“Okay. Okay.” Varro rubbed his nose, trying to calm his rising panic.

“Let’s try to break down our problem.” Varro held up his hand and started ticking off points. “We have no oars. And we must likely cross several miles of water that could be filled with monsters.”

He looked at his fingers and frowned.

The eith woman arched a brow. “Yes, those are our current problems.”

Varro sighed. “I was hoping that listing them out like that would make us seem less cursed.”

“It does not seem to have worked.”

Varro shook his head. “No, it has not.”

He turned to her, ignoring the tremble of fear that shot through his gut.

“I don’t suppose you have any ideas?”

It was her turn to shake her head. “I do not. Unless you think paddling with our hands would do the trick.”

“Not if we want to get there within the week.”

Varro blinked as a thought struck him. “Oh. I’m an idiot. We just went through a gifting. Technically, since I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be that painful. But we can use our magic. I refuse to believe that gifts from the water god won’t help us here.”

The woman nodded. “Fair. …But how do we use them?”

Varro blinked up at her. “I have no idea.”

The two stared at each other, then out at the water.

This was going to take a while.

“Your people never discussed how magic would work?” The woman asked.

Varro scowled, old, old resentment bubbling up in his chest. It didn’t last long. It never did anymore.

The acidic feeling settled, leaving emptiness in its place.

“No. They did not.”

The woman studied him for a moment before nodding. “My own people’s magic won’t be much help here, I think.” She sighed. “Trail and error it is, then?”

Varro let out his own sigh. “It would seem so.”

He paused.

“I’m Varro, by the way.” Politeness wouldn’t hurt.

The eith woman again studied him before answering, her yellow eyes piercing.

“I am Lukre.”

Varro nodded, then closed his eyes.

“The only advice I can offer is to try meditating. That’s what I saw my people do.”

Lukre hummed. “Thank you.”

Varro took deep, slow breaths as he tried to center his mind.

He had never been taught meditation, he’d never been taught anything. Not intentionally, at least.

Varro shoved the thought down.

He’d never been taught, but he had watched, and he had listened. When he could.

So he let the deep breaths guide him.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

He let his breaths flow, and his thoughts went with them. He couldn’t make his head go ‘blank,’ as it were. That had never worked for him. Something would always break through the darkness he tried to build, and then his thoughts would be all over.

No, he let his thoughts move freely. He didn’t stop them. He allowed them to move faster.

And as his thoughts moved as they would, he found peace.

He felt it quickly.

Something was there, in his chest, but not.

He could almost picture it there, like a little pool or maybe…a well.

He’d heard his people throw the term around, but now he understood.

The gift Malabor had given him had settled into the middle of his chest, just a little below his heart.

He probed it with his mind, and the power responded, rippling like water.

Now that he thought of it his gift was from the water god, so maybe it would behave like water.

He focused on the feeling. It was even easier this time. He could see the power there, a deep blue well in the middle of total darkness.

He nudged it again, and the essence shifted, ripples traveling around the well before stilling.

Another point towards the water theory.

Varro tried to pull his vision back slightly.

To his surprise, it worked.

The well shrunk but didn’t vanish, and he could see the darkness in its entirety.

It was an outline. His outline marked with a silver line running along the outside, with darkness in between and a speck of blue at its center.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

…What the hell was he supposed to do with this?

He decided to back out for a breath and consult with Lukre.

He blinked, and suddenly he was staring at the boat again.

He shook himself and turned to the eith.

He hesitated. When she wasn’t talking and being reasonable, it was much harder to fight down his fear.

She didn’t want to kill him. Probably. As far as he knew, the Wall goblins and the eith xairie had never come into conflict.

But eith were physically stronger than the average human, and the average human was stronger than the average goblin.

And as far as goblins went, Varro was exceptionally average.

It wasn’t a matter of want. Just the fact that this woman could, if she wished, kill him with relatively little effort was terrifying.

That was nothing new to a swamp goblin, but when you added a relation to his race's hated enemy?

It didn’t help matters. His stomach turned, and his palms broke out with sweat.

Varro frowned.

That…That wasn’t fair.

Varro took a deep breath. He was being unfair.

This woman had done nothing to him other than exist, yet he feared her?

Punished for the crime of existing.

His hands balled into fists.

Varro took another steadying breath, then spoke. “Lukre, I’ve seen the gift. Have you?”

Bright yellow eyes opened.

She regarded him for a beat before nodding.

“I sensed the power in my chest, but everything was dark aside from it. Do you have any ideas?”

Varro nodded. “I was able to ‘pull’ my view back. The darkness is our bodies, black with a silver outline and the gift in the center.”

Lukre frowned, then opened her mouth slightly. Her canines were long, closer to fangs than regular teeth.

Well, regular is subjective, isn’t it?

“What are we supposed to do with that? We have this ‘outline’ and the power. How do we turn that into magic?”

Varro brushed a strand of dark hair behind his ear. It seemed it was escaping his tie.

“Maybe…maybe the essence can move through our outlines? Like if we get it to our hands, magic will happen?”

Lukre pursed her lips, then shrugged. “I’ll try.”

Varro closed his eyes and tried to fall back into that black space.

It took longer this time. He supposed he’d fallen out of the right headspace. But after a minute, he was staring at his outline again.

He drew the view closer. Just thinking of it seemed to be enough. His view shrank until it showed him his well and one arm.

Better to start with one limb and see how things went.

He prodded his well, once again sending ripples through its surface.

But instead of waiting for the essence to settle, he kept prodding. Splashing at the essence until some of it spilled from the well.

It stained the darkness, deep blue bleeding over the black.

Varro blinked. That had worked?

He looked to his well. Was the essence lower than before?

He squinted, focusing on the well as closely as he could. He was almost certain that the essence level had dropped.

Okay…so he only had so much essence to fill the darkness with. Made sense.

He started to prod the water again but paused.

He was poking with his mind. Could he imagine something else shoving against the essence?

He reached out to his well and imagined a bucket scooping out water.

The good news was that it worked.

A cylinder of essence lifted away from the well, floating above it. No bucket appeared, but the essence acted as if there were.

Fascinating.

The bad news was that it was hard.

It felt like lifting something at the very edge of his strength, and if he lost his focus for a heartbeat, he would drop it.

Varro dumped the bucket, the essence splashing back into the pool.

He took a breath, then imagined a smaller bucket.

It scooped into the well and came up with essence in tow.

About half the amount, and half the effort.

It was still ‘heavy,’ but he wasn’t worried about bursting a vein trying to keep it up.

Okay. Now he just needed to get this to his hand.

Varro carried the bucket along his outline, but it was slow going.

Even moving the bucket quickly, he had a lot of darkness to cover.

And ‘quickly’ was a relative term here. He didn’t have anything to judge it by, this being a space of empty blackness and all, but Varro doubted the bucket was moving faster than a jog.

At length, he reached the hand of his outline. He paused, then shrugged.

No point in hesitating now.

He dumped the bucket on his hand.

The blue essence splashed against the black, sloshing a bit before sinking in.

The darkness now had a bit of a blue tint to it around his palm, but that was it.

Varro didn’t feel any different.

He frowned. Well, shit. The hell am I supposed to do now?

It had certainly had some effect…

Varro sighed and repeated the presses.

His view was able to snap back to his well in an instant, which was nice. If only he could move the essence at that speed.

He started the tedious process of carrying another bucket along the darkness.

Once it got to his palm, he tossed the essence out again.

And when it struck the patch of blue, sometimes happened. It sunk into the blue, and a sense of pressure began to build in his palm.

The blue essence pulsed, and Varro’s eyes snapped open.

He looked down at his palm in the real world. It was glowing with a faint blue light.

He raised his hand toward the water and pushed.

The magic left his hand with a cool rush, smacking into the water and creating a hole a foot deep and as big around as his fist.

Varro blinked. He’d done it! He’d done magic!

“Lukre! I did it!”

The woman opened her eyes. “Hmm?”

Varro waved his hand, which looked perfectly normal now. “…I just did magic, I swear.”

Her expression was unreadable. “What was the effect?”

“The water moved away from my hand.”

The eith woman scratched her chin. “Can you make the water move towards you?”

Varro shrugged. “I’ll give it a try.”

He slipped back into the black and quickly took another bucket load to his palm.

He dumped it, then opened his eyes.

The pressure built in his palm, and the blue light built.

He pushed, and as he did, he reached out to his magic, trying to guide the water towards him.

He felt his desire sink into the magic, and while the bolt flowed forward, it was imprinted with a ‘pull.’

It hit the water, and a fist-thick pillar slammed into the boat, moving them slightly.

He turned to Lukre, who was staring at him. “Well, there we go!” He raised his hands and grinned. “Who needs oars anyway?”