Primal Magic

Visions of Magic

Under the moonlight, the faery came out. For a transient moment, let there be peace and harmony. That was the hope. The prayer. The violence of war would come soon enough. It's a war they had never thought to fight, a fight against their own ancestors. The primal force that had birthed their greatest bloodlines and ruled over them for millennia before retreating back into the depths they had emerged from. It was said they would return one day to swallow the whole of faedom in a bid to control all the magic of this world. It was a day they feared and until recently had been thought a myth.

That isn't what tonight was about however. Tonight was about joining with new allies in joy and song. Celebrating because there had been hope found to counter the fear. A light was shining brightly again for magic in a world too long dark and grey. Where it was exactly they did not know but the Queen of Witches assured them. The light was found again. They celebrated all across the world as the moon rose over their land, dancing around fragrant fires as the sound of drums and flutes filtered through the gently swaying trees.

The sounds coming from the wild places was worrying the humans that lived outside of them. This land was once nothing but mundane or so they thought. Filled with humans and animals with no magical power, they all said. Until that had changed during the Awakening, an event that had magic and monsters roaring back into mortal view. It had to be from another world, they said. It was dangerous and not to be trusted.

All the while as they worried about this strange magic taking hold in their world, there was something they didn't know. It wasn't just taking hold in their world. It had been born from it. Or rather they had been. She had been. She was of the generation called the Awakened Orphans. A generation growing up in the aftermath. And an organization. If their leader Tav was to be believed, an army against a coming threat.

She pulled the hood so it obscured her face a little more as a rough group of men in uniform shouldered their way past her. She was well known to the police force that called themselves the Shielders, a barely legal militia group that had taken it upon themselves to police the magical and inhuman. Despite the blatant corruption in their ranks, the rest of the human world had taken to calling them heroes. A stalwart force that protected their fragile world against the malice of magic assaulting them. Apparently, just by existing, they were assaulting the human world.

She was keenly aware of how much this world condemned what she could do or was supposed to be able to do. It had never been kind to those like her, even less so now that the world had changed. In older days, they had hung and burned those like her. Now, they imprisoned and regulated those like her, in the hopes of repressing them. Her mother had died, fighting that repression. They feared her kind.

Those that spoke with trees and heard whispers in the wind. Danced with flames and understood the babbling brook. The word was whispered fearfully by young children and condemned harshly by adults. Well. Most of them anyway. The word was one that could ruin families and end lives if spoken to the wrong person.

Witch.

That was the word and she had witnessed much violence done to those that called themselves that proudly. Magical battles had lit up the sky as witches turned from trying to contain the violence of the unleashed monsters to defending themselves from humankind. A few years later, their magic lit up the skies again. She smiled as a streak of lightning shot out to burst in the sky like fireworks forming a symbol unique to the human world. A smiley face. At least these were symbols of joy instead of grim fear. This world could definitely use more joy.

The out right witch hunts had faltered after the witches had shown their willingness to fight for survival. Now, an accusation of witchcraft had the power to set one on a wonderful, dangerous path. She would have it no other way.