pippa snowspire, district ten | finished

Dragomir tells you magic exists only on the stage — but you just smirk and say, “If magic isn’t real, then how is your hair still so red? All the other old people I’ve met are gray headed.”

You’ve always been blunt in the most delightful way; but to be fair, that’s only according to you. Most things are! Some people just have an eye for certain things, and you’ve always had the uncanny ability to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. You see a sky full of stars, and you start a rumor that the lights are gods and goddesses simply out camping, roasting their marshmallows and staring down at Snowspire from their perch above.

Your entire world is the expanse of a frozen forest — and you, greedy and eccentric as you might be, have always been content with that. When you want things, you never want them because you’re unhappy with yourself or the life you’re living. A person would be hard pressed to find anyone quite as optimistic as you are; as secure in themselves and their place in the big picture as you've always been.

It's just that wanting comes to you as naturally as breathing.

Those awful drapes in Ms. Cheng's room? You want them out, and you want something frilly and silk to replace it. Powder blue to match the icy chill in the room, of course. You also want Bronte to admit her crush on Joyce — the crush you can't help but to notice. After all, anything magical is your field of expertise, and there's something about staring at a person you love from afar that just makes your eyes shine. You'd recognize that look anywhere, especially from someone as bright eyed as the artist.

And while you're at it, you want Alain and Coley to include you in a film project someday. What's so good about an actor brooding for the camera when there's a perfectly stage-ready actress just waiting for her close up? But you'd want to make live edits as you go, and you just know Alain would sooner break his own camera than give anyone else the reins. Maybe you'll be adopted by a whole family of performers. A dad who will direct you, a mother who will make your costumes, brothers and sisters to play the ensemble.

Each evening, after dessert, you'll perform a trick for them. Something small one night, and then something grand the next, magic of every shape and size. You want a canopy bed, plastic glow in the dark stars on your ceiling, the kind the Deliveryman keeps forgetting to bring along with him. They say you aren't allowed to speak to him, so you focus your thoughts and make them loud enough to hear. Better yet, you want Kaine to stop avoiding your gaze in the hallway, ducking into shadows and fleeing from your bright smile.

Knowing someone who doesn't want friends only makes you want to be their best friend. When you look at a closed door, you remind yourself that magic has many grooves. In even the tiniest spaces, pinkie finger to your nose as you twirl in the snow, there are incredible things to be found in all the blurs between the here and the there. You draw constellations on your shoulder, connect freckles into something amazing, and you want to name your own when you're older.

Quietly, only to yourself, you'd pick the name Robey.

And that's how you'd apologize to him — certificate and all, a telescope so that he can search for it on the horizon. And roses, and some chocolate, too, but only in the platonic way! The same way that you've been missing for five years now. You want your best friend to believe in you again, even if he's not your assistant, and even if he doesn't want to end up in the same place as you when you all finally graduate or get adopted. You wanted forever with him, wanted to call him your brother, but now you'd settle for at least one more boring afternoon at his side.

Want to know how to make a friendship disappear?

Just ask the magician.

^{★ 02 ★
graphic by x}