The Arcana - Muriel Fanfics!

5. Magic

*y'all remember that one chapter i wrote (the completely non-canon tribute to Khamgalai)? Anywho, hope you guys are staying sane in isolation, (i played 6+ hours of minecraft? and no one stopped me? yikes) so there'll be plenty more chapters lined up to keep you busy lol. love you guys, and enjoy!

The girl stares in wonder.

Eyes wide, mouth open, the peaceful landscape seems to yawn out endlessly around her. Vague memories of a too-small alley, the smell of the market and the sound of its people: all of it  forgotten, faraway, a distant speck the girl barely noticed was there. Here, it was open. Quiet, in a way that made the girl want to make noise. Laugh and run to fill the blank space, as if this were a blank canvas and she had been given several pints of paint. 

"Where are we, Fisk?" The girl breathes. Oh, the breeze smells of strawberries and spun-sugar and carmelite treats, but she wasn't sure, exactly, what she was looking at. Holding a mouse with mis-matched eyes in the cradle of her palm, the girl reaches with her other hand. Chubby fingers sliding over smooth, carved stone. One stone of hundreds, towering carvings spiralling and sprawling across the field in rings

and rings

and rings

endless circles of stone. The girl notices each is carved differently. This one with bears. That one with trees. All of them whispering of different stories. There is something sad about this place.

Fisk trembling excitedly in her hand, the girl gapes at the sky above. Picture-perfect clouds, tinged all kinds of dream-pink and sunshine-apricot spilling over a cerulean sky. The girl closes her eyes, feeling a hum in her fingers and a tug at her feet. She follows, weaving deeper through rings of stone. Following this tug, a warm feeling in her stomach that made her certain this was the way. So she followed her feet, propping the little mouse on her shoulder, taking step

after step

after step 

until the girl stands at the base of the strangest tree she'd ever seen. Gnarled and knotted, its branches twisting around another stone, except this stone looks somehow newer than the rest, more raw. The tree's draping branches are cloaked in dusty-blue blooms.

Forget-me-nots, the girl realises with a start, remembering how her father loved them, how her mother brings him bunches of it, only for him to place them in her hair with a kiss. But these flowers didn't smell like flowers. They smell of spells. Of magic. Tangy on her tongue. 

Although the breeze was only soft, hints of sugared delights making her mouth water, the weeping blooms seemed to reach toward her in the wind, beckoning her, inviting her, comforting her. As if it were alive, as if it knew her. Fisk clings to the girl's shoulder, nose twitching 

and twitching 

and twitching 

little fingers outstretch, itching to touch the tree, the flowers, the tug had led her here. Why? 

She hears it then, a whisper on a sugar-scented breeze as her fingers brush the trailing forget-me-nots. She gasps, and sees it then, too. Feels it, as if the tree was smiling at her, loving and kind. The girl never takes her eyes off the tree, slowly sitting cross legged at its base. A small, small girl and her small, small mouse, surrounded by rings of old stone and a sky of magic and dreams. 

Watching the tree reach for her, the girls whispers. 

"What is this place?" Although  she yearned to run, to play and laugh, something held her here. There is something sad about this place. A lonely tree, only stones for company.