"Why don't y-"

"Shh,"

"But wouldn't it be easier if-"

"Shhhhhhh,"

"I'm just trying to understand why we have to do it like-" A silver hand of wind squeezed Kaleon's cheeks together to silence him. Another set of hands grabbed him by the shoulders, spinning him to face a slightly annoyed Silverhand. "Is this really necessary?" Kaleon asked awkwardly.

Silverhand nodded. "As necessary as screaming bloody murder when you bump your knee on a coffee table."

"So not at all, then," Kaleon said flatly, squirming free of the hand's grip.

Silverhand gave Kaleon an affronted look, "Keep talking like that, and you'll get knocked down a letter grade."

Kaleon huffed, reminding himself that arguing with a crazy person only makes you crazy, too.

A cooling breeze flowed past them, reminding Kaleon that the afternoon had come and gone and that he'd spent the entire day at the whim of, for lack of a better term, a madman. Bioluminescent moss glowed along the titanic walls of the volcano, providing the town with enough light to continue going about its business. Kaleon figured he had one or two hours until the ball began.

Although Kaleon had severe doubts about the validity of learning magic for Silverhand, he had to admit the pirate's ability was impressive. He cast without speaking an incantation, cloud stuff flowing from his fingers rather than being gathered and congealed from the surrounding air. Silverhand turned the clearing into a makeshift classroom with cloud desks and a whiteboard in less than a minute. Lastly, Silverhand made guns from his hands and shot out two more clouds. One nimbus shifted until it looked like a silver copy of Gumbo, quickly garnering the familiar's attention as he took to the air to chase after it. The other shifted to take the shape of a person, accessorizing them with scholars' robes and hornrimmed glasses.

"Now, if you're done with the side conversations," The cloud person said, miming as if to look over their glasses. "We can continue with the lesson." Although Kaleon could tell the voice was Silverhands, it was distorted to the point the cloud honestly sounded like a disgruntled teacher.

"There are three major things you'll need to know to solidify your mastery of magic. First yo-"

"Wait, mastery?" Kaleon looked at Silverhand, eyes wide. "That's a little much, don't you think? I'm no Magi." Slightly embarrassed, he said, "Aside from the basic wind authority, I know maybe a dozen or so more, and they're all related to cooking, and I wouldn't exactly think one can become a master in that."

"Young man," said the cloud person, its tone scolding. "If you have a question, raise your hand. Don't just blurt out the first thing that comes to your mind. We're not barbarians."

Kaleon sighed, "Yes, sir." Then, his brow furrowed as he remembered that this wasn't an actual classroom. He shot an annoyed look at Silverhand, who was suppressing a laugh.

"Okay, okay, I hear you," Silverhand said, "I know most Yana, especially the nobles, think what makes a master magician is the number of spells a person knows. The flashier, the better even, but I firmly believe in quality over quantity."

As Silverhand spoke, the cloud whiteboard shifted its shape again. "It helps if you start to think of magic as another muscle. In the long run, constantly training with a handful of go-to spells you can use in any situation is much better than having a hundred spells you only sometimes use." The board shifted into a giant bird, a miniaturized ship, a huge cloud version of Gumbo, and finally, a massive hand. The hand waved, then turned back into a whiteboard. "It's like that old saying, master one and be a jack of all trades."

"That's not how the saying goes," Kaleon muttered under his breath but nodded his reluctance. It had a semi-twisted logic, but he couldn't say it didn't make sense. Not that it answered why Kaleon was getting a magic lesson.

"As I was saying," The cloud teacher began again, "The first lesson is the simplest yet most important one to grasp. It states that magic is a fundamental force of our reality interwoven with all living and nonliving things on our planet. From the soil underneath our feet to the Gods above and everything in between, everything contains magic to some varying degree."

Silverhand shot a hand in the air but didn't wait for the cloud man to acknowledge him before speaking, "Oh! Oh! Tell him how magic is alive!" He screamed.

The cloud teacher pinched where the bridge of his nose would have been. "Given that that information is a lie, I will not tell him that, no."

"You'll have to accept the truth eventually!" Silverhand shouted, angrily shaking his fist.

"I'll accept the truth," The cloud teacher said, "When your theory can be adequately tested and corroborated by any of the countless organizations whose sole purpose is to quantify the unquantifiable that we know as magic. Until that moment where your theory, and I use this term loosely, is proven, I will only teach him what we know as magical fact. Also, because you suddenly felt the need to speak out of turn after I explained the rules of asking questions to Kaleon, you're being taken down one."

"What! That's not fair!" Silverhand shouted in protest, but the cloud person crossed his arms as if to say, 'My decision is final.'

Kaleon watched the two go back and forth for nearly a minute before interjecting, "Um, you do realize you're arguing with yourself, right?"

Silverhand and the cloud teacher looked at Kaleon. The cloud teacher coughed, bringing their attention back to it, "The second lesson is understanding the various ways to use magic. Each race, and even the other tribes of humanity, use it differently. Sometimes, that variation is so small there's no real difference. At the same time, other branches of magic are nearly inaccessible to the Yanayin."

On the board, three crude drawings of people appeared, each with a section of their bodies glowing. "To focus on our particular tribe, you must understand the mind, body, and soul. What they do separately and when they're working in unison."

The teacher gestured to the first figure on the board, a man with a glowing head, "The mind arguably has the most difficult task as it has to memorize different spells and keep track of the way magic is utilized throughout the body."

"Speaking of which," the teacher said as he pointed to the second figure, the image of a man with its body given a glowing outline, "The body's role in this trifecta is the least complex but nonetheless important. To keep things simple, imagine that It's a battery, storing all the magical energy for later use."

"Now the soul is where things shift from magical fact to theory." The cloud teacher waved its hand, and two figures disappeared, leaving the one in the center. This figure had a glowing dot in the center of its chest where the heart would be. "Our current theories suggest the soul is the anchor that draws magic into the body. Unless restricted, it will constantly channel magic into it. This is why the mind's role is so important, as it subconsciously tries to regulate how much magic it has access to on the respective island and keep the body's available magic at an equilibrium. It's a delicate balance because too little magic causes fatigue, and too much can cause some…volatile reactions, to say the least."

Kaleon had to give credit where it was due. This 'class' is a lot more put together than he'd initially thought it would be. Maybe Silverhand wasn't so crazy after all, or Kaleon realized that that's exactly what he wants you to believe before springing the real out their stuff on you.

Kaleon groaned and rubbed his temples, the chains of the loose shackle on his wrist clattering together, "Okay, let's assume everything you just said is more or less right. You still need to talk about the 'First Soar' and what any of that has to do with me. Plus, why can't you take the cuffs off?"

"I see Silverhand's impatience has already rubbed off on you," The teacher said with a noticeable tone of disapproval, "This brings us to lesson three. Magic mastery and consciously utilizing all three aspects of being at once."

Kaleon sighed as he sat back in his seat and looked up at another ship as it passed overhead, most assuredly bringing another group of Lord Reinard's guests. He looked at Silverhand, "Okay, I appreciate the extra…um…effort? You're putting into this teaching bit, but can you tell me without all this?" He gestured to the cloud teacher and whiteboard with a hand, "The ball's going to be starting soon, and I promised Rynnelle I'd be there."

Silverhand arched an eyebrow and gave Kaleon a wry grin, "Alright, I can put you on the fast track. I'm not responsible for what happens after, though,"

Before Kaleon could ask what he meant, Silverhand held out his left palm. Gumbo plopped onto the ground at Kaleon's feet, and they watched the cartoonish display of all the clouds beside their desks funneling into Silverhand's hand. After a few short seconds, two small cloud islands floated over his palm. One looked like Teon, while Kaleon didn't recognize the other.

"So lesson three's tricky, but I have faith you'll be able to figure it out," Silverhand twirled his finger. The desks moved to face each other, "Okay Seabreeze, have you ever been to a game isle before?"

"Once or twice," Kaleon said after thinking for a moment. "Also, why do you keep calling me that?"

"Good, then I can do the quick version of that too," Silverhand said, ignoring his question as two tufts of cloud broke from the islands, shifting into two figures of people that floated over them. "So you get how the Yanayin get their magic from the sky and open air, right? Good. Now, because that's where we draw our power from, we're technically at our weakest when we're on the ground."

The people-shaped figures started to fill with light from the feet up. "It's not the worst handicap, but we can only access half of our full magical potential in most places." The light inside the figure above the cloud copy of Teon filled halfway. "On Boye's game islands, which make up most of the islands in the Iega, it's different. He's an ass and doesn't care for us, Yana, much, so how much magic power we can use varies from island to island. On the islands with a lower DC, it's alright, but there are places you're lucky if you could use any magic at all. I would only recommend you go to a game island if you become an Adventurer, though, "Silverhand gave him a hopeful look as the light in the other figure fluctuated from barely illuminating its ankles to up to its neck.

"Yeah, I wasn't planning on it," Kaleon said gingerly, "And I'm still not getting anything that you're telling me."

"That's because you're thinking with your head too much when you need to start thinking with your heart," Silverhand said dramatically. The two figures floated over to Kaleon and dispersed into mist as they hit his chest. He just looked at Silverhand, who absorbed the cloud islands with a flick of his wrist. "To put it in layman's terms, mastering a spell makes it so you can cast it without drawing magic from what you have stored in your body. So long as you still have magic, you can cast it wordlessly for free."

Kaleon sat up in his seat, "That's…actually really cool," He mulled it over in his head, then asked Silverhand. "So that's what you're doing with the cloud authority magic, right? How you're able to use it without any incantation?"

"Uh yeah, something like that," Silverhand said with a slight chuckle, his eyes shifting away from Kaleon as he continued to think.

Kaleon's brow furrowed, and he rubbed his chin. He was missing something, and the fact Silverhand was clearly waiting for him to catch up was more than starting to grate on his nerves. Even if these lessons made sense, Kaleon couldn't help but notice Silverhand didn't mention what this had to do with him. Kaleon had never been great at casting spells. There was a reason he only knew those short few, much less cast one without an incan-

"Wait," Kaleon said, eyebrows slowly raising. He looked at Silverhand out the corner of his eye and the pirate was grinning ear to ear, "I didn't use an incantation on the bridge, did I?" He phrased it as a question, but they both knew the answer.

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"Getting warmer," Silverhand said, encouraging Kaleon to continue.

Kaleon nodded as he replayed the day's events, "I guess I really hadn't given it much thought until now." Gumbo nuzzled himself into Kaleon's lap, rattling his chains and drawing his attention, "I didn't even realize I'm not tired anymore, but wait." He looked back to Silverhand, "If I take the cuff off, will I just pass out again? I can't walk around with these on my wrist for the rest of my life."

"Ding ding ding, and now he is up to speed." Silverhand clapped, and Kaleon's desk shifted, much to his dismay, changing until it was more like a hammock. Silverhand took the key out of his pocket, "Now it's going to hit you all at once when I take it off the cuff. You were fighting it before, but this time, fall back and let it take you.

"Wait, wait, wait, hold on," Kaleon grabbed Silverhand's wrist, "What exactly am I supposed to be doing?"

"I just told you, fall back and let it take you," Silverhand said flatly for a solid three count before breaking into a grin, "It really is as simple as it sounds; your body and soul already know what to do it's just your conscious mind that catching up. It'll be like taking a nap."

A pinprick of fear at the thought of falling asleep made Kaleon's grip tighten for a moment, Silverhand waiting him out. Eventually, Kaleon asked, "Why're you doing all of this? Really?"

Silverhand grinned like he would tell a joke, but the look in Kaleon's eyes made him reconsider. He shifted his gaze to look around the clearing. Another gust of wind was kicked up from a passing ship, making the flowers' song cry out into the cool night air, "Cause it's hard to stay a good person in the Iega, and despite having plenty of reasons not to be, you still are. It wouldn't sit right with me if I didn't help you out," Silverhand said, meeting Kaleon's gaze, "Plus, I know what it's like to go after a girl whose father hates you."

Kaleon held Silverhand's gaze for a moment. A corner of his mouth twitched into a smile at the same time Silverhands did. Nodding, Kaleon leaned back, Gumbo in his lap, looking up at him in fascination and slight concern. Kaleon scratched Gumbo behind his ears as Silverhand tapped the key to the cuff, still dangling from Kaleon's wrist.

There was a click as the cuff unlatched itself, the chain rattling as Silverhand snatched it up before it hit the ground.

A sharp, arctic breath forced its way into Kaleon's lungs. His body shuddered as if submerged in ice as the air swirled in his chest. He tried to stay awake at first, instinctively fighting his eyelid's sudden urge to fall when Gumbo licked his cheek, and Silverhand put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Fall back and let it take you,"

Kaleon heard Silverhand's instruction, but his voice sounded like he was miles away. His eyes fluttered as the melodious song of the flowers filled his ears, their music washing over him like the warm waters of a slowly rising tide until his eyes finally closed.

When Kaleon's eyes opened, he floated atop endless miles of white cotton clouds underneath a deep blue sky. A nearly indescribable bliss filled every fiber of Kaleon's being as if the sky had swaddled him in its gentle embrace, soothing every ache and pain he'd experienced since birth.

On some level, Kaleon knew his body was still right next to Silverhand and Gumbo. The persistent flower song tethered his body to him even as his consciousness wandered around, well, wherever Kaleon was now.

There was a wumpf as a wave of air pressure rattled him. Kaleon's eardrums popped as it sent him skidding across the cloud top. When he righted himself, Kaleon sat up and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

In a flash, the sun erupted in an explosion of scarlet, sending out a wave of energy that ignited the sky in a furious twilight. A void opened right where the sun used to be, snatching the color out of the sky and turning day to night.

Kaleon's eyes reflected the starry night like mirrors. Hundreds of stars, comets, and rainbow clouds of dust streaked across the sky as the vortex of the void pulled them. All he could do was watch in awe as the swirling hole in space tried to consume the vast infinity of the cosmos.

He tried to look beyond the hole in space, but the scar on Kaleon's face started to tingle, and he felt a set of eyes bore down into the back of his head. He turned, seeing that he was at the foot of a set of cloud-covered stairs leading up to the strangest throne Kaleon had ever seen. It was backless, with a cushion of black clouds and armrests that were ruby-eyed dragons of glittering silver and gold. He would've thought it was a strangely designed chair, but some distant part of him told him that wouldn't be right. Just like it told him, the giant humanoid figure of silver and black clouds sitting on that throne, staring at Kaleon with twin orbs of intense golden fire, wasn't there to bring him any harm.

His penetrating gaze seemed to spark an odd feeling in Kaleon's chest. His hand grabbed his chest like a ball of flaming ice had replaced his heart. Kaleon stopped clawing at it when he realized it wasn't a painful feeling. Or even a new one, reminding him of what it felt like in the sea of clouds earlier.

Kaleon sighed in relief and looked up at the imposing figure, "Um...thank you?" He said, trying to make it sound less like a question. The giant continued to stare at him in silence. "Hello? Hello, excuse-woah!" Kaleon started to pick himself up when the plushy clouds holding Kaleon in the sky suddenly gave way, dropping him like a stone as darkness swallowed him.

A scream didn't even have time to leave Kaleon's throat when he flopped onto the clammy black ground like a fish unceremoniously thrown on land.

"What's your name, son?" A voice called out from the darkness, making Kaleon pause while picking himself up.

He looked around, seeing nothing but the unyielding black around him. Kaleon slowly got to his feet as an eerie nostalgia skitted in the farthest reaches of his mind. It made the hairs across his entire body stand on end, pumping a gallon of fear into his heart.

Kaleon unthinkingly fumbled around in the dark when another voice spoke. This one stopped him in his tracks. It was soft, young, scared, and, most terrifying of all, familiar. "Kaleon. Kaleon Khouri-I mean…Yelran?"

"That's a good lad," This first voice belonged to a man. In the simple phrase, Kaleon could hear the pride and the unmistakable hint of anguish.

"Ashwin. He's coming." Another voice said, followed by a sound like hustled footsteps before it whispered in Kaleon's ear. "Oh, my beautiful boy, You still want to make people full and happy like your mom and dad?" This voice was a woman, and the depths of her sorrow tightened like a noose around Kaleon's heart, forming a lump in his throat as he waited for her to speak again. "Good, then make me a promise, okay? Keep eating until you grow big and strong. Then, when you're all grown up, make lots and lots of food to help others grow big and strong too. Can you promise me that?"

"Hello? Hello, is anyone there? Can you hear me?" Kaleon yelled, fighting the growing fear and trying to keep his voice from coming out as a panicked scream. His slow, aimless tread through the inky black had picked up to a frantic run as the fear inside him spread. He knew what was happening even if he still couldn't remember them, and Kaleo refused to sit there and watch it happen. Not again.

"Okay, I promise," said the same scared little voice that claimed to be Kaleon, "But what's going on? Are you and Dad going somewhere? Take me with you!"

Kaleon paused as a drop of water splashed on his head. "Kalice." The older man's voice said in a hauntingly depressed tone. Kaleon heard a heartbroken sob as the female voice whispered in his ear again, "Mommy loves you. So…so much."

"Kaleon," the man's voice, his father's voice, spoke again, and Kaleon turned toward it, breaking out into a sprint in that direction, "I'm going to need you to be brave now. It'll be a tight fit, but get in here, and no matter what you hear, don't make a sound. Do you understand?"

"B-but,"

"No buts, Kaleon, I mean it. I don't want to hear a single sound from you. Do you understand?" Ashwin demanded, cutting the other voice off. Kaleon's run slowed as he waited for the voice to speak again, intent on another mad dash in whatever direction it originated.

"Good," Kaleon's head snapped to attention at the sound of Ashwin's voice, "Now take this. When you're old enough, you'll understand what to do with it, but until then, don't show it to anyone."

"O-okay,"

"That's my little Gumbo Goblin, now go, and remember not a peep."

Kaleon was about to break into another sprint when the nightmare world around him shook like he was caught in an earthquake. He attempted to backpedal to regain his balance, but something caught his heel, and Kaleon fell backward onto the ground.

While reaching to rub his ankle, Kaleon's fingers accidentally brushed the cold surface of something by his foot. Kaleon looked down as he heard the click, seeing the box's lid slide open as a warm glow radiated from the contents within.

Kaleon's hand wavered as it reached for the lantern. His hand wrapped around the handle, and a jolt of energy raced up Kaleon's arm as the candle inside the lantern lit in a blinding flash of white light. He quickly got to his feet, blinking stars from his eyes as he tried to throw the lantern away because it felt like holding a lightning bolt, but his grip was ironclad.

There was a loud creak, like the rusted hinges of an old wooden door, and a new voice spawned from this world of darkness. "It's been a long time, Ashwin. Kalice."

"Not nearly long enough, Thallan," Kalice replied coldly.

"Then you should have done a better job at hiding." The new speaker, Thallan, was a man with a gruff voice. Like his throat had been torn ragged by screams and never quite healed properly. "Where's the boy?"

"Gone," Ashwin said quickly, "We sent him away when we realized you were getting close."

Heavy footsteps echoed around Kaleon as Thallan said, "Shame. I never did get to meet him."

"And you never will!" Kalice hissed, "You can have everything we own; it's right there; now, take it and go so we can get back to him."

There was a loud crash somewhere to Kaleon's right. "You know what I'm here for." Thallan snarled.

"Thallan, please," Ashwin pleaded, "Be reasonable, I-"

"Reasonable?!" Thallan roared with a fury that shook the entirety of the nightmare world. Kaleon fought to maintain his balance when light poured out of small cracks that appeared in the air around him. It was like the reality of the nightmare world was on the verge of shattering like glass.

"I gave you a chance to join me, to stand together, and you threw it in my face!" The world shook again as Kaleon heard the sounds of a struggle. A sickening smoke poured through the cracks as they spread. "Cuu mentrapo bektal, you dare accuse me of not being reasonable?!"

"Get off him!" Kalice screamed, followed by a violent roar that shattered a jagged hole in the side of the nightmare realm. There was a flash of red-orange light as the darkness fell away like broken panes of ebony glass.

"Kalice! No!"

Kaleon stepped forward through the heat and smoke that blasted him in the face. He raised an arm to cover his mouth and instinctively lifted the lantern to shield his face. Knowing what he would see, Kaleon didn't want to look at it but forced himself to anyway.

Three Yanayin were in a room filled with pearlescent clouds, fighting a losing battle against the burning flames. Out of the three, only one of the Yana was still standing.

"This, this is on you." It was Thallan's voice that came from the still-standing Yana. The man was huge, his arms looking like cannons with boulders for his hands. His dark cloud hair was filled with the staccato flash of azure lightning that cast strange shadows over a face bloodied by a fresh scar that bisected his eye. "Where. Is. The. Lantern."

Thallan spoke to the bloody mess of a man on the opposite side of the room. Kaleon couldn't see his face but followed his gaze to the third Yana in the room. They were a woman lying still on the floor between the two men, the firelight glinting off an expanding pool of scarlet.

Kaleon's mouth ran dry, and tears stung like ice as they welled in his eyes. He only broke his stare from the body when Aschwin coughed, spitting out a frightening amount of blood as he spoke, "You…wanted the…pirate life." Another string of ragged coughs, "So…we decided…to treat it…like pirate treasure."

Thallan's eye narrowed as he stared at Aschwain for a long moment, "You didn't."

Aschwin looked up to Thallan, smiling with a mouthful of blooded and broken teeth. "Happy hunting."

Thallan roared, followed by the resounding sound of splintering wood. A bolt of azure lightning crashed through the ceiling, and Thallan caught it between bloody fingers.

The smell of ozone mixed with the smoke, and Kaleon jumped back as arcs of electricity spilled into the nightmare world, enveloping everything but Kaleon in ghostly blue light. Kaleon's scar felt like it was filled with static as the lantern buzzed with power. Its white light formed a bubble around Kaleon, shielding him from the wrathful fingers of lightning that targeted him.

Thallan hefted the crackling javelin of lightning. Kaleon's scar erupted in pain as the pirate plunged it through his father's heart. Finally, his grip on the lantern released, and the still-shining treasure fell as Kaleon pawed at his face as if he could rip the pain away.

While excruciating, the pain only lasted in the moments before the lantern clattered to the floor. Kaleon dropped to his knees, sputtering for air as tears fell freely.

"Seabreeze? You alright?"

Kaleon twisted around to the voice as he pushed away, only moving a foot before his back hit the wall. His mind was still reeling from what he'd just witnessed, but Kaleon's quickened pulse eased when he realized he was back in his room. Silverhand stood in the open doorway, letting in the sounds of a very active kitchen as he held a glass of water in his shackled right hand.

Gumbo pushed past Silverhand, happily trotting past the lantern on the floor with its bright but soft light illuminating the small room.

"I-I don't..." Kaleon could barely get his words together. He barely understood what happened, let alone enough to explain it to someone else. Gumbo crawled into his lap, and Kaleon pulled his familiar into a fierce hug. Wiping his tears on his mottled fur. "What just happened?" Kaleon whispered, primarily to himself rather than to either Silverhand or Gumbo.

Silverhand entered the room, closing and locking the door behind him as Kaleon got his thoughts together. He knelt down, setting the glass down and brushing his fingers against the handle of the lantern, causing its light to flicker, momentarily encasing them in a heavy, and chilling darkness before he jerked his hand away. He stared at it for a minute, and then, in a calm, almost cold voice, Silverhand asked, "Where'd you get the lantern, Kaleon?"

Kaleon froze, the tone of Silverhand's voice eerily reminding him of Thallan. Kaleon looked from Gumbo to Silverhand, still staring at the lantern. All he could say was, "What?"

The shackle on Silverhand's wrist clattered to the floor. Silverhand met his stare, and Kaleon saw no trace of the wanderlust Yana he'd just spent the day with.

Silverhand snapped his fingers. Kaleon opened his mouth to speak, but he'd been wrapped in silence. A swarm of silver hands attacked Kaleon, locking around his wrists and ankles before snatching him off the floor. The hands pinned Kaleon against the wall as Gumbo tumbled from his lap. Gumbo tried to catch himself by flying, but a pair of hands pulled the blanket off the bed and hog-tied the familiar.

A wind hand picked up the lantern and encased the room in darkness. "We're going to try this again," Silverhand said from the darkness, his voice coming from right next to Kaleons ear. "And I'm going to need a better answer than 'what'."

Kaleon fought to get free, silently screaming as he tried to summon the arms of the wind. It was no use. His mind was a surging storm of memories brought anew, as was the fear of the current moment.

A fist of silver lightning slammed against the wall next to Kaleon's head, and arcs of electricity illuminated the room. Silverhand stood there, holding the lantern in the space between them. Kaleon could see that the candle was still light, except the flame was pitch black.

Of the two, Kaleon was taller, but Silverhands presence and intense stare made it seem like he towered over him.

Silverhand leaned in close, dark lights flashing behind his eyes, "Where did you get the lantern?"