Legends spoke of old Eomaia — she, who like him, was once known by a different name.

Oh, how much he envied her — to walk the dead land, where one day the sun might have shone on its shores, far where the sea met the golden beaches of the continent, and where magic flowed endlessly.

— except now, all that remained was the sea and the frigid white glow of their fake Star, floating above this city, forever bound to it as its watchful guardian.

But such was the land of humans in a world of magic.

sor·cer·er

those who gave up on existing in exchange for inimaginable power, rendering them soulless; a practitioner of the study of sorcery

The vessel came from the wasteland; vast, endless, boundless, for there was nothing in the beyond save the pitch black darkness — and yet, men were drawn to it, tethering on the edge of this world as they sought salvation, for a chance of survival, for another tomorrow, and for that, they threw themselves into the abyss searching for the Source of all life.

And it was there that they found it.

Colored gold and found in the deep, such Source dripped like blood and ran like spirit, to the point it was pointless to draw a line between what was real and what was not, and it was its faint yellow glow that violently broke the pale monotony of the artificial star, being enough to burn the back of his retina; the soft music of the lead glasses that forcefully contained the Source echoed through the harbor as they were unloaded, and men far taller than him hurriedly passed by as he blinked a pair of umber-colored eyes, unafraid of the dark clouds up ahead.

Samuel watched the wayward ones come and go like an eagle, a gaze that well fitted his aquiline profile: with deep set eyes and long eyelashes, he wasn’t considered either handsome, thanks with a soft jawline and full lips, or beautiful, with a messily cut mullet falling in front of his vision while his several moles got lost amidst dark, olive-colored skin, rent asunder by a searing white scar that went from below his left eye to the right side of his face, but uncaring, he turned his away his face — away from the golden light that now bathed the harbor and towards the wailing vessel, and as the breeze blew, it carried with it the venomous copper stench of the liquid gas.

But turning windward, he was able to hear the world sing in its whispering tongue — and it was windward that Samuel’s eyes met his.

He, who stood alone at the shrouds and pondered with eyes as dark as the coming storm, gazing towards an unknown place, forever lost in the distance.

He, who was so far, yet so close.

Unlike Samuel, he was a handsome youth who carried himself in a discreet manner, with skin as brown as the earth after the rain and face half-hidden by his tight black curls — and albeit he had a pretty face, it could easily belong to someone else; with a strong jaw and eyes obfuscated by thick glass frames, the rest of his features were soft, curving gently as they were kissed by the half light — but everything else about him betrayed his station, so much above Samuel: the cane on his left hand was as dark as ebony, and as he limped, obviously favoring one leg over the other, the prism-shaped earrings that adorned him dangled tantalizingly in the air, changing their colors as they reflected the dim light — red, and green, and blue — dragging Samuel’s eyes to their owner like a magnet, watching him as one would be stricken by thunder, paralyzed and utterly electrified.

For he was a Sorcerer.