Larkspur | ONC 2023

Chapter 15

Her fingers glide effortlessly through the air, little sparkles of blue dancing like fireflies, twirling and swirling around her dainty hands.

“Magic should come from within you. It cannot be forced, Lark.” 

“Yes, Miss Cordelia!” I say softly.

“Come forward. Don’t just stand there doing nothing.” She beckons with her hands outstretched. Little blue sparkles file in a line towards me, circling my waist like a garland of light and vanishing into tiny white sparks like a firework. I inch forward slowly to where she is standing. We’re on the edge of a rock overlooking a huge lake. The water is placid and the kyanite sky of approaching dawn gives the lake a deep Prussian hue. The crescent moon has still not faded from the sky.

“You are a nature fairy. Feel the essence of this dawn!” Her voice is soothing, almost like a lullaby. I close my eyes and breathe in sharply. The air is salty. 

“Call out the magic inside you, lovingly.”

I keep my eyes closed and focus on the steady beating of my heart. Something tickles in my chest, not something foreign, something that is mine. I keep counting my heartbeats.

“Yes, just like I taught you.” I spread my hands outward, like a bird flying free. The tingles spread from my heart to my upper arms and slowly glide along my skin till the whole of my hands are tingling. “Very good. Now open your eyes.” I peer through my eyelashes and my hands are glowing. There’s a thin purple glow emanating from my skin. Against the darkness of the sky, it is almost ghostly.

“Now turn it up a notch.”

I concentrate on the glow and channel more of my focus onto my hands. Purple flames blaze so suddenly that I yelp in shock and my magic blows out like a candle.

“So sorry.” I withdraw my hands, nervously wringing them.

“Try again.” The command in her voice is gentle but motivating. I draw up my magic again and it snakes like a thin purple coil around my arms.

“Hold!” I let the coils dance around slowly. “Now try to throw them away from you.”

“How?” 

“Focus on a target, any target, near or far and act like you want your magic to reach it.”

“The tree,” I whisper, tossing my magic like a lasso. The purple string however reaches halfway and returns back at me like a boomerang. I throw it again and this time it hits the tree. The lasso attaches to one branch. I tug at it like a rope, very softly. A loud crack echoes in the air. I scream. The huge branch cleaves in half and drops on the lake with water spraying everywhere.

“Oh no no no!” I cry, trying to draw back the magic but it wraps around the trunk of the tree and another thunderous sound slices the whole tree in half. Wood cracks with a splitting roar and I wail even louder, the lasso of my magical saw undulating indecisively in the air. The top half of the tree collapses in the water, sending sprays, almost drenching us. My destructive lasso cleaves through the water unbothered. I put all of my energy and willpower to focus on drawing back my magic but it is not in my control anymore.

A ball of blue shoots out from beside me and drops into the lake with a plop. The lake swells like milk on an open pan, reaching for my still-confused lasso. Graceful hands rise from the water's surface like swirling tornadoes and grab the lasso, tugging it. The pull on my magic jerks me forward and I almost tumble into the water but Cordelia grabs me and the string snaps like a thin thread, sending us rolling backward and we land on the hard ground.

“Wow, that was intense.” She laughs. I am not feeling a lot like laughing. Tears sting in my eyes as I try to hold them back.

“What’s wrong?” she looks at me confused.

“My magic can do no good.” I sniffle. “It’s always destructive.”

“So was fire.” She says. “Humans discovered and feared fires. It gutted their forests and killed so many until they learnt to tame the fire and use it for themselves. You learn to tame your magic, you’ll be the most powerful fairy this world has ever had—”

I wake up with a gasp. Everything is silent around me. I don’t remember how I had fallen asleep. Maybe I’m so used to staying alert always that a bit of peace has lulled me to sleep. The reminiscence or dream or whatever it was is pretty vivid.

My heart is still racing. But I smile fondly as the memories crowd. After I destroyed the tree, Cordelia created water pillars for me to practice on. Day after night after evening after dawn, we used to slip out of the facility and practice on our own.

Once I started owning and controlling my base magic, the other qualities like mind control and camouflage came easily. During the rest of the time, I worked for the rebels, learning to spy and fight and seduce to get my means, something I hated, but those hours were mine to hold, mine to expend and I enjoyed every bit of it.

A/N Do you like these little glimpses into Larkspur's past?