Fic: Initium (G)
Title: Initium
Author: Stoicstella
WordCount: roughly 1,700
Rating: Safe for general audiences
Character(s): Eileen, her mother, her grandmother
Challenge: The Pure-blood Prince Fest (prompt: magic)
Summary: In the beginning there was no magic, but Eileen learns from her grandmother it’s history and with it her own.
Notes: Wrestling with some personal stuff these past couple months meant I had to really push to get the deadline on this, so I am going to post it without Beta with my apologies. Unsolicited betaing is welcome.
Also, I am not Greek, but I did try, to the best of my knowledge, to be accurate in any Greek based details I added. If I failed let me know. It was not my intention. Enjoy.
In the beginning there was no magic and everything was dark and difficult. The darkness was so perfect, so absolute that no one feared it or questioned it. The darkness just was and all who lived in those times knew nothing of the light.
To this world magic was given.
Pinching only hurts if one thinks about the pain. Eileen found this was true about almost any pain but the practice was in the pinching. A piece of flesh caught between two fingertips and twisted if she focused on the pinch could be nearly excruciating, but if she thought about something else, pushed pain far enough away from her mind, pain had no power over her.
The suggestion of one’s will is at the core of all magic. Eileen’s grandmother had told her as much. The easiest way to be powerful was to control her desires.
Eileen’s grandmother was a very powerful witch. She’d told Eileen a witch’s power was exactly equal to that witch’s will for power. She’d told Eileen that only the witch who wields the magic could decide how much magic the witch would wield. That had been the day she was given her first grimoire. Scrawled in the front was a narration. Her mother had called it a fairytale, but her grandmother said it was their story.
It was about the beginning.
It was just one woman who brought the first spark into existence and with it the first flame, a fire warm and bright to cast shadows on the walls of all time. The light, just as the darkness before it, was neither a force of good nor a force of evil. The light just was but those who saw themselves for the first time in its rays were frightened and their fear consumed them.
“Yiayia, tell me about magic,” Eileen pressed for the fourth time that morning as she pushed the weeds around with her foot. Her desire to know all her grandmother could tell her itched like bugs under her skin. She knew how Yiayia hated when she whined but she couldn’t help the way her voice pitched.
“Patience, my child. What must be learned will be learned.”
“You always say that,” Eileen pouted, leaning her weight from one foot to the other as the path became more narrow and her grandmother set a slower pace.
“That is because it is true,” Yiayia countered directing one crooked finger toward the sky. “I can not ask the sun to tell me about the stars. The stars will come out and tell me about themselves. In due time.”
“Magic will tell me about itself?” Eileen asked incredulously, casting a petulant glare at her feet for good measure.
“Yes, of course it will. Magic is rich, ancient and always growing. It will tell you much more interesting tales then I ever could.”
Eileen felt her feet grow heavy with disappointment as the silence grew. Her grandmother really was not going to tell her anymore about magic.
“Yiayia?” Eileen demanded, “Why doesn’t mother want me to know about magic?”
“She wants you to learn about practical magic, child. She wants you to be able to brew a pain serum and clean the top shelf of the pantry, which I am sure you will learn how to do. She doesn’t want you to make magic into a fanciful thing.”
“...but why?” Eileen was truly bewildered.
“Because she has forgotten what fanciful things feel like I suspect.”
The fear became a living thing, growing and feeding until those who would walk in the light and those who would crouch in the shadows could no longer live in any kind of harmony. A chasm grew, those who embraced magic flourishing on one bank and those who despised it flourishing on the other.
There could exist no peace or compromise between the two factions. Those who could not or would not choose a side were forever lost into the depths of the chasm, swallowed by the fear between them.
“Yes well obviously it works, but what I want to know is why it works?” Eileen pressed, watching the spinning blue flame in her grandmother’s cupped hands.
“Surely I can’t command anything at all in Latin and it will just happen. What about the laws and principles that keep everything from falling apart. Doesn’t there have to be a balance?”
For a moment she thought she had once again pressed her grandmother too far and there would be no answer. Lessons on magic often ended this way. She’d convince her grandmother to show her something and talk her out of it all in the same breath.
“What does it matter why?” Her grandmother said finally tossing the ball of flame up into the air where it dissipated into a fine blue smoke.
“You do not ask your foot why it moves forward at your command. It is in your power to make these things so, and therefore they are so,” was her simple response.
“Now speak the words,” she commanded.
Eileen murmured the incantation lazily, holding her hands out in front of her chest. Nothing happened.
“Speak them with intent, child! Wish for flame,” her grandmother insisted stomping a foot in Eileen’s direction for emphasis.
As Eileen spoke the words for a second time she felt her voice pitch in a way she had never felt it go before. In her minds eye she saw flames shooting in great arcs out of her hands, conquering and devouring. She felt a great swell of magic raising within in her and then... a light that would not look out of place on a birthday candle appeared at the tip of her thumb before flickering out of existence entirely.
“An accomplishment to be sure,” her grandmother remarked fondly, as Eileen stared dumbfounded at her empty palms.
“But it’s nothing, isn’t it?” Eileen asked sadly.
“It is a spark, Eileen. A spark is not nothing, it is the place from which all fire began,” her grandmother assured simply taking Eileen’s small hands into her own. The creases of her grandmother’s hands felt cool against her heated ones, and she sighed a bit in relief.
“Magic is alive. It will grow as you grow, and blossom as you blossom,” her grandmother assured still holding their combined hands together between them. “There is no rush for big flames.”
For many years the two groups were satisfied to stay on their own side of the divide, content in the safety of those like themselves, but an unknown fear began to grow amongst them. To keep each side away fences were built and guards were posted. As the paranoia grew armies were formed. The two sides could no longer live knowing the other was also living.
War erupted.
Crimson petals floated gracefully from her grandmother’s wrinkled palm into the liquid below. The caldron sighed in response. Her mother was standing in the corner, back rigid with a frown somehow reaching all the way to her temples. Eileen found it hard to concentrate on the lesson her grandmother was giving while her eyes kept darting back and forth between her mother and the cauldron, but she couldn’t help it.
“I’ve no intention of showing you this twice,” her grandmother’s voice sounded and Eileen jumped, turning her head guiltily back to the potion.
Her mother’s silence was somehow louder then her grandmother’s words, however and before Eileen even realised she was going to do it she was looking over her shoulder at her mother again.
“Why can’t I teach the other children to play Gobstones?” She finally asked for the third time that morning.
“Oh for the-- do you really want to know why?” her mother responded, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “First it will be the Muggles, then the ministry’ll be on my arse. Galleons will be spent to keep the whole thing quiet. All that, just so you can impress some dim-witted muggles.”
“They aren’t dim-witted, mother. They’re uninformed,” Eileen corrected petulantly, but her mother was not really listening. She’d gone off her perch in the corner and had begun to pace about the kitchen pulling open cabinets and slamming things about.
“Oh, bloody brilliant they are. They just don’t know anything. My mistake,” Her mother muttered over a mixing bowl before turning swiftly and pointing a wooden spoon menacingly in Eileen’s face. The bowl continued to spin so violently on the countertop that a thin white powder rose like smoke in the air.
“You wanted magic. I allowed you to learn magic. You can’t have both. In this world you must choose.”
In the aftermath the few who remembered the ways of magic remained huddled together warmed by their belief in their knowledge. The others, emboldened by their victory, flourished, aged and forgot. The fear, though, did not dissipate.
Yiayia kissed her on the forehead in the station. She’d been humming serenely most of the morning, every now and again breaking out into verses of Greek songs Eileen hadn’t heard her sing since she had been very small.
“Today you are officially a young witch,” Yiayia said as Eileen struggled to heft her heavy school trunk onto the train.
Eileen tried to push the butterflies in her stomach aside as she turned to hug her grandmother goodbye, but she knew the anxiety was written all over her face.
“Magic is your birthright, my child. It is within you,” her grandmother reassured, patting her on her back firmly.
“You’ll do fine,” she added before releasing Eileen from the embrace and pushing her toward the train.
“I love you, Yiayia,” Eileen called from the window over the roar of the train leaving the station.
“The most powerful magic of all,” Yiayia yelled back; “Storge, Ecoyennya, Agape.”
The fear followed the two peoples through the ages. It developed in their literature, in their poetry, and in their songs. It followed them in their pursuits of logic, in their entertainment, and in their careers. It grew in their hearts and it hid in their minds…
but there was also love and with that hope.
Author: Stoicstella
WordCount: roughly 1,700
Rating: Safe for general audiences
Character(s): Eileen, her mother, her grandmother
Challenge: The Pure-blood Prince Fest (prompt: magic)
Summary: In the beginning there was no magic, but Eileen learns from her grandmother it’s history and with it her own.
Notes: Wrestling with some personal stuff these past couple months meant I had to really push to get the deadline on this, so I am going to post it without Beta with my apologies. Unsolicited betaing is welcome.
Also, I am not Greek, but I did try, to the best of my knowledge, to be accurate in any Greek based details I added. If I failed let me know. It was not my intention. Enjoy.
In the beginning there was no magic and everything was dark and difficult. The darkness was so perfect, so absolute that no one feared it or questioned it. The darkness just was and all who lived in those times knew nothing of the light.
To this world magic was given.
Pinching only hurts if one thinks about the pain. Eileen found this was true about almost any pain but the practice was in the pinching. A piece of flesh caught between two fingertips and twisted if she focused on the pinch could be nearly excruciating, but if she thought about something else, pushed pain far enough away from her mind, pain had no power over her.
The suggestion of one’s will is at the core of all magic. Eileen’s grandmother had told her as much. The easiest way to be powerful was to control her desires.
Eileen’s grandmother was a very powerful witch. She’d told Eileen a witch’s power was exactly equal to that witch’s will for power. She’d told Eileen that only the witch who wields the magic could decide how much magic the witch would wield. That had been the day she was given her first grimoire. Scrawled in the front was a narration. Her mother had called it a fairytale, but her grandmother said it was their story.
It was about the beginning.
It was just one woman who brought the first spark into existence and with it the first flame, a fire warm and bright to cast shadows on the walls of all time. The light, just as the darkness before it, was neither a force of good nor a force of evil. The light just was but those who saw themselves for the first time in its rays were frightened and their fear consumed them.
“Yiayia, tell me about magic,” Eileen pressed for the fourth time that morning as she pushed the weeds around with her foot. Her desire to know all her grandmother could tell her itched like bugs under her skin. She knew how Yiayia hated when she whined but she couldn’t help the way her voice pitched.
“Patience, my child. What must be learned will be learned.”
“You always say that,” Eileen pouted, leaning her weight from one foot to the other as the path became more narrow and her grandmother set a slower pace.
“That is because it is true,” Yiayia countered directing one crooked finger toward the sky. “I can not ask the sun to tell me about the stars. The stars will come out and tell me about themselves. In due time.”
“Magic will tell me about itself?” Eileen asked incredulously, casting a petulant glare at her feet for good measure.
“Yes, of course it will. Magic is rich, ancient and always growing. It will tell you much more interesting tales then I ever could.”
Eileen felt her feet grow heavy with disappointment as the silence grew. Her grandmother really was not going to tell her anymore about magic.
“Yiayia?” Eileen demanded, “Why doesn’t mother want me to know about magic?”
“She wants you to learn about practical magic, child. She wants you to be able to brew a pain serum and clean the top shelf of the pantry, which I am sure you will learn how to do. She doesn’t want you to make magic into a fanciful thing.”
“...but why?” Eileen was truly bewildered.
“Because she has forgotten what fanciful things feel like I suspect.”
The fear became a living thing, growing and feeding until those who would walk in the light and those who would crouch in the shadows could no longer live in any kind of harmony. A chasm grew, those who embraced magic flourishing on one bank and those who despised it flourishing on the other.
There could exist no peace or compromise between the two factions. Those who could not or would not choose a side were forever lost into the depths of the chasm, swallowed by the fear between them.
“Yes well obviously it works, but what I want to know is why it works?” Eileen pressed, watching the spinning blue flame in her grandmother’s cupped hands.
“Surely I can’t command anything at all in Latin and it will just happen. What about the laws and principles that keep everything from falling apart. Doesn’t there have to be a balance?”
For a moment she thought she had once again pressed her grandmother too far and there would be no answer. Lessons on magic often ended this way. She’d convince her grandmother to show her something and talk her out of it all in the same breath.
“What does it matter why?” Her grandmother said finally tossing the ball of flame up into the air where it dissipated into a fine blue smoke.
“You do not ask your foot why it moves forward at your command. It is in your power to make these things so, and therefore they are so,” was her simple response.
“Now speak the words,” she commanded.
Eileen murmured the incantation lazily, holding her hands out in front of her chest. Nothing happened.
“Speak them with intent, child! Wish for flame,” her grandmother insisted stomping a foot in Eileen’s direction for emphasis.
As Eileen spoke the words for a second time she felt her voice pitch in a way she had never felt it go before. In her minds eye she saw flames shooting in great arcs out of her hands, conquering and devouring. She felt a great swell of magic raising within in her and then... a light that would not look out of place on a birthday candle appeared at the tip of her thumb before flickering out of existence entirely.
“An accomplishment to be sure,” her grandmother remarked fondly, as Eileen stared dumbfounded at her empty palms.
“But it’s nothing, isn’t it?” Eileen asked sadly.
“It is a spark, Eileen. A spark is not nothing, it is the place from which all fire began,” her grandmother assured simply taking Eileen’s small hands into her own. The creases of her grandmother’s hands felt cool against her heated ones, and she sighed a bit in relief.
“Magic is alive. It will grow as you grow, and blossom as you blossom,” her grandmother assured still holding their combined hands together between them. “There is no rush for big flames.”
For many years the two groups were satisfied to stay on their own side of the divide, content in the safety of those like themselves, but an unknown fear began to grow amongst them. To keep each side away fences were built and guards were posted. As the paranoia grew armies were formed. The two sides could no longer live knowing the other was also living.
War erupted.
Crimson petals floated gracefully from her grandmother’s wrinkled palm into the liquid below. The caldron sighed in response. Her mother was standing in the corner, back rigid with a frown somehow reaching all the way to her temples. Eileen found it hard to concentrate on the lesson her grandmother was giving while her eyes kept darting back and forth between her mother and the cauldron, but she couldn’t help it.
“I’ve no intention of showing you this twice,” her grandmother’s voice sounded and Eileen jumped, turning her head guiltily back to the potion.
Her mother’s silence was somehow louder then her grandmother’s words, however and before Eileen even realised she was going to do it she was looking over her shoulder at her mother again.
“Why can’t I teach the other children to play Gobstones?” She finally asked for the third time that morning.
“Oh for the-- do you really want to know why?” her mother responded, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “First it will be the Muggles, then the ministry’ll be on my arse. Galleons will be spent to keep the whole thing quiet. All that, just so you can impress some dim-witted muggles.”
“They aren’t dim-witted, mother. They’re uninformed,” Eileen corrected petulantly, but her mother was not really listening. She’d gone off her perch in the corner and had begun to pace about the kitchen pulling open cabinets and slamming things about.
“Oh, bloody brilliant they are. They just don’t know anything. My mistake,” Her mother muttered over a mixing bowl before turning swiftly and pointing a wooden spoon menacingly in Eileen’s face. The bowl continued to spin so violently on the countertop that a thin white powder rose like smoke in the air.
“You wanted magic. I allowed you to learn magic. You can’t have both. In this world you must choose.”
In the aftermath the few who remembered the ways of magic remained huddled together warmed by their belief in their knowledge. The others, emboldened by their victory, flourished, aged and forgot. The fear, though, did not dissipate.
Yiayia kissed her on the forehead in the station. She’d been humming serenely most of the morning, every now and again breaking out into verses of Greek songs Eileen hadn’t heard her sing since she had been very small.
“Today you are officially a young witch,” Yiayia said as Eileen struggled to heft her heavy school trunk onto the train.
Eileen tried to push the butterflies in her stomach aside as she turned to hug her grandmother goodbye, but she knew the anxiety was written all over her face.
“Magic is your birthright, my child. It is within you,” her grandmother reassured, patting her on her back firmly.
“You’ll do fine,” she added before releasing Eileen from the embrace and pushing her toward the train.
“I love you, Yiayia,” Eileen called from the window over the roar of the train leaving the station.
“The most powerful magic of all,” Yiayia yelled back; “Storge, Ecoyennya, Agape.”
The fear followed the two peoples through the ages. It developed in their literature, in their poetry, and in their songs. It followed them in their pursuits of logic, in their entertainment, and in their careers. It grew in their hearts and it hid in their minds…
but there was also love and with that hope.