ORIGIN

It was Meissa who first noticed. Despite peeking at Lyn's body curled beneath the shallow moat, she could feel his magic—or what felt like his magic—returning to the refuge, but it seemed hesitant, floating in the barrier. Her ears twitched, wings shuffling, before she bounded like a weasel to the place where she could sense it. Whiskers and tendrils twitched on her nose.

Her eyes were big as saucers as the small, orange body of a stranger pressed through the warding shield Azigh had given to them. She took little steps back, flitting as she did so, but her expression was not fear. It was surprise! Excitement!

"HELLO!" she greeted loudly with her small voice. That was definitely dad's magic, but who was this!? She could feel her body wriggling, feet tippy-tapping as she danced in place, continuously backing up to make room for him to enter the refuge. Her mouth kept opening and closing, as if she were going to say more, but ultimately nothing but airy aahs came out.

At the center of the refuge, the giant white flower pulsed with blue lightning, the labradorite at the center bursting with a bright, shimmering glow—and in one smooth motion, the flower wrapped closed as Lyn's body snaked beneath the water until his head lifted gently from its surface. Meissa was whipping her head back and forth between them. A soft trilling bubbled from his throat, the sound rumbling through their secret garden with warm and welcoming vibrations.

A series of coos and soft sounds followed, and although Meissa would have translated immediately, her head tilted and she let out a flat, "...huh?" As if in disbelief, she turned her attention to the stranger, eyes narrowing. "Dad says you can understand him?" She very much doubted that, but again, it was his magic she sensed from this fluffy guy that was half her size.

And indeed, if Vander tried, the soft sounds would take on meaning in his mind; and while Lyn could not express a full vocabulary, the intention was still the same:

"Welcome home! Welcome home! I thought that they had killed you!"

He did not yet rise from the moat, but stared from it with wanting eyes. The shift in the garden was noticeable immediately: a surge of empathy through all of the living things within. The flowers waved as if in a breeze, a collection of animals called out with soft cries, and Meissa herself had turned to the stranger with tears welling in her eyes. She didn't know what this feeling was, but Lyn did not know how to contain it within only himself.

But the feeling... When he had found the stones, protected them, infused them with his own magic—by accident, a little—and the pride he felt as he guarded the forming chrysalises...! He had never known such joy, to watch the little bodies of his two creations grow quietly in their crystal wombs. The fear he felt when they were discovered. The hurt and pain he felt when they hatched, with looming shadows waiting to take them, and his pitiful cries as the tiny pups were hauled forcefully away from him. The searing blast of a Master's magic, the powerlessness as his legs crumbled, the empty and unknowing looks of his children as they disappeared beyond his reach.

"We'll test them in the Trials," said a voice.

"That's cruel! They weren't made for that!" laughed another, its tone mocking and mean.

Lyn shook his head, apologizing with a quiet rumble as he reigned his emotions in. Meissa hadn't know about that, and her heart was big with feelings from the experience.

"But you survived," she said with a gasp, turning to view the stranger again.

The refuge silenced as Lyn tried not to overwhelm their guest, but he simply could not contain himself before. He truly thought he had doomed both of those children to death simply by raising them with his own magic. A sound trembled from him, like quiet crying, and another surge of empathy released from him unknowing:

Whole.

"Where is your sibling?" he asked carefully, cautiously. Hopefully as well as this one was.