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Pddmmp - pddmmp - pddmmp.

A bouken’s heart rate was much like the creature itself in nature: small, rapid, and prone to racing faster still when inspired by fear. Ataya stood in the shadow of the ever-growing gnarled tree that marked his ‘spot’ up the mountain from his home, crisp spring air all around and before him, some three paces ahead, just that: a bouken. It stood, rooted and quivering, but immobile, locked in the embrace of a shadow spell. Ataya — master of the spell, in this case — edged the dark energy on, pushing it to seep it into the small rodent’s body and feeling the pddmmp, pddmmp, pddmmp of its pulse weaken as he did. He stepped forward, and closed the space between them.

“Shhhhh, shh-shhh,” he murmured, stooping to a crouch as he lifted it into his palms and observing with fascination as the animal’s life energy dimmed — softer and softer — until finally, in the ‘protective’ cup of his hands, it stilled and faded out entirely. He hummed. “There, see?” he said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? We’re going to conduct an experiment together, you and I, and your sacrifice — while unfortunate for you, I suppose — was entirely necessary and is much appreciated. Here is to hoping that your body is more cooperative than my last experiment partner…”

After countless hours of scouring Taliuma’s library, sifting through the unorganized books, leafing through endless pages and burying himself between the shelves, Ataya had come across three separate pieces — one large tome, and two older scrolls — which at least touched on what he wanted to get at. The most helpful of the three, unfortunately, was worn through in sections and blotted out in others, forcing most of his experimentation to remain just that: experimentation. He could now fairly reliably kill and ‘revive’ insects, even small clusters of them at a time. Larger creatures, unfortunately, posed significantly more difficulties.

The last bouken had ended up a pile of what couldn’t accurately be described as anything much more than ‘goop’, much to Ataya’s frustration.

Two hours later — magic reserves depleted, body unnaturally exhausted and sore throughout as though all of his energy had been bled out from his flesh down to his bones — Ataya was sagging against the tree and spitting curses unbefitting of a thirteen-year-old.

“This…shouldn’t be this hard,” he mumbled to himself, simultaneously grumpy and groggy, and he pinched at his closed eyes. “I’m missing something.” ‘I must be missing something…’

“Dysarrin—”

A strange set of emotions budded up in Ataya not quite simultaneously, but more like a rapid domino effect, one bleeding into and tripping over the next as they came. Startlement first — enough to make him yip and jump despite how ‘used’ to Dys’ antics he ought to be — until he recognized that the large shape and gruff noises were in fact courtesy of his friend. Relief, elation, amusement — all these came next, for no matter how many winters he went without and how many times Dysarrin returned the following spring, Ataya still worried, particularly as of late, that one year he simply wouldn’t. Then, others as a backdrop to the first slew: frustration, confusion, surprise.

“You’re so late,” he quipped, frowning, though the expression didn’t entirely manage to overtake the smile competing for many of the same spaces on his face. “What on this earth do you get up to all day that takes you so long? The snow thawed back sooner, you could have come to see me…and every spring I think you manage somehow to smell worse than the one previous. Did you bathe once all winter? You look…” Ataya trailed off, taking Dysarrin in properly. “You’re so big.”

From the first year Ataya had known him, Dysarrin seemed to make a habit of expanding in all directions steadily. He had been a large child to begin with, even six years ago, and Ataya witnessed most of the growing day to day through the months of their play. But the change after a full winter without seeing him was always the most stark and obvious. Dys had passed up his father in height several years back, and Ataya had thought then that surely he was either finished or nearly so.

But that, apparently, was not the case.

Dysarrin was steadily putting on muscle — and scars — in addition to his size, his overall bulk seeming only to layer atop itself as he grew. He also had notably more hair in strange places than he had in years past. Though there was perhaps a scattering of it beginning to dot him the previous summer and fall, he had a good deal more growing in now — across his chest in particular, though it still wasn’t particularly thick.

Ataya, despite being ever hopeful, had yet to experience his first spurt of growth and was still lagging an inch or so behind his sister in height. The effect of the juxtapose between himself and Dys was, to say the least, staggering. He reached out, prodding a single finger to the small, coiling, dark and dirty coils growing in at Dys’ chest.

“I have something to show you,” he said, tilting his head with the hope that the white streak to his hair might fall forward and make itself more notable. “If you hadn’t already noticed…”

Ataya huffed. “A slighter stature has its drawbacks, certainly, but I assure you I have no intention of being ea—eeep!” Ataya’s sentence cut off mid-go, replaced by a frustratingly shrill — if brief — yip as Dysarrin yanked him towards the ground. His body, of course, complied without but an ounce of resistance, toppling to the dirt and effectively coating him in a thin layer of dust. He pursed his lips, eyes narrowing to pin Dysarrin with a withering Look so as to express his distaste for such behavior. But he didn’t bother righting himself again. His focus, instead, turned to dusting over his clothes and then brushing his fingers back through his hair to straighten it. “You oughtn’t—” he started again, but paused immediately after when Dysarrin reach out.

He watched, holding absolutely still as Dysarrin touched. Though it had no reason to — other than perhaps the smell, which was a given — Ataya’s breath held itself still in his lungs for the entire process, and in the aftermath, a strange, unasked-for heat teased his cheeks with his exhale. Well, at least Dysarrin had noticed—

And, then he spoke.

Ataya snorted and rolled his eyes. “You have this remarkable talent of occasionally looking as though there might be something actually going on up in that head of yours, and then you open your mouth and ruin it. I’m younger than you are, idiot. I’m not getting ‘old.’ I can’t even grow—” He reached out, prodding the dark, wiry, filthy curls at Dysarrin’s pectorals with emphasis, “ —chest hair yet.” He leaned back, eyeing Dysarrin critically for a long moment before tilting his head, the corners of his lips edging up on one side. With a push of will, he sent out a pulse of magic, frosting over the ground immediately surrounding both of them, and then rocked forward, leaning in close enough to Dys to blow out a chilled white cloud in the other boy’s face and ice the tips of his hair. “I chose my clan this winter.”

Ataya jerked back when Dys reached for him, but far too slow, and he gave a choked shriek a moment later, wincing as Dysarrin’s claws closed around his throat and forced him roughly back to the earth. After several seconds of scrabbling uselessly at Dys’ grip and squirming in the dirt like a pinned animal, he grit his teeth and pushed with his magic, sinking out from under Dys and into the shadows beneath them just in time to avoid the wave of untempered heat that rippled out from him moments later.

He didn’t move far, and materialized again a split second after, only a few feet away, sitting upright and rubbing at his throat while fixing Dysarrin with some hybrid between a pout and a simmering glower. “You’re such a brute, you know you should really watch yourself on occasion. One day you might actually damage me.” He let his lashes fall shut, brow relaxing and expression shifting into one more of contemplation than frustration as he thumbed at locations Dysarrin’s grip had been tightest. “Despite years of weathering your antics and temper tantrums, I haven’t managed to become entirely invincible just yet, only impressively durable — and it wasn’t a poor choice, for the record. I’m very satisfied with it, thank you for caring…”

His lashes flit up, pinning Dys — this time — with a less accusing and more assessing look as something occurred to him.

“You know…if you dislike the cold so, I could probably…” He trailed off, lost momentarily in his musings.

He had never actually seen Dysarrin show his face in winter, so he wasn’t entirely sure what — if anything — the other boy got up to. Fashioning him any sort of spell to ward off the cold would require knowing what Dys wore at such times and what would work for him. In any case, they had a full three seasons ahead to get through before they had to worry about such things again.

It could wait.

“Well, perhaps some other time,” he concluded aloud, though mostly to himself. “I don’t know what you got up to this winter, but I did more than choose my clan, you know. Father allowed us to travel to the Celestial Plane to meet with the leader of the dovaa people, Marcus Ysaride. We travelled for a day across the great ocean to the vortex and portal there, and the city itself was…extraordinary in its own way, I suppose. Massive and glimmering…buildings so tall they looked almost like white mountains, and streets paved with stones that shone…nothing at all like Taliuma, and I’ve never in my life seen so many pureblood dovaa at once, though I suppose that’s a given. But they nearly prevented us from entering.”

His brow furrowed, fingers sifting through his hair absently to straighten it and work the dust out as he talked.

“One of the guards who met passengers coming in off the boat stopped us and hassled my mother and uncle, calling us disgusting disappointments and a variety of other uncreative things…” The edge of Ataya’s lip curled back a fraction. “It was worse, in some ways, than Taliuma…still hateful and foolish in the desert city, but at least people there expect filthiness and outcasts on some level. In the Celestial Plane…it was like people didn’t even know what to do when they looked at us, like they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing and weren’t quite sure what they were seeing, besides…” He glanced to Dysarrin again, eyeing him curiously. “Have you ever been out of the mountains? Has anyone ever looked at you like that…?”

Ataya grimaced, nose wrinkling up with distaste as Dysarrin plucked between his toes. It amazed him, almost — though it shouldn’t have, perhaps — that even when cleaning (in some sense of the word), Dysarrin still managed to do so in a gross and disgusting manner. After finishing his spiel, Ataya opened his mouth to say as much — but the words were interrupted by a curt squawk at having a clod of dirt thrown at him.

“Dysarrin—”

Then, Dys spoke, and Ataya frowned, weighing the weight of complaining about dirt clods against that of a proper response. At length, he huffed.

“It doesn’t smell bad,” Ataya said. “It was very clean, and…well, I don’t suppose I minded the place much. It was more the people I took issue with…not that it matters. I doubt I’ll ever be permitted back. Not to the Celestial Plane in any case. I’m not of a mood to grovel before them just for their ‘permission’ and ‘approval’ so they can make some grand exception and allow me to grace myself with their city…” Ataya frowned, brow pinching in thought. “Other places, though, I would like to see. I know I’ll not be able to stand being trapped in these mountains forever. As soon as I’m old enough to, I’ll be out…far out into the desert and past that, likely. Eventually, I’d like to see all the continents, whether their inhabitants appreciate me or not…” His gaze flit to Dysarrin, curious. “You could come with me.”

Ataya frowned, opening his mouth fully prepared to argue. After a pause, though, he eventually shut it and sighed. Arguing with Dysarrin was about as effective as arguing with the sun, and sometimes only more frustrating in certain respects. So, in the wake of a large stretch of internal debate, he let the subject drop. Dysarrin had come to see him, after all — and probably not to pick his toes, though he did seem contented enough laying about in the dirt — and Ataya wanted to enjoy his company, for whatever it was worth. Particularly since he didn’t get as much of it anymore.

“I did miss you a bit, you know.”