“Bring the water!”
“The fire’s spreading!”
“Hurry up! Hurry up!”
“Get the water down the line!”
“More! It’s not enough!”
Lian’s head was fuzzy. Everything was energized and extra-sensitive. He heard so many voice all around him. He felt the heat at his back but it wasn’t burning him, wasn’t painful. It was warm like his mother’s embrace had once been. His mouth tasted like lighting, and he could smell the ash and burnt wood in the air so sharply he wasn’t sure if it was safe to take another breath.
“Lian!”
He looked up and flinched back shutting his eyes from the brightness of the fire.
Fire! The forest is on fire!
He looked up again and squinting against the light of the flames. The night sky was set ablaze by the hungry fire, the orange and red glow so bright it illuminated everything especially the destruction it caused.
“No! The forest!”
“Don’t just sit there! Help us!”
Lian flicked his eyes from the fire to the people around him trying to spot the one who’d spoken.
Riker’s face was panicked as he stood beside the place where his mother’s bed had once been. Ashes littered the ground around him and charred wood outlined what was left of his burnt down shack.
“Get up and help us you coward! You did this! If we don’t stop the fire it’s going to reach the village!”
Riker was yelling and Lian could hear the words but everything was slow to sink in, but three words managed to get through loud and clear.
I did this..
Sadness welled up inside Lian as he realized what Riker had meant.
His mother was…
She…
And he just… exploded. He thought he was going to die too but here he was, sitting completely unharmed in the middle of the burnt out husk of the shack he’d once shared with his mother.
And the fire was still consuming the world.
I have to stop this… but how?
He needed a way to stop this, needed to do something instead of standing here and watching everything burn. Just like he’d watched as his mother died right before his eyes, everyday getting worse.
“You are not dumb child. You have a brain taking up that space between your ears, so why don’t you use it?”
Lian snapped his head up and looked around again but he didn’t know where to begin to look for the owner of that voice. It was almost like it came from inside his head.
“You don’t have time! You caused destruction, your power brought the fire, now let it bring the rain.”
Rain! That was it! But how was he supposed to make it rain? He didn’t have any control he didn’t know what to do? He didn’t even understand how he’d brought on the fire itself.
“Your emotions. Your power reacts to that above all else when it’s wild. Think about what you want to do and why you want to do it. I will help you.”
Think about it…
Well, he wanted it to rain. He wanted to stop the fire, save the village and what was left of the forest. He wanted to correct what he had done wrong, to stop what he had unleashed, to fight the enemy he had created.
“That’s it boy! Now look up!”
Lian did and he almost fell on his ass as he stared up at the clouds that had collected together. Dark and gray ready to fall to the earth at the first command, the clouds rumbled with thunder and crackled with lighting.
Lian stood up carefully, his gaze never leaving the sky. He was holding these clouds there, he wasn’t sure how but he could feel it. Like a wild animal pulling against the chains that held it, the clouds were furiously trying to rip free of his control but his will was stronger. His intension was solid and unmovable.
And just like that, the sheets of rain crashed to the earth with an echoing boom of thunder.
The fire sizzled and hissed as it fought to stay alive against an enemy it could not hope to defeat and Lian watched, memorized by both forces of nature he had summoned. He barely noticed the way the people around him stared, wide-eyed and completely frightened of the storm above them, the fire before them, and the human among them.
No one knew where to run or what was safe to do, so they stood, all of the village baring witness to the rise of a Mage.
Lian couldn’t care less about any of them.
Slowly he took a step forward.
Lightning arched against the sky and struck just a few paces in front of him, but he did not step back. He was not scared.
Again he took another step and again the lighting struck.
People scurried to move away from him as he walked, lighting following after every step until he stood at the edge of the now-burnt forest.
“I did this.” Lian whispered to himself because he needed to hear the words spoken out loud. He needed to feel them as they touched the air and echoed against the charred trees. The weight of what he’d been capable of still hung in the air around him. It was too much, all of it.
This power filling his body, the shaking in his bones that sung to every element; that had lighting striking the earth at every step he took it was too much inside too soon. He couldn’t hold all of this in, it was overwhelming and he could feel the control he had on the clouds above loosening their hold. He needed something to take the weight of it so he could focus on one thing, on controlling one thing. But he had nothing.
“I can’t..”
Lian’s knees buckled under him and he landed hard. Instead of one bolt, six came down at once in a circle surround Lian’s body, trying so hard to attack the master holding its leash, but Lian was slipping. Soon it would get its wish.
“Reach out to me!”
The voice! That growly, strangely high pitched voice spoke to him again and for the first time, Lian finally understood just what that voice was.
His Familiar.
Like the raven that stood over his mother when she died.
How do I reach you? Lian thought back, hoping the voice would hear him because the thunder boomed overhead was so loud he doubted any words he spoke would be audible to the air two steps in front of him.
“Call out my name. You know it. It’s in your heart.”
A name? His Familiar’s name?
“Stop wasting time! I’ve been here waiting for you to wake up all this time. You know my name.”
Waiting for him to wake up? What does that mean?
“If you don’t connect with me, the magic is going to lash out. Lian… please.”
“I can’t! I don’t think I-”
“Killian!”
“Fenrir!”
Lian lost his hold on the magic and the lighting struck one last time arcing down directly at him.
Before the lightning could make contact a shadow darted from the edge of the ruined woods and leapt for Lian.
There was nothing Lian could do but watch as a small black form of an animal was illuminated by the blue and purple bolt of wild energy.
A howl pierced the air, but it wasn’t a cry of pain like Lian had expected, it felt more like a call to battle. A call Lian answered before he even knew he was going to.
Stretching his hand out Lian felt the hum of power radiating off him and he used it to drag the elements back under his control.
The earth shook under his feet as he drew power from it to bind the storm. He wasn’t sure how he was doing any of it, but the feeling of it was undeniable.
The rain rebelled, pelting against him like hail, angry and wild. Lian allowed it as he focused on the lighting and thunder, because the danger they presented was his biggest worry.
He could feel the clouds royal as they attempted to fight his will, but he didn’t let them. He forced them to heel and slowly, they did.
The dark clouds lightened, then separated as the rain turned to drizzles and then to mist.
Lian shook with the strain of all that he’d done. Once again his knees buckled beneath him and his arms would not move at all to catch him, but they didn’t have to.
His weight leaned against the solid black form of his Familiar and Lian sunk to his knees.
Burring his face in the wet fur Lian smelled the unmistakable scent of wet dog and he couldn’t help but let loose a small, slightly hysterical laugh.
“Thank you.” He breathed into the form holding his weight.
A wet nose pressed against his ear and a coarse tongue scraped at the side of his face.
“You called to me, and I came. I will always come.”
Lian nodded into the body of the animal.
Exhaustion and fatigue weighed down his limbs. He didn’t think he could move at all, but somehow he knew it was okay. This beast would bare his weight for however long he needed it.
That is what being a Familiar meant.
Lian’s mind flashed to the raven standing over his mother’s body. Morgan.
The Familiar, long dead, had come once again to be with its other half in her final moments.
The sob tore itself out of Lian’s throat unbidden, and like a mudslide, when the tears started, they didn’t stop.
His body shook and shuddered under the pain of everything that had happened.
The loss of so much more than just his mother hitting him with a ferocity no other blow ever had before. He felt it down to his core. The collapse of his dreams, the loss of his father, the death of his mother, the scaring of his back, the burning of his home, the weight of his power, and the body of the animal curled against him as if trying to protect Lian from the pain of his own emotions.
“Hush child.” The voice of the beast echoed in his head as it whispered. “You are not alone. And you will never be.”
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