She is largely underwhelming, as magicians go.
She had defended no kingdom, has fought in no wars, made no monsters. She is largely unknown in Beqanna, simply another brightly-colored thing with a handful of offspring who themselves have largely disappeared. She matters only to a few, and that number dwindles by the year, as they leave or die off and she remains. For some reason, she remains.
She’d begged for death, once, but now she is perhaps too stubborn to die, or perhaps she believes it wouldn’t take, that she would try and would simply awaken again. So she doesn’t try. She lives, lightning over her skin, and she survives.
She had not known she was a magician, not for a long time, not until another had taken it upon herself to show her the depth of the power in her skin. Still, she has not done overmuch with the magic, for the one thing she longs to do – bring her back – is beyond her abilities.
“I have no desire to break the world,” she says mildly, though perhaps this is a lie, somewhat. The world has largely been unkind to her, and she thinks she might not mind seeing it crumble.
“The lightning came first,” she says, unaware she was going to share this particular piece of history until it’s sliding from her tongue, “and it’s my favorite. But I can do more.”
She takes a breath, focusing. She has not expanded it in any real way in quite some time, but she finds it comes easily, as if it had been lying in wait.
The lightning thickens around her, shielding her, an impossible ball of light. For a moment the electricity surges, crackling thick in the air, and then it retreats, and when she is again exposed, she is ink-dark, shadowed and feral, a mimicry of Haunt, a shadow creature of her own making. Her eyes, bright and yellow, flicker like lightning. She smiles, pleased with herself, pleased this small trick worked.
She continues, spurred on by her success. Darkness pulls around them, submerging the world around them in shadows, which she piles upon one another, thicker and thicker, laying the darkness until all that can be seen are two pairs of yellow eyes.
“What do you think?” asks one creature to another, voice floating in the darkness.
I’ll touch you all and make damn sure
Cordis
that no one touches me