Edema Rue

“Magic.”

I’m so very deeply grateful to you, I really needed to know that… Oy you stole my line ~_~

Eventually, it opens up onto a small balcony. A withered brown plant is in a pot, but other than that it’s empty. Aby screams. She backs away, blinking rapidly…and then, between one blink and the next, her eyes change from brown to purple. “Nothing’s wrong with you,” she says, her voice suddenly sounding far older. “You’re just like the rest of us…” she licks her lips, and then her eyes fade to blue. Cool. Calculating. “Just a tool to be used, that’s all…”

“Sure,” Tal said, smiling.

I’m chill with that, I will be the embodiment of the color purple.

“I’m going to stay here,” Tal said. “There are plenty of other people who I could hurt.”

Hehe I’m glad… I…have a strange imagination? I still imagine @Cash67 as a platypus, and I’ve met him!

When you sprain your ankle and try to drink a lightbulb to make it feel better. (it worked)

@Spark of Hope, I would like you to know that I imagine you as Aventine and for some reason your name is Ava in my mind. Also, you’re on fire.

Tal nods. “Don’t be sorry. It’s the best way to do it.” He frowns. “Ah…” he says the dimensional coordinates. “That should be right.”

Tal frowned. “I…didn’t even think about that. You’re right, though, it probably would.” “I’ve never seen any sign that it is.”

Aby looks at Eike. It’s perfectly mundane.

“It-it will, though,” Tal said. “That’s the problem. It’ll keep happening until we find a way to destroy it, once and for all.”

“It’s all right,” Tal said quietly. “I…don’t talk about it much.”

It had. The woman was still snoozing peacefully.

It creaked, but held firm.

Tal nodded. Head bowed, he started speaking, and then the words tumbled out, too fast and yet not fast enough. “On…on my world, magic isn’t a secret. Everyone knows that it exists. It chooses its servants young; never older than 15, sometimes as young as five or six. It usually manifests as little tricks, at first. Magic gives before it takes. You can suddenly light a fire without matches, and it’s wonderful, and then all at once your town is in flames and you can’t stop it and-” He stopped. “That’s not how it was for me. It took a while to understand, but it feeds on two different kinds of destruction. Internal, and external. The magic it gifts you with is based on the kind of destruction you’ll be able to do more thoroughly. It only wants the most efficient servants, see.” Eyes closed, Tal fell back into another time. Into a sturdy cabin in the woods, into a place where, just for a while, all was well. The only time he’d ever tried to understand the magic that had ruined his life…and Ace’s. “My magic was always more internal. At first, it was wonderful. I was so young…I didn’t realize what was happening…I could ask my parents for anything, and they’d listen. They’d do what I said. And then I started to hurt them, and I didn’t want to but I did it anyway. When they realized that I had the magic, they took me to the city and left me. That’s how it works. Magicians, sorcerers, witches, we had hundreds of names. I survived. When I got older, I started working as a mercenary. That’s what most of us do. Find a place where you can feed the magic, try to survive. And then…” he blinked, remembering where he was. “I met Ace.” A faint smile danced across his lips, a sparkle returned to his eye. For a moment, he looked more alive than they’d ever seen him. “Her magic was external. Fiery. She…she destroyed her town. Killed her entire family. For years, she couldn’t even remember her own name. I met her on a job. She was trying to kill the man I was working for. I caught her. Then let her out. We met on various other jobs, now and then. Then all at once we started working as partners.” A bitter chuckle. “I should have known better than to get close to someone. Sometimes it worked. We were almost people…but we were always puppets.” Tal’s eyes were wet. “Always dancing to the tune of this thing that lived inside us. I hurt her so badly…I tried. I tried so hard, but when she was at her weakest, it would overcome me. I broke her heart, again and again. But we kept trying.” “We shouldn’t have.” Tal stood up abruptly, pounding a fist into the wall. “A friend of ours, someone we met on jobs, it overcame him. He started to love the destruction. He looked for more power and he found it. I don’t know how. He was killing so many people…I would have let him. I’m no hero. The magic was letting us be, it didn’t need us so much anymore. But Ace was…she always thought so much of everyone else. She insisted that we save them. He was too strong for either of us, so…she passed her magic to me. I told you that you need to know someone better than you know yourself for the magic to be passed between you.” He shrugged. “I knew her so well. We went, but he…he caught her. She was fatally injured. I was so full of magic. I could have saved her. But she…she just begged me not to waste it on her. To use it to kill him.” Slowly, Tal sat back down. He blinked rapidly. “I don’t need your pity. But…there it is. I have two types of powerful magic inside me, and so it can control me completely.”

I look at you and think “God what have we done with our lives and where did it get us?”

“I’m fine,” he mumbles.

Tal backed up into the cell, and the voice cut off. He winced at the headache that followed.

She blinked. “I don’t know who Siylna is, and I don’t know who you are. Leave us alone or I’ll call the guards.” She ignored her pounding heart.

Tal watched their conversation and gritted his teeth, trying to keep from saying anything, knowing that something different would come out. Lundyn… The voice only cackled louder.

“That’s what it is to be alive!” Tal shouted. The voice cackled through his mind. He took a shuddering breath, then spoke again, calmer, a hand on his head. “To mess up, again and again and again. It makes you human.”