Unnatural Magic

by C.M. Waggoner

To emulate wealthier nations is not to abandon what makes us proud Daeslunders, but rather to ensure that in one hundred years our descendants will see in our history an unbroken line of progress . . .

She simply studied out of a deep and abiding faith instilled in her by her parents, by Mr. Heisst, and by every ounce of experience she had gained in her short life so far: that all problems could be solved with hard work, a pleasant smile, and advanced mathematics.

She was a reig like her ma: she had the head for books, the calm steady temper, and the will to be a leader in her clan and take care of any vahns who’d have her.

You couldn’t argue with a blizzard or with Tsira’s mother, but at least the blizzard wouldn’t criticize your logic if you tried.

It was, however, increasingly plain to her that she had gone wrong long before she had ever set foot in the room.

The law might have forced Weltsir to allow her to take the exam, but Weltsir would only ever accept exactly who it wished.

She didn’t see why, in a moment of great personal trial for her, he felt such a great need to talk about his feelings for her, as if whether or not he still thought she would make someone a fine wife one day must be her greatest concern.

“Not a woman, exactly,” she said. “I’m a reig. It’s different. Don’t really care if humans think I’m a man, if it makes things easier.”

Why do we move with the seasons? Because we prefer not to swelter in the summer and freeze in the winter. Because to stay all year round in one place increases the difficulty of maintaining an attractive and sanitary environment in our village. Because a long walk is healthy and gives us time to think. There is custom that rises from happiness.

Jeckran had always classed listening to anecdotes from other people’s childhoods as one of the more detestable possible uses of his time, but the thought of Tsira having ever been a child who had eaten honeycomb filled him with sensations of such tenderness that he was quite embarrassed by himself.

She grinned. She liked hearing him talk all right, but liked shutting him up even better.

“If believing in the rights of ladies to publicly engage in serious scholarship and of gentlemen to publicly wear a delicious magenta taffeta in the summer makes me a radical, then I can only embrace the label.”

She had many times throughout her life been similarly overlooked while some important personage spoke to her father, or Mr. Heisst, or even Sy. To be put in the position of speaking for a group of men was as thrilling as it was disconcerting.

She gave him a long look. “Set a trap for a rabbit,” she said. “Won’t hold a fucking bear.”

The sailors had young bodies and old faces, wrinkles so deep around the eyes that they might have been born that way.

“Forgive me if I speak out of turn, but expecting any man to occupy all of that enormous brain of yours would be, I imagine, an unfair burden on the poor fellow.”

I’ve killed two men, and I live like a prince and do as I please. It would be just for me to make a prison for the two of us,

I used magic, of course. What’s the good of being a wizard if one must still put one’s back out in the name of chivalry?”

Pretty is what one calls a pair of silk slippers or a potted orange tree. It loses its interest. No one is pretty after one has stared at them for fifteen years over the breakfast table. Attractiveness is a function of personality. Prettiness is lent to you by youth; attractiveness is purchased with experience.”

Can we say we know their clans when we knew them in their infancy? Can we say we know a people when we’ve never known their children?

He has relived and his soul remembers, and every retreading brings him closer to God.

Loga’s trees bloomed year-round. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Pretty, sure, but after a while you stopped seeing the beauty, like how the last bite of cake was always worse than the first.