Dream sequence.

[singindemonhq]

the Little Wolf and I have been looking for a home our own for weeks. I never knew there were so many places that I don't want to live in. We were talking about looking at weapons, too.

OK, I will, but my main weapon is my mojo. I guess thinking about that's what started me dreaming about my childhood.

My people aren’t born with our talents. We develop them later. It’s as well. We practice exogamy – out-crossing - and it gives us very varied talents. If they could be predicted at birth there’s some children that’d never be reared. Can you imagine someone who could bring whole cities to ruin in a nursery?

Some talents develop quite young and our children use them while they play. It’s good practice and we find out who’s going to be the strongest before they’re old enough to do much harm. It can save trouble, later.

Almost all of us can cast illusion, to an extent, but I was a little late in developing any magic. That can be a sign of a powerful talent developing slowly. It can also mean that the slow developer isn’t going to have enough magic to have any kind of status. It can happen in the best families. The kids are adopted out and probably glamored not to remember that they should have been lords and ladies. Knowing that could happen sometimes made me nervous.

When my powers did start to come I practiced alone. Illusion didn't come as easily to me as it does to some of my kind and when I found the power was developing I practiced, read and listened and tried to find every trick that I could. (I also found I could create cloth and other things. Almost all of us could change the appearance of our surroundings, but some of my changes lasted after I’d gone. I was young enough to assume that all the others could do that too.)

There was a kind of testing of the adolescents – think of a sports contest, but with magic. ( There was a girl I liked, back then. Someone of my own kind - there were … not quite promises that if I did well we might teach each other some different games later. I wasn’t a slow developer in everything, no indeed. )

When the games started there were kids who cast illusions of dragons, of phoenix flaming across the sky, srivens coiled in the stems of the tables and more, much more. I doubted that I could match that. I had to go for a different kind of animation. I walked out empty-handed, gestured and suddenly held a huge kite that I threw into the winds.

The great silken shape sailed and danced, swooping and trailing its long, trailing multi-colored satin ribbons. I gestured, the kite grew and the colors changed and I could feel how impressed some of the audience were when my kite outlasted the illusionary magical wildlife. (My magic had made it, but it wasn't illusion...)

Then the wind dropped. So did the kite. I was young – I cast the wrong spell, I didn’t un-create it, just cast the illusion that the big, solid kite had vanished. I guess that’s why the tutor didn’t dodge. He was a big, vicious-tempered male that had made my days miserable with gloating threats of where I’d go if I had no magic.

It was funny when he was thrown forward by the invisible impact and rolled in the mud, fighting the air and flickering as he failed to teleport. Eventually I got my breath and my wits and cast again, un-creating the kite.

I’m not even sure if he knew what’d hit him – he may have started toward me, radiating killing rage, simply because I couldn’t stop laughing. He was twice my weight and claimed twenty times my power. I shouldn’t have had a chance.

When I first cast the mojo that reshaped my own life it was purely in self-defence. He stopped and started to sing about hating the uppity youths that gave him no respect, the brats that it was his cruel fate to teach. The judges formed a little backing group.

Then he started an odd, angular, old mans dance. The stadium was crowded. At least ten adults jumped him, stopping the dance with his clothes barely smoking, but sending him flat in the mud again. I didn’t understand, not then, and I couldn’t stop laughing, especially when high status grown-ups knelt in the muck to pin him down.

I expected punishment but I was treated with deference as I was taken away by the people I loved (they were the safest from me, of course.) It was explained to me that my talents put me in the highest rank. I’d be a cross dimensional operative, working outside my world and bringing new DNA to my people. (I was conditioned to make that thought more pleasurable – and I never saw that first girl again, of course.)

They sent me off to be trained as soon as they could, after that. Now I’m high-ranking, important and too damn dangerous to have around.

Once I woke I got up and sat by the window. I'd had enough of dreaming for one night.