My name is Cameron Halford. Twenty-three years old, and serving under His Majesty’s banner as a combat magic specialist. And recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about my life.

Well maybe I’m a little too young to be reminiscing like this, but aren’t there sometimes those, ah, special moments in your life? Times where you can’t help but ponder over how you got to where you were today? Well looking back over the twenty-three years I’ve lived I can safely say:

I’ve led a blessed life.

I suppose if you looked at it from one perspective you could say it’s been a bit hard for me. Growing up as one of the “common folk”, you don’t really get to attend schools for the elite except under extenuating circumstances. And if you want to learn from one of the country’s precious few Magisters? Well, you’d have to be ready to pay more than what most families can make in several lifetimes.

Of course, for most of us born in the underdeveloped areas, that’s not the kind of problem we’d even have the privilege of having. It’s usually only those lucky middle-class kids that have the good fortune of being born with enough innate power to rise above their station. Magical talent’s mostly hereditary, and if you’ve got the talent, there’s almost no chance that you’d lack money.

The key word here being “mostly”.

I was something of an aberration, I guess you could say. When I was young, I’d have these strange fainting spells from time to time. No one could explain them. But I learned to recognize the signs preceding them.

My heart would beat, powerfully and painfully fast. A hot and strange itchiness would circulate through my body, it’s strength redoubling with every turn. My sight would blur, my hearing would fail, my breath would run ragged, and my limbs would grow heavy. Eventually, I would lose all control over my body, and my consciousness would fly. And waking up afterwards, I would discover the wrecked remains of my surroundings.

The outbursts were rare, but violent. Desks and cabinets that I wouldn’t even be able to lift normally would be cracked and tossed about. Anything fragile would be crushed to pieces, and even the floors and the walls would be scuffed and battered. Ten times it happened, from when I was six up until I was nine. Perhaps it was fortunate, and perhaps it was not, but no one was ever around during my “fainting spells”. It meant that no one was ever hurt by my outbursts, but it also meant that no one was ever there to witness what had transpired. And none of the doctors, scholars, or any of the learned that we visited could ever explain what was wrong with me.

So growing up, I was thought to be a strange kid who’d occasionally break things for no real reason.

It was a bit unfair, I suppose. I didn’t really have any friends since most people simply avoided me because of the rumors. In fact, it wasn’t until I was 13 years old that I finally met someone my age that I could say I was on good terms with.

Still, I was blessed. Because even though I was a lonely child, I was never alone, as a child.

My parents, despite not understanding the reason behind my outbursts, never shunned or scorned me. They loved me despite my condition, and always tried their best to learn how to better handle me. Through their efforts, even though they knew nothing about magic, I learned how to somehow quell my outbursts, even if only barely. Thanks to them, and the fact that we lived far away from the city, I was able to live an almost normal life.

For about twelve years, anyways.

It was a bit after my twelfth birthday. Through instinct and past experience, I was able to contain my outbursts. I hadn’t had an incident in nearly three years. Every time I had successfully held control the next swell would come one stronger and harder. I’d hoped that as the sickening feeling grew stronger, my own control would improve, and I’d be able to reign in my impulses indefinitely.

That day though, I had no chance to resist.

In the space of a heartbeat, one that I heard ringing loudly in my ears, all of my senses sharpened to its zenith, strained to the point of snapping. I could feel the blood running beneath my skin, disturbing and rustling each tiny hair on my body as it rushed past. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and I watched, prisoner in my own body, as the world around me spun and blurred, the furniture and the walls all bleeding into each other until I was lost in a disorienting sea of colors. It was as if an instant had somehow stretched into eternity. And at the end of it, I was back in the same darkness I had seen ten times before.

Siara preserve us, no one was in the cottage but me. My parents had left on their weekly trip to the city, stocking up on whatever our country farm couldn’t supply. If they had been with me that day I would have lost much more than just a home.

I’m told that they’d almost lost me, actually. I can imagine their surprise upon returning to a flattened clearing in a forest where their farm used to be, and a crater with their shallowly breathing son inside. Without a word of complaint they hastily made the long journey back to town with my unconscious body in tow. It was only thanks to them that I didn’t lose my life that day.

We didn’t lose anyone from the family, miraculously. But even though we still had each other, we’d lost everything else. The cottage that was our home, the livestock that was our food, the farmland that was our livelihood, there was nothing left of ours except the clothes we were wearing and the goods that my parents had bought that day.

Still, I was blessed. Because through that dramatic event we discovered the source of my ailment.

Through some whimsy of fate, I was born with a “hyperactive magi-core”, or so I was told later. In essence, I was producing more magical power than my body could safely circulate. Over time, the power would build up and, without my input, release itself as a physical force. That day, I had released the equivalent of three years of excess energy.

I was also told that my symptoms weren’t unheard of, but still extremely rare. Every once in a while, a child will be born with more power than they can manage. These kids are identified at an early age and given the best education the country can provide, with a focus on magical application in whatever field they have talent in. Given that kind of talent and training, most of them would end up bringing enormous benefit to the country. Considering the country’s incredibly meritocratic tradition, it’s no wonder so much of its resources would be devoted to developing these “star-children” as they’re called.

The problem was, these kids always came from families with rich magical traditions. Not low-born farmer families from out in the sticks. Which is why for twelve years the country didn’t even know I existed. But now that they did, life was going to change.

My parents were moved into public housing, courtesy of the state, while I was shipped off to the country’s best in magical education, the academy founded by the “Mother of Modern Magic” herself.

Looking back, it’s a bit silly, but I really thought that I was going to meet a lot of new friends there. I was in a new environment, and now that I knew what was wrong with me, I thought there was nothing stopping me from making friends.

If I was smart I would’ve realized there was no way they were putting a know-nothing commoner kid without any basic knowledge in the same class as the elites.

It seems I’ve got a decent head on my shoulders, though. I really thought my brain was going to burst with all the stuff they shoved inside it, but they managed to cram the rudimentary basics into me in a little more than a year. It was incredibly shaky, but I had enough of a foundation to begin taking classes with everyone else.

There I discovered that nothing had changed. I wasn’t avoided just because I was dangerous, I was avoided because humans fear the unknown. Back then, I was the weird kid that broke things. In the academy I was the weird commoner from some countryside farm. I still didn’t have a place to belong in society.

Still I was blessed. Because even though I was still an outsider at the academy, it was there that I met her.

Patricia Cordelia Lancaster. The third child of the famous Lancaster family. Silky silver hair, and beautiful sky blue eyes. Thirteen years old, same as me. An outsider, same as me.

Honestly, more than any of the unsolvable riddles I learned at the academy, I think the greatest mystery of my life will be how I managed to attract the attention of a girl like her. She was smart, pretty, powerful, and willful. Rather than being smitten, I think most of the boys at the academy were intimidated by her. Yet despite her standing, she never mocked the ignorant, common-born me. She treated me like an equal.

We spoke with each other, laughed with each other, we talked about family, and responsibility. We ate together, studied together, walked to classes together, and before I was aware of it, I was always with her, and she was always with me.

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And one day, in passing, almost as an afterthought, she called me her friend.

I, at thirteen years of age, had finally made my first friend.

If anyone asks if I cried in front of her that day I will categorically deny it.

Years passed, and we both grew up. The people around her slowly grew accustomed to her uniquely forceful personality, and I was eventually accepted by the rest of academia for my efforts. Both of us managed to etch a small place to belong in the world we found ourselves in. And when we graduated, we both found respectable places of employment, I as part of the king’s specialist corps, and she as a professor at the academy where we met. But despite all the people I’ve met over the years who I now call friend, she was still someone special to me. And apparently, despite attracting all sorts of people over the years with her natural charisma, I was still someone special to her. Because when her family finally pressured her to find someone to marry, she asked me.

We lived in a meritocratic society, one that legally made no distinctions between gender, as per the teachings of the Sage. But culturally, it was still far from the norm for a woman to ask a man to marry her. Moreover, to let a daughter of the proud Lancaster family adopt the name of some common-born plebeian was unthinkable. In the end, I was the one who changed my name to Cameron Halford Lancaster.

We faced quite a bit of opposition, mostly from devout traditionalists, and more than a little from the Lancasters, who were disgusted at the thought of mixing their blood with the likes of mine.

But we lived in a meritocracy, after all. And since Trisha was a genius and I was a

“star-child” who worked for royalty, the marriage went through, regardless. And in the twenty-first year of my life, the strong-willed, kindhearted, beautiful girl that I’d known since childhood became my wife.

Not bad for a kid from the sticks, wouldn’t you say?

But life with Trisha, as wonderful as she was, came with its own set of troubles. Her father, the patriarch of the Lancaster family, was one of the most vocal advocates against our marriage. He and his coterie of sycophants took it upon themselves to snidely harass us with all manner of petty subjects. I was treated like an upstart, marrying into nobility. It was infuriating. Abuse levied towards myself, I could bear, but the comments they’d make about my parents…

They’d made it clear to me. I had no place to belong there.

And yet, living there, I’d realized once again how fortunate I was. This hostile environment was somewhere I’d come to. I knew what I would be facing, what I’d have to deal with if I wished to be Trisha’s husband. But for Trisha?

This was the place she had come from.

Even during my friendless childhood I still had my parents. All throughout my life I’ve always had a place to return to. But Trisha had almost no allies growing up. There was no one standing on her side in the complicated family politics surrounding her.

I hoped I could act as a breakwater. I hoped I could be the one standing by her side. I hoped I could be place she could return to.

It certainly didn’t make life easier, having to constantly stand up to my obnoxious new in-laws. But I’ve had so much support in my life it’d be silly to call myself unlucky. After all, I had my friends and comrades at the force who had my back. I had the one constant in my life, my parents who I could always rely on. And most of all, I had Trisha, my first friend and my first love.

Thanks to everyone, even when life was difficult, it was never miserable. Somehow, one way or another, I’ve continued to stumble my way through life. And now, more than 23 years after the day I was born, when I look back at my life up until now, I can only count myself blessed. Because today I am able to witness the birth of my daughter.

It is an indescribable feeling, holding your newborn child in your arms. All the plans you’ve made for their future, all the idle daydreams you’ve had about being a parent, the preparations you’ve made for this day, none of it matters in that single moment. A nameless sense of wonder grips me as I stare at the fragile little life cradled to my chest.

“A successful delivery” the middle-aged doctor beside me says, stepping to the side and allowing the midwife to tend to Trisha. “She was born weaker than most, but asides from unusually low activity, there doesn’t seem to have been any complications. She’s behaved most cooperatively, in fact.”

He begins carefully cleaning the newborn, drying off the ruddy fluids as I stare mutely at the process. The child in my arms trembles at the touch but keeps still, almost as if trying not to cause the doctor any difficulty.

“Oh? Oh-ho,” the doctor softly chuckles as he hears the child’s soft mewling. “Would you listen to that cry? That’s a little fighter there, that is.”

Her voice is weak, nearly non-existent. But hidden underneath it is a mysterious resoluteness, buried within. It was as if she was crying out at the world that she was here, that she wasn’t going anywhere.

In that moment, somehow I knew.

One day this child would bloom and grow, becoming capable of things in the future I couldn’t possibly imagine now. But today, here in my arms, she was a hopelessly and helplessly weak little being, unable to even lift her head or open her eyes. Whatever the individual this child would become in the future, for now she was wholly reliant on both Trisha and me.

She slowly paws the air with her tiny, little arms, reaching out as if searching for something. From underneath her I shift my own hand, and as I extend my finger to fit into hers, she latches on to me.

It was exactly then that I understood completely why it is that parents choose to die for their children.

“Well, there we are,” the doctor says, as he wipes away the last bits of the waxy material off of my daughter’s skin, wrapping her up in a bright cotton cloth. “That about does it. Well need her back in a bit for measurements and the like, but for now I’d say you and your wife deserve a bit of time with your daughter.” He moves away and, at that cue, the midwife also steps back from Trisha’s bed, allowing me a space at her side.

“Oh, and,” the doctor interjects, just as I begin to move. “Now’s the time for a name, if you’ve got one.” He smiles encouragingly, with the sagacious expression of a man who’s witnessed the process many times before. “We’ll step back for a bit, so take your time.”

With a nod I turn around and bring myself to Trisha’s bedside, who greets me with a tired smirk on her face.

“Well, what’s with the witless expression, Cammy?” she laughs, poking fun at the dazed look I no doubt had on my face. “Come now, you’ve had your turn. I’m still waiting to see my daughter, you know?”

With a smile and sigh at my never-changing wife, I carefully place our child into her arms. The corners of her eyes soften as we both watch the gentle up-and-down of our child’s breathing.

“Ah, would you look at that,” she whispers, giving me an upwards, sideways glance. “She’s got your hair.”

I look at our daughter’s tousled, pale-violet hair. If I were to give my honest impressions, the silver-ish sheen in her hair is far more noticeable. But looking at my wife’s own silver hair, and understanding her unsaid intentions, I simply nod and move closer by her side, allowing her head to rest against mine.

“We… never found out. What exactly happened a few weeks ago,” she states, matter-of-factly.

No one we’ve consulted since then could rightly explain what happened on that day. Sharp, intermittent abdominal pains, that correlated with abnormal fetal movements. Any explanation of one couldn’t explain the other, but as the two phenomena came and went together, they were very likely related. To be honest, I faced today with more than a little trepidation. For something so inexplicable to happen just weeks before childbirth, well, I was braced for the worst. But in the end, our daughter was born. Languid but healthy.

“The doctor said there were no complications. Just that she’s not very energetic is all. She’ll be fine,” I reassure her.

“The same doctor hasn’t a clue what transpired in the first place,” she counters.

“Yes, well,” I say at a slight loss. “There’s no helping it if there’s no one who knows, is there? We’ll just have to believe in her.”

“That’s all we can do, is it? Just believe.”

“She’s our daughter, Trisha,” I smile, finding a strange confidence from who knows where. “I’ll just have to believe she can handle what she must.”

Staring at the small, swaddled up form of our child, my resolve steels. “In the meantime, whatever I must do to protect our family, I will also handle.”

At this, Trisha laughs. “Such conviction! I wonder on what basis you can say those words!”

“I am tasked with the protection of His Majesty after all,” I laugh back. “Naturally I can handle the protection of my wife and child.”

“Well now! Where did you learn to be so cheeky?”

“Not cheek, my dear, but confidence!”

“Oh, would you listen to yourself!” she exclaims, her voice still quavering in laughter. “I suppose I can only match your confidence then. I am not the type to sit idly by and be protected after all.”

“Yes, you’ve always been quite the headache in this manner.”

“My! What a thing to say to a lady!” she scolds in fake admonishment, roughly disheveling the hair on the back of my head. Her sudden movements provoke a weak cry from our child, however, and Trisha apologetically stops and gently comforts her. In moments, the baby calms, her chubby face curled into her mother’s bosom.

The both of us smile at the sight. In the back of my head I can only think, this is what a family must look like.

“She really does have such pretty hair, after all,” Trisha remarks, as we gently gaze at our daughter. “What say we name her Violet?”

“Violet. Violet Lancaster.” I continue to repeat the name to myself, each time the image in my head matching more and more with the image of my child. “Yes, it’s a wonderful name.”

“Then it’s settled, then? Are we ready to begin?”

“Whenever you’d like, dear.”

We both smile, clasping our free hands over our daughter, prepared to take part in one of the grandest mysteries of magic.

Ever since the advent of magical rigor, brought about by the efforts of the Mother of Modern Magic, there is much of the nature of magic that has been uncovered. Hundreds of once mystical phenomena now understood, and hundreds more we’ve learned to recreate.

As members of the “elite” in the world of magic. Both Trisha and I have spent much of our lives learning the nature, history, quirks, and possibilities of magic. But the whole of the tradition of magical inquiry has yet to reveal a true understanding of perhaps the most universal expression of magic in existence.

It is a magic that is understood by no one. And yet it is a magic capable of being performed by anyone.

As the intentions of Trisha’s and mine align, a resonance manifests within our souls. A swelling of power rises up as a magical essence not borne from neither I nor Trisha, but seemingly from the universe itself fills the room. The essence collects, spiraling into a space right below our daughter’s chest, imparting a brand upon her soul.

It is the magic that accompanies the act of naming a child. A once-in-a-lifetime ritual that signifies the appearance of a new life in this world. It is a moment where even the universe, as cold and impartial as it is anytime else, appears to celebrate.

The glowing power suffuses as the ritual completes, scattering its gentle light about us as we hold each other and the newest addition to our family close.

The stuffy academics and pretentious elites call this process the “Onomastic Bestowal”.

But the rest of us?

We just call it “The Little Miracle”.