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The crab was large.

Well, larger than anything Ataya had managed to successfully make ‘move’ so far. About the size of his two fists held together. Its skitter was off. Stiff and clumsy, like a poorly handled puppet. But Ataya supposed that, in the great scheme of things, that was fairly literally what it was. For the moment, at least. Until he became a more talented puppet master. He felt the strain on his energy as he compelled it messily across the sand, but continued to let his magic seep out, a faint black-purple ‘smoke’ coiling out from around the creature as it fumbled, the points of its legs stirring up sand like sticks being dragged through mud.

Ataya took a step back, tugging at his energy like a leash and attempting to encourage his current project forward. It swerved, twitching before shifting in his direction. He felt himself sway. When he moved to take another step back, the heel of his foot hit wood and he stumbled, dizziness sweeping upward. His hands flailed briefly, attempting to regain balance in vain before he was tipping back despite best efforts and then groaning, vision twisting blurrily as he crumpled back against the steps leading onto his uncles’ ocean-view porch. He fought against weariness, mentally shoving at his heavy limbs and willing them to work, trying to force his drooping eyelids up and his rapidly blackening vision to clear.

Some indefinite period of time later, he woke up. He squinted, narrowing his eyes through the initial blinding bright of day until they adjusted. When he managed to force himself up and locate his ‘crab’, his lips pursed into a line.

“Again. Why again,” he grumbled, pinning a sordid glower on the dark pile of now largely unrecognizable goop that once was a crab. After fetching a small branch of stiff driftwood from the beach, he prodded at the pile dejectedly. “Why do you always—”

His sister’s voice drifted in through the open doors leading into the house, and he pushed to a stand, attention diverted. When his uncle’s voice joined her, their words too distant to make out, his curiosity got the better of him, and — rationalizing that there was nothing more to do here anyway — he moved to make his way into the house.


Lithian — who had been picking through a shelf of stored herbs, placing away several bottles and drawing down two from his stores to bring into his shop the next morning for the purpose of a client — stilled at the sound of his niece’s voice. Leaving his things to wait for the time being, he dusted his hands over his robes before moving out of the storage area and out into the main room of the house to greet her, smiling, but vaguely concerned.

“Akara, are you alright? What is it?”

She didn’t look hurt, nor did a vague, cursory ripple of magic indicate that she was experiencing anything out of the ordinary. That, at least, was comforting.

“What can I help you with, mm?”

Lithian tilted his head, watching as he listened. By the end, he had a small slew of his own questions, but those he supposed could wait. Asking the boy himself would likely be more effective for the majority of them, regardless. So, he nodded.

“I am sure you did well,” he said, “but show me to him. Perhaps he would benefit from a rest and a meal, if nothing else, and I am…curious as to what brought him to this area to begin with…”

Lithian’s gaze flicked over the boy, assessing him at a glance and looking for surface injuries as well as signs of less obvious ones as he moved. Firani. Not gravely injured, which was good. A year or two older than Akara and Ataya, from the look of it. While once upon a time, Lithian tended towards trusting all comers immediately, that habit had been worn back over the years, damaged not only by the way he had witnessed others approach and treat Casseth, but also the ways he had watched his adoptive niece and nephew be treated. Nonetheless, this boy threw up no obvious flags of danger, and was too young to be more than he could handle even if he were not what he seemed.

Lithian offered the boy a reserved, but warm smile and gestured him into the house. “Come,” he said. “Rest a moment and let me have a look at you…you can tell me how you came to be here while I do.”

After they made it in, Lithian wasted no time going to work. He stepped up, pausing and watching to ascertain that he had the boy’s consent before reaching out.

“I’ll just be checking over my niece’s work,” he said, talking to keep the boy up to pace as he let his magic pulse lightly out and search the other’s body for sources of damage. “She’s already quite impressive for her age and I am confident she did her work well, but it never hurts to leave a second round of finishing touches to another healer so as not to exhaust oneself…”

Minor scrapes and several large bruises dotted the boy’s skin, quickly swallowed up and mended in the wake of Lithian’s spellwork. He also gave a second pass over the areas where Akara had already focussed her attention, seaming together the last inner bits of damaged flesh and closing over the rest. Midway through the process, though, Lithian’s brow furrowed a fraction. While he never would have noticed it before — perhaps not even several years ago — the contrast in his experiences with healing people of all sorts that came through his shop, as well as attending to both Casseth and Ataya and Akara as they grew, had provided him with a wealth of active background in recognizing the finer details of different magical signatures. Particularly, as in this case, the subtle inconsistencies between those of a pureblood line — which had only one source or ‘current’ of magic, whether it be a clan or the outside bond of an imprinted weapon — in contrast with those of hybrids, who had two.

Lithian’s gaze flicked over, studying the boy for a long moment and debating before smiling a bit. “Akara…fetch me a vial of ground olvic leaves, would you please?” Glancing sidelong to eye the ‘shadow’ that had managed to slip into the threshold on the opposite side of the room, he hummed knowingly. “And take your brother with you.”

Ataya narrowed his eyes. “Uncle—”

“Please, and thank you. I want a brief conversation with our guest.” Lithian tilted his head a fraction, eyes back on the boy. “Who has, for the record, yet to introduce himself to me…”

“Think?” Ataya repeated, sparing a last frustrated glance in the direction of the intruder. “About what? What’s he doing here? Did he not try to hurt you?”

As his niece and nephew left the room, their voices fading out, Lithian’s attention returned to the boy — Nesrinn — and he relaxed his posture at the words, giving a more comforting smile in an attempt to put the boy at ease.

“You are welcome,” he said. “And free to leave any time you please. I will not keep you…and no one here will hurt you. You must forgive my wariness. The man who shares this house with me is hybrid, as are my niece and nephew, as you have seen. As such, few of the visitors we get here are…entirely well-meaning. That is not why I wanted an audience with you, though.” He watched the boy, weighing his tension and uncertainty and debating the best way to state his point. “Magic is a curious thing, you know. It can tell us multitudes, but also occasionally reveal secrets we may not be so eager to have in the open. Having the mark of an imprinted weapon intertwined with the magic signature of your clan, for instance…” He waited a moment. “Do you share orderite, or oblivionite blood? And is this something you would rather me not mention? Or something you do not hide…”

Mentally, Lithian winced at the admission. Though he had no preference, he knew that though Detraeus had grown more or less accustomed to Casseth’s highly limited orderite blood, the man was far less likely to extend the same ‘courtesy’ of his tolerance to another — young boy or not. Visibly, though, he only nodded. “You’ve nothing to fear. I know you have no reason to trust me, and I do not expect you to, but I will assure you, just the same, that you may relax in this house, and that your secret is safe with me…” Lithian’s attention flit to where Ataya and Akara had disappeared from. “You may be on your way, if you like — or, if you would rather, you are free to stay for a meal. What brought you to this beach?”