I watched stoically, arms crossed, as Karyn started to dance and prance around the hideaway. My mood was dour, but I couldn't deny the curiosity that bubbled up inside. If we did have some new powers, well... That wasn't exactly a silver lining, but it was a welcome distraction from... I scowled, held myself a little tighter, and turned my attention back to Karyn.
She had started sheepishly stomping one foot rhythmically, and to my surprise, I could see that rhythm begin to take hold and ripple through the world around her. Soon she started stomping with both feet, back and forth in a wide stance like a haka dance. She looked ridiculous, but delighted in the waves she was making in the world around her, like a toddler with a floaty bouncing up and down in the middle of a tub. I couldn't tell what effect, exactly, she was having, but the leaves rustled, and the grass danced in unseen wind.
Curiously, I started to clap my hands to her beat, and immediately a gentle wind grew between us. Flustered at the strange intimacy I felt, I stopped.
"No, keep going!" she urged.
Meekly, I clapped softly, hoping the sound was too quiet to draw any attention from outside the glade. Power swelled and solidified, becoming the foundation of something more. I stopped clapping and watched in awe as Karyn started to sway playfully. Despite her footsteps taking on a different beat, the steady thrum she'd stamped out before continued on, acting as the foundation for what more Karyn now added to the rustic jig. She swirled her hands upwards, and the water in the ditch suddenly sprayed up behind her. It barely even got her wet, but she yelped and stumbled out of tempo. I watched the structure of the dance crumble into chaos, before settling back into gentle diffused ripples, like the surface of a lake.
"That was really impressive." I admitted.
"Yeah, well you should join in then." She urged.
"I'm fine," I insisted, feeling as ill-fitting in my body as my body was in these clothes.
"Stop being such a baby," she said dismissively, her voice taking on a sharp edge. She started to move again, but this time in a more silly pantomime of proper hindi dancer. She clapped her hands together, elbows out, and started to wiggle her head. I chuckled at her antics and shook my head. The ether of magic was equally nonplussed.
"A spring! A spring!" a sharp voice croaked out.
Both Karyn and I leapt at the sound and looked around for the speaker.
"We've had enough of muddy water, give us a spring." The voice was sharp and raspy, but the tone was boorish, like a rowdy young man.
It wasn't until we looked up to the trees that we spied the source, which only compounded our confusion. Perched on the branches of a pine tree above were a pair of ravens, one of them with puffed up feathers bobbing with amusement. But that wasn't everything. They were at once ravens and something more upright and spritely. Slender figures that were robed in dark feathers rather than growing them. One of them wore the shimmering plumes like an overcoat, and the other like a dress. Their faces were covered in beaked masks, and their bodies were completely hidden. Only their scaled talons were uncovered, grasping the tree branch. How did they do that? How did they have two forms at once? Immediately I was curious for my own sake.
The speaker interrupted my thoughts and croaked out in mockery, "Or if not a spring, another dance like that last one!" This time he did laugh.
"Roark, you're a fool to laugh, and if nothing else, that's very rude," an equally raspy but more demure voice from the raven wearing the dress cut him off.
"Hilarious, is what it is!" the first voice reiterated, deliberately misunderstanding her. "Have you ever seen a fish that can't swim?"
"Pay no mind to him, girls, we were simply investigating the spell being woven."
"If you call that weaving," the larger crow laughed.
"Hush!" she barked.
The smaller crow fluttered her wings and carried herself to a lower branch, though it also seemed that she glided gracefully down, her billowing black dress slowing her fall. "I am Nyrr, my ladies," she politely introduced herself, before continuing in a careful tone. "Though I must admit, I am curious," she said carefully. "Where did you come from, and how did you come to be so... stiff?"
"Only Jonny-boy here is the stiff one," Karyn cried out, matching the mocking tempo of Roark. "And maybe I'll give you another dance, if you tell me what you are."
"Oh, that'd be rich," Roark cawed. "But I was serious about the spring. This is the most reliable source of water in the south city, but that nasty gutter is practically rancid. Do these old corvids a favor, why don't you?"
"I can try if you tell me how," Karyn shrugged.
This did give the ravens pause.
"You don't know?" Nyrr asked.
"Nope," Karyn admitted.
Nyrr looked to me, and I just shook my head.
"Well..." she began. "To answer your first question, we're varricks... raven fae. This park is part of our domain."
"So you live here?" Karyn asked.
"Certainly not," Roark chided. "We live in the mountains further south, but we watch after the crows and feed on the field hobs here so they don't grow into something larger and nastier."
"Hobs, of course." I shook my head in exasperation at the growing absurdity of our situation. "Got to keep the hob population down."
Karyn squinted at me in irritation, then turned back to the varricks and asked, "So there are more magical creatures?"
"But of course," Nyrr said patiently.
Karyn continued, "So are there any other of... whatever we are?"
"Water spirits," Roark interjected. "I couldn't tell you what type, but I'm sure of that. Nyrr and I met a gaggle of you giggling girls when we followed the river south three winters ago." He mumbled under his breath, "Impish creatures..." then concluded assuredly, "But powerful and beautiful weavers."
"Maybe we could meet them," Karyn asked hopefully, glancing at me. "They could probably help us out."
Nyrr interrupted the thought. "Do you not have your own patron to guide you? That could be rather risky to visit them uninvited."
Karyn and I locked eyes and immediately thought of the great spirit we'd seen in the vision. "We do," I admitted. "We just don't know how to talk to her, who she is, or really anything about magic at all. You could say we're new to all of this."
The two appraised us quietly, then Nyrr fluttered back up to Roark. She started to pick at him with her beak, until, with an audible sigh, he professed, "We'll be happy to help you out... Though... neither of us have ever heard anything like this before. I'm not sure how water spirits can be 'new' to magic."
"It's a long story," Karyn started. "For starters, we were only justβ"
I interrupted her, "First, can you tell us how you change your appearance?" I bit my lip nervously. "I mean, I see you as Varricks, but I also see that you look like ordinary ravens."
They looked at each other, then Roark spoke up. "I'm impressed you can see through our masks, but the spell is merely a simple glamour."
"Right! A glamour!" I persisted. "How do we do that?"
"Well..." Nyrr began. "Our hatchlings usually make their first glamour out of nesting straw."
"Straw?" I asked.
She nodded. "Nesting straw is usually potent enough magic for a simple glamour. It won't fool creatures as powerful as yourselves, or any hunters, but it's enough to satisfy the veil."
"The veil?" I followed up.
"You really are ignorant," Roark stated, before explaining.
The veil, according to Roark, was the line between the mundane and the magical. It wasn't a formal barrier, so much as a general term to describe the natural separation that manifested between these parallel realities. Magic was justified to the natural world in ways that seemed to agree with the rules of the natural world, and so a glamour was only the cursory effort to guide that justification to show an appearance that suited the caster.
"You can weave more robust glamours, like our masks, but even the most meager of magical creatures has one by nature. The hobs, for instance, look like field mice or roaches."
"So it's passive?" Karyn asked.
"Of course," Nyrr continued. "In fact, I'm certain that your human clothes are enough to make you look human to anyone without the sight."
"So wait... why were people staring at us before?" I pondered.
"Probably because you were checking out your boobs," Karyn tittered.
"Oh, shut up!" I cried, then turned back to the crows. "So what do I look like now?" I asked.
"A lovely young human lady, of course," Nyrr offered politely.
I groaned and buried my face in my hands, to the confusion of the ravens. "And how could I look like a human man?"
The varricks were quickly becoming as confused as we were, but helpfully Roark spoke up. "Clearly, you need more help than we realized."
Nyrr continued where he left off, "We could make you a mask if you'd like. Nothing that potent, but it would be enough for mundane purposes."
"Do you have a trinket of the appearance you wish to assume?" Roark asked in conclusion.
I reached in my pockets but found nothing other than a pencil, some change, and my phone. With a sigh, I grabbed the fabric of my top. "Would a shirt work?" I asked hopefully.
"Yes, I think that would work just fine," Nyrr confirmed.
This story is 100% π
I have no clue where we're going, but we're going. lol.
