ORIGIN

Well, the lights had come back on at some point, and Tuck was glad for that. He’d been getting extremely sick of wandering around in the dark, having to constantly cast a Light spell to see anything in front of him. Everything was in your way when you were only five inches tall. He’d also finally sort of gotten over not having Garmer for protection all the time, though he still found his own mind a strangely empty place sometimes. He hopped along, wandering Polaris mostly for the surge of Magic it gave him than for any other reason. That was when he spotted the Gemling up ahead.

“Hey,” he called out, coming closer and feeling no fear. He’d gotten over being so small a long, long time ago. “Welcome to the world.” He didn’t know if the pup understood him, but it didn’t matter. He liked talking to babies.

Oh, so the wolf pup could understand language. Well, she picked it up fast! Tuck was actually kind of impressed. He tried to think back and remember if he’d spoken so quickly at his own hatching, but all he could remember of that day was feeling very annoyed at something. Had Kin-Kin been there that day? His eyebrows scrunched in concentration, but nothing came to him, so he gave up reminiscing. He didn’t want to ignore the pup.

“I’m Tuck,” the marmoset replied. It had been so long since he’d used his full name that he never introduced himself as Tukluk anymore. He couldn’t think of a single Gembound who called him that. After this short introduction, he stood awkwardly, trying to think of something else to say. Was this the first time he was meeting a freshly-hatched Gembound? “Uhh…” he paused, wracking his brain for something to talk about. “I… like your… Stone.” He gestured towards the moonstone gem embedded into the pup’s forehead. “Oh, but… you can’t see it. Right. It’s pearly white, looks like…” He squinted. “An eye? Or something? It’s on your forehead.”

Tuck had actually kind of forgotten that his Stone was even visible. He couldn’t help but pull his chin down and try to look at it, but it was embedded into his collarbone which meant that he couldn’t see it unless he looked into still water or some other reflective surface. He rubbed it with the back of his paw, and then smoothed the fur down again over it, feeling oddly self-conscious. “Thanks,” he muttered, unsure of what else to say on the matter. He cleared his throat. “So, uhh… what kind of Magic can you do? Everyone can do at least one spell when they hatch, as far as I’ve been able to tell.” Tuck realized he might be confusing the pup, so he paused, trying to think of how to explain.

A thought occurred to him, so he said, “Hang on. Watch.” Then he called upon the Magic in his Stone and silently asked it to grow a flower for him, out of the back of his hand. The skin there tingled for a moment, and then a tiny little green sprout wiggled out from the fur and blossomed into the smallest little pink flower ever. “See? This is my Magic. I can grow flowers and things, or manipulate plants to do what I want.” He admired the flower for a second, and then asked, “So what can you do? Just focus on your Stone and see what happens.”

Tuck felt a gush of uncomfortably hot air wash over him when the wolf opened her mouth and exhaled. He winced, halfway expecting flames next, but nothing else happened. He opened his eyes again slowly, looking the wolf up and down. “Hmm…” he began, trying to think. “I know some Gembounds have… Fire Magic, but that wasn’t fire. It was just heat. Still… I can’t think of any other Magic that has heat spells.” He shrugged, not really sure what kind of spell that had been. “Maybe it didn’t work right?” he suggested in a questioning tone. “Maybe you were supposed to breathe fire or something.”