The Outcast

The following week brought a torrent of wind and rain which lashed at the windows and had the students running from their dormitories to the main building. Each entrance had been enchanted to dry them off as they walked through. Despite this, both flying and creature handling lessons were cancelled, much to Lily’s disappointment.

“Stop sulking, come try this out for size!” Dia grinned, slapping Lily’s left knee to get her attention. The fairy looked up from Aquatic Creatures: Care and Uses, tearing her attention from the detailed description of the Karai’s lifestyle.

“I’m not sulking, I’m reading.”

“You’re always reading.” Dia retorted, reaching out to snatch the book from Lily and hold it out of reach. The grin that spread on her face was full of mischief and amusement, never wavering even when met with an irritated pursing of Lily’s lips. Dia had recently discovered that she could extract a slight reaction from Lily when she stole her books, and she seemed to delight in the infrequent but growing obvious emotions that rose to the surface of Lily’s being.

“If I don’t do the reading, you wouldn’t have any homework answers to copy.”

“You calling me lazy?”

“If the shoe fits…”

It was very strange, talking back in a way that would sound mean if not for the smile that wound her words in a jest-filled embrace. It always brought tension to her shoulders, an underlying instinctive fear that she’ll lose a friend for her words. Dia, however, simply threw back her head, curls swaying and laughed brightly. Lily felt her lips twitch into a traitorous smile, her own laugh only kept at bay with the biting of her tongue.

“You’re a quick learner even when it comes to wit I see,” Dia beamed “One day, maybe you’ll do it outside the dorm room.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath.” Dia was the only one so far that Lily felt comfortable enough to let herself speak some of her mind. Holding out her hand for the book’s return, Lily sighed when Dia merely raised an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“I said stop reading and check this out, I’ve found some pretty terrific magic.”

Lily noticed at that moment that Dia was motioning to a second book, her eyes widening a little in befuddlement. “Since when do you study books?”

“I don’t, I skim read for anything fun looking.” Dia shrugged. “But this one, brilliant! It says here you can create music out of nothing.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah! It’s a Distortion spell, though I don’t know whether we’ll actually get taught it in class. But you’re damn good at picking up stuff like this so…” Her words trailed off as she looked up expectantly at Lily.

It took her a couple of moments, but quickly a twitch of a smile pulled on her lips “So, you want to use our free period trying to do that instead of our actual cover work?”

“Bingo! I always said you were clever!”

Rolling her eyes with a smile on her lips, Lily flung her legs over the edge of her bed to sit up. The book was handed over to her and she was given silence while she read through the page on the spell.

’The Caelicantus spell manipulates the sound waves in the air. The caster can either reproduce symphonies they have within their memory or create melodies of their own slowly over time; adding one layer of sound over the other.”

“You’re right, this sounds amazing. We never had that much music at home, only on special occasions.” Lily mumbled.

“Really?? I love a good dance.”

“I wonder if I can remember them enough to recreate them.” She mused before reaching out to grab her wand from the desk. It was strange to automatically reach for it now; she would never have expected the wand to feel natural there. It channelled her fairy magic to a more direct result than she had ever seen before, though of course, she could only test those out in the dead of night where no eyes could see. It wasn’t even a real wand, so she wasn’t sure how it managed to channel the magic, but she couldn’t deny the results.

Raising the wand before her, Lily moved the end in small clockwise circles slowly. “Caelica.” Immediately, she winced at the sound that shot from it. A loud, screeching noise that made her drop her wand quickly.

“Please tell me that wasn’t the music you knew!” Dia whined, rubbing her ears.

“No, I just didn’t quite get it right.”

“Any tricks in that spell book you’re constantly reading?”

“Basic Spells: Incantations and Their Tricks? It could do, hang on.” Lily picked up the wand from where it had clattered from the floor and walked over to her desk to find the large encyclopaedia of spell help. She flicked through to the Distortion chapter of the book and scanned through until she found the little section about the Caelicantus spell.

“Ah, here!” She prodded her finger at the page before reading it out for Dia’s benefit. “Keep the tune in mind clearly and make the first two circles of the wand quick and sharp, then slow the circles to a steady gentle pace. Ok, let’s try that one.”

It took many more times of creating either awful noises or nothing at all. But finally, around an hour after they had started, Lily managed to produce a very faint sound. It was like far off music, muffled by doors and walls.

“What kind of music is that?” Dia frowned “Why’s it so far away?”

“It’s the closest I ever got to it. I wasn’t usually invited to wherever it was being played. The other kids didn’t exactly like me.”

“Can’t see why not!” Dia grumbled as the faded music came to a stop with the lowering of Lily’s wand. “Well, I better get the hang of it so you can listen to some proper music!”

Despite the determination in her voice, her next attempt produced nothing more than a static crackling.

“Oh yes, I’m sure we could dance to that,” Lily smirked.

“I’ll just poke you till you dance.” Dia laughed before continuing her attempts.

If Lily had thought the comfortable feeling of a wand in her hand was strange, it was nothing compared to how bizarre it was to spend hours on end happily and contentedly talking, laughing and practising magic with Dia.

“Caelica” Finally, music filled the air. It was nothing like Lily had ever heard even from afar. It had a quick beat and a liveliness to it; instruments that Lily had never once come across were combined in a joyful song. There felt like no escape from the sounds, but it wasn’t something Lily ever thought she would want to escape.

The lightness of the sound, the chirpiness of its feeling, made her soul soar and her lips twitch upwards. There was a tension growing in her right leg as the urge to bounce it in time. Dia had begun humming along to the tune she obviously recognised, looking very proud of herself while sitting on her bed.

“Man, I love this song!” She exclaimed after a moment “When I was a kid, my pops used to drag me and mom down to the tavern and they used to play this one a lot. Pops never joined in, but my mom would get me to stand on her feet when I was little so I could dance with her. Either that or we’d twirl and flail like it was what we were born to do.”

“That sounds great fun, your mom likes to dance?”

“Liked” Dia corrected, smiling despondently causing Lily’s expression to change into troubled “She died a while back. Illness.”

“I’m sorry.” Lily cringed, remembering that Dia had in fact mentioned her mother’s death before and scolding herself mentally for bringing it up.

Dia sniffed a little and shrugged. “Yeah, it sucks. But being able to play the music we used to listen to will be nice. I refused to go to the taverns after she died; the old man wasn’t exactly any fun to be in them with.” She continued to turn the wand as she spoke.

Lily felt lost. For the first time in her life, she felt like she had to say something, but she had no idea what that would be. Swallowing loudly in thought, her eyes dropped back to the page describing the spell they were working on.

“You could teach me how you both used to dance to this music?” She suggested slowly, turning the book to show Dia what she was looking at.

’The caster may extend the music to keep it playing in turn with the songs they think of. While circling the wand, utter the word ‘Epektei’ to extend the time, and ‘Finiri’ to bring the sound to a close.’

“Try it out” Lily urged with a gentle smile. Dia glanced at the book, a small tentative smile pulling at her lips. She seemed grateful that Lily wasn’t prying into the subject further, or maybe she was simply happy for the chance to share something of such a precious memory.

“Epektei!”

Slowly, Dia lowered her wand and placed it on the bed next to her, a Cheshire Cat smile making her face brighten. “It worked!” Dia cried gleefully as she hopped up from the bed. Within moments, her arms were spread wide either side of her and she swayed and spun on the spot with an entirely childish giggle. She bobbed from foot to foot in time with the underlying beat. Not a couple of seconds later, she had turned to Lily with a fiery glee in her eyes and linked their hands to pull Lily to her feet. Dia moved Lily’s arms like she was the string master of a puppet giving Lily little choice but to let her body move awkwardly, though her feet remained planted in one spot on the floor.

Lily had never danced before; it wasn’t really done in the fairy kingdom. Dances were for weddings, mostly, and she had never once been invited to those. Her father had taught her the wedding dances, from the waltz to the quick-paced swing, but they all had specific steps and this dance which Dia was doing didn’t look like any of them.

“Just relax” Dia giggled at the awkwardness in front of her. “You don’t have to think, just move; wiggle, sway, hop, bop, whatever you feel like doing when you listen to the sounds.”

The instructions only made her feel more like a fish out of water. The more she tried not to think, the more she seemed to do just that. Dia kept moving Lily’s arms for her, but they were so uncomfortably out of time that she couldn’t ignore them and focus on the music. Her only saving grace in her embarrassment was that Dia’s laughter was not unkind, instead, it appeared fond. Perhaps she was happy that Lily was trying a little too hard even though she didn’t need to.

Lily wasn’t even close to getting the hang of it when their dormitory door opened, making them both jump, heads snapping around to look at the intruder. Were they about to get told off for the noise?

The girl who entered didn’t seem annoyed though. She walked with a sultry swagger and a smirk that could make people both wary and hot under the collar at the same time. Her short black cropped hair bounced a little by the base of her long earrings and her dark blue eyes twinkled with adrenaline. Lily could picture her in the old stories she had read as a kid; pirates on the distant sea, finally laying their hands-on treasure and delighting in the discovery of the legendary Sky City which, of course, didn’t really exist. This girl had that wild, explorer feel about her.

“I love this song!” Were the first words she spoke, her voice surprisingly deep for a female Lily thought. “How’d you get it playing in here?!”

Dia didn’t seem phased by the lack of knock before entering, nor the lack of introduction. “Found a spell that lets you play music out of thin air! It’s great right?!”

“Hell yeah! I thought I was going to have to break the age rules and sneak into the taverns in town to hear these again. Not like my fam is around to go in with me so I can get away with it.” The girl sighed dramatically as though it was a sin against all that was powerful that taverns had age restrictions. Her grin told the world she was only kidding, though. “I’m Tanith, living in the room next door. My roommate doesn’t get on with me though, so I won’t go get her to introduce ya.”

“Dia, honoured!” Dia half saluted in response before glancing at Lily who had still had hold of Dia’s hand with one of her own. “This is Lil, she’s quiet as hell, but great fun once she warms up to you. It’s like living with three cats.”

Lily absently glanced behind her at the two cats sitting on her bed, a small twitch pulled at the side of her mouth. However, she quickly looked back and smiled shyly to Tanith and raised a hand in quiet greeting. “Nice to meet you.”

“Wow, polite too. None of my mates back home are that polite” Tanith chuckled.

Lily flushed “Sorry?”

“No, don’t be. It’s nice.” Tanith waved away the apology “I should apologise that you probably won’t get the same courtesy, I’ve been told I’m too casual for my own good.”

“I’m sure we’ll be able to handle that!” Dia laughed. “Wanna learn this music spell?”

“Yeah, that way I can play some of the stuff my parents like to play!” Tanith half slammed the door in her excitement and shrugged off the long witches cloak she was wearing.

“Whoa, is that a snake?” Dia gasped in awe. Lily followed her eyes and saw a thin black creature coiled around Tanith’s right arm, its head resting on her shoulder with eyes closed.

“Yeah, my mom freaked out a little when my companion turned out to be a snake, she says the lack of legs is creepy. But I love my little Hebi.” Tanith tilted her head to kiss the tip of the snake’s nose, its forked tongue lazily flicking out in acknowledgement.

“I’ve not seen anyone with a snake companion yet, they’re pretty rare, aren’t they?” Lily piped up, remembering a snippet of information she had read on companion lore in witches. Tanith looked proud at the statement as she nodded.

“Yeah, because of that they’ve got the reputation for being unfriendly because not many people get chosen by snakes, but she’s just a warmth addict and lazy as hell.” She laughed fondly. “I think they’re just too lazy to actually turn up at companion rituals, so other animals beat them to it.”

“That would take a lot of the mystery out of them” Dia chortled before holding out the book they had been learning from. Holding up her wand and muttering “Finiri!” to silence the music in the air.

Tanith was much quicker at getting the spell to work properly, and the music she played was so much like Dia’s. It was quick-paced and jolly; it made her grin immediately and it wasn’t long before Dia was dancing again. This time, thankfully, she did not insist on Lily dancing with her; Tanith took up that role instead. She didn’t need guiding though; in fact, her style of dancing was considerably different. She rocked her head back and forth, making her hair flail around her face and ears. It looked like it would end up hurting if she moved her head too fast, but when she started shifting her shoulders as well Lily guessed it was less of a risk.

They spent the rest of the night that way, talking and laughing over the music. Lily would never have guessed that there were such simple ways to make friends.