FLORIAN
43 Searing 117
The boy had a cigarette between his fingers as he flipped through a newspaper. Florian couldn't read the text from the ground, but after a few minutes of silence, the paper fluttered to the ground with a burn hole in the center, and Soren leaned back against the trunk of the tree, the cigarette between his lips. Florian brushed an ant off of his arm.
"You ever think about how much they lie to us?" Soren said, breaking the silence.
"Who's lying to us?" Florian propped himself up on his elbows. "The newspaper?"
"Everyone. All the time. Nothing is quite as it seems, you know." He flicked ash into the ground and gestured to the newspaper, half in the sun, with the same gesture. "It's all gossip. Rumors. Propaganda. None of that matters, and you know they're just lying about it, anyway."
Florian laid back down in the grass, one arm over his forehead. "Of course it's stupid. The only people who have time to read the newspaper have nothing better to do, and fate forbid they have to read any tragedy that happens over the river."
Soren nodded, and then repositioned until he could hop off the tree. "Come with me." He said, as if he had no further answer to their conversation. Florian complied, though he was leading them into the woods at the edge of the park, which had already been on the outskirts of Zaichaer. There was a fence dividing the two — the wilderness from the carefully cultivated gardens and lawn — but Soren climbed it with little effort, his shirt not even getting caught on the spokes. Florian had to put a bit more effort into climbing over the fence, but he found his footing in the woods. A mosquito buzzed onto his arm and was immediately slapped, and then he followed in his friend's footsteps.
Soren tossed his cigarette into the dirt and crushed it under his boot. "There's a lot of things that no one wants you to know. You know?" Soren's platinum blond hair caught the sun that filtered in through the trees, but then Florian's gaze was dragged down to his face as he smiled. "They want to keep you ignorant and scared. Never let them keep you ignorant and scared."
Before Florian had a chance to ask who and what the fuck he talking about, the boy turned around with a flower in his hand. "This," he began, "isn't a real flower."
Florian furrowed his brow and leaned in towards the flower. It looked like a flower...he reached a hand to touch it, but his hand went right through. He whipped his hand back to his side and stood straight up, glaring at Soren.
"What did you do?" He hissed. Florian was not well versed in magic, but it couldn't have been anything else. He had heard of vile witches crafting illusions, but Soren was neither vile nor a witch. Or he thought.
"Flor, touch the flower again." Soren asked, quiet. "Do you know what you can do?"
Florian moved his hand near the flower, but he didn't touch it. "What can I do?"
"You can make the flower disappear." The confused expression on his face only made Soren laugh. "You didn't know? Flor, Lysanrin can take the aether from magic cast." He returned to his hushed tone. "In fact, it's so powerful that's why you're so feared. You're smart, I'm sure you know your history."
Florian frowned. Of course he knew his history — the history of the clockwork empire, of the rabid quest for power, and of its fall. He knew Lysanrin were largely disliked, and he knew that it was because people were scared of them. But he did not quite know why they were feared to this day. How could Soren know what he had not been taught? But it was clear what he was implying. He was a mage, a witch, himself. Florian knew about aether, too. It was in everything, it was the lifeforce of the world, and it was butchered by witches for their spells, and wielded carefully by wizards for protecting the general populace. Though he wasn't completely spellbound by propaganda, it had been so thoroughly presented throughout his life that it was difficult to separate fact from fiction. And as far as he knew, his friend was not a Reconciliator — they had not been followed, either, as far as he was aware.
Florian touched the flower, curiosity overtaking him. Nothing else happened. "What am I supposed to do?"
"When I use magic I just think about what I want, and then I use my aether to make it happen. For you... maybe it's the opposite. You think of what you want, and you feel the aether, and you steal it away."
It was not helpful instruction.
Florian closed his eyes with his hand resting on Soren's, in the middle of the illusion of a flower that lay there. The breeze whistled through the trees in their silence. Nothing happened. He opened his eyes, and the flower was still there.
"Do you know what you're talking about?" Soren laughed again in reply.
"No idea. That's just what I heard. C'mon, keep trying. We've got all the time in the world." Florian sighed, feeling like a complete idiot, and one doing something illegal at that, but he kept trying anyway. Something about Soren made it seem like it was all going to turn out okay, anyway. Florian kept his eyes open this time, and stared at the flower-not-flower. He felt he had stared for so long and so hard that it took him by surprise when he blinked and the world looked different. It was colors and fractals layering over the real world that were not supposed to be there, with the brightest spot being the illusion in Soren's hand. He did not quite know what he was looking at, but he could see the flowing of... it must have been aether, from Soren's arm into the flower itself. Magic was actively being put into the flower. He looked up at Soren, eyes widened.
"I can see it, but I can't seem to..." He moved his hand closer to where the aether flowed into the illusory flower, and it felt like there was a thread he could touch, and so he began to pull it. Lightly at first, and then he began to absorb the illusion into himself. He could feel the strange sensation of Soren's aether joining him, and even the little bits of feeling that was leaking into the aether. A fragment of snarky confidence, a bit of the concentration and focus he was maintaining even when he spoke. The flower grew more faint, and he could watch the aether well up in his hand and flow through himself.
"Holy shit, you actually did it!" Soren stopped feeding the illusion and it disappeared. "What do you see? You said you can see it...?"
"I could see the aether, I think. Like some weird glowing river that flowed from you into the flower. I could see some of it in the world but it was brightest in your hand. And then I just moved my hand into the aether and suddenly it felt like I could actually do something about it. Fuck, that was crazy." Now Florian laughed, still exasperated and surprised and confused and exhilirated by the feeling.
"Your whole life, no one wanted to know you could do that. And no one wants you to know that magic isn't made for destruction. Honestly, I wanted to be a Reconciliator when I was a kid, but I didn't really end up following that path. I thought I could use runes to protect people, but I think I found a much better way to do it."
"...What do you mean, you found a much better way? How did you learn how to do that?"
"You don't have to worry about that, Flor. You did great! Now you have to promise me you won't tell anyone. Not even your mother. Don't tell anyone about what I did." He held out his pinky, as if they were six year olds on the playground. Florian hooked his pinky with his, even as he chided him.
"Pinky promise, really?"
"What, have you ever broken a promise made like this? I sure haven't. You gotta tell me if you're a promise-breaker. I don't think I can be friends with someone who breaks pinky promises."
Florian rolled his eyes. "I promise I won't tell a soul."