A Wizard's Dream

Different

Asja stared at the open palm of her hand. The memory of the brilliant flash of light discharging from it still burned in her mind. But there was no singed flesh, no blisters to suggest that anything of note had passed through her skin.What sort of magic was this? She remembered feeling it build up inside of her – as she had many times before – but never had she seen it released. It couldn't have been lightning. She was a creature of flesh and bone, not lightning moulded into an avian form like her thunderoc friend. 
 
But what else could it have been? She knew she was different from the other dwarves. Magic came much more easily to her. But that different? To unleash uncontrollably on her unsuspecting friend? If anything, she was lucky; a dwarf in his place might not have lived.Perhaps Obalin was right when he stopped her instruction in the art of runes. Perhaps the danger of releasing it really was too great.She rolled over onto her side and looked at Vagran. He had grown visibly since his encounter with the tempest. His translucent feathers – playfully soft and warm to the touch – showed no signs of enduring a storm. If anything, he looked more content than she'd ever seen him, his satisfied expression standing in stark contrast to her own inner turmoil."Why am I different?"She didn't expect an answer. The thunderoc could speak, though words didn't come easily. When uttered, they had a peculiar sizzling quality followed by a rumbling echo, as if a storm spoke with both lightning and thunder, each at his own pace. Asja was one of the few people who could make them out, but only if she put a lot of effort into discerning each word.

The bird only looked at her quizzically, his luminous plumes lighting the garden hearth and shimmering in the breeze unlike those of any other creature she had ever seen. They mocked her feelings of alienation from the people she lived with who looked exactly like her. But she knew that their resemblance was only skindeep.What brewed beneath puzzled and frightened her in equal measure, as it did the few dwarves who knew of her origin. 

She ran her hand across his wing as far as she could reach. It extended a great deal further, far onto the grass beyond the paved line. For a while, she had wondered how much bigger his wingswould have to grow for the bird to take flight. Now she knew they were more than large enough; he'd merely lacked the skill to generate lift. In what other ways was he unlike the local birds? There was no one left on the Peruvius Range who truly knew his kind. Despite his ancestors' ties to the place, he did not belong here any more than she did.

"Would you fly away with me?" she blurted out as the thought came to her.The sparks in his eyes arced with sudden intensity."Where?" the word crackled across the accompanying roar.She shrugged. "Mount Croms to the north? Sylvan forests to the west? Goblin desert to the east? Perhaps even the Land of Frost to the south? Anywhere. Everywhere."Her rambling did nothing to lessen the intensity of the sparks. Undeterred, she continued. "It's just...This has never really been my home. And it definitely hasn't been yours. We do what we can to blend in, and Erna and Tor do what they can to accommodate us, but it's a burden on us all. Such a burden that other dwarves have stopped even trying to bear it, and have left it to Erna and Tor to raise us on their own.

"But we're older now. Old enough to take care of ourselves. We are not tied to this place. And now that you can fly, we could leave and go anywhere we wished."Vagran stared at her, listening intently, the charged unease subsiding with each word."We could look for your people. There are none left on these mountains, but they could still be living on other ranges. We could look for my people, too. I don't know who they are, but Erna told me that they'd found me beyond the western hills. At least that's where we could start."She stopped there, not mentioning the recent shift in her nightly visions – Ama's hints that her dwarf home had served its purpose, and that her childhood was coming to an end. She didn't yet know where to go, even as she felt the growing sense that it was time to leave.Vagran said nothing in response. His gaze veered away from her, drifting into the distance, eying the tawny clouds as they ambled through the sky. And a spark returned to them she would oftensee when he stared towards the horizon. A spirited spark who betrayed playfulness and excitement, and a longing quite fitting for a creature of the sky.