The waves continued their churning, wild and expressive, curling fronds of pernicious prowess, building and foaming beneath their newest champion, but the colt swallowed and flickered about in unease, wary and hesitant, because for all the things he’d learned in life, the world never spoke of children dancing across water, skimming over the surface like a spider or basilisk. The world beckoned beyond the horizon, of chilling, avaricious plumes and wonderful empires towering to the heavens, but all he saw were the torrential eaves and damnation crawling across his hooves, bereft, scattered, and worthless. His gaze struggled to harden, to relish in the impish gall he wore so well, but they remained apprehensive and clawing, staring back at the filly rising with the swells and lingering in their sousing touch, listening as she imparted her wisdom. You could be very sick… and the worry, the anxiety, clambered back into his throat, there was something awry with him, and others would laugh and mock, parade in their rampant cavalcades to where he stood amongst the frenetic sea – but then her last words, enlightening little barbs, washed over him, and clarity struck a poignant chord.

Or maybe…you are magic.

Enchantments, invocations, curses and blights, assembling and unwinding, beautiful threads of haunting outcries, crescendos of unsung, unholy magnificence, blending, bending, crisp distortions of reality, outlines of pestilence and perfection, precision and pernicious slates – his mother had told him so many things about charms, the fabric of opuses and orchestras, how the world was bound into their runes, how so many creatures held wondrous, amazing, daunting forms. She wove pictures of damsels rescuing themselves from towers, flying and gliding on lullabies, she painted tapestries of spellbinding warriors giving chase to their licentious crusades, and she lingered along the water’s edge, becoming part of the element herself. She strung together ballads of his father’s corruption and destruction, all of the reapers’ blades and silent, remorseless whispers of demise, of Loth’s singsong blossoms and unwilting form. But the colt never thought he could possess the same distinction, the same fluttering ambience, the same brooding, brewing force within his frame. The idea of power was an earnest nuance in itself, but the rushing, plunging, snatching coils of his own allure, his own finesse and talent sketched his ruffian regards back into place. Was this magic causing him to float and bask in the ocean’s lair without a shard, without a ripple, without a blighted notion? Had some portion of Huyana’s warm, kind-hearted, watery sentiments trickled into his bones, into his veins, whisked and whittled him into a corporeal form of virtuous requiems? The scion mumbled it back to himself, “Maybe I’m magic…” over the coursing rivulets and the salty brine, glanced from the gallows beneath his feet and the tendrils of the filly’s tail draped in its clutches; he had power, holstered and ready, built tenderly into his lithe, youthful frame.

Curiosity was suddenly an unending flame; ignited and kindled, the folds of his apprehension disappearing into the midst of the flailing platitude, and he bounded, leapt, curling his forelegs together, knees tucked, head between their knobby glow, towards the mighty tempest, only to plunge no further than the cool, veneer seams of the ocean. The worry assailed and flew off into the distance, and now he ran beside the winged girl, with her gilded plumage and midnight feathers, gesturing wildly, tossing his rapier skull like a king of the sea, Poseidon’s infernal descendent, devilish grin replacing the contorted air of prior tribulations. “Are you magic?” The yearning, the beckoning, for information seethed across his mind, eternally submerged in the symphonies of curiosity, alight and ablaze, wondering if everyone was gifted, if everyone was formidable, if everyone was influential.

@[Faeanne]