a preview of my and @banacotta‘s piece for @yoimagiczine! it’s a mixed-genre high fantasy piece ;)
i also have a promo ficlet for it that’ll also go up this weekend, my schedule permitting (since i’m travelling to china tomorrow!)
A slim figure stands to the side of the late summer bonfire, arrayed in robes of blue so pale they’re almost white, sparkling like an opal in the dancing light. Long black hair blows gently in the twilight breeze, as unfathomably dark as the night sky, as smooth as silk.
“Oh, no.” Viktor turns at the sound of Yura’s voice. His cousin’s brows are furrowed at the figure. “Him again. I still haven’t forgiven him for leaving the Sand-scourge campaign early the last time we went south.”
“Don’t be rude,” rebukes Viktor, already half-breathless. “He lost his familiar. I’d have done the same if Makka got killed in the action.”
Yuuri Katsuki, Hasetsu’s pride, slayer of the Great White Boar, is at this Harvest. Viktor had heard stories of how Katsuki had trapped the Boar into a cave and woven the strings of his enchanted koto across the entrance, slicing it when it tried to escape. All of them had invariably mentioned Katsuki’s untouchable beauty and icy aloofness, like the first gleam of a mountain snowcap at the crack of dawn.
They truly were not far from the mark. So many years have passed since the first Harvest they had spent together, and all this time Viktor has been hoping they would cross paths again. The years have been kind to Katsuki, filling him out from a gangly adolescent into this devastatingly icy beauty. If Viktor had been a lesser man, he’d have assumed he’d fallen prey to his own illusions.
Yura rolls his eyes. “Whatever. He’s old news, anyway. It’s not like he’s done anything cool since the stuff with the Boar. Just you wait, I’ll bag the most Fell Creatures this season.”
“You’re probably more likely to run screaming like a kid your first night in the wood,” teases Viktor, looking out towards the distant twisted shadows of the forest, where the souls of the victims of the Fell were trapped beneath its leaves.
“Shut up,” mutters Yura, though he undeniably shivers looking at the woods. “I’m almost sixteen. That’s how old you were when you captured the Firebird.”
Viktor sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Go dance, Yura,” he dismisses. Yura scowls.
This piece is now up on AO3!If you’re interested in seeing this piece in print alongside many other magical short stories, you can purchase leftovers at @yoimagiczine!
Magic lingers in every breath he takes, and Victor hates it. The carnival around him is bursting with life, interwoven with magic in a way that one could hardly separate one from the other, and it’s beautiful. It is. But still, Victor would rather be far, far away from here, if it was up to him.
Alas, it isn’t. Not entirely, at least.
Despite his reluctance, he agreed to accompany Chris tonight. Had he known that he will find himself at the mercy of wild magics with his friend nowhere in sight, he would have reconsidered. But that, that is just wishful thinking — Victor is here, he is lost, and he isn’t happy about it.
He isn’t any happier when a man manifests at his side out of nowhere. It’s hardly a surprising thing in a place where people crowd, but one that still comes off as odd, and startles Victor plenty. After all, he’d swear on his magic that the man wasn’t there a second ago. And if he wasn’t there, there could be only one explanation for it.
Magic.
Dark hair obscures half the man’s face, while the other half is hidden behind a mask. Victor cannot look at it closer, not in the sparse torchlight, but also for the lack of time. Because, as soon as the man appears, he bows richly before Victor, who, in turn, blinks in surprise but can do nothing else, for the man lifts his hand then and snaps his fingers — all to spark a glowing blue rose from his very palm.
It’s magic, Victor knows for sure now. He can feel the static of it on his skin: cold, but electric like thunder.
“A beauty,” the man says in a voice oddly hushed among the noise of the carnival. And yet, it still reaches Victor’s ear as if it was whispered straight into it. “For a beauty.”
He offers the rose to Victor, who — damn him — should know better than to accept it. The instinct of the body is too hard to fight, though, and it’s only when he’s already holding the flower, does he realize his mistake.
He looks up, panicked, but the man has already turned on his heel. He’s walking away, but the way he walks is like nothing Victor has ever seen. There is a shift to his body, a blur, a softness of magic that almost blends him in with the shadows, and it catches Victor’s eye — the way he disperses his presence and seems to all but disappear.
Should the man not have peered over his shoulder at Victor, maybe Victor would have discarded the flower where he stood and escaped while he still had the chance, but… but he has, and so he didn’t.
Instead, Victor chases after him, intent on giving the rose back. It is a foolish thing to do, but his body moves against his better judgement. His plan is to catch the man, give back the piece of his magic, which pulses in Victor’s hand like the heart of a star fallen to earth.
And yet… and yet, the moment the man enters one of the tents and Victor follows, his plan is ruined. Plans, Victor decides then, are frighteningly useless in the face of unknown magics.
