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A strange feeling had plagued her all day. She had felt it at the cemetery, a place of calm for her. She felt it now staring down the abandoned covered walkway. Something about the way the hot sun was slanting in the windows while the first fall leaves rustled, the wind pushing them along the floor into the shade. It felt like a strange contradiction. It fascinated her.
         “I suppose you want to find out the cause?” Lainah jumped at the unexpected voice. She turned to find an odd little man nodding sagely at her. “Yes you do seem to have the trait,” he continued.
         “Um…excuse me, but who are you?” she asked. For an answer he held up his hand. On the palm was a marking she felt she recognized but could not remember ever seeing.
         “Want to know about it?” The little man seemed almost smug about his discovery. She nodded quickly. “Yes, you would; you are ever the curious cat.” A cloud passed overhead, darkening the sky for an instant.




Kiara sat by the stream concentrating with all her power. The tree across from her lost a few leaves.
         “Is that all you can muster?” The mage looked at her disapprovingly.
         “I’m sorry Master Vel.” Kiara sighed heavily. She was tired of everyone’s disappointment.
         “We just don’t understand it, we took you in and raised you knowing you held great power and yet these little trifles are all that you can do. You should be the most powerful sorceress the world has ever seen.” Vel shook his head. “There’s got to be something we’re missing.” He disappeared with a slight breeze. Kiara knew he was going to check the prophecies about her again. She picked a blade of grass and played with it in her fingers as she watched the water gurgle playfully in the sun. All her life she’d known about the prophecy of “The Great One” but she’d never felt that it was she. All the signs pointed to her, but she botched the simplest spells and often felt too much. Her emotions tended to control strange things, such as the weather and life or death for certain things around her. This scared the people at the school where she lived. It showed power for sure, but it was unpredictable, un-harnessed power. The disappointment of her teachers hurt. She did not know where her power came from and until she found that she would never be able to harness it. She walked back to the school through a steady rain that hid her tears.
         She approached the building from a small back entrance that few knew about. Shay was waiting for her. No words were needed between them. Shay just wrapped her arms around Kiara’s hunched frame. “You’ll get it someday, you’ll see. It’ll just make sense all of a sudden. You just haven’t found your groove yet.” Shay had watched Kiara since she came to the school as an infant. Shay had been a young student then and, like the other girls, liked to play with the baby, but, unlike the other girls, Shay hadn’t tired of the babe.
         “I suppose the whole school knows of my failure by now. Vel probably made his report by now.” Kiara said gloomily.
         “Vel never reported actually, But yes the whole school knows. The sudden rain gave it away.” Shay shook her head. “You’ve really got to learn to control your emotions. They’re dangerous for any wizard, but with you they could spell disaster.” She paused and looked intently at Kiara. “Remember the fire and the tornado.”
         “I know and I have been trying to control them, or at least find a way to keep them from affecting the weather, I just can’t seem to figure out the exact connection. Sometimes the weather changes before I even realize what I’m feeling.” Kiara sighed as she picked another piece of grass, having discard the other one earlier. The rain had stopped, but the sky hung low still, a sheet of drab gray. “I’m tired and I just want to be alone. I’m going to go to my room. But thanks Shay.” Kiara handed her the piece of grass that had been transformed into a beautiful flower unlike any Shay had ever seen. Kiara quickly disappeared. Shay looked at the flower and shook her head. When she got to her room she placed the flower in the middle of a heavy book to be pressed and added to the collection.
         Kiara wandered through the school paying little attention to the students, teachers and guests around her. She knew the way well enough by now. She had been brought here as a baby, a rare thing for the headmaster to do. She had lived her whole life here in this school for magic, rarely even venturing out into the town across the bridge. Promising children were sent here at nine to be trained. They left after passing many difficult tests at the end of each stage of training. The youngest to ever have passed them all was sixteen when she left. She had been the greatest sorceress to ever live. When she died a prophecy was made that foretold her return in a new child. Kiara was supposedly this great sorceress incarnate, but in fact she was just a great puzzle so far. The school was not a bad place to live. It housed a great library along with students and many guests coming and going on strange quests of their own. Kiara’s two rooms were on the uppermost floor of a mostly deserted wing. The headmaster felt that the seclusion would be helpful to Kiara, not to mention keeping others from accidentally becoming prey to her turbulent emotions. Kiara entered her secondary room first. She quickly scanned the numerous plants and saw all of them alive. She then turned towards the two cages. One for the two mice sleeping contentedly, the other housed an uncommonly intelligent looking sparrow. She moved towards it and began feeding it bit of bread from a pile near the cage.
         “Nothing again today, Tweet.” She said. “Well, except the rain. I don’t understand it. I do the same things as everyone else and still my emotions go uncontrolled. All the other 15-year-olds can control their emotions. They’ve also passed more tests than I. I barely passed the novice exam two weeks ago.” Kiara sighed gloomily. Tweet just cocked her head and chirped before fluttering to the other corner to preen. As she turned towards the door Kiara noticed several feathers littering the floor of the cage. Odd, she thought but her mind was too full to take in much more. She left and went next door to collapse on her bed and sleep.


         Vel approached the table with yet another book. Already the table was so full there was barely enough room for his notes. He’d been down in the vaults for a couple hours trying to find something new, some hint to Kiara’s strangeness. He heard Shay’s footsteps long before she appeared from the long stairway and he watched her cross the large room towards him.
         “Find anything?” She asked
         “No. Have you seen her yet?”
         “Yeah. She did it again, another flower I can’t identify.”
         “Do you think its another one from that other world?”
         “Yes, its certainly not from ours. I thought you’d read everything on The Great One and the prophecy. What made you come here again?”
         “Well,” Vel sighed. “I’ve begun to have a suspicion about The Great One and Kiara’s strangeness.”
         “Oh?”
         “Of all the research I’ve done, I don’t remember ever finding out what type of Mage she was.”
         “That’s odd.”
         “Odd to us now, but it makes perfect sense if she was a nature mage.”
         “Nature mage?! But those are dangerous. Why wouldn’t that be noted?”
         “Well it would be in the earliest records but remember back then nature mages couldn’t be controlled. It would have been hushed up just to protect her, especially after she showed such great promise and advanced so far.”
         “You think Kiara is a nature mage?”
         “It all fits.” Vel shrugged “we’re lucky we found her actually. Nature mages can go unnoticed for years, until its too late.”
         “We would have ended up with her anyway.”
         “What do you mean?”
         “Her parents were adventurers, rather famous ones at the time, that were always away. Since neither of them had any family, they left the girl here after she was born. People here could protect her and care for her. They stopped to visit for the first couple years but then died. I don’t think Kiara ever even understood they were her parents. To her they were just some more people in and out of the school.”
         “Sad. How’d they die?”
         “I think it was a dragon. They were seen in the vicinity of the last known dragon nest. No one saw them after that.”
         “Oh”
         “What do you plan to do with this new notion of yours?” Shay asked
         “Go to the Headmaster and see what he thinks.” Vel sighed. “I just hope I’m right about this.”
         “And if you aren’t?” Shay became nervous
         “It could destroy her.”

They found the Headmaster in his private garden. He sat quietly by a giant oak. Tristan was a severe looking man with a perpetually sad look in his eyes. He stood at the approach of Vel and Shay. “You have a new theory on our little one.”
         Vel hesitated. It always unnerved him the way the Headmaster knew so much before anyone spoke. “Nature Mage.”
         “I’m sure you’re aware of how serious an accusation that is. What makes you think that’s the source of her troubles?”
         “I did some research and everything fits.”
         “I guess I should be impressed. Nowhere is it written that Kalaine was a Nature Mage. She was a particularly talented one and in fact helped us understand more about Nature Mages. I’ve had my suspicions about our little one, but have seen no firm evidence yet.” Tristan shrugged. “I don’t even have the evidence I’d like to prove she’s Kalaine’s reincarnation.”
         “I don’t know about her being anyone’s reincarnation but she could be a Nature Mage She creates flowers, ones I’ve never seen before.” Shay approached the conversation hesitantly.
         “She creates…flowers?!” Tristan’s surprise showed in the paleness of his face.

         The young woman dragged the string slowly, moving it only a couple inches before she stopped and waited. The kitten tensed. The string twitched again and the kitten pounced. The woman laughed lightly. He thought about how her laughed sounded like a wooded stream.
         “There you are Kalaine.” He came up next to her. “Lying in the dirt again.” He grinned as she rolled onto her back and laughed at him. Finding no resistance, the kitten picked up the string and carried it to the side to play.
         “Tristan, you know better than to try to reform me.” Kalaine replied.
         “I would never want to. You are too dear to me just the way you are.”
         She stared up and the sky watching the few clouds move by. “You know I will go soon.” The atmosphere in the garden seemed to darken.
         “Please don’t speak of this now, my love.” Tristan pleaded.
         “I have to. I’m sorry it hurts you so. I am not meant to stay here.”
         “But here you have everything. There, you won’t even have your powers, your talent. That’s your birthright.”
         I will retain some talents. I will come again. When darkness reigns, purity and light will combine for dual ruler ship of this world.” Tristan heard the ring of prophecy and saw the glaze of far seeing in Kalaine’s eyes. He knew he had heard a prophecy and knew that very soon she would be gone. I am sorry to see you so hurt.” Kalaine said as she stood to go several minutes later. She rested a hand on his. “I will always be with you, though.” She left the little garden, the kitten at her heels. Tristan looked down and saw a beautiful white flower in his hand where hers had been moments before.


         Kiara yawned and stretched, rolling over to look out the window. The sun was shining. Sighing contentedly, she got up. A cloud passed over the sun as she walked into the next room. Feathers littered the bottom of the birdcage and a few were even strewn on the table around the cage. Tweet lay at the bottom of the cage, amidst the feathers, not moving. Kiara rushed over and gently lifted the bird out of the cage. Tweet chirped weakly. After inspecting the bird for any signs of injury, Kiara grabbed her cloak and rushed out of the room, carrying the sick bird. She wasted no time looking for Shay or any of the other senior mages; she hurried right to the city. Kiara had never been to the city alone before, it was required that she always be accompanied. But she knew where she was going and hurried to Jenna’s Potion Shop.
         “Jenna!” she called, laying Tweet carefully on the counter. “Jenna!”
         “I’m coming, I’m coming,” came a muffled voice from the back room.
         “Hurry, its and emergency!”
         “What can I do for you Kiara?” Jenna emerged, her brown hair was stiff and stuck up wildly. Her face had black smudges on it. The odor of burning rotten eggs followed her.
         “Something explode again?” Kiara wrinkled her nose at the smell.
         “Fire potion exploded this morning and mixed with a love potion. It apparently makes a rather potent stink potion,” Jenna grinned. She was only a couple years older than Kiara but she already had the best potion shop in the city. “So what is the emergency?”
         “I think Tweet is sick,” Kiara gestured to the counter where the half bald bird lay. Jenna carefully inspected the bird. She was silent for several minutes.
         “Well,” Jenna sighed and stepped back. “I can’t find anything physically wrong with her, except a bit of a fever.”
         “So is there anything we can do?”
         “I have something that might help,” Jenna stepped into the back room. She emerged with a small dark glass vial. “You must be very careful with this. It’s perfectly safe as long as you keep it dry. If the contents of this bottle should get submerged it will cause quite an explosion. But it should help lessen Tweet’s fever.” Jenna handed the bottle to Kiara and gently pried open the bird’s beak. “Go ahead and open it up. Give her one, make sure its only one, everyday.” Kiara uncorked the bottle and tilted it so a small crystal, about the size of a large grain of sand, fell into her palm. She picked it up and dropped it into the open beak. Jenna let go and the beak snapped shut.
         “Now where’s your babysitter?” Jenna asked, “That potion isn’t cheap.”
         “Oh, I’m sorry, can I come back later to pay? I was so worried about Tweet that I came alone,” Kiara’s eyes never moved from the bird.
         “You came alone? What were you thinking? It’s for your protection that someone comes with you. There has been some shady characters snooping around asking lots of questions about the school,” Jenna snatched up the bird and dropped it into Kiara’s hands as she hurried her towards the door. “Get back to the school this instant and don’t ever come here alone again!” She pushed Kiara out the door. Fear finally hit Kiara and she began to run. She ran through narrow empty streets taking a less populated shortcut thinking it quick and safe. A hand reached out from a corner causing her to stop suddenly and fall backwards as it grabbed the hood of her cloak. Tweet fell out of her hands, landing on the ground several feet away.
         “Ah, the ‘Great One’,” said a silky voice. Kiara looked up at her attacker. A cloaked figure clutched her hood, his face hidden by the large cowl on his head. She opened her mouth to scream but never made a sound as she was hit hard on the head.


         Lainah awoke to a steady rain drumming on the roof of a small cabin. A quick look around showed her she was on the only bed. A couple of chairs sat by a table in the corner. A candle illuminated a plate and a scroll atop the table. A fire crackled merrily, warming the tiny room. She was surprised to see a round little man hunched over the fire. She recognized him as he turned around. She suddenly realized where she was as the memories came flooding back, and with them came the pain. Her whole body felt as if it were on fire. She promptly leaned over the bed and emptied her stomach again. She vaguely remembered having done this before. The little man came hurrying over and thrust a mug of steaming liquid at her.
         “Drink,” he growled. She took a sip and wavered, her head swimming. “More,” The man ordered, holding the cup for her. She drank a couple gulps before the pain overcame her and she fell into darkness.