they were doing lessons, in part to keep an ear on them and in part to keep himself busy and out of the way.
The little human patted her braids to make sure they were on right. They were. She fixed her skirts. Brushed some imaginary dust off her leg. Held her hand up like she was going to try again. She wished her hands would call the magic on their own. They'd done it before, normally she couldn't make it stop, sometimes she even left magic fingerprints on everything she touched.
Brina spotted her father's most recent attempt at woodcarving on the repaired arm of his massive living chair. The bipedal figure held an uneven length of block over its head. Maybe a club or a sword. Aunt Eupa made a much cleaner one that featured plated armor and a money pouch on its belt, which she left sitting next to the one Daddy made.
"That was mean," she whispered to herself. Daemon lowered his book, and Brina sucked a breath. Oops.
Daemon did glance to see what she was looking at. He apparently thought something about it was funny, as his lips twitched and his tail tip flicked side to side. "It was," he agreed, sounding like he was keeping something to himself. The tri-colored man sat back on his futon, crossed his inky black arms across his bare red chest, and leveled his pupil with a stern glare.
A ripple of his magic traveled along his horns, followed by a matching crawling flare on his arms, reflecting off the shiny skin. She waited to see if the red graft on his chest or the natural cloud white would show it, but no luck. He couldn't make the magic ripple stop, and it was supposed to be rude to watch, but it was really pretty, especially when he was grumpy. Tiny lines would appear in his arms and they'd glow even shinier, with the same sort of explosion ripples that flared and died around each other, and the horns would actually flame up like they were sort of doing now, actually–
Daemon cleared his throat, startling Brina so that she jumped. He was still giving her that same stare. "Do you need me to guide you again?"
He was trying not to sound mean about it, but he was still grumpy. She wasn't a little kid like that, either, and shouldn't need help meditating. She hadn't needed guiding for the meditation since before she could cast on purpose almost two years ago. This was hard enough that she wanted to ask him to help, but then he'd get to watch her do it wrong. Again.
Rather than argue, or ask, Brina pouted at him. "This isn't working," she complained again. "I already tried."
"You have meaningfully, genuinely tried precisely one time," Daemon replied, mouth tightening. "You've been moping since then. I'm sure another opportunity will eventually arise, but unless you want it to be exactly like today, I suggest you continue the real efforts."
Brina moaned. Daemon's tail tapped and stopped, and Brina moaned again more pitifully. He started out much nicer this morning. "Can't it just be a theory day?"
"This is a practice of our other theory days," Daemon told her. "We're lucky to discover your magic can settle like this."
Brina moaned again, but now she was annoying herself more than she was annoying Daemon. She hoped her magic would get grumpy like his and start moving around, but apparently it was just fine with her whining.
A final moan accompanied Brina's enormous effort to sit upright, rocking off the back of the futon, then collapsing again. "Meditating," she drawled to Daemon, and she closed her eyes.
The mindscape was a little different than when it started a couple years ago, but it was still stairs in the woods, leading into Brina's bedroom from a raftered ceiling she made herself. Her wool blankets covered the wooden bed off the wall and the rocking chair held her babydoll in the corner. Normally everything except the rocking chair and her babydoll glittered with the sparkles Brina had come to know as her magic, but today her room was remarkably dull. The stubbornly closed toybox sat near the purple-curtained window, containing a starry sea of nebulae and plasma that would not come out.
"There's not even any magic left in here," Brina complained aloud.
Daemon's voice didn't have the frustration in it, but Brina could smell the sulfur of his fire. "I doubt sincerely there's literally none."
"There's barely any," Brina corrected.
"Then gather it and grow it."
The little girl didn't groan this time, but she wanted to. Instead, she started trying to usher the smattering of sparkles into a single place. It felt like grabbing at individual grains of sand, or trying to catch fish with bare hands, if fish didn't need water to swim and could decide to disappear and reappear elsewhere and none of the fish actually existed in real life.
Brina finally managed to catch one spark– and it escaped while she was trying to see if she caught it. She screamed before she could stop herself, jumping to her feet and stomping.
Daemon's expression was not as angry as she expected, and his magic was calmer, but his black eyes were still narrow in the pale face and his thin lips were thinner now. "I understand," he said again, but she didn't believe him this time. "I'm sure it's felt like a thousand years, but you were hardly meditating for fifteen minutes. You can do it."
She was going to go insane if he said it again. "I can't!" she screamed. "It's not working!"
She hated how he would put the angry down, she saw it flare on his horns and arms every time she argued, but his face was peeved at best, and the way his mouth would curl when he spoke was the only outward sign of it. Aunt Eupa would have sent her away an hour ago.
"I understand," he repeated, but he flashed his pointed teeth by accident. "However, you can, it's just difficult. This is a muscle you haven't learned to flex, and you must now learn to flex it. I don't expect a full spell from you today, but you have to try."
"I can't!" she squealed in protest.
The black horns flashed with fire, and Daemon took a very long, slow breath as he set his book aside. Brina stopped, waiting to see the consequences and hoping he'd send her away, or at least command her to meditate while he went for a walk.
He did neither. Instead, he blew the breath through pursed lips and he said, "You can. It's hard, not impossible."
Aunt Eupa taught him that one. Brina would never forgive her.
The too-calm tiefling picked his book back up and adjusted so his face was hidden once more. "Meditate. You can. The effort is immense and I'm sure it hurts your pride to have your power out of reach, but refusing to try won't help either."
She was gonna scream again just 'cos he wouldn't shut up. Everything in Brina's heart swam like worms in plasma, she felt sick. Frustration left the sour-sweet taste of unripe berries on the back of her tongue and behind her eyes. She couldn't even catch a sparkle to feed the frustration into, how was she supposed to make magic?!
"It's all gone," Brina moaned now, and she threw herself back to the futon. "I can't find any magic left!"
Looking over the back of the tiefling's book, Brina could see smoldering flames on his horns when the flash died back down, and it took him a lot longer to speak than usual. She actually made him mad with that, she guessed.
He didn't put the book down. "As much as I would like to end the lesson early, it would be irresponsible of me to let this opportunity be wasted just because you threw a fit," he said dryly. "I'm your teacher. Pushing you through lessons you don't like is part of the job, and no amount of whining is going to change the task for either of us."
That was fair. Both of them needed a good reason.
"Can I take a nap?" Brina inquired hopefully.
"We want your magic to be this difficult," Daemon chided. "Meditate, please."
Brina didn't move from her slump, and she watched to see how long it took Daemon to look at her.
Maybe ten seconds. Just a glance. "Meditate, please," he repeated, returning his attention pointedly to his book.
Brina wanted to cry, and she closed her eyes to hide it, but she couldn't stop the sniffle.
When she opened her eyes, he was watching her. She closed them again and hoped he wouldn't say anything. Several long moments of silence passed before Daemon said again, in the exact same tones as earlier, "Meditate, please." A pleading look went deliberately ignored. "I've been able to feel it each time you've done it, and you're not. It's not as bad as you feel like it is, you're just not used to it. You can do this. It's not impossible."
Brina kicked her legs, once again hitting the box under the futon, and Daemon slapped the box with his tail, startling his pupil upright.
Brina failed to stop her bottom lip from trembling, but he didn't care. The solid black eyes met Brina's mismatched ones and put on his Authoritative Head Lift he did when he was being bossy. "Stop. No more fits. I understand your frustration, and I understand the need to express this. However, you are putting more work into ending the lesson than into completing the lesson. It feels easier, but it's not."
He was being so stiff, she could see the fire burning, but he was so calm and it just made her more angry.
Brina threw herself back and wrapped her arms around her head.
"What do you think Ro-Ro would suggest?" Daemon offered, but Brina didn't answer. He gave her another few moments, then said yet again, "Meditate, please."
Brina growled this time, but she sat up on the futon like she was supposed to. The magic normally lived warm and heavy in the center of her chest, but right now she felt hollow. Daemon being so mean about it was still making her feel sick.
She tried to stir it up without meditating, instead going by feel. She pushed it around with the heat of her anger, and tried to use her frustration as a spike to move it, and she tried to stir it up and roll it around, but it had gone solid and cold. Tears flooded, but she held it down, trying her best to shove the mass into action.
Daemon's tail tapped impatiently, sending hot rage up the girl's throat and into her entire head, blurring her vision and scrambling her thoughts. She growled to herself just to hear Daemon repeat, "Meditate, please."
It was too much. Her feet sent her running before she could think, toppling Daemon's screen and leaving her cloak and shoes behind, sprinting into the forest, blinded with rage and tears.
~
The dead leaves on the forest floor roared as Brina's bare feet pounded the ground, the chilly air hissed past her ears and deafened her to the animals scrambling away. Underbrush and brambles scratched and tugged at Brina's skirt and bare arms as she raced furiously along the familiar path.
It wasn't fair! She always had magic, she was up to her eyes with it, she froze the fountain water a month ago, she sneezed holes into no less than four surfaces with four different kinds of magic, she took a week to stop over-expanding and popping the spell ball in the first place, and now she couldn't even make one appear?!
Brina's sprint slowed to a storming march. She couldn't even stop it most of the time, why wouldn't it start today!?
She flung her arms, hoping for the usual accidents, it almost always threw something out when she was angry--but it didn't. She tried again, pushed at her magic, flung her arm and shook her fists–she wasn't even allowed to do that since last time--but nothing happened!
The anger burned so hot that her eyes stopped seeing. Brina found herself sprinting again, stomping as much as running. Her heart pounded and her lungs burned, every thought of her magic and Daemon's face looking like that and why couldn't she just--
Brina spun mid-step, shrieking wordlessly, and she shook her little fists and kicked the ground for a full minute.
"Dammit!" she cried squeakily, jumping and stomping a final time. "Dammit," she repeated with a huff. The burning fury in her heart subsided to low embers, finally spent and leaving her empty.
The autumn forest was peaceful and quiet, with everything having run for cover, and Brina could see her breath in the late morning sun. It was one of the only signs her magic wasn't completely gone– she couldn't feel the cold in her hands and feet, and could see the drifts of warmth in the sunbeams filtering through the leafless trees, yellow tendrils weaving through the brisk white fog of chill. When she looked over her shoulder, she could see the trail of yellow fading swiftly, and she stopped walking to watch her skin warm the air around her.
The sights stopped as soon as she did.
"Oh, come on!" she cried, stomping her feet. "Stupid magic, what's wrong with you?!"
Her magic didn't answer, not even with the weird bubbly feelings in her chest, and she groaned at it. She needed to go back home, or maybe she could meditate out here, since it was better out here, and Daemon wouldn't be tapping at her. Maybe it would wake up out here.
She breathed the chilly air deep into her lungs and faced the chattering, chirping forest; the few birds that remained despite the cold, the fat gray squirrels, the scuttling bugs on the leaves. Sunlight filtered through the molting brown tree canopy, and the dry smells of dust and wood mixed with the wet smell of dirt and the cold smell of pine.
What would Ro-Ro say?
"Ro-Ro?" Brina called into the empty forest. If she was home, she'd hear, but she might not answer. "Daemon's not with me," she added, knowing the two together made Ro-Ro's head spin, but that just brought to mind, "And I'm not even magic today."
Ro-Ro's sensitivities were good when she was hunting, and she was a hunter. She was also Daddy's friend and Aunt Eupa's twin sister, but she wasn't Brina's mother. Ro-Ro and Aunt Eupa were called werekin– people who looked like humans (or elves in their cases) who got stuck somewhere in the process of transforming into a beast. Both of them were furry all over, and Ro-Ro had a big mane and they had paw-like feet and small hands, and both were supernaturally strong– even Aunt Eupa could pick up and throw Daddy, and he was twice her size! Aunt Eupa's teeth were bigger than Ro-Ro's, but both had cat teeth. Aunt Eupa was black-furred with yellow eyes, and Ro-Ro was solid brown with a gold mane and green eyes.
Ro-Ro could also talk to spirits, and she was infused with fairy magic, and her spear wasn't really a spear, and she wore ribbons that danced in winds that even Brina couldn't see. Since Brina's magic lessons started, Ro-Ro made a lot more sense, but also got a lot more confusing– she knew what "manifested spirits" meant, but couldn't make sense of how it worked with the whole bridging realities things.
Ro-Ro was also very wise and calm and when the rest of the family was upset, Ro-Ro could be the one to make everyone sit down. The forest belonged to her, which was why it obeyed her, and why no one else lived here. She was also why Daddy could have a garden in the shade. She spent more time away than home, especially since Daemon showed up, going hunting in the real world or in the feywild, bringing back stories and pelts and meats and medicines, and sometimes cloth or toys or make-up for Brina.
The way to Ro-Ro's hovel started halfway between the cottage and the river and headed west, directly off the main path. Brina hadn't needed them in a long time, but the purple guiding-flowers still sprouted, bursting through the thick carpet of fallen leaves with tiny crinkly noises, leading her on completely unnecessary curves and turns. Without the complications, she couldn't get to Ro-Ro's house– she would only find an empty glade and an eerie crawling feeling on the back of her neck.
The carpet of leaves was mostly untouched, despite the well-known route to Ro-Ro's hovel. The simple dwelling was a dug-out den with a cupped roof she could lift by commanding trees to grow under it. She could teleport, and would often do so here, just because it was easier when she knew where she was going, but Brina was somewhat sure that Ro-Ro also hadn't been home in a long time.
At the end of the flowers, a round glade opened up, and Brina had to take two steps forward, one step sideways, two more steps forward, and another step sideways back to the original path, and then two more steps forward. Then, she could turn around and see Ro-Ro's hovel.
Brina had no idea how it worked, but it did, and as soon as she spun, she was disappointed to see that it looked like a pile of brush. It did that when she wasn't home, so even if someone managed to get here, they wouldn't mess with it unless she wanted them to.
"Damn," Brina said aloud, hoping Ro-Ro might appear to give her the look she did.
Nope.
Damn.
With a sigh, Brina turned back to the path, knowing already how to get there.
She could run away to town for a few hours, come back for dinner. She wasn't supposed to go to the river alone, plus it was supposed to be flooded right now, so it was particularly dangerous– the grown-ups didn't even want to take her with them lately. She wasn't supposed to be in the city alone, either, but 'alone' was hard to be when she knew everyone that worked at the west gate and half of everyone that lived or worked near The Screaming Harpy.
She tried to decide which one would upset the adults more–the river, easy. Which one would she sooner be caught doing? She wouldn't get caught at the river unless Ro-Ro snitched, and she usually didn't, instead saving a telling off for private later. She would definitely be snitched out if she went to town, but they wouldn't mind as much.
Town would have lunch, river meant she could be home for lunch. They might even let her get away with running away if she really tried for the lessons.
Except she was absolutely not going to do that again, no. No, no, no, no. Aunt Eupa's voice in her head swore for her about it, too, telling off the other grown-ups.
Tinian was a long walk from here.
She found her feet going north before she made up her mind on purpose, and she figured that if her magic wasn't going to take her anywhere, she'd follow them.
~
The river was not very big at this point in its flow, Ro-Ro said, but got enormous before it met up with the even bigger river that fed into the strait, the biggest river of all. Going to school in Tinian told Brina that the river was sixty-five meters wide near her house, but it got wider and narrower depending on how high it was, because the north side was lower and flooded into the trees during melts and particularly rainy seasons.
Her family, when asked, gave wildly different numbers and words. All of them agreed that it was too big for swimming. Brina wasn't supposed to go by herself. The grown-ups told her (a lot) that if she fell in without them there, even with all their magic and strength and size, Brina would be swept halfway to the ocean before they knew there was trouble. The planet's forces were stronger than even Brina's daddy, and Ro-Ro had no influence over water. The way Ro-Ro talked about water made it sound like a monster all by itself.
But of course, it was also where they found Brina, alone in a magic basket and wrapped in blankets with a couple of soft, sweet fruits, so Brina had a hard time thinking it was that dangerous. Daemon agreed that the basket probably was magic a long time ago, but it was still just a basket, and perfectly mundane now.
Brina figured they were right about not being there if anything went wrong, but they were way too worried about stuff going wrong. Aunt Eupa was admitted to be paranoid by everyone, even Aunt Eupa, but Daddy and Ro-Ro both got overprotective.
The path led to an inlet, a node off the main body of the river, shaped by Ro-Ro and Daddy into a pleasant shoreside for swimming and gathering water. The Sunning Rock, a huge plane of flat gray stone worn into a tabletop that stretched over the river, set the inlet apart by nature. Ro-Ro and Daddy and Aunt Eupa built a retaining wall underwater to ease the current, and they'd lined the bottom and built in seats and wedged steps. It looked perfectly natural because it was, Ro-Ro said, and Brina spent most of her summers there swimming and fishing and playing.
Even before she could see it, Brina heard the roar of the river. It was louder than she ever heard before, so loud that she thought it was a storm blowing in, and that was before she even got close. It only got worse as she approached, and by the time she got there, the low bellow vibrated in her chest and numbed her ears.
The inlet was practically gone, retaining wall hidden behind the murk of the swiftly flowing water. The Sunning Rock was all that remained dry.
Clinging to the overhang, hung up by the roots, was the biggest tree Brina had ever seen fall down in one piece.
Brina picked her way across dry spots, knowing care was due here, even if she was going against the grown-ups' wishes. She just wanted to look at the tree, which was slightly below and slightly out, with maybe half a meter (or two ish feet or six ish spaces) of water swiftly traveling between the rock and the tree. The tree itself was huge, and she had to guess by the amounts of roots still attached (the parts that got hung up on the Sunning Rock, in fact) that the ground under the tree went first. Or at least that's what Ro-Ro said when this kind of thing happened in their woods– wind would blow them over because the ground was too wet.
Upon further inspection, she recognized the kind of tree, same as many in the forest here, with heavy bark, broad leaves, and bitter nuts. It was as long as the inlet was wide, with its ends tickling the riverbed at the other lip. It would probably even need Ro-Ro and Daddy to dislodge it once the flooding receded. The branches sticking up seemed like trees growing from its side, and when Brina tilted her head, she could imagine a whole other body of water and an island. She knew they wouldn't want her to climb on it, and that did seem pretty scary, so she headed back to the muddy shoreline and waded into the edges of the inlet.
The usual peaks of steps were gone. Debris obscured everything in the water, and the roar drowned out any other noises. Brina felt like she should have been scared or at least unhappy to see her favorite place like this, but she felt insulated and safe. She enjoyed splashing around and testing the current with different obstacles and depths, and she found three or four spots where the main river came into the inlet and another couple where the water flowed out. She stepped out until the water was up to her knees, where the current really began to pull, and she was afraid to go any further. She splashed her face with the cold water when she reached out to test the current with a hand. She hated the way cold water made her choke, but it was funny enough that she giggled, and continued to play with the stream, dragging her fingers together and separately to watch the ripples weave around, carrying the cold-white ribbons with it.
The tree loomed across the entire mouth of the inlet, and Brina marveled at the sheer size. Wondering how anything that tall could fall down, how it got that tall if it could fall down like that, she was in awe.
Back on the Sunning Rock, Brina tested out the tree with a foot, pushing at one of the upward-jutting branches to see if it moved. It didn't. She tested out the water with the same foot, having it pushed sideways before she could break the surface. It was strong, but nothing like the grabbing, sucking thing that Aunt Eupa and Ro-Ro swore would happen.
Still, she didn't want to mess with it, and instead stretched out to the tree and let her weight ease over her foot little by little, until she was standing on the tree with only one hand braced.
The tree was steady as the stone and didn't move at all when Brina gave a testing bounce, trying to push the tree down. Standing up, the Sunning rock was almost waist height to her from here, and she could put a foot or knee on it as well as both hands, so she could get up easily.
She gingerly edged up the length of the tree, using its many branches as handholds more for comfort than real safety. She knew she had to be extremely careful, but balance was easy on the wide trunk.
Once she got halfway down the length, the tree itself got too narrow and low to trust, so Brina stopped to look around.
She felt like she was standing in the middle of the river. The inlet opened behind her, the main body stretched to either side, and on the north side in front of her, the water flowing into the trees would fly into white-peaked torrents, so unlike the gentle ripples Brina was familiar with.
She got caught up in the view and stood for what could have been hours, before she remembered herself.
Herself, who happened to be Little Mage Brina (who was having a bad magic day), standing in her purple dress, barefoot in the cold on a tree in the middle of the very fast river, and if Aunt Eupa or Daddy could see her right now, they'd probably damage her ears with the yelling.
Best get home. If she got home for lunch, they'd excuse her, she was sure of it, and they'd eat and she could try again. It didn't sound so bad, now. She considered trying on the way home but decided on lunch first.
"Okay," she said aloud, surprised at the smallness of her voice, even to her own ears. "Thank you!" she told the tree, and she patted the branch she was holding before she edged back to the Sunning rock. She hopped back over with no trouble, turned for one last look over–and saw the purple ribbon hanging on one of the branches.
Brina checked her sleeve to make sure and sighed. Even Daddy would figure that out.
It was a good excuse to get back on the tree, anyway, and Brina was careful as anything when she stepped over the small gap, picked her way up the length, fetched the ribbon and tied it on, neat as could be where it was supposed to go. She needed to fix the sleeve to hold it, but that would be later.
Picked her way back across, and got to the Sunning Rock, and… one more trip down, then up again, and Brina giggled at herself. "Okay, okay, now go home," she chided in her Aunt Eupa's voice.
She hopped over with her hands planted on the Sunning Rock, but this time, her back foot dipped too low, and she had enough time to think that Aunt Eupa and Ro-Ro were right before her other leg was yanked down, and she gasped to scream as her hold on the rock slipped and she was dragged under the water.
