Memoir of an Albatross

Selling One's Soul

Animus magic: a concept that seems far too mystical and powerful to be a reality, and yet here we are, living among dragons with endless potential. Spellcasters. Gods with grand, sacred blood in their veins. Reality bends to their will. At a mere thought, a mere enchantment, they can do anything.

And that terrified Albatross. He was afraid. He knew what it– what he was capable of.

Nothing had been the same since the incident on the beach. A few minutes after Albatross had saved Sapphire, royal guards swooped down to investigate. They saw the blood-stained water and found the dragonets there. Had he hesitated, Sapphire would've bled out entirely before they arrived.

Even if she survived, she was gone. For four years, he only had one sister. She was sent off to a cave far off in the corner of the Sea Kingdom. Hidden. A shameful secret forever locked away.

Sapphire since the incident was rendered "useless" in the eyes of her parents. She couldn't write anymore. She couldn't fight or defend herself as she needed assistance to hold spears. Since it happened, she had been isolating herself and lashing out more. Queen Gannet insisted that it was her going mad. That Albatross harming her in such a violent and drastic way had destroyed her mind.

He remembered watching Sapphire when she had an outburst. Her eyes held a look he knew all too well. She was lucid. Sane. She was afraid. Scared. Full of spite and anger at her circumstances. She was trying to cope.

But, she was a liability to the kingdom in their mother's eyes. And now she's gone.

The story that their parents have been telling the masses is that Sapphire had an incident with a shark. They knew the truth. But, they couldn't tell the public. That would have tainted their reputation. Imagine what the dragons, SeaWings and other tribes alike, would have thought. The SeaWings have found their animus, but it was discovered through mutilating another. It would have tainted their perfect reputation, the image that their mother, Queen Gannet, had built.

Because of Albatross, he had ruined Sapphire's life. She would've become queen. She would've lived a nice, happy life. All because he overreacted. She probably didn't mean it when she said all those things. She was playing around. Trying to scare him. She didn't mean it. It's...it's all his fault.

He had since then buried himself in research into animus magic. It was the one thing he could do. These days, he found himself in the complicated hallways of the Deep Palace library, sifting through scroll after scroll. The guards gave him strange looks. Most weren't aware of the truth either. They had only known the fabricated lie that Queen Gannet told everyone. He couldn't care less. He needed to learn more about this curse of his.

Frustratingly enough, the scrolls said little about it other than surface-level observations and myths. Magic powers that could be passed on through generations. The only tribes who currently have their magic are the SandWings and IceWings, as the SkyWings had genocided their own animi many moons ago. Rightfully fearful of what they could do.

The magic seemed limitless. Animi could transmute rocks into precious gemstones, manipulate the minds of others, and hypothetically cataclysmic destruction. For as much as the IceWings love to flaunt their glorious wall built from little more than the imagination and will of an animus, there were just as many tales of mad animus dragons. Ones who caused an upheaval in the Sky Kingdom. Ones who've brought chaos.

And here was little Albatross, who was still too scared to look at his talons for fear that the blood of Sapphire was still stained on them.

He refused to use his magic since that day. Constantly he was trying to regulate and control his thoughts. Even thinking about casing a spell would do it. He was anxious that one day he would have one stray thought, get caught up in his own emotions when all of a sudden boom! The whole palace- the whole world explodes. Would it be possible? Probably given that there doesn't seem to be any rules or restraints for this magic.