Torva Messor

Chapter 1: Starting From The Beginning

I was still a child, with all the purity and innocence of one too. Back then the worst thing that happened to me was being told I couldn't go outside or play with my dolls. For years the government of the mainland tried to satisfy its population. The normals feared what mages were capable of. Mages were tired of being mistreated due to that fear. The result, all mages were moved to a low populated peninsula off the mainland, and any normals were moved onto the mainland. It was a compromise, not necessarily an effective one, but one that worked nonetheless. At least for a while.

The land was mostly woods and marsh still, which meant a lot of time was getting our feet on the ground. To the northeast was a beautiful beach, kids tended to play there when their parents were working. Fathers used magic to lop down trees and transport the logs to villages. In a few days, we had roofs over our heads. Mothers used magic to create rifts in the ground for water, and around it, they planted flowers and crops. In weeks we had a steady food source. Young boys tended to dazzle their friends with their growing abilities. Around the age of fifteen what little powers the kids had began to manifest. Their birth powers, purely born talent with hardly any maturing.

I didn't often go out, I was more the loner type, which worried my mother. I helped with washing clothes and changing the linen for when Father came home. He was strong, respectable, he tended to help others more than he did himself. A blessing and a curse most days. My powers took a little longer to manifest than normal. I tried controlling the winds, flowing with water, shaping the earth, and using flames, each task proved tiring. Some days I couldn't perform magic at all. My parents encouraged me, however.

"My little flower you will grow one day. I can see great strength in you. One day you will hold it in your hands." My mother would say with a smile that melted my heart. I had given up after a while, I could use magic but I was not like others that were graced with extraordinary talents. I would simply be a lesser mage, which wasn't uncommon but I still didn't like the idea of it. The name alone was discouraging and hurtful.

I had turned sixteen without any true growth. Even when I pulled at my powers with all my might I could never use magic for more than a few minutes before nearly fainting. A few times I did faint in frustration. Sixteen. I was that old when they came for us. When the temporary compromise failed, and the normals wanted a change.

Unbeknown to us, the mainland's normals had been working at a play for years. Yes, they had satisfied everyone for a while, however, that welling fear was still in their streets. We were growing in numbers. More mages practiced their powers openly not fearing judgment. They were afraid of us and what we could do. So they got us all on that peninsula. Surrounded on three sides by water, and on one side were all the normals. We would have no escape.

Our village was closer to the border of mages and the normals, we were one of the last groups to move here. So we were the first to suffer their judgments. I was playing with my dolls. Mother was downstairs changing the linens in the early morning lights. Father had already left to help the neighbors with an issue they'd been having with their roofs. In the distance loud machines grew louder, and closer, rumbling the earth as they traveled. There were a few distant bangs and a few seconds of suspense, before the climax of explosions.

An explosion actually happened right outside my window, ripping my room in half. I hadn't moved, I had been stunned by the exhilarating force of the explosion. I stood from my toys and looked out of the broken and burning hole in the side of my house. I could see people crawling away from craters, mages flying around terrified, screaming, pure chaos. Yet it all moved so slowly, even in its chaos it all moved in a way I understood. My mother stormed into my room and looked at me. I looked at her. I was fine, I felt better than fine. I felt good. I looked back outside as another symphony of bangs in the distance went off. My mother grabbed me and ran for the stairs. Another round hit our house and knocked my mother down the last half of the stairs. She ran out the back door, away from the border with the mainland, and ran.