Chapter Text
Sklonda arrived at the café where she was meeting Tectoyna Karkovnya about five minutes early. It was one of those nice coffee shops, with exposed brick that looked like it’d been mortared yesterday and stupid industrial lighting fixtures–the ones where the shape of the filament is visible from inside the bulb. She ordered a decaf and looked around the coffee shop.
It wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t too busy, either. Maybe a dozen patrons in a space built for at least thirty. Among them was a stern earth genasi woman with smooth copper skin and solid gold eyes, dressed in wide legged black pants, red silky blouse, and a gold brocade vest. Professional, but whimsical. The sort of thing Sklonda would expect out of a wizard.
She walked up to where she was sitting, decaf in hand, “Hi, are you Tectoyna Karkovnya?”
Techtoyna raised her eyebrows–heavens those eyes made her hard to read–and said, “Sklonda Gukgak?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
She stood and held out her hand, “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Sklonda shook her hand, “I’ve been told your work is very impressive.”
“Told?”
“I don’t really have the knowledge to understand it,” she confessed. The whole reason she was here was to acquire a wizardry tutor.
“Ah, yes, it is rather dense arcane theory. It’s inaccessible even to some of the most celebrated scholars of the field in their high towers, I can’t blame you from bouncing off it.”
Sklonda hadn’t even tried to read it, “Well I hope that one day I might know enough to understand it.”
“Many people hope to one day manipulate reality with a snap of their fingers, but few ever achieve it. If you’re interested in achieving power through your hope, you’d be better off turning to prayer.”
“I’m willing to put in the work.”
“Are you sure about that?” Tectoyna asked, intensity burning in her gaze, “Because it’s more work than you think it’s going to be.”
Sklonda crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “When I was pursuing a promotion at the BCPD I regularly worked 70-hour work weeks. I did all of my paperwork, on time, and then I fixed everyone else’s. Before that, in college, I had a full course load, two part time jobs, a sick parent, and a social life. Even all the way back in high school, I played two sports, ran the book club, participated in three more clubs, and graduated valedictorian. I know what it means to put in the work.”
“I see. Yes, those skills will serve you well when learning wizardry. It is a maddening field of study to pursue.”
She hummed in agreement and sipped from her coffee. Decaf. Heavens she couldn’t wait to drink real coffee again.
“What are your ambitions? I’m an excellent researcher and a passable teacher for self-directed and creative students, but there are plenty of basic wizardry instructors that I could recommend to you if you simply wish to learn magic.”
“I’m interested in arcane theory,” Sklonda replied.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t understand it.” she echoed Kalina’s derision from earlier, “Magic is an extremely powerful force in this world and I have no idea how it works. I never had a chance to. But now that I’m older and have an opportunity to pivot, I want to learn magic and change the world with it. I’m not interested in casting Teleport twice a day and calling myself a wizard. I want to engage deeply with what magic is and bend it towards my will, undirected from pre-existing spells.”
“You speak of ritual work,” Tectoyna identified.
“Do I?” She asked, as if Kalina hadn’t tasked her with designing a ritual.
“Well, creating one’s own spell is a rite of passage and a worthwhile endeavor, but the most powerful workings–the ones that change the world–are rituals. They require an immense amount of research, arcane knowledge, and invention to develop. Fewer and fewer wizards create their own spells these days, uncurious and content with the toolbox that has been given to them. I fear the practice of magic–that is to say, the unrestrained exploration of the multiple spheres of existence–has fallen out of fashion.”
“How awful.”
“Yes. It is.” Tectonya agreed, “If this is what you wish to pursue, I will do my best to support you in those endeavors. Can you cast anything?”
“No.”
“I suspected as much.” She held her hand palm down and slowly performed a series of motions, first tapping her pinky with her thumb, then lowering her middle finger and inverting her hand and touching the middle finger with her thumb. She snapped, and…
Nothing happened.
“Try it.”
Sklonda repeated the motion herself. It was simple enough.
“Repeat after me: manimagcré.”
“Manimagcré.”
Tectonya performed the hand motion as she spoke the word: “Manimagcré.”
A red, spectral hand appeared out of thin air, the same size and shape as Tectonya’s with a number of duplicate rings on its fingers.
Sklonda moved her hand just as Tectoyna had and repeated the spell’s verbal component.
Something happened when she snapped. Something like electricity and running water and satisfaction and tasted like salt. It felt nothing like any of those things. Her will stretched out like an accordion across planes and snapped back together to manifest a gold outline of her hand, translucent and immaterial.
She imagined it laying flat on the table. It complied. She willed it to replicate the motions that created it and said “Manimagcré.”
Nothing happened.
“Ah. Good instincts. You cannot use Mage Hand to perform the somatic component of spell. Would be cool if you could, but that’s not how it works.”
“Huh,” Sklonda continued to stare at her hand, willing it to move in this direction or that one. She had it pluck a napkin from the dispenser at the table and drop it in front of her. She had it zip across the room, but at some invisible point, it disappeared in a puff of gold dust.
“Mage Hand has a range of thirty feet,” Tectoyna explained. “but it can still move around, interact with objects, open doors, carry something lighter than ten pounds. It’s a very useful spell.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Sklonda casted it again, feeling the strange sensation of magic once again shooting through her body and forming a Mage Hand. She drummed its fingers against the table, “If I tried to use this thing to do my makeup, will it poke my eye out?”
“Yes, makeup would be more trouble than it’s worth with a Mage Hand. Possible, but not a fantastic result. However, it is an excellent scribe.”
“Good to know,” Sklonda attempted to will the hand out of existence just by thinking about it and sure enough, the hand dissolved into gold smoke.
“Very good.” Tectoyna praised. “Cantrips are very easy to learn for adults with fine motor skills and refined pronunciation, but most people never bother trying. Of course some of it comes down to aptitude, but the other factor is inaccessibility. While the instructions for higher level spells are searchable, it is assumed that everyone interested in learning magic already knows a cantrip or two.”
“I see.”
She rattled off a list of book recommendations that Sklonda frantically scribbled down on a napkin. Maybe she would pick these up from the library on the way home. Or she could do it tomorrow. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do since she’d quit her job.
“Are you available to meet here every week for the foreseeable future?”
Sklonda nodded, still listing book titles.
“Excellent. I look forward to seeing your progress.”
“I appreciate the guidance. Without it, I’d have no idea where to even start.”
“Well, that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? The current paradigm of magical education is based on who you know and institutional learning. It prevents people from blowing themselves up attempting magic, sure, but it also gatekeep. I can show you another cantrip next week, but for now, practice with Mage Hand. Use it creatively, it’s a versatile spell and I think you will find it very useful.”
“Alright. Thank you for the direction.”
“Yes, of course, and enjoy the readings, I look forward to discussing them with you next week.”
Business concluded and guidance acquired, Sklonda nodded to Tectoyna and left the café, her cup of coffee only half-drunk.
~
Pok dropped his workbag in the threshold of his suite. Solace’s diplomatic mission to Fallinel was well established and had been since the country’s inception, thanks to Queen Alexandria’s connections with the Elven Oracle: Eleminthindriel, who was still the Elven Oracle to this day.
Who was Pok’s target, as decreed both my Kalina and his bosses at the Secret Service.
Bitterly, he wondered how many strings she had to pull to get that to line up so cleanly.
At least the suite was nice. Not much of a kitchen, unfortunately, food was provided by the embassy. But there was a microwave and a mini fridge, comforts from home. Sleek grey cabinets and a bookshelf sat against neutral-blue walls. There was a small table, a couch, and a large plant sitting next to a floor to ceiling window, exposing him to all of Stellemere. The bedroom was simple, but nice. A dresser, a wardrobe, a queen size bed and a nightstand with a lamp. The bathroom was much the same with its sparkling black and white tiles and open spout faucet.
It was nice. Sterile. Spartan.
Pok would have to add a few things to make it feel real. He had a picture of an old girlfriend he could frame and put on the nightstand, he could buy some nondescript landscape painting to hang on the wall, and he could put ice cream and Solesian beers in the mini fridge.
Everything was a story. And Pok would rearrange this room to tell the story of a boring bureaucrat who had a personal life, but didn’t put too much time into it. Someone who wanted art on their walls but didn’t know what made good art. Someone who missed the creature comforts of home.
Someone so boring and typical no one would ever find them suspicious.
Someone who wasn’t secretly trying to resurrect an ancient deity of fear and nightmares.
“Nice digs.”
He turned around to find Kalina impossibly perched on the back of a chair. It took all his training not to jump out of his skin.
Heavens he fucking hated her.
“Thanks.”
“Pretty nice salary too, working this gig. Much safer than your last job too, and hey, you’re moving up in the world! Congratulations.”
The fact that it was all thanks to her went intentionally unsaid. Pok heard it anyway. She knew he heard it.
“Thank you.”
She smiled too sharp and slid down from the chair to sit on the table in front of him, “You’re very welcome, sweetheart.”
Silence.
“Did you need anything from me?”
“Need? Oh, no. You already have your orders. I don’t have to remind you of what’s at stake here.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
He had a suspicion.
“Come on, I’m sure you have some guesses.”
“What does it matter to you? What the fuck do you get out of it anyway? You can’t feel anything.”
“Oh, but sweetheart, you can.” Kalina cupped his neck and lightly scratched the base of his hairline.
His body lit up with pure ecstasy. It radiated out from the point of contact, warming him from the inside out. The feeling kind of reminded him of a nicotine hit.
It was fantastic.
Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t stop a gasp from escaping his throat as Kalina toyed directly with his nervous system. It was a fucking violation.
But they both knew he got off on that shit.
“You’ve always acted like you don’t want it, or like you don’t care but you do. You always have. The cocky secret agent persona doesn’t hold up when you admit to yourself that you are selfish. That you want love and comfort and a normal life just as much as anyone.”
Kalina removed her hand from the back of his neck and gestured out at the window, “Go ahead, Agent Gukgak. If you’re really as loyal to your country as you say you are, you’d jump out that window before betraying them for me.”
“You’re threatening my wife,” he said lowly.
She made a face, “Now why would I do that? Sklonda’s the one who actually listens to me. Are we really going to keep playing this game or are you finally going to admit to yourself that you want this?”
“I don’t.”
“Fine. Keep lying to yourself then.”
Kalina suddenly appeared in front of him, cradling his face in her paws and kissing him. He could feel her claws resting against his scalp, her palms against his cheeks and her lips on his.
He tried to push her off him, but his hands passed right through her body. He stepped back, and she just followed, practically glued to him.
“Sto–”
The moment his mouth was open, her tongue was there. He bit down and Kalina didn’t pretend to react to it. The sensation of her pointy teeth digging into his lower lip persisted even as his mouth was closed.
Kalina’s image stepped away from him, but the feeling of her mouth on his, her hands stroking down his back, her torso pressing up against him–it didn’t stop.
There was nothing he could do to make it stop.
He didn’t want to.
Pok stumbled into the bathroom, avoiding the harsh gaze of the mirror as all sorts of sensations started to play around on his body. Icy cold on his shoulder, electric tingling in his hands, growing heat and warmth in his groin. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before, given a pleasurable edge by Kalina literally tweaking his pleasure sensations.
He stripped out of his suit, leaving the pieces on the cold tile as he staggered into the shower. Kalina was already leaning against the wall, watching intently.
Pok reached his hand down to pump his cock, but his hand was too rough–too much pressure on a dick already alive with sensation. His hand was too dry and clumsy compared to Kalina’s master manipulation of his nervous system.
Touching himself in this state would have been like painting a massive black streak across a masterwork. Too stark, too contrasting, too much. No, all he could do was stand here panting, balling his hands into a fist and then opening them in a futile attempt to relive tension.
“You wanna come?” Kalina taunted.
Pok squirmed and looked up at the ceiling.
“Look at me.”
He gasped as she dragged a line of fire across the underside of his cock and looked at her. His body was practically shaking at this point.
Pok looked at her.
“Admit that you want it.”
He looked away from her.
The feeling of a hand smacking his cheek had him turning his head back to look at Kalina on instinct. He nearly came right there.
“Listen to me when I speak to you, Pok, I know you can do better than this. You have to tell me you want it.”
“I don–”
He cut himself off with a moan as he felt something grasp and pump his cock rather than just teasing it.
“Admit it,” Kalina repeated.
“Never.”
His body convulsed as she lit it up in pleasure, tearing another moan from his throat as he rode a wave of bliss that almost felt like an orgasm. But instead of the wave subsiding, it just continued, the sensation building without climax, a rollercoaster climbing up and up and up as electricity and fire and cold ebbed and flowed through his body without release.
Pok screamed, “Please!”
She was uncaring of his desperation, “Do you want to come?”
He didn’t want to let her win.
She already had.
“Yes!” he gasped, and the next second cum was flowing from his cock like the faucet turned on. Pleasure filled him, sure, but better than that was the sheer release of sensation. His skin tingled from its absence.
“See? You like this,” she taunted.
Pok didn’t confess anything. He was too busy pumping fresh air into his lungs.
Kalina sighed, “You know, some days I feel bad for you, now that you’re not going to die some perfect, glorious image of a secret agent.”
“Why?”
“Because one day, you’ll have to reckon with the lies you tell yourself.”
Pok didn’t even have a chance to respond to that before she disappeared, leaving him alone with a limp dick, cum splatters, and a discarded suit.
~
Sklonda couldn’t wait for her son to be born.
Not necessarily because she was excited to be a mother or that she wanted to meet her child or anything like that. Mostly she wanted to stop being pregnant.
She collapsed on the couch with her bags and bags of baby stuff. Mom gave her the crib she’d used for her kids and an old handwoven blanket to use as a baby sling, but she had to buy new baby clothes and formula and dippers. So many dippers.
Rika collapsed next to her. Of all her family members, her sister had been the one who’s reaction she’d worried about the most. And while she’d strongly encouraged Sklonda to get an abortion instead of a marriage, she’d ultimately been supportive.
“Damn. That was a lot.”
“Try doing it while pregnant,” Sklonda rubbed her bulging stomach. It wouldn’t be long before this whole terrible affair was over and she could drink coffee and alcohol and eat raw fish again.
Rika huffed and rested her head against the back of the couch, “I’m never having kids.”
“You work with kids all day.”
“Exactly. I don’t need to be coming home to them.”
“Yeah, and it’s not like you have a boyfriend or anything.”
Rika grabbed the tissue box off the end table and threw it at her. Sklonda caught it easily.
“Hey, not all of us just happen to find the one guy in the world who can pull off a pencil mustache.”
She laughed, “Oh yeah. But when he’s got that five O’clock shadow and there’s just a little bit of stubble–”
“Heavens, you guys already made a kid, don’t make another one so soon.”
“Oh heavens no, absolutely not,” Sklonda declared emphatically.
She was never doing this shit again. The moment she could, she was getting back on her birth control and never going off it. One kid was more than enough.
Especially if Kalina was telling the truth about them being a sorcerer.
“Not gonna give little-Gukgak a sibling?”
“Nope.”
She huffed, “Yeah can’t blame you for that. Kids are a lot.”
“Yeah,” Sklonda agreed, almost breathless with it.
In a couple weeks, she would be responsible for taking care of a baby. A living, breathing baby that she could kill if she fucked it up too much.
“You know you can ask for help if you need it, right?”
“Yeah,” She agreed.
Sklonda was never going to do that. Rika had a job at their old high school, she wasn’t going to get her to come all the way across town just for some babysitting. After all, it wasn’t like she was working anymore. Taking care of a baby while learning wizardry should be fine, right?
Right?
At the very least it couldn’t be as bad as college.
“Ugh. I need water but I don’t want to get up.”
Sklonda casted Mage Hand and directed it through the steps of opening the cabinet, pulling out a cup, turning on the tap, holding the cup under the tap, setting the cup down, turning off the tap, and bringing the cup to Rika without spilling. Broken down like that, it was a lot of steps, but if Tectonya was right, someday it would be as second nature as getting a glass of water with her own hands.
“Look over there,” she said.
“Where?”
While she wasn’t paying attention, Sklonda directed her Mage Hand to slide the cup across the end table and then dispelled it.
“Huh, I guess it was nothing,” she said.
Rika looked at her suspiciously, but didn’t say anything.
“There’s a cup of water on the table,” Sklonda pointed out.
“No there is–huh.”
She looked at the cup, then back at Sklonda, “Was that there before?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. I didn’t notice it.”
Rika took a sip of her water, and Sklonda raised her hand to cast the spell again.
“Careful.” a voice that wasn’t really there whispered in her ear, “Are you sure you want her to know you have magic? What if she questions it?”
Sklonda wanted to brush that off. Of course it wouldn’t matter if Rika knew she could cast, she was her sister. It was just wizardry, it wasn’t like she knew anything about Kalina or the plan or her kid being a sorcerer.
But… it was a clue. It might just be enough to make her suspicious, it might be enough to pique her interest, to get her to dig deeper, to find more discrepancies, to find out the truth.
And then she would have to die.
Sklonda couldn’t have that.
She aborted the motion and simply rubbed her belly instead.
Rika tracked the movement, “That kid’s gonna have one hell of a life ahead of it.”
Sklonda laughed, too loud. Oh, she had no idea how right she was, “Yeah. They will.”
~
The delivery room was complete chaos.
Pok would have thought that people who delivered babies every day would have been calmer about it than him: a first time parent.
That was completely not the case.
He sat in a hard plastic chair next to Sklonda, holding her hand. Well, she was crushing his hand. It’d be a fucking miracle if this didn’t break any of his bones.
She looked like she was experiencing the hardest workout of her life. Her breaths were only even thanks to constant reminders from him and the doctors, her skin glistened with sweat, and her face was blue from exertion.
Somehow she was still beautiful.
Sklonda scrunched up her face and screamed silently. The nurse at the end of the bed called out, “She’s crowning!”
“You’re doing great, honey.”
She just groaned again, a bead of sweat dripping down her forehead as she pushed.
“Come on, Sklonda,” Kalina encouraged, because of fucking course Kalina was here too, “It’s time to meet your kid.”
Finally, she screamed, full throated and guttural, the cry of an animal in pain followed by a gasp as something came out on the other end of her body.
Pok shot out of the chair and walked over, right in time to watch them to snip the umbilical cord. Kalina watched over his shoulder.
His first sight of his kid wasn’t very clear, crowded out by other people’s arms and medical instruments, but he could still catch sight of an ugly blue face and a tiny, fragile body. His eyes were screwed shut and he screamed like a fucking banshee.
Sklonda craned her neck to try to see them, “What is it, is there something wrong?”
The nurse and the doctor exchanged glances, “Screaming is good.”
“Is something else not good?”
“His body temperature is far too low, he should be… ma’am I’m not quite sure how your son seems alive and healthy right now.”
Pok and Sklonda exchanged glances. Kalina crossed her arms, “That’s perfectly normal for a shadow magic sorcerer.”
Pok cleared his throat, “We had some, uh, suspicions that he might have some magic? We didn’t exactly get it checked but…”
“Yeah, there could be a magical explanation for this. I’ll order an arcane scan.”
The nurse took their kid away to be scanned and weighed and all that other stuff while the doctor turned his attention to Sklonda, “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve just taken the biggest shit of my life and my body has deflated like a balloon.”
“Any pain?”
“Nothing unbearable.”
The doc nodded, “We can get you off the epidural now, expect to be coming down from that soon. You didn’t need any stitches, the vaginal area seems to be in good shape, as soon as we get your baby checked out, you should be good to go. Do you have any questions for me?”
Yeah, how much was this going to cost?
“No, thank you.”
The doc nodded and left. Pok listened to his wife breathe a sigh of relief and sat back down at her side.
“It’s over.”
“As long as nothing’s wrong with the kid,”
“Nothing’s wrong with your kid, he feels fine.” Kalina declared. “Screaming his ass off, but he’s fine.”
About an hour later, Kalina’s words were confirmed as the nurse returned with their kid all swaddled up. She presented it to Sklonda.
His wife looked at their kid like it was something between a miracle and a piece of shit on the sidewalk. Her hands were shaking as she reached out to take them, cradling their son in her arms. Pok got a good look at him for the first time. His expression had smoothed out into something peaceful and chubby, with a delicate little nose and huge ears. His eyes were sill screwed shut and his head was bald, but Pok thought he could see traces of them both in their son.
Their son.
Silent tears streamed down Sklonda’s face and when Pok felt something fall down his cheek, he reached up and touched a tear.
Kalina broke the moment with a simple, irreverent, “Cute.”
Pok ignored her, instead reaching out for their son. Awkwardly Sklonda lifted him out of her lap and passed him to Pok. He took their kid, gingerly, taking care to support the head as he brought his son into his arms.
He had a son.
It felt like such a mundane miracle. A child that was the perfect combination of him and Sklonda, a child who would have better parents than they did, a child so would learn and grow and live and surpass them in every way that mattered. Pok held pure potential in his arms.
He held his son.
“Alright, final thing before the birth certificate goes out to print,” the doctor announced, “what’s the name?”
“Riz. Riz Gukgak,” Sklonda said, “First name R-I-Z last name G-U-K-G-A-K.”
Their son Riz.
Welcome to the world, kid.