Warlic is five years old and he hates it hates it hates it.

He doesn't have his wings and his arms and legs are so short - he's so short in general - and his body constantly feels weird and not his. It's all wrong.
Everybody talks down to him now too, like he can't even understand them and they don't even call him by his own name. They don't call him his own name because they don't know it and he can't tell them because what if they know who he is? Who his father is? He has no clue where he is and he doesn't know if it's safe to even tell them his own name so he can at least have that among the wrongness of his current body.

He doesn't know if it will ever be safe again - if he will ever feel safe again. He wonders if he's ever felt safe at any time in the first place.

He can't even remember how he got like this. Everything between the searing pain of a final last ditch attack from his father and some point recently that he can't pin down is just a big jumbled messy blur. He can't even think straight - his thought processes are jumbled and all over the place and and and-

-and he can't even use his magic.

He's tried. He's tried and he's tried and even attempting to elicit the slightest spark makes his veins burn like there's lava in them instead of blood.

It's a simply delightful irony to top off the situation.

Normally, this would be the point where he would scream and set something on fire or blow it up, but since he can't use his magic unless he wants to do that to himself, his usual stress managing techniques are a little bit out of reach.

Which is part of the reason he's out here in the woods alone. If he's lucky he might find a stick that his new – stupid tiny puny – body can lift and smash it against a tree or something. Not to mention that there aren't any of the adults around to be condescending and make everything worse-

He grits his teeth and clenches his fists and looks at the ground to keep himself from attempting to blow something up when the frustration grows at the memory. It'll just hurt if he tries.

His eyes fall on a rock. It's a slightly odd rock – the edges are remarkably smooth for something this far from a river and it's got speckled patches of lighter grey all over it.

He crouches down, not that he needs to go far, and picks it up, turning it over in his hands and noting that it feels like it fits remarkably well. He hefts it up and down slightly, testing the weight.

And then he stands with a spin and lobs the rock as far and as high into the trees as he can.

It goes surprisingly far for the amount of strength that he currently has, and throwing it felt good. He waits and hopes for the satisfying thunk of it hitting wood and maybe knocking stuff loose. It might not be burning or blowing something up, but he needs to break something and a rock hitting a tree is probably as good as he's going to get.

He doesn't get a thunk though. He gets a thwump of it hitting something that definitely isn't wood and something that faintly sounds like an 'oof'.

The branches of the trees above him start rustling and he takes a slightly stumbling step backwards, gaze flickering warily and tracking the motions in case he's going to have to run. The constant anger at his situation bubbles up again because he shouldn't have to rely on running, he should be able to defend himself and fight back and now even if he does run there's a good chance that he wouldn't be able to get away in time...

"Hello!"

He startles - and most definitely does not shriek - at both the sudden voice and the sudden appearance of its owner in front of his face because he was watching how did that happen so quickly how did he miss it stupid body stupid senses not strong enough.

And then burningrippingtearing shoots through his arm and his vision blurs and the wind shoots out of his lungs in a strangled gasp of pain as he pulls the limb back and close to his chest from where he'd flung it out.

Stupid instincts he hisses mentally stupidstupidSTUPID

He ignores the fact that those instincts have saved his life before and is sure that he wants to use a stronger word than stupid, only he can't remember any.

"You okay?"

He cracks open his eyes – when did he shut them? – and glares at the stranger. He can tell why he missed his approach now; hanging upside down from a tree branch by both legs, a majority of the stranger's clothing is green and his hair - which is somehow covering half his face despite the fact that gravity should be pulling it down – so it would have been easy to not register a person approaching until they were right in front of him.

"Fine," Warlic grits out in answer, still half-cradling his arm and furiously blinking back moisture in his eyes to keep it from become tears. "Just. Fine,"

"Are you sure? Do you want your pa-" Warlic flinches despite himself and the stranger must notice because he switches word part way through "-guardians? Do you need any help home?"

"No," he snaps in reply, voice tight "I don't need your help and I don't need my guardians," he all but spits the final word "It's none of your concern,"

The stranger frowns, the expression looking odd the wrong way up, and then hoists himself up onto the tree branch, turns around and hops down from it. His landing kicks up a couple of small puffs of dusty earth under his feet. For a moment, while he is standing at full height, Warlic is struck by how much larger than him this stranger is - not that it's exactly difficult with his stupid new body - and his stomach does an odd fluttery motion that he refuses to acknowledge as a stirring of fear. Then the stranger crouches down to eye level and the moment passes.

"Are you sure?" the stranger asks, holding a hand out towards Warlic's arm but carefully staying away from his personal space. "If you really don't want them, I could have a look at it, if you want?"

"No!" Warlic snaps again, drawing himself backwards and inward more tightly "I know exactly what's wrong-" a total lie. He has no clue what is going on with his magic "-and I don't need any help. Don't patronise me,"

The stranger makes an expression that Warlic suspects would be a raised eyebrow if his eyebrows - and his eyes for that matter - weren't hidden by his hair.

"Patronise," he repeats, rolling the word around as though he has never heard it before. "Yeah, okay, sure thing kiddo, no patronising from me,"

Warlic can't tell if it's sincere or not because he stops listening the moment he hears the word 'kiddo'. Frustrationirritationannoyance that had briefly simmered down rushes back and rageangerboilingfury joins it. His vision is red and he can feel every bitten back correction of an adult burning on his tongue, pressing against his clenched teeth. In his mind's eye, he sees every time when the 'older' children acted like he was beneath them because of his apparent age, when he is so much older, so much more powerful than they and how dare they simmering underneath his skin, churns in his gut. He hates this body, hates this situation hates hates HATES

And something snaps.

"I AM NOT A KID!" he shrieks – and oh but that should have been a bellow but his vocal chords are too small for that – and heslams a foot down on the ground as he does so. It should make the ground beneath him shake but all it does is make him look like a petulant child and he hates it.

He draws up his magic, all of it, every scrap that he can reach, flinging his arms out as he does in a movement that was once second nature and now feels so clumsy, and he tries to call on flames, willing something to just burn, just go up in flames and turn to ashes and be utterly destroyed like he was when he woke like this-

The last thing that he sees before the searing pain makes his world go black is the stranger rushing forwards to catch him as his legs crumple.

When he comes to his whole body aches, his arms most of all, and he is resting against something warm and firm but soft. His return to awareness is slow and he vaguely registers that whatever he is leaning against feels comforting and safe.

Then reality snaps sharply back into focus, his eyes fly open and he jerks away.

He tries to scramble to his feet but dark splotches assault his vision and the world tilts. He almost falls over but a steady hand is grasping his elbow and another is between his shoulders blades, both carefully guiding him back to a sitting position, though this time he isn't leaning against anything.

"Careful, don't get up too fast," a voice says.

Warlic blinks rapidly as the splotches clear and looks around as quickly as he can, taking in as much detail as he can as everything stops being fuzzy and hidden. They are sitting in a small clearing, one he knows to be just off of the path that he had been walking. There are several empty glass bottles of an unfamiliar shape lying on the ground and red bandages wrapped around his arms from hand to shoulder, ending just under the sleeves of his shirt. The red is from some sort of liquid but it isn't blood. He and the stranger are sitting side by side on the ground, with an overturned log behind them that is near the back of the clearing. He's seen it used as a seat by people before.

And then he turns to the stranger and glares.

"Why was I leaning against your side?" he demands.

"Figured I'd be more comfortable than a tree," the stranger answers with a shrug and an easygoing smile. "Would you have preferred the tree?"

Though it could have so easily been sarcastic, the question is sincere. Warlic scowls as though he has been mocked all the same. He moves to cross his arms to emphasise the expression but aborts the action when his arms twinge at being bent, the bandages quite firmly keeping them in place.

"Those can probably come off now," the strangers says, shifting so that he is kneeling and facing Warlic instead of sitting next to him. "You were out for quite a while. They'll have done all the good they can," the stranger holds out a hand, palm up "May I?"

Warlic scowls harder but sticks his left arm out to the side all the same.

"Why have I got these on anyways?" he asks, watching closely as the red-soaked strips of cloth are unwound "What happened?"

"You passed out," the stranger says, looking like he wants to laugh when Warlic levels him with a mulish 'No, really?' look. "That's what happened – you used a whole lot of magic and you passed out. With the amount of mana you were shoving yourself full of, it's a good thing you went down when you did, or I might not have been able to help," he inclines his head in the direction of the empty bottles "Those were healing potions. I soaked the bandages in them. I don't know much about healing, but I thought it would be better safe than sorry,"

The bandages have been unwound up to halfway between wrist and elbow, revealing a decent amount of the skin underneath, and Warlic stares.

"What are those?" he asks, very, very quietly, stomach churning.

"Exactly what they look like," the stranger replies, just as quiet and sounding solemn. He looks up from the bandages, hands stilling in the unwrapping for a moment, and Warlic gets the feeling that he is meeting his eyes "Ever seen what happens when you shove a mana-resonant crystal full of magic until it overloads?"

Warlic nods and tries not to shudder at the memory – it hadn't been a pretty sight. He has no wish to see it again. He also has a sinking feeling that he knows where the conversation is going.

"That's what was happening to you," the statement is flat and blunt, without a single attempt to sugar-coat what had almost happened. "Like I said, it was a good thing you passed out when you did. Otherwise, these would've gone from cracks to explosions,"

Warlic nods slowly, mouth dry and eyes watering slightly as they trace the sharp white marks zigzagging across his already pale skin like scars. He half wants to ask why they are only on his arms, while the other half of him doesn't want to look the gift horse in the mouth. It was one thing to know that using his magic now hurt – it was an entirely different thing to know that trying to use it had almost cost him his arms, could have cost him his life. He's going to have these sharp jagged reminders of how much he has lost for the rest of his life, probably.

"Something...something is very wrong with my magic," he says, admitting it out loud for the first time, somehow hoping that this stranger can help him in some way. He'd recognised what happened, after all. Maybe, just maybe he might have answers.

The stranger gives him a noncommittal hum instead, bundling up the bandages now removed from Warlic's arm and putting them into a pouch on his belt which shouldn't be large enough to hold them but somehow does anyways.

"I wouldn't say wrong," the stranger says, shuffling over slightly and giving a small smile when Warlic holds his right arm out, beginning to unwrap the bandages there. "Just... different,"

That's the exact opposite of what he had been hoping for. He should know better than to hope by now.

"I can't use it without almost blowing myself up," he says, feeling a little bit empty from where the hope had been starting to grow. Some part of him is surprised at the ease with which is so easily talking about things he has never before let leave his head with this stranger, another part is just glad that there is someone to talk to.

"I don't think so," the stranger replies, sounding thoughtful. "I'm not saying I know your mana better than you - that'd be silly, nobody knows your mana better than you - but it looked like it was more your capacity that was the problem than anything to do with your magic itself,"

"My capacity?"

"Yeah," the stranger says, rolling up the second set of bandages and putting them in the same pouch as the others. He shifts from kneeling to sitting cross-legged in front of Warlic. "Everyone has a capacity for magic, right? The size of their mana pool. But everyone has one that's a different size – some are naturally small, some are naturally big. Anyone can train to make theirs bigger with practice. And from what I saw, your magic is working backwards and the capacity you have right now can't handle it,"

The stranger pauses and Warlic nods to show that he's still listening, brow furrowed in thought. The stranger takes it as the cue to continue that it is.

"See, when you tried to use magic before you passed out, you didn't use mana. You produced it instead and it was pretty potent. And right now your capacity is this-" he holds up a tiny between his thumb and forefinger to demonstrate "-so the amount of mana you produce gets too much for your capacity to handle really quickly and bwuchk-" he accompanies this sound with a mimed explosion "-overload."

Warlic is vaguely aware that his jaw is hanging open and that he's staring, but he doesn't really care. It...it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense and it sounds right.

"How do you know that?" he asks, feeling dumbfounded. He isn't just talking about the explanation for his problem. He's never heard anyone explain magic the way the stranger just has, even though the explanation was sort of short.

There is a pause of silence after the question that feels empty.

"I...I had a friend with... a similar problem," the stranger says eventually, and Warlic knows that undercurrent to his voice all too well, the pain and grief of losing it all "It's just a theory though. It might not be your problem at all. Your magic is definitely working backwards though, I saw that much for sure,"

"I think you're right about all of it," Warlic replies, eyes drifting back to his arms as he brushes one of the crack marks with a finger. They look an awful lot like scars, magically induced or not. He wonders if they'll fade like real scars do. Now that the shock of seeing them has worn off a bit, he thinks they actually look kind of cool.

"It sounds... right. Like...like I've heard it before, somewhere,"

The stranger tilts his head in acknowledgement and then moves again so that he's sitting next to Warlic, leaning against the log. They drift into silence, but it's a comfortable one.

The stranger pulls a puzzle of some sort from his belt and starts fiddling with it. Warlic watches for a moment, comes to the conclusion that he has no idea what the thing is, and switches his attention to his arms, turning them over and twisting them to try and mentally map the pattern of the marks. They still twinge a little bit when he does.

He's talked more in one go in the past minutes since he woke than he can remember ever having done before, and he kind of wants to keep talking, no matter how comfortable and companionable this silence feels. He doesn't have the remotest clue why though. Something about his newfound companion just... makes him feel safe to do so, makes him want to talk, about anything and everything, like he isn't wasting time and breath with it because someone is listening. It's nice to be listened to. It makes him almost forget all about his anger and his hate and just... enjoy someone else's company.

He's hasn't been treating me like a little kid Warlic realises with a bit of a star, eyes flicking sideways for a moment. He's been treating me like an equal.

He doesn't think anyone has ever treated him like an equal before. Since he woke here, everyone has talked down to him as a child or treated him as below them. Even before he woke here, his father did the same thing, and everyone else had treated him as far above them and with not a little fear.

It's an utterly foreign feeling but... he likes it, he realises. He doesn't like being treated below others, nobody does he thinks, but he doesn't want people treating him as above them either. It's an odd feeling, to realise he'd rather be standing with people than in front or above them. It goes against everything he learned under his father and it feels important to realise. Something cynical inside of him wonders if he'll even remember this realisation when he and the stranger - though it now feels wrong to call him that - part ways.

"I never caught your name," he blurts.

"That'd be because I never threw it," the man beside him – and he can't, he just can't keep calling him 'the stranger' anymore, it doesn't feel right – says with a grin. He puts the puzzle back into his belt. "For that matter, you never threw yours either,"

For a very short moment, Warlic debates on giving his real name or not – his name carries a risk with it he isn't sure if he can afford, trapped and defenceless as he is, should anyone recognise it. But he has seen nothing familiar since he ended up here, nothing to indicate that people would. And, on top of that, he trusts the man he's sitting beside. It's completely uncharacteristic for him, trusting someone so easily and in these circumstances, but it feels right to trust him. He feels as though he has known the man for far longer than he has, like they have been through so much more than Warlic losing it over being called a kid and him stopping him from losing his arms in the aftermath. It feels utterly right to trust him in the same way that he knew his father was utterly wrong in his actions.

"Warlic," he says, with barely a pause of hesitation, sticking out a hand to shake. "My name is Warlic,"

"Warlic…"he repeats quietly, a brief flash of many, many emotions zipping across his face before Warlic can identify them "Y'know, that was my friend's name too,"

And then he grins a grin that Warlic will come to identify on many faces as the sign of an incoming terrible joke.

"Well, I guess that means I can tell you something I told him too. Your name is awfully fitting for someone with magic as strong as yours,"

"Why?" Warlic asks, knowing he'll regret it the moment it leaves his mouth.

"'Cause it sounds like warlock," is the answer, a 'duh' unsaid but there.

It's the sort of joke that deserves a theatrically thrown back head and drawn out groan. That's not what he does though. Warlic actually snorts. It feels good to laugh, he realises. That's the second realisation he's made today, and the cynical part of him wonders if he'll forget it too.

He opens his mouth to reply but snaps it shut when he hears voices calling his name. Not really his name though. The name they gave him.

"That's my... guardians," he says, using the same word his companion has used because it fits and he's not calling them his parents. "They're looking for me,"

"Was there a reason you didn't want them earlier?" he asks, and Warlic can hear the unspoken words behind that question.

"Just that I was in a bad mood and they treat me like a little kid," he replies, pushing himself to his feet, arms stinging a bit when he puts the pressure on them "I think I can handle that now, though,"

"You sure?"

"I'm sure,"

His companion nods and Warlic starts walking. Then he stops at a sudden thought and looks back over his shoulder.

"I'll be around a while yet," he is told, an answer to an unspoken question "This is far from the last time you're ever gonna see me, Warlic,"

Warlic nods, turns back around and keeps walking. It isn't until he is already in sight of his guardians that he realises he never did get his newfound friend's name.

When his guardians see him, he finds himself subjected to alternating hugs and angry-worried demands of Where have you been? and Don't you know how worried we were about you? You can't just run off like that! and What if you had been hurt? What then? and of course What happened to your arms?

He endures the hugs and doesn't answer any of the questions. Instead, he plants his feet firmly, stares defiantly and says "Warlic. My name is Warlic,"

He isn't going to use any other name. Not anymore.

A few days later, a package shows up on his bed, addressed to him in unfamiliar handwriting that nonetheless tugs at something in the back of his mind. His guardians are only just beginning to adapt to calling him Warlic and he has a suspicion that it's only because he refuses to answer to anything else, so he knows it probably isn't from them.

There is a note pinned to it, folded in half. He sits cross-legged on the bed, the package in his lap, and opens the note.

Warlic, it reads.

I dropped these off for you since I thought you might want them. I've had the big one for a while, but you need it more than I do. Put it to good use for me, will you? The little thing is just being returned – try and work on your aim before you go using it again though. Who knows who or what you might hit next time?

- C

He sets the note to the side, just a little bit confused. He can't think of a single person that he knows who's name starts with a C and would write a note like that.

He opens the package.

The 'little thing' is was he notices first.

It's a rock.

He picks it up and turns it over, scrutinising it for any sign of it being anything other than a roughly fist sized – well, his fist sized – pebble.

There isn't anything. It's just a rock.

'try and work on your aim' the note said. Abruptly, he remembers picking up this rock and chucking it into the trees. It draws a laugh out of him, startled and cut off halfway through, but a laugh nonetheless.

His friend's name starts with a C then. He's going to have to get the rest of the letters out of him next time that they meet. He puts the rock aside, just next to the note.

The 'big one' turns out to be a book. A book on magic. He brushes a hand over the title, slowly mouthing each word as he goes.

He lifts one hand and looks at it, eyes slowly going down his arm and tracing the marks there for a moment. He tries calling up a bit of magic for the first time since he got them and feels a slight jolt rush through arm as he does so. The scars - and they are definitely scars – light up slightly as the mana passes through and then erupts from his finger tips in a flurry of sparks.

He picks the book up, shuffles backwards so that he's sitting up against his pillow, opens the book and begins to read.

This is one of my favourite things that I've written. It about time I got around to cross-posting it.
(Bear in mind that this is pre-Alexander Saga Warlic. He's basically the epitome of an unreliable narrator, so the stuff he says in the beginning about people looking down on him/being condescending should be taken with a grain of salt.)