Post by Majia DiNiro on May 30, 2010 18:32:33 GMT -5
Backstory: The Death of A Flower
[/center]Mama and I stood across from each other at the large, obsidian table, a table which was once wood, and which I had seen transformed before my eyes. That spell had caused mama a great deal of pain. She explained to me that altering the state of something from one state of being to another, meant that something else in the world would have to be altered in order for the balance to remain, which was why it was always important to make sure that the magic practiced was important. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. That was my first lesson. I listened to her, soaking up the knowledge like a dried sponge, retaining it like a dyed fabric retains colour.
We were in the basement of our shop. No sound pierced it, and I doubt any sound could leave. It was not that we were walled in on all sides by the thickest stone, or even the most tempered steel, but I was certain mama had bewitched the room somehow to make it so. About us were jars, kept in the dark, with curious objects... well they might have been curious to the untrained eye, but to me, they were almost friends, containers, baskets, sealed jars, flasks, of every manner of material on shelves of various levels. The room was kept mainly dark, and cool, to preserve those precious items.
“Majia! Concentrate!” Mama snapped in Serenissiman, and my attention was brought once again back to the table. It was hard, being 6 years of age, sometimes, to focus, especially in this room of wonders, but I did. I looked to mama, who smiled softly. “Good, focus mi amor,” she murmured. My gaze dropped to the table, to the bright yellow flower that sat there, potted in earthenware. It was a vibrant yellow, nigh glowing in the dimly lit room, full of life. She stretched out her arms, shooting them out from her sides with a jingle of metal, bangles dressed her wrists, and red and black henna lined the backs of her hands in the most peculiar whorls. I loved those hands. Those hands that tenderly combed my hair, lovingly stroked my cheek, prepared the meals we ate, and the potions we sold. The hands that hovered over the pure crystal ball that sat on the highest shelf in a locked box upstairs. Her hands hovered now over and around the plant.
“Come, come,” she murmured, looking at me before letting her eyes fall shut. I did as she did, stretching my hands out. The henna on my hands was barely beginning, and black, in a tribal design her mother, my grandmother, had taught her from her home land. It was something like a black sun, cut jaggedly in half by what appeared to be a black thunderbolt. I asked her what it meant when she had drawn it on me, and she said one day, she would explain. This was shortly before she started to teach me.
My hands hovered over the plant, mimicing her. We were doing counter spells. Her spell was to make the flower grow. My spell was to make it die. She began her incantations in a low, steady voice, no inflection, like a calm lake. I watched as the plant began to sprout a green leaf from its stem. I closed my eyes, and started speaking my own spell. Hers she spoke in Serenissiman. Mine was done in the Drujani tongue. I could feel the strain start in my finger tips, the burning, the heavy weight, and felt it move up my fingers to my palms, burning most intensely around the sun design dyed into my skin. My fingers shook and I steadied them, focusing on the spell, and not on the slow pain that started to work itself through my body. I clenched my eyes tighter, breathed slowly, and continued on, never faltering in my words, remembering the spell word for word, until the only thing that was was the spell, and the flower, yellow in my mind, turning brown, bending, becoming weakened and browner, darker, wilting. I did this, envisioned the effect, and spoke my spell until, in my minds eye, the flower was nothing but dust. I had not noticed that mama had stopped murmuring her spell and was silent until I had finished and opened my eyes.
My gaze went first to mama. The look on her face was one I had not seen before, one of accomplishment, success, which indeed I had seen, but of a darkness that was new to her countenance. She must have won, and I would have to study much harder. I looked down though, and my eyes opened wide in astonishment.
Just as I had seen, just as I had desired, the beautiful yellow flower was nothing but ashen dust.
I looked back up at mama, who looked at me now with such pride it was warming, though something in me fought at it. It was too warm, too kind, too loving, even if I was her daughter. “And now,” she said, clapping her hands together. “We pray our thanks.”