Extinguish
Nex paced dark halls, leveling his breathing in contrast with the rapid click of his claws against wooden floor. Tears pricked at his eyes and he felt the growl in his throat before he could quell it.
Angry and crying with barely any magic to show for it. No primary skill and nothing that qualifies for a secondary. Complete failure. And you’re crying and running away instead of actually trying. What a child.
He brushed loose hair from this face then combed through his hair and pulled it free from straggling remains of its bun. Golden locks tumbled around his shoulders and he twisted one around a finger absently. He felt aggravation prickling his skin and raising his fur on end.
Magic comes soo easily to Evie and you struggle with children’s parlor tricks. What is wrong with you?
He took a deep breath and tied his hair back up, pulling it free from his face and into his usual low bun with practiced hands. Shaking out his hands and returning to his room, he readied himself to try again. Dark eyes, one half gold, fell over stacked rows of candles. Fire burned in his mind and heat stretched into his hands. Magic, raw and untempered, licked across his arms, threatening to scorn him with its touch. But he was determined to exercise control and wrangle his magic into shape. Determined to bloom forth in wild displays of innate magic, of specialization, of belonging.
Eyes narrowed with this determination, Nex lifted his hands and watched his magic, a shimmering web of teal light, ebb and spark along his fur. It did not form into flame, did not leap from his fingers like the electricity his sister could command. It did not flow off of him or reach to the dark bowls of water arranged beside the candles. Did not freeze or harden. Nothing sang to him from the stones or gems on the side table. Not even his phone or laptop responded to the presence of his magic.
It comes to so so easily for Evie. She can use it without realizing it. Doesn’t even have to think about it. She found it on accident while playing her fucking bass.
Magic snuffed itself out in his lapse of thought. All that effort to concentrate and not only did it fail to manifest into anything, but it had the gall to be fragile. He cursed under his breath and threw his hands down to his sides. “I’m never getting out of general practice at this rate. I’ve barely progressed past what they teach children to keep their magic in check. Can I even do magic anymore?”
What a waste.
He sighed heavily and sunk to the floor, glaring bitterly at this paws. Whispers of magic still drifted in his fur and pulsed under his skin, like his own bubbling, taunting thoughts manifest.
How much potential is slipping you by? Did you ever really have it in the first place or were you just lucky young? Letting those around you stroke your ego right up to the moment it all fell apart? They were right to discard you. After all, just look at your empire of dark candles and still water.
A fallen candle caught his eyes, probably a victim of an earlier outburst. He reached over and delicately hooked it with a claw and rolled it back toward himself. The candle was a vibrant purple that reminded him of Evelyn and the thought of her caused a lump to form in his throat. Nex didn’t want to curse his sister for her magic. No, he loved her dearly and knew she would be cheering him on and maybe rubbing him a bit for his situation. She was usually gifted with humor and the levity she could bring light to his darkened thoughts most of the time. All in good fun. She’d probably drag him out for fast food or maybe a food truck too. It kept them close despite his gnawing feelings. Her vibrancy made him resist the call to resent her for having a much easier time with magic than he was.
His stomach grumbled at the idea of grabbing something to eat with her and leaving this dark room.
Nex held up the candle, turning it this way and that as he examined it. He wanted to light it. If he could just focus on his magic, just make it spark and push out a flame to a single candle, surely he would finally have a breakthrough. He thought about Evelyn and the bright, goofy grin she’d give him when would inevitably, finally, get it lit.
In the silent half light the candle’s wick burst into flame.
Nex gasped and waited for the feeling to overwhelm him, to be swept up in the feeling of his magic as it burned its mark into him and finally made him belong.
But it would not come.
He growled and barked out his frustrations. He couldn’t recall how many disciplines he’d tried only to be able to produce any results. Or how many he’d revisited in hopes that a renewed effort might be what was missing. His results were always underwhelming, often little more than a precocious child could produce – and he’d been the precocious child which only made his current efforts more pitiful. Never had he felt the connection of that innate primary skill.
With Evelyn already on his mind, he found himself thinking back to how she’d described the way conjuring lightning for the first time felt. Electric and wild and distracted like her. She kept coming back to the rush she’d felt in between shooting off about it feeling so natural that she barely had to think about it – a matter that caused no small amount of troubles – or wondering if she could use her magic to the rhythm of her bass or otherwise work it into her shows. Not that her band had really gotten started yet, she was just always the dreamer.
The thoughts soured his mouth more than he’d anticipated. That cloying bitter resentment threatening to finally worm itself fully into his heart. After everything he’d done, all the work he put in, it was Evelyn who had magic come to her easily and he had to keep clawing just to keep up with where he should be, much less excel like he felt he should.
He was getting himself nowhere.
He placed the candle in an empty holder and sighed. Even if pyromance was unlikely to be his calling at this point, he found himself focusing on lighting another. It only took a few moments of concentration the second time and it felt like hollow mockery. A secondary talent he could train maybe? Placating yourself with thoughts of a secondary? Gonna throw in the towel on your primary because its gotten too hard? Pathetic.
Bile rose in his throat. All of this has been a cruel joke. What a life.
He sat, crossing his legs and focused on the next candle. Then the next and so on as each passing candle lit faster than the last, the motion and feeling of the magical trickle quickly becoming precise and practiced. He could even draw the flames higher or quiet them down by the time he’d lit half of them. Yet nothing stirred in him. Still, pyromancy could be a good skill to learn. Might as well take what I can at this point before you wear down everyone’s patience for your bullshit.
Disappointment are away at him. Even if he wasn’t exactly running low on schools of magic, he’d basically run out of ones that interested him and was running low on ones that actually felt useful, felt worthy of pursuing. He knew it would be somewhat childish to be disappointed in whichever school would be his, but he had to hold onto some kind of hope that he would come out on the other side of this happy.
What’s worse having a school you’re not thrilled with or letting your parents down again by never finding a primary school? After everything they’ve done for you? All the extra work put in for your education?
It was a question with a simple answer really, and he knew that. Knew what that answer was too. But he refused to accept it. Refused to look that answer in the face and admit his parents didn’t think of him the way he thought of himself. It was easier to live in a world that saw him the way he did, saved him from confronting himself.
As his mind wandered off thinking about all the kinds of confrontations he might have with his parents, the air around him shifted.
Inky black thoughts swirled in his mind. A final crack in those who had loved and supported him through his struggles and they were finally seeing him the way he saw himself. Finally casting him out in shame as the failure he was. Sparks racing through Evelyn’s fur as she barks out years of grievances. The frosty tone if his father matching icy eyes. Abandoned by his mother. If only he could hide, if only he had more time. If only the floor could open up and swallow him whole.
He didn’t catch the way his shadow split and grew in the candle light. Shadow pressed in from the walls, slowly encroaching and threatening to consume him whole, candle light be damned. It was as the darkness pressed into his fur that his heart lightened. He felt something in him surge and he grasped for the feeling, desperate to hold it close. To examine and know it. Extending himself through his magic, sicking into the feeling of the thing, the magic – his magic – coming home to roost or, perhaps, finally breaking fee. As simply as breathing, blackness stretched across the entire room and ate the candle glow.
Now in complete darkness, he had his answer. The end point of his struggles achieved and sat right in his paws. Of all things. A school of magic no longer taught. Something deemed a trouble to our society and not openly practiced.
His feelings rushed him in an overwhelming jumble but, despite the lapse in focus, his magic did not waver. A confirmation if he still needed one. He laughed, on the edge of tears again. Or perhaps the edge of mania. Then anger flared and quickly overtook him. All his work for this? This empty pathetic answer. Magic he could not to anything with. Another disappointing student who could only be as good as the limits of training a secondary school. Another student hiding their primary school, growing jaded.
Some kind of bullshit, isn’t it? To limit people now based on the actions of a cult of the past. Passing judgment on a school wholesale because some people got it in mind to hurt others. No one casts out pyromancers despite arsonists. Rogue technomancers have caused corporate systems to fail whole cloth and society as a group has not denounced the school. Nex snorted and laughed at himself. Entitled and selfish of you to only care now that it effects you personally. Guess it just means you know that you can’t trust anyone not to turn on you. Who would be on your side now that they would know your heart through your magic? But this means you are free from their rules and they can keep themselves limited.
What the hell do you do now?