Torielle was happy to see the young colt relax as they spoke. She saw a little bit of tension leave his shoulders, though not entirely. He seemed fairly alert, and why shouldn’t he be? It appeared that he was in a strange land, and the more he spoke, the more she believed that he was not of Novus, just as she was. The mare pondered for a moment what that must be like. 

When she had first come to this land, it had been so startling, in such stark contrast to what she knew in so many ways. It had shaken her to the very core of her being. While the earth still lay beneath her hooves and there was an infinite sky above her head, it was foreign. Though trees swayed in the passing breeze and flowers bloomed in spring and died in the fall, they were different plants than she was familiar with. It was as if everything in her world had been skewed just a little to the left, her perspective shown as perhaps if she had been born to another set of parents other than her own. It had been the sort of alienating feeling that had nearly broken her, combined with the loss of her goddess… it had been almost an unbearable tragedy. 

She had many years on this colt. He was just a boy. It saddened  her deeply to think that he might be feeling the same fears that she did. And yet, when she looked into his eyes, there was not as much fear as there was curiosity. It seemed instead of being crushed by this new world, this child sought to understand it, and his place within it. The Sages would have loved that kind of knowledge-seeking. It strengthened something within the mare that her long self-induced exile had weakened. Slowly, hope bloomed in her chest. 

“The trees rarely speak with words we understand,” she mused. “Feelings, though, that is something that you, and I, and the trees can easily understand.” Her tail flicked briefly, the coins that decorated the copper locks clinking loudly. If the bells were soft and sweet like a whisper, the coins were heavy like a booming laugh. “I’ve found it is often best to listen to what the trees have to say. And the library is a safe place to snooze if you feel compelled to.” 

His question gave her pause, however. It was not one that she had ever been tasked with answering. While magic was not nearly as common in her homeland as it was here in Novus, it was something that she’d had almost inherent knowledge of growing up. How did one explain the existence of something that was so diverse, but by all accounts, truly unknowable? 

Torielle hummed for a long moment, choosing her next words carefully. “That is… a difficult question. Magic is many things,” she spoke slowly at first, deliberately. It dawned on her that how she chose to approach this topic would likely shape the colt’s ideas and understandings about the world. Perhaps not very much, but in the case that he took the proffered knowledge like a fish to water, she wanted to make sure that the words she used were the ones that she truly meant. 

“Some use magic as just a word to describe a feeling they might have. To say a moment was ‘like magic’ or was ‘magical’.  It’s usually a good feeling,” she said, deciding this would be the easiest place to start. “When I use it as a word to describe a feeling, it’s usually a happy feeling, like being warmed by the sun. But not just my coat, but inside, in my soul. My heart feels happy when something is ‘magical’ to experience.” The mare smiled, giving him a moment to process that sentiment before continuing. 

“But when I say that the trees have magic, and that we have magic in us, I speak more of a ‘something’. It’s similar to a feeling, sometimes. Like you felt a pull to the library. You didn’t hear words, but you had a feeling that this place would be safe for you, and that it wanted you to be here.” She bobbed her head, bells tinging. “Some would say that is a form of magic. But when magic is a ‘something’ it can be a lot of things. When I first came to this land, I saw a stallion who had lightning that decorated his wings. It danced across his feathers, but it didn’t harm him. That was a kind of magic. The kind that was gifted to him, either by his birth, or from the gods. I have seen others that can grow things, or talk to different creatures with their minds. These abilities, in one way or another, however they came to have them, are in their own ways, magic.” She paused, mulling that over for a moment, and then proceeding. 

“That kind of magic, though, is special. It seems to be more common here than where I come from, but not everyone has those kinds of gifts. Not like the simple magics we use in our daily lives, the ones we are all born with.” She cast her gaze around the nearest shelves and her eyes landed on a slim volume a few feet away. If he were to follow her head movements, he would see the book easily slip free from the shelf and hover in the air for a moment before moving slowly closer and then gently being lowered to the pillow in front of her by some unseen force. She glanced at the worn leather cover and saw that the tome was a short book of fairytales- how fitting. Torielle smiled. 

“Things like moving small objects, or wearing jewelry or baking breads, or other small tasks we do every day are a little bit of magic. We don’t often think of it like that, but it’s true. The little part of us that’s in tune with everything else in the world is what makes us magic.” She looked back up to the colt. 

“So you see, there really isn’t a simple answer. Magic is a feeling, but it can also be a gift or a skill you have that no one else does, but it’s also the part of every one of us that makes us who we are. Not everyone believes it, not all the time, but I think that part is okay, too. Magic is something that comes from before any of us were ever born, and will be here long after all the creatures of the earth no longer wake with the sun and sleep with the moon. It’s all around us, and it is part of us, and it is part of what we can do, and what we can see. It’s a feeling that you hold in your heart, and it’s sometimes something you can touch. Magic can be anything and everything, all at once, and I think that is pretty neat.” 

She let the idea hang in the air. Perhaps she had been too long winded, or hadn’t explained anything at all in the end. It was never anything she’d had to think about before, and in needing to explain it, she’d found it was something she had never really questioned. Magic had always been something that was- she’d never needed to really know how it worked, or why, just that it existed. Being asked to ponder the very being of it had sort of twisted the mare’s brain in circles a little bit, and her expression turned apologetic. 

“I’m sorry if that was quite confusing; if I can I’d like to explain it better, if you have questions. We all understand things differently, and perhaps the way I have spoken to you about it was not very helpful.” 



"Speech." | @Aeon