Somewhere in you there's a power with no name It can rise to meet the moment and burn like a flame
T
he oasis is the perfect place for me to study in quiet. I know that mom doesn’t like it when we wander off for very long, but the path to and from Vitae to our little cavern is probably one of the first things I ever remembered. Diana used it to sneak us off in the middle of the night often enough, and now the sun is bright and shining.
I’m nestled beneath a great reaching fern. Whatever sunlight manages to break through the upper canopy of palms gently dapples my skin through the fronds of the fern. I flip through the book of common desert flora and fauna, each page dedicated to a different plant or animal, with multiple pictures and a few short paragraphs.
I’m reading about Northern Ground Hornbills when I hear a soft rustling. My ears flick atop my head locating the sound. I glance up just as a Dorcas Gazelle comes into view, peeking cautiously through the underbrush as it makes its way toward the pool of water at the center of the oasis.
I wait for more to appear, but none do. It’s strange to see one of the small gazelle alone as they usually travel in large herds. I wonder if it got separated during an attack. I feel badly, watching it look around nervously without anyone to warn it of potential danger.
Flipping back through my book, close to the front, I find the page dedicated to my new little friend. I study the pictures for a long moment, but having a living example in front of me I figure this should be pretty easy. It helps that they’re also quite small; no more than foot tall at the shoulder.
So, I start to weave.
As my magic starts to twist and turn before me, the pictures of the gazelle float up from the page and dance around my head, almost as though they are running. Almost as though they are chasing each other. I have to be careful to stay quiet, or all of this will be in vain.
When my magic is done encompassing the images in the book, I glance up to find a second Dorcas Gazelle standing before me. My head hurts a little, but nothing too bad. It stands there for a moment too long without moving and I think maybe it didn’t come out quite right which worries me.
I take in a breath and quietly go, “Boo!” I don’t want to scare the first one, afterall. When it startles and bounds off in the direction of the oasis I smile a little and rest my head in the sand. Now to wait for them to notice each other.
"magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk."
What strange children they are.
Not that that makes her love them any less. After all, it is the strangeness Bexley has already seen in their mother for many years; and Diana, in particular, is strange in the way that O was strange, her soul born a century older than her body was made. Foaming at the mouth since the instant she could use it.
But Ambrose is quiet. Studious. Every week when Bexley comes to visit the little family, she finds herself watching him closely and affectionately. Something about his shyness, the look of reservation that is always in his darkly golden eyes, makes her feel the need to protect him. It’s obvious Diana can handle the world on her own. Dominate it, even. But Ambrose she’s less sure of.
Perhaps that’s why she feels a little prickle of anxiety at the sight of him lying prone under the wide leaf of a fern, a little dun-striped body flooded in shadow. He is all alone—all alone except for two Dorcas gazelles, tan and white with long, ribbed horns. One of them is standing significantly closer to Ambrose than a normal deer ever would. Bexley watches intently as, from his spot in the sand, Ambrose shoos it away, and the deer goes bounding off to join his friend closer to the bank of the oasis.
For a moment it almost looks like a mirage. For a moment, she thinks she can see the seam between the deer’s neck and chest, his leg and his torso, as if it is not a real deer at all but a ball-jointed doll painted to look like one.
But by the next second it’s disappeared over a dune. Bexley pauses, then trudges through the sand toward the little pegasus.
“Ambrose,” she calls out, voice warm. A rosy smile breaks over her golden face. “Good morning.”
Somewhere in you there's a power with no name It can rise to meet the moment and burn like a flame
I
think I only closed my eyes for a minute, to rest my head, when I hear my name called. My golden eyes—golden like the sand, or the sun—pop open and I lift my head from the cool, shadowed sand beneath me.
I glance quickly toward the oasis to see the tails of both gazelle disappearing into the undergrowth. The corner of my mouth turns up, and I feel as though I have accomplished something. I hope that they will be safe, and better, find their way back to a herd.
When I turn toward the direction my name had been called out from, I am not surprised to see our Aunt Bexley heading my way. I recognize her voice, and she is one of the few that I am comfortably familiar with besides Mother and Diana. I stand up and offer a brighter smile.
“Auntie Bexley,” my voice is a thin chirp, contented and joyful, as I carefully fold closed the book I had been reading. When we are close enough I gently touch my forehead to her shoulder, my dark waves tousling in a light breeze. My tail swings in a slow arc behind me, “I have missed you.”
It has not been that long since we last saw each other, but I am always grateful for the company of those who do not look at me strangely, or treat me differently. Mother treats us as though we’re fragile, and I know she worries, but sometimes I want to just be normal.
"magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk."
Bexley thinks the world has become calmer since they were born. Perhaps it is only that she feels, for the children’s sake, she must remain unfazed by even the things that used to terrify her—that she must show them how to be brave, while Seraphina shows them how to be cautious.
There are some things, some pains, that cannot be avoided forever. And Bexley has been through enough of them that she thinks it might be her job to show others where the line should be drawn.
She picks her way down the steep sand dune just above the Oasis, eager but unhurried to meet Ambrose at the spot where he is pulling himself up to standing. In the bright afternoon sun, his sandy-dun coat looks almost white in some places, as if Solis—his father?—has purposefully bleached him out. But still, from a distance, Bexley can see the royal gold of his eyes; the handsome darkness on his lips. When he grins, and calls her name, she grins back.
And if there is a part of her guilty that she cannot recall having moments like this with Apolonia, well—it is small, and overshadowed by the warm and mild joy that fills her when he presses his delicate head to her shoulder. She drops her nose to his withers, breathes in the smell that is so unlike his family’s, ink and sun-bleached parchment.
Bexley glances over her shoulder at the path the gazelle have left in the sand. It is fading by the second, but there are still little dished marks of hoof-prints in some places on the bank. “What are you reading?” she asks, gaze warm and dark on Ambrose’s, sparkling with a question. She knows it is the one he’s most likely to answer.
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