Every fear and every thought was forgotten in a moment, just for a moment, but it was long enough that when he next looked upon the beach, it almost seemed like an entirely different place and he wondered how it was something could change so drastically and what else he might be missing.
She didn’t let him go for a long time and even when she did it was only to shift her position and she stayed sitting next to him, holding his large forearm in her small hands.
After awhile he took her hands in his and he ran his fingers over the bandage that covered the cut on her hand.
“I should’ve warned you what that magic was like.”
She scoffed. “Don’t be silly. Me breaking the rum bottle is on me. 100%.” She was quiet a moment and then she added, “I can’t believe we’re out of rum.”
“Maybe there’s time travel magic in among those infusements,” Sirius replied. He mostly meant it as a joke. Time travel was a rare power, the chances he had a bottle were slim but he had at least expected Amanda to laugh or make a joke, but she was silent. “What? Bad experience with time travel magic?” he asked.
She nodded. “You could say that.” She gritted her teeth. “That is one magic you really don’t want to mess around with, trust me.”
“Is there any magic that’s safe to mess around with?” Sirius cocked an eyebrow. He did not expect her answer to be yes.
This time she did laugh, but then she replied. “I mean, telekinesis isn’t too bad, as long as you don’t pull heavy stuff toward you or aim it in the direction of any sharp objects.”
He remembered how she’d looked in his dream, split at the waist, and he frowned. “Hmm.” He decided to change the topic. Thinking back to a minute earlier he said, “At least now there’s no rum you can’t fall out of any more trees.”
A short laugh escaped her lips. “Don’t count on it. I have fallen out of trees sober before.”
“Really! You’ve been sober before?” he teased.
She was as bad as his crew and he teased them often about their drinking, but once more Amanda went quiet.
“Sure, I often go without drinking,” she replied eventually. But her tone wasn’t quite as confident as Sirius was used to hearing. As if realising how she sounded she soon added a little more jovially, “I don’t drink for breakfast for example, not usually anyway.”
Still, Sirius could hear her waver for the second half of that sentence. He studied her face. “How often do you drink usually?”
She watched the sea and casually stroked the soft hair on his arm. “Not every day. I mean, I’ll pretty much always have a beer or a nip of whiskey with dad for lunch if we’re out riding. Or sometimes if we’re at home and mum’s not paying attention. Sometimes I’ll have one at the end of the day, but not if we’re mustering the next day and not as much these days unless I go into town or if I’m hanging out with friends.”
“What’s the longest you’ve been without drinking then?”
Amanda thought about it. “In the last few years, maybe a week, during exams. Or... no, wait, there was a party on the Tuesday night, so three days I guess. I mean, I’d usually have a couple in a week. It’s not as much as I used to.”
“Three days?” It was less than Sirius had expected, especially given she’d mentioned exams. Even most of his crew would go longer than that, although that was likely because if they didn’t ration things they’d run out. Then again, sometimes they did run out.
She shifted slightly. “I mean, when you put it like that, I guess it does sound pretty regular, but it’s not as much as it sounds. It’s not always a lot, at least not these days. And it’s not like I have to have a drink. I just enjoy it you know.”
“Hmm.” He thought back to earlier. About how much she’d had. About her quip that this was nothing. She was definitely competitive too. Sometimes it was almost like she was trying to out drink the others. It wasn’t all the time but still. Then there was the way she looked at the bottle when she wasn’t drinking. Maybe he was imagining things?
“Do you think I drink too much?” she asked.
“I think everybody drinks too much,” he replied, and that was the truth. “I suppose the question is whether you think you drink too much and if you wanted to, could you stop?”
“Sure.” She seemed more relaxed at that statement. “I could no problem.” After a moment’s silence she added more somberly, “I’m not sure my dad could though.”
“You think he’s an alcoholic?” Sirius studied her expression. He wondered how her ability to read others compared with her ability to read herself. Was she right about being able to stop if she wanted?
“Yeah. I mean, the rest of the town does don’t they?”
He could hear a little bitterness in her voice.
“Do you?” he asked.
She spared a glance at him, surprised at his question. Maybe no one had asked it that way before.
“I think it’s his nature, part of who he is. I think he tries to fight it. Sometimes he wins, other times…” She trailed off into silence.
“What about you?” Sirius asked. “What’s your nature?”
She looked him square in the eye with a piercing, questioning gaze. “You’re asking if I’m like my father, when earlier you were so worried about being like yours?”
“Yeah, I want to know if it’s something you worry about,” he replied frankly. Inside he wondered if it was a fair question. He decided it didn’t matter. It was at least an honest one and her reaction wasn’t upset, she seemed more surprised.
Amanda laughed, shook her head, then she hesitated, frowned and replied far too quickly, “No.”
“You could stop any time?”
“Of course I could.”
He could hear the doubt in her voice.
“Bet you can’t go a week.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
She studied his expression. She narrowed her eyes. “Well, we’ve got no rum.”
“Starting after we leave the island,” he replied.
She screwed up her face.
“Why not? You’ll be used to not drinking by then, depending on how long it takes. Unless you think you can’t?” He was testing her, sort of. He wanted to know which side was stronger, her competitive side or her drinking side. If she could do a week then he’d leave her be but if not then he’d know it wasn’t a choice and maybe he could think of a way to help her. But first he needed to know.
“Of course I can,” she replied.
“Bet then?”
“Bet,” she agreed. “Bet what?”
“A kiss,” he decided.
She laughed. “A kiss where?”
“Wherever you want.”
She shifted again, but this time it was to get a little closer. She slipped her hand onto his thigh. “Wherever I want?”
He nodded.
“Alright then,” she agreed.
He held out his hand.
She gave it a surprised look and laughed, then she shook it.
The rest of the night fell away into bliss as they burned up the last of the condoms they had, and then some. All the worries of the real world fell away long before the rising sun.
----------------------------------------
As the day warmed up they took a dip in the cove again. Amanda challenged Sirius to a breath holding competition. He won easily and then he showed her how to hunt for sea snails. The wind picked up a little and it got too cold to sit still on the beach so they practiced some more swordplay. They went for a couple hours before Sirius stopped.
“You’re limping,” he remarked with a nod toward her recently healed leg. “Is your leg okay?”
“Yeah it’s fine,” Amanda replied, breathless from all the exertion.
“Maybe we should stop for a rest?”
A part of Amanda wanted to continue but she was tired and her foot did ache. It was probably better to rest for a bit.
“Shiv left us a some biscuits. You want some?”
“Sure,” Amanda replied as she took a swig from her canteen and sat down on the sand.
“Wait here.” He took off at a run back up the hill.
Amanda nodded. She had no intention of moving. Damn that man was fit.
As she lay on the sand she toyed with the ring in her pocket. What magic was that? Why was it so hard to read when it felt so familiar.
The wind still nipped at her skin but the sun was higher in the sky now and the earth radiated heat. She closed her eyes. They hadn’t spent much of last night asleep and the sand was almost comfortable.
When she next opened her eyes, Sirius was sitting beside her, looking like he’d been there awhile. He had his infusements out and scattered around him again. He glanced her way as she sat up.
Sand fell from her hair. She ran her hands through the back of it to get the most of it out.
“Did I fall asleep?” she asked.
He nodded and handed her a small wooden box. “I didn’t want to wake you. Biscuits are in there.”
She took the box with a “Thanks.” As she took off the lid she watched him stick his finger into one of the infusement bottles. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Trying to sense the magic like you did. It just feels like really fine sand to me.”
“Maybe you’re trying too hard. The trick is not to think but to feel.” She picked up a biscuit, barely looking at it. “Like if you listen to music and dance to it, you’re not thinking about the beat right, you just feel it.”
Sirius shook his head. “I don’t know how to dance.”
“Sure you do. Everyone can dance. You just move from side to side like this.” She swayed gently, one hand holding the biscuit half way to her mouth. She started to bring it closer, then she stopped her dance and narrowed her eyes at the biscuit. “I think there’s something moving in my biscuit.”
She looked down at the rest of the biscuits in the box. Sure enough, several little black specks with legs were running about.
Sirius leaned over to see. “Yeah, weevils,” he remarked. “We get them a lot. They’re safe to eat.”
She gave him a look and then frowned at the biscuits. After a moment’s deliberation she shrugged and took a bite.
“Just try to pick the smaller ones if you have a choice.”
Amanda decided she couldn’t really taste them. She nodded at the bottle in his hand. “So what are you trying to learn?”
He handed it to her. She touched the grains.
“Shapeshifting?”
Sirius nodded. “You know I don’t think there is a difference.”
She gave him a questioning look.”
“Between thought and feeling.”
“Sure there is. Feelings are uncontrollable.”
“Thoughts are uncontrollable,” he retorted.
Amanda frowned. “Sometimes, I guess. But feelings are deeper and faster. They’re instinctive.”
“Thoughts can be instinctive.”
“But they’re not that fast.”
“That’s just putting them into words. That’s all thoughts are. The only difference.”
“There’s a difference in what you can read if you use empathy versus mindreading,” she countered.
“Is there?” He looked surprised.
She nodded. “Like you can know a thing without feeling anything about it but you can also know a thing and feel something about it. I mean, thoughts can give insight to feelings but they aren’t the same. Like you could look at someone and wish you were like them in some way but the feeling that goes with that thought can be different. It can be good or it can be bad. Admiration or envy but it’s the same thought right?”
Sirius cocked his head and scratched his chin. “Hmm.”
“Or what about physical needs like hunger. There are different kinds of empathy magics and some can read those as well.”
“There are different kinds?”
She nodded. “As many kinds as there are people I suppose.”
“Mmm, I’m still not convinced they’re actually that different. It feels kind of arbitrary.”
“I mean, maybe you’re not completely wrong. There is a difference in what people can read but it’s not like it’s a hard line. A lot of empaths can’t read physical pain and some who can can’t read the more emotional stuff. I knew a guy who could read really subtle changes in a person’s body, like physical weaknesses. He’d be able to look at my leg and know I just healed it recently. But he couldn’t sense when a person liked him. A friend of mine, she had a crush on him and he didn’t figure it out for the longest time.”
“Maybe he knew and he just didn’t like her.”
Amanda laughed. “Maybe, but they did eventually get together, for awhile anyway.”
Sirius shook his head. “I think mindwalking would be the worst power to have.”
“No way. It’s super useful. Imagine you’re negotiating with someone and you know their every thought. You’d know exactly what their price point was.”
“It’d be pretty invasive though and unfair.”
“Since when is life fair?” Amanda raised her eyebrows at him.
He smiled and replied. “We don’t have to help it along.”
She smiled back. “That’s true. What about empathy then? Better or worse than mindwalking?”
“Hmm. Better I think. But I don’t know why.”
“Because they’re different?” Amanda couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face.
He laughed. “That was a trap. Hmm, no, because thoughts, not all thoughts mind you”—he pointed a finger at her—“But most thoughts are considered. They’re who a person chooses to be. Who a person is.”
“I think instinct and feeling are who a person is too. Love for example is a feeling. What we love defines us don’t you think?”
Sirius scowled. “No…”
“Oh, you don’t like that.” She gave him a surprised look at first but as she thought about it she realised it made sense. He obviously liked to think things through. But sometimes he reacted on instinct too, like with the Kraken. His instincts weren’t bad but he seemed to think they were. She wondered if it had to do with his father again. She got onto her knees and moved behind him where she could massage his shoulders. “That is because you are so tightly controlled but not all emotions are bad you know.”
“I think love is a choice,” he decided.
She stopped rubbing his shoulders and moved around where she could see his face again. “So you just chose to love me? Is that it?” He hadn’t actually said that he did love her but she could tell and in a sentence like that, when she was being playful but pretending to be serious, it didn’t hold quite so much weight, just enough to throw him of balance and make him question his conviction that love was some kind of choice. It gave her enough of an edge to win.
He looked surprised and then his brow furrowed. “No… I mean… yes… but… no… I...”
She tried to stop the smile that she could feel slowly growing on her face.
Seeing her expression, he sighed and lay back down on the sand. “You’re not playing fair,” he complained.
She chuckled and leaned against him. “I never play fair.”
“Anyway,” he added more thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s both.” He tilted his head slightly so he could look her directly in the eye. “Maybe I love you because I just do and because I choose to.” He emphasised the ‘and.’
Somehow the way he said it gave it even more weight. He made it seem like the choosing to was just as valuable. He made her feel warm all the way down to her toes. But it was also a little overwhelming. She didn’t want to think about the serious implications of it. So she smiled and buried herself against him, but a moment later, with a playful expression, she pulled herself upright and asked, “Do you want to learn some magic?”