Beware of Kittens! [Day 8.3, 8.4]

Day 8.3: The Nature of Magic

I watched as Vesna set to work on the elk carcass. Talons extended, she made clean, almost surgical incisions along natural separation points in the animal's anatomy, dividing meat from sinew with a skill that spoke of centuries of practice.

"You're quite good at this," I observed.

"One learns to be efficient after three hundred years of hunting," she replied. "Waste nothing, use everything—that's the way of survival in the North."

I nodded, retrieving my Codex to record what I was witnessing. "What parts are most valuable, magically speaking?"

"The heart-core holds the most raw power," she explained, carefully extracting the organ from behind the elk’s heart. The heart-core looked like an oversized white-bone diatom, with something crystalline-organic inside it. "It stores magical essence. The glands near the base of the antlers—these here—" she pointed to small, pearlescent nodules, "—contain more crystalline threads that allow the elk to magically strike its enemies."

I sketched quick diagrams of the elk's internal structure, noting the unusual coloration and placement of organs. Unlike Earth deer anatomy I vaguely recalled from biology textbooks, this creature's internal organization showed subtle but significant differences—adaptations to channel and store magical energy.

"And the silver root-like lines running through the muscle?" I asked, looking at the faint silvery threads that resembled nerve pathways but glowed slightly when she cut near them.

"Anima channels," Vesna explained. "They carry the magical essence of lightning throughout the body, similar to how blood vessels carry blood."

I made detailed notes about these channels, wondering if they corresponded to meridian lines from acupuncture or some other energy system humans had theorized about. Was magic in this world actually a quantifiable form of energy that followed predictable pathways and crystallized flesh?

Stormy supervised the entire process from atop a nearby table, her blind eyes somehow tracking Vesna's every movement. Occasionally, she would make cat-noises as if offering critique or approval.

"Seems like your cat has opinions on my butchering technique," Vesna noted with amusement.

"She has opinions on everything," I replied with a smile.

Once Vesna had finished dismantling the elk, I helped her package the meat in waxed cloth I'd found in the village's market stalls. I asked her to place the sealed meat onto one of the pub tables in a corner. 

"These should be stored separately," Vesna advised, packaging the blue glands with particular care. "Their energy can bleed into other tissues if kept too close."

“Go it,” I nodded. I meticulously labeled each package according to what it contained—heart, liver, regular meat, and the special glandular tissues.

Not trusting the Sirin, I moved the domain-sleigh closer to the smaller cold well entrance and carried everything down to the cold well in a rope net. There, I quickly arranged the packages on the shelves that lined its walls. The natural chill of the underground space would keep everything preserved.

With the meat stored and the remains of the elk—primarily bones, the heart-core and the magnificent crystal antlers—set aside for my "garden" experiments on a pub table, I built up the fire in the hearth, partly out of necessity as evening approached, but partly to observe Vesna's reaction to flame.

She shifted uncomfortably as the fire blazed higher, moving her seat slightly farther away, but made no complaint.

"Does the firelight bother you?" I asked, noting her subtle discomfort.

"Not severely," she admitted. "It's not like direct sunlight. Fire is... uncomfortable, like sitting too close to something very loud."

“Loud? How loud is the sun then?” I wondered.

“Very,” she replied. “Like she is screaming, howling all the time angrily at me.”

I chortled trying to picture the screaming sun and then considered recordings of sun— hurricane-like screams and rustles—captured by the Solar Parker Probe. Perhaps the Sirin heard something like that?

“Is there a type of light that’s not ‘loud’ then?” I wondered.

With a flick of her wrist, and a flicker of green hexagrams between her fingers, she suddenly produced several small, floating lights—pale green and blue orbs that drifted upward like bubbles, casting a gentle glow throughout the room.

"Will-o'-wisps," she explained.

I watched the glowing orbs bobbing gently near the ceiling, almost like Christmas lights swinging in the wind. "How exactly did you create those?"

"I simply... breathed out with intent," she said, as if this explained everything: "Magic flows through me and I release it shaped by my will. It's like... humming a particular note."

She hummed something under her breath and another emerald-gold hexagram ignited between her fingers. The hexagram detonated, showering the floor in silver sparks and the elk blood below our feet suddenly bubbled up and twisted, flowing into a single blood sphere. 

The Sirin waited until the floor was clean, then picked up the blood sphere and lobbed it into her mouth, letting out a satisfied purr as it popped within.

"So magic is like breath to you?” I asked as she licked her lips. “Something you exhale?"

"Yes, precisely," she nodded. "All women in Thornwild breathe magic out—we shape it, direct it, release it into the world. Men, on the other hand, draw magic in—they absorb it, strengthen themselves with it, become vessels of its power."

"That's why Yaga said men can't be witches," I murmured, recalling my first conversation with Grandhilda.

"Yes. Men become Dyrkjarls, delicious heroes of Perun, drawing power inward to enhance their physical forms. Women become bound witches, servants of Zemlya, breathing power outward to affect the world around them."

“Delicious?”

“I have eaten many men,” she confessed.

“Don’t you feel bad about eating people?” I asked. “Were you not human once?”

“Power changes those who wield it,” she said. “Mother-oak needed to be fed life to bloom each spring.”

“Mother-oak?” I repeated.

“Lisabella’s domain, that changed me from a Yaga to a Sirin,” she clarified. 

“Were you alive when it happened?”

“I was asleep,” Vesna shook her feathery mane. “I… abandoned my witchy-domain island, walked away and swam out of my boundary when I became enthralled by Lisabella’s song. She grabbed me into her hands and flew me away from my damned island prison. I passed out from the pain in her arms as she sang to me. When I awoke a while after, I was a Sirin.”

“I see,” I said. 

I decided to test an idea. "Stormy," I called, and the kitten perked up. "Come here, girl."

The cat stretched lazily before hopping down and padding over to me. I picked her up and moved her to the window sill, then to a shelf, then back to my domain-soil pile.

"What do you see when I move her?" I asked Vesna.

"When you move near enough to her—she becomes unplottable. She seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once, ghostly echoes of her appearing and disappearing across the room simultaneously. It's as if she exists in a hundred places at once, yet in none of them truly." She blinked rapidly, looking disoriented. "Only when she steps away from your domain’s influence does she become solid and real again."

"And my domain soil?"

"That I cannot see at all—it's a void, a dead zone for my magical sight. Where your soil exists, there is simply... nothing. Not darkness, not emptiness, but a complete absence of anything perceivable. It's as if that space doesn't exist in the Astral at all. Its unplottability gives me a migraine trying to determine where it is exactly."

"So, why did you agree to this pact so easily?” I ventured, setting my journal aside and snacking on a jar of pickled vegetables and smoked fish I had retrieved from the cold well earlier for myself.

Vesna fell silent for a moment, her feathers rustling slightly as she adjusted her posture. "I had little choice," she finally admitted. "My tree is dead, no longer calling out to me in the Astral. I am weakened, surrounded by enemies on all sides."

She gestured toward the window shutters. "Out there, the Jotuns grow bolder with each day." A visible shudder ran through her. "Jotunification is a fate worse than death—your soul remains aware while your body becomes a puppet of the Gygr’s will."

“And you know this, how?” I asked.

“Because I hear their screams in their Astral,” she let out. “Souls damned to inverted flesh, folded into themselves, twisted and wrong. They are abominations.”

"And you believe I can protect you from Jotuns?"

"You destroyed my thousand-year oak. You resisted my song, survived multiple encounters with me at my full strength. You hunted a crystal elk successfully," she said with what sounded like a hint of reluctant admiration. "And now, there's the pact of Nox between us."

I didn't mention that Minnow wasn't actually bound to me in any formal way—let her believe that the nav was my sworn servant if it reinforced our agreement. Better to maintain any advantage in this strange world where oaths apparently held tangible power.

"Tell me more about the nature of magic," I said, changing the subject. "What is it, exactly? Where does it come from?"

Vesna looked confused by the question. "Magic simply is. It flows from the gods, from the land, from the stars and moons above. It permeates everything, like... like..." She tried to find the right words.

"Like air?" I suggested.

"Yes, though more fundamental." She spread her wings slightly, making the emerald peacock eyes in each feather sparkle and reflect the orange fire and the silver blue light of the shimmering will-o-wisps from above. "The world breathes magic as all creatures breathe air. It pools in certain places—node points, ley lines, sacred groves. It gathers in living things, especially those aligned with particular gods or aspects of nature."

I considered what instruments might be fashioned to detect and measure these "pools" and "flows" of magic. If it behaved like energy—and everything I'd seen suggested it did—then it could theoretically be detectable and measurable.

"And when you cast magic—like those lights," I nodded toward the floating will-o'-wisps, "what do you do?"

“I picture what I desire and breathe mana out of myself,” she said.

"Can I have one of your feathers to examine?" I asked.

She hesitated, then pulled a dark-emerald feather from her wings with a wince and placed it onto a table, retreating quickly so as not to experience sensory deprivation. "Take it. They regrow."

Carefully, I plucked a small feather from the offered wing. It felt odd, prickled my fingers ever so slightly like constant static electricity, the emerald tip glowing faintly in the dim light. Under closer inspection, the feather's structure was unlike any I'd seen on Earth birds—the barbs interlocked not just mechanically but seemed to share those same crystalline-organic "anima channels" I'd observed in the elk's muscles, except tinted brilliant green.

"Your feathers channel magic," I observed.

"Yes, they reinforce my connection to the Astral Ocean," she confirmed. 

I tucked the feather carefully into my Codex. "And these differences between men and women in how they use magic—is that physical? In the body itself?"

Vesna seemed puzzled by the question. "It is the way of things. Men are vessels, women are channels. One is a vortex that draws magic in and the other pushes it out with intent. It has always been so. Men are more delicious because they store so much magic in their heart-cores.”

I pressed on. "Is there something in the structure of male and female bodies that creates this difference?"

She shook her head, clearly finding my questions strange. "The gods made it so. Perun draws power inward and moves so fast the sky trembles with lightning. Zemlya sends power outward—growth, healing, change. Men naturally follow Perun's way, women follow Zemlya's."

“And what if a man chose to align themselves to Zemlya or if a woman chose Perun?” I asked.

“Only a lunatic would choose such a fate,” Vesna replied. 

“Do you consider me mad then?” I wondered.

“Perhaps,” she replied. 

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Yes. Very much so. You are a magical nothing. A zero. I have never encountered anything like you nor heard of anyone or anything like you in my centuries of life.”

“Maybe, people like me do exist,” I pondered. “They’re just really well hidden.”

“Perhaps so,” she shrugged.

“Don’t be afraid of my Master, Sirin,” Minnow suddenly whispered from her mane. “He is kind.”

"Have you been in his dreams, little one?" Vesna asked, her voice suddenly wary. "Have you seen into his mind while he sleeps?"

Minnow shifted uncomfortably, its tiny form barely visible among the dark feathers.

She grabbed the ghostly creature from her shoulder and held it in front of herself in her hands. “Tell me the truth, in the name of Nox, little half-spirit!”

Day 8.4 Bound by Purpose

"No... I have not,” the stillborn undead finally confessed with a shudder at the name of the goddess of the Night. “He has not yet permitted me that privilege."

Vesna choked, realising that the nav didn’t do its dream-inception job on me yet. "Then how do you know that he is kind? A creature you cannot see or feel in the Astral, a being that appears to you as a voice from nowhere—what makes you trust him so readily?"

Her question was sharp like the knife of a blade. I found myself curious about the answer too.

Minnow stared back at Vesna from her hands, black eyes gleaming in the firelight. "The Warlock offered me shelter when the dragonfire poisoned the air and daylight weakened me. He spoke to me with respect, not fear or disgust as most do to the nightborn. And he did not destroy me when he could have." The tiny nav paused. "Understanding and kindness is rare... in this dying world. What would you have done, had I come to you at the height of your power a few days ago asking for shelter in your Mother-oak, Sirin?”

“I would have snapped your neck and fed you to my tree,” she replied after a deep pause.

“Why?” Minnow asked pointedly. “What exactly have I done to you to deserve such a fate?”

Vesna seemed to fall silent at that.

“Do you get it now? You would have done as your starved tree-domain would have commanded you to do,” Minnow stated. “Your tree was infected with White Blight too, dying. It turned you into her hunter, a killer. A vile monster not to be trusted.”

“I…” Vesna choked.

“It would have eaten you in the end too,” Minnow said. “White Blight eventually kills all trees, no matter how magical. One day, the roots of your nest would have strangled you while you slept.”

“W-what?!”

“Have any new Sirins been born from your tree since the White Blight came?”

“N-no,” Vesna replied. “I was trying to turn a girl who was hurt by the troll into a Sirin, but it wasn’t working. I thought that the Mother-tree would eventually heal her.”

“No. It wasn’t ever going to work,” Minnow explained. “Your tree likely sucked all the juices and life out of the witch you were trying to turn into your new Sister.”

“Abyss,” the Sirin breathed out. “How do you…”

“I’ve peered into the dreams of many in Svalbard,” Minnow answered. “They feared and hated you, thought of you often as their local menace, but could not locate your domain, nor catch you in the dark. They dreamt of you often—you were one of their darkest nightmares. They were praying for your death, waiting for the Blight to kill you just as it killed other, younger Sirin-birthing trees. Svalbard hunters were looking for you—instead, they found a dead tree filled with Sirin-husks close to the glaciers. The tree was dead as were its song-bird children, strangled by the roots, sucked dry.”

Vesna's eyes filled with tears. They shimmered like molten gold in the firelight, spilling down her feathered cheeks in glittering trails. 

"You did not know?" Minnow asked, its tiny voice gentler now. "You did not see the pattern in your sisters' deaths?"

"I... I thought they had been taken by wild beasts, hunters or Jotuns," Vesna whispered, her voice cracking. "Lisabella said the tree would protect us, that it would be our eternal sanctuary, our caretaker, our eternal, loving Mother! She promised..."

"She likely believed it," Minnow replied. "The first Sirins might not have known what would happen as the Blight spread across the North. The Sirin-Mother-trees were ancient even then, from a time before the ice came."

"A parasite," I said. “Your tree might have been symbiotic with your Sirin-kind once, but it had become a parasite to you and to all those around it because of the Blight.”

"The Sirin trees were maiden-sanctuaries once,” Minnow nodded. “Granting eternal life and wings to the girls with magical talent. The intensifying winters and the Blight changed them, twisted their purpose. They needed more and more life to sustain themselves as the world changed. My dream-mother read about it in the catacombs beneath Svalbard when she was young.”

Vesna released Minnow, who flitted back to her shoulder. She covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking as she wept.

"All those years of hunting day after day," she choked. "All those sacrifices. For nothing. I thought that… that I was going to get a little sister. That I was helping the Mother-tree. She… she sang to me that I…”

I felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy. Whatever Vesna had been, whatever atrocities she had committed as a Sirin, she too had been a victim of sorts—a witch transformed into a predator, bound to serve a corrupted entity that had been slowly killing her all along.

"Not for nothing," Minnow said. "You survived. And now you're free."

“Free for what, half-spirit?” Vesna wailed. “Free to serve a mad… warlock, one who is neither witch nor hero?”

“You are also not a witch nor a hero. My Master does not sound mad,” Minnow insisted. “He is a child of Svalbard who wished for great wisdom upon Glinka.”

“Wisdom?” Vesna blinked, wiping her face with her lanky, inhuman hands.

“Do you not pay attention to the way he speaks?” Minnow asked. “Do you not hear it? He speaks like a scholar, uses clever, complex words and displays wisdom and kindness far beyond that of a starved boy from a dying village. Look around you, Song of the Night–he collects books!”

Minnow pointed a small, gray hand at my pilfered book piles now covering numerous benches.

Vesna opened and closed her mouth.

“Are you… a scholar of old, Ioan?” She asked me, not looking at my direction. “Did River Glinka grant you the lost knowledge of old Svalbard?”

“She granted me knowledge from… elsewhere,” I said. “Another place and time, not Svalbard.”

The Sirin bit her lower lip.

“My Master liberated you from a terrible fate,” Minnow pointed out. “Think about it. Your own song mentioned chains. You must have known about it on some level—your domain manipulated you to do evil deeds, leeched magic from you.”

Vesna lowered her hands, her golden eyes wide with realization. "I... I felt so weak in recent decades. I thought it was the advancing ice, the dying land. But it was the tree all along, wasn't it? Drawing more from me with each passing season! Nox eternal!"

"Yes," Minnow nodded. 

"Then I owe your warlock Master a great debt,” Vesna let out. “One I did not realize until now."

"I wasn't trying to save you," I admitted. "I was just trying not to get eaten."

A strange sound escaped her—something between a sob and a laugh. "Regardless of your intent, Ioan, the result is the same. I am free of my tree's influence for the first time in centuries." She drew herself up straighter. "And I will honor our pact with renewed purpose."

I nodded, accepting her words. Her revelation changed nothing about our arrangement, but perhaps it would make her a more willing ally.

“Will you really?” I wondered. “And what if I ask you to do… unusual things?”

Vesna's feathers ruffled slightly, her golden eyes narrowing with suspicion. "What sorts of... unusual things do you expect me to do, warlock?"

I leaned back against my domain soil pile, considering how to explain my scientific interests to a medieval bird-woman. “To start off, I'd like you to function during the day."

"That's not possible," she responded immediately, dark, sparkly wings drawing closer to her body. "Sunlight burns me."

"You’re fine inside," I pointed out. "And it seems the irritation is manageable enough that you can still operate."

She glanced toward the shuttered windows. "Yes, but not at my full strength. My magic is... muted when the sun rides high. Plus her angry roar is distracting when the light hits me."

"That's workable. I don't need your full strength, just your knowledge and skills." I said. “I… can see better during the day, so that’s when you’ll have to work with me.”

Vesna groaned.

“Fine,” she conceded. “What else?”

“I need you to teach me how to read all of these books,” I said. “You can read, right?”

“I can read Nordstaii, yes,” She admitted, head tilted in that bird-like manner. "You cannot read? Then why…”

"I can't read your language," I clarified. "The symbols are unfamiliar to me."

"Truly Glinka took much from you," she murmured.

"And gave much in return," I added. "But there's more. I need to know about the catacombs beneath the village and what's hidden there. I need to understand what the Threshold building is and why it moves. I need information about the advancing ice and whether anything can be done to stop it."

Vesna's golden eyes widened. "Stop the ice? That's impossible.”

"Nothing's impossible until proven so," I countered. "In my experience, most 'impossible' things simply haven't been properly studied yet."

“What else… Will you want from me?” A note of concern creeped into her voice.

“I’ll want to see all of your magic,” I said. “Repeatedly.”

“Why?”

“To understand it. I’ll need to do controlled tests of how magic interacts with different materials. How your powers work. The limits of what you can do.

"You wish for me to perform magic while you... watch?"

"Not just watch. Measure. Record. Compare." I said. “For example, I learned that you see through the Astral, not with conventional vision. That you metabolize crystal elk antlers directly for power. That you can't see my domain soil at all. These are important data points."

She looked perplexed. "Data points?"

"Facts. Evidence. Building blocks of understanding," I explained. "I want to understand how magic works in this world. Not just use it, but truly comprehend it."

Vesna exchanged a glance with Minnow, who seemed equally confused by my enthusiasm.

"Magic simply... is," she repeated her earlier sentiment. "Like wind or rain. Some are born with talent to wield it in specific ways to ascend via specific ways, while others end up mere mortals, snacks for the strong.”

"That's where we differ," I said. "I question everything."

"A dangerous trait," she remarked.

"Knowledge is power," I countered. "And in a world filled with monsters, I'll take all the power I can get."

Vesna considered this for a long moment, her talons tapping rhythmically against the wooden floor. Finally, she nodded.

"Very well, warlock. I will help with your... experiments. I will shape your crystals and teach you our language. But," she raised a taloned finger, "you must promise something in return."

"Besides protection and shelter?"

"Yes." Her voice grew softer. "You must promise to share what you learn. If you discover some way to halt the ice, some method to push back against the dying of our world... you must include me in that future."

The request surprised me. I had expected something more immediately self-serving.

"You care about saving this world?" I asked.

"It is the only one I have," she replied simply. "And I have watched it die day by day for centuries. If there is hope to be found, I would see it realized before my final breath."

I nodded slowly. "Fair enough. If I find a way to stop the glaciers, you'll be part of that effort."

"Then we have an agreement," she said, extending her hand—carefully keeping enough distance that my domain wouldn't render her senseless. "I will be your guide to the mysteries of Thornwild, and you will be my hope for its salvation."

I didn't take her hand, maintaining the safe distance between us. "Start with the crystal lenses. Shape them to my specifications."

"As you wish," she said. "Though I have one question before we begin this partnership in earnest."

"Go ahead."

"What exactly are you, Ioan? I know you're no ordinary witch-domain bound boy. No mere victim of River Glinka's bargains. There is something... different about you that goes beyond your unplottable domain."

I considered how to answer. The truth seemed both too complicated and too unbelievable, even in this world of magic and monsters.

"I'm someone who knows things they shouldn't," I finally said. "Someone who sees the world differently than you do. Whether that makes me more or less than human, I'm still figuring it out."

She accepted this non-answer with a thoughtful nod. "Perhaps your understanding will reveal the truth of your nature as well."

"Perhaps it will," I agreed, though I suspected the answer to that particular mystery lay not in this world but in the one I'd left behind—a world of science rather than magic, of biochemistry rather than witchcraft.