Tag Archives: Casper

Escapism: 3.9

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Author’s note: Okay, so, just a quick note. I am revising my bonus chapter scheme. Instead of one per month, I am setting it to two per arc. This, hopefully, will allow me to slot the bonus chapters in a little more gracefully alongside the interludes or, if you happen to vote for something that becomes relevant to the arc in question, then it allows me to format the bonus chapter more organically into the lineup. So, yeah. There’s that. As for the bonus chapters to come at the end of this arc, well, the top contender at present is Natalie Sharpe, the therapist. All that being said, let’s get on with the chapter!

Casper:

The two strangers ran in silence for a time. How long exactly was hard for Casper to judge. He was too busy trying not to choke as the numb, claggy feeling in his lungs continued to spread. He couldn’t breathe, could barely think. What little air he could draw in tasted of burned metal and plastic fumes, enough to make him gag. He could feel his heart beating harder and faster in his chest, thumping out of sync against his ribs as his grip on the taller one’s back slowly began to weaken.

His power was flickering, the bubble around him sputtering and dimming as he tried and failed to keep an eye on their surroundings for any more of the birds. He thought he felt someone following them, someone angry, but before he had the chance to really check, his powers had collapsed inwards another few feet, and they were left beyond his reach. He tried to push his senses out again, but it was like willing a sleeping limb to work; his bubble barely even moved.

Neither of his supposed rescuers paid much heed to his troubles as they fled, save for the one carrying him shifting their grip a little to allow him a better purchase on their back, a hand raising itself against his back to steady him. Beyond that, however, they kept their attention focused on the task at hand, the taller one keeping their eyes forward as they ran, the other glancing constantly from side to side, watching for new attackers. Every pounding step they took jolted him again, testing his steadily failing grip with every stride and shaking what little air he could draw in free of him. He felt tears begin to work their way slowly down his cheeks as the fear spread its way deeper into his mind. He lost the feeling in his hands just a second or two before his grip finally gave way, and he was falling, his descent stopped short by the tall one’s hand pressed against his back. He felt a momentary panic jolting through his taller companion’s skull as they noticed his arms going limp around their neck. From what felt like very far away, he thought he felt something press against his chest, but he couldn’t see clearly enough anymore to say for sure. He could have sworn he heard someone shouting, or possibly swearing, but his mind was too muddled to make out the words.

He felt the last of the emotions in his mind fade away as the world around him slowed. Then, it all went black, and he felt nothing.

Male:

He watched from a distance as the boy’s condition continued to worsen, the taller of his attempted saviors lowering him quickly to the ground to provide what emergency care they could. He allowed himself an angry smile as he slowed his approach, observing as the boy’s limbs began to seize, his body writhing fitfully as the goblins set about him with their antidotes. Their plan had backfired. They were distracted. Now was the time to strike. The birds were gone. No matter. He could do this by himself.

He spared a moment to place a charm on the few humans that would be near enough to the group to notice his oncoming attack. A simple spell, really. He planted a looseness within their minds, a disruption to focus and memory. Enough that he’d be long gone with the boy before they had time to become aware of a fight. It was easier that way. Weak as the humans were, they tended to call to stronger ones for aid, and that held the potential to make this harder.

With the onlookers suitably distracted, he stepped forth, allowing the pair just enough time to administer their antidote, before leaping from his rooftop without a sound and diving down to land amongst them. The taller of the two turned and stared for a moment, his sudden presence taking it by a momentary surprise. The shorter one, however, did not hesitate, reaching into its belt for a blade.

He didn’t allow either of them time to make the first move. Goblins may have been lacking somewhat in terms of magical potential, but they were truly gifted little things when it came to speed. He had to act first. His dagger had been lost in the battle underground, but he had other means.

He swung his arms out towards his foes, each fist clad in a gauntlet of roiling kinetic force, and felt his right hand strike the larger one square in the jaw. The creature had been slow to react, surprise stripping it of the advantage granted by natural speed, and the blow connected against its face with a force great enough to shatter trees, flinging it roughly against the hull of one of the strange metal carts the humans used. The thin roof of the thing warped slightly under the impact.

The smaller of the two, however, was quicker on the uptake. It ducked smoothly under his attack, the ripples of his gauntlet discharging just close enough to it to tear the back of its garment to shreds, before it launched its knife towards his gut. He felt the weapon tear through his barriers, and let out a growl. Strong as this one may have been, there was no way that such a strike would have penetrated his wards had he still been fresh. He felt the tip of the blade graze against his belly, drawing forth a thin trail of blood, and bared his teeth. The goblin darted back from him before he had a chance to counter and hefted the boy up onto its back with one arm, the knife still held towards the male at chest height. Its companion was slowly pulling itself upright off of the vehicle, apparently still conscious. He growled. It must have been a hob to survive that strike. This was not how it had been supposed to happen.

The taller adversary peeled itself free of the metal cart and rolled its neck with a series of low, short clicks, stepping forward to interpose itself between him and the lesser goblin. As he watched, the hobgoblin began to grow, its frame expanding from a touch above five feet to almost seven in a matter of seconds. Its dainty, almost elvish features gave way to something a good deal rougher as the garments encasing its form drew taut around its flesh, then began to tear. The hobgoblin growled a few words to its companion, who nodded, took the boy up in its arms, and began to run.

The male made to pursue, but found his path blocked as the hobgoblin side stepped once more into his path, standing between him and his fleeing prey. The hob jabbed its slab-like fist towards his face in a boxer’s punch which he barely  managed to dodge in time, feeling one of his few remaining barriers crumble to nothing in its passing. He aimed a counter punch at the creatures ribs, wrapping what little force around the blow that he could muster in such a short time. His fist struck home with a thunderous crack, but the brute barely even seemed to notice, jabbing a second meaty fist towards his jaw, just a touch too slow to connect. He swore.

Fine. He’d deal with this one first.

Casper:

“Hey, kid. You awake?”

Casper groaned irritably as he felt a hand gently slapping at his cheeks, the sensation slowly bringing him back to wakefulness. He was uncomfortable enough as it was without being bothered. His muscles ached, his eyes stung, and his lungs felt like they’d been scrubbed with a wire brush.

“Nh… Go away…” he mumbled blearily, his mind slowly starting to warm back up as he tried to recall what exactly was going on and where he was supposed to be. Everything felt weird: his chest felt too hot, his limbs felt too cold, and there was a light behind his eyelids that was just bright enough to deny him the chance to drift off again. He wanted to go back to sleep. At least sleep didn’t feel like a bad migraine. His thoughts of rest were cut abruptly short by another slap, this one far harder than those that had preceded it. He yelped, his eyes flicking open as the pain forced his mind into alertness. He winced as the light dug painfully into his eyes, and looked around.

As far as he could make out, he was in a car. Whose car, he couldn’t tell. It certainly wasn’t one he recognized, the interior of it surfaced in functional black plastics and felt as opposed to the opulent cream and brown leather of his parents’ cars.

Off to his side, a figure was gazing at him from the driver’s seat, an expression of mild concern written across their features. He spent a few bleary moments trying to place the figure’s face. It was familiar, somehow, too soft in the cheeks and jaw to be a man, and yet too angular to really register as female. Then, he remembered what had been happening before he fell asleep, and jolted upright in his seat.

“Where are we?” He asked urgently, hastily pressing his power out to search their surroundings for birds. “Did we get away? What the heck was that stuff? Who are yo-”

“Calm down,” the stranger murmured quietly, turning back towards the wheel once they had verified that he was awake, and twisting a set of keys into the ignition. “Yeah. We got away… sort of. My partner’s buying us an out.” Casper felt a momentary pang of worry from them at those words. “I got you into the car about thirty seconds ago.”

Casper hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to say about that, then eventually settled for:

“… Is your partner gonna be okay?”

His rescuer didn’t reply, instead flicking the gearbox into reverse and pulling out of the parking bay, their focus determinedly fixed on the task at hand. Casper felt the concern eating into his companion’s mind, and chose not to repeat the question.

Eventually, the driver spoke again, their tone a touch more apologetic.

“As for the stuff that knocked you out… It was a gas grenade. They’re designed for hostage situation work. Non lethal. Supposed to feed on a person’s magic and convert it into a paralysis effect. It was supposed to just ward off the birds, but it looks like it took you out, too. Sorry about that. It’s honestly pretty rare to see a kid as young as you powerful enough for the gas to knock them out of the park like that. We weren’t expecting it.”

Casper nodded. At least that answered one of his questions. He settled back in his seat as the stranger drove, and resolved to simply stay quiet, keeping his power unfurled so as to watch the skies for birds.

It wasn’t long before the swarm began to grow again, gathering one by one above the car.

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Escapism: 3.8

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Swarm:

The Mistress was scared. The swarm could feel it through their connection with her, but none of them could truly understand why. They felt it as she issued the first of her commands, pulling them back from the scent of the strange cave where the other mistress had dwelt. The other mistress had been so much stronger than the first, and stronger made for greater prey. None among the swarm could see why that should be a thing to fear. Perhaps it was the smooth ones that had begun to hunt them, stalking among the more lumbering apes in ones and twos, plucking hunters steadily from the skies. No. The mistress did not fear them. The smooth ones only made her angry. The mistress spurred her hunters onwards, driving them to seek further, gathering them in tighter groups to overwhelm the smooth ones’ attempts to defend the apes from them.

One hunter found a new ape traversing the concrete pathways that lined this strange, angular mountainscape. This one was young, only partly grown, but he smelled of power, and that was enough to please the mistress. The hunter dove in silence, and tore a ragged strip from the covering on the new prey’s back. The hunter was not surprised when the ape tried to dodge, acting to avoid the attack before either sight or sound could have reached it. The hunter did not care at all, for its attack landed, and the taste of the blood was good. This one would make for fine prey. The swarm felt the momentary annoyance from the mistress as a pair of the smooth ones made their approach, drawn by the sight of the attack, but she soon calmed. They were a minor concern, at worst. Her companion could remove them if they became too troublesome. The hunter’s brethren began to gather, the mistress drawing the swarm down upon the surfaces surrounding their new target, keeping them out of sight. When her partner was in position, they would strike.

Casper:

If Casper hadn’t been holding his powers stretched out so far to keep track of the birds, he doubted he ever would have noticed the two figures following him. Heck, it was only because of how tightly his nerves were wound that he was even able to twig that something was off about them to begin with.

At first, he’d thought they were dogs. Their emotions held that same light, autumnal orange quality as Maxie’s had. It had only been when he glanced behind himself and caught sight of the pair that he’d realized there was something wrong. They were people; at least, they looked like people. By appearances, he’d have said they were both in their early twenties, dressed in matching pin-striped suits and bowler hats, like they’d just walked out of a detective movie. When the one on the left caught him looking at them, they murmured something to their companion, and the two quickened their pace towards him.

Please don’t be following me, he wished silently to himself as he turned away, speeding up a little to keep ahead of them. Please just be regular, normal people who aren’t about to chase me across town.

At the next intersection, Casper changed streets, hoping to leave the pair behind. It didn’t take, and his pursuers sped up. The two were closing now, only sixty or so feet away.

Casper resisted the urge to glance behind himself again; he didn’t see any way it could really help. Instead, he took a peak at their minds. Neither of them was feeling anything aggressive, not that that really did anything to alleviate his fears. Lewis hadn’t felt any aggression, even when he’d done whatever it was that’d paralyzed Tasha. The one on the left was determined, while the one on the right was a little nervous, touched by a hint of what he’d almost call protectiveness. Well, that was unhelpful.

If this had happened before yesterday, Casper might have panicked. He probably would have started sprinting and simply hoped to get away in time. Since Lewis, though, he’d spent a little time thinking.

He glanced around the street and caught sight the sign for a bagel house just a few doors away. His power told him there were a fair number of people inside, too. Perfect.

He forced himself to keep his pace steady as he approached the shop, determined not to draw them in quicker, then, when he reached the door, he ducked inside, the strangers still some forty feet behind him.

The inside of the bagel place was fairly small, just five or six inexpensive round tables and some chairs sandwiched between a few self-serve drinks fridges and a bakery counter where a freckled girl in her twenties was chattering merrily to one of her customers. Apparently, they knew each other. The girl shot him a cheery sort of grin as he stepped inside, and he tried to return it, but something in the attempt made her frown. He noted the concern edging in at the corners of her mind, and turned his face to the floor, sliding himself through the thin gap between the first few seats and the counter until he found a table that wasn’t occupied and sat down, choosing the seat in the clearest view of the security camera.

There, he told himself, trying to calm his nerves. I’m in a public, crowded place. There’s a bunch of witnesses, and I’m under a camera. They can’t do anything to me without it causing trouble. Much as he tried, however, his thoughts refused to bring themselves to calm.

Casper watched as the two strangers approached the front of the store, their eyes roaming the interior until one caught sight of him and alerted the other. This close, he was able to see how odd they both looked. Both figures were slender, short, and finely featured; androgynous to such an extreme that he couldn’t tell for the life of him if either of the two was a man or a woman. They reminded him of the children from the Family. Just a little too well made to be natural.

He felt his heart beat a little faster as the shorter of them pushed the door open and stepped inside, the other taking up a position outside of it that he could only think of as ‘guarding.’

Please just be buying a bagel. Please just be buying a bagel.

Casper tried to hide behind his hands as the newcomer began maneuvering their way through the cramped space towards him, completely ignoring the girl at the counter, whose mind was growing more and more concerned by the moment. Casper tried to ignore that. He didn’t need any additional fear.

That was when the window pane split.

It came as something of a surprise, the single, long crack radiating out across the storefront with a sound like a plate striking the ground. Everyone in the shop turned to look at it for a moment, surprised. It made the strangers nervous. Casper used the momentary distraction to his advantage, and began to quietly push himself out of his chair, turning towards the kitchen area of the shop where, he hoped, he might find some kind of back exit. He never had the chance to find out if there was one, however, because before he was even half way, he felt the birds gathered around the block take flight.

Those still looking at the window were momentarily confused by the mottled black and brown swarm that rose from every rooftop in sight, many of them taking it for some strange kind of smoke, temporarily blocking out the light of the mid afternoon sky. Then the swarm began to dive, and the inhabitants of the shop became afraid. The first few birds that struck the window were harmless, simply bouncing off of the heavy glass frame without effect, dazing themselves. Then, however, they began to strike in bulk, and their sheer weight of numbers began to place pressure on the fissure in the surface, and the crack began to spread.

The stranger who had remained outside was being mobbed by the things, furiously batting them away as they pecked and clawed at anything they could reach. That confused Casper. Weren’t they on the same side?

Casper was halfway towards the back rooms when the stranger turned back to face him, a spike of sudden panic embedding itself into their mind as they strode across the short distance to him. He began to run, but it was no use. He felt a hand close around his shoulder, just as the window finally gave, and the inside of the room was filled with claws and the squawking, cacophonous cries of a hundred hunting birds.

All around him, people were panicking, adults frantically shielding children, customers cowering under the indiscriminate assault of talons and beaks. One particularly quick thinking man had hefted a table, and was struggling to shift it up against the broken window frame in an attempt to halt the influx of new attackers. It didn’t help.

Casper jerked away from the hand gripping his shoulder, trying to free himself to run, but it held firm.

“Let go of me!” He yelled, barely able to hear his own words above the din.

“We need to get you out of here!” His assailant shouted back, tugging him back towards the shop front. “I work with the government! We’re taking you to a safe house!”

If nothing else, that gave Casper pause. Not the words themselves, but the degree of desperate honesty that he felt radiating from the stranger as they spoke them. He didn’t know how to respond to it; but he had nothing better to go with. Belatedly, he stopped struggling.

“…Where?”

“Follow me.”

The stranger pulled Casper in beside them as they moved, using their bulk to shield him from the majority of the birds, his other side pressed against the bakery counter as a makeshift barrier. A few feet away, he caught sight of the one who had been in front of the door struggling through the swarm towards them. He thought he glimpsed them pulling a cylindrical object from a pocket, before the one beside him pressed a hand to his eyes. A second or two later, he gagged as something acrid and cloying met his nose, soaking into his lungs and sitting there like mud. He began to choke, every breath pulling more of that horrid vapour into him, like trying to breathe sand. Whatever this stuff was, it seemed to upset the birds even worse than it did him, because their attention seemed to shift. He felt it as their focus broke, that cold, complete hunger giving way to an almost mind numbing panic. As one, they ceased their attack, focusing instead on trying to get away, each of them scrabbling and fighting against one another in their haste to vacate the tiny space. Some were left behind, knocked to the floor by the wings of their fellows. He watched one of them fall to the ground, its whole body seemingly in spasm.

“Christ, that stuff’s foul,” the stranger beside him muttered, coughing slightly as they spoke. “C’mon, kid. We gotta move!”

Before anyone else within the shop managed to come to grips with what had just happened, Casper’s new companions each grabbed him by a shoulder, and he found himself being lifted up onto the tall one’s back. He tried to protest, but he couldn’t gather the breath. His lungs felt like they were made of lead. Underneath him, his supposed rescuers carried him out of the store and began to run. In other circumstances, he might have panicked, but as it was, he couldn’t bring his mind together enough for fear. It was all he could do just to hold on.

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Escapism: 3.7

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Casper:

Casper grinned down at the tiny flower pot that Mel had placed before him, sweat trailing a thin line from his brow to the lining of his shirt. He’d done it. It had taken three tries, and what had felt like the mental equivalent of a three hundred pound deadlift, but he’d done it. He wiped the moisture from his face with a sleeve and turned to his teacher, giddy.

“I did it!” He crowed. “I made a flower!”

“You made a daffodil,” Mel corrected from her seat off to the side, gracing the boy with a small chuckle, a note of genuine surprise sounding out in her mind. “Or a seedling of one, at least. Good job, kid. It usually takes weeks for newbies to build up the reserves for a new spell. Guess you must have been training with your power a lot, huh?”

“Eh,” Casper laughed tiredly. “More like I never figured out how to turn it off. Guess that counts as training, sorta.”

“I guess it does,” Mel agreed. “Right. Now, you get to go home. You’re done for the day. Practice that spell every day until you can cast it without feeling like you’re passing a gall-stone, and then you should be about ready to choose what you wanna focus on.”

“Focus?” The boy asked. “What do you mean?”

“What you want to specialize in,” Mel shrugged. Then, seeing the blank look he was giving her, she sighed. “Right, sorry. Forgot you’re a newbie.” She leaned back against a drawer, shifting around for a moment until she was more comfortable, then continued.

“Okay,” she started, her tone businesslike. “So, the first thing you need to know is that there’s basically two kinds of spells out there. Number one-” she held up a finger demonstratively. “-Is what you call your innate magic, or Sorcery. This is a spell that’s completely unique to you, and that only you can ever really cast; your power.” She glanced across at Casper to make sure he was listening. He nodded, and she continued. “This is a spell that’s basically just the magical representation of your soul. Your personality, your genetics; a little bit of everything, really. Distill that all down, and you get your first spell. You can’t really teach it, because you don’t even consciously know the steps you’re taking to cast it.”

Casper nodded again, listening to the older woman intently.

“Now, type number two-” Mel raised a second finger. “-Is what you’d call learned magic, or wizardry. These are the spells that can be learned because the steps needed to cast them are simple enough that they can be memorized and passed from person to person. The flower growth would be your first wizard spell. Now, these spells tend to be a lot weaker and less flexible than your innate spell at first, because your soul is having to waste a lot of energy doing something that isn’t familiar to it.” She chuckled again. “That’s why you’re so tired after only making half a flower. Don’t worry, though, that becomes less of a problem with practice. You’ll develop a bigger supply of energy, and the spells will cost you less as your soul becomes more familiar with them. The more you use a spell, the less it costs.”

“Okay,” Casper nodded. “That makes sense, I guess.”

“Good,” Mel grinned. “Now shush, I’m not done. Thing is, that one intuitive spell you’ve got there isn’t the only one you’ll have, in the end. See, the more new spells you learn, the more new information and material your soul has to base all new innate spells on. So every once in a while, it’ll start growing new spells out of all the stuff it’s learned, combined with all the bits of you that made your first spell.”

“Uh,” Casper began, confused. “I… think I get it?”

Mel shook her head.

“Here,” she chuckled. “I’ll give you an example. Say your base spell is that you can breathe fire, right? And you spend a whole lot of time learning spells that are all about being able to move things around with your mind. Eventually, your soul might develop a new power based around controlling the fire with your mind, or you might learn to control stuff by breathing on it. It’s a stupid example, but basically that.”

Casper sat there for a long while, gazing blankly across at the older woman while he absorbed that new information. After a few minutes, she spoke again.

“You’re trying to think of cool things to mix your power with, aren’t you?”

“… Maybe.”

“Good,” she grinned. “Then you’re starting to understand what I mean by choosing what to focus on. Let’s take Freja as an example,” she gestured absently at the corridor leading back into the shop. “She started out with a power based on enchantment. She could make things a little harder to break when she touched them. So, she decided to focus on that enchantment part of her power. She started to learn as many different kinds of magic as she could, because she wanted to be able to put a bunch of different magical effects into the things she touched. She became an enchantment specialist. Your job, while you’re mastering that plant growth spell, is to figure out how you want your magic to grow from here on out. Do you want to focus on feeding your innate powers and try to learn a little bit of everything, or do you want to learn a lot of one particular kind of spell to try and grow your magic in a more specialized direction?”

Casper opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, thoughtful. That was a big question. Mel patted him on the shoulder.

“No need to answer right away,” she said, her tone brusque. “Just take some time to think about it, okay?” She thought for a moment, then added: “Don’t worry. It’s easier than it sounds. You just need to figure out what you want to be.”

Yup. Big question.

Casper stepped out of the Rose Bouquet that afternoon feeling utterly drained. His pocket was a good two hundred dollars lighter and he had been instructed to keep the small flowerpot that he now held clutched under his arm, but for now, he didn’t really care about it. Right now, he wanted a donut. Everything else could wait.

He stepped out onto the street and, seeing the people still littered about the sidewalk, took a moment to compact his power back down to allow him a modicum of privacy. Now, where to find a good donut? Thinking about it, he thought he recalled seeing a small bakery on his way over from Tasha’s place. That would do. He would go there, sit down, and devour as much sugar as he could find. Casper nodded to himself and set off down the street at a jog, hunger winning over against his exhaustion.

He felt the thing enter his power’s range just a split second before it struck him. In the single moment that he had with it inside of his awareness, he registered that it was small, fast moving, and very, very hungry. Had his power been extended to its fullest range, he might have had time to move himself out of the creature’s path, but as it was, he felt it impact against the back of his shoulder before he’d even had time to move, heard something tearing at the fabric of his shirt, then felt something sharp digging a number of thin, shallow lines along his skin.

He let out a cry of surprise and pain, swatting blindly at the thing with his free hand in an attempt to dislodge it dropping his flower pot in the attempt and sending his seedling spilling out onto the pavement. He felt the creature pull away, taking to the skies with a rustle of its wings. Casper stared after the thing as it flew away, the first instinctive traces of tears drawing themselves unbidden to the corners of his eyes. Was that a bird? It looked like one, but he’d never felt a bird so… focused. What the hell had just happened? He tried to move his shoulder and winced. Whatever it was, it had done a number on his back, tearing a ragged strip of his shirt free in its attempt to burrow towards his skin. He tried to turn his head far back enough to check the injury by eye, but couldn’t quite manage it. He settled for checking it by hand, twisting his arm behind his back to brush his fingertips against the skin, trying to ignore the sting of it.

When he pulled the limb back, he saw his fingertips coated with a thin layer of blood. Well, that sucked. A few people around the street were looking at him, most with a degree of sympathy to their expressions, one or two with surprise. He ignored them. Instead, he focused his attention on pressing his power outwards, swelling it out to encompass the full length of his range, trying to find that bird again. It felt weird, and he wanted to know why.

What he found was not reassuring.

There were more of them, now. Gathering on the insides of rooftops, flying in low so as to keep the sky clear, hiding; all of them with that same, insatiable sense of hunger. He frowned. This was not how birds were supposed to act.

Nervously, Casper continued his route home, keeping his power unfurled, painfully aware of the swarm continuing to gather on the rooftops around him. Whole groups of them were flitting from building to building as he moved.

They were following him.

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Escapism: 3.4

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Casper:

It took nearly two hours, all said, for Casper to find what he was looking for. Even with a calm achieved, itself a task that he doubted he would have managed without his teacher’s mind as a reference, it took him a while to find the right part of himself. It wasn’t, as Freja had described, like a light inside his mind. He had tried envisioning it that way at first, and it had felt stilted, out of shape. When he finally found it, the idea it brought to mind was, for him, something a good deal more quiet. A single head of dandelion seeds in an empty field of grass, swaying gently in the breeze. The picture was oddly detailed for a mental image, vivid and consistent enough that he could count the individual seeds branching off of it. When he relayed the image to her, his teacher let out a dry chuckle.

“That so, huh?” She asked. “Well, try using your power. See if your flower changes at all.”

“Well, uh…” Casper started. “Thing about that is… My power’s always on… I’m never not using it.”

Freja grunted.

“I see.” She paused for a moment, then continued. “Well, can you change it somehow? Put more energy into it or something?”

The boy nodded, closing his eyes and focusing for a moment on his power. He began to swell his boundary out, from just large enough to encompass him and Freja, to large enough to fill the whole room, then even bigger. He pushed it out far enough that he could feel the minds of those passing in the street outside, the happy woman still selling her flowers. In his mind’s eye, the dandelion shifted, grew larger, the individual bristles of it opening up a touch wider. It was a strange feeling, watching what felt like an imaginary picture change without any conscious input from himself.

“It’s doing stuff,” he said aloud. “Changing shape the more I use it. Getting bigger.”

“Yup,” Freja murmured, nodding. “Good job, kid. You’re a mage. That flower you’re seeing is your spell. You’ll probably start seeing more of them turn up as you start learning new spells.”

New spells.

Casper took a moment to absorb that idea, the image of the flower nearly slipping from his mind as a wave of excitement threatened to push him from his present calm. He thought for a moment, before asking a question that had been lingering in the back of his mind for what felt like weeks.

“Is… is there some way I can turn it off?” He asked, earning himself a look of confusion from his teacher. “M-my spell, I mean. It… gets in the way of life, sometimes. I’d like to not have to deal with it all the time.”

“Ah,” she nodded, understanding. “Sure. There’s a couple ways you could turn it off for a while, I think. You could probably play around with it for a while and see if you can find an off switch-”

“No,” he cut her off. “I tried that. Three months. Couldn’t figure it out.”

Freja gave him another nod.

“Fair enough. Thought you might say that. Well, I could probably put together an amulet or something to keep your spell suppressed,” she raised a hand to forestall the boy as he opened his mouth to speak, excited. “Don’t get all yappy yet. It’d take a few weeks, I’d have to take a very close look at what your spell does, and it’d cost you about twenty grand.” She chuckled slightly as his face fell once more. “Easiest answer? Just keep yourself exhausted, I guess. A spell won’t work if you don’t have enough energy in you to fuel it. Start learning some other spells and just work all your energy out on them so your power goes away for a while.”

Casper sat for a moment, mulling it all over in his mind, then nodded with a sigh. It wasn’t ideal, but at least it was something he could do. Better than just holding his bubble close and hoping.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Okay. So, how do I learn new spells?”

“Simple,” Freja shrugged. “You get someone to teach you.” She pulled herself to her feet. “For that, gimme a sec.” With that, she walked out of the room, leaving him alone.

Curious, and lacking anything better to do, Casper followed the older woman with his power, tracing her mind back through the narrow hallway and into the shop, then out onto the street, where she came to a stop beside the cheerful flower woman. He felt their emotions fluctuate briefly, flickering slightly in minute response to concepts introduced and discussed. He felt the flower woman become a touch excited, Freja a little amused, before the two apparently swapped places, his teacher remaining out by the flowers while the second woman made her way inside, passing through the cluttered shop and into the hallway behind him.

“So,” she called out cheerfully as she caught sight of him. “You’re the new kid, huh?”

“Guess so,” he answered, glancing behind himself towards the same, slightly portly woman who’d been selling flowers when he’d arrived. She was carrying, to his momentary confusion, a pair of small, cheap, plastic flower pots, each apparently filled with plain garden soil. “My name’s Cas. Hi.”

“Nice to meet you, Cas,” she replied, stepping forwards into the room and bending at the waist to place one of the pots beside the boy. “I’m Mel. Now then. Let’s not waste time. Freja said you’d earned yourself a particular spell, and I’m better at teaching this one than she is, so watch closely.”

Casper nodded and Mel lowered herself down into a sitting position off to his side with just a touch more ease than Freja had before. She lifted the second flower pot in her hand, holding it just below eye level between them. Casper gazed at it, waiting. He didn’t have to wait long.

It started out relatively small, a slight disturbance in the soil filling the container, before a tiny nub of green poked its way out from underneath; a seedling. The tiny plant grew a little faster now, extending into a stem like a video in time lapse. The stem sprouted leaves, grew higher, and formed a bud, which quickly colored itself into a light, orangish pink, before dividing out into petals that then spread apart into a flower bulb. The whole process had taken perhaps eleven seconds. Mel placed the newborn flower on the floor between them, and turned her eyes towards the boy.

“Thoughts?” She asked, her tone suddenly very serious, matched by what he felt in her mind.

Casper hesitated. It felt to him like his teacher was waiting for him to judge her. He could feel a note of something that almost felt like anticipation in her mind. Like she was waiting for him to miss the point somehow; to say the wrong thing. In the end, he opted for honesty.

“Well,” he began. “I gotta admit, a little bit of me’s disappointed that nothing caught fire and exploded.”

Mel rolled her eyes, a momentary amusement touching inside her mind.

“Kids,” she snorted. “They never change. We don’t teach combat magic to children we’ve only just met, Cas.”

“Yeah, I figured,” He admitted, returning his eyes to the plant between them. “… What sort of flower is it?”

“This?” She asked, gesturing down at it absently. “It’s a tulip.”

Casper nodded.

“It’s pretty,” he said eventually. He meant it, too. He liked flowers. Growing up in the city, they were a little bit of a rarity. “The petals make me think of sunsets.”

Mel gazed at him as he spoke, her eyes narrowing slightly as she considered him. Then, she smiled, a surprisingly powerful note of pride settling down in her thoughts as his words hit home.

“Aww,” she chuckled. “Such a nice boy.” With that, she leaned forwards a little, her hands coming to rest on her knees. “Yup, that’s good enough for me. You’re learning this one.”

Casper cocked an eyebrow at that. Had he just passed a wizard test by complimenting a flower?

“This one?” He asked. “You mean there’s other ones I could learn instead?”

“Yup,” Mel nodded, gesturing a hand absently towards the tulip, which slowly began to swell once more. “There’s a bunch of other ones. Freja could teach you any number of flashy spells, and you’ll probably learn some of them too, in time, but this one’s a little special. I only teach it to the kids I like. Not every youngster gets to be a nature mage, you know.”

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Escapism: 3.3

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Father:

“I’m sorry, Father. She got away from us.” Marcus stared at the ground as he spoke, apparently unable to bring himself to look upon his father’s face.

“I see,” he replied, his voice even, deciding to let the boy stew in his remorse for the time being. “Can you tell me how she got away?”

Marcus nodded, his body slumping slightly in his seat as he began to recite the events of the night passed.

“She had a friend,” He mumbled. “We never saw them, but they were blasting the building with something. Lara says it was like some kind of air cannon. She’s not doing too well. It popped one of her ear drums. Samson took the girl hostage, but she got the drop on him, punched his ribs in, damn near killed him. Lara blasted her out the window and she ran. She was off the street before I caught up. The hunter says her scent just disappears up into the air. Nothing he can do.” His recitation over, the boy slumped back in his chair, ashamed. A younger sister stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, reassuring.

Father sat in thought for a moment, his fingers tented together against his lips. The rest of his children were there as well, the boys and girls of the New York branch, all staring towards either him or Marcus. Some of the newer ones were apprehensive. The older ones seemed merely ashamed. He suppressed a smile. His children didn’t like disappointing him.

On the whole, however, Father was not disappointed. His children had lost the girl, that was true. But by the sound of it, they had found him a much more intriguing possibility than a lone teenager with super strength. An outsider who could make blasts of air like Lara’s; someone who could whisk a wounded girl off the face of the earth and up into the sky. Either power had potential, and if it was the same person, then all the better. If it was a child, then that meant a new potential member of his family, and if it was an adult, then it was good that they had brought him in. Better to deal with dangerous people himself.

He made his decision after a time, and raised his head towards his shamed son.

“I am not angry, Marcus,” he said, his voice gentle. “I know you did what you could.”

There was a collective sigh around the room from his assembled children, some relieved, some grateful. Marcus nodded, still refusing to look towards his father. A drop of liquid trailed down from the boy’s eye, traveling along his downturned nose, before falling to the floor. Father sighed. He didn’t like his children crying for him. There was no helping it. He used his power, shaping it into a bubble around himself, and pressing it out into the room at large.

The effect was immediate. His children began to smile, the residual fear fading slowly from their faces, the harsh lines fading from their cheeks as the tension drained away. Marcus shuddered in his seat, drawing in a sharp breath as his mind was wrenched off its tracks. He raised his tear stained face towards his father, and let out a small laugh, quiet, joyous.

“T-thank you, Father.” Marcus murmured, absent the shame of his prior moments, his tone drawn back to the calm lightness of his euphoria. “I-I don’t deserve it.”

Father shook his head in a single, small movement, and allowed himself a smile. He stood from his seat and crossed the distance to his wayward son. The boy gazed up at him, his expression one of purest wonderment. He placed a hand on either of Marcus’ cheeks, and gently brought the boy’s head forwards, resting his forehead against his stomach. Marcus giggled.

“No crying, little one.” He murmured, one hand rising to stroke the boy’s hair. “You know your father hates it when you cry.” Marcus nodded, taking another sharp breath through his nose as his body slowly reoriented away from his earlier remorse.

Father chuckled lightly to himself at that.

“That’s my boy.” They all stood like that for a long time, the father simply letting his children bask in the warmth of his light, none of them daring to move, lest their wondrous moment be broken. As an added gift, he reached his touch out into Marcus’ form, and began to slowly mend the fractured bones of the boy’s hand.

The magnanimous father allowed his children to warm themselves for a time, before withdrawing his light back into himself. His family gazed at him from every corner of the room, still basking in the slowly receding joy of his presence.

“Now,” he murmured, glancing around his assembled young until he found a face that caught his fancy, and gesturing her forwards. “Can you take me to your big brother and sister so that I can heal them?”

The girl nodded, her face splitting into a wide grin as she stepped forward. He held out a hand, and she took it with her own, leading him from the room.

He healed his two broken children first, before retiring with the girl that he had chosen. He remembered her face from the day that he had shaped it. Elise. The name that he had given her made him smile as he recalled it. He let her bask in him for a time after, before setting out on his new mission, refreshed.

Family was such a beautiful thing.

Casper:

The boy sat cross legged on the floor, his hands held together in his lap, trying to bring his thoughts to a calm. Even with his eyes closed, his power told him that the old witch was there, just a few feet away, her mind just a touch amused. That did not help. He didn’t like being laughed at, even in other people’s minds. Even without her input, calm would have been a tall order. He had too many thoughts surging together in the back of his mind, most of them too large and too recent to be so easily put aside. He sat like that in silence for what felt like an hour, before he sighed.

“Are you sure there isn’t another way?” He asked, trying to keep his tone from a whine.

“Not if you keep refusing to tell me your power.” Freja answered, her tone neutral, despite her growing amusement. Not for the first time, he tried to shrink his bubble tight enough around himself to exclude her. Nothing. It was wrapped as close in as it would go. “If you wanna find out if you have magic, you need to access your spells, and that means meditating.” She allowed herself a chuckle at that. “It’s okay to take as long as you like. I charge by the hour, after all.”

Casper groaned.

“Calm is haaaard, though,” he grumbled. “I don’t even know what I’m aiming for!”

“You’ll know it when you find it,” she replied after only a moment’s hesitation. “Trust me. It just takes a little time to make it click in your head. Gets easier after the first time, when you know what you’re looking for.” She paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Here, I’ll show you.”

Casper opened his eyes, watching as the older woman set herself creakily down on the mat, mirroring his pose, and closed her eyes.

“First thing you do is clear your mind,” she murmured, repeating her earlier explanation almost verbatim. “And not in that hollywood bullshit way. Really clear it. You take your problems, you look at each of them, you let yourself feel them, and you accept them so that you can stop focusing on them. They’re still there, and they’re gonna be there to piss you off later, but for now, you just accept them and move on.”

As she spoke, Casper began to feel the older woman’s emotions shift. The humor died away, and something else rose in its place. Casper had often felt emotions lurking in the background of people’s minds. Annoyances they held suppressed, feelings of sadness they were refusing to let themselves feel. As Casper watched, Freja began to unpack them within herself. For a moment, she was angry, almost dangerously so; some powerful force of repressed emotion rising in her mind, it was a slow process, the calm coming gradually as the anger burned itself out and she once more took on that semblance of calm. It wasn’t the same as before. She was still a little angered, but that feeling slowly began to fade. Her face twitched.

“It feels like shit, to be honest,” she muttered. “It’s usually easier to just force our bad feelings down. But if you’re a mage, then they clog you up, stop you being clear. To get past them, you have to let yourself feel them. You have to look at them, you have to accept them, and you have to let them run their course.”

Casper felt something else arise from the background of his teacher’s mind. It was sadness, this time. It felt… fainter, faded in a way that was hard for Casper to put into words. Like a scar from an old wound. It too swelled within her mind, before, just as had done with the anger, it began to slowly fade as she let it fall beside her. She took a deep breath.

“If it helps,” she murmured. “I try to imagine it like a ball. All that shit in your brain messes with the ball, gives it sharp edges and pointy spikes. That’s all the crap that’s left over once you’ve let yourself feel it all. So, once I’ve done what I can to let my feelings go by, I try to massage the ball-”

In spite of himself, Casper snickered.

“Shut the fuck up or I’ll set you on fire.” Freja grumbled, her face setting momentarily back into a scowl. “You take your time with it. You imagine that silver orb inside your mind, and you slowly shape it back into a perfect sphere, and if you don’t lie to yourself, and you don’t go too fast with it, then once you’re done, you’ll be calm.”

It took time, Casper noted, Freja slowly working through whatever problems she held inside her mind, before slowly bringing what remained back to calm. After about five minutes, however, Casper was entranced. Freja was calm. Not just calm in the everyday sense, as his previous understanding of the word had allowed. She was almost empty. If he’d had to put a word to it, he’d have called it tired.

“Ah,” she murmured, more to herself than to him at this point. “There it is. When you get to the end, you’ll be able to sort of see it, like a light inside your brain. It’s… hard to describe, really, but you’ll know it when you feel it.”

Casper hesitated, uncertain, then spoke, his voice quiet.

“C-can you stay like that for a while?” He asked. “I… I think it might help me look for it.”

He had expected refusal, or at least some confusion from her. Instead, she merely grunted at the request.

“Sure. Whatever. Just give it another go, okay?”

He nodded, then closed his eyes.

The process was… difficult, to say the least. None of what the old witch had said was in any way soothing to him. But it had helped him know what to do, at least. He thought of his parents, and grimaced. It made him angry. It made him very, very angry. The big problem with letting go as Freja had instructed him was that it really wasn’t something he wanted to do. He wanted to be angry with them, and he wanted to stay angry with them. It felt right to hate. He felt his breathing begin to hasten, his heart beating faster in his chest.

“It’s okay,” he heard the old woman say quietly. He opened his eyes, and saw that she was looking at him, her expression calm. “You can hold onto this feeling forever, if you have to. But you need to let it go for now. It’ll still be there when you get back. I promise.”

He took a few long, deep breaths, his chest shaking slightly in his hate, and nodded.

He doubted he could have done it on his own. Set his feelings down like that. In the end, he used the old woman as an anchor, distancing himself with her calm, before gradually allowing the betrayal to slip between his fingers. He put it down, and tried to let the feelings run their course.

A little part of him felt like he’d failed himself in that moment. Like he was letting them both off easy. He did his best not to dwell. Under his teacher’s guidance, he carried on.

Author’s Note: Okay, so, I’ll be interested to see what you guys make of this one. It’s probably one of my stranger chapters done thus far. As always, input is appreciated. 

Just a lil disclaimer. Freja’s lesson isn’t a real meditation technique, as far as I’m aware. It might not even be healthy, like, at all. It’s just a thing I do sometimes when I need to clear my head. I’d be interested to see what you make of it. 

EDIT: Having looked at it, what they’re doing is actually very similar to mindfulness meditation. Being aware of one’s own feelings and their causes and attempting to avoid dwelling on them.

Kay. That’s all I had to say. Bai!

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